TEN down.....SEVEN to go....

I've been reading alllllllllll day! With a total of 17 chapters to read before Tuesday, I'm better than halfway there. Some of these chapters are overlapping - some completely contradict others.

For example, I just read a chapter about Anna Freud, and what she had to say about defence mechanisms, but just before that I read a chapter in another book, all about what a bunch of whack-jobs the Freud family was, and had been for several generations (which was the whole point of the chapter - to show that dysfunction can repeat in patterns through generations). In one book, I'm reading all about the CASW Code of Ethics (uh...AGAIN, for like the billionth time in the last two years!), and in another how the 2005 Code is a fluffy piece of neo-conservative crap compared to the 1994 Code, which defined the values of social work as humanitarian and egalitarian.

Not a stitch of sewing this week. In fact, my sewing machine "Lucy" still has not even been plugged in. Her cover is still on! I'm hoping to plough through a bunch more reading tonight, and have a chunk of time tomorrow to sew.

Blog entries are soooooooo boring without a photo. I got this milk glass jar at an estate sale near London last weekend, on my way to Woodstock. It was filthy dirty, hidden in the bottom of a box of garage/workshop stuff, and I paid a quarter for it. It's less than 4" tall, and the image is in good clear condition - - and looks very art deco to me. It cleaned up nice.

Kirkin' o' the Tartan

As I've mentioned before, I live in a rather old neighbourhood. Within a two block radius, I imagine there is at least five churches or more.

The Kirkin' o' the Tartan tradition is an old Highland one. After the defeat of the Scots by the English in 1746, the wearing of the tartan and the keeping of any Highland ways or culture was forbidden in hopes this would forever subdue the rebellious Scottish spirit.

The Kirkin' was an important part of this in that one Sunday a year, the populace went to church wearing a concealed piece of the tartan and, at a certain moment set aside in the service, the tartan was touched while the minister pronounced a blessing on all tartans and the Scots once more pledged their loyalty and respect for their old traditions.

Scots who came to Canada brought with them the Celtic customs that were their heritage -- the tartan, the bagpipe, the kirk (the church), the songs. One of the songs piped in the parade this morning was a song that was piped at our wedding, nine years ago:

Step we gaily on we go
Heel for heel and toe for toe
Arm in arm and row and row
All for Mairi' s wedding

I captured this last photo, especially for my Social Work class, to remind us that as professional social workers, we can never make assumptions about people; that each of us comes from a multiplicity of interconnected cultures. I was reminded of that this morning when I noticed this young lady near the end of the parade, carrying her tartan into the 'kirk'.

Prayer for the Blessing of the Tartans:

Almighty God, who has promised that in all places where your name is honoured, you will
meet with your servants to bless them, we rejoice in this opportunity to present these
tartans to you as symbols of our unwavering loyalty to you and our steadfast faith in Christ
our Lord. We praise you for our Scottish ancestors: for all those saints of long ago who
brought Christ’s word to Celtic lands; for the risk-taking of Scottish immigrants who came to
this new land and with hard work, ingenuity and integrity created a new homestead. We
pray that in the present day, the dedication of these early pioneers may still inspire us to
greater achievements in the service of Christ and our fellow citizens. As represented by
these tartans, bless us, O God. Amen.

What a week! WHEW!!!

I've got my first full week back at University under my belt. Talk about information overload!

Technically, today was my day off - - but I spent all morning, until nearly 1 o'clock this afternoon just getting my books and my calendar organized, and catching up on all the news on my course websites - - yes, every course (all seven of them!) I'm taking has it's own interactive website, in effort to approach a "paperless" society.

I didn't get to start reading until this afternoon. So far I have 1/2 the reading and notes written for Communication & Interviewing Skills, and the reading (but not the notes) for Small Group Work Theory. I know it sounds like I'm behind....but seriously, I'm in a better position this weekend than I was last weekend.

Onto the Quilty News!

My Pick & Choose quilt is back from the quilter. It looks AWESOME!!! I hope to get the binding on before Thursday night's guild meeting.

Tomorrow, I'm going to an all-day workshop at Country Patchworks in Woodstock to make a "Courthouse Stars" quilt with Barb Scott. I'm doing mine in browns and blues -- all RECYCLED SHIRTS!!!

I know it's not a good time to run away to a quilt day, but I had signed up and paid for this workshop back in the spring, when it was originally scheduled for June. However, the class was cancelled, and rescheduled -- and since I already had all my fabric pre-cut and ready to go, I figured I could sacrifice a day to sewing.

What's on my Wall?

I've got 27 blocks done now. Thanks to my wonderful quilty friend Roxene -- who recently tamed her stash, and sent three bags of scraps to ME! -- there's lots and lots of little dragonflies zooming around these blocks!

The blocks are completely constructed of 2" x 3.5" bricks. Here's a look at a single block:

I've procrastinated long enough - - time to get to work on the old homework!

Day II - - Heaven! I'm in Heaven!

Yes, I'm PRECISELY where I am supposed to be. Yesterday left me feeling exhausted and inadequate.

