Still Moving Forward

Sydney seems to be feeling better.  She is not happy about having to quarantine, but I have convinced her that she should make the best of it and try to enjoy some quiet time to relax.  She started trying to crochet this morning but did not get very far.  She did paint her nails, give herself a facial and find a new series to stream.  Not a bad day overall.  I sewed together the extra OMG blocks into a flimsy that I have decided to call LOL.  That helped break up spurts of cleaning and sanitizing that help me feel like I am doing something productive.  

I was late to the sunrise this morning.  I wish I could say that it was because I was up at 4 for the rocket launch, but I slept right through that too.   

While still n the mode of using up extras, I pulled out a bag of random 26 patches which I am starting to play with now.  I think I will randomize the fat pink and skinny green strips and call this one Chopsticks.  It is quite relaxing to just play with layout and design knowing that everything was leftover from some other project of long ago.   

 

We've Hit a Wall

I was watching the school board meeting on Tuesday knowing that they would refuse to consider a mask mandate and that I would be returning to a room full of unmasked children again on Wednesday. One of the people to speak was the lady at the district level who coordinates quarantines. That isn't supposed to be her job, but it is now what she does. We have quarantined 15,750 people in the first three weeks of school as a result of 3033 positive Covid cases. And as she started to tell us about the new statistic they were gathering this year, which is the number of teachers and students in the ICU or on a ventilator, she started to break down. She said that we have hit a wall with quarantines and cases. The new focus is on increasing availability of testing for students and staff. 

 On Wednesday Sydney started to feel congested and tired, so I got her in for testing on Thursday to learn that she is positive for COVID. As a critical infrastructure worker, I am still required to go to work every day until I test positive or develop symptoms. I have felt the benefits of the new available test resources, so that is a good thing. I managed to get swabbed yesterday and I am still negative.

While all of this was going on, Kurt was out of town for the week on business and Ryan was living in a hotel and shopping for an apartment in Gainesville after his housing plans fell apart. That is when the car he was using broke down. So all in all, quite a week! Kurt is taking a U-Haul full of furniture to Ryan to help him move into his newly rented townhouse, get the car fixed and then drive home again. They don't go in to the office when there is a household case, so he will be working from home this week. That will let him take care of Sydney who is already bored and sick of quarantine. I think I might sew a bit and then maybe take a quite moment in a dark room to recover.   

 

Mindless Sewing

 I am mindlessly sewing and it feels good.  No plan today other than to empty bags of extra bits and pieces.  These tiny nine patches and churn dashes were from the OMG! quilt of several years ago.   They are fairly random, but I'm enjoying the fondling of the fabric today.   NOT thinking about the 1,623 Covid cases and 8,303 quarantines my district has managed to accomplish in the first two weeks of school.  NOT thinking about the 11 positive staff members at my school.   Most of them should be back soon, not the ones who were very sick, but the mildly symptomatic and vaccinated portion of the group.   Celebrating small victories.  

ScrapHappy Saturday

 

Its been two weeks since school started, and things are clearly not going well.  I will try to put all of that out of my mind for the weekend though and think of other things.   I have two days with no plans and I will enjoy every minute.  The sunrise was beautiful, the sea turtles are still nesting and with my daughter back at school again I have access to my sewing room again.

ScrapHappy Saturday

 We have just finished the first week of school.  In case you haven't seen the news lately, things are not going well in Florida.  I'll start with my own tiny  corner of the universe.  At my school, we had 12 teachers out on Friday for COVID.  8 have already tested positive and the other 4 are still waiting for official results.  They had to send in staff from the district office to act as substitute teachers because we don't have enough.  Our first student came to school positive which has lead to a round of student quarantines.   I bought at home antigen test kits because the wait for a testing appointment is currently 3 days without a doctors order.   Nobody has died yet in our county, so that is better than others who are near. We have over a thousand students quarantined district wide and have identified 700 positive case this month.   Those numbers don't include Friday when things really started to get messy. My friend texted from her school where they had 132 kids out on quarantine and decided to have a pep rally.  I'm still standing though.  I'm starting to adjust to the absolute horror of standing in a room full of unmasked children during a global pandemic as if it was a normal thing.  The school board meeting on Tuesday ended in the wee hours of the morning with a vote against mandating masks.  It is ironic to add that one of the school board members voting against masks wasn't physically at the meeting because he had COVID.  

