Memorial Day Fun

Husband Bob and I went with good friends from Dallas, Carolyn and Jerry, to Fredericksburg and Kerrville over the Memorial Day weekend.  This late in May the temperatures hovered in the high 90s, very hot even for Texas this early in the summer.  We didn't let the heat defeat us, however.  Carolyn and I took in a wonderful quilt show in Kerrville while the men enjoyed the National Museum of the Pacific War back in Fredericksburg.  We women also visited the fabulous Creations quilt fabric store in Kerrville, and we toured their new retreat center, called The Main House, which is a state of the art facility of that type!  We were envious when we learned that Kaffe Fassett will be teaching at The Main House in October, but the class is already full!  (Even if you don't often follow my links, do follow the Fassett one!  There's a wonderful video there.  He is one of my main quilt designer heroes!) After a delicious lunch at The Rails, we drove back to Fredericksburg to pick up our husbands.

On Saturday night we attended the folk music festival in Kerrville, its 40th anniversary.  It was a thrill to hear Judy Collins in person, a singer I have long admired.  We heard other other singers as well, folk singers new to all of us.  It was hot, dusty, and rather primitive at the farm where the music festival is held, but we had fun people watching before the show began at 7:00.  Once the sun went down, and thanks to a stiff breeze, we didn't suffer much from the heat.  Showers felt good once we got back, however!

We stayed at the Fredericksburg Herb Farm in charming cottages modeled after the Sunday Houses of years gone by.  We ate two delicious meals at their restaurant, and we loved sitting out under the vine arbor in the evenings in the porch swings, chatting with our friends.  It was truly a memorable Memorial Day weekend!

Our cottages at the Fredericksburg Herb Farm

Jerry and Carolyn

Bob and Alice

Lake Michigan Beach Boys Quilt

The Quilt!

Malcolm (turned five the next month after this picture was taken)

Dawson (was two in March before the photo
was taken in July, 2006)

Locke (turned 3 while we were at Lake Michigan!)

This was truly a red-letter day for me!  The pictorial quilt which I started at Quilting Adventures in early March was completed today.  This quilt was based on a photograph taken by daughter Susan five years ago, at Lake Michigan, when the boys were two, five, and three.  I am delighted with it!  I wish now that I had clocked the hours I spent on it.  Certainly I worked on it for perhaps 24 or more hours in March, while I was taking the class from teacher Marcia Stein.  In class, I fused the background pieces together, cut the little boys and their clothes out, using templates made from a tracing of the photo which we had enlarged at Kinko's.  I fused them down on the background using my favorite fusible product, Misty Fuse.

The actual appliqueing was done once I got home; I used a tiny zig-zag stitch, in threads matching the appliques.  I worked on that off and on in April, after the Waco Quilt Show.  (I had other quilts to finish that I had entered in the Show.)  During the first weeks in May, I machine quilted the piece, using "free motion" for most of the background, with hand-quilting for the sky.  This week, I finished up more of the appliqueing and worked on making the binding.

Marcia Stein recommends making bindings that blend in with the quilt.  Since around the four sides of the quilt there are a total of six different fabrics, this process was more complicated than any binding I have ever done before.  Fortunately, Stein's book PICTURE THIS contains clear instructions and wonderful illustrative photos, showing how to mark and then cut the binding with the correct angles.  I completed machine stitching the binding onto the quilt this morning, and then this afternoon I did the hand sewing on the binding to the back of the quilt, using blind stitching and the six different matching threads.

Now for some additional close-ups:

This photo shows the binding along the left side,
where three different fabrics were used.  The shadowing
on the boys' bodies and clothes, and on the sand,
were done with brown tulle, fused on
with Misty Fuse.

This shows some of the free motion quilting.

This shows the hand quilting in the sky.
It also shows the "thread sketching" I did for the "Dennis the Menace" sticking-up
hair on grandson Locke!  (His was the most dramatic, but all the boys had
this look, and I did the thread sketching for all three of them.)  Also you can see here
on the right side five different fabrics were used along the edge for the binding, and
how it blends in with the quilt.  Those angle were tricky!

