A happier day?

I hope so.

One of the things I did after piano lesson last night was hunt through my big totes of fabric and find the backing I had set aside for the quilt I want to take in. I'm going to call down to Home A La Mode after work today and make sure she'll be there tomorrow to accept a quilt for quilting.

It's this one:



I don't remember how long ago I made this (2015? 2014? It was a while, I know, the fabrics were from Hearts-N-Twined, which is loooooong gone)

Found it: it was 2013. So high time I get it quilted so I can use it. I remember how much I loved the fabrics in this, the main collection has kind of a fantasy-Alpine theme:



As I remember, the little deer and the chalets and the cuckoo-clocks were from that line, and maybe also one or two others, and I filled in with matching color-and-style fabrics.

And I bought a big piece (I hope it's big enough, I will find out tonight when I press things off and do some measuring. If it isn't, I can fill in with another piece) of the chalet fabric for backing:



I really, really love this fabric. I would like to live in this candy-colored village.

I'm going to look at her book of "pantos" but unless I see one that is even better, I am going to have her do the butterfly design, which is one of the ones she showed me. Probably either cream-colored thread or if she has a blue-green that matches the blue-green in some of the fabrics, I will have her use that.

I think I will also run to the bookstore or JoAnn's to see if they EVER got in a more recent issue of Simply Knitting (I saw that they said they were having distribution issues. Brexit snarls, maybe?) and probably get lunch at the good barbecue place, and maybe make a run to the natural-foods store. And maybe something else, I don't know. But maybe not MUCH, so I can get home at a decent hour and have some time to myself.

I think  Home A La Mode opens at nine, so I suppose I could get down there early and do all my running in the morning....and either do lunch last, right before groceries, or else just NOT do lunch out and get something nice to take home and eat at home...

****

I still haven't hung up the little wall shelves I bought but I eventually will, I know what I am going to put on one of them - my mom said while going through some stuff she found a H-O scale model Bangor and Aroostock railroad caboose, and asked if I wanted it. (For years and years, we had stock in Bangor and Aroostock - inherited from my grandfather). Yes, I did. So I'll be picking it up at Thanksgiving, along with a big coffee mug with a photograph from Bryce Canyon on it I gave him one year for Christmas, and the "A messy desk is a sign of genius" sign.

I'll have to figure out some other small thing to go on the other shelf. Maybe the big Petosky stone my dad gave me one year - it feels like it would be nice to have an item from him on each of the shelves. (Or maybe there will be some other small item that she passes along to me).

I might invest in a stud-finder so that I can put them up the right way - and I might put them up in my living room. (Also, with a stud finder - maybe I could hang some more shelves in my bedroom for my various collections. They're kind of everywhere now....some of my little dolls sitting on the piano, Ponies on top of my bookcases....)

***

Edited to add: called the longarmer today, she's going to be in tomorrow and has room in the schedule for me so this evening I am going to press off the top and sew up the backing. It will be nice to get one quilt into the rotation to be quilted....I have a lot more and maybe my 2020 goal, if this person is good and fairly fast is to get more of the tops taken care of. There's a thing making the rounds about a woman who found a unfinished embroidered State Flower quilt and got quilters to finish it (the woman who started it had died) and while it is in its own way a heartwarming story, it makes me worry - if something bad happened to me, what would become of some of my projects? Would people actually get the tops quilted up and use them, or would they wind up in a landfill somewhere? I don't have many relatives and if I live out something like a "normal female lifespan" for women in my mom's family, it might only be my niece left of close relatives...And yeah, I know I shouldn't CARE, except I kind of do....

But more importantly: I should be able to enjoy these things during my life and I tend to be pretty frugal otherwise, spending $100-$150 every couple months to pay someone to quilt a top for me so I can use it - and so, perhaps, someday, my niece or whatever friends I have when I get old can use them when I'm gone - is worth it. (And I support a semi-local small businesswoman, and I perhaps help a nice shop to stay in business....)

So that's my Saturday plans. That, and groceries, and maybe bookstore, and maybe Ulta? I am out of those AHA booties that slough the calluses off your feet....And it's time to start low-level gift shopping for some various exchanges I do. (I don't know that I have the energy to make something for AAUW this year. Or maybe I do, if I figure out a worsted-weight hat that looks good without being TOO much effort, and I dig in my stash for a couple of WW skeins....)

I think I need more low-level goals that are goals that bring me joy. I mean, I *like* doing research but it does not bring *joy* in the same sense that finishing a quilt top or working on a sweater does, nor like clearing some stuff out of my stash (by using it for something) and maybe I need to find some way to work more crafting time into my life. I know I am less happy when I am neither knitting nor sewing nor crocheting, and as I once said, I don't know if that's because the actual CRAFTING does me good, or if the distress is not having time to myself in which to be quiet....but I'm beginning to think maybe it is the actual CRAFTING.