Nature's Ornaments

About three years ago, Pedro planted a triple-trunked Christmas palm (also known as a Manila Palm) in our front landscape island. This year it fruited for the first time. Look at how gorgeous these fruits are when they ripen. Plus, the squirrels love them (as if that's a good thing). That's how the palm gets in name - it puts on beautiful red Christmas ornaments this time of year. The boughs are so full of fruit, they're just barely holding on to the tree.

Queen of UFOs

Let me be honest. I am the Queen of the UFOs. UFO (in quilt speak) stands for UnFinished Objects, just so you don't think I believe in extra-terrestrial aliens abducting people while they sleep.

In preparation for the garage sale, I pulled out three FULL 30 gallon bins from under my cutting table. Full of what, you might wonder? Full of UFOs, all in various stages of completion. Some projects consist of nothing more than folded fabric tied together with a ribbon, with a sticky note stuck on reminding me which project I have (had) planned for that particular bunch. Some of them actually reached the cutting stage; I have lovely stacks of squares, triangles or strips, waiting to be pieced together. Some of these actually have the instructions or book with them, which gives a greater clue as to their final composition.

What UFO collection would be complete without Orphaned Blocks? These are those completed pieced or appliqued blocks, lovely to look at, well constructed of course, but without a family. In other words, there's not enough of them to complete a quilt. Most of these come from classes I taught, classes I took and techniques I tried. I also have a 4" high stack of crazy-pieced blocks on 8 1/2 x 11 paper backing. Some of these orphans have recently found an adoptive home with the charitable quilt-making arm of my local quilt guild. I'm sure they'll be happier there than in my plastic bins.

Next, we get to the almost completed quilt tops - these are blocks put together with other blocks, but not quite ready for finish quilting. Some lack a border or have turned out to be too small or too large in some way. One small square quilt might be too big for a baby quilt, but not big enough for a twin sized bed. Some unfinished tops once had a border, but my color tastes changed and I ripped off the border with plans to choose something different and new. And there are also quilt tops that I inherited or purchased that I just don't love anymore.

Lastly, we have completed tops that are ready for quilting. Here's where I am the queen. I have a character flaw that resists finishing anything. I don't suppose that's news to anyone. I must be getting famous for being flaky. This is been bothering me a lot lately, like at the depths of my soul. Look at some of my older posts with projects that are started and ask me where are the pictures of the completed quilts. Take a guess.

You know, I started out writing this to put a humorous twist on my UFO's but the thing is, I'm not laughing anymore. I've got some serious thinking to do about this. I'll get back to you later.

Garage Sale Update

Once again, I covered our pool table with boxes of fat quarters, set up two folding tables and put out additional odds and ends, acid-free papers, rubber stamps, etc. I advertised on Craigs List and was fortunate enough to get a few quilters to come, which made up the largest part of my sales.

All in all, it was a lovely day for a garage sale. The temperature started out in the mid-70s, and gradually worked up to the mid-80s by the time I shut the garage door at 1:00 p.m. sharp. Traffic was a little slow, as the 1st weekend of November is the busiest garage sale weekend of the year around year and our neighborhood was competing with at least a dozen others holding subdivision-wide sales.

My next-door neighbor traded me a box of paperback books in exchange for fabric, so I grabbed an Alex Cross murder mystery and enjoyed a leisurely stretch on the sofa in the garage during breaks between customers. I still have lots of fabric to get rid of, so it's back to Ebay, 20 fat quarters at a time.

48 (Again)

Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be 48. Here's the weird thing - I've been telling people I'm 48 for months now, if not the whole year. Why? I can't really figure it out. Is it because 48 is a nice round number? Was 47 not good enough? Am I in a hurry to qualify for senior shopping days or a membership in AARP? Or is it because my mind is slipping and peri-menopause has me as scatterbrained as Gracie Allen? There are women older and wiser than I that tell me this mind-slippage will pass once I finish menopause. Looking at my elder female family members, I'm in some doubt about this.

I received a new book in the mail today. It's a thin volume, and I usually like a little more meat to my quilting books, but has everything one would want to know about easy cutting and piecing of freehand curves and numerous well-illustrated examples from the simplest 4-patch blocks to a more challenging fiber art version. I also like the suggestions on quilting designs and concise instructions for binding with mitered corners. There are no corners cut with this book. Now, if I can ever get finished preparing for this Saturday's garage sale, I can actually get some quilting done.