Let there be…dark

Our bedroom is on the back of the house, over the garage.  Two very bright lights illuminate this end of the drive going by the garages of the 12 houses on this cul-de-sac.  While these lights are nice at night when you're outside, unfortunately they shine in our windows.  So recently we decided to get some black-out fabric to attach to the draperies, to see if it would darken our room.  Yesterday I finished sewing on the panels, and indeed our room is now much darker!  On its own, the black-out fabric (which is white on one side and cream on the other) looks fairly innocuous, but when you put it behind the drapes or even by itself up to the window, it's like another wall almost.  It's often used in hotel room windows.

I've begun work on another quilt.  When I was cutting down scraps last spring, I cut lots of small pieces into 1 1/2 inch squares, and these are the ones I'm using for this project.  Originally the plan was to just sew the squares to each other, a style called Postage Stamp quilt.  But recently I saw this arrangement using strips of white to separate the colored squares.  Not only does the white add brightness to the work, my scraps will go farther.  Each block will finish at 10 inches or so and has 50 little squares; alternating the direction of the strips means seams don't have to match.  This reminds me of some candy we used to get as children--individually wrapped rectangles of white nougat with blobs of brightly colored jelly.  Remember those?  I have no idea yet how big this will end up being.  It's been fun so far, but I'm not sure I'm willing to make it very big.  Stay tuned!

Fun!

E sent a picture yesterday of e "sweeping" the kitchen floor.  It was so cute.  The broom handle is so long next to the little girl.  She had a smile on her face; maybe she will always enjoy working in the kitchen.  When I'm there next week, I may look for a child-size broom for her, though that probably would not nearly as much fun.

To the shop

Friday my friend Carol offered to lend me her old sewing machine that she hadn't used in a couple of years.  She has a new machine, and she is doing lots of embroidery, so the old Elna just sits.  I said I would be happy to give it a workout.  While it is not a perfect fit, it does sit in the cabinet or table of my machine.  This morning I took my Kenmore to a shop in Dublin that both sells and repairs sewing machines; I should know in a week or two if they can fix it.

A week from tomorrow I fly down to Phoenix.  Seeing e walking all around will be fun!

Busy week

This was a busy week.  I finished sewing the binding on the bull's eye quilt and took it to choir practice Wednesday night.  For Christmas 2014 the choir gave me a gift card to a fabric store, which I used to buy quarter-yard pieces of 12-15 black on white and white on black fabrics.  I used two squares of most of these as backgrounds for the bull's eye circles, so I wanted to show the choir their part in the quilt.  There is a fundraiser for the youth program coming up; I may donate the quilt for the silent auction.

We had a lot of rain early in the week and found water dripping inside one of the living room windows.  Randy tried to determine how it was getting in, finding a clogged downspout, two small holes in the stucco, and poor sealing along some of the wooden trim.  If the problem is on the outside of the house, the homeowner's association is responsible for repairs, but if it is a window problem the home owner must fix it.  So we'll see if the cause can be definitively determined.

In the "it's a small world" vein, Monday night we had dinner with a couple of friends.  One of them, Vivian, we have known for many years.  She and Randy used to carpool to choir practice in Berkeley, and Randy spoke to her international students group at church several times.  The other one, Sue, was a soprano in Trinity's choir, where I met her.  A couple of years ago we discovered these two women live in the same condominium complex and were friends.  Cool!  Sue recently retired and moved to Kalamazoo to live with her sister, but she was in town to work on getting her condo ready to rent so Vivian had the three of us over for dinner.  She had warned us she was not a good cook, but she certainly prepared a feast for us, starting with corn soup, followed by barbecue pork, cauliflower and meatballs, mixed vegetables, chicken, and rice, ending with tiramisu.  Delicious!

All good things...

Last night something I did to my sewing machine allowed it to get back to work so I attached the binding to the front of the quilt, making it ready for the final step of hand stitching the binding to the back.  Today I began another quilt, a postage stamp of sorts made of 1 1/2 inch squares.  But I didn't get far before the machine acted up again.  This time Randy looked at it with me, and we believe one of the gears is slipping, which we probably cannot fix ourselves.  Shopping for a new machine might be fun, but right now I just wish my old one worked.  I'm familiar with it, and it has been a great tool.  But many things wear out eventually, even if we take good care of them.

Tonight I will probably sew some of the binding.  I also am nearly done knitting the first sock of a pair, so I might knit.  The light weight wool yarn is a pretty shade of blue and feels good to work with.  And there is always the cross stitch picture I started several years ago.  My hands will find something to do!

Oh, no!

Work on the Raggedy Bull's Eye quilt came to a halt yesterday afternoon when my faithful sewing machine stopped suddenly.  Something seems to be wrong with the bobbin case and/or shuttle assembly.  I took the assembly apart, dusted and cleaned it to no avail.  The shuttle moves smoothly without the bobbin in it, but with the bobbin it grinds and refuses to budge.  I tried some tips found on-line, but it still didn't work.  So instead of sewing the binding strips together, I played mechanic till time to make supper.  I will attack it again today.  While my Kenmore is not fancy it has been dependable for about 37 years now and has sewn dresses, shirts, suits, quilts, baby clothes, and more.

