Tuesday Trivia

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  my life is nothing if not random, so sharing my life means sharing my randomness. 

I posted yesterday that we cleaned carpets.  Whew, that job is over, furniture is back in place, and I’m hoping that we won’t have to do that again any time soon.  At least it was worth it … the carpets do look a whole lot better.  Next on my to-do list: clean the windows.  I keep putting them off … partly because only the bottom halves of our windows drop in for easy cleaning.  Since our house is on a sloping lot, the windows in the back are essentially 2nd-story windows.  We don’t have a ladder that would reach … and even if we did, my fear of heights would keep me from getting up that high to clean those windows.  My rationale is why clean the windows when they’re not going to be 100% clean because I couldn’t get the exerior top half of the windows cleaned.  This year I’m going to see if I can’t find some way to get the exteriors of our back windows cleaned … and get all of our windows cleaned.

The carpets took a lot longer to dry this time, so we had to wait until this morning to get the furniture back in place.  That meant that I had to come up with an alternative to my plan to hand quilt while watching the Blues game last night.  So I decided to work on the piecing for my next quilt.  A month or so ago, I finally decided to sort through my leftover fabrics and discovered that I had a whole bunch of 1 1/2” strips of blue and of white-on-white … enough that I could make a good-sized log cabin quilt.  It didn’t take much arm-twisting to decide that would be my next quilt … I love log cabin quilts (this will be my 4th), and since cutting fabrics is my least favorite part of quilting, this meant that I had to do only a minimum of cutting.  The only “problem” is that I didn’t have any red in my leftover fabrics for the “chimney”.  We stopped at Wal-mart on the way home from T#3’s soccer game last night, and I bought a couple of yards of a pretty red with small white dots.  The fabric was half the price it would be in a quilt shop (and it’s 100% cotton), so I picked up a couple of yards.  Not sure if/when I’ll use it since the majority of the fabrics in my “stash” are colors that just won’t play well with a red …but it was such a nice price that I couldn’t resist.  I was pleased to see that they were expanding their sewing/craft area.  I hope they add more fabrics.  I normally buy my fabrics at quilt shops, but their prices are just so high, their service isn’t always that great, and it’s a 30-minute drive to the nearest quilt shop of any size.  Having a nearby alternative (with much less expensive fabrics) sure would be nice.

I was able to get all the strips cut and pieced together 1 1/2 of the 9” blocks.  Today I plan to get back to the hand quilting of my Irish chain … the end is in sight.  I had hoped to get it done before we leave for Hilton Head, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.  And it’s ok, but now that I’ve got a little bit of a head start on my next quilt, I’m kind of anxious to get some more work done on it.  Oh, the dilemmas!  Ha!