String Fever

Just a short post this week. We’ve been busy finalizing details on the kitchen remodel, filling out forms for the Veterans Administration (VA) and planning a fun day with Bruce’s daughter Stacy and her five kids. We haven’t seen the grandkids since before we moved from the old house (3 months ago), so we’re really looking forward to a fun day today of playing, swimming, walking (and collecting pinecones), eating and getting some pictures with them. 

In sewing, this week was all about sewing string blocks from my blue scraps. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for June is all the blues. 

Here were my blue strings at the beginning of the month. I should’ve taken them out of their piles and spread them out more for a better depiction of the quantity.

And here is the “after” picture with the 56 blocks (to finish at 6”) I made from them, plus the leftovers. 

I’ll use the 56 blocks to make a quilt that is 7 blocks across by 8 blocks down for a finished size of 42x48” - a good sized kid quilt. 

At our Weight Watchers workshop last Tuesday, someone said that MaryEllen (right, in pic below) and I (left in pic below) looked like twins with our curly gray hair. HA! So we had to have our pic taken. Of course, we look nothing alike (and I adore her!) Her hair is naturally curly and my curls come from a curling iron and wilt quickly in the heat! 

That’s all for this week! Next week I’ll be sharing some information I’ve been putting off for awhile (this is mentioned more to remind myself to write about it than to be coy). We’re still gathering information and will be ready to share by next week). Hint: we are *not* going into Witness Protection, hahaha!! Have a great week!

Goals

I don’t know about you, but without goals in my life, I’d be rudderless. As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? That’s not only true for our lives in general, but for all the mileposts and events along the way. Now, I’m not going to get into life goals or religion or anything like that, but I am going to mention some of the “interim” goals I’ve set for myself over the last year or two. Are you a goal person? A list person? A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants person?  

But before that (and in case you’re only here for the sewing and quilting pictures, LOL), I’m going to share what I worked on in the studio this week.

First up, I basted two quilts and actually got one quilted, bound and labeled. It’s a small donation quilt for Quilts for Kids. The top was made from a kit in our last workshop (September), and I haven’t shown this before now.

The pattern, which I’ve seen in an old magazine, on the Missouri Star site and the Fat Quarter site - all named something different - starts with a charm square. To that you sew two random 2.5” scraps along one side and two longer ones across the top. The strips are kept in the same orientation for all blocks, and yields a block that is 9” (8.5” finished). The blocks are then turned around to different positions for the quilt top assembly.

So, this whipped up very quickly, and measures 38.5x46.5”. It’s the first quilt finish of my Fourth Quarter Finishing Frenzy, a personal sewing challenge.

Next I tackled the Christmas Stars quilt. My goal for the week was to sew 4 (of the 8 total) sections together. And I met my goal! Come to think of it, once I get the 8 sections together, there is still a row of single 8” stars (already made) to add to the very bottom edge to lengthen it, so I guess there are 9 sections. But anyway, here is a picture of the four finished sections hanging out and getting to know each other on the design board.

Yes, that right-most section is supposed to be 4” shorter; the section that will go beneath it will make up the difference. One thing you can’t tell unless you look closely (so, of course, you’re going to click on the picture and look closely, aren’t you? I knew it.....) is that although the Kona red background is the same throughout, it did come from two different bolts (read: same color, different dye lot). I’m thinking that even the Quilt Police won’t notice it once it’s quilted. 

And here is the same picture marked up to show the sections. “A” is on the left, “B" is top center, “C" is bottom center and “D" is on the right. My numbering lettering system is to help me retain my sanity. 

Please excuse all the weird lines and text as I learn to work with Markup on my iMac - not as intuitive as on my iPad. 

So, next week my goal is to finish the top; Sections E-H. I’ll get a picture at that time if I can. The above sections, roughly half of the quilt, take up the entire design board, so unless my friend Ruby is back from India and Nepal in time to be a quilt holder (she’s the only one except my neighbor Jason who is tall enough!), we may have to wait until it’s back from the quilter. More on that next week.

Before moving on to show you my string blocks sewn for the week, I want to share this tool with you and see if any of you use it or are familiar with it. It’s called a height compensator, and comes with Bernina machines. Do you have or use something similar? It’s three little plastic wedges held together by a screw that swivels, and you place it behind the needle (see picture) to help your machine get over “humps” in the seamline. You can use one, two or all three plastic pieces for varying thicknesses. With all the star points made of HST’s in this quilt, you can imagine that no matter which way you press the seams in a given block or row, sooner or later you will have to sew over 4 or more layers of fabric. Enter the height compensator.

