A visitor to my hometown

I got this one from DebR


Imagine you’ve made a connection with another blogger who lives in a completely different part of the world than you do. This blogger is about to take a trip and the connection you’ve made is so strong that she is going to make your house one stop on her trip. (Yay!) Unfortunately she can only stay at your place for 24 hours (boo!), but she’d like to see some nearby sights while visiting with you.


Keeping in mind that time is quite limited so you have to stick pretty close to home (although not necessarily right IN your town - just anyplace you could go as a day trip), try looking around you with the eyes of someone who has never seen your area and tell us some things you’d share with…



A Visitor to Your Hometown



1. Your visitor wants to see something historical. Where would you take her and why?

It's hard to go anywhere in Charleston, SC without seeing something historic. I suppose one of our first stops should be at Ft. Sumter - where the Civil War started. (or as they say down here "The War of Northern Aggression")

After that we could take a carriage tour and see some of the beautiful old homes that were standing during the war.

We could just take a walk through the streets of downtown Charleston and see something historic with every step.

2. She wants to see something hysterical…well, mildly amusing anyway. She’d even go for cute, quirky, odd, or unique. Where would you take her and why?

Well, in addition to our elegant downtown, we have the less elegant outskirts when the 21st century hasn't caught up yet. I'd probably take her to the flea market where we would see a large number of mullets.

3. She wants to take some beautiful and/or interesting photos to fill her albums when she gets home. Where would you take her?

Again, it's hard to turn around without seeing something worthy of photographing, but I might take her to Middleton Gardens where the flowers are breathtaking in the spring.






Or maybe we'd go to see Angel Oak - a tree reported to be hundreds of years old.

Or we could go down East Bay Street and see Rainbow Row - a row of homes painted...you guessed it...rainbow colors.

4. She’d like to buy a souvenir that will remind her of your area every time she sees it. What would you suggest and where would you go to get it?



I'd have to take her to get a handmade sweetgrass basket. These baskets are hand woven in many different designs. They are not cheap, but are very much a Charleston tradition.







I hope she would enjoy her visit to my hometown. I know I would enjoy showing it to her.

My two brothers

I was feeling a little guilty about cropping my brothers out of the photo I posted yesterday, so here they are. Ed is on the left and Claude is in the middle.

It's funny how Claude ended up with blond hair and blue eyes (like our dad) while Ed & I ended up with dark hair and eyes (like our mother). When I was a teen I was jealous of Claude's blond hair because the surfer girl look was in at the time. It probably would be easier to cover the gray as a blond than as a brunette, so maybe I should covet his hair color again!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm not sure how this sweet little girl turned into the 55 year old overweight woman with a bad knee and sciatica that looks back at me in the mirror each day, but she did.

I'm guessing that I was somewhere between one and two in this photo. I'm wondering where the curls went. My hair is pretty straight now and it went straight fairly young otherwise my mother wouldn't have given me those bad perms when I was a kid!

It's a Girl!

Chrystal had the "big" ultrasound yesterday. She, Craig, Noah, her Mom & I all crowded into the room and watched as the tech checked everything out. The baby is doing well and is most decidedly a girl.

Noah was hoping for a brother, but I'm sure he'll do fine with a little sister. I would have been happy with a boy or a girl, but I'll admit I'm excited that I'll be able to buy pink outfits! Yesterday afternoon I 'happened' to walk through the infant department at the store and came home with a little onesie that has "I'm the little sister" embroidered on it. Too cute!

Work in Progress Wednesday

(clickable for a larger view)


I've been collecting silk dupioni and asian brocades for a while to make a quilt I saw on the cover of a New Zealand quilt magazine. I even marked and cut out a good deal of the quilt and pieced the first block. At that point I decided it wasn't going to work out the way I wanted so I put it all aside.

Recently I came across the foundations to make a NY Beauty that I'd ordered some time ago from equilter.com and decided that I might like to use my silk fabrics for that. (the foundations are muslin not paper)

The block size is 8" and I decided to also add some 4" blocks that I drafted on muslin from a pattern I got in Valori Wells' book "Radiant New York Beauties."

While I had already backed the silk fabrics with a soft fusible interfacing type fabric (to lessen the fraying) working on the muslin foundations gives it added stability. I quite like how it's turning out and am having fun putting the blocks together. Right now the blocks aren't arranged in any kind of order - just pinned on the wall as I complete them (well, that 4" block in the middle isn't quite complete - it still needs to be sewn together). I'm looking forward to finishing all the blocks and then playing with the layout.

Things we didn't know last year...

The BBC has published a list of 100 things we didn't know last year. I thought #2 was interesting. "There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts."

I'll try not to be number 200,000,001.

The Old Alma Mater

I learned today that Redford High School, from which I graduated way back in 1969, is on a list of schools to be closed by the Detroit Department of Education. The school is old. It was originally built back in the '20's with the first addition constructed in the '30's. The joke when I was there was that the "new section" was already 30 years old. There have been several additions/remodels since I graduated. Enrollment has now declined to just over 1,000 students (it was probably closer to 3,500 when I was a student) and now the school is far too large for the current enrollment.

I feel like a piece of my childhood is being taken away!

Noah & Mom

Here are Chrystal & Noah on Christmas Eve. I think it's cute.

I've been working but don't have any photos to post right now. I'm using all the silks and brocades that I had planned for a project and decided to use them in a New York Beauty instead. It's been kind of fun to work on so far.