Orca Bay Two-Step

We enjoyed a lovely, homey Thanksgiving with hubby, Felix, son, Matthew, and me with a stuffed twelve pound turkey with all the fixings. At grace, we each gave voice to what we are giving thanks to God for. It did not surprise me a bit that the top of everyone's list was each other. No pictures, you'll just hafta trust me.

As for today, although I an NOT usually a Black Friday shopper, I did go up to Laconia to Joann's for some fine bargains on 100% cotton flannels that I like to piece together for my quilt backs. They are sooooooo snuggly! Most of the available selections were very loud and garish or hopelessly juvenile. But I did score these three, a solid brown, 8 yards, a solid denim blue, also 8 yards, and a very funny brown pawprints that was a scant 7 yards.

I got all the way home and was proudly showing Felix my bargains and when I began to describe the larger 15 yard bolt that I had passed on getting, it made me wish I had gotten it. It ate at me. I gave up and got in the car and drove all the way back! The bolt that I wanted was still there and a few more bolts had been added to the wheeled cart. There was a deep brown and cream flannel print that was a PERFECT match to the cream colored one. So I just grabbed both! At $1.49 a yard, how can I go wrong?

That off-white cream color I just love to pieces but I fear that it will show every speck of dirt and doghair which is why I had hesitated to buy it in the first place. Maybe I can make the edges of the backing in the brown? I hafta piece it anyway, right? Hmmmm, we'll see.

We had a delish supper of leftover turkey meat mixed with egg noodles, gravy, and pimentoes (the guys both love mushrooms, so they added those to theirs on the plate, out of respect that I don't care for them). We polished off the last of the green bean & French's fried onion casserole, too. Yes, I know that it is made with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, but honestly, it doesn't taste like mushrooms! So I love it. LOL!!!

Then it was on to Step 2 of Orca Bay. I cut the 72 foundation papers out of my $2 tag sale bonanza of a ream of Stratford duplication master paper. It is translucent so it also works as a heavy weight tracing paper. Since it is 8 1/2"x14" there was very little waste. And since I have exactly 72 papers cut, I will not need to count them as I go.

My Orca calls for purple instead of blue and I keep my yardage uncut until the need arises. So it was time to create a mess of purple strings! Yahoo, jellybean colors!

I got 12 little string blocks all made and I love the way that they look!

Maybe tomorrow I will do a bunch more, but whenever my shoulders start to ache a bit, I realize that it's time to give it a rest. I only want to do this when it is fun, not a chore. When it stops being fun, I quit. LOL!