Two more quilt blocks and some random thoughts

The Virtual Quilting Bee block for October goes to Morgan.

I love this, if I do say so myself. I hope it's square, though. ;)

And November's goes to Alicia. Her quilt is going to be so cool -- maybe my favorite of them all.

(Excuse the white balance issue. We've been having some gray, gray weather.)

And some random thoughts:

*We have had some adventures in our neighborhood lately. Last week, a neighbor whose backyard abuts one corner of ours had three firetrucks, three police cars, and two ambulances parked outside. There was no smoke, and the firefighters weren't using hoses. But they did have their ladder -- actually, more like a crane! -- up to the roof. These are very quiet neighbors who come and go through their garage and never come outside, so we haven't even seen them in the seven months we've been here. We don't know what happened, but we were very excited about all the emergency vehicles. (Everything seems to be normal there, so I can only assume that everything was OK.)

*Our next-door neighbor has had a backhoe digging up his lawn for the last two days. This offered us hours of entertainment. I'm afraid something really bad happened to his sprinkler system, though, so that's too bad for him.

*We have been stuck at home all day waiting for a charity to come pick up some furniture. They have never showed up. We probably wouldn't have gone anywhere, anyway, but it's that feeling of not being able to leave that is so annoying!

*The wool lover that I am firmly believes that her new baby cannot survive without one of these. The schoolteacher's wife that I am knows that $90 is not in our budget. (Unless any relatives are reading this who would so very much like to buy one for the baby, size 62.) So, I've been playing with the idea of making one out of a recycled cashmere sweater (I think it would have to be cashmere for the texture once it's been felted). I haven't had any luck finding one so far. Does anyone out there have a cashmere crewneck sweater -- at least a ladies' medium -- in a baby-friendly color (pale, neutral) that they'd be willing to part with? Or if you see one in a thrift shop, that you'd be willing to snatch up for me to try my little experiment?

*I told you they were random thoughts. Happy weekend, everyone!