Miss Stubborn, who is the stubbornest creature in the world, doubts her friends when they tell her they’ve seen a unicorn. She doesn’t believe in unicorns! There’s no such thing as unicorns! And when she meets the unicorn herself? She still doesn’t believe in unicorns! Stubborn till her last breath :)
Quick vocabulary list for ya:
stur – stubborn
Wetterbericht – weather forecast
goss es – it poured
schüttete es – it showered
Regenschirm – umbrella
Quasselstrippe – chatterbox
Du errätst niemals – you’ll never guess
ungewöhnliches – unusual
irre – crazy
Einhorn – unicorn
Unsinn – nonsense
Aua – owie, boo-boo
ganz aus dem Haüschen sein – to be all excited
verkünden – to declare
stolz – proud
glauben – to believe
Sonnenschein – sunshine
Widerrede – back chat
kitzeln – to tickle
Vielfraß – glutton
Wirrkopf – scatterbrain
Einrad – unicycle
unübersehbar – conspicuous, unmissable
Pracht – glory, splendour
Pferd – horse
Überraschung – surprise
Atemzug – breath of air
Everything is ordered alphabetically by author, with picture books having their own page.
Next step: every book gets its own podcast feed for easy downloading. Maybe I should have one podcast feed just for the picture books?
Also, I MUST finish recording “Betsy and Tacy go Downtown” and a few books about a certain British nanny which I’ve started reading to Em…
Kick my butt if I don’t get those finished and posted soon. No matter how rough I feel I should be able to knock out a chapter a day of those dear wonderful books, especially since I don’t edit my recordings… it’s getting started that takes the effort.
I realized that Time has Marched On — and that it’s easier now for most people to subscribe to a podcast than to download files and sync them to phones or whatever, so I am embarking on the large project of making podcast feeds for all of my “Kayray Reads to You” books.
(all librivox books already have podcast feeds — click the green RSS button on the catalog page, copy, and paste into your podcast app)
Tolkien was first, of course. You can find the feeds by clicking “Kayray Reads To You” (above) and then the link to the page of Tolkien books. I’ll put ’em here, too:
Normal-clicking these links will probably not do anything useful: you need to right click (or control-click, or press-and-hold), copy, and then paste into your podcast app. Most podcast apps have a place for you to paste in an RSS link — that’s where to put these.
I don’t really feel like testing to make sure all of the files are properly named and will download correctly, so if you find an error please let me know :)
Remember when I used to write a few lines here every day? That was cool huh. Maybe I’ll try that again.
Still depressed, though one evening it lifted and stayed better till the next morning. I actually felt it lift, like the heavy thing just floated away for a while. The oddest feeling.
Knitting, eating chocolate, and binging Nurse Jackie
Things have been basically ok. I’m in a bit of a depression right now but I know I’ll come out of it someday.
Um.. what’s been happening… I had another great Amtrak journey at the end of September to visit my dear cousin in San Diego, had a great time just chilling and knitting and watching Queer Eye with her and her husband and cats :)
I finally got an IHSS worker! (In Home Support Services). Her name is Malynda and she’s great. She cleans my bathroom and changes my sheets and runs errands and does laundry etc. She even drove me to San Francisco for a doctor appointment! She does all the stuff that’s getting harder and harder for me to do on my own. She’s smart and reliable and she likes her job. It was a GIANT PAIN IN THE BUTT to wade through all the county bureaucracy and get approved but it was worth it in the end.
I’ve been playing a lot of Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch. Love it. I’m not paying much attention to the main quest line — mostly just exploring, looking for Shrines and Towers and Korok seeds. I like running around and riding my horses in the big open world! The Switch controllers have bad stick-drift so I just sent them in for repair. Hope they come back soon. Also played Untitled Goose Game which was everything I was hoping for. HONK!
