Quilters day out

My quilt guild holds Quilters Day Out every couple of months. It's a fun opportunity for guild members to get together and sew. Usually the organizers have a simple project lined up for everyone to do. If someone isn't interested in doing the planned project she can bring something else to work on.

At our last QDO each person was asked to bring a bunch of 6" squares - half light and half dark. (I can't remember exactly how many of each we were supposed to bring - I think it was about 125 of each) The squares were then stacked up on a table and everyone went around selecting squares from all the piles. We ended up with a nice variety of colors and patterns with which to work.

We sewed a light and dark square together diagonally to create a new square that was half light and half dark. Unfortunately many guild members used this swap of fabric as an excuse to get rid of their really poor quality stuff. Some of the fabrics are downright scary. Even so, I challenged myself to just sew together random lights and darks without trying to make 'pretty' blocks. Some of the combinations I ended up with were really ugly, but I did my best to include them.

The blocks could be laid out in several different configurations. We had enough blocks that I was able to make 4 different designs - each of which will be 40" x 40" when completed.


After taking these photos I realized I could have done a better job in placing the blocks in each design. It's amazing how the work looks different when viewed through the camera lens.


There is some Elvis fabric hidden in this one.



I was amazed at how many green blocks I had. This last quilt was made up of all the 'leftovers' and it sure has lots of green.


Once I figure out how to quilt these I will donate them to our community service project. These will be a good size for wheelchair quilts so they may go to the VA hospital.

Waterfront property

I've always wanted to live on water. Ocean, lake, stream - any of those would do. Today I thought my wish was coming true. We had a deluge which overwhelmed the drains. This is the street in front of our house. (click photos for larger view)



That's our next door neighbor's mail box. There really is a sidewalk and driveway there next to the mailbox, honest.


A view of our neighbors across the 'pond.'



The drains on the golf course behind us were clogged and the water backed up into the yard.


Jerry got a rake out and did his best to clear the drain.


It might be too hard to see but the house behind him here had water lapping against the foundation.


It took several hours for the water to subside so our time owning waterfront property was short lived.

Grandkids

It has been a while since I posted photos of our cute grandkids. I got these photos the other day just after Hayden's bath. (click on photos for larger view)


You can see that Noah is missing one of his front teeth in this photo. His other front tooth is loose but not quite ready to come out. Grandpa has been trying to convince Noah that a string and a door knob would be a good thing. He convinced Craig to do that with one of his teeth - Craig never let him do it a second time.


My 3 favorite people just chillin'.

What a pro!

We live on a golf course and Jerry golfs our course a couple of times a week. Now, even though he golfs on a regular basis he is by no means ready for the senior tour. I believe he usually hits in the high 90's/low 100's for 18 holes.

Occasionally he will golf elsewhere and today was one of those days. He was participating in a charity tournament with a few friends at a course across town. Before leaving for the tournament he was complaining that he wasn't really thrilled about going. It was a hot day today and he doesn't really like tournament formats. It's a good thing he went because he got his first hole-in-one! I'm so happy for him.




When someone gets a hole-in-one they have to buy a round of drinks for everyone in the clubhouse. Luckily his foursome was one of the first finished and there were only a few people at the bar so it wasn't too expensive. He has also won what was described to him as an electronics package. Someone will contact him to give him more info about that.

I think I'm more excited for him than he is!

Memorial Weekend

The Memorial Day holiday weekend has become the traditional Pirate's weekend at the lake house owned by our friends Jim & Susie. This isn't the best photo of them, but it's the only one I took over the weekend so will have to do. (click photos for larger view)


The house is on Lake Gaston which is on the Virginia/North Carolina border. Jim's family has had a place on the Lake for years so I guess it was a given that he and Susie would buy a place there at some point.



They are located in a little cove which is nice because the big boats don't come speeding by constantly. It also made for a calm spot to go kayaking. Since I'd never been out in a kayak before, it was really important for me to be somewhere calm!



Usually there are 4 couples in attendance on Pirate weekend. Unfortunately, this year 2 of the couples were not able to attend and we missed them. Hopefully we'll be able to all get together again soon.

More California

I wanted to share a few more of the California trip photos. The morning before we checked into Asilomar for our quilting classes we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's a beautiful aquarium and I always made sure to visit every time I was in the Monterey area. I especially love the jellyfish exhibit.



