Confused little girl?

Remember my joke entry in our guild's quilt challenge?


Hayden saw it in my sewing room today and immediately pointed at the construction worker and proclaimed "Daddy!" Now, I think Craig is good looking, but he'd be the first to admit he's not quite this buff. We've been laughing all day as she points to it and calls out 'Daddy.'

Thanksgivings past

As I was chopping onions for the stuffing this morning, I was remembering Thanksgivings past.

In 1972 we spent our first married Thanksgiving in Dunoon, Scotland - a charming small town on the banks of the Firth of Clyde.



Jerry was stationed there aboard the submarine tender USS Canopus. This photo isn't the Canopus, but a previous tender tied up just as the Canopus was.



Four days after our wedding in September '72, Jerry left to report to his ship leaving me in Detroit until the Navy would approve my travel to join him. Come early November when we were still waiting for approval my step-father decided he'd just buy me the airline ticket. He was probably getting sick of me underfoot at his house! I arrived the day before Thanksgiving. Luckily a shipmate had invited us to spend the holiday with them. I spent the day in a daze. I was jetlagged in this damp cold country living in a house with no heat and I was freezing! The couple hosting dinner did have a traditional turkey, but dessert was coconut creme pie. Now, I love coconut creme pie, but where was the pumpkin pie??

When we returned to the states Jerry was stationed aboard various submarines. For a number of years he spent the holidays at sea. The wives often would gather together to spend the day. We would have a potluck style dinner and it would usually be a madhouse with all the kids running around. Those were actually fun times.

When Craig was in high school and Jerry was on shore duty, we decided to have non traditional Thanksgivings. Craig & Jerry would pull out the cookbooks and come up with themed dinners. For example one year we had Moroccan food. It was good, but I don't think Craig's friend Steve, who spent the holiday with us that year, enjoyed it very much. He was probably wondering "where is the pumpkin pie?!"

When we lived in California we were often able to spend the holiday with Jerry's brother & sister or with my dad. It's always nice to spend the day with family.

This year we are having turkey because Jerry won it. We're not turkey lovers so I probably would not have purchased one for today.

I hope you all have wonderful memories of Thanksgivings past and that you have many more memorable Thanksgivings ahead of you.

TTT gang cracks up

Yesterday the TTT gang took a road trip. We traveled to Aiken South Carolina to see a quilt show displayed at the Aiken Historical Museum. Aiken is about 2 hours from Charleston so we made a day of it - stopping for lunch along the way and making a visit to a quilt shop as well.

We posed for a photo on the steps of the museum. Unfortunately as we were posing I lost my balance on the step and nearly knocked over an urn of flowers. Betsy caught the reaction to my slip. That's me bent over laughing. Behind me (left to right) are Cindy, Joanne (holding her head in her hand),Karen (in the brown sweater), Sheila (partially hidden behind Karen)Judy (in black) Janet (in front in orange sweater) and Maureen (in red). Janice is the headless person in green way back behind Judy & Maureen. (click on photo for larger view)



We always manage to have a good laugh when we're together!

What a difference a day makes

A while back I posted about the vine that grows over the pergola on our back deck. I don't know what the vine is, but it has a pretty blue/purple flower and grows thickly enough to shade the chairs under the pergola.




The other night we had an unseasonable freeze. We usually don't get a hard freeze like it until after Christmas. Unfortunately, the vine didn't like the cold weather!



The vine died off from the cold last year as well but came back strongly in the spring. I sure hope it comes back as nicely next year.

My 15 minutes

I took part in last year's journal quilt project and my quilt was displayed at the Houston, Chicago, and Long Beach quilt shows. (here's a photo of the quilt)




My friend Judy came across a VidCast about the journal quilts and mine was included! I don't have a direct link to the VidCast, but you can see it if you: 1. click here 2. click on "new VidCasts" on the left and then 3. click on Journal Quilts Part 2. My quilt is discussed about half way through.

For those of you that are not quilters, the narrator, Karey Bresnhan, is a huge force in the quilt community and is highly respected. Hearing her say such good things about my quilt is a real honor.

Universal Florida

Jerry, Craig & Noah just returned from a trip to Universal Studios Florida. (photos clickable for larger view)


Rather than drive, they went by train. Here are Craig & Noah outside the train which left Charleston at the unreasonable hour of 5am. (I had to drop them at the station)



The train had a dining car so they were able to have breakfast on the way down. The train back left Orlando around 2pm so they had dinner in the dining car on the return trip.