My little friend Tobi (age 3.5) in Austria sent me this picture book for my birthday. Leo doesn’t want to eat his nice carrot soup and Mama starts to lose her patience, but Hops the Grasshopper tells Leo he should be glad that he has such a nice Mama to make him good food, and Leo learns an important lesson :) (Sorry for the few little mispronunciations)
I’ve just come home from a Big Travel Adventure and I am in love with train travel and I will now tell you all about it! This post will be about my journey, not my destination — for that you will need to wait for another day.
Background: my disabilities have made travel uncomfortable/impossible for years. I can’t walk far or fast; I can’t carry anything heavy; I am easily fatigued and need to spend lots of time lying down; I require supplemental oxygen; I have an insane amount of medication to take every day, a medication pump to refill every three days, and lots of vital medical supplies that I need to have handy all the time.
I’m an extreme introvert and slightly claustrophobic. I’m also tall, thin, and bony. :)
Air travel is a nightmare for me, between the stressful time-wasting unpleasant airport experience, the humiliating security theater process, the dry, thinned-out air, and the feeling of being trapped in a tin can with no way to move about or unfold myself from a painfully uncomfortable seat. Driving long distances is just impossible.
But I have discovered the wonders of long-distance train travel and I am in loooooooveeeeee with Amtrak!
Here’s the story of my journey.
I traveled by Amtrak’s “Coast Starlight” train from my home in the SF Bay Area to visit my son and his family in Vancouver Washington. On the northbound trip, I bought a regular Amtrak coach ticket ($94). The seats are wide and very comfortable, there’s tons of legroom, and they recline quite a bit. It’s easy to keep your carry-ons close by, as there is plenty of space by your feet, an overhead bin, and some sturdy shelving for anything that won’t fit in the overhead bin. You’re allowed two carry-ons and two “personal items” with you, and you can check four more suitcases, I think, though two carry-ons are all I need plus my small portable oxygen concentrator and my purse.
In coach, there are two big seats on each side of the aisle. There’s no armrest between seats, so if you’re lucky enough to have no seatmate you could curl up across both seats to sleep. There are two power outlets for every pair of seats. I kept my oxygen machine plugged in, and my seatmate and I shared my long iphone charging cable.
Sleep was possible. Not great for a side-sleeper like me, but possible. I slept well enough that I felt ok the next day. I had all my meds, snacks, books, and knitting handy.
I was very lucky that my seatmate wasn’t chatty, but if you are sociable, you’ll find lots of friendly happy travelers just waiting to make friends with you!
Although I asked for and was promised help managing my luggage and getting from the station to the train and vice versa, it was all quite disorganized and there was a lot of waiting about for someone in an electric cart to come get me. Other passengers were kind enough to carry my luggage up and down the stairs to my upper-floor seat, thank goodness.
I boarded my train on a Monday evening and arrived in Portland (the stop closest to Henry’s house) the next afternoon. I ate lunch in the dining car which was a thrill! Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer!
I spent most of my time just looking out the window at the beautiful mountain scenery and the day flew by.
For the return journey, hoping for better sleep and more help, I splurged on a “roomette” ($259), which is a teeny-tiny room with two big cushy seats facing each other, a huge window, and a sliding door (with window and curtain) to the aisle. The seats convert to a comfortable bed, and there’s a pull-down bunk for the second person, if two are traveling together. If you’re just one person, like me, there won’t be a stranger sharing your roomette. Just you. If you are traveling as a couple, the cost is not doubled — the roomette is one charge, and the actual travel ticket is another charge. So in my case it could probably be broken down to something like $165 for the roomette plus $94 for the travel ticket, so for two people it would have been $165 + $94 + $94. Make sense?
In a roomette there are lights, temperature controls, and ONE electrical outlet — next time I will pack a splitter!
It was a cozy little heaven. It was private and comfy, and I could partly recline my seat and put my feet up on the other one. People in sleeper cars are automatically traveling First Class, so there was MUCH more help for me! A Red Cap carried my luggage right to my roomette. I kept my bag full of oxygen stuff, meds, sleep needs, and amusements in my roomette and my other bag (clothes, shoes, spare meds) on the luggage shelf in my sleeper car.
