road runners, coyotes and shopping for fabric [it's not all I do]

You know what's hilarious? finding the blog you started as an undergrad. Until you realize you kept it for 6 years and you forget that it's you you're reading about. Oh, the drama...

Everything is over now. There's no more student teaching, Grandpa is dead, and graduation is next Saturday. I came in for landing, but I didn't really land. I bounced, or I landed, but there wasn't enough runway and I fell off the cliff at the end [only in a cartoon with a coyote would anyone do that] because I came in with far too much speed. Or I crashed into something. One of the two. It's funny how saying it doesn't make it any more real. 

I was picking up basic groceries at the store on Thursday, after having already been to the store on Tuesday, when a friend called to see if I wanted to get dinner, and I tried joking about it  - who goes to the store and buys yogurt and cottage cheese, but not milk, and cinnamon toast, but not the regular bread? And completely forgets the eggs? Basics sit right next to the frilly stuff! It's not like I go without a list, I just forgot the list. [I also seem to be at or just coming from the fabric store every time she calls...]

All of this leads me to believe I'm going crazy. Or, at the very least, need to get out more and interact with adult humans. So later on Thursday night, I made plans to go out on Friday with the youngest of the quilting Graces - I'm not entirely sure how old she is, but I'm pretty sure she's younger than my mother [she has kids my age]. She announced it was "take a graduate student to lunch day!" - It's on my calendar, she said, and I thought, oh, hey, I know a graduate student! [I, for my part, laughed.]
There is an amazing fabric shop in Finleyville that we drove down to - Beth was looking for fabric to "whip up a quilt to be on the bed while I make a quilt for the bed", and the background fabric for the quilt that's going to be on the bed - it's called twinkling stars from Kaffe Fassett's new book Shots and Stripes, and it's going to be beautiful; Beth does marvelous hand work [her's will be a dark navy background]. In case you don't know, fabric is typically woven in a width of 45", and then sold at lengths of a yard {36"} [in the States], but if you're making a quilt, you can get wider yardage, 108" wide or 115" sometimes, and the Finleyville shop has the largest selection of 108" backs in the Pgh. Metro area. Okay, they just have the largest selection of everything, hands down. Anyway, why is this wider yardage important? You don't have to go to the trouble of piecing the back. You just ask for three yards and boom. Done, you're on your way to quilt sammich heaven. 

So while Beth was pondering which blue or brown would be best to highlight her scraps, and finding every toile with a bird on it for her whip-up-quilt, I was looking at the large scale red florals for the gypsy throw [at least, I think it's still throw size], and just browsing. In general. Thinking I was done looking for stuff for the school quilt.  But no! Thursday I'd gone to the North Hills to Joann's looking for this magic stuff you soak fabric in and then run [the treated fabric] through your printer. Joann's didn't have it, so I ordered it online, and it should be here on Monday. I found this fun stuff...

  

Rocks, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, tulips, math facts [including fact families!!] and plums. After talking to the other Graces on Thursday afternoon, I changed up my game plan for the quilt significantly [which is still rather amorphous]. There may now be appliqué involved, but that gave me a better idea of how big it would end up being. Or small. Whichever. Since I'd like the final product to be a surprise, and I think Miss Honey still reads this [?], I'm not posting a drawing of my potential plans. 

Beth reflected that it sounded like I was in mourning, which she quickly retracted [I haven't seen her in four months] - you are, and it's healthy, and it's okay; three things I've been very emotionally invested in have just ended. Go sew something, she said. Go home, wash your fabric and sew something. Do you have something you can start sewing? I give you permission to sew something. It's the weekend. No one is in their office, so calling and obsessing and panicking aren't going to do any good anyway. And the job in Maine isn't going to happen. That packet isn't making the [literal] boat, but yes it was great practice.  Everything is pulled together for the next one.

I feel like I should be emotionally over all of this and moving right along and smiling and fine. I've been wandering around my very tiny apartment alternately cleaning or tearing things apart to organize. You can only clean so much before something is cleaned within an inch of it's life. There is no more grindstone to put the nose to, but I can't get out of that mindset and let myself do something I like doing. I feel like running. It's not a good sign.