Without it, the thread breaks or the machine stalls out or the fabric gets pushed into the feed dogs... In other words, this little tool is worth its weight in gold. You just sew up to the edge of the bump, stop, raise the foot and insert the height compensator behind the needle (it lifts the entire foot), and then resume sewing. Works slick as a whistle! You’re welcome!

Ok, here are 75 more string blocks from this week. The 75 from last week are the large pile at the top (back), and the other 5 piles are 15-block batches, as usual. I’ve sewn a few more than these, but since I group them in batches of 15, I just carry the leftovers into the next week. :-) You may remember that my goal for this fourth quarter is to sew 400 string blocks. 

Other goals accomplished this week: I ordered fabric for a quilt I’m planning for a friend who gave me an unbelievably generous gift a few weeks ago. It’s a story for another time. I’m hoping my fabric picks align with some of her favorite colors, because the name of the collection matches her first name. We shall see. Even if I have to select other colors, I already had a layer cake of this line and needed yardage for borders and backings, so I can always use that for another quilt. 

Bruce and I took a huge load of Stuff to the thrift store (in the rain, but hey - there were no lines to unload!). We got the arborist scheduled for our annual yard/tree pruning. And several pieces of furniture we need to unload have been claimed and taken. The Downsizing continues!!

Now, that’s all of the usual stuff; the rest relates to my weight loss and Weight Watchers, so if you’re uninterested in that, you are excused with thanks for visiting!! xo

*****************

It was 1975 (when I was 21 years old) that I joined Weight Watchers with my mom. I had all of 12 whole pounds to lose - and I did, gaining Lifetime Membership pretty easily. I kept it off, mostly. There were the natural ups and downs weight-wise of having three children, LOL. But I lost my lifetime status sometime in the ’90’s from eating too much and not exercising enough; working too hard in an office, feeding teenagers and making sure I got my share of the goodies. The idea of Not Being Invincible or Not Living Forever finally dawned on me around the turn of the century, in my mid-forties. A new prescription or health glitch here and a few pounds there and there..... you know how it goes. All that to say, my mid-life crisis was realizing I had to take care of my health. But diet and exercise/activity were on again, off again priorities.

Fast Forward to last year. After a bout of sciatica, I decided to finally get serious with my weight. I hated the idea of tracking what I ate, but it’s so easy now that there’s a phone app to handle it and lots of “free” - zero-point foods with low abuse potential like turkey, chicken, vegetables, fruits, all seafood, and beans.  I only have to track things like breads, dairy and fats that aren’t on the free list. What really changed my outlook about tracking was when our workshop leader Kris asked if we had a family budget to track our finances - money in and expenses out. Well, duh, of course! And then she asked us if our health was at least that important?? Bam! I was sold on tracking.

I’ve now recaptured my Lifetime Membership (free unlimited attendance). And the attendance at weekly workshops is necessary for me personally. It’s like a friend reunion, weight and health coaching workshop and a psychotherapy session with humor - all in one! I love all my WW friends. I still have about a pound to go to reach my original weight loss goal, but the app converted me to Lifetime status at 2 pounds over (because I recaptured it). Anyway, I want to lose another 11.5 pounds to get to a total of -75. That is my goal for this coming winter.  I hope you’ll be here to share in my periodic updates! Thanks for all your sweet support!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

A Quilt Finish, Garden Pix and a Weight Loss Tale

Oh, there’s so much to share with you this week! But first I want to thank you all for the kind comments and personal emails on my International Sisters quilt that I shared last week. I appreciate your kindness and support more than you could know. 

In this post, I’m going to start with my quilting and Rainbow Scrap progress for the week, continue with a few fun happenings from the week, some pictures from the garden, and finish with a relatively long (for a blog post) narration of my weight loss journey to date. Each section will be separated by ******** lines, so if you don’t want to read about them, you can choose to skip along. No hurt feelings on my part, LOL.

I finished sewing my red scraps for July for the RSC, and will link up as usual to Scrappy Saturday. Here are 10 crumb blocks that will finish at 6” each.

. 

Eight Split Nines blocks that will also finish at 6”. 

