A Rough Start, but a Wonderful Finish!

Yes, this is me ---at Walmart.  The closest optical place to the cabin in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

I know there is a lot of bad talk about Walmart.

But let me tell you something – when it is the only thing you have, the only optical center for miles, and you are in a real fix with broken glasses and no where else to turn, it is a WONDERFUL place!

I got there at 10am just as the eye center was opening, and told my whole sob story to the gentleman optician behind the desk.

He untaped the scotch tape holding my glasses together at the nose piece ((Yes, this is vaguely reminiscent of an experience I had in the 4th grade, where I had to wear tape on my glasses for months because getting new glasses was an expensive thing for my family ))  and told me that if I could leave the glasses with him for an hour or so, he MIGHT be able to just replace the whole nose piece if he had one on hand that would fit the holes in my lenses.

I have never been so happy or so hopeful!


I wandered around Walmart in a fog with no glasses at all until I stumbled into the pharmacy section and made a beeline for the display of readers.  I tried on a pair of +3.00  and I could see to read my phone!  Hooray!

Thinking that I might not be able to leave with my glasses fixed, I purchased these as a “just in case”.  Purple with rhinestones.

Classy!  Ha!

I’ve got my glasses back!

AND –while waiting I made a call to my eye doc and made an appointment for an eye exam, and I’ll likely get a new pair of glasses and save these as my back up.

Oh – the price of the fix?  $15.00. 

I’ve been here all day!

I set up a folding table behind my comfy chair and have been sewing while binging on episode after episode of Mrs Fisher Murder Mysteries.  LOVE these!  Easy to sew by who-dunnits and I don’t have to pay too close attention to what is going on, just listen as I sew.

Tonight I’ll be binding that Spider Web you see behind the machine.

I’ll head home in the morning to get ready for my trip to Maine.

Before I send this up, I wanted to add a bit of a story and a photo that came our way from Melodie!

She writes:

My name is Melodie Rains, and I live in Tucson, Arizona. I met you once a couple years ago in Cottonwood, AZ. I thought you might like to know that your mystery quilt allowed me to do something with my oldest daughter, Hannah, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Hannah asked me to make her a quilt that was just hers. She has a couple bed quilts I've made her, and all three of her kids have quilts I've made them, and even her husband has a quilt I made just for him, but she wanted a quilt to snuggle with in winter, since they don't have central heating.

Your mystery was coming up, and I really wanted to do it, but had lots of other projects going already. I decided if my daughter was up for it, and was open to getting a quilt she had no idea how it would come out, we could do the mystery quilt together.
 

When the fabric requirements came out, my daughter agonized over colors. Which colors she wanted, and where she wanted them placed in relation to yours. We did a lot of online shopping together, her sending me links of the fabrics she liked from my favorite online shops, and me answering her which I thought would work, and which I eliminated and why. By the time the first clue came out, I had all the fabrics.

The first couple weeks, I sent her the link to the clues, but by week three, Hannah was seeing the clues before I woke up. She is 9 hours ahead of us, so it was easy for her to check off and on during her day, and catch the clue when you first posted them.

I'd send her pics of the clues as I made them, and we'd make guesses as to how the units would go together. I'd rearrange the units in different ways, and snap photos for her to see the possibilities.

After the top was together, I sent her photos of the different threads I had on hand and made her choose the quilting thread. I still consider myself a beginner at free motion quilting, but I sent her photos of a few designs I thought I could do successfully, and she chose that as well.

Here is the completed quilt, bound with black. I quilted it on my DSM. I'm hoping to get it in the mail Friday, so hopefully it will get to her by her birthday in early May.

Thank you for allowing me to do something with my daughter, from the other side of the world. Your mystery quilt was a perfect way to feel as if we were doing it together.
 
Melodie Rains

It's gorgeous, Melodie! Thank you so much for sharing your photo and your story with us.  How fun that you could work on it together with so many miles between you.

I can no longer imagine my life without the internet --- can you??


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