As usual, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s were a blogging break for me. I don’t necessarily plan it that way, but time and desire to blog seem to disappear during that time frame. Lucky for me, my quilting mojo didn’t disappear, so I have a few things to report on before we turn the page to a new year.
Our oldest son (Andrew) moved to Denver, Colorado at the beginning of September. When he left, he only took the stuff he could fit in his car, and left his remaining belongings and dog with us until he could retrieve them later in the year. He flew home for Thanksgiving, and by Saturday morning we had packed his stuff into Dear Husband’s pick-up truck and headed for Denver (dog included).
I won’t bore you will all of our adventures, but I will say I look forward to flying to Denver next time around! We came back to New Orleans using a different route in an attempt to avoid some bad traffic congestion along the Texas/New Mexico route. All told, we traveled 2700 miles and passed through seven states!
Just as we returned, our youngest son (David) flew in from Dallas. It just so happened to be the perfect time to celebrate David and Dear Husband's December birthdays. David is also a huge fan of his alma mater's football team - LSU - so his Dallas friends surprised him with an LSU football-themed birthday cake.
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| Dear Husband and Bailey |
Right before Christmas, our dog Bailey, a black lab mix, succumbed to a rapidly spreading form of cancer. Bailey came to us as a puppy twelve years ago. She was left on our front door-step in a basket with pink toys and a pink blanket. Since she arrived just before my husband’s birthday, he considered her the Best Birthday Present Ever, and they were bonded at the hip. The house feels pretty empty now, since Andrew’s dog is gone, too. Our sweetheart yellow lab, McKenzie, doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.
In between all that, I managed to do some stitching here and there.
Project Numero Uno was to finish the black and gold Endless Chain quilt I started for Andrew. I completed the piecing before Thanksgiving, and Diane Knott (Butterfly Threads Quilting) was able to long-arm quilt it for me while I was adventuring out west. I’ve been trying to get the binding stitched and label attached so I can send it to Andrew as soon as possible.
I also made some blocks for Barb Vedder’s Oh My Stars swap. Oops! I didn’t take any pictures before I sent the finished blocks to Barb. I did the Modern swap this time, and I’m looking forward to playing with my blocks later in January!
Thinking toward 2020, I knew there were a couple of Rainbow Scrap projects that needed some attention. I made a batch of yellow Ring of Stars blocks, but I still need red blocks before I can assemble my RSC efforts on this quilt.
I also cut up lots of scraps for Carolina Chain leader-ender blocks. Some Christmas fabric scraps made it into the latest batch of blocks.
There’s more to share, but I’ll stop here for now. I’m not in much of a mind to do a retrospective of the quilts of 2019, but I have been giving a lot of thought to what stitching projects will be under the needle in 2020. Let’s hope it’s a great year for quilting!
