Mixing Sad and Happy Times

Today I grocery shopped at the Fort Eddy Road Market Basket and also went to Lowe's to pick out a new toilet to replace my 40+ year old one here. It doesn't flush properly at all and won't shut off unless I leave the cover off of the tank so I can manually press down on the valve to keep it from running the well dry. Ugh!

I found a wonderful handyman locally who said that he charges $30 an hour and that he could do it in about 2 hours. That's a bargain! He's coming Sunday and will bring his son to help him with the heavy lifting. I pray that it all goes well! Felix was a bear about keeping that old toilet. He stubbornly refused to replace it with the modern low-water flushers because he said that every time he used them in public restrooms, his balls would hang down into the higher water level in the bowl. Ugh! Who could blame him?

Today my regular bank statement came in for the checking account and it was addressed to me, my sister, and my brother in law. I had their names put onto my accounts when Felix died in case anything should happen to me. This way, they will have free access to funds for both checking and savings accounts. But seeing Felix's  name disappear from the statement hurt me terribly. I wept with sadness. Everything seems so hard without him.


But I did go into the Friday Quilters at the Golden Gese and had lunch with all the gals there. It was good to see what they were working on today. Maureen is adding an intense purple batik border to her red, white, and blue blocks. Looks great!

Beverly is adding embellishments to her pretty charm pack blocks that are little flowers whose petals are cut with pinking shears and have button centers.  So much work!

I brought in a Christmas table topper that my sister, Suzanne had made and she asked me to quilt it and finish it. She had made the mistake of trying to bind it with that little bias tape that is made for clothing and when it didn't work, she became discouraged.

It is so pretty and it is reversible,  too. Here's  a peek at the other side.

Here  is where I was cutting out pale green 2½"strips for a replacement binding. Maureen has cheerfully volunteered to do the actual binding for me and she's an expert at it!

Nancy, the shop owner and master quilter, showed us her small but perfectly embellished wall hanging.

Look at those tiny pieces! And it has hand embroidered wreaths with the littlest buttons I've ever seen! Good work, Nancy!

Back on Tuesday, I was at the Senior Center where Sarah had made two pretty placemats for the newest Meals on Wheels recipients.

Mary was cutting out some adult bibs in a nice masculine plaid.

Sue held up the small piece that she's been quilting on her domestic machine. Nice work, Sue!

I brought in an odd lot of perle cotton and crochet cotton for folks to tie their quilts and it all disappeared.

Meb had a stack of hand sewn Dresden plate blocks that she's been doing. She loves to have hand work to take along at the Dr.'s office.

Mary had fun with her scrap piles!

We all enjoyed our time together sharing our progress on our projects!

Happy quilting!