A New Day

Today I'm determined to turn the page on the basement problem and focus on our upcoming trip. Slowly, I've been able to turn my bad attitude around with some cutesy animal photos I found on Facebook. This one...

and later, this one.

Our contractor has promised us he'll send a crew tomorrow to move our furniture back into the house. Also, Erik and Matthew have stepped up and offered to help on Friday if our lying contractor is still lying. It could go either way, but I'm telling myself the contractor wouldn't lie to us again. Would he? Nah. Either way, knowing we have a back-up plan has gone a long way to improving my mood from yesterday as well. Also, there's this:

Let's just talk about my vacation mood for a minute. Smitty and Sadie are house-bound now, and they aren't happy about it. With Sadie being so squirrely lately, we decided it was wise to keep them both on a tight leash. As usual, Smitty is letting Sadie do all the whining while he relaxes.

She's sure there's been some terrible mistake.

Smitty has the right idea. He knows that when the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

With my sewing room out of commission, I've been gnashing my teeth trying to decide how I could possibly meet the next "reveal" for The Endeavourers art quilt group. The new prompt has been announced. I can thank (and curse) my friend Wendy for this submission:

Never heard of it before? Neither had I. It means "a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style." Here is an example I found on the internet:

 

(Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zeimusu)

It made me think of one of the Project Quilting prompts from some years back..."Abecedarius." That was a new word to me then too. It means "of or relating to the alphabet." This was my quilt:

This new prompt, "Boustrophedon," would be difficult enough, but I have no expectation of being back in my sewing room by the reveal date of November 1st. So, what to do? What to do? Someone suggested this might be a quilt done with hand-stitching, and that gave me an idea. 

Yesterday, I picked through my bins stacked and piled together in our garage, and pulled out a couple of fabrics. My light box lives in a living room closet, and so I spent some time tracing out a project for hand-stitching. You only get a peek for now. If it appears to be a project all in black and white...well, that's a good guess.

And it's ready in just a nick of time because I've finished the piece I'm working on for Pieces of the Past. This is one of the panels for the center of the quilt. Sorry about the wrinkles. My iron is not within my reach.

Finishing this piece was my goal for August's

and so I'll be linking up there at the end of the month.

Okay, so today we're doing some grocery shopping, and then packing for our trip will begin in earnest. I won't be able to do everything, but I can get a good start on it. Of course, I'll take some time this morning to start on my newest challenge piece. Fortunately our weather has cooled off again, and it's overcast outside. It's much better packing weather. Mike has been working hard to get the trailer in top condition for the many miles of travel ahead. I'm looking forward to getting on our way and leaving our basement behind.