Additionally, I finished quilting Red Ribbons, but it still needs its binding, so that reveal will be next week.

I also basted five kid-sized community (group) quilts and have begun quilting those. These tops are donated to me through Jo’s Country Junction Community Quilts program. I provide the backing and quilting/binding, and get to donate them to my local Quilts for Kids chapter. Here’s a sneak peek of the pile I intend to finish and reveal in my next post.

But I did have one actual quilt finish this week. It’s the light blue scrap quilt from last month. Better late than never!

It finished at 44x58”, so it’s more of a youth size than a little kid size. The backing also helped me use up a lot of scraps and chunks, a double win.

*******************************

This week we had the opportunity to join my son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, plus her boyfriend  and a couple family friends to attend a Beatles tribute band (Rain) concert in downtown Salt Lake City. 

They were very good, and one could *almost* believe we had time traveled back to the Sixties, 

L-R: Granddaughter Lauren, boyfriend Graham, 2 family friends R and R, Daughter-in-law Kim, my son Ryan, me, Bruce 

The next day, my friend Ruby and I went to see Oppenheimer, the movie. The movie was long (3 hours), and I have to admit I felt a bit lost at first. But the story is tight and masterful, and the various pieces are skillfully woven together as it progresses and things become clear. The acting was a master class of talent. If Oppenheimer doesn’t win all the awards for acting, screen writing, directing, producing and sound editing/engineering, there is no justice in the world! 

*******************************

In the garden, the blackberries have started ripening. They are monsters, but very sweet ones! I’ve been freezing them and see a batch of blackberry jam and lots of yummy fruit salad in our future.

And here are a few photos from the front flower beds at the end of July. Yes, you’ll see weeds in the flower beds. Just keeping it real. I limit my weeding to once per week. 

Front planter under living room window

**************************

My Weight Loss Journey to Date

Last September 2022, early in the month, I had my first-ever bout of sciatica. At the time, I had gained back 20+ of my 35-pound pre-Covid weight loss. I was miserable physically and disgusted with myself overall. In the emergency room (the sciatica was that bad), they x-rayed my hip because I was sure that’s what it was - my bum hip. Well, it did show that I had extreme osteoarthritis in my left hip, but the pain itself radiated from the spine on the right side and was diagnosed as sciatica. 

I was determined that I was too young to feel that old, and embraced the physical therapy sessions with such gusto that I was released from physical therapy after three visits feeling much improved. Side note: I continue to do those core-strengthening exercises regularly. At the same time late last summer, I determined that it was now or never to get healthy. No more excuses; my health was and is too important. While I have been a Weight Watchers member on and off for most of my life (and continuously for the last 7-8 years), I re-dedicated myself to really working the program this time. It’s basically just healthy, common-sense eating. The workshops teach us everything from nutrition, to coping skills for various dining and family situations, and mindset adjustments. I’ll get into that more below. 

So, I was off and running, and by the end of the year had dropped another 15 pounds, in addition to the few I had previously managed to keep off, bringing me to approximately -25 pounds down at the start of 2023. I was fiercely determined to keep it going. 
Losing weight the right way is not fast. But think about it - we don’t gain it fast either. It usually just creeps on over the years. Good things take time, especially if your aim is to make it a lifestyle change. The time this journey is going to take me, whether weeks or months or years, is going to pass regardless of what goes in my mouth. So why not just take it slowly and steadily. I’ll get there. The weight loss wasn’t going to happen if I threw in the towel, so I just decided to keep going.

In February I shrunk out of most of my “jumbo” sizes and had to go shopping for some new things. I bought new season-spanning jeans and a couple tops. I reasoned that I was in interim sizing, so I didn’t want to invest a lot of money. So, Old Navy and Amazon to the rescue! I also started watching some select and carefully-screened fashion influencer You-Tube channels for women over 40 or 50. After being out of the workplace fashion loop for over a decade, and being retired, obese, frumpy and not really giving a hoot, it was fun to learn again how to dress to flatter my newly-emerging figure, put on makeup, and take care of myself with moisturizers, SPF, and other skin-care basics. I started taking an interest in ME, and it was eye-opening.

As moms and wives (and grandmas or caretakers - pick your hat) women are typically the last in line for our own attention. That was changing for me. It reminds me of the flight attendant admonitions on every flight to put your own mask on before you help others. Common sense. Self-care. To be sure, having a husband with an amputated arm who had to work hard to get his driver’s license back (independence, autonomy), to say nothing of all the adaptive things that go into everyday living, it was still very much on my to-do list to assist him. But he’s done it and is now independent again.

