A Very Random Number

This is the BEST randomness you can find in May:

Yessss! Yes Indeedy! Eleven days until glorious summer vacation!

 

What will I be doing this summer?

No

No

Not this year

So what will I be doing, you ask?

Ahhhh, quilting!

And there you have the gloriousness of grey-haired self: Quilting, visiting grandchildren, reading, vegetable & flower gardening and writing my blog.



Only 11 more days!

I'm hooking up with Really Random Thursday over at Live A Colorful Life. Click on the badge on the right sidebar and see what other randomness you can find!

A Gem of a Book

Oh my golly gosh! I finished a wonderful, fantastic, awesome, _______ (add your own adjective) trilogy.

If you look at the bottom of my blog, you will see a list of books I've read this year and last. I've already read two series of books by Garth Nix. I just finished the first books he wrote. And what books! This is my favorite of his series by far.

Garth Nix series I've Read

Here is the Abhorsen Series: astonishing, grand, stunning __________ (add your 2nd adjective) series of books. Definitely on par with the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.  Put these on your Must Read NOW. It is a fantasy fiction genre. It takes place in a land that is divided in two: the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre. The Old Kingdom is one where the residents have a form of magic called the Charter. Ancelstierre is like our world in modern times: past or present?

Sabriel and Lirael are Abhorsens. They are of an ancestry whose special calling is to maintain the border between life and death. They are fighting against old forces of evil who possess Free Magic. It is a riveting story of people who are given an unwanted personna and how they accomplish their missions in life.

My description is bland, mundane, unworthy, ____________ (add your 3rd adjective) of the majesty of the series. Trust me, you want to read them.

It has fascinating, gripping, engrossing, _______________ (add your 4th adjective) characters. (Don't you feel like you're playing Mad Libs??) Characters such as Mogget, a magical cat, the Disreputable Dog, Sameth, the Prince of the Old Kingdom, necromancers and Nick, a conflicted man from Ancelstierre.

I hope you put this on your list of Must Read NOW list! You'll not regret it!

I'm hooking up with Let's Be Social, mosey on over and see what everybody is happy about! Click on badge in side bar.

**some of the description of plot is from Wikipedia

Oooo! Lookie what's on my design wall!

My hubby and I are back to ourselves; TGS and OSLW went home about a week ago. What fun we had! It was a whirlwind visit with lots of things to do. I miss them already, but am happy I will see them soon. I will be winging my way to the East Coast in just about a month to visit them and to see Nancy Drew and her family. I'm excited about seeing Nancy Drew; it's been a year. Curly will turn three right before I come. She is a little firecracker and talks all the time. I'm looking forward to seeing how she's changed.

One of the things TGS, OSLW & I did when we were in San Francisco was to take the tour of Alcatraz. It was a federal prison for about 30 years, until 1960s. It harbored the most heinous criminals and was escape proof. The tour is fantastic and I highly recommend it if you are in San Francisco. The tour is self-guided; you get an digital recording and are able to wander at your own pace. This is the second time I've gone and I enjoyed it just as much as I did before.

TGS & OSLW on boat to Alcatraz

A cool pic I took of the two lovebirds
during our tour of Alcatraz

A cell at Alcatraz, very, very small
@ 6 feet across

A decaying building. They continue to reconstruct the
buildings to add to the tour.

A great picture of the three of us
(against a picture backdrop  of Alcatraz!

No, the decaying building is not my next project! I finally am going to get going on the wedding quilt for my TGS & OSLW. You might remember in January I was making goals to start the Double Wedding Ring quilt in the colors of fire. (see post here).  I kept getting stumped by the arrangement of the fabrics and trying to get them all to play together nicely.

Once I finished the current quilts I was working on, it was time to start on the DWR. But by golly and by gosh I couldn't make those colors work. In the meantime, I hadn't quilted for almost two months. I knew I needed to start, but I just couldn't. I actually stopped quilting at all for almost two months. It IS true that quilters cannot make quilts that they don't like or don't like the colors.

