Feeling Ready

I finished the list of Things To Do To Be Re-licensed. Well, except for hounding Roland into taking First Aid/CPR and having the actual home visit. But the things I had to do are done.

Most of our kids have come to us during the summer. That is in part because it is in the summer that a higher number of young adults leave the comprehensive care and move to transitional services. That frees up spaces, and new kids enter the program. I don't know that we will get a new placement this summer, but I do feel like we are entering the stretch where the statistical chances of it happening are higher. Once school starts again it will drop. That isn't, by the way, based upon anything other than that it is the way things have been in the past.

Brian is definitely (unless he changes his mind again) staying at the Charter School. That is probably good. Now that I have insisted that I can do no more than two afternoons a week car pooling is no longer so terrible. This is relevant because the possibility that Brian would switch to the big school and have more stress was a reason for not taking a new kid. Not that we have any control over it. At some point a teenager will come along who needs what we can offer and we will accept him.

Bacchus asked me a while back, in an email I believe, if I was starting a quilt yet. Those of you who know me, know that is a test of my emotional readiness. I like to have a new quilt ready for new kids before they show up, but after Frankie moved in I couldn't even think about it. The answer is that the quilt books are beginning to call to me. I haven't started digging in them, but I have started thinking about it.

I have to do Andrew's college quilt first. I will probably write about it when I am doing it. It is going to be a complicated and messy project. The best way to do it will be to draft some help and work on it more or less continually for a couple of days. Anyone want to come over and do the ironing?

I am considering picking out a pattern that would be good for hand-piecing*. I could take it with me to the vacation with my father. It might be a really, really good idea for me to have something like that for me to do. It is calming and would help keep me sane. I'm trying to decide if that means it shouldn't be another log cabin quilt. Long straight seams are easier to do on the machine.

Maybe I should just do simple pinwheels. Everyone loves pinwheels. Right? [update: maybe this one, although in deeper colors. What do you think?]

So yeah...I guess I am beginning to feel ready.

Not that means anything of course.

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Making a quilt is done in stages. The top of the quilt is pieced -- the pieces are sewn together. That can be done by hand or with a machine. Quilting is sewing the three layers (top, batting, backing) together. Some quilts are not quilted at all; they are held together with knots, which is usually referred to as "tying the quilt." I usually tie my quilts that are intended for beds, although I will pay someone to machine quilt Andrew's college quilt.