This is the photo on which the quilt was based.  Notice that I left off some details:
the boat in the upper right, the toy vehicles, etc.
Also, I changed both Malcolm's and Dawson's hands,
as I had a lot of trouble making them look natural, as
they are in the photo.  So M's got tucked in
front of his body, and I sketched
a new one entirely for Dawson.
His is so cute in this photo, but try as hard
as I did, it kept looking like an animal paw!

A Box Turtle to Cheer Me!

When I was a child, growing up in Austin, we often found and took as pets box turtles and horny toads. It has been years since I've seen either one of these creatures, ubiquitous in those long-ago years, in our yard. Yesterday, after we returned from the sobering sight of our old neighborhood now being demolished, Bob came in to tell me, "We've got a turtle in our driveway!"

I grabbed my camera and ran out.  It was uncanny how much seeing this turtle cheered me up!  I told him that I would be most happy if he'd make his home in our flower bed!

Here are a few more views of him:

And now for a few sad pictures.  All of these piles of rubble were once houses of dear neighbors and friends.  It looks as if a tornado has demolished these homes, but not so--it was most definitely a man-made, monster machine after decisions made by the powers that be.  In less than a day, a two-storey house becomes a pile of trash.

New Look for the Quilting Room!

My quilting room has a new addition!  After getting my new iMac computer, I had planned to put the old PC upstairs for the grandchildren to use when they visit.  But the desk we bought used—really a tall cabinet—proved to be too heavy and tall for two strong young men to carry it upstairs.  So I said, somewhat reluctantly, “Well, let’s put it in my sewing room.”

This move has proved to be a serendipitous one!  Bob and I moved the tiers of Elfa wire drawers—which hold the bulk of my fabric stash—to the wall where once I had open shelves and baskets of on-going projects.  The shelf was returned to the screened-in porch, where admittedly we had both missed having it, and the new computer cabinet for the old computer was moved to the niche where the Elfa drawers once lived.  

I then plugged my ink jet printer into the old computer, as well as my scanner, and all of this equipment can be kept more dust-free, except when I use them, behind the closed doors.  Now I can continue to use the software on the old computer—Photo Shop and Comic Life, to name two—and not have to purchase these for my new Mac.  Too, I like the way the scanner works in conjunction with the PC better than with the iMac, for reasons too boring to relate.  

Pictures below show the new look of my sewing/quilting/craft room!  These images are small, but clicking on them will enlarge them!

Here's the cabinet in place,
with computer, printer behind it,
scanner to the left underneath
the keyboard.  The fabric on top is there
to remind me that eventually I plan
to scan it for a future project!

Here's a view of the cabinet in its
niche, with door closed.

Closer view of closed cabinet.
I was attracted to this piece
because originally I thought
it would look nice in that upstairs
hall, which is visible from the
living room.  Note that I had to leave
one Elfa drawer tier here, for
reasons I explain below.
My basket collection--well used--
fits on top of this cabinet.

The Elfa drawers in their new home. I couldn't
put the 4th tier there because it would
have covered the light
switch, and, too, I like
my little TV in this spot!
Looking at my stash, what
color would you say
is my favorite????

My sewing machine table has a drop leaf behind, that I rarely use,
except when doing machine quilting, as I am now
doing on the Three Boys quilt you can see here, waiting for me to
get back to work on it!

View of the quilting room from the doorway.
See that blank wall above my blonde
storage dresser?  Beside the calendar?
That's where the Three Boys Quilt will
eventually be hung!

California Doings

At last my camera is home!  I had left it in California, but now that it is at home, I can post my California doings.  It was an Easter trip for us, so that's where I'll start.  The grandchildren and I have a tradition of making a bunny face cake, and so once again we did.  Here is Lia, iPod ear-bug  in her ear, but happily showing the cake she, Locke, and I decorated:

Then, the usual egg-dyeing the night before, church on Easter, and then the Easter egg hunt.

