I woke up this morning singing Bennie and the Jets.  You know…..  B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets.  I can hear the music in my head.  Maybe I’ve been hanging out with Lani and her Lyrical Blog too long.  She always puts songs in my head.  Anyway – now you can do L-L-L-Linda and the Hats.  It fits.  I even looked up the rest of the lyrics to that song.  None, I repeat, none of the lyrics were familiar to me.  The only part of the song I can remember is just the title – B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets.  And now I will hear it in my head all day.  Those words and the little musical notes that follow.  Who’s with me?
 

This is Linda.  Wonderful, beautiful Linda.  The one who got this crazy group of women known as the Just Say Sew Bee to do all kinds of swaps and challenges.  The one who has entertained us over and over with Newbie assignments at every JSS Retreat.  The one who makes us wear hats for every occasion.  Dear, sweet Linda and her hubby have bought a house in California.  To be near the grandchildren.  What do they have that we don’t, LaLa?  (That’s what they call her.)  We’re not letting Linda go.  She has to promise to come back for every Bee day.  And every retreat.  And every Christmas party.  We’re not letting her off easy.

Linda is holding in the hat in her hands beautiful hat blocks made by all her JSS sisters.  She thought they were just rolls of fat quarters.  Ha!  We fooled her.  We’ve been working on these for months and months and months and months.  There is even one in the hat from her sister, Connie, in California who kept our little secret.  And Patty – a dear JSS friend who also moved to California.  She sent a block to join in the fun.  Linda was, after all, the one who got us doing all these kinds of blocks together.  So we wanted to do a really special send off for her.  But we’re not letting her leave.  Only if she comes back every month for Bee.  But I already told you that.

But first, as Judy said, “Does anyone have any Show ‘n Tell?” we all donned hats to surprise Linda.  And you need to see these hats!  Notice Judy brought extra hats so Linda could have two of them.  One to hold the fat quarters (teehee) and a nice glitzy cowboy hat with lots of bling for her head.  It’s a Texas thing.  The rest of the world probably wouldn’t understand.

How cute is Cindy in her little straw hat?  Cindy always has the best smile.

And how about Lanelle with her Texas Rangers baseball cap?  Only Lanelle could wear a sideways cap so well.

And here’s Nancy with her Asian hat.  We all thought it was a lamp shade.  And she had a hard time balancing it on her head.  It’s a ponytail thing.

Here are Sue and Gloria in their straw hats.  One smiling hat and one frowning hat, with two smilings gals.

Linda, Suz and Sally.  Suz looks right at home in that baseball cap.  And I think cute Sally should always wear that hat with that dress.  She is ready for the Easter parade.

Kay, Madelyn & Betty with Lanelle standing behind.  All these gals look great in hats!

I use the term “all” very loosely.  Not sure about Judy in this hat.  Cute, Judy, real cute.

And we all decided that Karen just needed some white gloves and she could wear this one to her daughter’s wedding next month.  Not.  I think Kristell would veto that, Karen.

These gals watched with rapt attention as Linda opened her hat quilt blocks.  Apparently Pat was afraid of getting hat hair and took her hat off early.  Tracie and Pam look very cute in their hats! 

Oh.  You want to see the blocks, do you?  I thought you’d never ask…….

Linda unrolled each one carefully and told us who made each one (we autographed them for her.)

She handed them off to Judy who quickly put them up on a flannel board for all to see.  You can tell she did them quickly because her arm is just a big blur.  And I will never remember who made each one so don’t even go there.  You just get to enjoy the blocks.

Here are 12 of the 185 blocks that Linda received.  OK, maybe there weren’t 185.  But it is going to be a pretty big quilt.  Many of the blocks had just a small touch of orange on them because orange is Linda’s favorite color.  Not.  We have been giving Linda grief for years about her hatred of orange.  Poor Linda is having a hard time even reading that last sentence.  Orange, orange, orange, orange, orange.  See how we give Linda a hard time?

We had to bring out another flannel board as Linda continued to open the blocks and shout out who made each one.

And hand them off to Ranger Judy.  Is that a Smokey the Bear hat, Judy?  Cute.

Then Linda opened this very cute girlfriend panel from Linda in Corsicana, another JSS gal who moved away.  We all want one of those Linda.  Lanelle even threatened to move away so we’d all make her some blocks too.

Aren’t these ladies cute?  They look just like us in their cute little hats.  I’m sure Linda will incorporate this into her hat quilt.  She’ll probably have that ready for us to see by next Monday.  The other side of the panel had cute little sayings on it.  Like “Blessed are girlfriends as they bind together the pieces of their lives.”  And “What happens around the teapot, stays around the teapot.”

Here is Linda with all the hat blocks.  We can’t wait to see the quilt, Linda!  Can you finish it quickly please?  In between packing and getting ready to move of course.  I’m sure you’ll have lots of time on your hands, right?

Linda also brought pics of her new house!  So once again I took pictures of the pictures.

What a great kitchen!  Looks like there is plenty of room for JSSers to visit.

And this looked like a new cutting/ironing combination table to all of us.

And this little gem is the guest house out back.  When asked how many JSSers could fit into the guest house at one time, Linda threw her arm out in a large arc and said, “This many” and pointed to the whole room full of gals.  By the way, I think we will be staying in the “detached granny.”  And it looks to me like we will be wall-to-wall JSSers.

Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll let us come into the big house for breakfast.

Enjoy those grandchildren, Linda.  But we will miss you.  A lot.

Already missing Linda and she’s not even gone yet,
Barb