Almost 2012

Three more days and we will be in 2012.  This has not been a bad year but this holiday season has been different than what we expected. Our daughter in law's mother passed away the Friday before Christmas and though it was not unexpected it is a sadness nevertheless. I spent a day in the hospital after a nasty episode of vertigo and I missed the funeral yesterday. Today we will wind up the Christmas gatherings with family and exchange gifts. Tomorrow one  more funeral, for a church member who has been ill for a long time. He will surely be missed but there can be no doubt that he is in a better place. Remembering what Christmas is all about makes these losses less difficult to bear.

Looking ahead to 2012 our Sewing in the Basement group is getting together for a Jelly Roll Race. We are sewing the strips together first at home and then when we get together we  will start the race.  This is a Moda Central Park Jelly Roll that I purchased on sale, in the fall, in hopes that we would do a  race.
Yesterday I thought that I would just sew them together one after the other as they were in the roll but when I looked at them  I realized that at the end of the roll there were strips  that were the same 3 or 4  patterns in different colorways so I sorted those and put them where I thought they went best. I will sew my strips together in the next few days, maybe Saturday, as we will probably not even go out to dinner for New years Eve.