One, two, three

Single nine patch.

Double nine patch.

And, I'm calling this one Triple nine patch.

Nine double nine patch blocks.  These are fabrics left from our Double Wedding Ring quilt.  I've been using it as a leader/ender, but yesterday, I decided to just finish it.  I was already close.  All the blocks were made and it just needed assembly.  And, even part of that was done.  It was originally planned to be a 7x7 block quilt, which left the outer blocks incomplete, but used up all the lighter print I had on hand.  So, I got some help from by blog friends and found some more fabric and kept going.  Turned out I only needed the 8 outer 3" blocks cut from that, so I have nearly a yard left over. 

The quilt finished at 36"x36".  The blocks were 3.5" unfinished and the border cut 4.5" unfinished. 

Now, I have something new to put on top of the UFO pile.  But, that's okay.  I'm finishing quilts, too.  And, not starting too many new ones.  But, I will need a new leader/ender. 

I have my eye on a miniature pineapple block or a half sized broken star pattern as my next project.  But, I'm not pulling out any fabric to start anything.  I'm just not ready right now. 

We've had a small emergency at home that's caused us to limit our adult child's access to social media.  We can do that because we're paying for it.  We watched and watched her develop an overdependence on it.  We knew it was getting worse.  We tried to talk to her about it.  And, she wouldn't listen.  Now, the universe has stepped in and given her a good sharp slap in the face back to reality.  And, all we need to do now is support her through "learning her lesson".  It's funny how much harder it is to learn a lesson as an adult than it is as a child.  Now, she has the lesson.  And, we are waiting to see what she will do with it.  We are hopeful that it makes a permanent change.  Nothing bad happened in the grand scheme of things.  She made mistakes that many, many freshmen in college make.  But, not the worst mistakes that many other freshmen make, so we got lucky there.  But, it is going to be interesting to see what she chooses to do next.  And, that's exactly how we are framing it.  She has choices to make.  She's an adult now and we can't make her choices for her. 

And, I have new advice on social media for any parent.  Make the kids pay as much attention to the parent as they do to the phone.  Force them to put it down and interact with you.  That is the only thing I see that we could have and should have changed.  We're not beating ourselves up for missing this, but I did think I'd pass along what I've learned to anybody else that might be dealing with the same thing.  Don't back down.  Don't take no for an answer.  Monitor your child's phone use.  Make sure they aren't using their phone when they should be sleeping or doing other things. 

Dammit, parents are at LEAST as important as anybody a child can reach through their phone.  We know we are more important.  But, our kids need to be forced to acknowledge that we are at LEAST as important. 

Everybody have a great Thursday.  It's almost the weekend.  We are looking forward to some down time. 

Lane