Throughout the winter, my mantra had been that I went into the winter as a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, and would emerge in the spring as a butterfly. Cute, eh? Screeeeetch!  First of all, here it is, mid-summer and I’m still metamorphosing. Thank goodness!

The analogy of my journey is better described not as a butterfly, but as an old space capsule re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. I picture myself as a passenger inside the capsule, being tossed and heaved by unseen forces, flames on the exterior, with a very hard splash landing in the ocean at the end. So much more apropos! I’ve had night sweats from Hell. Women store estrogen in fat, so as the fat melts off, the Days of Wine and Menopause return. Cue the estrogen therapy again. Previously plump skin is now looking decidedly crepe-ier. I moisturize, from the inside with loads of water-drinking and on the outside with 163 different moisturizers and skin care products (only a slight exaggeration, LOL). My taste buds have changed. I can barely stand artificial sweeteners now. And all of a sudden I like the taste of watermelon. But tea and cucumbers still make me gag.

Health-wise, my doctor is really pleased with me, too. He is totally an enthusiastic supporter of WW. I used to have to get cortisone shots in my knees every 4 1/2 -5 months, depending on how long I could tough out the pain. My most recent shots were at the beginning of July, fully ten (almost eleven) months from the last round. That’s progress. To date I’ve lost 57.6 pounds. Six more to goal, and then another 12 for good measure and to bring my total loss to 75 pounds. I’ll be in a healthy weight range and BMI, with all the attendant health benefits. My CPAP needs to be adjusted and serviced as it tends to overwhelm my smaller person. Sometimes I even sleep without it.

I’ve learned to like and respect myself and sometimes do a double take when I see my reflection in a window. I’m in in a position now to put my own needs first moving forward. I can do hard things, and I am strong physically, mentally and emotionally.  I will not go back. I feel some major changes coming in my life and I am so excited. Stay tuned. (And if you made it through this post, congrats and thank you!)

Happy Summer Days

Happy Saturday!  

The International Sisters quilt, which I dearly love, is finally finished and photographed! When my friend Ruby was over to sew last weekend (along with Cousin Kim), she happily agreed to be my quilt holder. She is way taller than Kim or me, and has one more arm than Bruce (wink). 

Without further ado, here are the “glamour” shots … and I use that term verrrrrry loosely. 

It was necessary to take the photos in the shade of a tree, so correcting the color to warm up the “blue” shade hopefully presents a more accurate color depiction. And if not, I think our brains can adapt. 

International Sisters is a free pattern drafted by my friend Preeti, who with permission from the original maker of a block called African Queen, used her talent to bring this lovely maiden to the masses. You can find Preeti’s post HERE.

The block name of International Sister was suggested by me, and Preeti thought it was a good fit. She had used so many varied fabrics for dresses, hats and skin tones, that these lovely ladies can easily represent our friends and sisters worldwide. In fact, as I was making these blocks, I named most of them. Names like Malala, Rosa, Coretta, Greta, Winnie. Come to think of it, Preeti and I are in there too. Hint: we’re the “twins” sporting Kaffe fabric.

Preeti also had several extra blocks with gray background colors that we both felt detracted from the Sisters. So when she sent those blocks to me, I carefully unpicked them and restitched them with the consistent Kona White I had been using. So my Sisters and some of Preeti’s Sisters are all chilling together. That makes me very happy!

Several of the Sisters are wearing African fabrics, and several are dressed in fabric donated by friends (thanks, Sally!) I quilted the white sections in a smaller stipple. The dresses were each quilted uniquely, and less densely to allow them to pop a bit. I had several close-up photos of some of the dresses, but they’ve disappeared from my photo gallery, so dang.  Finished size is 56x70”.

Here’s the back. These were some of the fabrics I bought while I was in Kenya about five years ago (at the same time Barack Obama was there!). I’d been saving it specifically for this quilt back. 

***********************

My sewing focus this week was on beating back my red strips. To that end, I sewed 54 red string blocks that will finish at 6”. 

In the bottom right corner are the blocks left over from last year, so I will have enough blocks total to put together four 15-block bundles for our Quilts for Kids kit assemblers to pair with other fabrics. 

