January Aweigh!

I've been keeping pretty busy these last few days sewing up a storm. As a stretch for exercise, each time I get up, I take something down
from Christmas. So far I have all the snowmen put away from the hearth room, all the angels out of the living room, and all of the snow village packed yup and put away for next year. The Santas and poinsettias have been carried to the the top of the stairs, but the tree and the garland may have to wait.

I took on another barter...sewing together a king quilt top in exchange for machine quilting a king top of mine from this past fall. When I said yes, I don't think I realized how many half square triangles would be involved! At last count, there are 720 of them - and I couldn't just make a gagillion at a time, either. Since the shading varied from the top of the block to the bottom of the block, and keeping the central friendship star the same required a little thinking on my part. Hurt my brain, I gotta tell you! LOL!

Here's the friendship star on my design that just needs to be sewn together and I'll call it good. 81" x 90"

Speaking of barters, I am loving my last barter of socks for a sweatshirt jacket. Here they are in all their glory! Thank you Linda!


I've also been reading up a storm, too. A book that really made an impression on me (which was a surprise) was Rising Tide, The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed the World. It was extremely enlightening about everything from the Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi River, politics in the Delta, the rise of Herbert Hoover and Huey Long, as well as the levy system for the river. I highly recommend it!

Another book that was great was March, by Geraldine Brooks, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner. It is written from the point of view of Mr. March, the father of the Little Women from Louisa May Alcott. The author modeled him after Bronson Alcott, Louisa's father - a fascinating man in his own right. It seemed as if I had just put down Little Women for a moment, and the next chapter was March. Mrs. March (Marmee) is also portrayed as a real person underneath all the humility and quiet goodness she shows in Alcott's story. It's a pleasant story, with some well written action stories based on diaries of the time during the Civil War. I can see why it won the prize.

Movies have been a big thing on our list, too, lately. We've had the grandchildren for a couple of days/nights, so we saw Water Horse today. A delightful movie that might have been a little bit over the top for the three year old, but he enjoyed it nevertheless. The kids also like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and so did Opa (Hubby) even though the ratings have been less than stellar. I didn't get to see that one, but wish I had. Hubby and I also saw Kite Runner (my choice) which was great, and No Country for Old Men which was also done very well. Both were unsettling, but followed the books fairly closely and filmed wonderfully.

This will be my last post from home until we return on the 22nd. I am still trying to figure out how to load pictures onto the PC from our digital. If I'm successful, I can share photos from our island trip as we go rather than waiting until we return. You can see where we are going (and have gone for the last 20+ years) here. This year we are renting a private villa with it's own pool, so I will probably feel less intimidated to swim each morning without people watching me.

Have a happy sewing time while I'm gone. Me? No sewing, no hand work. Just walks on the beach, reading and eating a lot of fresh fish! So, I'll leave with pictures from last year, just to whet your appetite while I'm gone:

This is the air view of the West End of Anguilla where we stay:


One of my favorite meals at Oliver's is crayfish (Caribbean lobster)

You can tell that the beaches are really crowded, right? We love it here!