This Week

Monday was my birthday. I received some lovely cards, emails, text messages, three phone calls, and one FaceTime. My two Texas grandsons FaceTimed to wish me happy birthday, and sing! It was the first time I'd heard the Birthday Song with the lyrics, "Happy birthday to you. Cha, cha, cha! Happy birthday to you. Cha, cha, cha!" and so on.

Monday morning was spent attending my Beth Moore Bible study: "A Woman's Heart;" the afternoon was spent rotary cutting in my sewing room; and dinner was spent with Dan at Oakwood where I had my fill of pulled pork and corn fritters. Definitely diet-smashing, but good. 

Also on Monday I learned that I won two Instagram giveaways! One was for a small enamel sewing machine pin, and the other, from @lysaflower, was for a one of her PDF patterns, and issue 70 of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

As if that wasn't enough, on Monday Curated Quilts posted this on their Instagram feed. It's a reminder to enter their Well Said Mini Quilt Challenge - entries accepted until March 25 - with a photo showing four entries they've already received. One of them is mine... "Quilt" in the lower right. It's nice to be selected and featured on their IG account. Now to wait to find out if "Quilt" is accepted for publication.

The rotary cutting I did on Monday actually went on for several days, as I dug into my stash to cut prints for my Cascade quilt. I put adhesive grippers on the curved braid specialty ruler and went crazy cutting a total of 540 of these shapes - 270 are right-sided; 270 are left-sided. You can see that I'm sort of sticking to a color palette - blue/aqua, orange, yellow, green, and low volume white/gray. 

From the oddly-shaped leftovers, I also cut 2-1/2" X 2-1/2" squares and then 1-1/2" X 1-1/2" squares. Of course, this extra cutting is what made it all take so long.

But now I have a replenished basket of baby squares for leaders/enders.

All this cutting was so I can put together my Cascade quilt top while I'm on the four-day Central Florida MQG annual retreat that begins tomorrow.

I also anticipate making another wristlet, and working on my "It's All About Color" challenge quilt. This is how far along it is.  

And, I need to make a small wedge quilt project because I will be giving a six-hour modern wedge quilt workshop to members of the Jacksonville (Florida) MQG on Saturday, April 27. (See my "Speaking and Teaching" schedule on the tab above.) I plan to teach how to make a pillow, or small wall hanging.

Since I haven't mentioned Hogan for a while, I thought I'd share a picture I took today. He is doing pretty well for a 15-1/2 year-old, and is in what Dan and I call a "rally mode." Though he sleeps a lot during the day, and his walks take interminably long because he's slow, he still exhibits a little evening perkiness and wants to play. His diet is now strictly prescription dog food - Royal Canine dry and canned. Gone are the days of cleaning and steaming pounds of fresh green beans, and making homemade cookies for him.

Last night (March 20-21) was the super worm moon. This is how it appeared from our front door at 6:15 am this morning. Gorgeous. The lower right beam is our automatic lamppost light. 

My latest audiobook finish is "Becoming Mrs. Lewis," by Patti Callahan. It's historical fiction based on the writings, correspondence, and life of Helen Joy Davidman, the woman who became the wife of C.S. "Jack" Lewis. I enjoyed learning about their relationship - based on many years of corresponding - their conversion experiences, and philosophies on faith and life. This book piqued my interest in C.S. Lewis, as I haven't read any of his books. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" might be good to read to my grandsons. Linda's rating: 4/5. 

Linda