No Sewing

Well that was a nerve-wracking experience! Though the QuiltCon registration process is more fair than in previous years, it wasn't any less challenging. 

When QuiltCon registrations opened at 10 am Tuesday morning, I was waiting  - had set my cell phone alarm - and I clicked to enter the QuiltCon website. I was immediately in a waiting room... 1129th in line. Good grief!

Below is a screen shot, one minute later when I was 1062nd in line. The green bar across the bottom with the profile of a person walking, indicated my forward progress.

It took until nearly 10:25 am for my turn to come up. 

While I appreciate that this new process allows more fair distribution of chances for getting the workshop(s) desired, as well as chances for being selected to receive a swag bag, I learned from an MQG comment on Instagram that 3000 people were in the waiting room before 10 am, and that everyone's place in line was then "randomized." 

I'm not complaining though. I got my first choice workshop: "Reimagine the Classic Tied Quilt" with Laura Loewen; and my second choice: "Jogakbo with Ssamsol Technique" with Youngmin Lee (though not in the daytime workshop I preferred). I did not get into my third choice: Cassandra Beaver's "Matchstick Quilting" workshop which I was also unable to get into at QuiltCon 2022, even though I was also on the waiting list. Happily, I've learned that Central Florida MQG has contracted Cassandra to virtually teach matchstick quilting in June 2023. I'm sure pleased about that!

For me, registering for QuiltCon also means six lectures. But as there's no reservation limit on those, I will probably return to the QuiltCon site to register for a couple more lectures. I'm looking forward to going to Atlanta next February, and reconnecting with friends I get to see only at QuiltCon. Will I see you there?

Book Recommendations

You can probably guess that I'm still hand stitching my Kantha quilt because I have two more audiobooks under my belt.

Violeta by Isabel Allende is a saga-type book that's typical of this author. If you haven't read any of her books, I recommend her - I've read Zorro and Ripper. Ms. Allende is a Chilean whose books are translated from Spanish to English.

Violeta was born into a pandemic world during the height of the 1920 Spanish influenza. She was born into a household of privilege, the only daughter with six male siblings. Raised indulgently and spoiled, she had fits of temper and exhibited frequent fake illness until an English nanny came into the family to challenge Violeta, and teach her proper behavior.

When the family's fortune fails, they retreat to a rural environment where no one knows them. So begins Violeta's true life experiences and education based on hard-work and important values. She learns about politics, dictatorship, oppression, and women's rights, and discovers love and true love.  

Violeta's story is told to a grandchild in a way that reflects her experiences as well as her values.... all the way through to 2020 and the COVID pandemic. 

Linda's score: 3.8/5.0

Before She Was Found is another Heather Gudenkauf title. She's the Iowa author whose crime stories I enjoy because they take place in Iowa. 

This time, the small Iowa town is called Pitch, and it's not far from the new Children's Hospital in Iowa City.

Three 12 year-old sixth-graders, Cora, Violet, and Jordyn have a school assignment to work on together. The girls don't always get along, but agree to create a presentation about Jonathan Withers, a teenager who, 80 years ago, supposedly killed a teenage girl - well, she disappeared. When Cora finds Jonathan in a "dark" online chat room, she thinks it's possible that Jonathan is still alive. The girls arrange to meet Jonathan in an abandoned railroad yard, but it doesn't happen as it's meant to. Cora is attacked and suffers knife wounds to her abdomen and face.

The girls are each covering-up what happened, and it will take each girl's parents and a grandfather to work out what really occurred.

Linda's score: 3.9/5.0

Blogger Change

If you comment on this blog post, you'll notice that I've switched Blogger comments from an embedded comment form to a pop-up comment form. I know the pop-up is frustrating because you have to choose parts of a picture to "prove you're not a robot."

But I've also learned (through Google Blogger Forum) that there's been a recent rash of "anonymous" comments. These anonymous people are commenters I know who have regularly commented! Sigh. It's another step Google has taken toward making blogging more difficult.

Anyway, the workaround, to prevent anonymous comments, is to switch from embedded comments to pop-up comments. It's working for at least one of my regular blog commenter/friends (Yay, Susan!) so I'm keeping this new setting for a while. 

The lesson in this is this: If you're someone who's suddenly become "anonymous" when you comment, or you're a blog-poster who has been getting more-than-usual anonymous comments, when blog settings are changed to pop-up comments, it makes a difference! 

My quilty activities have been practically nil this week as I've been helping, long distance, monitor care of my dear 92 year-old dad who was diagnosed with COVID on Monday. He's been in isolation, in a Kansas City hospital room, so us three children (I'm the oldest) are doing our best to keep tabs on how he's doing (I'm talking to him at least twice a day) and what type of care he'll need when he's released (anticipated) on Sunday. Though he went into the hospital with an oxygen count in the 70s, and was told he had COVID pneumonia, he's improving! Remdisivir helps. We're all feeling relieved, and very grateful he's doing okay. Linda