Randomday, and a Farewell

A fond farewell to my old laptop, which as I write this is at 50% power remaining and no way to recharge it. The clothespin that has been holding the cord into the charging port at just the right angle for the last two years is no longer doing the trick. This is possibly because I closed Magistra and put it on the floor behind the old treadle sewing machine (which is also a convenient table for displaying Tertia's pottery projects) last night for the Last Noel. Magistra has had a good life and worked hard... I feel like I need to pay tribute to it here on the blog, since, realistically, I would not have a blog presence without it. I received it as a Christmas gift in 2010, and it traveled back and forth to school with me on a daily basis until it developed this problem with the ability to charge and hold a charge, sometime in 2015 I think. I believe we have copied all essential files and photos to the main home computer or the cloud, and so I'll be able to get started again on the new laptop we plan to purchase, but it just won't be the same for a while, and please understand if you don't see a blog post from me as I navigate the frustrations of learning a new device. Change is always hard for old-school people like me!

The Last Noel itself was very nice. We had plenty of food and a good number of people from our wider circle. Quarta's friends played a kind of freeze tag/ hide and seek in the dark in the yard, and we await the spring to see the impact this had on the shrubbery. It is good that God makes plants, like people, resilient.

And so the Christmas season is officially over, and we are off to new adventures.

On Ringo Lake Link-up (Parts 6,7,8 and not up to 9 yet!)

All right, folks, there is no way I was going to have a completed top by today. But I am happy to have slightly more than half of the blocks pieced, and am sharing photos here for the link-up at Bonnie's blog.

It's really a cheery, bright block and I look forward to getting them all sewn together and then figuring out the diagonal setting. It helped to have some uninterrupted sewing time over New Year's, but that is going to be harder from now on.

 It's kind of fun seaming a bunch of top rows and middle rows at a time. Then you can cut them apart, stack them, and make a bunch of blocks at a time.

I really enjoyed using a very wide variety of fabrics for this quilt. I used up some smaller bits that had been in my stash for a long time, and I cut a lot of extra strips to add to my strip bins for future use. Favorite neutrals are Kermit the Frog, Halloween candy, chicken wire, totem poles, bugs, musical notes, and maps. Favorite corals are some of the 30's prints, some of the Connecting Threads collections I dug into, and a bunch of others. Favorite blues - I always love the plaids, and the little skull and crossbones, and the fish prints. I used some of the brown floral scraps from my mom's sewing stash that I inherited. It's funny how I have such vivid memories of how and when I got most of these fabrics. Sometime I will have to count up the total number of different fabrics in this quilt, and I bet it will be over 100.

But for now I will slowly work to get the whole top together!

New Year

Welcome 2018! I have attempted to give the blog a new look. Gone are the dandelions blowing, and I am attempting to clean up some of the sidebars. It may take a few tries to get it the way I like it. I hope everyone who reads this enjoyed a good end to the 2017 year, surrounded by loved ones.

We had a nice Christmas, with Daniel home from Virginia, and Peter home from college in Pullman.

 Christmas Eve it snowed, and we made it safely to Grandma Chapman's home through the Portland snow and freezing rain.

 Christmas morning it has always been the tradition to open the stockings first. The children used to look a lot more excited, but they have become too cool, I guess. And some of them need coffee to function in the mornings now.

 Steve and I are working on the art of selfie taking.

 Steve's mom is looking very sweet in this picture.

I finished the socks from the yarn I bought in Annapolis for Daniel. These and the Stashbuster socks for Peter were my only handmade gifts this Christmas. I have two more pairs on the needles right now which may be future Christmas presents, or "just because" presents, for Steve and the boys. But I am a little bored with sock knitting for the moment.

New Year's resolutions: actually, not anything specific. Read more, blog and write more, knit more, finish more quilts; improve the Latin for Duolingo course, which now has more than 650 learners on Memrise (ironically, a better host than Duolingo); get the house organized, organize health and dental care for those of us who need it, organize Tertia's affairs as we are now officially her guardians. Mostly, we have some major purchases and expenses that are overdue; many are holdovers from 2017, which was full of unexpected expenses. So very unpoetical, but that is why the creative things are important.

Wishing everyone a happy, productive and healthy 2018!