They had lots of fun on the various rides at Universal. The water rides were a particular favorite.




They ended up walking around the park dripping wet!

They had a great time, but I think they were all glad to get home.

Voting

It seems like this election has been going on for years and years and I'm glad it's finally coming to an end. I don't know why the US can't be like the UK and Canada in its election process. The Prime Minister calls for an election - sets the date - and 6 weeks later the citizens go vote.

Jerry, Craig and Noah have been in Florida at the Universal theme park for the past few days. They'll be home late tonight. Since he wouldn't be here for voting Jerry needed to either vote early or by absentee ballot. Two weeks ago we went up to the county seat for him to vote. The wait was about 30 minutes and against my advice he decided not to wait. He requested an absentee ballot, but it never arrived. Last Friday (on Halloween) back he went to vote. It took him 5 hours. He admitted he should have listened to me.

I figured that my wait on the actual day wouldn't be nearly as long as Jerry's had been, but boy was I wrong. It took 4 1/2 hours today. While we were waiting one of the guys in line had a pizza delivered to him! He was a cop in uniform and as much as I would have like to steal his pizza, I didn't want to tangle with an armed man!

In spite of the long wait everyone in line seemed in fairly good spirits. I sure hope they figure out how to streamline the process before the next big election.

My baby and HIS babies

Craig hates it when I call him "my baby" but he's going to have to put up with it anyway! I usually only post photos of the kids, but as they sat snuggled up to Craig on the sofa tonight I just had to take a photo. Aren't they cute? (photos clickable for larger view)




I had a silly Halloween head band that I wore at retreat. Hayden tried it on when I got home. I'm sure it looked much cuter on her than on me!

Back from Retreat

I returned Sunday from our State Guild's annual retreat. As always it was a wonderful weekend, even though we had quite a storm on Friday night. The wind was bad enough to uproot a huge oak tree on the grounds of the retreat center.

I brought my own projects to work on for the weekend rather than taking a class. I had several projects but ended up working only on this seasonal calendar quilt. The lady holds up the different mini-quilts depending on the season. This is not my normal type of work and I didn't realize how LONG it takes to do the machine buttonhole stitch on applique like this. I spent the entire weekend doing the stitching on the woman and on the 6 mini-quilts on the bottom. I finished the stitching on the 3 on the top row today. Now I have to quilt all of them. After that is done, I'll sew buttons on for eyes. (photos are clickable for larger view)



This was our sewing room - with Jolene, Maureen & JoAnne in the photo.




We had a special art car display on Saturday and Sunday (after all the bad weather had passed through). What fun it was to see this quilt covering a PT Cruiser.

Here's the front of the car


And here are the 2 sides. I noticed that the kids are not in carseats!



Unfortunately, I didn't get the whole story on this so I don't know if it was made by just one person or was a group effort.

EDITED TO ADD - Thanks to Kristin's comment, I learned that the maker of the car quilt is a woman in her 80's and that she made it all herself! That's quite an undertaking. Thanks Kristin.

Retreating

I've been lax in blogging for the past week or so. No excuses for it, just lax!

I leave on Thursday for out state guild's annual retreat. It's held at a church camp facility in about the middle of the state. Classes are conducted by teachers from within the state. Some are part day, some full day, and some are all weekend. Rooms are also set aside for those that want to bring their own projects. It's always a fun weekend. I'll be in the BYOP room - I don't need to start any new projects.

I'll try to get photos while there, but in the meantime, I'll just have to post photos of the cute grandkids.

Noah likes to climb in the door frames. He thinks it's fun. I think it's crazy!

Hayden LOVES her riding toy. She's not very good at steering yet, so gets frustrated when she ends up somewhere she didn't intend to be.

Hayden also loves to be outside. She's always asking to go out. She even likes to nap outside. I think grandpa was almost asleep with her.

Chrystal decided that Hayden would be a pumpkin this year for Halloween and asked me to make this dress. The pattern is for a little criss-cross sundress, that I've made for her before. She'll be wearing some sort of top under the dress. I think Chrys said it would be black.

I was able to find pumpkin buttons for the shoulders.


See ya after retreat!

25th Anniversary challenge

My guild, Cobblestone Quilters Guild, celebrated its 25th anniversary last week. I was in charge of the challenge. The theme for the challenge was the basket that the guild uses as its logo.



