A few projects

Friday night I attended the second of the two part landscape class with Beth Ann Williams, and Saturday morning, I was back at my sewing machine, appliqueing and quilting.  I thoroughly enjoyed her class and, while I'm still not sure I like freezer paper on top (when it sticks too much it's quite messy to remove), I do like the result.

This is my first attempt at my class project.  Beth Ann gave us a pattern but also showed us how to adapt a photo into a pattern.  I have had a similar photo cut out of the newspaper hanging on my wall for many years.   This class helped me develop a quilt based on the photo.  Some people in the class found just the right piece of batik for their skies, but I pieced mine to be more like the photo.  I made a second landscape, very similar, but more like the actual shape of the mountain in the photo.  I have a little hand sewing to do but will show it when finished.

Over the weekend, I also started working on Pat Sloan's daily blocks.  In March she is challenging her readers and fans to make one 12" log cabin-like block a day.  I cut out some charcoal centers and am using scraps for my "logs."  Each block is a little wonky in my case, but together they will make a nice quilt after 30 days.  This being the 4th of March, I have four blocks so far.  I may have to cut some strings by the end of the month as a lot of the ones in my string basket are a little short.  So far, I'm just grabbing fabrics at random.

And then!  I made the next two Optimism blocks of the month, designed by Abigail Dolinger.  They are 15" so a year's worth of blocks will end up as a very nice sampler quilt.

Phew!  In between all this activity, I continued putting together the Exploding Heart pieces.  They are looking good so far but take a lot of concentration.   I hope to have the top finished by the end of the week, but I need to remind myself not to get distracted.

Vermont in the news

 

I am proud of my fellow Vermonters who braved near zero temperatures to protest the VP's ski trip here last weekend.  The line of protestors was a mile long, on both sides of the road leading to the ski area.  No matter - it was really too cold (below zero at the summit) to take little kids skiing.  Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when they left earlier than planned.  I'm not sure where the family stayed.  Their initial choice was in a cozy little village, very inappropriate for Secret Service and their entourage.  It's about 45 minutes from our house over winding country roads.

Like many people, I found Vance and the President's behavior earlier in the day toward the heroic Ukrainian president disgusting and embarrassing.   While I am not Ukrainian, my stepfather was on both sides, and my last name reflects that heritage.  Dad's parents came to the US around 1900; his father was recruited by a coal company to work in the mines at a very young age.  Growing up, relatives said the family was Russian on one side and Polish on the other.  Both families attended the Russian Orthodox Church in their small Pennsylvania town.  They were really all from the same area near Lviv on land which switched "ownership" between Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire over the years.  They actually all spoke Ruthenian, an ancient form of Ukrainian.  The area was also in the Pale of Settlement which accounts for my siblings having a little Jewish blood.