This shows the pattern.

As for the rest of the visit, we tried to work in some crafts, but school, homework, after-school activities, etc. interfered.  Locke and I did do some simple needle-pointing, with his making a Lakers' colors coaster for his Dad (to give him on Father's Day), and I making him and Lia each a coaster.

Here's Locke stitching on his dad's coaster.

As for the rest of the visit, it was dominated by our attending three of Locke's Little League games.

One of my favorite pictures from this trip:  Locke about to catch
a ball that you see heading right toward him!

Here are some pictures, a few from each game.  The first game his team won; the second, they tied; and the fourth, another win:

Here's Locke getting one of several good, solid hits.

Locke has just scored a run!

Ready as an outfielder to catch a ball coming his way.

As for Lia, just as we were leaving for the baseball game, she and her mom were getting packed to go on a Girl Scout campout!

I remember that at about the same age, her
mom used to love to wear bandanas around her head!

Fellow blogger Linda wanted me to add a picture of one of the coaster I made, and so here goes.  I made this one for Locke; Lia's will have to wait until it is finished!

This is on the bookshelf which doubles as a bedside table for Locke.
You can see a little corner of his quilt, made by me, to the left!

Flowers for my Birthday!

the dining room flowers

I had a birthday this week.  My two daughters sent me flowers.  No, I won't admit here how old I am, but suffice it to say that they ordered four bouquets to equal the number of years!  I have the flowers in vases in the dining room, living room, and kitchen!

the ones in the living room here and below

On the kitchen counter:  the small vase was a gift from
Thelma, my beloved next door neighbor.  The little pot
of miniature roses, from oldest daughter, this a Mother's Day gift.

Here's a portrait of our three children, taken in 1999, before both
daughters had married.  I love this picture because
you can see both girls' engagement rings when you look closely!

New Computer!

I've had a fun week, getting to know my new computer!  I haven't posted in a long time, and I thought my next post would be all about our recent Easter trip to California.  But I left my best camera there; it's not yet arrived here, and so, I couldn't get to all the wonderful California photos.   Instead, I share this news and this photo, taken with my old digital camera!

I love everything about my new iMac.  The monitor is bigger than the one on my old Dell.  What you see here is all that I have--no tower, no separate speakers, no Webcam perched on top--everything built into the sleek and big monitor.  And I didn't even buy the biggest!  But there's so much more that I love--too much to list here.

Truth to tell, making the adjustment from a PC to a Dell isn't duck soup. [Wonder what the origin of that idiom is?  Must check that out!]   But I am having fun learning.

Some things I've figured out on my own.  For example, I just plugged my old Sony digital into a USB port, clicked on iPhoto, and sort of felt my way through putting a picture in an album on iPhoto and then selecting it for this blog post.  Other more complicated procedures I've had to call the help-line at Apple to get some expert help.

I hate to admit that I have spent this entire week messing around with my iMac.  But being a bit under the weather and not having much energy, I've sat here at the computer and had a chance to begin my acquaintance with it!

Waco Quilt Show--Part Three

The fourth quilt that I entered in the show was Cotton Candy, which was featured in this blog several weeks ago.  It was entered in the division called "Small pieced, hand or machine quilted."  This turned out to be a small category, with only 15 quilts entered.

My quilt earned no ribbons, but I was pleased by the positive comments made by the judge who judged it.  She praised my idea of hand-quilting the border and machine quilting the center, and she also liked how straight the quilt hung--saying that was a sign of an even distribution of quilting and of careful construction.

Below are the quilts, though, that my colleagues entered in that division which did earn awards.  And just for fun, I'll put in a few more quilts which won awards, ones which particularly impressed me.  More than these few impressed me, actually, but I don't want to burden my post with TOO many photos!









This Feathered Star quilt won 2nd place.

And this quilt, Giraffes for "Casa-G-Raf"--which name I get only partially.
won the blue ribbon.