Saturday, February 22, 2020

Saturday

Lecien Retro 30's Child Smile Cheater Panel Hand Quilted by Heidi Staples of Fabric Mutt

I'm propped up in bed with a quilt and my favorite patchwork pillow today, enjoying the warm sunshine that's streaming through the windows. My youngest and I were hit hard by a flu bug yesterday, and while she's young enough that her energy is already coming back in droves this morning, I'm feeling weak and wobbly and perfectly content to curl up in bed with my laptop and books when I'm not sleeping. My favorite mix of jazz/swing/blues/big band music is playing beside me on my phone. Click here if you'd like to listen to my playlist too on Google Play Music -- I'm happy to share it with you. While I'm too tired to dance, it's awfully hard to keep still when Ray Charles is singing "Hallelujah, I Love Her So." There are so many memories on this playlist. I used to listen to "Moonlight Serenade" on my favorite Glenn Miller album while working in the office at my part time children's director job at my church during college, and I remember singing along with Frank Sinatra's "Sweet Lorraine" in the mornings on the way to my fifth grade classroom when I got my first teaching job. James and I took swing dancing lessons just for fun back when we were engaged, where we usually found ourselves dancing to "More" by Bobby Darin, which seemed to be a favorite tune for the instructors. And "At Last" by Etta James has always been our special song. So there's a lot more in this music than just melodies for me.

I'm finally making some progress on one of my longstanding reading goals: to make it all the way through the 3-volume The Civil War: a Narrative by Shelby Foote. That's almost 3,000 pages worth of history, and I'm only on page 323, but for a girl like me who loves American history, it's fascinating. Foote has a remarkable way of including little details that really make these people and events come alive, and it's nice to spend an afternoon getting lost in the past for a while.

Last October at Quilt Market, my friend Joanna Burgarino, the editor of Quilts & More magazine, interviewed me for the American Patchwork & Quilting podcast. Joanna was the technical editor on my first book, and she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. It was so much fun to get to spend this time with her, and I hope you'll enjoy it. You can listen to Episode #459 right here (our chat begins around 22:31) online.

The photo above is a project I started earlier this week, a cheater panel that I purchased from my favorite shop, Sunny Day Supply, which I'm quilting by hand. It's just the sort of slow, simple project I've been wanting to work on for so long, and I love picking it up whenever I get the urge.

Well, I think another nap may be calling my name, so I'd better close up the laptop for now. Hope you're all having a beautiful weekend, friends!

7 comments:

  1. I kinda chuckled when reading your playlist. LOL I don't know how those got into your life but it must have been from parents and grandparents! LOL Hope you get to feeling better.

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  2. I hope you are feeling better today (Sunday).

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  3. Hope you feel better real soon! Take care!

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  4. Oh, I hope you are feeling better soon. Wish I could find your playlist on Spotify -- it sounds like a good one. My type of music is jazz, blues and some folk. We just finished watching Ken Burns' Country Western documentary and it was very good. We've liked Foote as well, although I'm not much into history reading. My attention span is too short - haha!

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  5. I am so sorry that you and your daughter are sick! Hope you will be feeling better soon!

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  6. I hope you get better soon!! The flu exhaustion and cough seem to hang on forever.

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  7. Hope you are already feeling back to normal. I'm checking out your playlist. I've been listening to way too many true crime podcasts and need a change. :)

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Aren't you the sweetest for leaving a comment! Due to all the ads that bombard this section, I have to moderate everything first, but look for your comment to post in a day or two. Thanks so much for writing!

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