Our Youngest Grandson--Growing Up!

Dawson, our youngest grandson (six in March), seems suddenly to be so much older!  I used to consider him shy, but not so now.  One afternoon when he got home from kindergarten, we decided to make oatmeal cookies.  We didn't have the baking soda called for in the recipe.  "I'll go borrow some from a neighbor!" he announced. So he marched off with a plastic cup and a measuring spoon and came back with the soda.  This might not seem unusual, but it surprised me.  Not too long ago, he'd not have suggested such a solo errand. 

At Malcolm's baseball game, two little girls, younger sisters of Malcolm's closest friend, tagged around after Dawson as if he were the Pied Piper.  Is Dawson going to turn out to be quite the lady's man?

Most surprising of all, though, happened at the soccer game. No officials had shown up to referee his brother's game. "I'll go to the office and find out if any are coming," announced Dawson. His parents didn't think this was necessary, but again, I was surprised at his volunteering.

I also used to think of him as being dependent on Malcolm for amusement, not often content to entertain himself.  Not so now!  We went to Wal-Mart and used a gift card we'd given him for his birthday for a new Wii game.  He disappeared upstairs, loaded the game, learned its rules, and then proceeded to play it alone for several hours.  We could hardly drag him away from it to go out to dinner!

Red Poppies

This Memorial Day weekend we had an after church, indoor picnic. I'm on the fellowship committee in charge of such occasions.  We decided to center the tables with some red, white and blue placemats I use on the 4th of July.  One member suggested we also include red poppies, if she could locate some.  She did, at a local VFW post.  In our childhood, committee members remembered that veterans used to hand out red paper poppies on the street corners of our towns, as they collected donations for the families of their fallen comrades.  We pinned the poppies to our clothes in honor of these veterans.

The Memorial Day poppies tradition started with a poem written by a Canadian Army colonel during WWI.  Colonel John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" was first published in December, 1915, in the British magazine Punch.  Two women from Georgia , impressed by the poem, began selling paper poppies in order to help orphans or others impoverished at the end of the war.  Eventually the Veterans of Foreign Wars made the Memorial Day poppy official.  Below is the McCrae's poem.

In Flander's fields the poppies blow,

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky,

The larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead.

Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved and now we lie

In Flander's fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,

In Flander's fields.

A Sports-filled Week in Michigan!

We planned our trip to Michigan to coincide with what we hoped were two of Malcolm's baseball games, some practices of Dawson, and two soccer games.  One practice worked out for us to see, and it was fun to see Dawson batting, running, catching, etc.  One of Malcolm's Little League games was rained out, but the next one made up for it!  They won the game handedly, and Malcolm contributed with hits, runs, and by pitching two innings.  In the first picture above Malcolm has just hit the ball and is about to take off for 1st base.  What I particularly love about this picture--please click to enlarge it!--is Dawson standing at the front of the dugout in the background, in navy, watching from a position of privilege as son of the coach and brother of one of the Scorpions. 

After getting to 1st, stealing the next two bases, Malcolm then ran in for his first score.   Clicking on this 2nd photo, you'll be able to see his happy face! 

Particularly fun, too, was seeing Malcolm pitch.Malcolm was (to admittedly very prejudiced grandparents' eyes) the best pitcher on either team.  Watching him take the wind-up is especially fun.

Even more fun--and I didn't capture this in a picture--is that Malcolm imitates the pros he sees on TV.  Before pitching, he leans forward and looks hard at the catcher, as if waiting for his signal.  Then he nods sagely and begins his wind-up.  He was the only boy to enact this savvy charade, and it cracked up grandparents and mother watching from the sideline!  I can't resist one more picture, simply because though I am hardly a professional sports photographer, I really like the composition of this photo, with Malcolm sliding in to home and the umpire signalling "Safe"!

Talking Books with Malcolm

While in Michigan in March, grandson Malcolm excitedly told us about a book his teacher had just finished reading to his class.  The book had a "cliff hanger" ending and is the first in a series called the Embers books.  He is now reading the second in the series, called THE PEOPLE OF SPARKS.

His interest in these science fiction books triggered a memory.  Son Rob got "turned on" to reading when he began reading science fiction.  At the time, I was taking a class at Baylor in Children's Literature.  I read about a series by John Christopher called The Tripods, and so I checked out of the library the first in that series, THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.  Reading that book was the beginning of a passion for science fiction that lasted until Rob was about 14 or perhaps older.

 When I got back home in March, I learned that the Christopher series has been in print continuously since they were written in the 70s.  Naturally, then, I ordered them for Malcolm.  Since getting back to Michigan this month, I read that book that Rob had loved so much. Not usually a fan of science fiction, I was captivated by this page-turner. Yesterday Malcolm and I had a long conversation about science fiction literature. I told him enough, I hope, about the Tripods series to inspire him to read THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, when he's finished with the Embers series.  What fun to talk books with my grandchildren!  And any of my followers with elementary-age sons or grandsons, I can highly recommend these two series!

"Early to Bed, Early to Rise" Quilt: Finished at Last!

I've been working on my great-nephew Mac's quilt off and on for several months. His dad Brian is my sister Kathy 's 4th son.  Kathy cross-stitched this quilt for Brian when he was a little boy, a quilt he took to daycare.  Brian's wife Linda showed me the quilt a year or more ago and asked if I could somehow rehabilitate it. Though the embroidered pictures were still intact and the thread colors as bright as new, the body of the quilt was worn, full of holes, the backing falling off, and the batting inside was lumpy and hard.

