Something to Think About

Thanksgiving 2015

Mutts Opportunities

Today, on America’s Thanksgiving holiday, I am grateful for opportunities that come my way.  To be sure, they are often disguised as *bonk!* on the head, occasionally causing some consternation. I am also grateful for hot and cold running water, a snug house and a garden where lettuce is growing, reminding me again of the harvest, but in a green way, not a gold-and-amber way.  I open my spice cupboard and I am richer than the ancient kings of Egypt, with spices all arrayed in their glorious pungency and flavor.  I have clothes in my closet–a variety, to be sure.  I am grateful also for comfortable shoes, socks with no holes in them, and enough fabric to last me for quite a few whiles. . . and then some more.

I am grateful for family, for my six brothers and sisters, and for parents who instilled in me a sense of excellence, of purpose, a love of education and reading and doing the right thing.  They also gifted me a love of the arts, of the decorative, of the intrinsic qualities of nature’s beauties.  I am grateful for my husband–can’t say enough about him–and our four children and their families.

I am grateful to be a writer, a quilter, a maker, and to have found quilty friends in this lovely online community.  I am grateful that you reach out to me, too, with glimpses into your lives and how things run for you.  I am richer for it.

TurkeyESE2002
(An Earlier Feast)

Thanksgiving Cartoon MuttsHappy Thanksgiving!

Quilts

Santa’s Village Quilt Top Completed

SantasVillage quilt top

After three days of sewing non-stop, except for the time when I went out to Costco to buy vegetables, or the time I took to talk on the phone to my mother and others, I finished the quilt top for Santa’s Village.  (My apologies if you heard the sewing machine whirring along while we talked.)  Pattern Plusses: the very cute Santa in the middle.  Pattern Minuses: the directions that needed to go to about 20 more pattern testers before they released it to the public.  I’ll have an errata sheet later on, when I’m not bonkers from sewing.

SantasVillage quilt pieces

This is where I started this morning.  Only I think I only had one side on the roofs of the houses.  Hard to remember.

SantasVillage quilt_partial

Houses and trees done and arranged.  I’m tired, but I press on.  I want to be done with the quilt top before I stop.

Ocean Waves Blocks Leanne

Oh, and Friday I finished up Leanne’s quilt blocks for the Always Bee Learning Bee.  And finally the weather started to turn from the near 90-degree weather on Thursday to something more respectably autumn-like.  At her house in Canada, Leanne had snow.  Shoveling snow can make you tired.

thanksgiving1918style-thumb-510x381-thumb-350x261I became even more tired when I called for reservations at The Fancy Restaurant for Thanksgiving and was told they were already booked up.  (All of our children and their families are scattered to in-laws or other, and this is just not the year to cook.)  But the Other Restaurant in the moderately fancy chain hotel has a buffet, and it’s not booked up.  Now I can spend time in the sewing room, giving thanks for Santa being finished.  Or. . . maybe quilting him, before and after our Thanksgiving feast.  I used to be a purist, never going out on the holiday because I remember when my son had to work on Thanksgiving and I was ticked off about him not being at the table with family.  Funny how things change as you age. My apologies if your son has to work at the local restaurant because little old ladies are too tired to cook.  (And PS, I’m not shopping at Target that day, nor WalMart, nor any of the other stores who are open that day.  I do have my limits. . . and my inconconsistencies.)

Leftovers

When you are this tired, it’s good to trim the HSTs leftover from the roofs, and start playing around.  It’s good to have a piecing marathon behind me as on Monday, papers come in, and on Tuesday, I teach my class on the Pleated Tote at Bluebird Quilts (our LQS), and I need to make samples on how to easily make a zipper pocket in the lining.  I loved teaching the last class there and am looking forward to this one.

Happy Sewing!