The bathrooms in coach were perfectly adequate, but the sleeper car bathrooms were a couple notches nicer and there’s even a shower compartment for longer journeys!
Coach passengers must pay for their dining car meals (the food is quite good but pricey) but when you travel First Class all your meals are included — entree, drink, and dessert. There are maybe five or six choices per meal, including a vegetarian/vegan option if that’s your thing. I had a nice fresh salad for my lunch and salmon for dinner, with green beans and a baked potato. And flourless chocolate cake for dessert, which I took back to my roomette for a before-bed snack. Omg it was amazing.
Breakfast is a free-for-all, but they take reservations for lunch and dinner. If you’re in a sleeper car you get first dibs. :) A conductor comes along, asks when you’d like to eat, and gives you a slip of paper with your reservation time on it. On my northbound coach journey the train was PACKED so we filthy coach passengers were really last on the list — but I still got my lunch at around 12:45. :)
Here’s an amazing, wonderful, unexpected thing about train travel: it’s quiet. Or maybe not quiet, exactly, because you can hear some comfortable train-ish rattling and rumbling some of the time, and the far-off train whistle, but there’s no constant roar or hum or whine. All cars are quiet zones between 10pm and 6am, so even in coach it was very peaceful — and even when people were having conversations in the daytime, they weren’t shouting to be heard so it wasn’t annoying! In my roomette I heard only the right-and-proper clickity-clacking and the infrequent station stop announcements. I have EXTREME sensitivity to background noise so this low noise level was a huge benefit.
I slept very well in my roomette. I woke up a few times when the train was extra-rumbley or went briskly around corners, but I was very comfortable all night and felt well-rested when I woke up.
Also! After my train trips, I arrived at my destinations feeling cheerful and refreshed. When I fly, I arrive feeling exhausted and miserable.
Take the train, people. Take the train. Take the train while Amtrak is still operating, and write to your congressperson to support Amtrak’s continued existence, which I hear is on shaky ground. If you are disabled and need assistance, I do recommend that you splurge on a roomette if you possibly can. If you must travel by coach, find a conductor well before your stop and ask him or her to radio ahead for a Red Cap to assist you. (Even if you have already been promised that someone will be there to help you.)
Train travel is slower and more expensive than flying and driving but my goodness it’s so much more FUN! I literally looked out my window all day — mountains, forests, rivers, the backsides of tiny towns, the industrial zones of cities… there’s always something to see.
Since I found out that I have a very short amount of life remaining, my family and friends have asked if there’s anything I especially want to do in the time I have left. Up to now, I only wanted to stay home and be comfortable — but now I want to travel the country by train!
There are no great 1940s songs about Amtrak, so this will have to do:
(Fun fact: I am distantly related to the Atchisons of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway)
Install, help it find your library, and enter your library card info.
And then BOOM you can check out ebooks and audiobooks right there, instantly. You can listen to the audiobooks right in the app, with a well-designed little player whose features include offline play, bookmarks, easy scrubbing forward and back through the book, and a sleep timer.
If you want to read with your eyeballs, you can read in the app or — get this — you can have your book DELIVERED TO YOUR KINDLE INSTANTLY. I don’t like reading on my phone, which is what has stopped me from checking out library ebooks in the past, so this is thrilling to me!
The Libby app lets you filter your search in sensible ways. You can search by genre. You can search for audiobooks, ebooks, or both. You can search for titles that are available to check out instantly, or ones which are already checked out to someone else, in which case you can put a hold on the item and it will be checked out for you automatically (with an email notification) when the item becomes available.
I tell you, it is such luxury to think, hmm, I’d like to listen to a new crime thriller, let’s see what there is… and then 3 minutes later I’m listening while I sew. Or thinking, hmm, I’ve never read “The Devil Wears Prada”, I wonder if it’s on Libby? And then three minutes later I’m reading it on my kindle.
