ONLY 82 MORE TO GO!!

I've been working on a Christmas quilt again. Last weekend I received a Christmas card in the mail. Yes, you read that correctly. A friend lives in the northeast and there is a radio station which has a Christmas in July celebration each year. Right around July 25th I received the card and was directed to "do something cool" in honor of the winter celebration. Since there was no snow for a snowball fight, nor frozen pond for ice skating (although if I'd wanted to fork over some hard earned cash I could have rented skates at the Galleria for a spin around the giant rink), I settled for sewing on a Christmas project. Here is the progress report....

Lots and lots of these.....

...turned into some of these.

Piles and piles of these (plus piles of green and piles of red)......

...turned into these.

And when I finish making 82 more of the blocks above, I can sew it all together and get this:

Or not.

Until I have more to share.....

LIKE OLD TIMES.....

Today has been a day like old times. I've pretty much done nothing but sew and cook all day. I suspect there is a reason for all these stress-relieving activities, although I am not sure I can pinpoint a cause. All I know is that I am in a grumpy mood and don't feel like being around other people. I don't suppose the fact that the temperature is hovering above 100 degrees for the past several days with promises to continue to do so for the foreseeable future has anything to do with it!! Never!!! Like someone said to me.... I've been living here for 42 years. You'd think I would be used to this heat by now. I find the opposite to be true. The older I get the less tolerant I am of this sweltering hot spot.

My solution to combating the heat is to stay in the air conditioning unless it is absolutely necessary to venture outdoors.

I went to take pictures of my progress on the blocks I am sewing.... the camera battery needed to be charged. Cancel that idea!! That means the next time I share a pictorial progress report it will look like I have really been ambitious.

Now the secret.... someone dear to me is going out of town for the next week or so. We've not been apart for more than a day or two for the past couple of years. I am feeling very unsettled, out-of-sorts, and insecure about this. It is driving me nuts that I am being so emotional about it.

Yes, sewing and cooking are good stress relievers.

Until this passes........

THIS AND THAT... AND A LITTLE MORE

It is HOT HOT HOT outside lately. Shouldn't come as any surprise since this *is* Texas in summer, but just once I'd like to wake up some morning and hear the high today was only headed to 70... or even 80 would be a relief. But no.....

So I stayed in the air conditioning doing some sewing projects. The picture below is further progress on a king-size Christmas quilt. I am running out of space to spread the thing out for pictures...unless I start moving furniture. At the present stage, it measures 68" square and will eventually be 109" square! Please forgive the lousy picture. I thought I had the camera on auto-focus and instead it was on manual focus.


The mail finally arrived... and included was the Month 2 Mystery Block-of-the-Month I am doing with several other blogger friends. I was glad to see it since it was only coming from South Texas and had been notified a full week ago that it had been sent. I never dreamed it would take an entire week to travel about 300 miles! But the block arrived and I can quit worrying. I sewed it together after I worked on the quilt shown above.

Here is a picture of the first 2 blocks side by side. I really like the colors and the sense of festive holiday they exude.

So now I am ready to proceed with more of my in-progress projects. This afternoon I had a notion that I'd really like to make an autumn pumpkin pattern I've been meaning to do for several years. I have all the supplies.... now to find the motivation.

Until I decide what to do......

WE SET OUT ON AN ADVENTURE THIS MORNING.....

We got in the truck and headed west, young man! First we stopped at Whataburger for breakfast. Then we put liquid gold (aka gasoline) in the tank. We got on the highway to Fort Worth and saw a few sights. You know you are getting close to Fort Worth when you pass Six Flags Over Texas amusement park (well at least if you are driving west from Dallas).



Another sight that will soon be considered synonymous with Dallas-Fort Worth is the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium currently under construction.


After a few more miles we are on the other side of Fort Worth. (Fort Worth is very small compared to Dallas) and we arrive at our destination: The Annual Parker County Peach Festival. (Parker County is immediately west and adjacent to Tarrant County, the county in which Fort Worth, Texas is contained.)


Yet another stately, grand old County Courthouse. This is Weatherford, Texas.... the county seat of Parker County, Texas.

This is the S O U T H, baby..... some of the old die-hards (aka Confederate Sons of America) spend a great deal of time, money, and effort re-enacting famous battles of the Civil War as historically accurate as possible. They use authentic weapons of the era and wear replica uniforms. The canon on display was made in 1846.

It always amazes me. Literally as soon as you are west of the Fort Worth city limits, you start seeing things more indicative of arid west Texas. All of the sudden, practically out of no where, there is cactus growing at every turn.

....and no PEACH FESTIVAL would be "official" without some..... you guessed it......

We had peach cobbler, peach ice cream, peach lemonade, peach smoothies, peach slush, and peach julep. And if that wasn't enough, we bought some to take home! Ross requested p e a c h e s!

Until I get re-acclimated to the coolness of the air conditioning.....

SOMEONE NOTICED!!

My seventeen year old son came into the room, walked up behind the chair at which I was sitting, put his arms around my neck and said, "What is wrong, Mom? You are sewing and you haven't done any sewing in forever." I smiled at this, giving him credit for an astute observation. Venturing into territory which I had not exactly wanted to psychologically explore.... let alone verbalize aloud, I explained the reason I was staying at home and he accepted the explanation without further comment. That was the extent of his clever acuity. He was out the door on his way to the pool. But at least someone noticed that I was in a different "mode".

The proof -- This is the messy cutting table.




The result of sitting at the sewing machine looks like this. These are the rows of small churn dash blocks which go around the perimeter of the center medallion:

And this is the result of my diligence this afternoon:

Now I am ready to proceed with the next "round" of blocks to go on this center medallion. (The final result will have this large square set on point.)

Depending on my mood, I might easily sit here sewing the entire weekend. We are supposed to go to a Peach Festival a couple of counties away, but the weather is just too dang hot to really want to venture far from the air conditioning.

Until I decide what to do......