Summer Days

While Rembrandt is safely out of the way close to the ceiling...

let me take the opportunity to thank Kathie and Tara of Sew Unique Creations; I won this absolutely divine fat quarter tower of Jo's Attic Shirtings from them on Kathie's blog:

I love these shirtings so much and feel so lucky to have won them. They are well loved here, Kathie! Wouldn't they look entrancing in this Burgoyne Surrounded that has scrappy shirtings for the background?

Excuse me. Rembrandt has left her vulture-like perch and is now in my fabric stash. Getouddathere Rembrandt!

This is the time of year when I let the Queen Anne's Lace and Brown-Eyed Susans grow in the front yard, carefully mowing around them until their season is over. The Chaste Vitex is also in bloom and there are apples in the trees:

I should never have left the country hills of Indiana :-).

Here is a sweet little kitty who has been visiting my yard the past few weeks. She doesn't eat the food or drink the water I've been putting out. She seems like the happiest cat ever and will not let me get anywhere near her:

I'm making this version of Jo's Bird Chintz quilt that is in her latest book, Coming Home. It will have the bird chintz border, and will have a Broderie Perse collage in the center using the chintz fabric. I'm dying to get this done but need to make a LQS Run for more green fabric!

I've started to make digital recordings of my old vinyl records. Very time-consuming since I edit the tracks to get out as much of the scratches and pops as possible, but so worth it. Now I'm walking in the morning listening to my old LPs on the iPod!

The Third Week of Summer Break is Over Already??

Thank you, Polly and Laurie, for your Giveaway:

As you can imagine, I never liked how my music setup looked but there was no place to hide it. Here it is sitting on my pumpkin pine woodbox. Poor woodbox.

Unexpectedly, I got a new iPod Nano, spent hours uploading my 85 CDs to it, and this equipment may make their way to Craigslist soon. They certainly will never see the upstairs again:

The woodbox and I are both happier with a simpler look:

Today I made this (fore)armband to wear while walking, with pockets for both the iPod and the house key:

And on to Repro Divas Show and Tell. First up is our Quilt of Valor!

Gorgeous; I wish this were mine:

This one, too:

Hey! I want this one, too:

Is this adorable or what? I would want this one as well, but I don't have any blue in my house:

I made this clutch from a Whimsicals pattern. This one has several pockets including credit card slots. I am always disgustingly proud of myself when I manage to make any sort of purse/tote/clutch/iPod armband :-) :

MaryJo's in Gastonia and EQ7

First of all, made this sample for LQS using my House Party pattern and little patriotic scenes from Warren Kimble's Quilting Treasures line:

Made my first visit to Mary Jo's in Gastonia NC, which came about because I drove Timmy to Columbia SC to meet up with a friend and thence back to Life as a Marine at Jacksonville:

It was definitely worth a visit. There was plenty of reproduction quilting fabric in addition to batiks, novelties, solids, and feedsacks. Their stock also includes bridal and other garment fabrics, notions, drapery and upholstery, and utility fabrics like ironing board fabric. I got the above, that includes several French Quarters, Centennial Solids, one batik, one Art Deco, a Fusion, a Dimples etc. The bottom left fabric is nice. It has six shades of green on it in big bands; wish I had gotten a ton of those. Not pictured background fabric for the Bird of Paradise quilt and the aforesaid ironing board fabric. A nice haul.

I am looking through my EQ7 update this morning and will report back if I seem to have anything of interest to share.

***newsflash: omg I won the Count the Polka Dots on Gibby's Tongue giveaway at Minick & Simpson!!!***

Memorial Day Week-End

Gifts arrived from Libby! A lovely note, a Marine Mom decal that I think I will put on my kitchen window to deter any wandering marauders, and...

a Judie Rothermel FQ that I love and it is one that I do not have. It happened to land next to Jo's Bird Chintz and look how great it is with it:

Thank you, Libby, for thinking of me!

Timmy the Marine is home on leave! This is Timmy's future car, a 1930s Deusenberg. Oh wait, no, we went to see a 1930s luxury car exhibit at the High Museum of Art:

This is a body-only replica of an early Porsche; I think it looks like Wallace & Gromit's hovering spacecraft:

A historic moment and Timmy was there....

I love this 1956 GM car show photo:

Other museum sights:

A happy and relaxing Memorial Day week-end to all USers.

Civl War Bride Quilt Drafting

Well, wouldn't you know, I've been working on some things that can't be shown (LQ Christmas swap gift and the latest Les Fleurs block working one block ahead -- you see I was inspired by the ease of making the one before :-) and beside it isn't done yet).

One thing that can be illustrated is that I decided to draft my own version of the Bird of Paradise, or Civil War Bride quilt top. I want to make it as similar to the original as I can, and there are differences in the Threadbear version, most notably in the block size (original blocks are 15" square, it appears, versus Threadbear's 11" x 14"), major differences in the border, and in the block below (contents of the basket are different).

I scanned the top from one of the illustrations I have, cropped out each block, printed each block 8" square, then traced and inked them. I scanned the completed inked block below, separated it into four equal quadrants, and printed each of them at 7.5" x 7.5". Now to tape them together to end up with a 15" block. Wonder if Kinko can print a 15" square enlargement so I don't have to do that step. At a low price, that is.

It's so much fun to trace and ink :-).

the next Les Fleurs

For a change, this next Les Fleurs block went quickly and painlessly:

I actually enjoyed working on this one and really like how it turned out.

Now in case you didn't see this on the Little Quilts blog when I linked to it in the previous post, here is a shot of the booth showing my Berks County 1850 and Feedsack Bunnies samples and patterns!!