The repair took longer than I expected. First, I cut out the motifs, cut the backing away, and pulled out most of the lumpy batting. Then I ironed the pictures to some fusible fleece, to strengthen the fragile fabric on which Kathy had done the embroideries.  Next I reassembled the quilt, joining the pictures with two fabrics from my stash that seemed to fit the theme—a night sky one for the "early to bed" section and a rising sun for the "early to rise" part. Originally, the quilt had those words cross-stitched in a panel, but I decided to embroider the complete nursery rhyme, using a simpler straight stitch.

A friend recommended that I embellish the quilt with some appliqués, so I added the new moon and the sun.

 I used the fusible  fleece as batting. I chose a pastel nursery rhyme flannel for the quilt back and then machine quilted simply. Only  today have I completed the repair task, attaching the green binding and making a label for the quilt.

Next week, I will mail this off to Mac. I'm sure Brian and Linda will be pleased that the little quilt has been reborn!  I hope that Mac becomes as attached to it as his dad was in its original form.  (You can click on the pictures to enlarge to see more detail.)

The Stone Arch Bell Gate Quilt

The photograph at the left was taken in a small park in Austin where my cousin Carol got married. It became the inspiration for my first art quilt, which I call The Stone Arch Bell Gate. I made this quilt in 2008, the first time I attended Quilting Adventures in New Braunfels. That year I was in a class taught by Esterita Austin.

 She had instructed us to bring photos of "portals." I used batiks  for the stones in the arch and did some fabric painting for highlights on both the stones and the foliage behind the gate. We used the raw-edge method of appliqué for all of the components of the quilt, fusing the appliqués to a black background with Esterita's product Misty Fuse. This quilt, as are so many of my quilts, was machine quilted by my good friend and quilter par excellance, Judy Steward. It now hangs in the stairwell of our new house.

Silver Threads Among the Gold

The candles on my cake number seventy-one,

But no way, my friends, is my life yet done!

Stacked high are the bins with quilts yet to do,

And skills to master that for me are new.

A self-portrait journal quilt—oh, dear me!

Maybe this time I am up a tree.

For never, with paint or pencil lead,

Have I tried a self-portrait, it must be said.

"Don't over-think it," said dear friend Lin,

"Just grab the scissors and plunge right in."

So here's a self-portrait of Alice B.,

With hair shorter now, as you can see.

Silver threads now show among the gold.

It's time to admit, "I guess I'm getting old."

But at 71 this old gal still has nerve--

You might even say: she has some verve!

Mis-matching earrings, hey, who cares?

They coordinate, so, yes, of course she dares!

A huge pendant hanging from choker on neck

At 71?  Well, what the heck!

A New Look for the Quilting Room

I moved a lovely baker's rack that had been on the back porch into my quilting room today.  Outside I feared the elements might harm the furniture, and besides, I knew I could better use the shelf space in here.  So now my baskets holding soon-to-do projects, some bolts of fabric, my old pink sewing basket that Bob once gave me, and my thread racks have a new home.  I also totally reorganized the closet that holds bins of fabrics I've already set aside for particular projects.  And I even found room for my ink jet printer, in case I ever want to print on fabric (which the new laser printer won't do).  My Ikea cutting table, in the middle of the room, has drawers and deep shelves for still more supplies.  The other pictures show my organized-by-color fabric stash in Elfa drawers. Then on the left wall is the sewing machine, and in the corner, the computer where now I sit.  And what about the pretty little antique writing desk that did occupy the wall where the baker's rack now stands?  It's found a new home on a wall just beside the French doors leading out to the screened in porch, in the breakfast room. 

Our Beautiful Spring Continues!

Here's a close-up of a rose at my sister Kathy's house.  We stopped by to visit them briefly, en route home from a super birthday weekend for me in Ft. Worth.  I plan to post about that later, but I just couldn't resist putting up these gorgeous flowers!  And I didn't take any pictures of the wild flowers all the way home.  The blue bonnets have faded, but the black eyed Susans were particularly striking, whole fields of them, bright orange in the sunshine.  There were others I couldn't identify from afar, a delicate yellow flower, and then there were the pale, gentle-looking buttercups.  We've had in Texas by far the best spring for flowers in many years, thanks to our cold, wet winter, and a cool, rainy spring.  Now more flowers from sister Kathy's yard.  This tall one Kathy couldn't identify, but it was lovely and unusual.  Climbing up a tree were more roses.  These are just three small samples from a corner yard that is almost all blooming flowers!  And then, finally, a lovely arrangement of flowers that Kathy had just cut.  It looked charming against a rustic cabinet with beautiful old glass doors.

Flat Stanley and the Waco Suspension Bridge

On a windy Thursday evening last week, Bob and I took Flat Stanley with us to dinner. (See my blog posting of April 9 for an explanation of Flat Stanley.) Actually, he waited patiently in the car while we ate Mexican food at Ninfa's, and then we took him around downtown, to see several Waco sites. It was so very windy, we had to hold on tight to Stanley, lest he blow away. Stanley visited  a sculpture of a cowboy and steer, near the famous Waco Suspension Bridge.  

This bridge, completed in 1868, was designed by the same man who designed the Brooklyn Bridge. For many years it's been closed to car traffic, but it is a lovely site from which to view the Brazos River, or actually, Lake Brazos, which was formed when a dam was built some 20 years ago. I hate to admit that after over 40 years living in Waco, I had never walked across this bridge.

On the other side of the bridge, I picked up a branch that had fallen from a Cottonwood tree, to show Stanley the little "bolls" of "cotton" that form on the tree.  On windy spring days in Waco, this cotton flies in the air and looks like snow!   Here, Stanley is peeking out from between two branches.  I think Stanley enjoyed the views from the bridge more than anything!

After we got back home, we stopped by the Dyer's house for Stanley to meet Snuggles, the mother of Rolie, a poodle Stanley knows well, since he is Lia's poodle.  The other poodle is another one of Rolie's relatives, perhaps an aunt or a girl cousin!