Elton John!

Elton John is performing here in November and we have tickets! They started selling them on-line this morning and I got both our laptops going so I could double my chance of getting through. They sold out really fast, so I'm glad I got through. The seats aren't the greatest, but we're going!

Making progress

Here's what the new dormer looked like from the outside the first day










It's kind of hard to tell, but the small amount of additional floor space sure is making a big impact on how big the room looks. This photo was taken after the workers had quit for the day and covered everything with plastic.















Here's Jerry taking in the view from where one of the windows will be.











The framers actually finished yesterday. Jerry put in the insulation today and we have an inspection scheduled for tomorrow. Once that is done Jerry can start of the drywall. I'm anxious to get moved back into my room, but I expect it will be some time yet before I can.

Hey...I'm dyeing here!

I've been taking a basic cotton dyeing class on Quilt University. They post a lesson every week. I did lesson one on time, but didn't get to lessons 2 and 3 until yesterday. Since they posted lesson 4 late last night I just went ahead and did it too.

Lesson 2 was to create 3 half yard lengths of mottled fabrics in orange, green & purple.
















Lesson 3 was to create a 5 step gradation. I wish I'd pick a different color-way. I was doing lessons 2 and 3 at the same time and didn't realize that the orange in lesson 2 was going to be the same as the darkest orange in the gradation.












Lesson 4 was to go around the color wheel. For some reason my yellow orange and orange pieces came out the same color. The oranges are causing me some problems!















It has been fun doing this dyeing, but it's a lot more work than I anticipated. The worst part of all of it is rinsing the fabrics until all the excess dye is gone. I need to find some way to make that step easier!

Yard of the Month?

Every month the garden club in our subdivision selects a yard of the month. In the past I've often told Jerry that he deserves the honor because he works really hard making our yard lovely. (I refuse to do yard work.) We always have some pretty flowers blooming (even in the winter when he plants weather hardy pansies) On the last day of August, during a break in several days of rain, Jerry set out to mow the lawn. He joked he was going to get that yard of the month by mowing the lawn the day the committee goes through the subdivision to make its selection.

Well, he won't tell me exactly what happened that day he was out mowing the lawn, but before he was even done he walked into the house and proclaimed that he was going to steal the sign for the labor day holiday weekend. He hopped in the car, drove to the house that was August's yard of the month, took the sign out of their yard and planted it in our yard. He tried to convince me that he'd stolen the sign and the garden club would be coming to get it once the holiday was over. He knows that we've been married for too long for me to fall for that, but he's still trying to make me believe it. Here it is 20 days later and the sign is still in the yard!

The yard actually doesn't look as good this month as it has in past months, but I like to think he earned it for his body of work - kind of like how some people earn academy awards!

Of course now we have a dumpster in the drive in anticipation of the dormer addition which really brings down the beauty of the yard!

Dormer addition in my studio

The dormer addition is about to happen. The framers were supposed to arrive today, but postponed late last night. I think we'll see them on Friday.

The dormer will be over the garage door. Here's a before photo. (note the garbage can isn't usually sitting there!) If you look closely over near the garage roof peak, you'll see a corner of the existing window in the room. It's up so high that I can't see out of it.















This is a view of where the dormer will be from the inside. Jerry has already torn out the drywall and the carpet.
















See how high the existing window is? (that's a 9 foot ceiling in the middle)















My sewing junk has temporarily taken over other rooms in the house!

Retreat photos

Here is Donna at the retreat working on her mariner's compass class project. Donna is always very enthusiastic about new techniques and she seemed to really enjoy working on this project. Isn't it nice? (photo clickable for larger view)















Karen, Jolene and Maureen brought a pumpkin block of the month project to work on and did some work on it. However, Jolene and Karen found another pumpkin project at one of the vendors and ended up finishing that quick project over the weekend. Here is Karen with hers. I missed getting a photo of Jolene's (who you can see standing behind Karen at the cutting table) however, hers looks similar to Karen's. If you click on the photo you will see the clock that shows Karen finished this after midnight Saturday. I went to bed about 1:00 that night, and Karen & Jolene were still going strong when I left.

Back to the real world

I got back from my weekend retreat yesterday afternoon and had to hit the studio to start packing it up. My studio is the finished room over our garage (called a FROG in these parts). Right now the room has one window which is up so high I can't even see out of it. The walls are sloped on each side so there is limited head room in those areas. We've decided to bump out a dormer on one side which will raise the wall in that area and give me needed light with the addition of 2 windows.