Shortly before our visit they opened their new seahorse display. I had no idea there were so many varieties. Most of my seahorse photos didn't turn out very well. Luckily I bought the exhibit catalog and used some of the photos as inspiration for my class design.



Joanne looks like she enjoyed the exhibit doesn't she?



Earlier in the trip when we were still in San Francisco we made a stop in a sweet tea shop. Joanne and Karen had the traditional tea.


Frances, the good southern girl she is, had iced tea and I splurged on a mimosa. It was an enjoyable stop and a great respite after a full day of sightseeing.

Catching up

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. Time just gets away sometimes.

I don't think I ever posted a photo of my project from the Empty Spools Seminar at Asilomar. My class was with Susan Carlson who does fabric collage work. The first evening of class she showed us how she works with small scraps of fabric. She suggested we might want to cut bits off of the larger pieces of fabric we'd brought with us. That put an image in my mind (and of others in the class) of needing to work with really small pieces of fabric.

When I began designing my seahorses I was using those small bits and really did not like the way it was turning out. It took me a day or so to decide that I needed to work in bigger chunks of fabric. Once I started doing that I was happier with how the work was developing. Here's what the work looked like in class. (click photo for larger view)



I finally put this back up on my design wall here at home this week and have begun tweaking it. Now that I can rummage through my entire stash I've replaced some of the fabrics with ones I feel work better. I haven't decided on the background treatment yet, but it will be in ocean colors. While in class I dubbed this George and Gracie. Don't know if that's what the final title will be, but that's what I'm mentally calling it right now.

Before and After

Remember this photo from way back 2 weeks ago? It was taken at the Charleston airport as we were waiting to board our first flight. Everyone looks so fresh and excited about the upcoming trip.



This photo was taken at the San Francisco airport last Friday evening as we waited to board the red-eye back home.


Obviously our nearly 2 weeks of sightseeing and sewing caught up with us. We were all exhausted.

It was a wonderful trip but it sure was good to get home!

Wednesday and Thursday in San Francisco

On Wednesday we decided to rent bicycles for a ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito. It seemed like a good idea at the time!

For 4 women that don't do much biking it was a real workout. We spent so much time walking our bikes up hills that we decided we had invented a new sport called Bike Walking. (click photos for larger view)



Don't we look a little cold? (l-r - Joanne, Frances, Karen, me)




Once in Sausalito we took the ferry back into San Francisco and enjoyed cruising by Alcatraz and seeing the Bay Bridge close up.

On Thursday we took a full day tour of the city and Muir Woods. We actually wanted to take the tour the first day we were there but that didn't work out. We saw some sites we'd already seen, but it was still good. We even got to go inside one of the famed Victorian homes.


I never visited Muir Woods when we lived in the Bay area so it was a treat to see. The redwoods are amazing.



Here are Joanne and Frances enjoying the beauty.




While walking through the woods we met 2 couples from Iowa that were really a hoot. They kindly took a photo of the 4 of us standing in this tree.




We then took a photo of them. I promised that I'd post the photo on my blog of the Iowa Winos (as they called themselves) and I also promised I wouldn't mention that one of their group had arranged for the rental car to be waiting in San Diego, instead of San Francisco!


One of the last stops on our all day tour was an overlook between Muir Woods and San Francisco. It was windy but beautiful.

San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco safely late on Monday. Both of our flights were delayed because of bad weather in Atlanta, so it was a very long day.

Here are Karen, Frances and Joanne in the Charleston airport. Everyone looks so happy because we hadn't learned about the flight delays yet!



We were major tourists today. It was very windy and chilly - especially along the waterfront. No trip to San Francisco is complete without spending time at Fisherman's Wharf.






We also took the required cable car ride to Union Square and bought chocolate at Ghirardelli square. Through out the day we saw our share of the unique people that make up San Francisco. I think my favorite was the man earnestly playing his violin - but it had no strings. The only sound coming from his instrument was that of the bow rubbing against the bare wood of the violin. The panhandlers are getting more honest. One fellow's sign said "please donate to alcohol research." Ahh...San Francisco...there's nothing like it.

California here I come...