I installed the app on 6yo Em’s iPad and helped her to find picture books to read and kids’ audiobooks to listen to.
Of course, the selection is limited. It’s not EVERYTHING you can get physically at your library. But I don’t check out physical audiobooks at all, because I don’t own any kind of cd player, so this is the only way I’ve found to get free modern audiobooks. Librivox is awesome but sometimes you want to hear something that was published later than 1923 :)
Through Libby I discovered a fantastic police procedural series by Elizabeth George, starring Inspector Lynley and his pals. I’ve been listening to them non-stop for weeks :) They’re well-written, and very long (like, around 25 hours of audio each). They are perfect for bedtime listening too — not gory or scary, interesting without being too exciting. Just right to help my tired brain fall asleep, and of course I drop a bookmark when I go to bed, so in the morning I can back up to that point and not miss anything. There are 20 novels in the series so far, so if you like ’em as much as I do you’re set for a long time. I prefer the ones narrated by Donada Peters, which is most of them.
Oh! Also I recently listened to “Heartburn” by Nora Ephron. I think I found it on the “humor” shelf. It was read by Meryl Streep!!! She is an absolutely amazing narrator, and the book was great too. While I was listening, I thought, huh, this dialogue really reminds me of When Harry Met Sally. And then I found out that Nora Ephron wrote When Harry Met Sally :)
Hi guys, it’s August and I’m still alive, yay! :) Thank you all so much for the sweet comments and emails. They cheer me up when I re-read them on bad days.
Let’s see here… what’s new. Last weekend I went to a Featherweight maintenance workshop put on by Dave of https://twiceniceshoppe.com.
Of course I already knew how to oil and grease my machine because I am Research Girl, but I also learned many other things, including how to clean out the bobbin casing and how to install a new belt — both of which were much-needed. My beautiful Featherweight is running smoother than ever! It was fun to be in a room with eleven other Featherweights, from the early 1930s to the mid 1960s. I believe mine was the only inherited Featherweight — all the others had been bought from collectors or thrift stores.
Healthwise, I am much the same. Every activity is exhausting and I spend most of my time in bed, but I can still get up and sew or read to Em on good days! We’re working our way through the Mary Poppins series. I’ll have recordings to share with you sometime soon.
Kirsten showed me a wonderful soothing game called Merge Dragons and I am obsessed. It has entertained me though several Tired Days recently. http://www.mergedragons.com
Here are the things I’ve made recently:
Three Suki Robes,
two of cotton and one of a silk saree that I bought on etsy for $15! I live in these robes, over tanks and tees in the daytime and over nothing at all at night. I have serious temperature regulation issues and these robes let me adjust my warmth level by tiny increments.
Also made a couple pairs of undies (pattern is Bunte Punkte Panty from Klimpergross) and a couple of comfy tank dresses based on the Kirei Cami pattern. With POCKETS. The blue dress has badgers all over it!
And quilts, of course.
This one is the free “Summer Breeze” pattern, for Susan and Jack. Just finished it and am ready to mail it away. I made it slightly larger than the pattern shows.
I invented a pattern for my nephew John and his partner Kim, owners of a massive succulent and cactus collection. I was inspired by their Instagram photos of their cacti in bloom. :) This one is basted and ready to quilt, but I’m still considering how best to quilt it.
Oh, I also made a little quilted needle book. Pattern is by RetroMama on Etsy
And a couple of shopping bags made of leftover/practice quilt parts :)
Right now I’m piecing a quilt for my brother, so you can look forward to photos of that one next time.
Hi guys, thanks for checking on me. I’m still here :) I’ve had a string of rough days, doctor appointments, and total exhaustion, but I did manage to finish Kathy’s quilt and Dan’s quilt, and start one for Susan.
Here are some pretty pictures:
Kathy’s quilt, based on the Garden Star Quilt tutorial from MSCQ
Dan’s quilt (the blue is not so electric in real life), based on the Grayscale Quilt tutorial from cluckclucksew
And the very beginning of Susan’s, based on the Summer Breeze tutorial from Jordan Fabrics
Hello, I’m still here. Thank you for all the kind comments!!