In order to accomplish this, of course I've had to clear out the entire room. I can't believe how much crap I have.

Jerry has found someone to do the actual framing of the dormer and he will do all the finish work. We've gotten all the permits and had the lumber delivered and now await the framers - who should arrive either tomorrow and Wednesday. I have no idea how long this entire project will take - since Jerry is doing the finish work himself it could take a while!

The retreat was wonderful. I got most of a quilt top pieced and enjoyed spending time with my quilting buddies. I even got a wonderful massage! As soon as I find the camera, I'll try to post a photo or two.

Retreat weekend

Our state guild, Quilters of South Carolina, holds an annual retreat every fall. It's great to live in a state that is small enough that one can drive anywhere in the state in a reasonable amount of time. The retreat is held on the campus of a church conference center and offers classes taught by local quilt teachers. I've elected to not take any classes this year and will do "bring your own project" for the weekend.

I'm looking forward to a fun weekend of sewing and fellowship!

35 years!

Today Jerry and I celebrate our 35th anniversary. I don't know how it could possibly be that long because I'm only 30 years old (in my mind at least). It's been quite a ride over those years. Jerry had been in the Navy about 2 years when we got married and he promised me that he'd get out. I just didn't know that he meant after he'd served 20 years!

Here's hoping we celebrate 35 more! Happy Anniversary Honey.

I'm a bit slow

I just figured out how to add a photo to the header of my blog. Yeah, I know I'm a bit slow! Anyway, now if I could only figure out how to move the text with the title of the blog I'd be a happy person.

The photo up there is my quilt "Amazing Grace" which was juried into the Houston quilt show last year. It measures 72" x 13"

Dyeing fabric

It seems like most accomplished art quilters dye their own fabrics. Dyeing isn't something I've ever attempted before so I decided to take an on-line dyeing class through Quilt University and did lesson one yesterday. Boy, it's a lot of work for a few pieces of fabric. The muddy beige fabric was the result of pouring equal parts of each of the other three dyes together into one container and seeing what color turns up. I didn't do an accurate measure of the 3 colors so I probably wouldn't be able to duplicate this one if I wanted to.



The kids were here on Saturday so I had to get some photos of the grandbabies. They just get cuter and cuter.

Brother & Sister

Here's a recent photo of beautiful Hayden. Isn't her grin cute?















Here's a photo of Noah when he was about the same age. You can sure tell they're brother & sister can't you?

First day of school

School started here today. In honor of that I'm answering Deb's meme about school.

1. Who was your best friend? I had a group of best friends. Pat and Linda and Cheryll come to mind immediately. Unfortunately we lost Cheryll to cancer earlier this year.

2. Did you play any sports? Not really, although I did join the field hockey team one year. I don't think the coach ever let me in a game and I still don’t know the rules of the game.

3. What kind of car did you drive? I didn’t own a car in school, but my mother drove a 65 Mustang which was kind of cool. It’s the car I learned to drive in.

4. It’s Friday night. Where were you? Probably baby sitting – or sitting in front of the TV at home.

5. Were you a party animal? Nope. I was clueless in high school and didn’t even realize that others were doing a lot of partying. I made up for it in college though.

6. Were you considered a flirt? I highly doubt it.

7. Were you in the band, orchestra or choir? I was in choir all though high school. I can’t sing very well now (probably too many years of smoking) but back then I wasn’t too bad.

8. Were you a nerd? Oh yes. You should have seen me in my attractive cat eye glasses – sigh.

9. Were you ever suspended or expelled? The closest I got was being called into the assistant principal’s office once for doing something stupid at lunch.

10. Can you sing the fight song? Are you from Redford? Yes I’m from Redford. True Red and Gray. We are together fighting forever …. That’s as far as I can get, but I can hear the tune.

11. Who was your favorite teacher? My English teacher – Ms. Epstein. She was young and hip and I was lucky to have her for several semesters in a row.

12. What was your school mascot? The husky. Someone owned a husky and would bring it to football games.

13. Did you go to the Prom? Yep – it was held on Friday the 13th. Our prom was officially the last event in our senior year. It was held 2 days after graduation.

14. If you could go back, would you? Hell no, but I wouldn’t minding being the size I was then (and I thought I was fat then!)

15. What do you remember most about graduation? I don’t really remember it at all – it was a loooong time ago.

16. Where were you on Senior Skip Day? I was such a nerd that if our school had one I didn’t know about it! I skipped a lot of my senior year without it being a special day.

