On the Rebound

Except for sounding like I should be singing bass in the choir, I seem to be over whatever it was I had last week. I got back to work on Saturday. I added borders to the mystery project and moved it to the “needs a backing” pile. Once I find a backing for it, it will move to the “needs to be quilted” pile and join the four quilts currently there.

I finished two batches of makeup pads and got them ready to mail out today. One batch is for DD#1 and the other batch is for DD#2’s best friend from high school. Best friend was born two days after DD#2 and the two of them have sequential social security numbers, which is something that could probably only happen in Montana. Last year, they got tattoos to honor that. (Before anyone asks—no, the tattoos are not their full SS numbers.) I think I am done with makeup pads for a while. I am going to set that serger up for experimenting with stitches and projects for upcoming classes.

And I finished quilting the Bear Paw baby quilt.

Bernina is having a 20% off sale this month, so I bought a set of echo clips. These are thick, clear plastic clips that fit around the base of the ruler foot. They come in three sizes and allow you to echo lines that you’ve already quilted or extend the reach of a ruler that isn’t quite large enough:

The ruler clips let me finish out the semicircular lines in the dark gray sections, although the freehanded lines aren’t quite as smooth as the ones done with the rulers. It is not as easy to follow an existing line of quilting as one might imagine.

I did ribbon candy in the sashing between the blocks, then finished off with square spiral lines 1/2” apart in the outer border.

It took me a while to find a good binding fabric. All of these came out of my “gray” Kona drawer:

There are warm grays, cool grays, light grays, dark grays—you get the idea. I picked one that I think will work, but I’ll check it again in natural daylight to make sure it’s the right gray.

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The chicks seemed to be a big hit in church yesterday. The little girl who told me last week that her mother wouldn’t let her have a real chicken came up and thanked me twice, and several of the chicks had names by the time church was over. That was fun.

WS popped by after dinner last night to ask about eggs. I sold him five dozen last week to put in the “market,” which is a small fridge on the corner of their property by the road. He buys eggs at wholesale from me and sells them at retail. We also sell our excess produce at the market. There is a lockbox for money, but everything is on the honor system. The corner market has worked well for a couple of years. Recently, though, people have been taking eggs and not paying for them. I am angry for him, because an eight year-old shouldn’t have to learn the lesson that people are jerks. I sold him another four dozen eggs—our hens have really ramped up production lately—and in true WS fashion, he’s trying to figure out a way to make sure no one gets eggs unless they’ve paid for them, first.

I kept my (less than charitable) ideas about booby-trapping the fridge to myself. I have no doubt he’ll come up with something.