Strings, strings & more strings

I've been a stinging fool here lately. This year as the VP with my local guild I choose string quilts for our guild challenge. Well the challenge went out a while ago & well it occurred to me a few weeks ago that our guild challenge quilts needed to be finished & brought to the April meeting. Oh good gravy am I behind. No one to blame but myself. I knew that I wanted to do a string design that I had never done before. So I hum hauled & finally came up with what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a Broken Star qullt using strings. Well there's been somewhat of a learning process along the way but progress has been made! Here's what the center star will look like

 I've got to make 3 more of the larger stars & then I can start to put this thing together. Unfortunately my hopes of using up the large amount of strings that I have has not happened. I seriously think that they multiply when I'm not around. It's incredible how many units you can make with a small amount of strings. If you've never done string piecing I highly reccomend it. It'll become addictive & you won't be able to stop with just one string quilt.

Yesterday was an early & long day. We were up before the sun loading steers to take to the sale. It was a beautiful morning. This was my view of the sunrise. My job during loading is that I'm the gate keeper.

I'm holding gates & swinging them to my husband when needed. The kiddo got his first taste of being in the barn with dad while loading. There were a few bumps in the road while loading but they did just fine. We got to the sale barn early, dropped of the steers & then went back into town for breakfast. As we were leaving the restaurant there was a monk walking down the road & getting ready to cross the street.

He was the whole package,the brown robe, sandals, rope belt & the shaved head with the ring of hair.

I was in shock, I couldn't help but laugh I took as many pictures as I could. A monk crossing the road in a small town in north central Kansas is not what I was expecting to see. I didn't realize that the Catholic Church still had monks. Last night after we got home I talked with a friend who is Catholic & she informed me on all things regarding monks. Low & behold there's a Benedictine college 30 minutes north of where I am that has lots of monks living there. I really need to get out more & explore my surroundings & learn more about the area where I live.

This morning will be a busy one. I'm looking forward to this afternoon when I get back home & can attack my stringy diamonds! I hope that y'all are doing well. More later on,

Vicky