Thankful Thursday, full story of library project

   Current US COVID-19 deaths:  184,927

    Yesterday:  183,677

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Have you heard of thankful Thursdays?  Here's mine for this week:

1. I am so thankful that for the last few days there have been long periods of time when I did not think about the fact that I had a hip replacement 7 weeks ago!  

2. I am so thankful that it seems like my sleep has settled down and I am getting some good zzz…zzz…zzz… 

3. I am so thankful for a husband who has NEVER ONCE acted irritated or annoyed during the last 7 weeks as he took care of me every minute.  

4. I am so thankful for friends and acquaintances who have let me know that they have been thinking about and praying for me.  And who have been happy for each of my small successes as I healed.  

5. I am so thankful for my furry friends (Cookie, Lucy, Ethel) who allow me to pick them up and nuzzle them when I am feeling blue. 

Another excellent night of deep sleep….YAY!!  I didn’t get up until after 7 AM on Thursday (8/27), and spent a few hours getting my regular morning stuff done (emails, blog, brain puzzles) before diving back into my new project.  My goal for today is to set up the program and kick off quilting on the tree skirt, and to get all of my fabric cut for the new wall hanging.  So, here’s the story on the new wall hanging.  I have wanted to make a quilt for our Del Webb library for a long time…and have been collecting embroideries about reading for a long time…but I never thought the head librarian here would go for it (right or wrong, some interactions have led me into thinking that  :~).  Our library is closed now for renovation, and so I had gone to the Lancaster library to pick up books a couple of times (pre-surgery).  The Lancaster library is also in temporary quarters and while picking up my books once, I noticed this big, empty wall…with a water stain or a crack or something ugly looking and I remember thinking ‘‘a quilt would look really nice there and also cover up that mark’’.  Last Sunday Connie texted me that she would be going to the library on Monday and would be happy to pick up books for me if I needed them.  I started telling her what I had noticed, and asked if she could measure the wall to see how big a quilt would be needed to cover up all of the wall damage.  She said ‘‘wouldn’t you need permission to hang something?’’  Of course I would, and luckily it turns out Connie is well acquainted and connected with everyone at that library, and she volunteered to be my ‘manager’ and get permission for a quilt and voila…..I’m now making one and I could NOT be more thrilled!!!  I think the head librarian at Lancaster is thrilled as well.  

So, I knew I was doing embroideries and I cycled through several sashing/border ideas, with some help from a fellow quilter (thanks Susie!!!)  But, when I eventually found out the wall hanging needed to by 60’’ by 60’’, sashing no longer seemed viable.  I needed to put in 10’’ separator blocks if I didn’t want this wall hanging to take 6 months to complete!  First I thought about doing crumb blocks, then I moved on to thinking about blocks from the ’Loree’ quilt, then I moved on to log cabin blocks, then I moved onto wonky log cabin….but FINALLY I settled on what I thought would be perfect (you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how they go together):  

When Connie was here for retreat day, I drew out a schematic of the quilt: 

and we semi-finalized which embroideries we wanted to include (see that teeny, tiny writing):  

So, those are my 'directions' for the quilt  :~).  I say ‘semi-finalized’ because some of the embroideries need to be tweaked a little and I am not yet sure that can happen.  But in the meantime I have PLENTY to work on.  

I took the sample string block and measured how long each color should be and noted that: 

and continued my cutting:  

Paula swung by around 1 PM with a rotisserie chicken from COSTCO, and her own already picked carcass.  Within 25 minutes of her leaving, my own carcass was picked and both carcasses (carcassi??) were in the crockpot along with some herbs, cooking down into stock.  

I spent the afternoon and a good part of the evening (Michael wanted to finished the season of YELLOWSTONE), quilting away (there are tiny snowflakes in Julie's tone-on-tone white, so she piced a snowflake pattern): 

and getting another embroidery done:

and working on my setting blocks for the library wall hanging:  

I got 8 of them almost completed before heading upstairs at 9 PM to collapse!  

I headed to the kitchen becuase I wanted to turn over all of the bones in the crockpot to continue cooking overnight, and that's when disaster struck!  My crockpot was not hot AT ALL!!!  Sometime between 1 PM and 9 PM, it just quit working....I am BEREFT!!!  I have NOT wanted to buy a new crockpot ever since I read an article YEARS ago that the government got involved, decided that crockpots were not hot enough, and made the manufacturers up the temperatues.  People started complaining that stuff they had cooked for years was suddenly burning  :~(.  But, I guess I have no choice....I really use my crockpot and can't do without.  Luckily last night, I quickly called Paula and ran down there in the golf cart...and she gave me her crockpot as a loaner.

A word from Jimmy Stewart’s daughter:  Kelly Stewart Harcourt, daughter of late actor Jimmy Stewart, lambasted a speaker at the Republican National Convention for comparing President Donald Trump to the mild-mannered character her father played in the classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  “In her speech at the G.O.P. convention Monday night, Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor, made reference to the film ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ comparing Donald Trump to George Bailey, the main character in the film, played by my father, Jimmy Stewart,” Harcourt wrote in a letter to the New York Times published Thursday.  She went on, “Given that this beloved American classic is about decency, compassion, sacrifice and a fight against corruption, our family considers Ms. Harp’s analogy to be the height of hypocrisy and dishonesty.”  

And a FB funny:  I started jogging yesterday…..I didn’t want to, but the margarita truck wouldn’t stop!