Natchitoches Trip to Europe

Last weekend Richard and I went to my sister's house in Natchitoches for the annual Festival of Lights. I wrote a little about the weekend last Sunday. 

The rain was unbelievable...so much that the parade was cancelled for the first time since 1959. It was a steady, cold rain that went on for two days and nights, so going out for some sightseeing or festival shopping was out of the question. 

We are a hardy lot, however, and had no problem entertaining ourselves. The guys watched football and UFC, visited, and laughed at their own crazy stories. We girls had a wonderful time laughing and chatting, reminiscing about our childhood and, surprise, built 3D puzzles of famous buildings. 

Actually, they built several while I graded papers, but I could not handle missing the fun, so eventually I packed up the papers and played. Angie and Lewis just got home from a trip to Europe, and Sid and Frank lived in Germany for several years, so they have seen all of the buildings. That may have given them a slight advantage.

I'm almost resigned to the idea that I'll never get to Europe. I laughing said that I should take a picture of the buildings, but Angie said I needed to take a selfie instead. We all laughed but I took pictures anyway. Bummer! It didn't fulfill my dreams of going one day, so I'm holding out hope rather than rely on this pitiful picture.  

My Example of Teaching

The National Beta Club is a an honor organization, that focuses on service to others. Today we were to have a Beta meeting. We've built our club up so that we can't all fit in any of the available classrooms, so we've moved to the cafeteria and were to begin as the middle school kids cleared out. Imagine tables after 400+ teenagers have eaten. Clean is not a descriptor. 


Because I am one of the sponsors, and closest in proximity to the cafeteria, I arrived early. Middle schoolers were still eating and playing and lining up and being kids in the cafeteria. The workers were in the kitchen and had not begun cleaning tables, so I set my things down and quickly grabbed a cloth and bucket of cleaning solution. 


I wanted to be able to begin our meeting right away because time was limited with lots to do, but I did not want to sit at the dirty tables. By the time the Betas were called to the meeting and arrived, I had cleaned most of the tables. 

They were surprised to find me washing down tables and asked me why I was doing that...it's not my job, they reminded me. Our meeting began on time, and we managed to get to everything on the agenda. Later, when students asked me again about cleaning the tables, I told them simply that the tables needed cleaning. At that point they realized that I'd cleaned all the tables--not just my own--and thanked me. I believe in teaching by example. 

"Children may think about what I say; they learn from what I do; and they never forget how I make them feel." 

November Stash Report and More Headbands

I don't know about anyone else, but I had a good month of finishes. Four quilts total, and though two are small quilts, it may be the best month of finishes I've had. 

Stash Report for November 2016
Additions and Subtractions	Yards	Projects from stash	Projects in Que
Used this month:		Les Batons (2.5)	two scrap quilts
Added this month:	2	The Quarry—Quilty 365 (6.5)	Moda Noteworthy quilt
Used in 2016:	83.5	LSU (wallhanging) (1)
Added in 2016:	43½	Solicitude (2)

The pink and purple ones are for students;
the red and white one is for a teacher.

This week I also started making warm, fleece headbands for students. I asked one of my students to borrow her headband so I could look at it and get ideas for a pattern. After making the first one, I brought it to school to have a couple of the girls check my pattern. I wanted to make sure it would fit my girls without letting them see it.

Prototype

The pattern is pretty close to what I wanted. But, it turns out, the girls at school loved it. Four begged me to make headbands for them. Then one of my teacher friends saw the prototype and also asked for one. Tonight I have three of the five completed. 

This weekend I'll make the other two--they take only a few minutes--and then I'll be able to concentrate on the ones I want to make for my girls. The little grands will need a smaller pattern, so maybe I'll start there. Regardless, I've no doubt that I'll enjoy my weekend of sewing between the family commitments of a birthday party and Sunday lunch. What are your weekend plans?