17. Did you have a job your senior year? I worked part time at Ford Motor Company in the same office as my mother.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? Nobody left school for lunch so if I had a lunch hour I would have been in the cafeteria. By the time I was a senior I only had classes until noon – the school was overcrowded so upperclassmen had a short day schedule – so I didn’t do lunch at all.

19. Have you gained weight since then? Oh yeah!

20. What did you do after graduation? The day of graduation my mother made me go to work. I wanted to attend the senior luncheon, but she wouldn’t let me take the day off. By the next week I was working full time at Ford and continued there for a year until I left for college.

21. What year did you graduate? 1969 – the summer of Woodstock.

22. Who was your Senior Prom Date? Gary. I have no idea where he is now.

23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? I did attend my 10 year reunion. Haven’t been to one since then though. (although I’m not sure they’ve done anything since 20 years anyway.)

I learned recently that my old high school is going to be shut down. Since portions of the building were built way back in the 1920’s I expect the place is looking pretty shabby.

Birthday Party

Noah had his birthday party today at the local water park. (these photos are not from today - they're from the park's website)

It was fun playing in the various water features. I even went down the big slide once (and only once). I guess if the 6 year old kids can do it so can I! I think the best part was the floating down the lazy river. Jerry and I got in a double tube and just rode the current for about half an hour.

I'm a bit sunburned, but it was a fun day.

A Quilt for Hayden

I actually started and finished a project while at the retreat this year. This cute little quilt for Hayden measures only 20 x 20, so it was fast to construct. I don't know why I never thought of it before, but the others there recommended that I use a decorative stitch for the quilting. It turned out really well. I delivered it to Hayden today. She's too young to express an opinion about it, but Chrystal seemed to like it.

More on the Beach Retreat

Here are photos of my table mates at our Beach Retreat. In the green is Jolene. She does fabulous applique work and worked on several pieces during the weekend. Frances has on the tie-dye shirt. She did that cute train quilt on the wall behind her. She also did a darling sailboat quilt, which unfortunately I missed getting with the camera.



















This is Karen decked out in her flamingo attire for our Saturday night event.













This is also Karen after spilling a cup of (thankfully cold) coffee all over herself. Luckily there wasn't much damage to her fabric! Much hilarity ensued while she was on the floor trying to clean up the mess.

Beach Retreat 2007

I'm back today from my guild's annual retreat to the beach. I'll post more later, but here is a photo of the entire group. Every year we have a theme, and I think it's obvious that this year's theme was the 60's. Our tie-dyed shirts were so bright that we decided the space shuttle could see us.

(photos are clickable for larger version)















Here's a shot of the two cute boys that very kindly took our group photos for us. We must have handed them 8 cameras for photos and they did it all with a smile.

First Cars

We were talking recently about first cars. My first car was a 1961 VW Beetle. It was like this one except for the white paint on the doors. (clickable photo)



I bought the car from my Aunt & Uncle for $200 and had to learn to drive a stick for it.


The only other car I've purchased on my own was my 1990 Miata.


I had 10 good years with my Miata and it still looked great when I traded it in for my current car (another convertible!)







I leave in the morning for my guild's annual beach retreat. We'll spend the weekend sewing and socializing. I'll be back on Monday.

Too much time on his hands?

Jerry gets a magazine called "Make" that contains a bunch of odd projects.

One project he decided to try was to make "The Brain Machine" a sound and light machine that produces sound and light pulses at brain wave frequencies. This is supposed to help a person sleep, wake up, meditate or experience a pre-programed state of consciousness. (huh?)

He finished the contraption today and tried it out. He puts on the special glasses and an LED light pulses and a constant sound comes through the earplugs.




It must work because he fell asleep on the couch when he tried it out! Looks kind of odd though don't you think? If you click on the link to the magazine (click on the highlighted word Make above) you'll see the cool looking glasses the author of the article made.





Here's what he looks like without his funky glasses! He's much cuter without them!

Cute grandkids!

The kids were here last night for dinner. We think Noah and Hayden are the cutest, but I suppose we're a little partial. Hayden will be 7 weeks old on Monday and Noah will be six in a couple of weeks. He's looking forward to his birthday party at the water park. (photos are clickable for a larger view)














I like this photo of Hayden better than the one below, but I like Noah in the 2nd photo better than in this first photo.















We just couldn't catch Hayden with a smile. She is just so sweet when she smiles at you.