Actually, not it didn’t but that was the first thing that popped into my brain just now. It’s part of a song — Barry Manilow— who else? Just when I started to feel again……. I can tell you what I am feeling, depressed, unmotivated, eating everything in sight. I will be soooooo glad when COVID is on the run and we can start to get back to normal. I did finally get my piecing sewing machine out of the closet (literally) and am looking forward to pushing myself to get some quilting done. First, I’ve got to try to raise the needle a little bit. UGH!

I posted some new quilts on Facebook today. Here they are.

I ran the numbers for 2020 and in addition to making a Mondo bag and 6 quilting fabric mermaids and animals (plus 8 baby animals) and more recently a bunny that matches the first quilt I posted today. I made 4 more quilts as gifts. I made 4 community quilts where I did the piecing and the quilting and binding. I quilted 22 quilts for members of my guild (quilting only) and I completed 26 community quilts that were either quilt tops (the majority) or block that needed to be assembled and then quilted and binding on all and I made and donated at least 150 face masks during the spring and early summer.

The last few days have been spent rearranging some things and I am ready to start quilting again.

Until the next time. Keep calm, keep praying and KEEP QUILTING!!!!!

And thank goodness, what a year this has been. I just feel numb, can’t believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas are over. Only 3 more days and 2020 will be history. The less than great times started with Covid during the first 3 months of the year. By the end of March, things were shutting down, students were being sent home to elearn, anyone who could work from home did and then there was a shelter in place starting that was supposed to last until the first of June. We started progressing toward normal (ha!) and then were stuck in the next to last phase until early July. We didn’t to a single group cookout all summer. Jim and Angie visited and we do most things outside. We planned a September trip to the beach (and boy, did I need some beach time) and then ended up heading back north to Athens, Alabama at noon on the second day because there was a hurricane heading into the gulf coast that even if the hurricane didn’t directly impact PCB, was promising LOTS of rain and possible tornadoes and we knew there wasn’t going to be any beach time. We didn’t come home (thank goodness) but the 3 full days we spent in the Athens/Huntsville, Alabama area certainly weren’t the same as sitting on the beach soaking up the sun.

I have stayed busy since Thanksgiving with different quilting/sewing projects. Made several quilting fabric animals, a quilt which was shipped to President Elect Joe Biden and I currently have an appliqued Little Suzy’s Zoo quilt on the frame. Will finish that, make a couple of matching pillowcases and then it is going to my soon to be 15 year old Granddaughter. I also just bought boho bunny (& blossom) fabric to make a quilt for my youngest granddaughter who has moved from a crib to a twin size bunk bed. There is also a fabric bunny to sew together (and a pillow) to match the quilt fabric. Not sure if that is the next project or not. Have 25 quilt tops (and I think at least a couple more coming) plus lots of little bitty pieces to put together to make a quilt —— hmmm, think I have enough to keep me busy for awhile. I also am trying to get a handle on my stash of fabric, did clean out the fabric cabinet on the front porch which contains 10″ squares, 5″ squares, 5×10 jolly bars (top shelf), the middle shelf contains all of my Christmas panels and fabric and the bottom is all my RWB and panels for patriotic quilts. I am moving my piecing sewing machine to the other bedroom downstairs and that will be my piecing home. John ordered me a new sewing chair for my Christmas. I will use the small desk in the closet of the longarm room for more fabric storage. I saw a thing last night where there is a free website where I can sell fabric and as I continue organizing in the longarm room, will be putting things aside to list for sale. The only thing I need to decide to finish signing up to sell, is a name. Sharon and I had talked about using Twisted Twin Sister for at Etsy shop but since this sight is just for fabric, I want to use something else (in case we do decide to go ahead and open an Etsy store.

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday —- counting down until I can kick 2020 in the rear.

Until the next time…….KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!!!!!!!

It is 2 weeks until Christmas and again, we are not having any kind of gathering with the family. Earlier this week it was announced that Indiana had the largest percentage of covid cases in all the US. (Something to be proud of, yes, um NO.) Morgan County is RED which means you can do up to 25 people in gatherings and sporting events are still happening but people are dying.