Anna is home this weekend sleeping in my sewing room, so I'll enjoy a bit of handwork on the balcony in between rain from Fred.  Please stay safe! Sewing is the perfect socially distanced thing to do when outside is scary.

ScrapHappy Saturday

 

Though I won't be sewing much for the next couple of weeks, I hope you are digging into your teal, aqua, blue-green stash.  I love this color and am using it so much more than I used to.   School is back in session on Tuesday though, and my list on non sewing tasks is long right now.   We've been busy with teacher meetings all week and there hasn't been much time for my own curriculum, planning and class prep yet.  I am looking forward to digging in today.  On day one of meetings, there were 5 teachers with masks.  On day 5 of meetings, about 60% of teaches were wearing masks, one teacher had tested positive and another was awaiting test results. This year will be a fascinating epidemiological experiment.  

 There is an August block though, so please scroll down if you are playing along with the #Fullstop quilt.   For everyone else, please share your projects with us all.  

#Fullstop August Block - Question Mark

Start with a 2 inch strip of teal and of background.   Cut the following pieces:

Teal:

5 inches (1)

3.5 inches (2)

2 inches (1)

Background: 

5 inches (2)

2 inches (4)

Next, from a 1.75 inch strip, cut 4 squares

The 1.75 inch squares are for sew and flip corners.   Place one on either end of the top 5 inch rectangle and use a pencil or erasable marker to draw a sewing line from corner to corner of the square (look at the picture to see how they are arranged).   Each of the 3.5 inch teal strips will get a single flip and sew triangle as well.   

Sew on each of the drawn lines and then flip open the triangles, press and check the alignment before trimming away the waste triangles behind.   You may double sew these if you like for tiny little HST units.   

You should also sew the three two inch squares together to form the bottom row.  Press toward the teal square.   

Arrange your subunits as shown, three vertical strips form the center, with one horizontal strip above and two below.   

Sew the three vertical strips together and press toward the left to reduce the bulk of the seams.   Sew the two horizontal bottom strips together as well.  Press away from the pieced unit toward the solid strip.   

Now you just have three section to sew together.   Press away from the center section.   

Unfinished, this block is 5 by 9.5.  It should finish as 4.5 by 9 in the final row.  Separate each block with a strip of fabric 2 by 9.5.  Make four to six blocks, depending on how many colors of teal you have to work with.  

ScrapHappy Saturday - Last Day of July

 

I am ready to put away the dark blues and blacks and dig into a lighter shade.  August will be about aqua.  Anything that isn't quite blue or green counts for me.  Teal, aquamarine, ocean..... all the colors of the sea.   This month's Fullstop block will be a question mark.  I will work on having that ready for first thing in the morning tomorrow.   Today though, I hope everyone has time to finish off the last bits and pieces and tidy up the blue and black bins.   

ScrapHappy Saturday

There is STILL one more Saturday left in July. Hopefully you will be able to catch up on any colors you missed along the way. I've been sewing a combination of purple and black so far, my sewing room looks like a big healed bruise!  There isn't a lot of black up on the wall quite yet, but everything is cut and organized.  I should also use today to get a head start on August blocks.   School is just around the corner and things are sure to get crazy in a hurry.  I've been in for meetings already and people are looking a little frayed around the edges.    Our COVID numbers in Florida right now are pretty similar to the same point last year when we had half as many kids all wearing masks.  Just hoping enough of us are vaccinated to make up for all the extra humanity I will see on a daily basis.   

ScrapHappy Saturday - Lazy Days of Summer

 

\ I never seem to get as much done over summer break as I had hoped. We spent last weekend visiting family in Georgia and doing a few college tours. Add in doctors and dentsists, and another week has come and gone. There is stil time though, before the shift to back to school and I hope to get in some more fabric play time. I hoepe you are making progress on your projects this weekend.