Something About Nothing

My friend, Korrin, started an avalanche at our house!  She was cleaning out her basement and asked if we would like a beautiful, hardly used,  Grace hand quilting frame . I hesitated wondering how much use I would get from it because of my carpel tunnel, but I decided to go for it.  She brought it over and before I knew it my daughter, Ann, was excited to learn to hand quilt!  I put a call out to my quilt group for someone to teach her, as I don't feel confident in my hand quilting skills.  My friend Leigh, who has been my roommate at the Utah State Quilt festival for several years, happily volunteered!  We went to Leigh's house today and she began to teach my daughter to hand quilt: I hope Ann continues to enjoy this new skill for many years! Leigh's basenji, Katie, kept watch for us.  We were not disturbed by any squirrels or birds. She is so adorable! I look forward to seeing the beautiful things Ann will create! Are you...

A young friend is getting married in May and I decided to make her and her fiancé some coordinating aprons as a shower gift.  Their kitchen colors are black, white and red.  I had the fun Alexander Henry Cog Wheel dot in my stash and so I ran down to my local quilt shop and found some  Riley Blake polka dot and Shades of Black stripe by Me and My Sister for Moda  as coordinates.  I LOVE the black and grey stripe!  Don't they look so cute!?! I think maybe I should have made his bow tie a little bigger.   He's a bigger boy than I remembered! What is your favorite gift to give newlyweds?

We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit, how 'bout you?!? I have a daughter involved in student government at her high school and she has spent months working with her fellow officers getting everything ready for this week: Spirit Week.  One of the main activities is a hall decorating contest between the four grades.  Each grade is assigned a color scheme - same one every year - and the Juniors get Yellow.  They can also use gold, white and silver, but predominately it has to be YELLOW.  Let me just say that the Junior hall is VERY bright!  So for the past few month's my daughter and a few others have been spending hours after school, projecting, tracing and finally painting.  This past weekend they were given two days to get it all hung.  Their theme is Jailbreak Juniors and Thursday night I was informed that they needed 250 sets of paper handcuffs and 250 skull and crossbones die cuts.  Fortunately I know someone with a Silhouette elect...

     My Mother and Grandmother were not really sewers or quilters although they had their moments of trying. Grandma told me she made quilts during her years as a stay-at-home mom living in a holler in West Virginia but it wasn't a skill she kept when she moved to the big city of Chicago during the 1950's.  After I made a few quilts in the late '70's, she decided to make one from patches of cloth she cut out from her polyester pants suits.       We affectionally called it "The Ugly Quilt." Grandma Marie raking the back yard in West Virginia      Unfortunately the quilt was not attached securely to the top of our car when we were moving one year and was blown away on the freeway, lost for all time.  I'm still very sad about losing that quilt, even if it was ugly, it was the only quilt I had from Grandma.  Grandma's real skills were in the kitchen.      She was a really good cook. ...

I got a new-to-me toy today that promptly moved into my daughters room.   Do you see it in the mirror?  It is an old Opaque Projector! Do you remember opaque projectors from school? You're probably too young to remember them. Place a book or a piece of paper inside  and it projects the image onto the wall or screen. This black spot on the wall is chalkboard paint which used to be surrounded with squares of cork board but the cork kept falling off the board so it was time for something new. My daughter used the opaque projector to trace a silhouette of a bird onto the black square and then painted it in a rainbow of colors.  Next she traced some flowers onto the bird. . .   . . .and put a frame around it. Beautiful! I think we are going to have some real fun with the new toy.

After my ice dyeing demo the other night I dyed a few other piece of fabrics and some scarves and then my daughter,  Annie and I went around to the back of Betty Jo's house and played with the ponies.  Annie gave them some carrots and they started following her around like puppy dogs.   They are older mares who were once show ponies.   They are living in Betty Jo's yard to help keep the weeds down on her back lot.  The white horse lives next door but Annie couldn't leave her out!   The pony couldn't believe she would waste carrots on that big horse.  I love her mane!  All seven were real sweethearts. Maybe I should do a pony quilt.

This months Kindness Chronicles post is dedicated to an act of kindness I witnessed performed by my teenage daughter, Em. I drove to the high school to pick her up from volleyball practice and found her sitting out front watching a bunch of her peers.  She had a very serious look on her face.  She was very concerned about something going on and meant business. When I pulled up she walked over to the car, watching these young men and women the entire time.  As we pulled away from the curb she leaned out the window and yelled, "DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!  I THINK YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL!  YOU'RE NOT UGLY!" What? She then proceeded to tell me "the rest of the story." As she was leaving volleyball she ran into a girl in tears. The girl had lost her "baby" (a doll in a baby carrier that the school gives to kids to care for when they take a certain health class).  Em told her she had seen something in the gym and went with her to look for it.  It...

How did it get to be August already?  I missed the beginning of the month and so I am late in posting my Kindness Chronicles. I had the opportunity of traveling to DC with my oldest daughter, mother-in-law and brother-in-law for 5 days to look for an apartment for my daughter whilst bil was in meetings.  It is amazing how many kindnesses you can observe while traveling: There was the TSA officer who was bright and cheery.  Perhaps it was the beginning of her shift but no matter the reason it was a kindness to everyone who had stood in a very long line waiting their turn to arrive to a cheerful face who asked how their day was going. There was the man who was willing to trade seats with my mil so that she did not have to sit by herself. There was the group of wait listed passengers who had been waiting so long they'd become friends and cheered for each other as they were able to get on the flight, some of them into first class! There was the man who noticed th...

Another of my vacation-without-children-activities was using Elmer's washable gel glue as a resist for batiking. I was amazed at how easy the glue was to use. I've been fascinated with this image I found on The Graphics Fairy website . . . . . .so I drew the image onto one of my ice parfait dyed fabrics with a pencil and then proceeded to paint over it with the glue.  The important thing with batiking is to think in reverse.  You have to remember to paint the resist wherever you want the background to show through.  I used a paint brush to paint the glue onto the larger areas and then set it aside for an hour or two to dry.  I then painted over the top with Imperial purple procion dye . And I could see on the back that it was going to be GORGEOUS! I was so excited I forgot one VERY IMPORTANT step. I FORGOT TO PAINT OVER THE TOP WITH SODA ASH! THE DYE WON'T STAY ON THE FABRIC WITHOUT A FIXATIVE! I didn't remember THIS VERY IMPOR...