Totally random Saturday

The rest of the family is off visiting the Creation Museum in Northern KY this morning.  It is very peaceful here in the hacienda! 

I ended up having to bail on WW this morning because I spent the whole morning trying to get the children in a state fit to be seen in public.  I'm quitting the organization anyway but I wanted to go to the last couple of meetings just to have done it.

On his way out the door this morning, David ran under the table and somehow looped his arm through the shoulder strap of my purse.  Naturally, it was open and of course, everything started to come out in sloooow motion.  Likewise I was moving in slow mo and was trying to keep the guts of my purse inside the bag, even as it was streaming out through my fingers.  It irritated me greatly.  I realized that it is the perfect metaphor for my life right now.  I feel like my life is just falling out and falling apart and I can't work fast enough to keep the guts in.  Or something like that.

And while I was looking for images of spilling purses on the Internet, I found this picture of a coffin purse:

There's only one person in the world (well, maybe two) who I can think of who might want to carry a coffin purse.  Being the brain dead person that I am this morning, I was intrigued by the mirror.  I'd never thought of putting a mirror in a coffin.  Why would you do that?  I pondered it way longer than I should have until I realized that the thing is a purse.  It makes sense to have a mirror in a purse (although the sense of carrying a coffin purse is up to debate, I think).

Welcome to Tom and Justin, my latest subscribers!

I finally found the fabric that I'd been trying to hunt up to put together some of the 9-patch blocks that I received this year in my swap.  I think that the things are breeding in their little plastic bags!  I find them everywhere now.  I've got to get back to quilting so I can sew some of these babies up so they can stop reproducing themselves.  I mean, they're sweet and all, but there are only so many things I can do with them.

I would like to reproduce a quilt that my grandmother made.  It makes an interesting use of 9-patch blocks and yet is simple.  Here is the quilt (and my sweet Aragorn who was making overtures during the photo shoot):

It was much prettier before I had to wash it half a million times with OxyClean in an attempt to remove Chinese red ink with which the twins had bedaubed it liberally.  Upon more coherent thought, I should have just left it alone.  The ink remains but the colors in the quilt are rather faded.  It is also very warm and heavy because it has a hefty batt.  The girls and I are continually engaged in guerilla warfare over this quilt.  I love to sleep under it in the winter time because it's so heavy and it's so very very cold in my room.  They like it for the same reason except that it isn't cold in the room where they sleep.  I think I'll go hide it so I can have it tonight. 

Here is the basic block:

Please note the floral fabric in this block.  It is recycled curtains!  Definitely a no-no for today's quilter but Mamaw, having been raised in the Depression, would not think of actually buying specific fabric for quilting until she'd been doing it for a while.  I don't think any of the fabrics in this quilt are 100% cotton.  In fact, I suspect that the batt in this is an old blanket.  But I digress.

Here are a few blocks along with the red fabric that I finally found in my stash.  I discovered, much to my chagrin, that there isn't much red fabric.  I'm thinking that perhaps I'll make the triangle points that are bright pink in Mamaw's quilt with the red.  Maybe some kind of whitish homespun or shirting fabric for the floral pieces surrounding the nine-patch, then I don't know what for the light pink squares.  Any suggestions?

And before I do that, I have to finish those charity blocks and that dishcloth that is going to India on Monday.  I tried to knit on it yesterday but the places where the yarn slides were too raw.  I consulted with Friend Gina and she said that she never gets knitting calluses so my hands must be dry.  I need to get on that and get it finished.  Oh yeah, and entering grades, yada yada yada.  Hear that tinkling sound?  That's the sound of the guts of my life falling out again...