I had a 14-day migraine that ended about two weeks ago, and then 2-day migraine that ended yesterday. UGH. But in between I was able to make several things, and we celebrated Em’s 6th birthday, for which Henry, Jayla, and Lulu were here! It was amazing to get to see them for a few hours and now I am itching to visit them as soon as the side effects settle down and I am in between nasty medical appointments.
Things I made:
A bias-cut apron and a sewing kit for Em’s birthday. The apron is a pattern I copied from a friend’s apron many long years ago. I had a green one that Em loved to wear until it fell apart from age, so I made her a beautiful new one. I added rick-rack to the edges to make it prettier, and I lined to so that it should last her for years and years. It’s adult-size, with an adjustable neck strap. Sewing kit is an old cookie tin with a drawstring top attached. I filled it with a tape measure, a pincushion, a pair of scissors just for fabric, and six fat quarters of calico so she has some fabric that she can use without asking permission.
Also, we had a couple of blistering hot days so I made myself two light cotton robes using the “Suki Robe” pattern from Helen’s Closet. Her patterns are sooooooo good. I used an alternative neckband, and added lined patch pockets. I only had two yards of the green seersucker and had to get creative, so it has a muslin hem-extender and extra-wide sleeve bands. I LOVE these robes!!
Also I finished Lulu’s quilt in time for them to take it home with them after their little visit! I quilted daisy chains all over it, with a nice loopy border.
AND! During the 14-day migraine I had some mornings when I felt well enough to sew for an hour, so I did some work on Kathy’s quilt. All I need to do now is add the borders, baste, quilt, and bind. :)
I just finished Chloe’s Herringbone quilt and I’m so proud of it. She chose the fabric when she was up here visiting a month or two ago — a lovely set of flannel prints from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. I chose a nice creamy herringbone flannel for the background fabric, and an extra-thick cotton batting so it would be heavy and comforting. The borders and binding are some black kona cotton I had hanging around and the backing is 90″ premium muslin as usual. I quilted big free oak leaves all over it, which was both fun and challenging! I’m still not sure how I managed to maneuver that enormous heavy thing through my tiny Featherweight 221. :) The quilting took several days because a) it was so tiring that I could only work for an hour or two at a time and b) I’ve had a mild migraine for 11 days which gets a bit worse in the early afternoon.
Recipe time! I make tabbouleh/tabouli a lot in summer. I don’t care for parsley so I make mine with spinach. Also I never have mint. Who has mint? So no mint in mine. This recipe makes a nice big container.
Kara’s Tabbouleh
2 c bulgur wheat (check the rice or international section of your store)
2 c water
4 handfuls baby spinach
2-3 tomatoes
2-3 scallions or 1/4 onion
1/2 c lemon juice (maybe 2 lemons worth)
1/4 c olive oil
salt
Microwave the wheat and water together for 5 minutes, stir, and let it cool.
Chop the tomatoes, spinach, and onion. Stir into the cooled wheat, then mix in the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt to taste. Fridge it for a while to let the flavours blend, then eat eat eat. You can, of course, adjust the quantities of everything as you like. Yummmmmmmmm.
She chose this pack of 10″ flannel squares from my stash (“Lil’ Sprouts” from http://missouriquiltco.com), and she decided she wanted big plain squares with a scalloped border. We laid out all the squares on the floor and she arranged them to her taste. She also sewed some of the seams! (Em will be 6 in June). I quilted a big flower in each square and rainbow shapes around the edge. The border is flannel from JoAnn’s. Cotton batting.
Remodulin update: one minor migraine last weekend, several episodes of Hot Face (so uncomfortable, feels like my face will burst into flames), painful knees, nausea, extra fatigue, weird temperature issues — I feel way too hot or way too cold almost all the time. Quite tolerable!
