The quilt show was fantastic. I was on my feet all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Was never even hungry! Actually made chili in a half hour (Tami made the cornbread) and it was decent. (that is the great thing about chili.) Friday I made them feed me, and Saturday they took me out to Subway. The vegetables were exactly what my body wanted.
The criteria for choosing pictures: My friends made them. If you are not in there, blame my husband, and the camera which is being pouty.
The green flower quilt is a stack and whack, you can see that on the closeup. Really cool way to use big prints! The starry snail's trail is something I want to make myself (except different, of course)! On the crane quilt, the border squares are 4 patches, as if making 98 paper-pieced cranes wasn't enough work. (Laying out the blocks and sashing in the right order was a bear also.) And they are all different Japanese style fabrics. I think each crane block is about 4 inches square, certainly no larger than 5.
The last picture is a closeup of the best of show. (The full quilt picture is just not impressive). This is her 2nd quilt! And she is 75 years old! She, in that generation, became proficient with the computer and designed this herself! That leaves zero (count them, zero) excuses for the rest of us!
And this is how they dressed. Tami doesn't normally tower over Connie like that, but she put on 2-inch heels (that is 5 cm) and Connie put on tennis shoes.
They managed to keep pizza off their formal clothes, although Tami did get ice cream on hers.
The first is a 2009 BOM through http://www.thequiltshow.com/, with minor changes. The top got finished just last week. Although I am rethinking the last plain borders, the other half of me is saying: "Get this to the quilter's quick before you do anything else!" The feathered star in the middle is paper-pieced, and it's a good thing too! There are 204 flying geese blocks, 98 sawtooth star blocks (with 4 flying geese blocks in them), and 24 complex star blocks with 8 flying geese apiece. Usually. That makes (I'll save you the math) 788 flying geese blocks. Give or take a few.
I am really good at making flying geese.
The second picture is Tami's first quilt. This is a great first quilt. It is simple and impressive, the blocks are not small (they are 6 inches on a side) and you learn all the important things, including how to take out seams because you are a natural perfectionist. One of the things we had to tell her at the quilting weekend was to put down the seam ripper and back away from the nearly perfect block!!!!! In the meantime, I am missing two seam rippers. Coincidence?
I have actually finished a quilt. But because it did not turn out the way I wanted, I did not take a formal picture. But I want you to know that this has been cat tested and cat approved. Since it is made from cat fabric, I find it only fitting. There are large blocks of cat fabric, alternating with 4 patches and 9 patches. After it was all done, I realized that I should have just stuck with 9 patches. (Figure it out!)
It looks like a small, controlled fabric explosion in my family room. Everything is out so I can choose fabrics for a quilt. I am even getting help with that. The cat likes to sit in high places and survey things. (We do call her a bobcat, she has little tiny tufts on her ears, and she is the right color.) She is a little miffed that I did not pull out all the whites and off whites from the shelf above.
At any rate, fabric for the next three quilts has been chosen (I'm thinking about a fourth), and I should have something to show off next week after I come back from a 3 day sewing frenzy.
In the meantime, Tami has started her third project without finishing the first two. A real quilter! Except she can still count her UFOs.
I have learned that when you tell someone to video tape something, you must also tell them that the camera does do videos -- which is something he already knows.
I have also learned that you can not hold the camera sideways when you videotape. In fairness, when you hold the camera sideways to take a picture, it automatically rights it.
(Earlier in the day, I had put a couple of steaks in a large ziploc bag to marinate.)
While we were having fun feeding the boy, taking him outside to eat grass and dragging him around the house on the towel, the bag was leaking in the refrigerator.
This allowed me to develop a totally engaging Friday night activity: Cleaning the refrigerator. My husband, who was watching "The Dirty Dozen", wanted to make popcorn while every counter in the kitchen had food or dirty refrigerator parts on it. His idea of helping out was to wait until I finished.
Part of cleaning the refrigerator means that my clothes get wet and dirty. So, when I has done, I changed into a nightgown and no slippers. Several hours later, when I crawled into bed, I froze him out with my toes.
Every so often I encounter people who can't seem to hold a conversation, who answer without asking back, for example. Or answer in less than complete sentences. We are not talking exchange students here, we are talking people for whom English is the first language. Probably the only.
I wonder why they got that way, and I think I have part of the answer.
Tonight I went out to dinner with my husband, and there was a couple behind us with a young child (6?) who was playing games on his portable laptop.
My husband thought that these were educational games.
It has taken me all night (3 hours, 51 minutes) to come up with the right response. For those of you who don't know how fast I respond, this is not only record time, it completely shatters my previous record of 3 days, 8 hours. It is going to take some doing to top this, not to mention take me completely out of character.
The thing to teach a young child at a restaurant is not only to sit quietly, but to converse.
Within this blog you will find opinions, information on exchange student activities, quilt pictures, musings on recent adventures, and comments on raising teenagers and other aspects of getting along with those who live with me.
