Where does the time go?

It's been a good week so far - busy but not frantic. I wonder how I did all that I did when I worked. The days just slip by. I have been working on various quilt projects this week.

The Civil War sampler, including eight guild "square robin" blocks, is coming together, and I may just squeak through with enough tea-dyed muslin for the sashes and cornerstones. Big question, now that I'm putting the last row of 9" squares together - what do I do for borders? I have a lot of fabric left over but it's very scrappy. I may cut what I can into strips and sew them end to end and put them around a few times. I am leaving it in three strips so that I can quilt them and put them together later. Today I bought 8 yds. of backing fabric from the sale attic at A Quilter's Garden. I know that's too much but I hate to run out in the middle of the quilt. It isn't very Civil War-ish, but will look nice on the back. It is washed and ready to cut. Tomorrow I hope to finish the final row and put the borders together. Maybe by Saturday I'll be ready to start sandwiching and quilting.

Tuesday I spent making templates and sewing together six log cabin diamonds, just to see if I could remember what I learned in my class last week. They are of dark-ish blue "logs" around kelly green centers. The resulting star is very nice, so I may go on and make a few more. But what diamond shapes should go between them? I'll set it aside until I get inspired.

I spent quite a bit of time this week plowing through The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. In 1799, Jacob, a young Dutch clerk, is posted by the Dutch East Indies Company to a man-made island off the coast of Japan, near Nagasaki. Although he plans to spend five years making enough money to win the hand of Anna, in Holland, he falls for a Japanese midwife. There is a large number of characters and some Dutch-English-Japanese wordplay. It's fiction about an important time in Dutch history, when the Dutch were the only ones allowed to trade with Japan. I remember my Japanese friend Mari's father telling me about this back in the 7th grade. However, after about 1/3 of the book, I gave up and started in on My Life in France by Julia Child. It is pure fun!

Last night's author at the library was MT Anderson, who writes for all ages. He read the beginning of his Nurembega quartet and spoke humorously about developing websites to expand on his stories an characters. After that, we joined folks in the park for a pre-4th of July concert by the South Royalton band. Real home town stuff!

My garden downtown and my various plants around the condo all needed some attention this week. My beans are looking amazing, and we counted 22 cherry tomatoes on the plant in the container in the driveway. Guess things are catching up despite the rain.