Thanksgiving Indeed

On Wednesday, while my hubby and I were out of town, my daughter was in a car wreck. A bad one. We're talking air bags deployed, ambulance, hospitals. She will be in the hospital for several days while the doctors watch her carefully due to a spleen injury and bad concussion. Thank goodness for air bags!!! She is alive but bruised and scraped up.  According to the police report, another vehicle blew through a stop sign right in front of her. Her four-month-old car is totally smashed up.  But we are very thankful our daughter will be okay.

Right after the hit, our daughter called us to say she had been in an accident. She was upset and nearly incoherent. Then our call was cut off. We tried calling back and there was no answer. Can you imagine how frantic we were? We called the friend she was staying with to alert her, but we didn't know where the accident occurred or how bad it was. Finally a policeman answered one of our repeated calls. She was in an ambulance headed to the hospital. Our friend stuck with our daughter through the whole emergency care, called us with updates, and spent the night with her. We are very thankful for our caring friend!

We immediately cut our trip short and drove 22 hours straight to get back home. We are very thankful the nor'easter that recently passed through had ended and the weather did not stop us in our journey.

Also, our nephew's son was born this morning. He's a healthy nine-pound-plus baby. Mother and baby are doing well.

Thanksgiving all around, indeed.




So, naturally, I'm not thinking about sewing or flying right now. I hope you all had a much less eventful Thanksgiving!

Cocoa Craze

While working ferociously to finish Celtic Solstice before Bonnie's next mystery begins, I took some time to assemble the Mocha Swirl blocks into a top. Then last Saturday I went shopping at Quilt Ledger, a small quilt shop about 15 miles away in the little town of Christiana, Pennsylvania. Leslie, the friendly owner, pointed out some fabric on sale. Lo and behold I found a great border print for Mocha Swirl --Pushy Paisley from Hoffman Fabrics. Now Mocha Swirl is a flimsy and renamed "Cocoa Craze".

For those of you interested in trying this easy pattern (I highly recommend it!), buy "Scrap-Basket Surprises" by Kim Brackett. http://www.amazon.com/Scrap-Basket-Surprises-18-Quilts-Strips/dp/1564778908/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1415548272&sr=1-1


I have made two quilts from this book and am contemplating a third - "Christmas Ribbons". Another quilter had used this pattern with pink scraps over a black background. It looked great and could be a thoughtful gift for someone who is struggling with breast cancer.

I may even whip up "Summer Breeze" as a baby quilt.  "Monkey Business" would be great in bright batiks. "Pinwheel" would be nice in a controlled color palette. Good job, Kim, on designing easy quilts that look more complicated than they are. Evidently we quilters like your designs because there are certainly a lot of images of finished quilts proudly posted on the web.



On a higher note, I got in some flying yesterday. It's a pretty autumn weekend with cool air to boost engine performance and clear skies which make the colorful trees sparkle in the sunshine. The picture below is Poconos fall foliage from coreyhilz.com. This is what I see all around me right now!

Regarding the college search, my daughter did well on her last SAT and the acceptance letters are starting to arrive. Whew! She has not declared a major although is leaning toward pre-law. Hmmm, I'm not too sure about that, but it is her choice. If that's her passion, so be it.