Chemistry Camp for the Blind

Boy howdy! are you in for a treat today!


As my regular readers know, I teach blind and visually impaired students in public school. I have taught for 26 years and cannot see myself working in any other field. The majority of my students are charming, each in their own way.

Near to us is a summer camp for the blind & visually impaired. It is Enchanted Hills. It rocks! To me, it is straight out of Parent Trap, the original. It has cabins where the upper part of the four walls is screen.

Fishing at Enchanted Hills Camp

Enchanted Hills has everything a regular summer camp has: swimming, horseback riding, boating, campfire hootenannies at night, crafts, etc.

One summer I served as a counselor assistant for one session with 5-6 year olds. It was tough! It was also an awesome experience.

I could go on for quite awhile, but for right now I want to get to the highlight of this post. During the summer, Enchanted Hills also has specialty sessions. The one I want to spotlight is Chemistry Camp. The video says it all and it’s a ultra-groovy video. And, by the way, the boy who produced, filmed, and edited the video, Jimmy Cong, was a student of mine. I worked with him from preschool until he was in fourth grade. He just graduated high school last year. He is blind with enough residual vision to pursue his dream of being a videographer.

Jimmy Cong at Chemistry Camp when he was young

Enjoy!

Hands2Help & Pinks Progress

Me, at 15, enjoying summer!

It’s the first week of “summer” for me. School is out and I’m looking forward to spending most of that summer in my quilting room!

Me, in my pj's in my favorite place: Home

I admit I’m a “homebody”, a lovely person who can't get enough of being home, someone who enjoys the warmth and simple pleasures of being home, someone who hides out in her house, quilting, as much as possible. 

This first week’s project is to finish my quilt for Hands2Help. I’m donating my quilt to Hugs for Chemo. I chose it because my Mom had chemo and I know how much a quilt would have meant to her.

My Sisty Ugler with friend in Honduras

It’s fun that this quilt is going to be a collaboration between her two daughters. When my sister, Sisty Ugler, decided to give up on quilting *gasp*, she gave me her stash! I didn’t have to wait for her to pass on to inherit it! The best of both worlds: I got her fabric and I have her!

I found this cool set of blocks for a quilt.

It is going to be such a cheery and colorful quilt. I love how funky it is—I never use these kinds of fabrics. But I love them.

What’s left to do is sash them, sew the top and quilt. In 6 days. I CAN DO IT—because I’m on VACATION!

The only other thing to accomplish this week is finish one block and make another for my blog hop post this Saturday. Look at the top of the right sidebar for the badge “For Pinks Sake”. Then look for me on Saturday!

Tally ho! I’m just can’t stop being giddy with summer-ness!

I’m hooking up with the following blogs. Hop on by to check out lots of lovely quilts! Their badges are in the right sidebar.
So Scrappy RSC Saturday
Patchwork Times
Show & Tell Tuesday
Fabric Story
Linky Tuesday
WIP Wednesday
We Did It Wednesday
I Quilt
Fabric Frenzy

It Is The 150th Day of the Year!

I love summertime more than anything else in the world. That is the only thing that gets me through the winter, knowing that summer is going to be there.  Jack McBrayer
 
It is my last day of teaching! Summer awaits! Tomorrow and the next day and the next…I will gloriously enjoy all the days ahead!




My first day of summer, Noel Heart and I are going for a massage and lunch. Ahhhhh….



My summer tradition starts with a week of sleeping in until I wake. I spend the entire week quilting and doing nothing else.



For me, summer is defined by three words: QUILT, QUILT, QUILT!















This year I’ve made a pledge to not let my mind go to the place that says, “I’ll do that in the summer.” I’ve missed the enjoyment of summer when too many of these happen.




This summer my oldest daughter, Noel Heart, have made plans. This is the beginning of a summer where she lives close by. We are going to watch Call the Midwife and So You Think You Can Dance.



I hope for another day at the beach like we did earlier this month…





Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.   John Lubbock

Ready?

Set.

Go!

 

Reading to Cats

My baby cat has grown up and has just celebrated her first birthday. It’s hard to fete a cat when she doesn’t eat anything but cat food. I’ve tried turkey meat, chicken, etc. She just sniffs and walks away. Talk about picky!

The drawer was being repaired--Kaiju thought it a perfect bed for a cat!

Kaiju loves to sit in the dishwasher

I had seen a slide show somewhere on the internet and saved it for a Really Random day. That’s today!

My dog, Bambi and I, 20 yrs ago

I love to read. I somehow managed to instill that in my children, amazingly enough! And they married readers. Cool! I try to get my students to love reading as much as I do.