I pulled out the last playing card I had and called in SUPER COLOR DUDE: my hubby. I had him come in and help me out. Hubby is the "color guy" around here. He helps me out oodles with figuring out colors for quilts, sashings, etc. Well even the guru of color couldn't find a way. He finally threw in the towel and said, "These colors just don't work together at all." Wow. I heard the death knell, the boat sank and the train wrecked. My lovely plans for the beautiful wedding quilt that OSLW loved was toast. I determined to break the news when they came to visit.

OSLW took the news well. After talking about colors and quilts, we went to the LQS and looked for fabrics that would go together for the quilt. We finally conceded that a DWR would not be the quilt to use with the fire colors. Next we wandered around looking at other fabrics. I had tried to be helpful and told her the blue and yellow quilts are Beautiful. We picked out fabrics and OSLW realized we would need a different quilt pattern. I suggest a Log Cabin and we were on our way!

Here is a mock-up of the Log Cabin square that I've done.

Add caption

Isn't this going to be gorgeous? I absolutely love Log Cabin quilts. I made a Log Cabin quilt for Hubby for Christmas one year. I followed Eleanor Burns Log Cabin methods and it turned out beautifully. Since the quilt will be a California King size and I'm using two-inch strips instead of the 2.5 inch that Eleanor uses in her book. I wasn't sure how much material to buy. I estimated from Eleanor's fabric requirements, adding a half yard or more to what she put. Then when I got to the fabric store I panicked. What if I had too little? What if I ran out of a fabric and I couldn't find the same one anymore? The what-if imp got to me and I added a half-yard to a yard more to my already inflated yardage. I have a feeling I'm going to have some beautiful blues and yellows to add to my stash when all is said and done!

I already have all the strips cut and ready for the quilt. Thanks to Hubby's generous and fantastic birthday quilt, an Accu-Quilt Go, I made short work of the cutting!

I'm linking up with Patchwork Times; check out what others quilty doings by clicking on the badge on the right! Also hooking up with Fabric Story at Quilt Story here. Linking up with WIP Wednesday, click on link in sidebar.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning, Oh What a Beautiful Day

I happened upon this version of Oklahoma live on stage

 with Hugh Jackman playing the lead

Oh my heavens, yes!

It is a beautiful day. Today TGS and OSLW and I are going to finish roving around downtown Santa Rosa. A trip to the beach is also in store. We're cramming in the last two days I'm off. Tomorrow it's San Francisco and Alcatraz and clam chowder bowls and Ghiradelli Chocolate and Pier 36 and Lombard Street and sea lions...

I'll be sure and take pictures to share!

Armstrong Woods was absolutely breathtaking. Cool. Alluring. The smell of redwoods and the filtering shade were enchanting. Here's the place to go after a stressful day. It will banish all woes and worries.

Aren't they sweet?

Saturday night OSLW insisted we watch The Birds before we head to Bodega Bay today. If you're not aware, the story centered around the town of Bodega Bay. They even had scenery from the town. The Tides no longer looks like that. But the school is still there.

I had to add a stock picture because the one I took disappeared from my computer! Sounds rather Hitchcockian to me!

All in all, a beautiful day!

Glorious Saturday! and Quilts from My Sewing Machine #2: 42 Stars & NH quilt

Things are going swell in my neck of the woods. TGS & OSLW here. Gardening happening.

Hubby putting in shower in 2nd bathroom. Finished a great read and started another. It's just like laying in a hammock under a canopy of trees.

We're having a little down time here. OSLW is reading, TGS & Hubby are working on his car. I've been reading blogs and now am writing mine.

I thought I'd start sharing quilts I have made every once in a while. I don't want to tie myself down with an uncompromising schedule. It'll happen. Sometime or other.

TGS holding quilt I made in 1977

I'll start with one of my earliest quilts. A little back story. My Aunt Marie (read about her here) was a quilter extraordinaire. I grew up with her quilts on my bed. I was taught what it took to make a quilt. Aunt Marie was born in 1905, learned to quilt at eight, so everything part of making the quilt was done by hand. Lamentably, I didn't learn to quilt from her. However I always felt a part of quilting because of her.

