Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara
Sharing the Good Life
The Deep in the Heart of Texas #2 top is done.
This one has green sashing squares where the first one had red. I thought with the green in the border, it needed a little green in the block area too.
Then I put away all the fabric, vacuumed the sewing room, cleaned off the cutting table and tomorrow I finally get to start on my March Color Palette top!
Here’s a post when we got chickens the first time. Speck’s reaction was the same exact thing this time. He’s not nearly as happy to have them as I am but since he loves having eggs for breakfast, he might ought to re-think that bad attitude he has!
I’ve checked on them a dozen times since lunch and they’re still fine! 
We never dreamed it would be hard to get baby chicks here. In Missouri, they were easy to find. Lots of places had them and had lots of “varieties”. When we realized that the only place in our whole county that seems to sell baby chicks is Tractor Supply and everyone knew a new shipment was to arrive this morning, I wasn’t real hopeful that we’d get any from this shipment. Last night I checked McMurray and Ideal Hatcheries and found it would be mid April to mid May before they would have pullets again.
I was in the house ironing Vince’s shirts when I saw him coming down the driveway. He was driving very slowly, taking the curves ever so gently so I knew he had baby chicks. I ran out to meet him and he had the biggest smile on his face!
Eight little girls! Aren’t they adorable? We have no idea what we got except they’re supposed to be pullets. The folks at Tractor Supply weren’t sure what they are. They told us they’re all pullets but the yellow ones look like Gold Star pullets, where Gold Star boys are more of a solid whitish yellow. We’ll see what happens. If it crows, . . well, we’ll have to talk about that. I’m scared of roosters.
I was so excited! Vince said “Most wives are happy to get diamonds but you’re happier with baby chicks!” Yep, but the truth is . . by the time we build the chicken coop and feed 8 chickens, we could just about buy a small diamond!
There won’t be much sewing going on. I keep running to check on them. I just love having them! They’re eating well and drinking. I hope our results with these are as good as they were with our other chickens.
For too many years, when we would find old sewing machines, Featherweights, 301, 401, 403, 99K, and the like, we’d buy them. We’ve cleaned up and given away quite a few of them to folks who thought they might want to learn to sew. I’m not sure many in the younger generations ever realize that some of the old machines sew as well as many of the newer, fancier machines when all you need is a straight stitch. On several occasions, I’ve been told “No, thanks! There’s a new machine I can buy at Wal-Mart for $99.” I can look back and see how many times I’ve thought that way about things too.
Before we left MO, I gave two 301A machines to young moms who wanted to learn to sew. I still have several but I knew there was one missing. I’d asked Vince several times if he had seen a 301. No! Hadn’t seen one. They’re all in your sewing room I think!
Every day I try to unpack a few boxes. Yesterday I went upstairs and look what was sitting at the end of a row. In plain sight!
I hadn’t been up there in a few weeks but we’re trying to get everything unpacked and in the right place before the summer heat gets here. It will be miserably hot upstairs in the shop and I don’t want any of my canned goods up there (and some probably are up there in boxes that haven’t been unpacked) and I don’t want to be going up and down those stairs a lot during the summer.
At the end of another row, I found this machine.
This little 99K machine is in good shape but I thought we had given it away. It was in a cabinet but we didn’t keep the cabinet. I’d like to find the little box they fit into but it’s way too heavy to carry around and it’s belt driven where the 301 machines are gear driven so I don’t have a lot of interest in the 99K. I’ll get Vince to bring it downstairs and I’ll clean it up and keep it since it made the move with us. I do believe all the sewing machines are accounted for except for a Singer 401A, which Vince thinks we gave away and I don’t remember giving away but we haven’t seen it in a few years so maybe he’s right . . he usually is!
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