This and That

 

At last month's guild retreat, I worked exclusively on the blocks from the pattern we received from the autumn shop hop. I had suspected that the block would be some kind of a star or satellite design, so I chose mostly gold, silver and cream thinking they would make nice stars. The dark blue was picked out later (and I still need some more). The pattern calls for making a dozen blocks and then splitting some of them to make interesting, uneven rows. One of my grandsons has glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of his bedroom so I decided to double the number of blocks (yup, I made twenty-four) and make a twin-size quilt for his next birthday. I finished the twenty-fourth star today, and will get over to the LQS for the additional blue that I need and then set the project aside until I get to go to a sew day, perhaps as soon as January. I'll need a lot of space to lay it out.

I may have shared this photo before, but the blocks are so pretty that it should be shared again! These are some of the blocks I received during my month as Queen Bee. They finish at twelve inches and I'm aiming for a queen size quilt as a gift for a niece and her partner, so I'm thinking 49 blocks with a nice wide border will do it. These are easy blocks to make and I've lots of scraps. I think this will become a leader-ender project.

I've had a possible glimpse of my long lost shaker of salt quilting mojo. A friend's blog led me to this wonderful site in Australia and my plan is after the first of the year to spend some serious time perusing the offerings and pick out a new project that will excite me.

Last year at this time I'd just begun work on my Lancaster Diamond and around the same time someone I knew organized a group of diamond makers. I was so excited about that project and the enthusiasm lasted throughout the seven months that I worked on it. I think my missing mojo has to do partly with a kind of let-down feeling -- diamond withdrawal --  since the project finished.

This past weekend we saw all of our children and grandchildren on separate days. We drove to Midlothian where Tom lives on Thursday and spent two nights there. On Friday morning while people were at school and work, we had some free time and used it to visit the LQS and the independent bookstore a few steps away. I bought a couple of packs of FQs without having any plan for them and also did my part to support the bookstore. It was a low-key visit with that family, and we had fun goofing around with the grandchildren and enjoying our daughter-in-law's cooking. We left after breakfast on Saturday and made it to Alexandria -- despite rather heavy traffic -- by lunch time. Andrew had decided to treat us to lunch at a really nice place that was beautifully decorated for the season. After a truly delicious meal, we went back to his house for an hour or so, giving grandson number four his gift for his eleventh birthday.

Sherry had kept Lizzy for us, so Sunday evening we planned to go up to her home to pick up our dog; she invited us to dinner and we enjoyed her homemade manicotti and then went with Sherry and Chris to a cookies and cocoa event at their church.

I think that is most of what's happening here.

Oh, and I'm ready for January: