Processing and Plans

I've been feeling somewhat scattered this week, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Sometimes when you've got ideas fluttering around, you just have to let them wander where they will.  Eventually, they will come together in formation, or at least that is the hope.

Let's talk about Pinterest.  Talk about a blessing and a curse!  Curse the time suckage and resultant guilt.

But bless all the wonderful things to see, explore, marvel/dream/laugh about, and pin!  In the short span of a couple weeks, I already have more inspiration than I'll need for a long time to come.

What I really probably need is a Pin-tervention—or at least a Pin-terruption.  I want to believe I just made those words up, but I bet if I went looking on Pinterest, there would probably be pin proof otherwise.

The upshot of it all is that I am inspired to try something based on a quilt I saw and repinned to my Vintage Quilts board.

It's currently for sale on ebay (and wow, cha-ching!).  I just love it.  It's apparently based on an old pattern called Flying Swallows.  I stared and stared at it until I about went cross-eyed trying to wrap my head around how it was made. 

Then, via the wonder of Pinterest, a free pattern sheet for making it appeared and the mystery was solved.  Man, I love the internet.

The pattern is for English Paper Piecing, which I have not done before.  All of you who have made hexies and whatnot over the past few years have been there, done that, but I stayed off the tracks while that train rolled on by, so this will be new territory for me.  As it happens, I have a little vacation coming up and have been thinking about taking along some hand sewing.  This may be it.

Then again, I know me.  I know how short the wick is on my patience and how easily I can burn through my level of interest.  An alternative would be to machine piece the block, and here is where I thank Google for providing a solution and instructions for doing just that.  Here is another variation and some history on the block itself.  I like that version too.

So I have options, is what I'm saying.  Plans and options.  It's a good start.

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We made a good start 30 years ago this week, when Norm and I piled into his red Triumph TR7 and drove to the county courthouse to get hitched.

We didn't remember to take a camera, so all our wedding photos in the courthouse are courtesy of a Polaroid borrowed from a sheriff's detective.  You need "something borrowed" for your wedding, right?

Afterwards, we stopped by the law office where I was working at the time, and one of the ladies there had a camera.  I like that Norm is smiling here.  He's generally not an overly smiley guy.  I guess marrying my awesomeness must have put him over the moon (*cough*cough*choke*).  ;)

And here it is three decades later already.  Wow, time flies!

* * * * *

One other happy note. I helped my sister pack for a move this week (that's not the happy part, yet).  We were boxing up the kitchen dishes when she opened a cupboard and took out a set of Pyrex bowls and held them out in my direction.  "Do you want these?"

Like she really had to ask!