This and That

Sorry I've been so lax in blogging these last two weeks; I've been doing mostly quilty things. I'm co-leader of our area, (a small group within the larger guild) and was busy getting activities ready for that. We played Quilt Bingo for the second month in a row; seems the ladies really liked that. Here is a brief summary of the rules, and how to sew the bingo "card": http://www.smokymtnquilters.com/Bingo.htm. (There's also a photo of one of the cards in the column on the left.)

Fons and Porter has a download to print the calling cards on business cards from office supply stores, and that worked really well. Then we take the bingo "cards" and sew them together to make a community quilt. The ladies made 41 cards all total, 12" square. I'm thinking of doing assembling 20 in each quilt, (yes, the perks of being co-leader)4 x 5, with sashing, which will make nice sized lap quilts. We've donated some lap quilts to the VA hospital, who use them as bingo prizes for the patients, so that's where these will probably go.

In addition, no one signed up for the Block of the Month for Aug, so I did a quick demo for string quilts. Most of these ladies have been quilting far longer than I, but there are some newbies in the group, and sometimes a refresher is helpful. As I had signed up for refreshments, too, I was beginning to feel like a one-woman show!

I started a string quilt a couple of weeks ago myself, which will go to one of the local oncology offices for their chemo patients, along with that brown/beige scrappy quilt I blogged about earlier. Now DD wants a scrappy sofa quilt in autumn colors. Can't decide whether to do a Wicked Easy quilt, or a string quilt for her, too. Either one will work up pretty quickly.

I have about 4 quilt tops in various sizes ready to be sandwiched and quilted, but the only place in my house large enough to spread them out to do that is in my bedroom floor--and getting down on my knees, and getting up again, is still difficult, even though my injury was almost 3 months ago. So I just keep churning out the tops. My little Kenmore just purrs since she was serviced, and sewing is a pleasure again.

Besides that, I got a long-postponed eye exam this week. I really hate having my eyes dilated, but I have to admit it wasn't so bad this time, and it was by far the most thorough eye exam I've ever had. The optometrist told me as we get older, the eye develops more layers of epithelial cells, making the eye thicker--which makes most people farsighted as they age. For us nearsighted folks, our vision actually gets better--which means my current bifocals are way too strong. Okay, I'm aging, but it's nice to learn that some part of my body is actually improving with age! Then again, it means it will be easier to see bad hair days, extra pounds on my butt, wrinkles and age spots.

DD is home for a few days until the rental house in her new town is finished. Just as well, as she is suffering from sciatica after all the lifting and moving, and then the long hours on planes and in cars during her visits to friends this month. Poor thing keeps saying, "But I'm just barely 29!! My body isn't supposed to do this!". Welcome to adulthood, baby. So she's alternating the heating pad with ice packs, taking ibuprofen around the clock, and hanging out on the sofa a lot. I'm really sorry she's in such pain during her free time.

It's kind of nice that she needs her mom, though.