Mary was a tremendous help with the paper piecing project today.  

She had a number of very helpful hints 

that (likely) could have saved me substantial aggravation in the past.

Let's face it - if we already knew how to do things we wouldn't need directions, right?  That being said, it's always been my opinion <g> that directions need to be as clear as possible, including all necessary steps.  Thus jumping from "copy the pattern" to "assemble the blocks" seems a bit thin, right?

 

and when I turned the page 

 

When I pointed out that the instructions might be considered a tad sketchy, Mary's comment made me laugh;  "They assume you have paper pieced before - correctly."

I have shed a few tears today over the current situation with Mom, so "correctly" tagged on to the end of Mary's comment was very much appreciated!

After we finished half of the first book block we took Brownie for a walk.  He'd been SO excited to see Mary arrive, likely guessing we would head out on a walk.

We first walked to Marcie's to show her my progress.

(We stayed well back on the front porch while she admired it from the doorway.)

I'll work on the other half of of the book tomorrow; the afternoon got away from me. 

It is going to be a fun quilt to make since I’m raiding my bright fabrics scrap boxes, and of course also have plenty of fun kid fabrics stacked in the cabinet.  Given the finished size of the blocks I guesstimate that I’ll only need 16 books for the four borders, so choices of which fabrics end up being included could be difficult!

Life is full of choices....

Forgot to mention that she brought along her finished quilt 

(it's in the binding stage) to show me.  

Her niece had won the fabrics at The Pig the month (for a second month in a row) when the color for LRC was brown, and had gifted them to Mary (who isn't a big fan of brown either.)  Mary hadn't been thrilled while working on the top, but once she quilted it she was 'less unpleased' <g> with the final result.

The remaining box containing of the mystery gift from Lily was delivered today - and from the label on the outside of the carton I'm more confused than ever. 

Our resulting text conversation went as follows:  

ME: For some type of emergency? No idea what it will turn out to be. May have to open your gift tonight! Lol

HER: lmao

ME: :-) 

 

HER: it'll all make sense soon

ME: If you say so

I think you'll have fun with it - I hope!

Might need Alex's help to set it up.

Might? Might? MIGHT?!

How long has she known me?!

Alex will be over shortly.  

We'll light the candles, and then (maybe) solve the mystery!

And another "mystery" was solved today.  There is no "correct" way to spell Chanukah in English (though we all have our preferences) since it is a transliteration, but this sure made me laugh.

(Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another, in this case from Hebrew to English. Unlike a translation, which tells you the meaning of a word that's written in another language, a transliteration only gives you an idea of how the word is pronounced, by putting it in a familiar alphabet.)