The End Begins

I took a day off on Wednesday because most of my students were taking the PSAT.  It was a great opportunity to get Soul Searching bordered and ready to quilt.   I do enjoy seeing a years worth of quilts all start to come together.  

I never have large quantities of any backing fabrics, so I pulled out everything black and cut it into 10.5 inch squares or rectangles.   Here they are in a brick layout ready to be sewn together.   I have a quilt that I agreed to quilt for a coworker of Kurt's.  That means I will be setting up the quilting frame again.  If I plan strategically, I can get several quilts finished while it is out.   

How are your year end plans working out?  Hopefully you have a quilt or two ready to get finished up before 2020 is gone forever.  I am hopeful that 2021 will be a less eventful year.  
 

Wrapping Up

 I added two more blocks to Soul Searching yesterday and got the top webbed together  I'm thinking of a black border.  I also need to get a quilt ready to take to our teacher who is out with Covid.   It is nice to have a stash of finished quilts ready for emergencies.  OK, so maybe I have more than a few quilts ready and waiting.  Hopefully I won't need them all before everything settles down.  

We had a new window installed in the upstairs bathroom and spent the morning painting the stucco.  A new tub and shower enclosure are next on the list.  Everything is still working, but it is a bit torn apart right now.  We are  still tile shopping but I have a tub picked out.  I liked one with a swoop on one side because that seems like it would be a nice place to rest your head while soaking.  With the new window we have ocean views on two sides, so staring at the ocean seems like a nice idea.  

Kurt picked a square tub, but it doesn't seem like it would be as comfortable to me.  He also found some Japanese soaking tubs that have built in chairs, but that might be a little too strange.  I'd have to try one out first I think.  I don't think that bathtubs work like mattresses when you go and lay on them.  

It has started to cool down a bit lately.  It is now possible to walk on the beach without dripping sweat, which is refreshing.  Unfortunately, it is too dark to get a walk in before it is time to leave for work right now so the beach walking gets saved for weekends.  There should be some morning light again after daylight savings kicks in.  I think that is around the end of the month.  

Right now I'm sitting with Sydney while she takes a practice PSAT.  All the sophomores and juniors will be taking it at school on Wednesday.  Since I'll be sitting here for a bit longer, I think I'll go over and check out Oh Scrap!  It had so frantic and exhausting that I haven't been keeping up with everyone else's progress.  Things seem comparatively calm right now though.  I am hopeful that it will stay that way for a while.  It will be nice to spend some time finishing quilts.  

Sunshine After Rain

As much as I love making blocks, seeing them start to come together is strangely satisfying too. I will be missing a few colors this year as the school year has been unusually frantic, but I'm starting early so that I can fill in the gaps as I go along.  Soul Searching will need one blue and one purple to round things out.  If I am feeling especially energetic, I might add one more row.   It is always nice to add in black and brown to ground the rainbow.

Kurt built me a design wall last weekend and I have flannel and batting all ready to go so that I can arrange my blocks as finished quilts start coming together.  I had flannel backed table cloths thumbtacked to the wall, but they were getting pretty frayed and I threw them all out during a quarantine cleaning spree.  

Things seem to have settled down at school.  So far we have officially had only one positive student and one positive teacher.   We had a big batch come back from quarantine on Wednesday and they were all so happy to return.  The teacher is still out and has some underlying health issues, so we are all hoping and praying that she will be OK.  One nearby high school had to quarantine the entire football team, they ended up sending 115 kids home in total.  Parents are livid that they will have to forfeit the next two games.  

It is looking like it might be a bit of a rainy day.  There is a wall that needs to be painted after we had a window installed, but since I can't do that in the rain, I might have to sew a bit instead.  

Yay for Yellow!

 Is anyone else desperately ready for a bit of cheer amongst all the really scary happenings in the world?

I feel ready to lock myself in the sewing room and stream something happy while digging into some bright and sunny scraps today.   We are nearing the end of the year and I am already starting to make a list of what blocks need to get caught up so that I can start finishing up some quilts in the next couple of months.  

Time Marches on

 We had our first positive Covid case at school this week.  It was only a matter of time, but it was still shocking how much it disrupted everything.  There were kids streaming down to the office and getting sent home for the next two weeks.  Then the second parade started of kids with possible contact who don't have to quarantine.  It didn't take long for them to start doing the math to figure out who the positive case was based on seating charts comparing to physical location of kids who got each type of letter in each class.  I've got several kids in my afternoon class who are now online learners.  At least for now. 