I am working on a couple of projects. I have a quilt top almost ready to put on the frame and quilt (Red, White and Blue) and I received 7 quilt tops early in the week that will eventually be quilted and become community quilts.

Candy is made. I have 4 more boxes/tins made up and ready to pass out and then the rest will be divided up between the 5 families to get er out of here.

Not much else new to tell. Had lunch with Kendallyn and Sara and ate outside (by a heater). Need to check to see if On the Border has heated outdoor seating because I’m not sure that even if Carole and I meet at 11 that there will be a small enough crowd that I will feel it is safe to eat there. I was going to go to Volitta’s tomorrow night but she things TJ has Covid and he was at the house yesterday, I’m just really leary.

Be safe and stay healthy and KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!

So, it is Saturday, November 21 and I am alone (again) as John spend every single evening with his dad. I don’t mind, but am not sure why it is necessary that he go every single night. I imagine, he wonders the same thing.

The turkey (all 20 pounds of him) has been moved from the freezer to the fridge to thaw. I keep seeing recipes for yeast rolls and may try a different recipe in the next couple of days and change things up a bit on Thanksgiving. The official word is —– we are not doing Thanksgiving, as in, not everyone is coming to the house for a meal at lunchtime on Thursday the 26th. That does NOT mean I am not fixing the whole nine yards. The 20 pound bird mentioned above is the smallest one John could find that was a Butterball. It will be him and me and possibly Jeremy (and possibly the girls) for lunch. I will also be packaging TDTG (Thankgiving Dinner To Go) actually for delivery for Joe, Melissa, Freja and Raeden. That will be Turkey, stuffing, masked taters and gravy, rolls and pumpkin and chocolate cream pie.

It really will not seem like Turkey Day but this time next week, it will be a memory…….

In the meantime, KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING, KEEP QUILTING AND KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY TURKEY!

I am really struggling to keep from sinking into a deep depression. I’m pretty sure that (and not enough sleep) is why I am feeling so tired. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is only 10 days away and we will not be having a house full of kids, grands and maybe a mom or dad (or both) over for a mess of a meal. Nope, officially we are not having our “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, I am making turkey, stuffing, mashed and gravy, rolls and pie, but Melissa and her family will take theirs delivery and eat at their house. There is a slight possibility Jeremy may come and I hope he does rather than not do anything. The others are either no planning on anything OR have another option for their turkey. I’m beginning to think that Christmas may be the same way and that is very depressing also. There is no way we can have 16-18 people in this house and social distance and of course being in December, being outside is not an option. So, if people actually come here, they will have to be assigned times and not all come at the same time.

It seems like everywhere I turn I see folks not taking this COVID stuff seriously, SERIOUSLY! I went to the grocery earlier this evening and the signs on the door say, Masks mandatory and there was an announcement on the speaker while I was there about everyone wearing a mask and got to the self checkout and there was a whole damn family with no masks on and as I was leaving that area saw another guy with no mask, un(as;ldkfja;lksdjf) believable. Those are the same people who won’t get a vaccine when it is available and will make it so that those of us who do get on will still have social distance and wear a mask. See how quickly I swung from depressed to pissed!

I got two more community quilts finished and need to get pictures to post. I am currently working on Christmas sewing — Advent calendar, Animals, Mondo bag(s) and maybe a block of the month, as well as going to try to get 2 or 3 red, white and blue quilts made for donation. We won’t have a guild meeting next week and bet we don’t next month either — in fact maybe not for many months.

Okay, enough venting for now. Until next post KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!

So, I can’t believe it has almost been a month since I posted last. I really, really need to try to get here at least once a week to post (although between you, me and fencepost) I haven’t shared these posts with anyone. I keep telling myself it is because I don’t post often enough and in reality, maybe I would be encouraged to do so if I did share.

