A Linen Bonanza

I got my last chaos quilt block done yesterday and then realized that I didn't have anything suitable or enough to sash and back the quilt so I had to go to the fabric store to see what was on sale.  Had to.  I took my roll of 25 singles that Durwood gave me for Christmas and made Hancock my first stop after perusing the ads and clipping coupons.  It wasn't very crowded so shopping was easy.  They had a big table piled high with $2.97/yd. fabrics right at the door and on the back side of that table I found bolt after bolt of linen-blend solids.  Oh, it was a terrible temptation to buy all ALL of them but I exercised restraint and bought only the colors that I liked, a yard or three of each, a remnant of red ticking, one of red linen from the flat fold table, a yard of an upholstery fabric I found in the sale bolts in the back, but the biggest score was a 6 yard bolt of black linen in the $2.97 area that I bought every stinking millimeter of.   Except I let a young women get one yard cut from the bolt before I put it into my cart because I'm a nice person and not at all greedy.  I spent a bit more than $25 but only half again as much with all the discounts (senior Wednesdays!  woohoo for being 62!) and coupons.  I know that linen isn't the usual fabric you

use to sash and back a quilt but I use linen to back the flannel lap blankets I make and I love the way it feels and softens as it's used so I figured what the hell, also it's mine and I can do what I want.  Right?  Right.  And it looks good.  See?  I got the top finished last night and will work on the back over the weekend so I can try my hand at machine quilting.  We'll see.  (I should get some of that aerosol basting spray stuff to hold the whole shebang together while I'm wrestling it around in the machine.) 
 
The part of my fabric-seeking errand that made me tha happiest was finding two used Christmas trees at the curb that I could shove into the back of Durwood's van and bring home for the birdies to shelter in out back.  I planned well so I took his van for my fabric errand, putting a tarp and some tree-handling gloves in just in case.  Man, those trees really stand out on the white snowbanks, I found the first one a block from home and the second one before I got a mile away, so it really smelled great in there and I felt very smug and happy about having trees.  And no one hollered out of their house wondering what I was doing, no one peered out the window either, and no cops came.  Whew.  My snowshoes really made the tree dragging easier, although by the time I got into the back yard one came off.  Must not have cinched it up enough.  At least I didn't fall.

January 2--Claude Monet, Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies.  By the time she got to the pond Lila's heartbeat had slowed to almost normal.  She had been so angry at Mattieu she had run out the door to get away.  It was just like him to spring news of important weekend guests on her on a Wednesday night.  Barely two days to get three guest rooms opened, the beds aired and freshly made, and the meals organized.  She hoped that none of his guests had allergies or were vegetarians.  What would she do with vegetarians?  Cook would manage, she was sure of it, but Cook would extract her revenge over the unexpected demands in small ways, like a scorched sauce or tough biscuits.

That Mattieu, he's such a pill, always thinking only of himself and his career.  Tsk.  Well, it's still below zero but fortunately not too breezy.  I have to work today, let's see if anyone other than my knitting pal VJ stops into the dive shop.  Gotta run, I promised to do a quick errand for Durwood before work.  Later, dudes and dudettes.
--Barbara