Another teacher went on leave for the rest of the semester, so we are down three so far.  I think that will be the thing that closes us down.  Subs are hard to find right now.  On a brighter note though, the teaching part is getting easier.  The kids are adjusting to the new routine and we are all starting to bond.  Times of crisis do bring people together.  The staff has never been so helpful and supportive of one another before.  

I spent most of last weekend ironing and cutting scraps.  It was restful and meditative.  I didn't get to the the sewing part yet, but I have plenty of the right sizes ready for all my blocks this month and to make up for last.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Painting the Town

Each week gets longer and stranger than the last.  The new normal is starting to fall into a pattern.  Kids go out on quarantine and then show up as online learners.  My kids all let me know when they are going to be out that it is NOT because they have Covid.  It is all so strange.  Having a weekend to look forward to has never been more important to getting through it all.  There is nothing special on the schedule this weekend, so sewing sounds like a great plan.  I haven't really started to dig into red yet.  That will be fun!

Red

What a time to be working on red.  I picked the colors all in December, not knowing what 2020 was planning on throwing at us.  Just when you think that life can't turn into more of a terrible future dystopian novel.  All the more reason to stay in and sew?  We have some tropical system that might turn into Sally or Teddy sitting off of the coast, so I think that it might be a rainy day.  Again, a good reason to stay in and sew.  Anna is coming home though, so I'l probably be spending some time with her instead.  I hope you are finding some time to play with your scraps though.  I hear it is good for your mental health. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Long Red Weekend

I hope those in the US are looking forward to a long holiday weekend.  I've only been.  It has been 4 weeks since teachers went back to school and 2 weeks for the students, but everyone is ready for a bit of a break.  Settling in to a new routine is always hard, but this year is a much bigger adjustment, so  I will enjoy having an extra day to get my bearings and try to keep figuring things out.

September -- Red for School Houses

I chose red for September in honor of little red school houses as kids, teaches and staff head back to school.  Some from home, some back to brick and mortar.  Some full time, some hybrid, some home schooled.  Best of luck to them all!  There are no easy choices right now, whatever option you and your loved ones choose, please stay safe, learn lots and keep working hard with grace and appreciation.  These are extraordinary times, we will get through it and come out at the end stronger, more resilient and with new skills that we didn't know we needed.  

New Normal

I made it through the first week!  I would not call it graceful, or fluid or even successful.  It was my very best though.  It just isn't possible to adequately address the needs of at home learners while monitoring and providing for in person learners.  Trying to do that while wearing a mask, from an appropriate distance and with adequate supplies so that nobody ever shares anything -- well, its like juggling flying fish.  I can juggle, but the darn fish are slippery and they keep getting away.  If I knew about the fish, I didn't know about the juggling, and certainly not about the flying part.  They just keep sneaking a new bit in each time I hear the plan. Just when the in person people are really catching on, I switch back to the online people, then I stumble to get the next bit of technology started up.  Rinse repeat and go again.

 I had my AP Capstone Research kids make a digital bulletin board instead of the paper "get to know you" surveys that we usually do.  Here is mine.  They seem to have some topic ideas and are bringing in an article for Monday.  We did two labs in Biology already.  So much time to find enough termites and pill bugs for everyone to have their own!  They seemed to enjoy it though, which is the point of the first week of school.  We are investing in an online lab service, so I hope that will help the online learners to have some data to practice with. 

 I cut out a bunch of masks.  I've got this atom fabric that will be great when we get to Chemistry.  They aren't all sewn yet, but it is a step in the right direction. 

 I did finish this one for Anna.  It is sailboat fabric that I ordered as a sample from Joann's.  Apparently they can print certain patterns in any color on any fabric.  So this is sailboats in blue on canvas.  Kurt is driving over to see her today and will deliver this along with a molecular model kit for Organic Chemistry.  She has been back for two weeks so far with no reports of illness.  Ryan went back yesterday,  He doesn't think it will last long, but he wanted to give it a try.  He has a roommate who's mom won't let him come back to campus yet, so it is just him so far.  His classes are all online, but he wants to be with his friends and go back to his clubs and activities.  I worry, but I guess that is just what moms do.  He is under strict instructions to bring everything home with him if they are sent away again.  Last time he thought he would be back to school in a couple of weeks.  They stored all of his stuff all summer for him.  It will be interesting to see what it all looks like when he picks it up today. 

The sun still comes up every day.   I'm just going to keep on getting through each new day, catching the fish that don't fly away and being happy with little moments of success.