Yes. This is a black and white photo.
It’s nearly July. Do you know what black & white photos mean??
The vagueness of updates over the next several months may spark the realization that we have MUCH FUN ahead --
Our next Leader & Ender challenge starts in just a couple of weeks – could this be what I was cutting for? Perhaps!
And perhaps the cutting and organizing, pulling and culling and matching and planning also extends into what will be posted by Halloween --
Our next Quiltville Mystery season is just around the corner.
It might seem a long way off for you – but for me, behind the scenes, things are ramping up.
I have been unable to find the missing gate remote. No Clicker Anywhere!
I have nearly disassembled the van, searched under seats, in between seats and the center console, in the doors – everywhere.
I have NO idea where it ended up, but I’m afraid I’ll have to admit defeat on this one thing.
At some point it slid off my visor into the black hole of the Quilter's Bermuda triangle.
There are other “generic” remotes out there that can be programmed to work with this gate – it’s just the principle of the thing.
And the fact that I can’t resolve in my mind just what happened keeps it circling round and round and round – there is no closure other than to accept that it is gone.
I think there is a life lesson in that, don’t you?
Sometimes there is no reason why something is gone – it just is. It’s not worth stewing about.
But once the antique mall folks said “Nope, nothing here in our lost and found…..” I made a beeline to the back corner to see if something I saw earlier was still there.
This may look simple enough to set up, but let me tell you – I had one dead end after another, and was about to throw my hands up and call it a day.
My thought was to simply pull the treadle machine out on to the front porch from the dining room.
Not a long haul, but it does involve CARRYING the machine cabinet because you can’t roll those metal wheels over the threshold due to the risk of damaging the wood with the vintage metal wheels.
The machine is on carpet sliders in the house, but by the time you reach the threshold you are going to lose those and have to lift the cabinet to get it up and over anyway.
Were I to have a second person at hand, it wouldn’t be hard, but as I was only one – it went like this:
Slide the machine cabinet with the beautiful gifted Singer VS 2 to the first raised threshold. Remove machine head from cabinet to lighten the load. Carry the cabinet out the front door and set it on the porch. Replace sliders as to not damage the porch paint. Slide into desired location. Replace machine head – connect belt and get to treadling.
This photo is a new clipping that came into my life within the last month or so.
My niece Emilee, my brother Mark’s eldest is into genealogy and has found some amazing things online by searching newspaper records, old school year books (found a photo of my mom at 16!) and we have benefited greatly from her searching.
What a gift – these things that were thought lost, or never even knew they existed.
This photo is of my dad’s dad – my Grandpa Wilkinson who passed away when I was two. My brothers never knew him. I remember him faintly.
And here he is as a young man, just having returned from WWII with a bit of his story. I was in tears reading this as I never really “KNEW” this man. He was taken from us far too soon.
My dad is the cutie patootie blond 5 1/2 year old in the front with short shorts - named for his father.
The other crazy family thing is just how much my brother Scott looks like Grandpa. Serious family resemblance. And I love that.
This is the “Calm Before the Storm” of 2018.
I know it, and I can feel it.
Yesterday I got notification that the Quiltville Date Keepers are on their way via Yellow Freight from California.
They should be arriving – about the same time as I leave for Chicago.
That just figures, now doesn’t it?
The pencil sets will be following sometime after.
And when I am back, we will be into the 4th of July holiday week -
So THIS week. This very precious time while waiting for things to arrive, I am focusing on tying up some loose ends. Making progress on things that have been pushed aside. Getting things closer to finishes, and ready to start new things.
North Carolina to South Carolina and back -
Then North Carolina up to Virginia to stay!
All told it was about 300 miles, and I felt it by the time I finally sat down to dinner at about 8pm.
When Christine contacted me about her downsizing to move, and that they lived in an old Victorian house in Blacksburg, South Carolina and had some twin beds for the Inn, I was so excited!
There was a little plotting, a lot of planning, and I have to thank her good friend Kim for meeting me at Christine’s house for pick-up as Christine is in Colorado with her grandkids!
It takes a Quilt Village to pull this all together.
This meeting was full up to the gills with visiting quilters – SO exciting!
Could it be they were driven indoors due to the way-to-early-in-June oppressive heat wave?
Any place with A/C is a boon, and when it involves quilters and quilting, even better!
The parade of Quiltville quilts happens AFTER I speak, with the “everything else quilty” being shown before. It works well that way, and those who bring Quiltville quilts add to my presentation, often times bringing quilts that I didn’t bring myself – being limited to 2 bags at 50 lbs each.
They did more than fill in the gaps – they brought the show stoppers!
I met with the quilters of Lee’s Summit, Missouri yesterday for a whirlwind day of scrappy quilt goodness!
And Ii got the tee shirt to prove it!
My thanks to this fun group of ladies for making me one of their tribe for the day – it was SEW MUCH FUN!
You know, ANY DAY that starts with laughter is a good day, and this one was off and running from the moment I stepped foot in the building.
Energy levels were high, machines were revved up and ready to roar and roar we did!
How cool is it that friends will come from near and far to show their support and say hello in PERSON – even though you “see” each other nearly every day online?
Such was my day yesterday in the beautiful city of Lee’s Summit, Missouri!
Completely bamboozled, stressed out in a flurry of activity of getting quilts set up for the presentation, unpacking boxes in a hurry to set up the book signing table with crowds of folks waiting for me to “Open, open, open!” I didn’t even notice who had snuck into the wings, just hanging out at the way back.
My dear friend Kevin the Quilter! So good to see you, Kevin!
And it was such a short hello – a hug, a selfie, and off he went because his life is just as busy too.
But real hugs are ALWAYS the best gift of the day! And there were many!