I loved to read to my kids, but now they are grown and live on their own. So I love this slide show of children reading to cats in an Animal Rescue.

I decided to try and take a selfie with my cat and a book. I thought it would look good for the post. I’ve only done one selfie and it was awful. I don’t think I’ve improved!

The best picture of them all

I’m smiling, Kaiju is actually looking at the book!

Now that I’ve turned that into somewhat of a success, let’s look at Reading to a Cat!

A Big Finish & Rainbow Purple

This finish deserves a fanfare of trumpets!

The log cabin flimsy is finally done! After a year’s journey I have reached the first finish line!

My last step was to fix the fraying yellow strips so the seams wouldn’t come apart. After all this is a marriage quilt and, besides, after all this work—who wants it to fall apart?

I didn’t take a picture of the top because, well, it is just too darn big! It is a king-size. Due to the 14” blocks and no border, I was stuck with just one size choice. 112 x 112. That just about cover a king size top with some generous over-hang, doncha’ think?

For those of you who haven’t seen this quilt a gazillion times in the past year, here is the best picture taken when it practically filled up my garage wall.

Also on the “design wall” is my latest finish of blocks for the RSC 2014. I’ve been making snowball blocks in each month's colors. April’s color was purple and, true to form, I finished them this month!

I’m trying to get lots of novelty fabrics in my blocks. Didn’t have many in my purples. I did get my plaid purple in though. I’m trying to get a plaid block in each color because, well, I’m crazy, loony about plaid!!! And always one vintage, which looks like I scanned the same block twice!

The lavender in the upper right corner is one of my favorite colors. True to form it looks blue next to the purples. If I put it with blue blocks, it would look purple! And of course a gratuitous picture of my children. This was taken on our recent trip to the ocean. Noel Heart and Sweetie are running through the waves here. They were trying to the Baywatch slow-motion run!

I want to encourage everyone to go and see the website, Life Sew Crafty. She is hosting a blog hop to educate people about breast cancer. Every two weeks there are 2-3 guests and each one displays a pink block that they have made. I am going to be hosting on June 7!! I'm very excited, it's my first hosting! Fun for days! To learn more, read my previous post giving more information, plus pictures of Nancy Drew and family's recent visit. If that isn't a draw, I don't know what is!

I’m hooking up with the following blogs. Hop on by to check out lots of lovely quilts! Their badges are in the right sidebar.
So Scrappy RSC Saturday
Patchwork Times
Show & Tell Tuesday
Fabric Story
Linky Tuesday
WIP Wednesday
We Did It Wednesday
I Quilt
Fabric Frenzy

For Pink’s Sake! & Nancy Drew is here again!

This post is brought to you by the number

Yes, the brilliant number four! One, two, three, four more days until the end of school! That’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday!

So many good things happening! It’s Friday, and it’s a three-day weekend! Nancy Drew, SWH, Sweetie & Curly came for a week-long visit! 

More on that later…
I can’t wait to tell you about a blog hop that I’m participating in!

Anna is the lovely lady who writes the Life Sew Crafty blog. At this time in her life, her mother-in-law is fighting cancer for the second time. Anna wanted to host this blog hop honoring several women in her life who have battled cancer, the last being Tina, her mother-in-law. The medical bills are piling up and up, and Anna is asking for donations to help defray some of the cost for the family.

At the same time, she is collecting pink quilt blocks to make a quilt to donate to the Cancer Center where her DMIL has had her treatments. She has instructions on her website for making a pink block.

Also, many bloggers are participating in a blog hop and show off pink blocks of their own. Every two weeks on Saturday, there will be three-four blogs to visit. Here are the participants for tomorrow!

May 24

Jess @ Quilty Habit

Melinda @ Quirky Granola Girl

Kristyn @ Melon Patch Quilts

Visit her blog site click on the badge at the top of the right sidebar to see the full calendar of blog participants!

Exciting Thing #2

I am going to be hosting For Pink’s Sake on June 7! It’s my first time hosting. To say I’m excited is a gross understatement!

I have already picked out the pink block I’m going to make. Here are some hints: It’s from an old book, it hails back to 1923 and for those who like Bonnie Hunter quilts—it has 65 pieces!—for one block. You can be sure I won’t be making this as a 4” block! By the way, for those who want to make a whole 75” x 87” quilt, it takes 1,617 pieces or 42 blocks: 21 pieces & 21 plain.

Sharing with Can I Get A Whoop Whoop Friday!

