A Fun Week

Wow, this week just sped by! It was full of family and fun, exercise, sewing, yard work and so much more.

London and her mom, Heather

On Saturday I went with my DGD London (my DS Shane’s daughter) and her mom Heather to Wheeler Farm for an Easter Egg Hunt. I have experienced my share of Egg Hunts in the past, both as a mom of three kids and as a mall marketing director for 9 years. Plus, I worked at Wheeler Farm for 4 years, and we had Hunts then too. But I’ve never been to one that was so well organized as this year’s hunt!

The kids were separated at pre-registration by age and parental preference of Hunt in the Woods or Hunt on the Grass (for the younger ages). The different groups staged in different areas and were then further split up and led into different sections of the woods (the farm is about 75 acres) by guides.

Everyone got the “Let’s be kind and share” lecture so that no child would go without. The kids were just great about this! The eggs were empty, and once the kids got their allotment, they helped other kids. When it was all done, they turned in their eggs back at the barn and got a full Easter basket of prizes, candy, a stuffed bunny and other toys and coupons. What a deal!

London was in the last group of the day and they didn't have any egg limits. In fact, they were asked to help out the Easter Bunny by finding all the eggs they could (and to share, of course) so that he wouldn’t have as much work later. We parents and grandparents further helped out by gathering and bringing out any plastic eggs that had been smashed by over-anxious kids!  Anyway, it was really fun to walk all over and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. In fact, Bruce and I went back on Monday and walked the entire farm again by ourselves. We also visited all the new baby lambs and goats.

On Tuesday I hemmed up some flannel receiving blankets for one of my neighbors who will be going to Uganda with a local radio station. They go twice yearly and bring these blankets to the villages so the babies don’t have to be taken home swaddled in newspapers. The Riley Blake company, which is local, donates quite a bit of flannel, and I hemmed up a bolt of the blue chevrons and then added some of my own. This pictures shows some of them.

I got some more sewing time on Wednesday and worked on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. This month is yellow.  First I did three Linked Squares blocks, which will finish at 16” each. I need a total of 20 and now have 11 finished.

Next were six 4” (finished) bowties.  I only need 32 more - a few of each of the remaining RSC colors. This project will continue on...

And finally I finished up 10  selvage blocks in yellow. They will be 6” finished. No plans yet other than to clean out my selvages!!  :-)

I still have lots more yellow blocks for the next few weeks: birds, Squared Away sampler blocks, quarter log cabins, and crumb blocks. Plus, I’ve started my daughter’s “Love is All You Need” medallion quilt. The tough part was all the quilty math to figure out the various rounds - no small task because she wants a rectangular rather than a square quilt. So, I worked out the numbers and designs on paper, pulled the fabrics and have gotten started. I’ll share more about this in a week or two. But I will be making certain blocks as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month coincides with one of the colors in the quilt (mostly yellow, pink, turquoise, blue, black and white and some orange).

My final sewing goal for this week was to get my Geese Migration blocks sewn into a flimsy. That happened yesterday. Excuse the wonky picture. As usual, I pin the top on the design board and let the rest fall freely, so the bottom part is not taut. But it is even, I promise!

I am so tickled at how this is turning out! I still have to whip up a backing from some of fabrics. I’m going with green because I found a 3-yard piece and another 1+ yard piece in those colors that will work. The binding will be the same gray fabric.

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We finally got our new car this week. We’ve been waiting for two weeks, and our new Toyota RAV4 Hybrid finally came in and got its windows tinted. It was ready for us on Thursday. I borrowed this picture from the Toyota website (I hope they don’t mind), as our new baby is exactly this color - Electric Storm Blue.

We love our Toyotas! We sold Bruce’s Tundra and traded in my Prius and are now just a one-car family. This car’s controls are very similar to my Prius, but the visibility and some of the newer features (back-up camera) are superior. My favorite thing is how well it fits me. It’s so solid and tight and ..... geez, I sound like a commercial. Sorry, but I just love it. We always give our cars names (please tell me we are not the only ones who do this! Bruce’s Tundra was Elwood and my Prius was Penelope), but we haven’t named this one yet....

And now I’ll switch gears (pun intended) for the final time. This week Darla learned how to wind a bobbin. And she is definitely a southpaw!

Hey, I’m the Supervisor, not the Bobbin-Winder!

If she thinks I’m going to sew those batting scraps together when the bobbins are done, she’s got another thing coming....