We had about 20 entries - including an actual basket! My intent was to photograph each quilt individually; however, I didn't get around to doing that until after they had been pinned to the drapes and the ones up top were really too high to get a good photograph. (or maybe I'm just too short!)

We awarded first, second and third place ribbons all based on viewer vote. Two of the quilts were hanging for exhibition only as they exceeded the size requirements.

Here are the quilts hanging (click on photos for a larger view) My personal fav was Virginia's at the upper right of this photo. It has a dimensional basket and the background actually had a cobblestone road. It's unfortunate that the photo doesn't show it very well. My almost naked man is also in this photo.


My second entry was the basket on blue in the middle right (underneath the actual basket).


First place was Lynne Turner-Liro's whole cloth. It's kind of hard to tell that this is a light pink color.



Karen Kendo took second with her whole cloth. Both Lynne and Karen quilt professionally and have lots of ribbons attesting to their beautiful work.



Third was Donna Walters' original design. She used a combination of paper piecing and traditional piecing.



It was fun to see how each participant translated the theme.

TTT gang gets dressed up

Last night most of the TTT gang attended the wedding of Sheila's daughter, Julie. We decided to go sans spouses and acted as each other's dates.

The wedding was held at the Charleston Maritime Center and was supposed to be outside. Unfortunately Mother Nature did not cooperate and they had to set up inside. The weather did make for a really cool looking sky though.


In spite of the weather wrinkle, it was a beautiful wedding with a radiant bride. I was very impressed by the flower girl and the ring bearer. So many times the young kids get stage fright and do something unexpected; however these 2 did their jobs beautifully. During the special dances - bride/groom, bride/dad, etc the two youngsters stood patiently watching - holding hands the entire time. They were so cute!

Here are the TTTers - left to right - Janice, Maureen, Joanne, Betsy, Karen, Frances & Virginia. (click photos for larger view)



Another guest took this photo for us and caught Frances with her eyes closed.
Front row - Frances, Betsy, Joanne, Karen, me. Back row- Janice, Virginia & Maureen.


It was a wonderful evening and it was fun to see everyone without threads hanging off their clothes.

A second block

This afternoon I made a 2nd illusion block out of the remaining fabrics from my small packages of 1/8th yard gradated fabrics. I really like the illusion these blocks give.

Another Quilt University class

I seem to have become a professional QU class taker! Currently I'm taking a class with Karen Combs on Patchwork Illusions. I really love quilts with the illusion of depth so Karen's work has always appealed to me.

Today I stitched up my first Illusion block and I think it's kind of cool. The colors in the photo are a bit washed out.


More years ago than I can remember I purchased two packages of fabric - one orange, one teal - that were 8 step gradations. The packages contained only 1/8 yard of each fabric and I never really found a use for them, but they were perfect for this class. I will make another block using 3 more of the fabrics. Unfortunately I don't have enough to make a 3rd block.

Karen will be visiting Charleston next spring when she comes to speak at the Quilters of South Carolina spring meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing her quilts in person.

New Currency

I saw one of the new dollar bills today...

Challenges

Our guild Cobblestone Quilters will be celebrating its 25th anniversary at our October meeting. I agreed to head up a challenge for the anniversary. The guild's logo is a basket



and after some discussion with fellow guild members I decided to use the basket as the theme of the challenge. I didn't want the members to have to make an exact replica of the basket, but just to use the basket as a starting point for their designs. It looks like we're not going to have very many quilts, so I decided to make 2. Here is one of my entries.





When the TTT gang was in Pigeon Forge earlier this year I purchased some fabric with shirtless construction workers on it. I threatened then that I was going to use the fabric in my challenge quilt, but I didn't act on it then. Last week after finishing my first entry I decided I needed to make the joke quilt I'd said I would do. Hopefully this won't offend anyone at guild!

Around the house

I've said before that I feel like each blog post should have a photo and when I don't have photos of recent work to share I tend not to post at all. My friend Del dropped me a note recently and said I could post photos from around my house if I don't have anything fiber related to post. So...per Del's suggestion here are a couple of photos. (Click photos for larger view)

Shortly after we moved here Jerry built a deck addition with a pergola/gazebo type structure at the far end.