Tomorrow I leave for California with Karen, Joanne and Frances. We will be spending 4 nights in San Francisco and then 2 nights in Monterey before checking in at the Asilomar Conference Center for 5 days of classes at Empty Spools Seminars.

My class is Fabric Collage with Susan Carlson. Karen is taking a class with Janet Fogg and Frances and Joanne are taking a machine quilting class with Jill Schmuacher.

It was really hard to pack my supplies for this trip because I wanted to bring my ENTIRE fabric stash. I would have had to charter my own private plane to do that. I'm sure I'll get there and realize I have all the wrong fabric for my project, but I'll just have to make do.

Yesterday some of the TTT gang went on an outing.



It's sometimes like herding cats to get the group together for a photo. In the back (l to r) are Frances, Virginia, and Betsy. In front are Maureen, Joanne, Sheila, and Karen. Missing from this photo are Janice, Cindy, me, Judy and Jolene. Someday we'll get the entire group together for a photo!

Birthday Boy

Today is Craig's 36th birthday. I have no idea how he got to be that old!

In honor of the day I thought I'd share some photos of his early days in Scotland. He was born in Dunoon Scotland and we lived there until he was 18 months old.

This was his first professional photo. His hair looks like it had a red tinge in this photo but it was just the way the color was adjusted.


I knitted this blue bunting while I was pregnant. I sure was taking a chance making it blue because back in the old days we had to wait until the baby arrived to find out if it was a boy or girl. We brought him home from the hospital in this bunting.


We had a traditional British pram for him and it got used on a daily basis. Because our fridge wasn't much bigger than a dorm sized fridge I would have to grocery shop nearly every day. In the pram Craig would go and we'd walk to the shops in town. Most of the shops were quite small so prams would not fit inside. The prams would be left outside the shop (with the baby still inside) while patrons were inside shopping. Often you'd see someone leave the baby outside but bring the dog in.


Happy Birthday Craig!

Lax blogger

The QuiltArt list has been talking about blogging and whether most bloggers end up quitting after a short time. The conversation made me feel guilty because I know I've been slacking off on my blog lately.

I'm always of the belief that without photos nobody is interested in a blog, but I haven't done any new work lately so don't have any quilting photos.

Instead, I'm posting a photo I came across as I was cleaning out some files. This is Mark, the best man at our wedding in 1972. Isn't that 'suit' just too much? the jacket was that heavy double knit polyester. I'm especially grateful that the pants were not of the same print! (click on photo for larger view - if you dare!)




We had an open bar at our wedding and it looks like Mark is taking full advantage of the situation. He probably was trying to drink away his shame at wearing that outfit!

A day in the life of Hayden

Hayden had a busy day today.

For lunch she had some spaghetti that was left over from Noah's visit to an Italian Restaurant. I thought the noodles had all been cut up before I heated it. Guess I was wrong.



She was modeling her tutu when she came across a magnifying glass. She spent a lot of time examining everything within reach.



She decided she needed a closer look at my camera while it was in use - which made for a neat photo.

3 weeks and counting

In 3 weeks I leave for a trip to California along with 3 others of the TTT gang. We will fly into San Francisco and be tourists for 5 days. We then will drive down to Monterey and play for a couple of days until we report to Asilomar Conference Grounds for 5 days of classes offered by Empty Spools Seminars.



When I lived in California I was able to attend a session of Empty Spools every year. I knew that it would be the thing I missed the most when I left. I'm so excited that a group of us is going to be able to go. The other 3 have never attended so I hope their experience will be as great as I keep promise them it will be!

I'm so looking forward to the trip and to seeing the beautiful scenery again.






Now, if I can only figure out what to pack for my class. In the past I could drive to Asilomar so I could bring half of my fabric stash if I wanted. How I'm going to get all the fabric I want into a suitcase is a dilemma.

Blast from the past

I recently came across the email address for an old friend. Dave served aboard the USS Canopus with Jerry back in the early 70's while it was tied up in Scotland.


We made good friends during that tour of duty - some of whom we still hear from at the holidays.

Dave emailed me this photo which was taken at a department picnic in August '73. I'm on the left, the middle is Colleen and the right is Jeanne. The little blond boy in the front is Coleen's son. I can't believe how young I was. And that hair! (click photos for larger view)




Jerry is on the right in this photo. He sure was skinny!




What fun it was to see the photos Dave sent.