Last November I joined the Castile Fire Department(CFD). It's kind of a family business: Dad is a first responder and was chief in the 70's, Mom
is the Ladies Auxilliary, brother is the current fire chief/EMT-B, SIL is also an EMT-B. I completed my EMT-B course in May of this year. The firehall is only a block from my house so it's an easy jog over when the sirens wail us into service.
This week begins Fire Prevention Week, a national community service project to educate families on safe practices. This year CFD expanded their activities to try to involve more of the community. We demonstrated our new ice rescue equipment in a port-a-tank and used the same water for the kids to play with live hoses. There were two Jaws of Life demos on donated cars. Mercy Flight flew in for a tour of one of their birds and this also completed our landing zone training for the year. There was also a bounce house for the kids and a pig roast.
Just before the second Jaws demonstration the Rescue Captain offered to lend me his turnout gear so I could practice as well. It's unlikely that I would ever use the Jaws in a real accident as I would likely be needed in the ambulance but it was interesting to see what it is like as a fireman with all that heavy gear on, in addition to the heavy equipment. I always gave firemen kudos for the guts to run into burning buildings but now it's more important to thank a fireman for every job they do...I certainly can't handle it. Can you?
Don't forget to Fall Back AND change all smoke detector and CO2 monitor batteries on November 1st.
Here's another table runner for the Christmas Bazaar. I free motion quilted my version of "McTavishing" in the center area - a nice fairly quick filler - and one of my machine's programmed stitches in the inner border. Truth be told I picked the border stitch a month ago since it clearly echoed the border fabric but then it just sat there while I decided on the rest of the quilting. Last night I pored over the designs from http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/ and looked through my quilting warm ups from previous projects and finally jumped on this design. The binding is nearly half done.
Seven days left how many more can I finish???
This is my fav table runner so far for the Christmas Bazaar. The colors/fabrics are bright and likeable but my fav part is the quilting. I've really been debating whether to keep it for myself. Mom says why not but I already have two people interested in buying it. Of course, neither has asked the price so I guess I need to start pricing runners and ask them if they really want it. Otherwise I will finish one that is cheaper and more likely to sell. I have never been confident in pricing my art. Can't the Pricing Fairy just pop over this weekend and tell me what to do??!!
Here is a glimpse of what I bought - fabric, hologram thread, patterns, a gorgeous turquise pendant and some other goodies like a fabric bow maker. Not pictured are the quilting stencils. While my free motion skills are steadily improving, stencils sometimes just move the process along faster, provide a jumping point for ideas or help learn muscle memory. Sorry, no cameras were allowed inside the CF. The Quilt of Belonging was there so I wish I had been able to take pictures inside...the Needle was just outside tho.
It was a long day with a 3 hour drive each way and 6 hours of walking around the booths. Thankfully we watched movies on the bus, I brought binding to work on and we were treated to a nice view of Niagara Falls and a beautiful sunset on the way home.
