Good Morning, all.  As I noted on my last post I suddenly found myself with a time sensitive project.  I thought I had three weeks to leisurely finish the quilt I was making for my sister's 50th birthday but suddenly had only four days.  Here it is.  I call it 'My Sister's Garden.'  I had the major portion done including the trailing vine.  All I had to do was make the soft sculpture butterflies and flowers and add them along with the little gold leaves.  Here is a close up.  It turned out rather well and made a splash at the party last Sunday.  

I spent most of the last four days cleaning up part of the sewing section of our computer/sewing room.  I finished six quilts in the last two years and the space was a cluttered mess.  I have most of it in a much better condition now and a better idea of what I have and where it is.  Mom and I joke that we clean when the 'spirit moves and thankfully it doesn't move very often.'  Now I will get on to other things.

Thanks to Kay at Kay's Thinking Cap, I am trying out the 'Following' feature and filling in those I visit daily.  New features intrigue me.  We'll see what happens.  By the way Kay has a great groaner today.  Check it out.  

Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By has a new post dealing with the various incarnation of the bailout.  Yes, I still refer to it as a bailout.  I am glad to see I am not the only old crone on the Cynical Express.  I have had the sinking feeling for some time that all the funny money Paulson and Bernanke are throwing at the mess will only make the final chapters of this sorry mess more painful.  As Ronni noted none of the measures taken so far address the problem of consumers in a consumer driven economy who can no longer consume in the heroic proportions of the near past.  Worse, we don't even ask the more basic question: should we base our economy on consumption almost entirely?  If not, how can we restructure it?  Just this morning the news listed new mega-layoffs.  That merely means tens of thousands more consumers entering the ranks of non-consumers.

I will make one last observation before hanging it up for today.  As I listened to the comments on the economy that floated through the air at my sister's birthday party I found many people as unhappy with the current and potential targeting of economic resources as I am.  Several people were unmoved by the media's focus on the potential damage to the economy if one or more of the Big Three automakers went down.  The major question commentators had was: why reward monumental stupidity?  The same goes for the financial companies.  More than one person noted that AIG, not once but twice, hosted meetings at luxurious resorts after receiving, not one but two, and asking for a third, infusion of money from the government.  I am afraid that the latest excuse, that most of the cost was paid by corporate contributors, fell on deaf ears.