Speaking of Quilts for Kids, our workshop last Saturday was so delightful. I can’t tell you how many sweet friends came up to tell me how “cute” and skinny I looked. And then when I went to the Nordstrom Anniversary sale, the sweet young personal stylist helping me kept saying “cute” too. Of course, she gets paid to be nice, right? But it made me wonder if “cute” is code for “sweet little old lady”. LOL. Oh, and it was near tear-inducing when I kept having to size down in the clothes I tried on. I now have a beautiful basic wool blazer in a single-digit size!  

Next week I’ll recap my July weight loss highlights, goals, medical benefits and, well, we’ll see…

But getting back to red, the July color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I also completed the top of my Red Ribbons quilt (a free pattern from Jordan Fabrics). It is perfectly square and flat, although pinning it to the design board (sideways) tends to distort it and make it look wonky. It’s not!

The backing is prepped, and I hope to spend today in a quilt-basting frenzy! There are at least 7 quilt tops that need to get layered up, and I’m going to put on some upbeat dancing music and see how many I can knock out in one afternoon! Wish you could be here joining in the fun! 

Quilting and Shoveling

The title of this post pretty much sums up my week. I could close now, but my guess is that you’re probably here for some pictures. 

Well, as far as the shoveling soil into the garden beds goes, I’d have pictures if the weather would cooperate. But the last two afternoons have turned stormy, and when thunder rumbles, I don’t stay outside. But I’m approaching the 2/3-done mark with the soil. But I did get a lovely picture of our flowering pear (ornamental) tree early in the week. Look at that brilliant blue sky!

Bruce has been getting all the drip lines installed in the veggie beds. It’s slower going when you only have one arm. Yesterday we went to one store and bought lots of necessary supplies for the watering systems, plus I got annuals for the flower pots, ground covers, rose gloves and new pruners and even a new bright blue glazed pot. Oh, and all the tomato and pepper starts. Next week we’ll visit our favorite nursery to pick up a new tree, a David Austen rose, and more perennial flowers and shrubs for the front flower beds. We’re approaching our budgeted spending limit, so I told Bruce I may have to pick up a babysitting job,  (wink!). I’m not always good about “unselecting” plants. Anyway, with a little luck and sunshine, we may actually have something to show next week. Or by the end of the month for sure…

May is for playing with our orange scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. My first order of business was to frame ten of these jungle blocks with orange.

All I have left now are the last ten blocks to frame with red, then I’ll have all 40 done (10 each in blue, green, orange and red), which is enough to do two kid quilts. 

I did layer up and quilt two scrappy finishes as well. Here is my scrappy green project from March, Creature from the Green Gulch (or was it green gully?) (whatever). Finished size: 39.5x48.5”.

As usual, lots of orphan blocks, partial blocks, scraps, strips and chunks were used in assembling this monstrosity cute little scrappy quilt.  Even the back used up its fair share of leftovers.

Here is Purple People (and Scrap) Eater (thanks, Judy!!):

And the back: 

Purple People Eater measures 41x48”.

These two scrappy quilts, along with 8 others from the last couple months, will be dropped off at our Quilts for Kids workshop today. I’m only staying for some of the workshop because we are having an early Mothers Day gathering and dinner out with some of the family. But my morning today will be spent helping out with the annual neighborhood cleanup. I’ve got a lot of green waste to dump - rose cuttings and branches that can’t be composted. 

I finally broke my weight plateau and managed to lose 2 pounds this week, for 47 total. I’m hoping to hit -50 pounds sometime in May. But if not, there’s always June! I just wish it would warm up so I could wear some of my cute new summer clothes!

Have a great week!

It’s a Jungle Out There!

 This week’s post is going to be short and sweet and lean on pictures. I just had so much going on, so much on my mind and (insert any random excuse here) that I don’t have too much to share. But watch out next week…

I did manage to sew backings for 5 quilt tops. All of these are Community Quilts sent to me by others to layer, quilt and bind. But in order to do that, I had to sew strips and chunks together for the backs. That was how I spent my Thursday (instead of pin basting them). 

It’s my goal to have these layered and at least 3-4 of them quilted and finished by next weekend. 

I did finish my Creature From the Pink Circus quilt. 