A Quilt I Made for Noel Heart in 1979

I made "quilts" when I was in college and when I had babies. They were single fabric front and back and tied. My first real quilt rolled around when I had my first grandchild. Four years later, Nancy Drew got married and I started on a wedding quilt for her. It took me two years to make and it arrived on her doorstep on her first anniversary.

In August 2005, Nancy Drew and SWH became engaged to be married March 10, 2007. Of course I planned to make them a wedding quilt...but what timing! I was working on Nancy Drew's Christmas present: the Kimono quilt and then when it was finished it was three months to their wedding.

I had a time finding a quilt pattern, as Andrea does not like flower fabric or overtly feminine fabrics. I chose a beautiful quilt from an Australian Quilting Magazine and chose the fabrics with as little flowers and emphasis on green, yellow and cream colors.

While I visited Nancy Drew and future SWH in Germany during the summer of 2006, we happened to find one quilt store. I paid attention to what fabrics Andrea liked. I realized my first choice wasn't going to do it. I decided to do a quilt with Amish colors because I felt it would fit with Andrea's taste.

I found a pretty block on Quilter's Cache called Amish Star. It is a variation on a Sawtooth Star. Unwittingly I had chosen a time intensive block for a beginner. In fact I have avoided quilts with flying geese or half square triangles until just the past year!


I worked fiendishly through the Fall and into the Winter until I realized it wouldn't be done in time for their wedding. Nancy Drew, who had seen the first few blocks at Christmas, was understanding.

During Spring Break 2007, I spent every single day sewing blocks and got all the 72 blocks finished. I also got burnt out and it lay around until the end of summer. I got it together and a local FMQ quilter and friend quilted it. She did a wonderful job quilting it loosely and with curving pattern as I had asked.

I finished the binding at the end of February 2008 with time to show it to my guild on the March 5th meeting. Right before I packaged it for mailing, I realized I had no pictures of it. Being made for a California King bed, it was indeed substantial.

I decided to lay it out on the lawn and take a picture of it by standing on a ladder. On the right you can see the sheets I laid down to protect the quilt from the grass. If you peer closely you can see the cat-helper Daytona.

Once I shooed Daytona off the sheets, I laid the quilt down. Daytona immediately saw that I needed her immeasurable help and quickly came. Daytona to the rescue!

  
As I started to put the binding on, I had noticed one defective star. (Manufacturer's fault). It was the corner block. Now that the quilt was quilted, finished and bound it was a done deal. But not for enterprising me. I embroidered the block to look like a house. Put in some flowers, some curtains and embroidered on the roof: House of Bleak (pronounced like the ea in steak) and their wedding date. SWH refers to his daughter as a princess from the House of Bleak. Worked well for me.

Left to right: Redesigned star to house block, House block zoom out, close-up of an anonymous block and quilt detail.

42 Stars Statistics
Started: November 2006
Finished: March 2008
Size: 122" x 98" (King)
Pieced by myself
Quilted by JP

Whoop di doo

Lovely! Another Friday. TGS & OSLW arrived Wednesday evening--beauteous! Yesterday, I was like someone who had a nickel stuck in him...one of my mom's great descriptions. I chattered and talked and babbled all day. I definitely did the TMI ad nauseum. I was so keyed up, I couldn't shut up. Terri, I would mutter to myself, STOP talking. Terri, TMI. TERRI--SHUT UP!

Today we're going to Armstrong Woods, a favorite of the kids and I. It's a redwood state park and so enchanting. It has sublime picnic areas, shady and serene. There's an amphitheater that the kids loved to perform in when they were little and run up and down the benches. There's two trees that are spectacular: 310 foot Parson Jones Tree and the 1400 year old Colonel Armstrong tree. The Colonel Armstrong is a fallen tree and you can see the multitudinous rings. All this gloriousness just 45 minutes away from home! Now that you've seen a few pictures I know you are drooling and wishing you could come see it for yourself!

 I'm sharing my grand park news on Whoop, Whoop Friday. Click on their badge in the right column to see loads of Whoop Whoops, guaranteed to make the start of your weekend truly awesome.