Linking up with:

Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Fabric Frenzy Friday for Fort Worth Fabric Studio

Off the Wall Fridays at Creations Quilts Art Whatever 

Pin It Weekly #182

What have you been pinning recently? As always, I've added some quilts (or quilt tops) to my "heart, quilts" board. 

You'd think that I'd get all the quilts on Pinterest on that board and be, like, here. They are all right here. But somehow I keep finding more. 

Sure, there are people who add more quilts to the collective (like me) but those should be easy to keep up with, right? 

I should never say those kinds of things: they get me thinking! Now I wonder how many quilt pins are added to Pinterest each day. I'll google that and see if google really does know everything.

According to quora.com, five million pins (total) are pinned on Pinterest each day. About 20% of those, right at one million, are fresh pins. How many are quilts? Well, that I could not find.

And because I love pillows...more pillow pins!

What are you pinning this week?

Headband Beginnings

A student in one of my classes wore a cute little headband on Monday. That got me thinking--I could make a few headbands for the girls for Christmas. 

No sooner than I had the idea, Jenny told me that they would like initial tee shirts like I made last year. So now I have to decide which one I'll make. I don't think that I have enough time to make them each two items...there are too many girls!

 In the meantime, I took a few minutes to make one for myself using some of fleece scraps. Just in time, too, since we will have cold weather on Thursday. Very cold weather. 
Rain at 28 degrees. Brrrr!

I will be very happy to have this little ear warmer, especially since the pink side is an extra-thick, fuzzy fleece. 

Not a bad look for a 50-something English teacher, right? Ha! I will not have my hair down, and I probably won't have a smile at 28 degrees. I'm miserable in cold. My skin gets dry, itchy, rough. And that's how it starts. It ends too ugly to describe.

What are you making in this icy, cold weather?

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: L I G H T S

We spent this weekend in Natchitoches at the Lights Festival. Natchitoches bills itself as "The City of Lights," which has been celebrated since 1926. 

One of my fondest memories is of my sisters and me playing and rolling down the hill in front of the lake. I also remember picking stickers out of my clothing, which adds to the humor. 

Now one of my sisters lives on the lake just beyond that hill, and she is loving enough to invite us (the whole crazy family) to her house for the first weekend of December, which happens to be the festival weekend. That means lights, parades, fireworks, a craft fair, boat flotilla, and of course, Santa. 

And Christmas quilts to go along with the scenes because, believe me, this weekend was cold and wet (and unbelieveably rainy) so anyone out there would have wished for an extra-warm, heavy quilt. The rain was so heavy that the parade was canceled for the first time since 1959 

Though not quilts, these are adorable and certainly would be something that you'd likely see in one of the many boutiques along Front Street. 

Here's hoping you're getting into the Christmas spirit and enjoying the Advent season. We have not begun decorating, but that's okay, I prefer to spend time with family. Perhaps next weekend the stuff will come down and someone will put it all together. 

Pincushions {Pt 5} ~~ finishes

New pincushions to add to the small basket. And I remembered to add my labels to these before I got to the hand-sewing part. Woohoo for on-time memory!

There are two but they are very different. One is large and round, the other is rectangular, but both were made from scraps. The fabric for the round cushion is the last of this cute, paper umbrellas print. To break up the print and add some drama, I sewed in some skinny strips of coordinating scraps; then quilted it in random diagonal lines. It has a modern, funky feel.

I left the backing fabric plain and unquilted so that it can be used that way if the eventual recipient prefers. 

The second pincushion is just a simple I-sewed-some-scraps-together item. This one is quilted on the front and the back in a straight-line grid. Easy, fast, fill 'er up in no time!

And speaking of filling up, both have crushed walnut filler. It's my favorite goto filler, and I can't believe it, but the 10 lb. bag is almost empty. 

There have to be more pincushions on the way, so I guess I'd better find another bag soon. What have you been working on lately? 

Linking up with:

Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Fabric Frenzy Friday for Fort Worth Fabric Studio

Off the Wall Fridays at Creations Quilts Art Whatever 
Busy Hands Quilts