*Monday, classes start. I guess I'm ready. I mean, I'm prepared but I'm not sure I'm emotionally ready for 2, 75-minute-back-to-back classes each day.

*I was watering the plants out in the front garden today, using the hose with one of those multi-nozzles (that will do mist, cone, soaker, spray....). The spigot leaks a little so right next to it is a little patch of mud that the robins have discovered. (They use it both as a source of worms and of mud - I guess they're building their second set of nests for the year). While I was watering, a robin came to look at the mud and happened to walk through a bit of the spray. It kind of hunkered down and started fluffing its feathers like they do when they are bathing. So I carefully moved the spray so that the robin was underneath more of it (I didn't point the hose at the robin; I didn't want to hurt it). It stood there and bathed and even started chirping while it did. It was sort of an odd moment...it was probably only about six feet from me. Eventually it got done and ran out from under the water and then flew away.

The only bad thing about robins discovering the little mud patch is that they've begun leaving lots of "calling cards" on my driveway next to where it is. I suppose at the end of the summer I could get the powerwasher out if I had to. I kind of like seeing the robins around and most of them seem to have little fear of me. (I tend to move slowly and cautiously when they're around because I don't want them to get all scare-y, it's neat being able to see them so close up). And of course they eat other bugs as well.

* I finally got all the long strip-seams done on the current quilt, and am now on to the more-fun part - cutting the long strips into smaller segments and sewing those together into sort-of four patch blocks. Even though I've only cut up a few of the strips so far, I did piece together a couple of blocks to see how they look:



I think the white sashing was a good choice; I wasn't sure what color to use but I think the white looks nice and crisp with the pastels.

I have a bunch of other tops I'm longing to start - I have the Mixtape Quilt fabric I've had stacked up since my birthday, and I dug out some old, old fabric (well, old, old, in fabric-line terms, where most lines are printed for only three months). This was from deep in my stash:



It's an early Jennifer Sampou line called "Folklore." I think this is 10 years old now; I'm pretty sure I bought it before I moved here. (there is also a small red and small green check fabric but I figured they wouldn't show up well, it's a black check on a dark color).

Most quilters have a few fabrics that, once they've bought them, they can't bear to cut into them.

This is my favorite one:


I love those hearts. I also have it in red on a navy background.

I had never done anything with these fabrics, because, as I said, I couldn't bear to think of them fractured into little pieces where the impact and prettiness might be lost. Well, recently I bought a copy of "Material Obsession." Most of the quilts in there are applique (which I am less interested in than piecing), but the first quilt in the book - called Avalon - is a very simple quilt: 18" squares of attractive fabrics set in sashing.

And it occurred to me: I could use the fabrics for that! I wouldn't have to cut them into tiny little pieces!

But of course, Avalon takes 12 fabrics, and I have but eight from the line. But this is why a person has a "stash":



I found all of these coordinating fabrics in the stash. The big daisies were bought for another project that I lost interest in, the sort of wild print on the left was a 1930s reprint, the spools was something I just liked (and was on sale). And that last fabric - the bright doesn't-quite-match-with-the-others-but-I'm-still-using-it red with little flowers? It's a small piece of fabric that my mom had saved and gave to me the last time I was up visiting: it is a remnant from a dress she sewed me when I was a child.

(I come by my packrat ways naturally, you see. Of course, my mother, growing up, had to wait for HER mother to remove basting thread and give it to her to sew doll dresses with, so my mother is very frugal about fabric and thread)

I'm going to have to piece it to get an 18" square* but it delights me that I have it and can put it in a quilt. I think it will go somewhere near the center of the quilt.

(*Quilters of old pieced bits together to get bits big enough for patches all the time. I have a vintage quilt top where the person did that, and my mother has several in her collection where there was a lot of piecing-to-get-pieces.)

I also have some butter-yellow (sort of the 1930s yellow) solid color fabric that I think will make good sashing. So this will be (except for the back, when it comes down to it), a totally-out-of-the-stash quilt.

*I'm also working on a new pair of socks. The pattern is called Faceted Rib; it is a slip stitch pattern which means it works up Very. Slowly.

The yarn is Wildfoote, Brown Sheep's venerable sock yarn, in one of the newer "hand dyed" colorways. This one is called "Sonatina":



Here's a close up, less true to color, but showing the stitches a little more clearly:



It also seems to eat up more yarn, but the pattern was written for yarn with the same yardage as these (it was written for Lorna's Laces, which is also 215 yards per skein), so I'm going to pretty much trust it will come out. (And I'm not going to make the tops the full 7 1/2"; I'm probably going to stop at 6" which is long enough for me.)