Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 8

NPR is full of news of the death of Osama Bin Laden this morning. I hope this means we can finally get out of both of Stupidhead's dirty little wars. (Sorry, but I have trouble sullying his father's name by referring to 43 by name.)

It's been almost two weeks since I posted. I thought I would post in the middle of last week after the exhaustion of Triduum and Easter. Hubby is the person who coordinates the liturgies for the Triduum, including coaching the priests and lay ministers through the details of these highest of high holy days. He tapped a friend and me to co-coordinate the Easter Vigil, and we arrived home about 1:40a on Easter Sunday. We were back at the church in time for the 8:30a liturgy, and I helped usher the downstairs liturgies at 10 and 12. This is normal for us.

What wasn't normal was that on Thursday morning, Hubby learned that a 12-year-old boy in the parish had died suddenly on Wednesday evening. We have known the boy's father as long as we've known each other (that's 20 years for those keeping track). The funeral was the Tuesday after Easter; it was one of those funerals where people walk in silently, nod to people they know, then sit and stare off vacantly into the distance - each of us knowing that the grief we were experiencing was about a millionth of that being experienced by the parents and older brother. I was so devastated that I was afraid to post anything last week for fear of saying something wrong.

At the end of the week, I got the really fabulous news that my pal, Deb Grifka, won first place in her category at the American Quilting Society show in Paducah!  

Then, because I am a 50-something woman who has a lot of balls in the air, I had to work up the list of volunteers needed for the quilt guild's three-day weekend of classes coming up at the end of July. If you are in southeastern Michigan and are interested in fabric arts, please do consider signing up for classes. You can find more information here. Of course, if you want to volunteer to help, I would be very happy to hear from you.

I also spent several hours on Saturday sorting fabric for the guild's sale of donated fabric that we will hold at the May meeting. We sell donated fabric by the pound and we also have books, magazines, patterns, and some quilting supplies - all at really low prices. Proceeds go to SAFE House.

On Sunday afternoon, I went into the sewing room and sewed up Section 8 of the Cone Nebula quilt. To give it some context, the piece right above it is this piece:

And here is the newest section, which will go right below:

I told Hubby yesterday that I am starting to get bored. It feels as though this is turning into a real slog, but then I look at these pictures, and I get excited all over again. Next weekend, I want to get the next section done - the section immediately below this weekend's section. Then, I'll be able to do the final three sections along the bottom of the quilt. Of course, this is assuming that real life allows some space.... (or that I get more aggressive about creating space for creative work.....)