Flu Season

Let me begin by stating that I make no apologies for my cast iron, army tank-like immune system. It came to me hard-earned; built up over the years from a lifetime vocation of teaching small children. I have been sneezed upon, dripped upon, and goobered upon for an entire generation. I’ve been fully exposed to every strain of bacteria and virus that has swirled about me for forty years. Mind you, I suffered horribly from every bug that came near me for the first few years of my career, but then the unexpected happened. I didn’t get sick anymore. In fact, I haven’t had a “cold”, or “flu”, or any type of weird infection for as long as I can remember. I’m not even gonna knock on wood right now. Teachers have their “perks”, you know.

But before you form an unfavorable opinion of me due to my annoying hubris regarding this subject, I will confess to you that I am now suffering a form of my own flu in this season.

I have a case of “Finish-up-itis”, which is in direct conflict with my predisposition for recurring bouts of “Start-itis”.

Maybe I caught it from others who are gung-ho about setting New Year’s goals of finishing up their UFO’s. Maybe it caught me when my resistance was low due to the nature of this blog. After all, my focus is to share the quilt blocks that accompany the Bible as I read through it page by page. But I’m at the point where I need to read through the rest of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, ALL the minor prophets, and a large portion of the gospels, before I can share my progress on the next Bible Sampler quilt block. But I still want to blog, and share photos with you, so the perfect solution is to veer off in another direction while I read the books of the Bible behind the scenes.

So, here’s a post for you, my first finish of 2020. I took the oldest UFO I had lying around, and brought it to completion.

This needlepoint pillow top was stitched in the 70’s. I was in college. I noticed a sorority sister, an art major, stitching away during our Monday night meetings, and soon I was joining her. I remember buying the wool yarn and the canvas excitedly, and her sharing her pattern with me so generously. So fun. But I didn’t know how to turn the finished canvas into a pillow top, so it got stowed away. It’s a miracle the moths didn’t eat it up after all this time.

I still don’t know how to make needlepointed canvas into a pillow, but with my “finish-upitis”, I was in a fever to find a way. So I found some fabric that matched (it looks better in real life) and now I call it DONE.

Now I’m off to find my next oldest UFO; let’s hope this “flu” lasts long enough for me to complete some more unfinished projects, and read through those books of the Bible as well.