I survived the book sale

Even though Heritage Days were postponed until fall due to the flood, the Friends were forced to continue with our planned sale this past weekend.  It's all my fault.  After I announced on Front Porch Forum that we'd lost 95% of our stored books in the basement at L. Brown Printing across the street, everyone in town seemed to clear out their bookcases and take books to the library.  My co-president was in a panic, and I needed to be the voice of calm even though I wasn't all that calm inside.  

It all worked out pretty well despite stifling heat and humidity, besides some dust and muck left over from the flood.  We had a tent outside filled with adult paperbacks, and the rest of the books were inside.   About 25 volunteers sorted, set up, lugged boxes, served as cashiers, and helped clean up.  As we were leaving the library Saturday afternoon after cleaning up, the skies opened with a cooling rain.  Ahhh!  

We still have lots of books to sell and no place to store them or recycle them as most businesses downtown are still cleaning up.  We'll have another sale in September when Heritage Days are rescheduled.  Meanwhile, boxes of books are piled up everywhere which may incur the wrath of the trustees, but we have no choice.

Last Wednesday, I finished a scrappy quilt top, 48" x 54", made entirely of strings and set in a "colorwash" manner.  I'm calling it Floody Cabin, since it's the third log cabin-ish quilt I've made in recent years.  The others, Corona Cabin and Omicron Cabin, were made during the pandemic.  

This wonky quilt was fun and easy to make once I sorted all my strings by color.  I worked on one color each day until I had 54 blocks.  I could make a few more, but I am out of every color string except black/gray.  I have an Australian print set aside for the back and I hope to start quilting it in a simple way with my Elna this week sometime.

My birthday spree at A Quilter's Garden was squeezed into the Thursday before the book sale, and it was, as always, incredibly fun.  I got many yards of basics - white/cream backgrounds, bolt ends of batik, a couple of darker fabrics for sashing, and then a few basic solids.  These should keep me busy in the coming year.  

My plan is to tackle some of those patterns I've accumulated like the Exploding Heart.  I have the background fabric all set aside but have been debating about color.  I do like this version, though, using all the colors, yet I've seen very effective ones using all reds, purples, or blues.  I guess I'll just take the plunge, and see where all the colors take me!