The Noon and Night Quilt That Started It All

I connected with my friend Vicki and she sent me some pictures of the original Noon and Night quilt pieced by her great-grandmother.

I am trying to figure out why I thought it was on a black background?—perhaps because the binding is black? Who knows, LOL. In any case, I was tickled to see this one again. And I love the variety in the stars. Some of them have mirrored points and some have rotating points. Some blocks are oriented so the large star points are horizontal. Some are vertical. I think fabric scraps got pieced the way they got pieced and used no matter what. And many of these fabrics definitely look like original feed sack fabrics. What a treasure!

My Noon and Night quilt is still in time out. The black batting I ordered for it arrived yesterday. I’m feeling a bit like my sew-jo went on walkabout. The satisfaction of finishing up so many languishing projects is keeping me from jumping in and starting something new. I did make a few more face masks yesterday. I might knock out some zipper pouches or a couple of pincushions just for fun, because something small is more likely to be finished in one session.

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The husband is pouring a basement slab at 6:30 this morning. It is 4:49 and he just left. At least he’ll be working while it’s cool. One of our former employees—a guy who now has his own renovation business—is coming to help him.

The husband normally handles the animal chores in the morning, but I’ll let pigs and chickens out as soon as the sun comes up. The chickens seem to have reached an understanding about who is in charge. When I went out to the coop yesterday to get eggs, the baby chickens came in from the chicken yard, followed shortly by the Buff rooster. (He was hoping for a handful of scratch grains.) I looked down and all of the baby roosters were hiding behind my legs.

The big roosters do keep order in the coop. It sounds so sexist and cliche, but there is a definite way of things in the animal world. I was walking back from the garden one time and noticed two hens arguing in the chicken yard. All of a sudden, the Buff rooster came running out from the coop and planted himself in between the two of them. They stopped arguing and eventually wandered off. I’ll leverage that instinctive rooster behavior however I can. As long as the roosters understand whose hand is holding the scratch grains, they can be in charge in the coop. And I am convinced that having a well-mannered older rooster is key to the young roosters learning how to behave.

[Why yes, I do have a degree in rooster psychology, thanks for asking.]

The pigs are driving the husband a bit nuts because a couple of them prefer to sleep in the pasture at night instead of coming into the shelter, although they are big enough now that they don’t have to be locked in for safety.

We got an estimate yesterday on putting heat in the shop. Hopefully, that will be done in the next couple of weeks. Getting the heat in and finishing the siding are really the only two big pieces left. We’re planning a “garage party” as part of the wedding festivities and it will be nice to have all of that in place.