But today...... Where else do you complete strangers hug you because they are just so darn happy for you, Friday morning classes mean catered tea and muffins, and my quilts (yes, I took two to show off this morning) get rounds of applause, and feel like you've made 40+ new best friends?

It's going to be rough, but after today, I feel 100% confident that the next two years are going to whizz by with a collection of great experiences and a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

Thankfully, the first "two years" of university enabled me to hone my organizational skills to razor sharpness- - needing to complete two years of work in 15 months will do that to you!

And just in case you were wondering - - yes, Gibby Kitty is a darn fine study partner too! I just wish he would quit biting through my papers and sitting on my text books when I'm trying to read.

My First Day of School

WOW! What a day! I'm both excited and exhausted!

The next thirteen weeks are going to be chock-full for me - - quite literally HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of pages of reading every week, plus six 3 hour lectures and a seminar. It's going to take some serious organizational skills to get through first semester alive!

What's on my Wall?

I store my scraps a la Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User's System, and my 2" strips and 2" x 3.5" bricks were starting to runneth over. I had quite a lot of blue in particular since finishing my Shirt Stripes Boxes. So far, I've made eight blocks, but intend to make thirty-five - - at least that's how many I have started so far. I might need more??

For my Non-Canadian Friends, who don't know what Canadian Tire is.

Rick and Paul go to Canadian Tire

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In this clip, former Prime Minister Paul Martin goes to Canadian Tire to get supplies to fix the draft problem at the official PM residence, 24 Sussex Dr. Cracked me up -- soooo Canadian. (Love the Inuit statue hiding the burn mark in the carpet)

Sunday Report

What a beautiful weekend! Itty Bitty starts school on Tuesday, but I don't start until Thursday. That gives me four more days to gear up.

I've just put a couple of meat loaves in the oven to bake. When they've cooled, they will be going in the freezer with the other meals we've been preparing ahead this week: beef stronganoff, chicken cacciatore, cabbage rolls, chili.

QNIC girls: I FOUND IT!!! I spent a few hours last night tidying up my studio, sorting through things, tossing a few things, rediscovering a few things. AND I FOUND THE CLOVER NEEDLE THREADER!

See, a group of us got together a few weeks ago to sit around Gail's kitchen table and do some sewing. Roxene brought her needle threader along to thread her needles while hand sewing the binding on one of her quilts. We were all amazed at just how slick this machine operated. I remembered aloud that Hubby had brought me home one of these (in my favourite colour: pink!) nearly two years ago from a trip to Florida - - and not only had it never been out of the packaging, I wasn't really sure where I had put it! So here it is girls....jealous? MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!



This mess is what I need to deal with today. This dishpan is full of fabrics that I've accumulated over the last little while that haven't found a "home" yet.

So, I think I'll pop another load of laundry in the washer, refill my coffee cup, change my rotary cutter blade and get chopping. I've pulled a couple of scrap quilt patterns out, and I intend to precut some quilt kits.

In-store deal from Canadian Tire on 5-pack of Shoeboxes

I use these to store my stash. Good deal!

Check out this great in-store deal from Canadian Tire on 5-pack of Shoeboxes in ST. THOMAS, ON

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Gotter Done!

What the heck??
Oh, it's just Gibby kitty.

I've been sewing like a crazy woman for two days. Itty Bitty made a special request for me to make a quilt as a birthday gift for a friend. I've been silent about it because I happen to know she creeps my blog!

So, Itty Bitty manned the iron, and Gibson supervised of course.

...and tasted the binding

I had saved a photo of a design that inspired this quilt way back in June. I have NO IDEA where it came from or who designed it. The picture was named "Framed Rectangles" and I googled that, but no luck finding a source. I drafted it out using graph paper, and 2.5" strips. Most of the fabrics are "City Girl" by Kitty Yoshida, but I did have to pull some other prints from my stash to finish it off.

I quilted it myself using an allover free motion stipple. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I hope Kira will like it too. No....she'd better LOVE IT!

EDITED TO ADD: Thank you Beth W. for the link to Mary's blog, where I had initially saw the design.

SALE!

Batting is 30% off at Lens Mills until Sept 19th. PLUS, if you go to the Lens Mills website for an extra $2 off a $20 purchase coupon. It's printable! And even though everything I bought was already on sale, the cashier never questioned the use of the coupon.

I went to Lens Mills this afternoon to get some batting and backing for a quilt that I hope to get started quilting tomorrow.

Since I was on my own, I stopped at Value Village on my way home, and found a couple of goodies. Most importantly were two really good 3-ring binders to store my patterns in. 2 for 99¢. Not bad eh?

Another FINISH!

Another finish! I put the last stitches in this baby doll quilt last night. Remember? I created it from the left over HSTs from my Lucky Stars quilt. This was a good project to practice FM quilting on my DSM.

Everything about this bed and bedding is scrappy. The bed itself was rescued from the dumpster at the thrift store. I made the mattress, sheets, and pillow from fabric in my stash, and the pillowcase is a vintage napkin that I folded in half and sewed up. I like the scallop edging and eyelet embroidery on the open end - though you can't see it in THIS photo! LOL