Little Onsies

How fun to embroider a bunch of baby onsies.  It's been awhile.  Some embroideries are on the front, some on the butt.  Always good practice in positioning and software.

Tomorrow, cookie baking.  I need six dozen for Mennonite Arts Weekend and four dozen for Community Meal next week.  I meant to get the refrigerated little marbles, but they had "may contain nuts" on the list of ingredients.  Surely not in sugar cookies or Snickerdoodles, but I guess there could be some outliers floating around the factory.  We're not supposed to bring cookies with nuts, so I reluctantly passed them up.

On my list today, three little projects not even worth mentioning.  Just little things that I pass by and think, "Why haven't I done something about that?"

Pretty Trimmings

My studio trash can looks lovely this week with trimmings of many pretty batiks.  I am enjoying the crispness of the fabrics as I iron them.  As for seeing the project, which is completed - not until the weekend.

Normally, I'm not a batik sewer, I like the softness of other fabrics.  But for this project, they are perfect.

Nora and her mom are coming for a quick dinner tonight, after I pick up Nora to meet her mom for their hair appointments.  Salmon, in the cooking bag, prepared at the seafood counter.  I'm a convert.  And roasted tiny potatoes and Brussels sprouts.  Corn for Nora, who isn't a Brussels sprouts fan.

And so, this morning, grocery shopping, which I've put off for too long.  And today, an embroidery project, names on tiny onesies.

Cherrywood's Lion King Challenge

Thanks to Carrye for suggesting that we visit the traveling exhibition of Cherrywood Fabric's The Lion King challenge.

There were 120 20" x 20" quilts, each using a certain percentage of several Cherrywood Fabrics.  After that requirement, other fabrics could be added. 

By using the similar fabrics, the total display was stunning.  You can enlarge the photos for artist information.

All those golds on a January afternoon = amazing!

Unfortunately, today is the exhibit's last day in Cincinnati. 

And Then There Was Green

Just finished quilting Joanne's second baby quilt for the NICU and I am so excited.  Sometimes things work out the way they are supposed to.  This quilt has a lot of quilting, and when it is washed (they do that at the hospital) there will be a lot of dimension.  I was just telling Joanne that her quilts fit right in with our group's quilts.  I love the way she used 30's style fabrics for the piecing and inner border and the modern dots in her outer border.

When Joanne sent her quilts to me, at different times, the weather was still warm, maybe even very warm.  It took me awhile to get to them.  As I look over the past year, I can see that I was in an anxious state of mind, allowing myself to be too influenced by the political drama.  Sometimes I'd read the news again and again during the day.  I couldn't seem to get past that anxiety.  My sewing and my gardening suffered.

My doctor just advised me to not read the news every day, that it would still be there.  I don't think I want to go that far, but I'm trying to just read it once a day.  Or maybe twice.  There is a balance between good mental health and being an informed citizen.  I'll figure it out.

As I do that figuring out, you'll may see various projects that I half-heartedly began and then set aside.  I see five in my studio right now.

Pink Baby Quilt

This sweet baby quilt was pieced by Joanne from wonderful little prints.  And then, she added gold in the sashings.  I would not have thought to use that color, but it works so well.  She is so good with color.

There are 176 little blocks!  To show them off, I just quilted in the ditch around them and they popped right out.  I am not a good border quilter, so I just extended the quilting to the edges.  That works well and ensures that the sashings lie nice and flat.  The backing is pink with random white dots.

I enjoy the concept of colaborative quilting.  I enjoy quilting and thinking about how even though its snowy in my Kentucky world, it's surely more snowy in Joanne's Maine world.  I enjoy thinking about how she said she was making soup for dinner.  How she knows so much about gardening. 

Joanne sent another pretty top, this one in green.  I'll make that quilt sandwich today.  And I'll be thinking about her generosity in making a quilt for a teeny baby in a different state.  I'll think about how, in our divided country, we need more Joanne's pulling us together. 

Home Office

Someone in a meeting recently said they would like to see the office spaces of the other committee members.  I took a couple of pictures and sent them.  I have to admit to feeling pretty vulnerable doing that, not sure exactly why.  Maybe because hardly anyone sees this area except for me.

One side of my office is pretty office-y.  The other side has been overtaken by sewing machines.

During the holidays the office is also the wrapping/packing area, so it looks different now than it did a month ago.

I have spent part of the morning shoveling snow and trying to get the ice off my porch.  I'm not sure why the porch ended up a sheet of ice, a really, really thick sheet of ice.  The gutters are clean, so it wasn't a gutter issue, and it was too cold for the snow on the roof to melt anyway.  Maybe there was Ice Melt left over from the previous freezing rain and it kept the snow melted until the temperatures dropped.  Maybe not.

Most likely, chipping at the ice with a hammer isn't the preferred way of dealing with this, but it's what I could come up with.

Snowman

So, do you want to build a snowman?  Probably not this week, here.  The temperatures are rising and our "snow" will most likely be rain.  Fingers crossed.

And then in a couple of days, the temps should be in the 50's, a good time for me to bring in the exterior Christmas lights.

I just went outside to bring in a couple of items from my car and the air felt different.  Moist.  Without that bitter edge.

My wonderful sister just send me a post-Christmas box with 19 fat quarters.  Nineteen!  Her tastes run toward 30's reproduction fabrics, she is an historical librarian, after all.  A nice addition to my pretty fabrics.  And perfect for the Elizabeth Hartman cat pattern that I plan to make for my niece.  For now, the box lives in my bedroom where I can look through it before bed.

My dreams lately have been of running.  Happily running.  Maybe those new athletic shoes in my closet are having an influence.

Family Mending

I could write about how cold it is here, but it is cold everywhere so I won't do that.

I enjoy family mending very much.  Like fixing a hole in a favorite pair of jeans.  They aren't beautiful now but they are functional still.  At a quick glance, no one will say, "Oh, look, your jeans are mended."

It seems that in the past months I've done more fixing than creating.  And it isn't that I've done all that much fixing.  Sometimes, I find, my creativity needs a bit of rest and reset.

I'm sure I shared this last New Year's, maybe even the one before that.  But, I love the thoughts and the poetry,  I don't know who gets the credit for this lovely bit of verse.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart. 

Going into 2018, I feel that we need to remember this more than ever.  Happy New Year, everyone!