I had an appointment with my pulmonologist up at UCSF on Monday, and he convinced me to try increasing my dose of Remodulin one more time and to have another right heart cath done — they’ll put a catheter in my heart and look around and measure the pressures in there. (I’ve had this done many times and it sounds worse than it is.) He thinks there’s a tiny TINY chance that, with a little more Remodulin in my system, they *might* be able to fix the hole in my heart, which *might* lessen my symptoms somewhat and give me a little more time. Don’t get all excited, it’s a very very very slim chance.
So I cranked my pump up one notch yesterday (to 0.04 mL/hour, which equates to 32 ng/kg/min at my weight) and now I’m waiting for the hideous side effects to set in… I will probably have several weeks of near-constant migraines, full body pain, and intense nausea. If I can’t handle it, I’ll need to drop back to my regular dose. We’ll see. I couldn’t handle it last time we tried this. Anyway if you don’t hear from me here for a while it means I’m lying in a dark room trying not to puke.
In other news, I finished my beautiful Voysey print “Modern T” quilt! and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and it is mine, mine, mine. I drew leaves and vines all over the backing and quilted from the back, which was really fun! I used a different kind of wool batting (Quilters Dream) and I think it is MUCH better than the stuff I got from JoAnn’s. Barely any fibers on the surface of the quilt after washing. I wish I’d used this better batting for Henry’s quilt, but oh well, live and learn. I also finished Suzanne’s little green lap quilt and she loves it :) :) :)
Next up: quilts for Emma Rose, Chloe, Kathy, and Lulu. I think I have enough fabric for all of them, except for the backings. I’m waiting for muslins to go on sale at JoAnn’s…
On Friday I had another bout of SVT (supra ventricular tachycardia) which was horrible horrible horrible. I was lying in my bed, reading at 5:30pm when all of a sudden my heart rate jumped to 160bpm and my o2 dropped to 84% — and I was using my supplemental oxygen at 5lpm at the time! It was awful. I waited 20 minutes to see if it would clear up (as instructed last time) but it didn’t so Marcos drove me to the ER.
They fiddled around for a while but when they decided it really was SVT they gave me the magical drug adenosine, which flatlines you for a moment so your heart can reboot. Wild, huh? I felt instantly fine again, just tired. They would ordinarily send a patient home at that point but because of all my other underlying stuff they kept me overnight for observation. I demanded that they remove both IVs and all the electrodes (because of the adhesive allergy) and they complied! I also informed them that I had brought all my own medication and that I would be dosing myself — and they complied without even much of a fuss! So that eliminated both of the major Hospital Headaches.
(The usual medication routine in a hospital is they take away all my meds and then give them back to me on THEIR schedule, which is different than MY schedule. Also my meds are so complicated that I always catch them making a mistake, and it’s stressful needing to monitor them.)
So then I was back home again by Saturday night, after waiting four hours between when the cardiologist said I could go home and when my discharge papers finally arrived. *eyeroll*
I’ve also had a little cold, so I didn’t get any sewing done for the last couple of days. But I think today I might have enough energy to sew a little bit! I’m working on two quilts at the moment: a green and white throw for my therapist and a beautiful quilt for ME which is made out of the most beautiful fabric! I will write about all that another time, but here’s a couple photos to whet your appetite:
I was going to do a post with lots of photos showing work-in-progress, but I don’t think I have the stamina for that. So here are four more quilts I’ve finished:
Mom’s Nasturtium quilt (pattern is Disappearing Pinwheel Shoofly). The folded photo’s colors are more true. Machine quilted in random meanders and swirls and things.
Henry’s Stacks quilt. Machine quilted along the seam lines, with spirals in the border. After piecing but before before quilting I hand-embroidered the titles of 40 favorite books in random places.
Jayla’s Simple Squares quilt. Machine quilted in swirling feather designs, with big daisies around the border.
Kirsten and Marcos’s Outer Space quilt (traditional Log Cabin pattern). Machine quilted in spirals with pebbles around the border.
