Moving day

 Hello everyone.  I've decided that now is a good time to move my blog.  I've chosen WordPress.  I struggled with this site and struggled with it and finally got tired of struggling with it and have started over.  

I think this is a link to my most recent post.    https://lanewilhite-mecak.wordpress.com/2026/01/19/mlk-day/

I don't know anything about Wordpress so we'll be learning together.  

If you decide not to follow me there, know that it has been my pleasure to share my life with you for the last 20+ years.  Thank you so much for reading.  

Lane

Not supposed to be this way

I did not plan on this being quilt folding weekend.  I did not plan to open my closet to put away quilts and end up pulling out all my quilts.  I did not plan. 

But, then when I came up with a plan I thought was brilliant I couldn't wait to implement it.  

Rob said it looked like my quilt closet exploded when he came round the corner and saw it.  

I was putting away the Christmas quilts and noted how hard it had been for us to find wintery quilts to hang.  I was basically pawing through everything trying to find blues and grays.  And, then I thought, why not store all my quilts by season instead of by size.  The clouds broke open, the sun shone down upon me, and four angels sang "Ahhhh."  And, I was off to the races.  I pulled, I refolded, I sorted and I took all but three quilts off the pool noodles they were rolled on.  I found this quilt that I'd forgotten I'd made.  If I remember right, this started as a bag of brightly colored hexie flowers that I bought at a quilt show boutique.  The background quilting is stunning, if I may say so myself.  

And, when I was done, the closet looked like this.  I can quickly grab a brightly colored spring quilt or a bold summer or muted autumn quilt to display.  And, the table toppers are stored with the quilts so everything is handy.  

I was putting plants in the greenhouse yesterday.  I have a large snake plant that I needed to lift.  I very carefully held my face so there was no chance of getting one of those spiky points in my eye.  And, just as I got it at eye level, one of those spikes let go and whipped around and the sharp edge caught me in the eye.  So, now I have a scratch that's not so much painful as annoying because my eye won't stop watering.  So much for being careful.  

I can get books at Goodwill for $2-$3.  I buy something that strikes my fancy once in a while, but mostly, I shop for cookbooks.  Oddly, they've gotten kind of hard to find lately and I wonder if someone isn't buying them up to resell.  I ended up with 5 recently; four easy meal cookbooks and a baking book.  I've set the goal of finding and making a recipe from each of the four cookbooks over the next four weeks.  One night I was up with Bella and started reading the baking book and got really intrigued and decided to make something from it.  The first chapter is cookies and when I was reading recipes, I realized they're all to make a couple dozen cookies, which is much better for us than recipes that make 4-6 dozen.  (Don't tell anybody but I ate four dozen peanut butter cookies in a week and a half by myself and I just don't need that kind of temptation around the house.). I made oatmeal, raisin, dark chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they are fantastic!  Slightly chewy, not too sweet.  The author said to let them sit in the fridge for a half hour before baking so the liquids could permeate and soften the oatmeal, and it worked.  They've very chewy, without the oatmeal being hard.  

I'd never heard of Rose Beranbaum.  I don't know if she's regionally known or I've just lost track of who's writing cookbooks over the years.  Apparently she's written several.  I like the way it's set up and the tips and tricks she includes.  And, I'm looking forward to making other recipes from this cookbook.  

I was definitely on a cooking roll yesterday.  I made an egg casserole, beef and veggie casserole, meatloaf, chicken stew and a batch of cookies.  It was a good day, but I spent nearly the whole day in the kitchen.  

If lying was McDonald's the president would look like Violet Beauregard after she turned into a blueberry.  If he turns to the side, he looks like he's getting close.  Really, y'all.  I know I keep tapping my fingers waiting for the turning point.  It feels like it's getting closer.  

Everybody have a great week!  Lane

No resolutions

I didn't need to make resolutions this year.  I'm on a constant quest to do better, be better, be nicer and spend a little more time relaxing than I did the day before.  So far this year, that last one has been a complete fail.  Almost all the Christmas decorations are down and the house is getting back to normal.  But, there's a pile of Christmas quilts sitting on the sofa next to me that need to be folded and put away.  I spent a good bit of the last two weeks in the sewing room, not particularly doing what I should have been, but having fun anyway.  I've made some really good food and some not so good food and worked in the yard some and cleaned house a lot...I guess I try to start every year with a clean house, but as fast as I straighten up one place, I make a mess in another.  I feel like I spent the whole two weeks in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning...I have dishpan hands.  And, I can't wait to retire and do this all the time.  

