Back In the (Quilting) Saddle

I did quilt yesterday, but I’ll be honest—my brain is stuck on making clothing. The wardrobe still has a few holes yet to be filled—I am woefully short on dressy tops to wear to church—and I have a chunk of black sparkle ponte that wants to be a pair of Renee pants to wear with the turquoise velvet top I bought in Seattle. I will be good and continue to work on my quilts, but I may throw in some clothing projects here and there.

[My current obsession is a YouTube channel called FebelsaDIY. The videos demonstrate how to modify a basic bodice sloper into a variety of knot top and twist-front garments. These videos are going to save me a ton of time re-inventing the wheel.]

Rather than go straight to working on a top, I eased back into quilting by making potholders. I pick up Insul-Bright batting remnants whenever I see them on the remnant rack at Joanns and had two pieces that were each almost a full yard. I layered them with leftover pieces of cotton batting, a top from one of the many food-themed remnants in the stash, and a backing, then quilted the sandwiches on the Q20 with allover meandering loops. A yard of quilted fabric yields a nice assortment of casserole hot pads, potholders, and mug rugs.

These will get stacked up until I have time for a marathon session of machine binding. Some will be gifts. The rest will go into inventory for next year’s craft co-op sale.

While I quilted, I listened to Gail Yellen’s serger Christmas stocking class. The class was held live on Saturday but I have the video recording for as long as I need it. I decided it would be better to preview the class rather than try to sew along live. Also, she had some issues with the pattern and I decided it would be better to wait and see if she worked the bugs out. (She did.) I’ll work on that project here and there, too, because she’s teaching some techniques I can use in upcoming serger classes.

Our transitional pastor and I had a meeting yesterday afternoon. We’re all trying to help her settle in, and she and I are mostly responsible for planning the Christmas Eve service. We’re meeting again next Monday.

And I ran my first meeting last night as chairman of the Homestead Foundation Fundraising Committee. This is a job I inherited from our church’s former pastor, who was also active in the Homestead Foundation. He wanted to resign from all his board commitments when he retired and I agreed to step in. We shall see how this goes. I limited the meeting to one Zoom session of 40 minutes—it’s a free account and cuts off at that point—and kept things moving along. I spend a lot of time in meetings and I don’t have much tolerance for ones that drag on, especially if they drag on past my bedtime. (No one wants to have meetings at 6 am, sadly, which would be my preferred time of day.) We’re at the end of the year and this was mostly a check-in meeting.

I will have to attend the general board meetings now, as well, and report in as head of this committee. I knock out at least half a dozen prayer shawls a year just sitting in meetings. Sometimes I think meetings were invented by extroverts specifically to torture introverts.

I haven’t gotten to canning tomatoes yet, although I did one batch of navy beans the other day and have a pot of red beans soaking to can this afternoon. I made two pumpkin pies for the husband yesterday. He ate half of one for dessert last night. I think I gain weight just watching him eat.

I came out of the garage the other day to find a visitor on the porch:

I am not sure where it was going, but I didn’t really want it in the house.