Happy New Year

Today I finished the applique on the Indiana Bulls Eye quilt. As I wrote before, I decided to go Indiana all the way with the state flower (peony) and the state bird (cardinal) incorporated into the border. One of the birds is female, on the lower side in the picture above, and the rest are the familiar cardinal color. Some of this is marked for quilting but the outside white part is not marked yet. Oddly enough, most of the antique quilts using this pattern are the bright colors shown here. I didn't duplicate any of them but I did use them to pick colors for the whole project.

The quilt top is 83 inches square. Now I will end one year finishing the marking on the outside border and begin the new year by quilting this project.  Please let me know what you think. Happy New Year everyone.

Still Batting A Thousand

Although it seems like it has been a long time, I heard today from the student I advised on his application essays during the summer. He got in early admission to Bowdoin, his first choice and truly his only choice. I am delighted it worked out for him. The only other student I helped this year won't hear until April because she is applying as a standard admission. While I do not charge any money for my help, my prickly personality and high standards mean that few students ask for my assistance. So there aren't many students each year but over the years every student I have helped has gotten in to his or her first choice. The students who come to me are hard workers with good transcripts; I only have a very small part in the process. It still feels good. The Presidential Scholar student from last year is on break and is coming for a chat on Sunday.

It's a Snowman Year

We tied a record for high temperature in December yesterday at 58 degrees Fahrenheit. It is very warm, very dry, very unseasonable. But it is December so I decorated last week. This is a snowman year. My collection of snowmen is more varied than my collection of Santas or nutcrackers in many ways but there are almost as many of them. When they are all displayed over shelves and mantel they don't scream, "Maniac lives here!" the way that the nutcrackers seem to. They do take up a little less space since some are very small and most nutcrackers are at least 8 inches tall but they don't seem to stare out in the same way either. We don't have our tree up yet but the Christmas lights and balls are up on the outside and the Christmas quilts are out in force on the inside. Remember this one?

Here are some other Christmas themed quilts from previous years.

And here is a picture of my living room or at least one end of the room. The larger stockings were my family's stockings when I was growing up. The smaller ones represent our pets. Merry Christmas to everyone.