What a sweet son! I hope that soon you’ll be fit and well enough to make him a new cover (maybe even a Char-style quilt!), or that you can find something more to his taste in stores. Fingers crossed that the injection kicks in properly soon; we all react to medications and procedures differently, so hopefully your response is just a bit slow.
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I love all your quilts, but that one I think is my favourite so far this year. My daughter saw the picture and asked if I could make her one (I’m afraid she’s very disappointed with my reply).
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I have been wanting to make another if this “Hunter’s Star” pattern for a bit now. Just finally got it quilted. It is turning out nicely. Thank you for the compliments. 
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My bed is right near a great big window. In the winter, I am so bundled up I look like a homeless lady – sometimes I even wear a hat! Not to mention, several blankets. Brrrr!
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Well, robotics is going to be another nail biter for robotics. One son is on the first seed alliance, the other is on the second seed alliance.
Hopefully they don’t have to go up against each other very soon in the brackets.
Speaking of brackets if you wouldn’t mind voting again for Quilts for Kids in division four I would be grateful. Today is the last day for voting.
https://www.petermanhcp.com/charity-showdown
Back to my sewing!
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@lovestostitch Unfortunately, I am almost as useless at cutting straight lines as I am with a crochet hook, but that does sound like an awesome idea.
@hereami I do NOT live in a cold climate, I live about an hour from Las Vegas in the desert. I have to bundle up and generally just refuse to leave the house on the few days a year it is under 40°! (maybe a slight exaggeration, but not too much!) I have 2 blankets, one that is just 2 layers of cotton with a very thin layer of batting in between, and the other is my “cold weather” blanket which has more batting and one of the layers is cotton flannel. I generally only use the “heavy” blanket a handful of nights in throughout the year because it is usually quite pleasant and I sleep very “warm” and hate getting hot and sweaty in my sleep!
@Lemming13 He really is the best son, he is on the Autism spectrum and isn’t quite to where he can get a job outside the home yet (he is receiving services and working toward that goal) but in the meantime, it is a good thing he is home with me because there is a LOT that I just couldn’t do without him. The goal is to get to where I can get a full knee replacement, but because I am so young (45), I have months worth of hoops to jump through before the insurance will approve the surgery which will make it so I can actually walk on my own and take care of myself.
I would LOVE to be able to make my son a quilt, he most definitely deserves a beautiful work of art that will also keep him warm, like Char’s gorgeous creations, 
but unfortunately, my fiber arts skills are limited to knitting and a little cross stitch. I’ve tried learning to sew, but am not very good at it. The sewing machine I have was made in 1958 (it was my mother’s high school graduation gift) and at this point doesn’t work at all. I am hoping to be able to get it fixed at some point and maybe I can try again to learn to sew! 
In the meantime, he is using a small afghan that is usually on the back of my chair and I ordered him a cheap blanket on Amazon that should be here tomorrow. I’ll keep my eye out at the thrift stores around town for something nicer for him, but it is starting to warm up so he won’t need anything too heavy until next November or December.
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I don’t like to sew…. My machine and I (today I am using my 1952 machine) gained an understanding of each other when I made about 1,000 masks and needed to do something with the scraps. 
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One of my son’s alliances won today’s competition, the other tied for 5th. All of teams did a great job! I look forward to the next competition in two weeks.
The team that was in the winning alliance also won the quality award.
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I use an electric blanket and I preheat my side before getting in and I put a single layer fleece cover on top of my electric blanket to hold the heat in. My husband generates tons of heat so he’s happy with just that double blanket. If you’re really cold, have you ever slept on memory foam? It really warms up. I have to be careful about turning my electric blanket down before I fall asleep or I can wake up really hot. We even have the memory foam with cooling gel beads but it still gets hot.
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Here’s the soda bread recipe I use and I’m including my biscuits recipe because if you like to bake, you should try these biscuits. They are amazing, We have always loved them with homemade jam, homemade apple butter (from our homegrown apples) or honey.
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So - question…
If you are making a gift for a friends child, and you send your friend a picture of it.
Does said friend have a right to show the photo to her child (ok, he’s 19) recipient? Gifts are supposed to be a surprise until the gift is given, right?
I’m so angry that I don’t want to gift it now.
Sorry for my rant
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Do you know why she told him? Did she tell you she showed him the picture? I don’t think you can assume that everyone would think it was supposed to be a secret unless you had asked her to keep it a secret. If she told you she had shown him the picture, I think that means she didn’t understand you wanted it to be a secret. I understand why you are upset but if she didn’t do it maliciously then you just learned that she doesn’t keep gifts secret like you do.
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She said she did it because she felt her 19 year old son who doesn’t live with her needed to know when she came here she wasn’t doing anything nefarious.
I always thought gifts were secret until they were given. 
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@Nyssareen - This is your fault :). Just handling the recipe made me crave them. We had them with apple butter.
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@Nyssareen how warm (or cold) do you keep your home? I love my bedroom cool about 60F in the winter so I can bundle up. We heat with a wood burning stove on the main floor so it is perfect upstairs to sleep.
To anyone who is a business owner or hiring manager: If you have a task that someone can help with, reach out to your local agency or workshop.
I employ a janitor from the county’s special needs workshop. It has been great. He does a wonderful job making the store clean and it gives my other staff more time for their primary tasks. We are about to begin hosting a client for a 90 day state grant funded work experience who will help us stock shelves.
Job coaches are awesome. They do such a good job of training and matching a worker to the tasks and setting. The coach provides all the instruction and supervision necessary until the worker is able to do the job independently, however long it takes. So don’t worry that it will be too hard or take too much staff time. Your business will benefit as well as the worker who is getting that employment opportunity and the fulfillment of a job well done.
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why does she need to report back to her son
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I am wondering the same thing……
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I’ve learned that with a particular friend, if I ask her if she thinks a common friend or one of her family members will like something, she will take that as me asking her to ask that person for me, rather than me asking her opinion on a gift idea. So with her, I just have to specify that I am thinking of making/getting a gift for her mother or whatever and looking for an opinion. If I don’t, she will either show the picture or just ask the person and I know it is not because she’s being a brat, that is just the way things always worked in her family. I always assume gifts are meant to be surprises until they are given, but I’ve learned that not all people do. 
The fact that your friend feels she has to clarify whether her actions are nefarious or not to her adult child (who doesn’t even live with her) is even stranger than the idea that not everyone thinks gifts should be surprises, however. 
I live with my older brother and 24-year-old son and all 3 of us are well within our rights to get up to any activities, nefarious or not. Provided none of the other residents of the household are required to be involved in any way, no one assumes they have a right to know about the activities of the other adult family members should they choose to keep them a secret.
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I am pretty sure that is the same recipe my mom used for baking powder biscuits and I am definitely going to try that soda bread. Thanks! 
Oh, and my friend called me from the store to tell me that they had some corned beef briskets on sale for $2.20 a pound so I sent my son down to grab one for Friday and another to go into the freezer for another time! 
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