Charm Pack Challenge

 I

Moda is a brand name quilting of fabric.

They have a group on Facebook and, from time to time, they post a pattern to challenge their followers. 

Recently they posted a quilt square pattern using charm packs. Since I had a stash of charm packs, I decided to try it.

The nearly finished product on my design wall, and by design wall, I mean a plastic table cloth hung on the wall, felt side out.

It's so much easier to spot the light / dark  squares in black & white. I might move some squares around before I sew the strips together. 

This tool is the bomb for trimming to size 4 1/2 x 4 1/2.

Trimming to size is tedious, but so worth it in the end. 

 

This went together pretty fast,  I only spent Sunday afternoon on it, so far.  

Tomorrow I'll finalize the layout and then start setting straps.

With some borders,  it will make a sweet baby gift. 

Spelling Bee and then Basketball

The CESA 11 Regional Spelling Bee was held on Thursday, 2/9/2023.  This was the first time since February of  2020 that the bee was held in person.

This is the 6th time I have Pronounced.  

I started in 2016 and missed the 2 years during the Pandemic.

For the 6th time, my name was misspelled on the program.

Our Champion was from Spooner.

This year, they combined the Baldwin & Turtle Lake Spelling Bees which gave us 30 spellers competing for 4 places.  The kids did great and we ended up with a great speller as Champion.

The top 4 get to attend the state spelling bee in Madison.  I'll be watching to see how our group does.

Every year, I am a little disappointed that our spellers do not take advantage of the information that is available to them for each word.  If you have ever watch the National Scripps Bee, the kids ask for part of speech, language origin, meaning and the sentence, and to have the word repeated, over and over again.  I am will to do the same at our Bee, but they have to ask me.

This year, one student asked me for the meaning of the word he was to spell.  And, I accidentally read the wrong meaning, I read the meaning for the next word on the list.  Luckily, he spelled his word correctly.  I just hope he doesn't go through life thinking that his word meant something other that what it does.

If he would have misspelled, I would have announced my error and we would have given him another chance with the next word on the list.  My heart skipped a beat, or three, when I realized what I had done.

 

The Bee moved right along, even with all of those kids.  I was done in time for a quick stop at DQ as reward for my pronouncing and then home to gather up my camera and head to basketball.

🏀🏀🏀

The Luck teams took on Shell Lake at Shell Lake.  An easy 30 minute drive for me.  Last time these two girls' teams met up, it was a 52 to 19 loss for our Cardinals.

This game was much different.  Tied many times throughout the game, our girls lost by a 48 to 41 margin and they were in it until the last few minutes when Shell Lake took the advantage.

Stella at the free throw line.
Focused.

Mahalo Malia

 I noticed on my Informed Delivery email from USPS that I was getting a package from Hawaii.  I got right to the mailbox on Saturday after it was delivered.

I was surprised to see what was inside the mailbox.  This poor package looks to have been through some very rough treatment.

The package was enclosed in plastic with a zip tie when I took it out of my mailbox.

By what this label says, it arrived in Rice Lake this way.

It was stained like something had leaked, I was pretty nervous cutting it open.

Surprisingly, everything inside looked okay.

Coffee, Macadamia Nuts, a jar of special jelly, fun notepad & a can of Sparkling Hard Pomegranate Seltzer.

I wrote a message to Malia who had sent the package from Maui. 

I sent the photo of the package and also the goodies.

She replied that she had not sent the soda, but she had sent some cookies.  She was imagining me sipping coffee and eating cookies on a cold morning.

⛾🍪

When I looked closer at the can, the Seltzer was produced in Minhaus Craft Brewing in Monroe, Wisconsin.

So, I guess we will never know what happened to this package.  The tracking on USPS shows it leaving Hawaii and then being in-transit until it arrived in Rice Lake.

A fun story to tell and I'll be trying that Hard Seltzer.

Mahalo, Malia, for thinking of me and sending me this box of fun goodies.

So sorry to whoever, in Wisconsin, got some cookies instead of this can of Seltzer.

Quilting on Zoom

Sewing pals Mary and Sharon & I took a quilt class over Zoom today.

The class was learning to build a Convergence quilt.

A kit was mailed to me.  A few instructions were emailed to me, including only a few pre-cutting tasks.  When I was doing my pre class cutting, I thought I must have made a mistake as I was short about 6 inches of fabric. I decided that I could piece together what I needed from scrap.  Later, the teacher announced that the kits were short six inches of yardage.  I felt victorious.

First cuts

Following the instructions in class.

Working on layout, very tricky.

Zoom & clipping

This is my final product.

It is an interesting  pattern. I think I might like it better with bold, solid colors.  I'm thinking black, white & bright red.

 Now to decide how to finish it.  

I'll probably add some borders to make it a little bigger. 

It worked out, I think Mary & Sharon and I should Zoom sew occasionally. We couldn't really chat much today as it was a class.

Stella

My great niece Stella is #1 on the Luck Cardinal Varsity.

At the Grantsburg at Luck game, the youth basketball players participated in warm ups and also the huddle and sitting behind the team bench during the game. Some awesome role modeling going on there. 

This was not a great game for our Cardinals but there were some great plays. They girls never give up and continue to hustle and shoot the ball. 

Stella is one of the team Captains

Youth basketball during warmups

I usually stay to watch the boys, but I left to drive home instead. They had an explosive start and a great game, I'm sorry I missed capturing a few photos, I saw the 2nd half on the live stream from home though.

 Go Cardinals!