With the Glittering Gems top done and the Birds in the Air top ready to assemble, I had to step back and see what else I was working on before those two projects, and Mountain Majesties before them, took over my quilting life. I know there's the cat quilt (of course!) and the spool quilt, but beyond that, my memory gets a bit hazy. Don't ask what's on my knitting needles -- I'm not even sure where those are.

A few months back, I bought about eight of those plastic 12x12 boxes that are made for organizing scrapbook paper. They have got to be my best quilting notion/gadget/thingie ever! Assuming that I actually use them, I can put in the blocks and the parts of blocks and the pattern, snap them shut, and stack them up in the sewing room where they'll be sitting there safe and sound when I get back from whatever crazy detour dragged me away. I love my plastic boxes! If they ever go on sale that cheap again, I think I want a dozen more.

I was going to unstack the boxes last night and see what was in them, but I got pulled away by a cardboard box full of dark brown scraps that's been perched on top of my treadle machine for I-don't-know-how-long. Inspired by that Leaders and Enders page on Quiltville, I'd pulled the fabric and bought tea-dyed muslin to go with it and done the math, and then life got in the way and I never made it any farther.

So I did some cutting. And some sewing. And now I've got a pretty decent start on a scrappy Double Irish Chain --



It was so much fun I wanted to play with those blocks all night, but my body gave out on me at about 11:30. Stupid sleep deprivation -- won't let me quilt, but even though I'm too tired to stay upright, I toss and turn until 3am. I'll be so glad when we're all healthy and stop waking each other up. It has to happen sooner or later.

It's funny -- just about everything that was wrong earlier this week is still wrong, but I'm getting used to it all. The post office delivered the mailing label from our missing schoolbooks today. Just the label and a bunch of forms for me to fill out so they can try to find whatever it was attached to. It seems like the tracking number is still attached to the package, so hopefully that's intact and they can get us our books!

They also delivered some goodies --



That's twenty-two spools of thread from Connecting Threads, lots of neutrals and some colors for applique and quilting. I've been meaning to order more neutrals for a while now, since I'm going through it so fast and then I realized that I need red for Leif's chicken quilt. That's the first time I actually did the math and compared this stuff to the quilting thread at Joann's, even on sale. Wow, it's a huger difference than I ever realized!

So I ordered the bunch of neutrals I'd planned on, and the red, and some colors I think I'll need for upcoming quilts.

The book is Knitted Lace of Estonia. I haven't had a chance to do more than look at the pictures, but WOW!