I titled this post Whoop Di Doo because of an experience with my grandson, Firstest, when he was almost two years old. Here is the story from a book I wrote of Firstest Stories as a one- and two-year old.

Editorial Note: I do not know WHY the font is so big and the bold is in effect....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I've tried to change it but to no avail. I know others of you with blogger have had the same problem. Please bear with this ugliness. Maybe TGS can fix it later but, for now we're off to Armstrong Woods!

April 24, 2002

Bryce and I when he was around 9 mos old
He was around 18 mos old when the story happened

Noel Heart and I went shopping for material for the quilt I’m making him for his birthday. At one fabric store Firstest was about worn out with the whole shopping thing. I put him up on my shoulders and he started singing this song and messing with my hair. He was singing whoop di doo, whoop di doo. Noel Heart didn’t know what whoop di doo meant. Firstest was so happy messing with my hair, sticking his finger in my ear and singing. It wasn’t until he came to stay with me that I figured out what the whoop di doo was. When I picked up Bryce I'd say, "Up you go!" Translated into "Bryce-ese" whoop di doo.

Okay so you might have to be a grandmother...enchanted by everything your first grandchild says and does...but I think it's cute.

And here's a quilty reference, the first real quilt I ever made, for Firstest. I named the quilt, Chris the Fireman, after my dad. He was a fireman and captain of a fire station when I was very young.

How Random Can I Get?

It seems that if I only post once a week, it's either Random Thursday or Whoop Whoop Friday.


This week has been everything except for quilty. Preparing for my son and his wife to come has been the household past-time for two weeks! I started in about three weeks before their arrival. I had to dig out the guest room, uncover the living room and prep the garden, plus forge my way through the back porch. Guest room and living room are recent occurrences, but the porch is actually the same as the last time TGS was here, two years ago, and I asked him to help me clean it up! Click here for the post on my euphoric list of endeavors and before-pictures.

As the three weeks moved along, I lost two highly anticipated cleaning Saturdays. One to illness and another to "something that could not be avoided". Each day I swore that I would come home after school and do x amount of work. When I stumbled in from work, I was too bushed to do anything. If this sounds familiar to you, join in on the second verse!

The closer we grew to the target day, the less concerned I became about how much was going to get done. Isn't it wonderful how amazingly flexible I am in lowering my standards?

Meanwhile, my brave, noble, talented and incredibly fantastic Hubby was trying to get a shower put in the 2nd bathroom. That bathroom only had a tub. With just the master bath having a shower, it's a bit difficult when four people only have one shower!

But, good has been done here!

A quick glimpse of the shower progression:

L to Right: Tearing out the ugly 70s backsplash, Hubbing tearing up wall to put in pipes for shower head, Bathroom with cement board, Our hallway during the "project"!

I'm sparing you all the rest of the pictures, including the one of my hubby's hand with 6 camo bandaids on it from taking the cement off the walls. And the cement dust. *cough*cough*

I was trying to still use the sink and do my hair and make-up in there. Last night I walked in the bathroom to get a glass of water. I looked at my glass innocently sitting on the counter, open side up...yummmmmmy! Water with cement dust. I toddled off to the kitchen.

This morning I went to brush my teeth. I looked at my toothbrush innocently sitting on the counter, bristling waving in the air. Well, wouldn't that be a brand-new experience for me? Cement my toothbrush to my teeth?

Back to the good stuff: I'm so excited...a shower! It's our first ever home improvement project! We've lived here nine years and it's the first time we've been able to afford a "project!"

Tomorrow's a Whoop Whoop Friday...tune in for happy garden news and the emergence of the guest room (almost).

Check out more randomness over at Live a Colorful Life and Patchwork Times. Click on the buttons in the right column and relax and see some goodness.

Same blog time, same blog station (with a tip of the hat to Batman!)

Really Random Thursday

I have been so busy trying to clean house for when TGS and OSLW come for a 10-day visit next week, that everything else is falling into ruin. Now the kitchen isn't staying clean because I'm too busy trying to shovel out the guest room! My laundry isn't getting done because I'm trying to get my vegetable and flower gardens weeded...You see how it goes?