How time flies...

Our youngest daughter is now 29 years old.  Although both of her sisters have passed this milestone, it was only with her approaching birthday that I recalled how my mother was 29 for several years!  I guess she really did not want to grow old, so she hung on to birthdays like this as long as she could.  I wish I could ask her why she felt that way; did she have an older relative or friend who aged poorly?  Had she heard stories about old people that worried her?  Did she connect aging with approaching death?  I don't know.  Mom died at age 65.

On a happier note...Our girls wore OshKosh B'Gosh overalls as they began to walk, so when I saw a pair at Kohl's recently I bought them and sent them to e.  I was glad to see the overalls are still around; I didn't save any of ours.  She looks so cute in the denim with the cuffs rolled up.  Her walking improves daily.  I expect she will be running when I visit her next month.

I attended a shower yesterday for a friend who is about to become a grandmother for the first time; her daughter and husband live in Chicago, so this was a shower in absentia, though we did Skype with them, introducing ourselves and congratulating the couple.  The hostess/organizer suggested everyone bring a book for the new baby's library.  How clever!  Not only did I buy three of e's favorite books, I picked up suggestions of other books she might like.  We all talked about books we remembered from our childhood or books our own children enjoyed.  I think everyone there was a grandmother, except one young mother who is a friend of the mother-to-be.

Last night I finished a quilt top; working title is "Raggedy Bull's Eye." The colorful circles are sewn down without turning under the raw edges and thus will fray a bit when washed.  The circles are left over from a previous bull's eye quilt which called for trimming out the underlying layers of the circles, which left these smaller circles of fabric; this time I did not trim the layers.  The background fabrics are black and white prints. I like the cheery feel of the quilt.  The next step is to decide if a border is needed, so I will "audition" a black border and also a white border to see if either enhances the quilt.

It's raining!

And the rain keeps coming!  Good words to say after so many dry days and weeks.  I even dreamed that our front door was broken open by flooding.  I hope there will be some clear time today so I can get a walk in.  While I have a good jacket and rain pants, I don't have waterproof shoes.  Let me amend that--my snow boots are waterproof, but the zipper does not lock and keeps falling down, making it uncomfortable to stride along the path.

This morning I resume my position as membership chair for the East Bay Genealogy Society as I attend the board meeting.  The other board members were all glad to hear I'm back.  The group is small, with six of us on the board, about 35 members total.  Years ago I think they had nearly 200 members.  But now that so much  research can be done on-line, I guess fewer people see the need to be part of a group.  Often we don't become interested in our family's history till we're older, when grandparents are gone.  Anyway, the EBGS holds monthly meetings with guest speakers to encourage us all.

I have bought tickets for a trip to Phoenix next month and look forward to taking a walk with e, with her actually walking by my side, not in the stroller.  She has returned to daycare; I hope she stays healthy for a while.

Pink eye and carols

Poor little e!  Not only does she have a cold, now she has conjunctivitis, AKA pink eye.  Fortunately E got her into the doctor yesterday morning, and he prescribed medicine, so she will be back in day care Monday, I think.  He said this latest problem could be another result of her teething.  She currently has eight, yes, eight, teeth erupting, poor thing.  When we FaceTimed Saturday afternoon her eyelid was swollen but she seemed in good spirits as she walked around her playroom.  At least the diarrhea seems to have cleared up.  That caused her to be sent home from daycare early last week; a cold is OK but not diarrhea.  K had already planned to take off a couple of days, so he got to play with e, instead of playing golf or going to a movie.

Our annual Epiphany carol sing went smoothly last night.  About ten friends joined us in singing some favorite carols then playing a game called Succotash.  The first round is like the old Password game; the second round is charades.  We didn't get to round three.  I think everyone enjoyed the challenge of working against the clock.  Someone even said, "Let's do this again next year!"

A new year begins...

Resolutions?  Hopes?  Goals?  Whatever you may call them, most of us have some things in mind that we would like to accomplish this year.  Sometimes putting them down in writing and sharing them with others helps me, so here are a few of my goals for 2016.

1.  Use up a lot of my fabric making quilts for others, especially for fund raisers for the youth and nursing home ministries at Trinity.  I hope to make at least 6, including a queen-size Christmas quilt for Sarah, and an I Spy for e's 2nd birthday.  To accomplish this I need to list the quilt patterns I'd like to make, then prioritize them.

2.  Continue to blog at least once a week.

3.  Visit e and her parents once every three months.

4.  Visit Liz this summer.

5.  Visit Sarah.

6.  Visit my dad and sister.

7.  Clean out my closet, donating those items that don't fit or that I don't wear anymore.

8.  Eat less, move more.  I know, that's rather vague.  So let's be more specific:  walk at least 4 mornings a week.

9.  Have a meal or a walk or some other event with a friend once a month.

And on and on….