Making Progress

The T-shirt quilt is coming along slowly. 

I managed to get each piece ironed on to the stabilizer and trimmed. A couple of the shirts were tanks, so there were big armholes I'm having to work around. Others don't take up enough of the block, so I'll be trimming them and adding something. I might need something like a strip of cloth or triangles over the corners, but I'll figure it out. There were some leftover motifs I can add. I just don't want to sew T-shirt with stabilizer to more T-shirt with stabilizer, as I think it will make a thick seam. I plan to use quilting cotton strips between the pieces of T-shirt material.

Parker's sweater is coming along, too. The body is done, and I'm halfway done with the sleeves. Matching the stripes on the second sleeve will be a challenge, but I'm going to give it a try. The pattern is Bright Lights.

I've signed up for the 2022 Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knit Along. I'm supposed to pick out two fingering-weight yarns having good contrast between them, although one of them can be a variegated or speckled yarn. We get our first clue January 5th, then once a week through February 2nd. The Yarn Crawl will be February 24-27th, and I hope to go up to Beaverton to participate in person.

Remember my green onions from last week? They're making progress, too. All of the green part is new growth since I cut the onions and placed them in filtered water. I haven't cut any yet, but probably will harvest for salad this week. (To find out more about what I did to get the ends of the onion to grow and to see how much progress they have made, see last week's blog post.)

The Wisconsin grandkids got their Covid and flu shots, as you can see:

They waited until Tuesday, because Daphne was performing in the ballet last weekend. It could have made her sick. (It didn't.) They didn't have to rush, though, because both of the kids have had Covid recently enough to still have immunity.

The parents had their scheduled for Friday, so they would have the weekend to recover. Everyone is doing well.

We're getting ready for a quiet Thanksgiving here. DH got a turkey breast for himself, which we will also bring out at Christmas. I'm having this.

We decided against driving up to Beaverton for Thanksgiving and attending a big celebration with about 13 other people, partly because we're still uncertain about how the pandemic is going and Rocky needs so much supervision now, because he can't see where he's going. When he gets up, someone actually needs to carry him to the door when he wakes up or has finished eating, so he doesn't have an accident while he's looking for the way out. We wouldn't be able to leave him alone for several hours. I have to get up very early to take him out, too, so I wouldn't get enough sleep. I'm really glad he doesn't weigh 53 lbs., like his predecessor.

In case you wonder what a quilter does with a real turkey, I post this just about every year:

Just a reminder that we have a lot of people in this country who are living on the streets, many without a reliable source of food. We keep a packet of food in the car, in case we encounter someone who needs it. We include whatever we can scrape together from these things:

Canned vegetables, tuna, beans

Can opener (Walmart has them for under $1)

Individually wrapped crackers, granola bars, raisins, etc.

Plastic cutlery, paper towel or napkin

Space blanket, especially in winter

Toothbrush, dental floss, toothpaste, mouthwash samples (from the dentist or the airlines)

Hand sanitizer, soap

A list of soup kitchens, homeless shelters or other useful information you might need if you are living on the street.

I hear they also like to get clean socks.

(Another advantage: If you get stuck somewhere in your car, you will be all set to survive. When we were moving to Bend, we left our Utah house for the last time late at night. We had accidentally left our food in the storage unit, which was closed, because it was after hours. We had no food in the trailer yet. We had a car problem so could not drive to the store. We were homeless, so we got our homeless packet from the car. We didn't starve. All we missed was a bottle of wine. I wonder what the pairing with peanut butter crackers, tuna, mixed veggies and baked beans would be?)

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Parker's sweater.

What's on my loom: STILL the trailer rugs. No progress this week, but I do want to finish the warp before the kids come for Christmas.

What's on my sewing machine: Still its cover.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole cloth quilt. A little more done on it..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "Homework? What Homework?" Pippa learns how to be a better student from Mariah.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished listening to Wildwood by Colin Meloy on the Audible app. As I write this, I haven't decided wish of my many books in my two libraries to listen to next.

What's in my wine glass: Are Vivendi Langhe Rosso 2018. Delightful. It's a blend of Barbera and Nebbiolo, two grapes that complement each other.

What's my tip of the week: If you only need to use half an avocado, leave the pit in place and store the rest of the avocado with the pit in a plastic bag. The pit will help keep the avocado from turning dark so quickly. You can also put the avocado pit into guacamole to slow down the darkening.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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