Thursday, March 21, 2019

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

10 comments:

  1. Happy belated BD!!!! So happy Hogan is doing well for his age...we have to take care of them in their old age too! I made turkey diet mix (and add ID kibble) for both my girls...pain to make every 10 days but so worth it...I'll do anything for my girls. Hugs to you and Hogan!

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  2. Awww.. Hogan. Glad he is perking along. Sweet boy. You've certainly done a lot of cutting, both curves and small squares. But it will set you up nicely to get plenty done at retreat. I'll look into that book- looks interesting. I have several ahead of it though. Not a lot of time to read somehow. I used to do lots more. Have fun at retreat. Did you get to Sew Expo in Lakeland? A fun event. I put a blog post up with some photos- come visit if you get a chance.

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  3. Happy Birthday to you!! (cha cha cha) My grandchildren do the same, so fun to hear its universal. I hope you have many more years on the planet, spreading good quilty cheer.

    You'll love C. S. Lewis, but his adult books are so much more meaningful, although the children's fiction is good. One of my favorites is The Screwtape Letters, as you learn a lot about what can trip a person up on their way to heaven. I also have a daily digest of his quotes from his books that I keep in my nightstand and ready occasionally. Such a wise person.

    Glad you are making progress on cutting curves--it will be a wonderful quilt!

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  4. Oh sweet Hogan, may he rally for a few more years, he looks like a loving sweetie! Happy belated birthday, and hope you're enjoying your retreat. Your fabric selection for the Cascade quilt looks wonderfully scrappy, hope you're able to make great progress on it. Happy Weekend!

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  5. Hey, happy late birthday! How fun to win two giveaways that day. :) Pretty curved braid pieces.

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  6. Happy belated birthday!! What a sweet picture of Hogan...I had a few labs that made it to 16. They are so wonderful. Have a blast at retreat! I love your picture of the Super Worm Moon...totally cloudy here so I missed it!

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  7. Happy Birthday Linda. Another good year!
    I love all of the pictures. Hogan is so wonderful I want to hug him

    I think the Happy Birthday cha cha cha is the weirdest song ever and only heard it for the first time in 1997 when we moved to Virginia. .....weirdest thing ever. Times they are a'changin'
    Happy week-end

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  8. Glad you had a good birthday!!
    I see on Ig that your plans changed a bit at retreat, but looks like you have plenty of projects to work on!
    RE: C. S. Lewis - I've read several of his adult books too back in college and after. Be sure and see the movie Shadowlands if you haven't already!

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  9. Sorry I missed your birthday Linda. Happy belated birthday. I'm sure you had a wonderful day. Hogan looks like a lovely sweet dog. Fancy winning two giveaways. Some people seem to have alot of luck. We find at quilt meetings, the same people seem to win the raffle on and off all the time. Others...like me...never. haha!

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  10. Curves scare me off but yours looks like it's going to be fantastic! Your grandsons will LOVE CS Lewis books. There are some audio books with actual actors playing the parts and great sound effects too. These are great for riding in the car with (sorry to end the sentence with a preposition). :D

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