My March Madness

I love college basketball.  I am in Kentucky.  You pretty much have to love basketball and horse racing --- and maybe bourbon.

I'm happy to say that I have another Lollypop block done, thanks to a few hours of great (and not so great) basketball this past week.  It's actually very helpful to be focused on stitches and not plays and then count on instant replay to get you up to speed.  There are some "tension" issues on a few of the elements in this block and I'm blaming it on close games.

So -- six (of 16) are done, along with six (of 36) small border blocks.  The border blocks that you see here will finish at 4"x4" or 4"x6" and were a great way to use random scraps that were left over from the larger blocks.

I certainly need a break from appliquéing to let my fingers heal a bit.  But there is more basketball later this week. For Kentuckians, it's a big game. Louisville vs. Kentucky. And there are not many people in this state that are neutral. You bleed red or you bleed blue when these teams play. Once the winner is decided, there is a very small population that will cheer on the winning team that just happened to be your opposition in the previous game. I fall in that camp. I will vehemently root for the team that beat my guys.

For those of you who live in states where baseball or hockey or football are important, you know what I mean.  When we were in Chicago -- you were either a "southsider" (White Sox) or "northsider" (Cubs) but in the 10 years that I was there, I never heard "both"! I certainly knew people that didn't care either way -- if someone cared -- they cared about a particular team and often in a big way.

How wonderful for quilters that we often have a completely different approach ---

Applique or piecing?  Both

Batiks or cottons?  Both

Hand quilting or longarming?  Both

Brights or midrange?  Both

Machine applique or hand applique?  Both

Flannels or homespuns?  Both

Modern quilting or precision piecing?  Both

Solids or prints?  Both

We are happy to play in multiple sandboxes and -- if we don't -- we do not judge others who do.  Instead, we appreciate them and often want to learn from them.  So -- as much as I love some sports, I love quilting even more, don't you??

I hope you are having a great week of March Madness full of things that you love!

Jan