This was so much fun to put together. It used 8 orphan blocks, and lots of pink scraps made into Chaser blocks, a checkerboard strip, a width-of-quilt crumb strip and lots of strips and chunks. It’s happy and … and… I forgot to take its measurements or sew on a Quilts for Kids label. But I can do those today. My brain seemed to be focusing on other things this week…

I’ve been sticking to my Weight Watchers food plan and the pounds are coming off. I blew past the 40-lb lost mark (down 42). I had to go out shopping and buy some new jeans and a couple other necessities. Last week I used (ate) my daily points allotment, but very few of my weekly points, which allow us to cover more calorie-laden meals or occasional splurges. But I’m feeling I need to use more of those weeklies (in other words, eat a bit more) as I get hungry at times. Eating more to lose weight… what a concept! Anyway, I have another 21 pounds to go to reach goal, which I hope to reach sometime this summer. And then go another 10 pounds or so under that as a cushion. Even that will have me 20 pounds over what my original WW goal was when I was 21. But 40 years and three children (and my doctor) says that’s just fine!

The color of the month for March in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is green. I’ll be mixing all my greens - light, dark and bright - together for my blocks this month. 

First up was framing 10 more of these jungle blocks. Hence, the “jungle” referred to in the blog post title. I have 20 finished now, but I still want to add frames in red, orange and yellow. When all is said and done, I’ll have 50 blocks to make into two quilts.

In March I’ll also be assembling this quilt of Bear Paw blocks, which were one of my blocks from last year’s Rainbow Scrap challenge. This is the layout up on the design wall.

The pink strips are just pinned up there to demarcate the sections for assembly. I’ve barely started with the left column, top 4 blocks.  

It’s still snowy and cold here. I just had my annual mammogram (all is well). In the coming week we have our semi-annual dentist visit and cleaning, and the following week is my annual physical. The fun just never stops around here….

Pink February

Hi all! It’s been another fun and busy week, and I have a lot of pictures to show you. 

On Monday, I went out to lunch with my DDIL Kim. We dined lightly on soup and salad at Olive Garden, then went to one of our local fabric stores where she picked out the fabrics for a Christmas quilt that she asked me to make her and Ryan this year. Let me show you the fabric we got…

I can’t link to the inspiration quilt, but it was from a 2012 quilt-along from Sheila at Thought and Found, a blog that is no longer active. The pattern was called Oh My Stars!, not to be confused with Pat Sloan’s quilt of the same name. Anyway, I’ll basically be doing sawtooth stars in various sizes on a field of red. I’ll work on it throughout the year and give occasional updates.

I did finish a quilt for Quilts for Kids this week. 

This is the second of two quilts from a stack of blocks that I got from QFK a couple years ago. I had to unpick and re-sew four blocks to correct (glaring) errors.  The yellow floral border and the backing fabric are the last of  2 pieces from my stash. The finished quilt is 46x60”.

Then it was time to dig into my overflowing pink scrap bin. When the dust cleared, I had 15 Little Bricks blocks

Four of the Four-in-Nine blocks with gray

and 5 Chaser blocks.

The Chaser blocks will go into a “Creature” quilt later this month that I’ll cobble together from scraps, miscellaneous orphan blocks and roadkill to make a Frankenstein-esque quilt of some sort.

I also pulled some donated pink 16-patch blocks (from Catherine in NJ) and made some four-patch blocks from scraps to round out another quilt top.

On Wednesday I spent 2-3 very enjoyable hours layering and basting the next batch of four quilts to be quilted (while bebopping around the studio dancing to some great Motown vibes), all of which I plan to focus on next week.

My breaks from quilting next week will consist of sewing down these pink strings into 6.5” blocks. I’d like to get 30-36 total…

… and putting together his elephant quilt top.

On Tuesday, my Weight Watchers weigh-in show another 2 pound drop, which now puts me over the 35-pounds lost mark. I won’t bore you with the details every week, but will be noting (for myself if nobody else) every 5-pound incremental mark. And my sweet friend Ruby was back from her trip to Jordan and Egypt bearing gifts for the entire WW class. Because she is so generous like that. She’ll be joining Cousin Kim and I once again for our Sunday Sewing tomorrow. 

Perhaps the highlight of my week was receiving another generous box of donated fabric for Quilts for Kids from my friend Wanda. I was so excited to see it and fondle it and divide it into piles for future use, that I didn’t get a picture of it all. But here’s a partial “re-created” shot. Thanks again, Wanda. You’re the best!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.