19th Century Reds

19th Century Reds, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

This has been such a busy term at the university! I am teaching both preservice teachers and graduate students this winter, and it's seriously cutting into my quilting time! Fortunately, the preservice students are finishing up this week and then going on a two month practicum. I could say that I will miss them, but that wouldn't be strictly true. My research lab is located right behind the music classroom and the suite of practice rooms, and this has been a source of great hardship for us lately. Not only are we an enforced audience when section after section of B.Ed. students learn to bang on garbage can drums and play recorders, we are also serenaded by various singers and trumpet-players who are under the mistaken impression that the practice rooms are soundproof. We live for summer, when it's blissfully quiet, although that's the time we get the piano tuner in, and it takes him all day of plunking key after key to get the several pianos ready for the new school year. Imagine the aural equivalent of Chinese water torture. But I digress.

Alas, little quilting has been accomplished over the last few days. However, I did receive most of the 19th Century Reds (see photo above) that I ordered to make this quilt . Fabulous cottons - really nice texture and weave, and ever so luscious. They're now washed and ironed, and ready to be cut up! AND, I finally settled on what I will send out for my month in the Modern Tradition quilting bee. But I'm waiting on something to arrive in the mail before I tell you. Stay tuned. (I hope that sounds mysterious! Ooooh, spooky....)