Singing In The Rain

Don’t you love the movie, Singing in the Rain? Especially the title song with Gene Kelly hopping in and out of puddles?




I’m in Northern California where we are being drenched by “the storm of the century.”

It’s been quite the letdown. Here we were supposed to get 40-50 mph wind, 4-5” of rain. It’s just been constant rain, but nothing spectacular. What a letdown! At least the schools closed for yesterday and today!

Of course, some of us weren't so lucky.

To my doggie- woggins, however, it is a totally different story. She hates the rain. And the wind. But yesterday and today, it’s been nothing but rain. Each time I take her out to “do her duty,” she trots out there and looks around for a few seconds. After that, she turns around and stares at me…pathetically.

Poor, pitiful thing

“Oh, I don’t need to go potty, Mommy.” she says.

I repeat, “Go potty, Miko.” and she looks at me more pathetically. If that’s possible.

Next she tries to sit on the soggy lawn, her signal for “I don’t need to go potty.” But that is thwarted by the puddles in the backyard.

She shivers, she shakes herself off numerous times, tries to look more pathetic. Greta Garbo never did it so good in Camille.

Finally, after 3 or 4 minutes of this, she starts looking for a place to “do it.” This includes going in the deepest grass in the backyard to get much more wet. But then finally success!

Here I have a dog who hates rain, hates to get wet who will stand in the rain for 3 to 4 minutes getting drenched just to try and convince me to let her come in the house.

I just don’t get it. I don’t.

A Fantastic Garage Find!

Isn’t life serendipitous sometimes? I had a moment the other day…

1964 Ford Galaxie

A little background would help. I have a husband. He has a project car, (Definition: a car that sits with all its parts removed). We have a garage. His project car resides in our garage. (See? A quilting blog you can finally show your husband! boyfriend! etc!)

Now don’t get me wrong here. I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions or anything other thing. The car is a boat. It is so big that when you sit in the driver’s seat, you can’t lean over and touch the passenger door. It has personality. I love that car!

My husband’s car and its various, multitudinous parts occupy most of the garage. I have a quilt room which occupies a bedroom plus a closet and floor-space in another bedroom. You see? He and I both have “hobbies” and understand the necessity of space for such hobbies.

And now back to the story…a while back my husband came in from the garage with a couple of old boxes. He thought they were mine. I didn’t recognize them. I opened the first box and looked in at the eggs of the Golden Goose, the coins at the end of the rainbow, the flower wreath of horse racing.

I wrote Siggie Blocks on the box.

There were quilt blocks made by my Aunt Marie (of Marie’s Marvelous Makings). I had totally forgotten that I had her quilt blocks in the garage. The first box I opened were signature blocks. Over 300 of them!

The other box contained…a surprise for you lovely readers. I will writing a post about Box #2 in the future!

And now, I present a (very) few of those blocks!

I love the blue on the end with its nubbies!

Such a nice variety of browns!

Notice the third is a real 30s print

I love everyone of these red ones.

I had to ponder for a few months of what I wanted to do with them. I don’t belong to a guild where friends would sign the blocks. I don’t have 300 friends, much less 30. I could make a mini-quilt of siggie blocks of my friends. I don’t have a huge family who could sign blocks. You can see my dilemma.

It must have been one of those glorious days where everything went right and birds were singing. I realized what I was going to do! I am going to write all of my favorite books, one for each block.

I am addicted to reading. I’ve read ever since I learned how to read in school! A group of middle-school friends of mine went on a vacation to a lovely resort one summer, with two moms along. We had fun with the activities at the resort. But the major part of our days were spent reading!

I was thrilled to start writing down the books. My all-time favorite: To Kill A Mockingbird. Books that I bought for 45 cents from Scholastic when I was in middle-school that I read over and over. My favorite: Jennifer. My beloved Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden of my elementary school years. High school books brought me The Chronicles of Narnia and The Von Trapp Family Singers. Jack Weyland was my favorite author in college. My favorite book of his: Charly. Biographies of ordinary people in extraordinary times: The Bielski Brothers.

I kept writing until I couldn’t think of anymore. I kept writing until I had listed 252 books! Using 252 blocks would give me a beautiful queen quilt for my full-size bed.

My only quandary now is how to write the names on the blocks. It would take a daunting amount of time to embroider each book’s name. I’m thinking of writing the names with Pigma Pens. I have very nice handwriting, by the way.

Do you have any ideas of how to “write” names on the blocks? I’m not adverse to anything you suggest and I would dearly love to hear suggestions!

I’m hooking up with these lovely linky parties that have many talented and amazing quilters sharing what they are working on. You can go to anyone you choose by clicking on the sidebars on the right!