SHQ Show & Tell 6/9/2022

America Is A Gun England is a cup of tea. France, a wheel of ripened brie. Greece, a short, squat olive tree. America is a gun.

Brazil is football on the sand. Argentina, Maradona's hand. Germany, an oompah band. America is a gun. Holland is a wooden shoe. Hungary, a goulash stew. Australia, a kangaroo. America is a gun. Japan is a thermal spring. Scotland is a highland fling. Oh, better to be anything than America as a gun.”

― Brian Bilston

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Well – my nose was either really stuffy or really runny all night long Wednesday night…..so I wasn’t feeling particularly energetic when I got up on Thursday (6/9). It seems to have settled into a regular cold…the problem is that I haven’t been sick in so very long (hooray!) that I have no patience for this!!! I tried to nap Thursday morning, and didn’t go to quilting until 11 AM…just in time for the business meeting and show and tell:

-and I took 3 more dialysis quilts...this first one was a ''leftovers'' quilt....leftover blocks from several projects, as well as scraps of fabric too beautiful not to use

-the next 2 are the same pattern, but different borders. When I was finished with these I wasn't sure I liked them because they aren't ''even''. BUT, just yesterday I saw another layout for this quilt that I liked better....so I may re-make this pattern again.....

By the time I got home, my honey was home from his golf trip. He said he had 4 things that made him extremely happy during this trip:

1 – he had a terrific roommate (Michael thinks Ed is an enthusiastic, positive person!)

2 – he played really well on Tuesday

3 – he won TWO closest to the hole pins

4 – he saw a fantastic show at Flatrock Theatre called MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins

We talked about his trip for awhile, then headed downstairs…him to work on his emails, and me to tackle the 9 patch QoV….this is the layout that both Michael and I like (we were definitely in the minority!):

The problem is, when I was figuring out the pattern and sizing for this quilt, I figured I needed 6 half blocks by 6 half blocks….so 36 blocks total….so I jumped right to 18 red and 18 blue. The problem is, once you put these blocks together, you are basically making a giant 9 patch….and a nine patch has FIVE of one color, and FOUR of the other color…not even-steven, the way I made the blocks :~(. I am just not ready to make more of these blocks right now (I’d need one red half block and one blue half block to make the current configuration work…and then I’d have 2 leftover blocks, or really 4, because each strip you cut makes 2 blocks), and I was thinking of doing a totally different layout, when I had a brain storm:

OK…can you tell? I went back to all of one color in the block, with the very center block being 2-tone…..I think I can live with this for now, even though there's an awful lot of red together on the right side of the quilt. I asked Michael to look at it…and we started talking…and I said what if we make ALL of the blocks look like the center block? So he shifted everything around….and I can definitely live with it now:

Not what I originally had in mind....but a pretty good substitute after I made the block colors in even numbers! I think you lose some of the round circles in the this layout, but it will have to do. I'll have to re-visit my directions to see if I can even do what I want....without having any leftover blocks (always the goal!)

By then it was dinnertime and we headed out for Chinese…since there was no food in the house :~). We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and watching TV.

*** I needed to do the laundry, but then I realized I was out of detergent, so I went to write a shopping list and realized how unorganized the junk drawer was, and started checking pens for ink. When I went to toss all the junk, I saw that the trash was full, but before I took it out, I wanted to get rid of old food in the fridge. That’s when I realized a juice jug had leaked, so I needed to clean it up, but when I went to grab a rag, I saw that the pantry closet was a nightmare, so I started organizing it. And that’s how I ended up on the floor…looking at my old photo albums from the 1970’s and not doing laundry. ***