The intent was to grow a climbing vine there. We started with a trumpet vine that had a pretty pink/red bloom. It didn't survive the winter. Last year we found a climbing vine with a blue bloom. (I don't remember what the plant is called) It climbed the pergola fine but didn't fill in very well. We thought it died off this past winter but it came back to life this spring. It filled in wonderfully this year and just started blooming in the past couple of weeks.






Here's a view of the golf course from under the pergola.

Journal quilts

I've been absent from blogging for a while. I always feel like I should post a photo with every post and since I don't have anything new I haven't been posting.

Instead of new work, I'll post photos of a couple of Journal Quilts I made several years ago. While Karey Bresenhan wasn't the creator of Journal Quilts (little works made the same size as a sheet of notebook paper) she was the force behind them becoming so popular. For several years members of the QuiltArt email list were invited to submit a series of Journal Quilts for display at the International Quilt Festival held in Houston every fall. I made several journals one year but never submitted them for exhibit at the show.

This first one utilized Sue Benner's fused quilt technique.



This second one was the first of what I'd planned as a series of bridge quilts - depicting bridges in places where I'd lived. In case it's not obvious, this is the Golden Gate.



I actually did make a couple more bridge quilts, including "Amazing Grace" a rendition of the now dismantled Cooper River Bridges here in Charleston, SC. A photo of that quilt is in my blog header.

I never did make the quilt of the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River, or any of the bridges in New York (I lived closest to the Throgs Neck Bridge and would Have probably done that one.) Maybe those are for future works.

It's broken

A couple of weeks ago I fell when I missed a curb cut in a parking lot. (I talked about it here)

On Tuesday I went to the doctor because my foot was still bothering me. He sent me for an x-ray "just in case" although he thought it was probably just a ligament injury. It wasn't. Turns out I have a fracture in the foot. I was referred to a podiatrist and finally saw him this morning. (why do referrals take so long??) The podiatrist said that if I happened to be an NFL player he would use a screw to put the bone right, but since I'm not I can just wear a boot cast for the next 6 - 8 weeks.

Jerry has been wearing a cast just like it for the past 3 months because of a torn Achilles tendon and I've been giving him a hard time about it all this time. Guess payback is hell. Luckily Jerry is now wearing his boot part time so we can trade cars. My car is a stick shift and there is no way either of us could drive it with the boot. Jerry's is an automatic so I'll just have to figure out how to use my left foot on the gas & the brake!

Aren't we cute?

Strip party

The TTT gang (Trailer Trash Tuesday) has been accumulating strips of fabric for some time in anticipation of making sting/strip quilts. We decided we'd meet on Saturday and Sunday this weekend at the clubhouse to make our quilts.

The construction method for strip/string quilts involves sewing the stings onto a foundation -usually muslin. It's a great quilt method for using up scraps.

Betsy wasn't sure how she'd like just using random strips to make a quilt block so she controlled her quilt a bit by making each block in the same color family. She also was concerned about putting blocks together without seams matching. Using this rail fence setting solved that issue. (all photos clickable for a larger view)



Maureen used a beautiful autumn color palette. She didn't fish into the string stash much. Instead she brought a lot of her own cut strips in order to achieve the look she wanted.



Frances found a book with a quilt she really liked and used that photo as her guideline. Once the blocks are joined together she will add rick-rack along the seam lines. It will make a wonderful baby quilt.



Virginia was our sewing star this weekend. She actually finished the top completely! I believe her initial plan was to make dark and light blocks, but after getting several dark blocks made she decided she really liked them and continued with the darks. It is a very rich looking quilt.



Somehow I missed getting photos of Joanne's and Jolene's quilts. I'm hoping that Karen will have some photos on her blog (here) Since I don't have quilt photos, here are photos of the actual makers.

Here's Joanne...



And here's Jolene (with Virginia in the background)




Karen and I both saw a quilt pattern in the current issue of Quilter's Home and independently we each decided to use that for our quilt. Instead of sewing strips to completely cover the foundation, the strips are sewn along the sides and the top. It was Karen's idea to use black and white squares as the foundation and bright colors as the strips. Here's Karen's.


After spending day one sewing my black&white/bright blocks, I got to thinking that I might want to try using a bright as my foundation and use black & white strips. I cut some brights at home that night and on Sunday made three big blocks that way. I then combined the two types of blocks together in this quilt. I think I would have liked using the bright foundation with b&w strips for the entire quilt, but I decided to just leave it like this. I think I'll call it tic-tack-toe.


As usual we had a ball. We all work so well together!