Crazy About Baseball (for Malcolm and Dawson)!

Dear friend and fellow blogger Linda has been wanting me to join her in journal quilting for well over a year now.  Suddenly I am seeing how well this project meshes with blogging, and so here is perhaps my first journal quilt.  I say perhaps since I'm still not sure I am ready to commit to one journal quilt a week, though this one went together quickly.  After spending last week, our Spring Break, with grandsons Malcolm (8) and Dawson (6), I immediately thought about doing a baseball quilt in their honor. Both boys are Baseball Crazy, and so I made this one Crazy Quilt style. I used perle cotton to machine-embroider along the edges of the center section and along each "slice" of the block.  As soon as I saw the two little boys in the dark blue fabric, I fussy cut it to be sure they would be prominent.  And I was delighted to see that not only did the kids-playing fabric at the top right have a baseball player, but also images of crayons, a child's painting, and splotches of paint--all symbolic of both boys' love of "doing art."  Finally, I found a baseball glove scrapbook embellishment and a baseball applique to fuse to the quilt.  I plan to buy some crayon buttons I recall seeing to add one more.  The edges aren't finished because I'm waiting until I decide just how (or even IF) I want to finish them.  Linda likes each of her journal quilts to be stand-alone, but I've not given up on the idea of someday sewing all of mine together into a wall hanging for my craft room.

Blue Dress, Blue Sky

Today I tackled a task I've been putting off for ages--mending a dress for grand-
daughter Lia.  The nanny had hand-washed it as the label dictated, but despite this, the black crocheted trim "ran" all over the blue skirt.  Lia loved this dress, so her mother Kathy asked me if there was any way I could salvage it.  After hunting several times for fabric in town to match the original skirt, I gave up and looked online.  Sure enough, I found a blue light-weight knit that was perfect.  This morning I cut the ruined skirt from the Empire bodice and the gathered ruffle at the bottom.  I used it as a pattern and cut the new skirt, and then I re-attached it at top and bottom.  The result isn't perfect, but is better than the ruined dress!  So here it is on the back patio in front of the pansies that limped along all winter but now, at the beginning of spring, they are flourishing.  Just for good measure, the blooming Bradford Pear tree against a blue, blue Texas sky!

More Scrapbooking, an Art-filled School, Great Books, and Basketball!

I've not blogged for over a week.  We've been in Michigan, visiting our daughter and son-in-law and our two grandsons, Malcolm (8) and Dawson (6 this week!)  Dawson and I continued working on his scrapbook.  We completed it through his 5th birthday, and both of us were proud and happy! 

We also visited the boys in their brand new, beautiful, state-of-the-art elementary school.  I was thrilled by the facilities and excited to see all the children's art displayed everywhere!   We met their teachers, the principal, and the art teacher.  The latter's room is light-filled and spacious.  I told her how much I loved seeing all the art displayed everywhere.  Both boys love going to art for an hour a week, and in addition to that, they do art projects within their classrooms.  Below is the dragon Malcolm painted in art.  Susan knew that he had positioned his dragon himself, so that it looks as if the dragon is turning on the light switch!  The shamrock "stained glass" was a classroom project Malcolm came home excited about, fascinated by the "see through" paper that looked like glass.  For the leprechauns, the children planted grass seeds that will soon sprout and become "hair"!

Malcolm so loved the book THE CITY OF EMBER that his teacher just finished reading to the class that we bought him his own copy and ordered the sequel for him.  Now he is reading it to his little brother!

Malcolm is not only a good artist and great reader, but he's good at basketball, too!  Before boarding the plane to come home, we got to see his last basketball game, where he made four baskets!  Malcolm is #4, going up for the shot!  So great to have such well-rounded grandchildren!  PS  That's Malcolm with their beloved Labradoodle, Ace.