A Winner and A Flimsy Start

Before saying another word, I need to tell you how very much I loved reading the stories you all wrote about your start in quilting. Many of them were quite touching, and brought back memories of my own grandmother and her quilts. Thank you for sharing so freely. And now, I need to announce the winner of the book, Our Family Quilt. Thanks go to the book's author Rhonda Cratty for generously agreeing to sponsor this giveaway. Mr. Random number generator chose

#6--Sarah

as the lucky winner. Sarah, I've written you an email, so check your inbox. 

Yesterday was supposed to be an NBS day (Nothing But Sewing). Instead, I ended up typing endless recipes into my database. You might remember that I keep a database of the new recipes worth keeping. It's a pretty good program, and it's searchable. It's particularly helpful with the CSA veggies because I can search for a particular ingredient and come up with a list of recipes I've tried that include that ingredient. When I started with it, I was on the 7th version. Recently, I updated to Version 15.

Version 15 came with a year's subscription to their website, which means I can also find my recipes in my online account. It hasn't worked very well, and so I doubt I'll extend my membership beyond the free year, but I'm not ruling it out either. Once the Resident Engineer quits getting distracted with an actual job, I might hire him to fix my technical problems. I wonder if he'd take payment in bread.

So, anyway...I try so many recipes, and they start to stack up on my desk for entry. 

A few weeks ago, I had about 40 recipes stacked up. And since there's a new one tried nearly every day, they just keep stacking up. Finally, I decided I couldn't take the virtual pressure any more, and so I started typing. I'm down to the last four now. And all of that to say that I probably spent about two hours just typing recipes into my database before making it into the sewing room. Maybe today I'll get caught up on them. Possibly this message from the selvage edge is speaking to me in my quest to tame the recipes.

When I finally got into the sewing room, I went to work cutting out 167 little 2 1/2-inch squares for the sashings and cornerstones. When they were cut, I went to work sewing them onto the blocks. I like to work with each block individually and then sew the blocks together, rather than sewing a long line of little squares together first. Since I don't like pinning, I try to keep the mileage on any given piece short. Also, I kind of wanted to see how the fabrics were going to look framing the block. Here's the first one. It's only sashed on two sides.

And it looked okay to me, and so I sewed the first row together. Cute, huh?

What about me? Do you think I'm cute too?

Not too long after that, I had two rows sewn together, and that's where I left it for the day.

For this, I had plenty of help from my "Cat of Darkness." Even with fill flash, I couldn't get enough light on her little furry face to light her up. I can only think she absorbs the light. 

Speaking of the Cat of Darkness, I wanted to tell you a little story about our very first cat, Benjamin. Here's a picture of Benjamin when we were living in Phoenix. That's his sister cat, Peanut, there in the background. She was a stray who kept showing up at our glass door and looking adorable until we couldn't take it any more and let her inside. We're kind of soft-headed...er, soft-hearted that way.

When Benjamin was a kitten, his favorite game was a ping pong ball in the bathtub. He actually shredded our plastic shower curtain playing ping pong ball in the bathtub. We've had a lot of cats since Benjamin; namely, Peanut, Tom, Willy I, Willy II, Katie, Tabby, George, Gracie, Smitty, Maggie, and Sadie. In all those cats, not a single one would play ping pong ball in the bathtub, and this caused Mike no end of sadness. Until now. 

Sadie is the first cat who has discovered the joys of a ping pong ball in the bathtub. A ping pong ball has resided in our various bathtubs for decades. Finally, a cat will play with it. As you might guess, Mike is overcome with love and affection for this Cat of Darkness.

You can rest easy knowing that the Resident Engineer has dried his tears over the many years of ping-pong-ball-in-the-bathtub-of-neglect.

So today's agenda is to get the rest of those blocks sewn together. Also, I've got another sourdough starter going. The last loaf of bread was so good, that I need to bake another right away. Possibly, just possibly, I can use it to bribe the Resident Engineer to work on some of my technical woes.