Back to blogdom!

Remember that awesome line from "You've Got Mail", where Tom Hanks' character tells Meg Ryan's that September makes him want to send her a freshly sharpened bouquet of pencils?

I forget my point exactly, but it always makes me smile because I can relate to the love of back to school perhaps more than any other season or day, with the possible exception of Thanksgiving since who doesn't love a holiday devoted entirely to eating? After three months of nonstop fun and searching for items no other member of my family could locate, I'm sitting in a quiet house. It's almost like a miracle. Or a really good dream in which I and I alone know where everything is.



Just saying.

Anyhoo, it was a lovely summer, and while my goals for EPQD may not have been entirely met, moments in the sand, and hence moments sweeping sand out of the car, are now giving way to moments spent in the sewing room again! Woo and hoo!

I may not have accomplished all I set out to do over the summer, but I did get some crafting and sewing in. Check out these fun projects I did with the girls one day, which represent the first and to date only time I have been able to replicate a project I found on Pinterest with any degree of accuracy or skill.

Here is the original Pinteresty photo:


(which was from redshoeslic.typepad.com), which I thought not only looked like a fun project but proved I was not the only one who might consider snapping a photo without cleaning off my desk first, and here are what we made



Yeah, they aren't quite as awesome, and they are fuzzy and upside down to boot because Blogger is being crotchety today (my story and I'm sticking to it), but we are pretty proud of our coolness regardless and it killed an hour or two on an otherwise "we are so done with summer" kind of day at the end of August.

I did manage to throw a few rows of the latest guild log cabin blocks together, but man alive, these may kill me. I love group projects, I love my Squanicookies, but I feel I may need to offer them a seminar entitled "A 1/4" Seam is Traditionally Not Quite Wide Enough to Drive a Truck Through" before the next go-round of our log cabin swap. I do love the layout I am going with and I'm having to be perfectly happy to say to heck with the idea of 12 1/2" blocks because apparently 11 1/2" will have to do.


I also got to sew a bit this summer on a project that is very fitting for this, Ovarian Cancer Awareness month. One of the moms of Greta's preschool friends lost her own mom to PPOC back in December, which happens to be the same form of ovarian cancer which my own mother fought. Although I don't normally do custom projects, she asked if I might be interested in doing a memory quilt of her mom's clothing for her sister and herself, and figuring it might be cathartic for me on some level, I agreed. While I am sure Mary and her sister are horrified by how long it is taking me, I am really enjoying the peace it gives me to work with these clothes and know that they belonged to a strong woman who will not be forgotten.


Lots of shows and lectures to fill my schedule this fall, but I am also excited to announce my new store on Craftsy. I'm slowly stocking it with my patterns, many of which need to be combined into one pdf, so if there is one you are desperate to download you just may need to wait a week or two, but I hope to have them all up there by the end of the month. But who knows. Today's upload was to be "For Love of Springtime", but they are telling me it is too tall. For the love of Craftsy. It's a TALL PATTERN! You know how computers and I are so close and all. Hold me and be patient is all I can ask.

Finally, as I went through my yearly dose of survivor's guilt first thing this morning I thought about rerunning last year's 9/11 post, but I don't want to dwell too long on what is one of the hardest days of the year for me. Suffice it to say I am exceedingly thankful to be here to have this second career and share it with all of you. Instead I will leave you with a bit of the song running through my head today, as we remember always:

 "Faith, hope, and love are some good things He gave us, and the greatest is love."