Ms Grundy again

So, can you see progress? I can only work on this in the daylight, because the dress is white, beige, pale gray, and cream on ecru.

These are the first three blocks (~16") for my granddaughter's cat quilt. Someday there will be little cat faces to match each cat.

I took 6 (only 6!!) of my husband's old work shirts. They had a logo, and his name and title embroidered on them. Since he's retired, he won't be using them, and he can't give them to a co-worker, either. This quilt top (sewn in columns, but rows not stitched yet) is the result. It is currently snuggle-sized, but will get larger - I still have plenty of fabric from the original 6 shirts - navy, khaki, 2 light blues, 2 dark greens...

I have seen that people are saving old thread on wooden spools.  They use the thread to make a shadowbox of memories of some ancestor they loved who used to sew . I still have some thread on wooden spools. But I won't be using the thread. Not because it is a memento of a loved one. Because I BOUGHT IT MYSELF. And if I haven't wanted something made in that color in 45 years, the chances are good that I won't want it now, either.

On May 4 1970, "they" did. The National guard - on the campus of Kent State University - 13 shot - 4 demonstrating students dead. Or maybe some of them demonstrating, some just there, caught at really the wrong place at the wrong time. A university name famous (infamous?) forever, "Kent State" refers to only one thing in the last 35 years: - 13 bodies on the pavement, bleeding. --for exercising their right - guaranteed by the constitution, to meet and to express their opinion. 67 shots fired in 13 seconds - 13 wounded - four dead Neil Young, of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young echoed the despair of a generation with the haunting echo "Four dead in Ohio." I was walking down the sidewalk after a class, when a friend approached me, all upset, angry, telling me about the shooting. I argued with her - "You must be mistaken. The students must have been doing SOMETHING. The guardsmen wouldn't have shot without a REASON." But I was wrong.  The...

Finally finished this yesterday - layering, binding, quilting. My quilting was minimal - kept thinking I needed to add more, but...

We live in the country - only a few houses surrounded by woods - deer, turkey, owls, foxes, possums, armadillos, and even a bald eagle or two in the winter time.  A spring-fed creek is just down the hill, and if you turn right, there is a small private park with a century-old partially-refurbished flour mill, picnic tables, a small bandstand with a cement dance floor. Used to be a favorite site for weddings, and some summers they have had music every Fri or Sat night. Trout are occasionally stocked in the creek, but the grandkids catch mostly little tiny sunears and crawdads.  When we lived in Massachusetts, we rented winter houses just a block from the beach. (In the summer, they are far too expensive - so we moved twice a year.) But the MA water never gets warm enough for swimming for this MO gal - even on July 4th it is icy. But we loved to hike around the beach, marshland, and an abandoned estate with grapes-gone-wild and a small pond with perch and bluegill....

I threw out an old pair of jeans - I've lost 18 lbs, but am still not a smaller size - officially. But my largest size pants are falling down on me, and some that are 2 sizes smaller almost fit 

in sewing circles, there's a thing called me-made-May, where you promise/swear to wear me-made items every day. It involves posting pictures on your blog with your fascinating outfits, and frequently, last-minute sewing of an item here and there to wear the next day.  Now, I don't want to sew new clothes, because I am finally losing, and don't know what size I will end up. But that's no problem - I have lots of smaller clothes in my closet to get into- many of them me-made.  And wearing me-made every day is not a problem - I wear only self-made panties - don't have any store-bought - but there's not going to be any pictures. Also, my favorite nightgown is me-made - a long- skirted heavy knit. But it is very faded and has some bleach spots... so no pictures. I used to have two of them, but I finally threw away the one my husband complained about - it had changed from blue and gray to mustard-colored from a bleach accident. And let me say that this night...