Oh For The Love of Scrappiness!

There's one thing I don't like about scrappy quilts! Yes, there really is.  Oh, alright, the problem is not with the scrappy quilts.  It's with my obsessive compulsiveness to have order.  I can't put that one there, it's right next to the same color, no, and that one's next to the same fabric, and no, there are too many of this color in this quarter, or this row, or....you get the picture.  Do you struggle with that in scrappy quilts too?  That need to compulsively control what goes where?  And isn't part of the fun of scrappy to just have whatever land wherever?

Well, I have Grandma's Scrap Bag (GSB) now pinned to the design wall.  Did I say pinned, yes I did.  That's what I did last night....I found a way to nail the styro-foam-like base of my design wall to the wall without it pulling off the nails.  

When Marty redid this room, he replaced drywall.  When replacing drywall, there's this gridded tacky 'tape' that covers the seams.  The roll of this stuff was still in the hallway on a cruddy shelf unit that was used for all the tools and odds and ends he used.  The grids are close enough that a nail with a head on it won't pull through, and so I took that stuff, tacky enough to stay put but not so tacky to not be able to pull it off and reposition - a bit like a sticky note - and placed it on both sides of the styro-insulation sheet, then nailed it to the wall.  It works perfectly! Which makes me very happy :) You can see parts of the grid tape, it's that yellow piece on either side about half way down.  My wall is from four pieces of styro-insulation, actually two, but to get them home, we had to cut them in half to put them in the Highlander or they'd have been blowing around town for days had we attempted to tie them to the roof rack.

Here's a shot of the pieces as currently pinned.  And you know what?  I don't think I'll move anything around.  I'll just take them off row by row from top to bottom (as it's turned sideways on the wall), and number the rows.  The small image lets my eyes see things better and it doesn't seem that there's any real imbalance anywhere.  Even on the wall up close, it seems pretty good.

And do you remember wayyy back when, in April, when I finished Cumberland Mountain, the quilt for my friend Lois.  And the only quilt I've finished all year.  Well, just today (embarrassingly), I finally got the label on it and laundered it so that it can really be given to her as soon as I can arrange a time to meet with her.  It's folded lengthwise to fit over a pants hanger just to make sure it's completely dry before folding up and putting into a presentation box.  It feels really good to finally get that part done; it's been a weight on my shoulders since I finished the quilt.

Tomorrow, 11:00 PDT is the memorial service for my friend Panda's husband.  There'll be a reception afterward, and I'm sure it'll be a well-attended service.  Panda herself was very involved in our women's ministries for many years and her husband was a CPA so I'm sure had many friends and clients who wish to pay their last respects.  They were also active in their fellowship group.  We celebrate his home-going, knowing he is there rejoicing and worshiping the Lord, yet those who remain and knew him well, loved him well, are feeling the pain of their own loss of this man.  I had only met him casually a couple of times, so am not directly feeling the loss of him, but I am feeling the pain of knowing my friend is now without her spouse and best friend, one whom she had every reason to believe would be around much longer, yet at the same time knowing that God has numbered, counted our days for each of us before we were ever knit together in the womb (ref. Psalm 139).