I am nauseously waiting for the Presidential votes to be counted, blocking jackholes on Facebook and praying, yes, lots of praying. I keep reading (and blocking) comments about making sure the democrats don’t steal votes, hearing 45 talking about stop counting mail in votes (isn’t that the head republican stealing votes????) and trump thumpers showing up where they are working their tails off to count votes in protest. Everyone of us has the right to vote as we see fit, but to borrow something I saw on Facebook recently, it does not give you to the right to be violent and protest if the election doesn’t go your way and goes on to say, that is what is broken about this country. I still believe 45 is a wolf in sheeps clothing and I can’t believe it is God’s will that he is in there in the first place. He is a sexists, racist narcissist.

So, what have I been working on? I had a couple of weeks that my longarm was out of commission, but it seems to be mostly healed and I have finished four quilts and am getting ready to load 2 more on the frame. I am thinking I will ask that any community quilting that needs to be done for the guild, be held until the December meeting as I have an advent calendar to sew, stuffed animals to sew and I just got a pattern for a neat “BIG” bag that I am thinking about making for some gifts. I also would like to put together a couple of RWB quilts for donation. I made 2 60×80 tops and quilted them to donate to Lutheran World relief who lost over 20,000 quilts in the bombings in Beirut.

There was a third quilt that I quilted that was donated that went to LWR also. All in all, not too bad. Still have a long way to go. I will probably try to keep cutting up fat quarters that I will never use for anything other than donation and will try to put together another half a dozen or so 60×80 quilts before next year to donate.

Until then, keep praying, praying, praying. As a nation torn we need to pray for God’s will more than ever. So until the next time…….KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!

I have been MIA for quite awhile. Between longarm machine issues, which are still not completely solved, lots of transcription and just general cooties depression, I can’t seem to get myself to do anything. Oh, and I am now editing the quilting guild newsletter which I don’t know why I volunteered for that one. So, one thing at a time.

Almost 2 weeks ago, I was getting ready to quilt. Cleaned my machine, loaded a top on and bam, the needle got caught, damaged the quilt top, got batting stuck in the hook and in the process of getting it cleaned out so it would stitch again, blew two fuses and broke the needle. Ended up with the machine out of time, batting wedged in the hook and after getting new fuses, getting the batting worked out and the machine retimed, now, my thread keeps breaking. So, I need to stop back again and check for burrs that might be shreading my top thread. And of course, I’ve already loaded another top on the machine.

The attorney that I have been doing transcription from from home for the last 21 months (ish) is going to retire in early November and move to FL, so we are working to get withdrawals done, cases completed, etc. When I started working for him, he was cutting back his practice and said he would have no more than 5-6 hours a week for me to work. Well, that has turned out to be more like 5-6 hours a month but not this month. I have already worked over 11 hours during the first 9 days of October. I am getting a little bit of a reprieve right now because he is out of state for a wedding, where last weekend he sent me dictation on Saturday and Sunday.

Don’t really want to talk about the cooties depression.

Now, the newsletter. The board (and anyone in the guild that wants to relay news) is suppose to have their print ready articles to me by the first Wednesday in the month. I sent reminders to two folks yesterday who haven’t gotten me anything. Not sure one of them will have anything. The other is the secretary of the minutes of the meeting last month and while she no longer wants to be secretary, they haven’t filled the position yet, so not sure whether I will get something from her or not. In the meantime, I should be sending this out tomorrow or Monday and I am no where near finished (tho I should be working on it since I don’t have transcription).

So, that is what is new. Quilts to stitch as soon as I get the thread breaking issue under control.

In the meantime, KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!

So we are in the last week of September. Not sure where it went. We tried to get away to the beach for a week, only to have to head north out of the path of a hurricane which made the ocean very angry and threatened our ability to get home later in the week by dropping loads of rain on the path that is our way home. So, we traveled to FL on Saturday and Sunday, stayed there until early Tuesday afternoon and then came back to where we spent the night on the way down. Hated to leave the beach, but we weren’t going to sit on the beach and soak up the sun no matter way. We spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Athens, Alabama (near Huntsville) and then came the rest of the way home on Saturday.

