The weekend report

 Working back from the latest thing:

I finished sewing down the binding on one of the quilts (I've had this one done for over a year. Sewing on binding is tedious, so it always takes me a while.

I've been calling this one "Crossfire" in my head (because of the old CNN show from the 90s....I remember my dad watching it). Because some of the blocks tilt right, others tilt left, get it?

This was a jelly roll of fabrics. I forget the name of the line but the colors are 1930s/1940s type colors - sort of bright strong pastels. I like the colors and I like the combination in the quilt. It's a bit smaller than twin size; a quilt to put over the foot of the bed on top of another quilt for in the winter when your feet get cold. 

A close-up:

I had it quilted with a dragonfly motif

The back and binding are pretty simple - fabrics from a different line but similar color/style:

I'm still thinking about the next quilt top - I think I will use the jelly roll of Aneela Hoey fabrics I found when cleaning my sewing room, but two issues:

1. The eight (of 42) white-background strips discolored on one side; it may have been sun exposure. Luckily the other colors seem to be OK. I tried soaking them in a solution of OxyClean and it took SOME of it away but not all of it

2. But also, a design choice: the pattern I want to use - called Basket Case - relies on strong contrast between the background and the focus fabrics, and I am using white Kona cotton for the background

So I'm thinking: maybe it's better to find some other fabrics to fill in for those eight. I did find the scraps of ANOTHER Hoey line ("Sherbet Pips," I think it was) that matches well enough, and some other fabrics that pick up the red/mustard/turquoise colors in the main fabrics and have a similar style (like: there is one with little scottie dogs in it, and there are dogs in the main fabrics). So maybe I use those to fill in, and keep the eight white strips for the binding - they would be enough, and I could maybe even cut away the worst-discolored parts. 

The other option would be to drop back from the "throw" size on that to the "crib" size, but I'd rather not do that. I might if it turns out MORE of the fabrics are discolored.

I still feel like I should at least make the pieced binding for that floral quilt first though.

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I think I've mentioned before learning German with Duolingo (At one point I was also trying to learn Irish Gaelic, but I don't have the brainspace for two languages at once right now, and I was farther along on German). I had once said to myself "If they ever make a stuffie of the owl mascot, I will get it" (I was envisioning something like Beanie Baby sized)

Well, in fact: it's Duolingo's 10th anniversary, and they DID make the owls (They have a shop, I think it's shop.duolingo.com). 

So even though I'm still trying to economize (I wrote the check for the rest of the cost of the renovation yesterday), I decided to order one

It came yesterday while I was out at the memorial service

Yes, Duo is almost a cube. He's firmer than the "squishy" stuffed animals I have but is still pretty squishy. I'm happy I bought him. 

(And yes, I know there are many "evil Duolingo" jokes out there, about him coming to get you if you fail to practice your language for a day, but the app itself uses a crying Duo to try to entice you to keep doing a lesson you try to nope out of).

***

I did go to Connie's memorial service. At first I didn't know anyone there (despite knowing a number of people who belong to the Methodist church here, and in fact, serving on the Wesley center board as an "ecumenical" representative.) Then I saw G. , who is retired from Chemistry, and talked to him for a bit. And then a number of the AAUW women came in and I sat with them. No one from my department that I saw, but the retired man who was the chair when I first started teaching (who would have of course known Connie) and our VPAA (who was in my department for a while, but she came after I did - and Connie retired a couple years before I arrived). 

So at least I was there as a representative of the current department, though I knew her better through AAUW. 

It was a long service. I don't know if different denominations do them differently - this was just about an hour and I think my father's was shorter than that. The minister preached a whole sermon, there were two hymns ("For the Beauty of the Earth" and "This is my Father's World" which were perfect given Connie's love of nature and concern for the environment). 

Also the handbell choir played; I had not known she did handbells. 

They had an extra stand set up with two bells and empty gloves on it, as a memorial, and I admit I thought of how our director calls it the "Missing Man Formation" when someone has to be absent and we practice without their part. 

That kind of got to me. The other thing that got to me is that Connie was an avid quilter and embroiderer, and they had a number of her pieces displayed up at the altar rail, and when I walked in and saw them, it really brought home that she was gone.

I was reminded of how I got off the train to meet my mom right after my father died, and I saw her wearing his wedding ring on a chain around her neck. It's funny how little things like that somehow make the loss "real." 

I did cry a little bit. I didn't expect to. But I think part of it is it's just another loss in a half-decade or so that's been full of them for me (Lost a couple cousins, lost my dad, lost numerous friends...*). But also the pastor noted something I hadn't noticed - she died on July 27, which would have been the third anniversary of my dad's death. I didn't do anything this year for it; I was so busy with the renovation stuff that I totally forgot. (I think it was that Friday I got the news about Connie). And yes, as someone said: each new grief can recall old ones and open that hurt back up. 

(*I was thinking the other day, after they got all the painting done, about my friend Steve, who died in 2018 - this was his mother's house. And I admit I wish he were still alive; I bet he'd love the renovation of the house, he cared about things like that).   

I'm glad I wend, but it was definitely sort of a melancholy thing.

And tomorrow, classes start up again; year 23 for me.