Since my original blog was terminated by the closing of TypePad earlier this Fall, I’ve been searching for a replacement. Most of the blog serving companies are equipped to deal with business blogs of one kind or another. What I want to do is to continue my personal (i.e., diary) blog efforts. Word Press at least has a payment scale and the tools to accomplish that, so I have chosen to site my blog here for now. 🙂

Most of the next few posts will involve catching up with what I’ve been doing for the past three months. In truth, there won’t be much content since … a). my memory is poor and tends to fade out easily and b). my records are spotty at best. 🙂

I took the chance to travel in early September and went to Wisconsin – to visit my daughter and her family AND to go to the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, both in Madison. For a change, rather than drive (which takes me three days each way – it’s only 920 or so miles but I can only drive about seven hours each day) I decided to fly. The connections I arranged took me to Minneapolis first, then to Madison. I had not been in the airport in Madison since the mid70s so much had changed. 🙂

We landed at the southernmost gate in Mpls and I had to go all the way to the northernmost gate to make my connection. I’m no speedy gonzales so I asked United for a lift – the wheelchair driver I got moved like greased lightning and we made it to my next flight in plenty of time. 🙂

Most of the country had heavy cloud cover so no nice ground views. We did have sunshine all the way so I enjoyed that. 🙂 I also enjoyed getting there quickly (by comparison to driving). I did rent a car at the airport in Madison – turned out to be smart as Eva and Alan are down to one car right now) – was the most expensive part of my trip. 😛

The quilt show in WI was a really good one. Many quilts, all of good quality. Also I got to meet my long-time friend Pat Riese and spend the day with her, roaming the show. Pat and I have been buddies since my freshman year in college, more than 50 years ago. 🙂 It was wonderful to catch up and spend time with her – and her sister-in-law. We saw a lot of beautiful quilts but I only took pictures of a few:

There were many more particularly enjoyed but I seem to have misplaced the files on my computer. Sigh.

Eva has a lovely garden every year and it was fun to see it in harvest bloom while I visited. When she was really small, I kept a garden plot at one of our community allotments here in Columbia (there’s a new village center on that land now). I have long since given up any pretense to a green thumb – I wonder if some vestige of memory prompts her to garden? Certainly she does a _much_ better job than I ever did. 🙂

I found the bark pattern of the birch tree by her front door to be lovely. 🙂

I would like to grow ferns like these in my Maryland back yard. 🙂

One of the things I did with Eva and the boys (Otto, 10 and Theo, 6) was go to the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival in Jefferson, WI one Saturday afternoon. We had a blast although poor Eva had the usual mother-of-adhd-children frustrations keeping up with the herd. 🙂 The boys enjoyed watching the shearing but I really liked watching the baby lambs – the farmers had brought a number of gravid ewes to give birth while at the fair so the crowd could enjoy lamb antics.

I was startled by how very small the babies were! So tiny and delicate. 🙂

I started another squirrel project when I got home from my trip. I spotted some charm packs (5″ squares of a whole fabric line) that captured my fancy. The prints feature small scale ‘cheater’ patterns of various traditional quilt designs in an assortment of bright color palettes. I bought two sets of squares (40 each) and a half yard of eight solid colors to coordinate from a favorite vendor online (AFTER checking with my local quilt shops to see if they were carrying the goods).

Just as I did with my Australian Aboriginal fabric medallion quilt, I decided to again ‘improvise’ my design with this project. It’s my favorite way not to get bored with the process – if I design the entire quilt before construction, all the fun is lost for me. 🙂 The photo above shows the central, block and first border I chose to make. Those log cabin squares show some of the collection ‘cheater’ prints.

Here you can see the second and third borders on my top:

I have not been sewing a lot recently – my machine stopped working for a while, requiring a visit to the spa, but I’m back to puttering with it by now. I’m slowly constructing the next round of designs, having discovered yesterday that my math was deficient … I need to make twice as many units as my original calculations inferred. 😛 Good thing this is a cheerful palette – brightens up my sewing during the dark December days.

We did get some nice snow recently and there has been pretty sunshine the last two days. Always improves my outlook. 🙂

Other than sew, I have been visiting my brother, Kevin, at his condo to work on my jigsaw puzzle (Kevin loves making puzzles and I have started a couple to work beside him). The Kaffe Fasset print I’m working on now is way past my usual skill level (not nearly as adept as Kevin:). I may be all winter doing this one. Sometimes I work on my junk journal instead – did some stamping on tea bags to decorate pages, but I usually do some kind of glued collage in the book. I’ve been making pin loomed hearts most recently – weaving as I binge watch NCIS reruns on my computer. Fun times.

Other than those attempts at creativity, my weekly schedule is quiet. Tuesday I take my brother out for lunch and grocery shopping. Whatever doctor’s appointments come up during the week for me or Kevin or my husband, Skip, I drive to …. otherwise I’m at home. I’ve been cocooning this month especially – have a hard time convincing myself to even go to quilt guild meetings when they come up. Sigh.

I hope to keep this journal with more regularity than I’ve managed in the past. Generally I’ve managed to hit and miss that goal, but I have good intentions.

🙂 Linda