Something About Nothing

Any seat in the house is a good seat - even if there is a pole in your face. It's great because you are there experiencing the organ music, the roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat and the umpire as he yells " steeeeerike !" against the visiting team! Mom liked to take us to the ballgames from a very early age. These photos are from when I was just 5 years old. My sistah would have been 3. I don't have pictures to prove that sistah and I were actually there on this day, but somehow I think we were. I love looking across the field over to Waveland Avenue and seeing the ballpark as it was so long ago. This is twenty years before lights were installed. People in this crowd would have told you were crazy and booted you out of the ballpark if you were to suggest that Wrigley Field would EVER have night games with big ugly lights. But times change and now there are big ugly lights but the same great baseball. When I think of Wrigley Field this is the ballpark I rem...

Found this hanging on my sister's refrigerator while visiting with her and was very excited to use it as a flashback photo. Me, Mom, Sistah, her Dad and our Aunt in West Virginia.

A month or so ago we received a prerelease of the book "Pretty Little Presents" by Lark Books at work . I immediately loved the projects and knew that I would have to make some of them. There is a very cute flower needle book I made but forgot to photograph and I have another project from the book in the works that I will finish when I return from vacation but in the meanwhile I'll post this passport wallet. There is a zippered vinyl pocket, key loop, pen loop on the left and two vinyl pockets with a larger pocket underneath on the right. It is larger than I expected, but would be very nice for keeping together your passport, airline tickets and other items for traveling. Definitely the prettiest way to travel.

This past week we've seen a lot of little children with cheeks I've wanted to kiss and squeeze. There is nothing cuter than a little child's cubby face and so when I ran across these pictures of my Mom as a small child I had the same reaction: Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! That is the sound my mother would always make when she pinched my arm because she wanted to pinch a baby's rolls. Just look at those cute cheeks! Nnnnnnnnnnnn!

Last night at my quilt meeting I demonstrated how to transfer a photocopied image to fabric using a cleaning product called Citrasolv . Several of the ladies asked for written instructions, and so here they are: 1. Make Copy of Image: Find an image you would like to transfer. If you have words in the image you will need to print the image backwards (also referred to as a mirror image). The copy shop may be able to help you with this if you cannot do it on your computer. Once you have your image, take it to your local copy shop to have the image color copied. It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure the color copier they have uses TONER not ink. ONLY color copies made with TONER will work for this method. The ink from your ink jet printer will NOT transfer. (I learned this the hard and expensive way) I have read that Color Laser Prints also work for this method but I have not tried them as I don't have access to one. 2. Prep Fabric: Once you have your copy made, wash, dry ...

This past weekend was the Obon Festival at the Buddhist Temple downtown. Through the years we have talked about going but we always seem to have a conflict. This year we were finally able to attend and enjoyed the sights, sounds and tastes. We were surprised at the number of people we ran into that we knew. Although with my husband, I should never be surprised as he seems to know someone everywhere! Unfortunately though I left my camera sitting on the kitchen table after I recharged the battery, one of my many senior moments, but luckily I have a camera on my phone and was able to capture a few images to share here: The Taiko drum performance was my favorite part of the festival. The festival is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor deceased ancestors. One of the many activities is dancing the Bon Odori to celebrate and honor these ancestors. The line of people wanting to dance was long and included everyone from small children to those with lots more years under their obi. The littl...

I wandered out to the garden yesterday for the first time in a week and I found these: They were delicious!

Ever since the apron craze took over a few years ago some of my favorite aprons have been ones like these.* They fit over the shoulder and usually slip over the head. They aren't the fanciest apron and they aren't very frilly but I love them. And now I think I know why. . . Notice the apron my Grandma is wearing at my second birthday. . . Hmmm, might my love of this type of apron have something to do with the love I have for my Grandma? *(Click on the above photos to visit the etsy shops where I found these great aprons!)

Where have the years gone? Happy Birthday Babies!

During our visit to the Arts Festival my daughters and I were facinated with the beautiful Journals made by this artist. Her art journals were well made and called to us, but our pocketbooks would not respond to the call, and so my youngest daughter and I decided to try making the journals ourselves. I found a great tutorial on the internet and we went to it. We used watercolor paper for the pages and a pleather we found on the remnant rack at the fabric store. The pleather doesn't have the same wonderful feel that leather does, but it did the job. We were both very satisfied with our first attempts at art journal making and can't wait to fill the pages with words and drawings.

This evening I ran into a friend I haven't seen in some time. She asked me what I have been up to lately. I thought for a second and said, "playing." I think thats all I've been doing lately - and here is more proof: Last week Tuesday I participated in a Batik class from my friend Anne , the queen of batik quilts. She teaches the all day workshop in her backyard. Here she is giving us the run down on how it is done: And then she let us loose. . . I cannot tell you how excited I was for this workshop! Well yes I can - I was so excited that I could hardly sleep the night before. I'm sure you can see it in my eyes (or lack of eyes). On my first attempt I dove right in to the waxing of the fabric. The wax on this piece was applied with rosette irons and a beater. Below is the waxing tent. The mix of half beeswax and half paraffin wax was kept melted in doubleboilers on electric burners. Down the small hill is the tent where the dye was kept. Here is my first ...

Me with some of my first cousins. . . Me (on the right) with some of my second cousins. . . Me with an Aunt by marriage. . . And one of my favorite childhood pictures of me on a boat in Lake Michigan. Hope you are able to spend this weekend enjoying family, friends and fun!

The other day when I was at Juliette 's house quilting she showed me her homemade light box. I was amazed that something so ugly could do such a wonderful job. So after a little research and finding some great instructions here I made one of my own: I used a box I found in the hallway at the gym where my daughter is participating in volleyball camp. The white paper on the sides is velum paper I bought on clearance a couple of years ago. The only thing I had to buy today was the 68 cent piece of poster board in the middle. I know I have some poster board downstairs but I wasn't sure if I had white so I splurged. And why would I care to have this 68 cent box? Because now I can take awesome professionalish photos like this:

It looks like I won't have to stick the whole family in a closet afterall. One of our good friends was kind enough to have a photobooth at her wedding reception and we all squeezed ourselves in for a picture or two or three. If only my son had been there, then we could have made one of the photos into our Christmas card. Oh well, we all had a great time anyway. We made lots of silly faces, and a few serious faces, very few serious faces actually, because when it comes right down to it, we just can't help but be ourselves in a photo booth.