And now for the promised family visit information!

L to R: Curly, SWH, Nancy Drew, Sweetie

Picnic on the Beach
Clockwise, starting from right rear:
My kid's dad, Yours Truly,  my "new" DSIL: Chief,
Sweetie, Nancy Drew & SWH

I'm burying Curly's legs in the sand

RSC: April Purples

I had a happy day on Friday. I stopped off at our local quilt “thrift” store. It reminds me of the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, you just can’t resist!

The Legacy, as it is called, is run by the city’s Senior Center. All the fabric, notions, yarns, lace, patterns, etc. are donated. They have both yardage and plastic bins of smaller pieces. I love the plastic bins because it’s a great place for scrap quilters. And the dreamy part of this is they charge $2.00 per pound for fabric!

On Friday, I went in looking for purples. I had gone through my stash and actually did very well in finding many purples. But, it was a good excuse to go there!

It was a good day for purple! It was also a good day for turquoise and orange, and pink and green and blue…you get the picture.

I looked through the orphan blocks and found some nice ones that I bought for pieced backs. I was dizzy with fabric fumes!

Take a look and see! Purple, purple, purple!

The batik on the left and the purple fourth from the right were from the Legacy. The rest were from my stash. I love the purple at the right!

The dotted fabric 2nd from left was from The Legacy.

I have some dusty pink but am not sure if I will use it.

It’s amazing the different shades of purple! Some look downright pink next to others. I only need 14 purples for my snowballs so I have leeway.

By far my favorite is this one:

This was someone’s donation that I ended up taking home from our guild. I don’t have much, but I’ve used little pieces of it in a couple of quilts.

The pinky/purple fabric the third from the right on the first picture you probably identified immediately as “old” fabric. Definitely. Where else do you see this kind of selvage?



Can you imagine making quilts or bags or… out of the selvages from yesteryear?

It’s not even halfway through April and I’ve got my fabric. Next step: cutting 6.5” squares! See you next week.

I’m linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Everyone there is making beautiful things. Click on the badge in the upper left side bar and see some great blocks!

A Good Start to the Day

I started out this morning like every other one. When I went outside with the dog I was busy thinking about the day ahead and what needed to be done.

I became aware of a little chirping. I stopped to listen and realized there were lots of birds chirping. I stood and there were hundreds of birds chirping. I was surrounded by this wonderful symphony of sound.

The sun had just come up and birds were chirping everywhere. I just took in all that beautiful music.

Maybe I should tune in to the moment more often…

Wherein We Encounter the 60s and Do The Math

Monday, Monday, so good to me;
Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be.

Now there’s some enthusiastic people! Now if they’d written Friday, Friday, I would be more on board with it!
So, do you remember the Mamas and the Papas? And if you do, you’re from my generation! For the rest of you, the Mamas and the Papas were a singing group from the 60s.

I always wish I had more time in the week to quilt…which I think is a common theme on my blog and the same probably for many of you. I really don’t know how bloggers with children manage to quilt, much less write a blog. I didn’t start quilting until after my kiddos had left the nest! It seems impossible to quilt and blog and have kids! But forget my moaning and groaning. Really, isn’t some quilting better than none?

I did manage to work more on my Log Cabin quilt. It’s all looking good and I think I see the finish line ahead! I need to call the quilting lady and reserve time to get this behemoth done.

It’s gotten to the point that it’s difficult to sew on it because of its bulk. I think my king size quilt is actually working against me trying to maneuver it through my machine! I can just see it grabbing onto the edge of the table and saying, “No! No! Not through that tiny opening again!”

For those who haven’t been on this loooong journey with me, here is a post about the beauteous beast.

I sewed some more on the spool quilt. I also encountered a little hiccup.

The start line:

 















Advancing through my sewing machine:

Starting the next step, adding white strips:
















The progress as of late:



Doing the math:
56 1-sided spool blocks
+5  0-sided blocks
= 66 white strips needed
-22 white strips available
=44 white strips, that I don’t have, that are needed

And now Murphy’s Law raises his head. I have no more white fabric. I started this quilt a long time ago. Ergo, no matching fabric.

Enter the hero: My Aunt Marie, scrap quilter extraordinaire! In her scrap quilt she would often substitute  similar colored pieces when she ran out of the first color.

And there you have it (Thank you Aunt Marie). I must go down to the quilt store. Back to the quilt store and find a WOW fabric where the backside looks similar to the one it has.

You know what? I actually think it’s kinda cool…pulling a “Aunt Marie”!