We did e-learning with Cora on Wednesday and we are down to our final one or two times of having to do that as she will some been heading back to the classroom 4 days a week.

Our Governor has finally put Indiana in stage 5 of resuming normal in the Covid crisis. Everyone is supposed to wear a mask until October 17 (yeah right, with no enforcement or penalty that hasn’t been happening and will continue t not happen). I am wearing a mask and so is John. I just made a few more. Hope to get back to quilting after our Waverly Festival this weekend. I am doing quilting and Sharon is doing weaving demonstrations.

I’m sure I have pictures to be posted of some more quilts, however, I will have to go back to my previous posts to see which ones. I still have 4 quilt tops from Jo in Iowa (actually made by the Cresco, Iowa ladies and 2 that I need to quilt and bind for Lutheran World Relief which will be delivered to IL in late October.

I was working on putting together a sandwich (not the eating kind but the quilting kind) that has a top pieced by my grandmother, which belongs to my youngest sister, when I found out that the 30 yards of Cotton/Bamboo batting I ordered in February is actually POLYESTER!!! That really pisses me off, course it is too late to do anything about it. Sure I got shafted on that one. Not only is it cheaper (than what I paid) it is crappy batting. Good enough for charity quilts, I suppose. Can’t buy a roll right now (at least one that I can afford) and you can be darn sure I will never, ever not open things up when I get them to make sure it is the right thing. I also need to go over to Walmart site and do a review.

More later, until then, KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING!

Wouldn’t have thought that I would be posting this week, as we are on vacation, but Hurricane Sally had different ideas and we decided it was wise to leave the beach yesterday, in case of tornadoes, power outages, high water preventing us from heading home on Friday as planned. So, I quick call to the hotel in Athen, AL where we stayed on the say down and were planning on Friday night here on the way back, along with confirmation that the PCB hotel wouldn’t charge us for the rest of the week (although that in itself would probably not have kept us from leaving). We arrived here (Athens) about 7 pm yesterday. We aren’t going to stay busy while here, but neither of us was ready to end the vacation.

It looks like PCB had flooding (not sure about power outages) and they remain under a State of Emergency. Our favorite restaurant was closed today and hoping to be open again tomorrow. All in all, leaving after having been there less than 48 hours was a good call. More later, after I get home and get back to “normal”.

Until then, KEEP CALM, KEEP PRAYING AND KEEP QUILTING.

I am slowly working my way through the last of the charity quilts (I received 20 tops in various sizes). I also took the time to put together 2 60X80 quilt tops that will go to Lutheran World Relief (along with one of the 20 above). I cut up 48 fat quarters to make the two tops and then cut up what was left of the fat quarters to do a scrappy binding when I am finished. I will post pictures when I get done. I have 3 of the 20 tops that are quilted and am currently working on binding. As soon as the binding is done, I am going to switch gears and work on my “Not my Granny’s Flower Garden quilt so I will have something to work on when I got to the Waverly Festival in 3 weeks.

Fingers crossed, the plan is for me and John to leave a week from today for a week on the beach! Long, long, long overdue. We haven’t been to the beach since May 2018 right after we both retired. We had tentatively planned to go in May but with COVID, things were really crazy, still are but he said as long as the hotels, restaurant (and beach) was open we were going.

I took a birthday day card and money to SIL yesterday and was thinking that I haven’t seen my daughter or her two (grands) since the middle of March, so almost 6 months. That is just crazy.

We will go to Jeremy’s again this week on Wednesday to do home schooling with Cora. This is week four. We will miss week 5 and then (hopefully) only have 4 more weeks to do this (fingers crossed).

Not much else going on. My mom is slowly slipping away and has been angry again recently because we have locked a door at the top of the basement stairs to keep her off of them and she thinks we are treating her like a 5 year old and it is her house. What a barrel full of monkeys.

Until the next time — Keep Calm, Keep Praying and Keep Quilting!