In the comment she left yesterday, Rachel said I was trying to put the best light on a down situation. I'm glad she saw it that way, because I felt awful whiney. Today's been better.

Alex did send her brother in screaming that she got bitten by a spider while she was collecting eggs this morning, but it doesn't seem to have been a

During some brief stretches while the little ones were napping or playing happily with the big kids, I got the chance to play with my fabric a little more. I'm trying to find online directions for curved piecing, but there don't seem to be any out there.

I did find some other good stuff --

About.com's quilting site has some neat looking patterns.

Quilter's Cache has patterns for a zillion blocks -- I'm drooling over Blazing Arrows.

And, come Hell or high water (or sick kids), I'm going to make a string quilt. I found an article about them in one of the magazines I was leafing through, then found a great tutorial here. Now I know what to do with those ugly novelty prints -- bury them under the strips instead of wasting my good muslin!