I feel like my life is dedicated to randomness lately. I have to really fight my tendency to "squirrel" (see explanation in  this post!). Start to clean guest room. Oh, here's a dish I need to put in the kitchen. Trot down the hall. Oh look! I didn't put away the cereal from this morning. Clean, clean, clean. Oh yes, I was cleaning the guest room. Start to amble down the hall. Oh dear, I left my sweater hanging on the railing of the living room, I should put it away. Stroll to MBR. Oh darn! I forgot I was going to put in some laundry. Drag laundry to garage. I can't believe I forgot to clean the cat litter. Carrying bag of "cat poopies" at arms length to garbage can. Look at all those palm fronds that have fallen with all the wind lately. I'll put them in the yard waste can. Oh shoot! I'm supposed to be cleaning the guest room.

Does this even sound slightly familiar?

But I digress...

My random presentation for this week are some awfully adorable girls. These are my two granddaughter, Curly and Sweety. I was having a Skype chat with them and captured these pictures.

Curly showing me her Easter loot. That's Nancy Drew in the background.

Sweetie and Curly on the egg hunt

Curly looking at picture of herself on Skype.

I tawt I taw a wabbit

Look at my egg!

Showing Nonny the candy in their mouths.

*Sigh* I sure wish they lived closer. Thank heavens, stars and moon that we have Skype!

I'm linking up with Really Random Thursday at Live A Colorful Life. Click on the badge in the right column and see what other random people are doing randomly.

Whoop! Whoop! Friday

Hurrah for Friday! Hurrah for only 40 teaching days left in the school year!

I've been gone from BlogLand for a couple of weeks. It's the Spring Cleaning of the Mind. Yes, I have been occupied in the .... P word.... It's true, my friends, I have been Prioritizing things in my life. Has anyone noticed that everyone has too little time? I heard of a famous astrophysicist who has spent the last 40 years of his life trying to adjust the space-time consortium so that there will be eight days a week, resulting in a three day weekend. Not only that, but he is within a few years of getting a 28 hour day. I know it's true because I read it on the internet! That makes it true, doesn't it?


I've only been blogging for a few months but I love it. I have loved writing since I was in second grade where my career ambitions were to be a mail carrier and an author. What started out as writing about quilting amazingly turned into an unexpected joy. With Spring Cleaning of the Mind I knew I needed to keep writing both my blogs. I still haven't figured all the nuts and bolts, time being the biggie, but I don't want my love of writing to die out.

That alone could be the whoop, whoop, but it isn't. Or there's another.

Okay doke. The main event.

Every March in schools around here, the children celebrate Read Across America. Dr. Seuss' birthday is the annual event day. Kids bring Dr. Seuss books, teachers read them, kids write about their favorite Seuss books. One of my favorite activities is the guided drawing that second graders do. The teacher shows the kids how to draw the Cat in the Hat on the board, and the kids draw. The results are delightful. I've taken pictures over the years and they are a hoot!

I've keep the pictures in their own folder with the ambition of making a quilt with blocks of 2nd grader's drawings of the Cat in the Hat.

Feast your eyes on just a few examples!

While pondering the design of the quilt, I've been trying to figure out what to use as a background. I'm planning on doing a quilt painting or old-fashioned machine embroidery to make each cat. I learned how to do it in 1979, before computerized anything!

To do that, you drop the feed dogs  and set the zigzag for whatever size you need. With the fabric in a hoop, you guide the hoop under the needle and make the picture. It's like a variation of machine quilting.

A month ago, my sisty ugler came down for a visit. She brought me her quilting stash. (Read post here) A few days later, as I gleefully went through the bins I came upon this:

 A tote bag from Read Across America. And what color is the background?? Turquoise! Perfection! Now I know what the background of the blocks will be. I'm especially pleased because turquoise is my new favorite color.

This will be fun! when I get around to it.

I'm hooking up with Sarah over at Confessions of a Quilt Addict. You can click on the badge in the right column to get there. Drop in and see what others are whooping about.