What can I tell you? Due to years of basketball watching, the phrase is embedded in my psyche. Actually my form of March Madness has to do with multiple birthdays to attend to this month and spring break.
On the home front - Mama kitty (the feral cat in my back yard that I can't persuade to come in) has survived another attempt to increase the wild cat population. In a few weeks I'll know if the kittens did - it was 20 degrees the night she had them! I was hoping that this year the winter would be tough enough that she would be tempted to join her older babies inside.
I've had a great stitching month so far - not in quantity but in quality. First of all, I got to test drive a class for Eileen Bennett last weekend - a blackwork sampler! Wonderful design and we earned our keep, as we found things that we were able to make suggestions for that will improve the course. Eileen's work is always top-flight, and it's a privilege to be able to help her! One of the great perks of belonging to the same EGA chapter that she does.
I have been working on a UFO of an Ellen Chester design for lining one of the mini-Whitman sampler tins. It was an EGA project from 2003 that I had an error on - I frogged that and now I'm almost finished with the stitching. It's all over 1 with 1 thread, which in some ways is easier than trying to get 2 over 2 to lie smoothly. But having to rip out is the pits! I've also been working on Marriage of the Minds one day a week.
Then there's my good deed project. One of my friends asked me to do something about her father's favorite coat that he was given by his father when he was 13 years old. The coat is over 54 years old! That's older than me! And it has been worn fairly frequently over the years without repair. So, this is the good dead - I am patching it, inside and out. By hand.
I have always had tremendous admiration for all of our foremothers who sewed clothing by hand and patched everything to make it last. I have much more now! My hands get sore even with a thimble and needle puller. That surprised me, as I spend several hours a day most days of the week with a needle in hand. But linen is a lot easier to pull a needle through than canvas and wool batting! However, her father is delighted, and that is why I'm doing this.
