Ignorance Exposed

I will start by writing about my newest quilting project. I am making a feathered star quilt with applique borders from fabric that I have had for years. Or at least the colored fabrics are ones I have had for years while the background fabric and the red are new fabrics. I got the red when I went to Burlington, NJ, to Olde City Quilts. It was such a great red fabric that I bought a few yards. The neutral background is from Hancock's online service--great fabrics and great customer service online. 

But the other fabrics are all a minimum of ten years old and some are way older than that. Certain colors tend to be cyclical so you might see them everywhere in quilts and stores but then they disappear. If it's good quality fabric and you like the color you can lay some away in appropriate containers and revisit them. Of course I am not by any stretch of the imagination a modern quilter, preferring to hand quilt and hand applique even if I do use machine sewing for complicated patterns like a feathered star. The very idea of using glue to make a quilt unless it is to make smaller batting pieces into larger batting pieces leaves me cold. I did make one "glued" quilt for my daughter-in-law but that was because she is a horse aficionado who owns two horses and has horse art everywhere. So I made a fusible fabric collage type quilt of a horse for her that is somewhere on this blog but it sure didn't satisfy the quilter in me.

So my four star centered quilt will have appliqued sides and then a pieced border beyond that. The fabrics are all sort of Christmas themed but it's the colors not the design on the fabric that matters for me.

As for other topics--besides the obvious observation that Trump lies without provocation or reason even when he knows his lies will be exposed--the novel coronavirus is a problem that lying won't fix. It's a problem that tariffs and blocks won't fix. Putting Mike Pence in charge because Trump says that Pence is an expert is beyond laughable. Pence's reaction to a spike in HIV cases in Indiana when he was governor was not to provide free condoms or clean needles but to tell everyone that "...the only safe sex is no sex."

Trump is uneducated and uneducatable. He doesn't read, he doesn't listen, he doesn't ponder. He is a chubby two year old in a fat 70 plus year old body. To blame Democrats for the spread of the coronavirus is beyond reprehensible. Even thinking of Trump in charge of an emergency response to a complex problem gives me pause. Any drop in stocks and markets is not just because of the supply chain but because other market watchers are just as appalled as I.

Another Gift Quilt Finished

For the last couple of months I have been working on a quilt for the man who was the overall project manager for our remodel. I finished it yesterday, having spent most of Wednesday (7am to 1:30pm) in the waiting room of a surgical center while my husband got his arthritic thumb repaired. He had the same surgery on his left hand a few years back and decided it was time to get the right one fixed before he got any older. He is right-handed so this one has a bigger impact for most of his activities. So I sewed my binding on the outside edge while listening to inane morning tv.

 It looks uneven but I promise that it isn't. This fellow and his wife live in an old farmhouse and like blue and white. Sixty four different blue fabrics and three different whites make this a scrap quilt but that pretty much fits the farmhouse vibe. The project came in ahead of time and under the projected budget while also avoiding any major issues so he was a good manager. Plus I need excuses to make quilts. 

Discombobulated

My husband and I are both children of Bronze Star recipients for their actions in the PTO (Pacific Theater of Operation) during WWII. While it may not be immediately obvious, we are also children of the American dream from families who chose to come to the United States because we were a beacon of not just hope, but of the true rule of law. My forebears came from various places in Europe and from various religious traditions but they came to this country because they had an idea that their stature would be equal even if their income or education wasn't. So my Irish Catholic and Jewish ancestors expected that the USA would be less prejudiced and less preferential than what they left behind.

My husband's family was more diverse in ethnic origin even though they were less diverse religiously. The earliest of his ancestors on this continent helped found Mendon, Massachusetts long before the American revolution but his grandfather and his mother were both born in Japan. So my husband's American roots are older than mine even though he is the one who gets classified as Asian.

Why does this make both of us feel discombobulated? Today the DOJ upended the recommendation of the prosecutors in the Roger Stone sentencing phase. The prosecutors had recommended that Stone receive a 7 to 9 year sentence for his felony conviction on multiple counts ranging from witness intimidation to perjury and extending to other nefarious conduct. Stone was found guilty on all counts by a jury of his peers. He had threatened the judge, he had defied orders of the court and that was on top of the actual charges.

But Trump tweeted that this was so unfair because there weren't any Democrats charged or convicted. So after the prosecutorial sentencing recommendation, the DoJ rescinded that recommendation and claimed that they weren't influenced by Trump's tweets. If you believe that then you should be completely happy that all four of the prosecutors from the Stone trial resigned their positions after the DoJ announcement.

If you don't believe that, you too should be discombobulated. What country is this? How did we end up as a banana republic? With all of the departures from the norm that Trump has taken, today's was the emblem of his disregard for the rule of law, the essence of justice, the point of the US.

I weep for my country, I despair for my country.