I was un-decorating the tree and started playing a game with myself; what's our strangest ornament.  I decided it wasn't the kitchen sink (our tree has everything, even a kitchen sink).  It wasn't the shoes and umbrella combo.  Not the pink flamingoes or the 3 ballet dancers.  Not even the frog prince.  We have a Yoda ornament.  Don't you?  This is a new ornament we found this year.  A great addition to the collection.  

I picked all the quilting out of the Wedding Ring quilt the other day.  There were too many technical errors.  I have two black quilts and they are both riddled with technical errors and I hate them both.  They are lovely to look at, but I know the back story and can't enjoy either one.  I don't need another black quilt that I don't love, so I picked it out and will start over.  I can do better.  The errors were because of my attitude.  I 'had to' finish the quilt.  I 'had to' quilt it a certain way, even though it was harder.  There was no 'want to' or experimentation going on.  No looking forward to sitting down and quilting for the day.  There was no 'play' in it.  It was all 'work.'  So, I took it out.  I'd only done about 10%, and anybody that's followed me for long knows I've picked out a lot more than that and started over before.  I need to enjoy it.  I need to take it slow.  And, I need to re-pin baste that corner I was working in and am hoping it doesn't mean I have to re-baste the whole quilt.  But, if it does, it does.  Too late to change that decision.  And, when I start again, I need to quilt small spaces, not try to quilt the whole thing in one go.  It's a domestic machine, not a long-arm.

I also did some piecing while I was postponing the pin-basting.  I'm still getting moved into a new sewing space and getting tools where they need to be and piecing is a good way to do that.  I put together this little Christmas runner...after Christmas.  I got on a cutting binge this summer and this is one of the little quilts I cut out.  Easy to assemble and got me in the mood.

I wanted to do a block of the month this year.  Something with a little challenge.  But, I didn't find anything I wanted to do.  I found one little shop in a small town that was doing a beautiful BOM.  And, while it was a walk in only BOM where you show your completed block to get the fabric for the next block free, I realized I could draft the blocks.  They were simple blocks, set on point and the color and dyed fabrics made the finished quilt stunning!  For a challenge, I was going to make it half sized and use my batik scraps.  But, then I thought 'what am I doing?'  I have about 23 projects in my closet where everything is kitted up and maybe I should do one of those if I was so interested in creating another UFO.  

I let Rob choose.  

He chose a Christmas quilt kit I've had for a long time.  I picked it up somewhere for a song.  The center is a panel, so easy enough, but when I looked at it closely, I had notes.  Let's face it.  I can't follow a pattern.  Always gotta strike out on my own.  I'm not a big fan of the 4 pointed stars.  And, the flying geese trees up both sides of the panel felt too busy.  So, I did some playing around and came up with a different star that I can squeeze out enough fabric for and drafted new trees that I think will be less distracting and will feel more "Christmas-y."  

The way I've kept my sewing studio set up, I've had a quilting machine, a piecing machine and a serger always available.  If I got bored while I'm quilting something large, I'd piece something or make a shirt on the other machine.  But, now I have two machines that both quilt nicely set up.  And, there's no reason I can't take a break every now and then to quilt something small in the middle of quilting something big.  There's a ton of small quilts in my studio closet that I could finish in a weekend.  When I need a distraction from quilting the Wedding Ring quilt, I hope to start quilting one of them instead of piecing another something new.  

But, you just never know when I might start piecing something new.  Everybody loves starting something new, right?  

So, like, I'm confused.  Is it America First, or Venezuela First?  Oh, yeah, it's all the money somebody's going to make stealing oil from another sovereign nation.  I got it.  In Trumpism, you only have to find where the money's going to find the reason for doing anything.  

Everybody have a good week.  It's back to work for me.  Yippee.  And, an in-office day tomorrow.  what fun.  

Lane