All patterns are from the free video tutorials at Missouri Star Quilt Company. Most of the fabrics are from them too. All were pieced and quilted entirely on my beloved Singer Featherweight 221.
I’m basically ok except for this odd depression that manifests as a serious quilting/making OBSESSION. Quilts are all I think about and quilting (and knitting) is all I do… No news on the health front. I had a meeting with a Palliative Care team member to talk about… stuff. You know. End-of-life comfort and that.
Henry’s Stacks quilt is still coming along nicely — I embroider a few more book titles every day — and I’ve started a Disappearing Pinwheel Shoofly quilt for Mom. I chose this pattern and color scheme because it reminds me of the nasturtiums we both love. :)
but for the impatient, here’s a quick photo rundown. And I have a couple tips of my own to add.
Take two 10″ squares (or any size, but I wouldn’t go much smaller than 10″), your print and your background, and stitch them together with a 1/4″ seam all the way around the edge. I like to sew straight off the edge, then lift the foot, reposition the fabric, and start the next edge. For me it’s quicker and more accurate than trying to pivot that corner at exactly 1/4″ from the edge. Press, then SLICE that square from corner to corner. Press open the resulting pieces and you have four half-square triangles (quilting terminology for a square made of two triangles). Arrange them in pinwheel formation and sew them together.
Now comes the exciting part, the part where you will ruin a whole block if you’re not paying attention. Guess how I know this… *eyeroll*
(These measurements apply if you started with 10″ squares) Take your nice accurate quilting ruler and measure a line exactly 2 1/8″ from the center seam. I’ve circled the 2 1/8″ marks in this photo. See how they line up just right?
Then SLICE along your ruler. Then lift the ruler CAREFULLY, and CAREFULLY place the 4 1/4″ marks on the line you just cut. Again, I’ve circled them. There will be a little bit of edge to trim off.
Now CAREFULLY rotate your block. I bought an inexpensive rotating cutting mat, but you can also just rotate a smallish mat on your table.
Repeat those cuts on all four sides — 2 1/8″ from the center, then trim the edge at 4 1/4″ from that cut. I say the numbers aloud while lining up the ruler. One time I didn’t, and I cut a different measurement which I won’t say here so as not to throw you off but it was the number between 2 and 4. And that entire block went into the scrap box. *another eyeroll*
And now you have — ta-da — this! And each block is exactly 4 1/4″ square.
Now the magic happens. Take the eight outer squares and rotate each by 1/4 turn to the right.
Hey presto! It’s a flowery-looking thing! (Actually a traditional shoofly block with a little pinwheel in the center)
Stitch together in rows, stitch the rows together, and:
Isn’t that going to be a pretty thing?
HAHAHAHA I just spotted a triangle going the wrong way! I could pick it out but I’ll probably leave it. I’ll just put that block in the corner. No one said quilts had to be perfect and I am a total beginner anyway. :)
Thank you so much for the sweet comments and emails! I’m bad about replying but I’ll get to it one of these days… Just know that your kind and loving words meant a great deal to me.
Here’s my in-progress knitted Friesland blanket. I’ve finished 13 motifs and I have 15 remaining, I think. Yikes, it’s going to be enormous! I grafted together seven of them ages ago, and then I just kept on knitting. I didn’t realize how many I had finished until I counted them up today! I haven’t blocked any since the center 7, so I’ve got a serious pile of blocking to attend to. According to Ravelry, I started this blanket in March of 2017. Double yikes! Time to do some serious knitting.
And I’ve made a good start on Henry’s “Stacks” quilt. The fabric is the “Wit and Wisdom” jelly roll from missouriquiltco.com. And a plain black roll too. Doesn’t
it look like stacks of nice old hardback books? I’ve got all the strips assembled and joined together in five groups of eight, and now I’m embroidering book titles in random places. Some are books that Henry and I have enjoyed together, and some are my old favorites, so it will act as both a quilt and a list of book suggestions :)