Have (happily, mind you) lost 8.8 pounds so far. Almost close enough to knock on the door of the 160s. Must stay motivated.

Show and Tell - Repro Divas....and Mother's Day Revisited

Mother's Day flowers arrived last night from Timmy; he was so disappointed that they did not arrive on Mother's Day but after he checked with them, FTD finally delivered :

the message:

Moms don't think flowers are stupid, do they :-).

And on to Repro Divas Show and Tell. We were to bring a favorite finished Jo Morton project:

These are some wonderful sewing or whatnot bags, typical of the 18th c.:

These are destined to be stockings, from Blackbird Designs:

Aieee, aren't they darling?

And another Favorite Jo; yummy, love the colors:

Eight more Day Job days, but who's counting. Since the very last day, Tuesday, is a "furlough" day that we don't get paid for, we have to do two days' worth of closing out in one day, Monday. From the sound of it, we will be there into the evening, in other words, working two days and getting paid for one. Go, state employment.

Oh! And here is Nancy Cumming's version of my House Party pattern, as shown on the Little Quilts blog. It is so beautiful, Nancy!!

http://littlequilts.blogspot.com/2010/05/tuesday-odds-ends.html

Les Fleurs, Thrifting, and Timmy

At last, a finish on the current Les Fleurs block:

Heard a few times from Timmy this Mother's Day week-end. The first call came after he completed his driving class at a community college some distance from Camp Lejeune, armed with his completion certificate and personality profile (which he said he was going to laminate and keep on his refrigerator for all time) and waiting for his ride from a fellow Marine. He said a hundred transgressors were there to repent. One lady had been driving 110 mph in a 45mph zone. They paired off and completed personality profiles for their partner. Timmy was not partnered with the 110 lady but with Rene, who hitched his hydraulic wheels up and down once too often and got a ticket for reckless driving. Rene's major personality characteristic is Compassion. Timothy, for some reason, had three: Freedom, Fun, and Love & Belonging. So now they're all going to drive more safely? And Timothy will stop running his truck off the road to avoid a crash? Guess so.

Timmy enjoyed his time in the field earlier in the week, doing a "neat" obstacle course with intermittent firing at targets. They tried it once without all of their gear and 40-lb. flak jacket, and Timmy vaulted the high obstacles with ease. With the gear and the jacket, he couldn't get himself off the ground and needed help. He's tall and fit, but not bulked up.

He is going fishing today and every time I think of it, it makes me smile that he is having a pleasant day. I asked him where he would get a fishing rod and he said, "Wal-Mart" but then said, "you know, Mom, I don't care if I have a fishing rod or not, it will be so great just to relax on a boat for a few hours". Indeed it will.

Found these on Friday night at the secondhand. Tank top, pretty cream and white pattern, by White Stag, light blue (photo's colors are awful) blouse, cotton and spandex with nice waist detail, by Ann Taylor Loft, and beachcomb-ey capris by Charter Club, all for $7, how can you beat that?

Show and Tell - Les Fleurs

Dozed off last night early in the evening. Woke up, glanced at the clock: 7:20. I'm supposed to be at Day Job at 7:30. How could I have slept so long in a chunk?? Zoomed downstairs, got dressed at random, thinking ok won't take care of the cats, won't shower, won't call the principal as we are supposed to do if we are running late. Throwing bottles of water into the bag and about to go out the door when the cellphone rings in the bedroom at 7:30. Didn't get there in time but it was Timmy, who hasn't called for a few weeks. Why would my son call me at 7:30 in the morning? Checked time on the TV: it was still the night before, not the next morning. Got back in comfy clothes and wandered off to call Timmy back. Just think if I had called the principal at 7:30 in the evening to report my tardiness for the next morning.

There's a bad connection at boot camp, or else Timmy ruined his phone in the swampland. We can talk for a few minutes, then the connection breaks. Also superior officers knock at his door or burst in seemingly every few minutes, at which point he puts down the phone and he calls back after a while. Disjointed conversations at best. One time, somebody wanted chewing tobacco, which T. doesn't use and didn't have any, so he had to do 50 push-ups. Then he called back. We talked in about six installments.

He was supposed to learn to drive a Humvee but it emerged that his driver's license was suspended back when he got cut off and drove his truck into a tree and didn't report it. The truck got towed off by the police before he could arrange for it to be retrieved. He got a concussion that time (which I didn't hear about until long afterward, in fact, I didn't hear about the whole thing until long afterward), which he kept to himself because it was right before Boot Camp began. He says he can take some sort of driver's class this Saturday in North Carolina, pay a fee, and that will magically reinstate his license and he can join the next Humvee class. I don't know what to say, except "you drive too fast".

Now he says they are sending him to "Death Valley" in Afghanistan. This is not a happy mother. And on to Show and Tell for Les Fleurs.

We had one week less this time and only one of us managed to finish her block. It certainly wasn't me: I seem to be doing nothing at all waiting for this miserable school year to end. The paycuts have been truly stunning and accomplished in too many ways to count, while every expense has gone up. My brand-new salary really isn't even enough to bother about. Everybody wants the end to come but there are 15 workdays to go:

Here is one group so far. Aren't they pretty colors?

And here is another group. So beautiful:

So today it's a half-day off in order to attend Traffic Court. I intend to fight it. I got rear-ended at an expressway exit and once the police showed up an hour and a half later after four calls to 911, they first were entranced by the other guy, who ended up being an illegal and they spent half an hour putting him in handcuffs and towing away his car, then they spent four seconds on me to give me a ticket for not clearing the roadway. The roadway was clear. Be careful out there, people, at least in Dekalb County, Georgia, they are giving tickets to anybody who moves out there on the roads in order to make up lost revenue.