For something totally different today...

If you've got the time, go watch the video of how Adam Ellyson constructed his quilted Hummer Cozy.

Friday Foray

We will be heading to Calgary in a week, so I need to nail down the drip irrigation system or my plants won't make it through the week. I got all the drippers installed yesterday; today I'm leak checking.

After that grocery shopping.

Then dyeing.

There is going to be some thickened dye work I think..though probably not today. Having never done it, I'm a little intimidated. But I have Jane Dunnewold's book and I think another resource...

Ok, I can admit it.

I was stitching on those 3 little (5x7) pieces everywhere: waiting for food in a restaurant, meetings, watching tv.

They are so small to move from one space.

Somewhere... somehow.. I've misplaced them.

Thursday ToDo's/Dharma Redux

1. Walk dogs. Yesterday was long and flat; today 2 miles with some terrain. A walk around the block. Then 30-45 minutes of arms/back/stomach exercises.

2. Finish installing the drip irrigation system in the garden. Plant summer veggies. Test irrigation system.

3. Clean up mess on studio work table, prep fabric for first tree quilt and the clothes from Dharma.

Now to the questions:

Did I spend a fortune? NO. I have dyes; I did need some more soda ash. I picked up some discharge paste. I also picked up 1 tank top, 2 T-shirts, one Hawaiian top and a skirt. Most items that they carry in the catalog (clothes-wise) they have AT MOST one in each size in the store. The exception is the standard HANES-style T-shirts.

Did I pick up anything really cool? Nope. Really, they pretty much have just have the basics in the store. I looked for some yarn to knit myself a summer tank top; must get over the sticker shock that a simple top like that will cost me about $50 in yarn.

Do they have a good selection of the silks they sell online? The yardage?? I avoided the yardage room. Don't need any at the moment. As far as the silk accessories and clothing they have almost none in the store. That's pretty much catalog only.

Oh, I bet it was fun! It was fun because I was there with friends. I went to check the sizing on a couple of their T-shirts. For ordering supplies, it's more successful to order by catalog.

After Dharma, we headed to Pumpkin Seed Quilts. I got see the Los Hilos quilts hanging in the shop and read their stories. Both of the other gals bought there, but I don't think I bought anything. (did I?? hmmm) Lunch at a Chinese restaurant (I had lettuce wraps). Back to look at photos from Egypt.

Great day, good fun with goofy gals.

The Carquinez Bridge

On my way over to my friend's house, I lucked out!

First a little history of the Carquinez Bridges:
According to Wikipedia,

The original bridge, a steel cantilever bridge, was designed by Robinson & Steinman and dedicated on May 21, 1927; costing eight million dollars to build, it was the first major bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It was the construction of this first bridge that convinced financiers and engineers that it was possible to build bridges in the San Francisco area. No initial Carquinez Bridge.. no Golden Gate, no Bay Bridge. (well, of course they would have come eventually, but this bridge started things rolling). In 1958, a second span was constructed to handle the increased traffic. Then after the Loma Prieda earthquake caused the specialists to seismically retrofit all the bridges, it was determined that this first bridge could not be retrofitted. Instead they built a third span.

This third span (a suspension bridge that is light and open and my favorite bridge!!) opened a couple years ago. Retrofitting and resurfacing of the 2nd span is complete. Now they are removing the original span.

Tuesday, I arrived near the bridge as the first section of the bridge was being lowered to a barge that will carry it away to Mare Island where they turn it into scrap.

Here is the same shot without the zoom. All the TV stations had camera crews set up there in the 10' of clear shot. They nicely, however, let me slide in front of a camera for my 2 shots.

Tuesday's Trip

This is the outside of Dharma's retail establishment. It is NOT the same facility where they process thier mail orders. Those are Judy and Janice framing my view.



When you walk into the door, the front half of the store is primarily a yarn shop. There is a small room off the left where they sell yardage of fabrics (no photo).


This back room is the place to buy the dyes, paints, chemicals and clothing that you see in the catalog and online. You can find some of the dyes, some of the paints, some of the tools. Not everything. And not necessarily in quantity.

Dharma bound

We three goofballs (Me, Judy and Janice fresh back from the Egyptian eclipse) are heading over to San Rafael today. We are going to Dharma Trading and to Pumpkin Seed Quilt store. I want to see the display of quilts by Los Hilos (check their blog out from my blogroll).

all of those who are now incredibly envious.. how about I take pictures of Dharma so you can be surprised? (shocked? awed?). Do you know that the front half of their store is a yarn shop??

I've worked out the idea for the t-shirts... I already have the dye but I need a couple chemicals. and a couple shirts. And I think I need to take the class at the art center on screening tshirts. Maybe not. Maybe that's getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, I'm going to make a couple shirts (probably asking Gerrie to make me screens.. maybe figuring it out for myself)... as a test run. With "pithy" sayings.

What pithy sayings you query?

Do!! Tell!!
blog your art

What do you think? I have another concept, but I think I'll design those for a cafepress shirt and totebag. It's a bit more "generic".

Yeah, sounds like I'm learning to do a screen printing.

Ya know...

Ya know...I've gotten to used to quizzes that you publish on your blog!!

I was at the Cloth, Paper, Scissors site and they have a quiz.

I couldn't figure out to click on the answer of my choice.

It stopped me cold for a couple seconds!!

Turns out they have a new interesting challenge.. and the quiz is the basis of it.

Go find out What kind of Artist you are...

Oh, me?? I was a perfect split on Grunge/Integrated Artist...

Outside ToDo UPdate

It's 1 pm on Saturday; a thick layer of potential rain clouds is sliding in.

I have weeded the original veggie terrace-bed and the old flower/new veggie terrace bed.

I have also spread amendments over the surfaces and dug it in. The new bed is raked smooth and the tall support ladders are spaced for tomatoes.

The old bed needs to be raked but my bad shoulder is telling me that I can't do it today; maybe not at all. Hopefully I can talk the spouse into doing it for me.

I still need to lay check/fix/layout the drip irrigation system and lay out and build a new footpath.

As much as DebR. loves the flagstone that surrounds our spa.. it doesn't work for the path going down to the gardens. (I put it there when I built the spa flagstone area). I think the slope encourages the dirt to wash through. Anyway, the stones disappeared within a year or so.

This time I'll dig the path deeper, lay down some weedblock and fill the path with small river pebbles. My back and shoulders are already smiling at the thought of carrying bags of these stones...

I also need to bug the spouser to rebuild the steps going down. At the moment, they are only 24" wide. Way too narrow when you've pots or produce throwing off your balance. Can't tell you the number of times I've almost fallen down the steps. So wider, in this case, will be better.

By next weekend I hope to be able to start planting out my veggies; it's normally near the back end of time to plant stuff out (my neighbor traditionally plants out her tomatoes on 3/15), but the rainy weather has pushed everything back a month.

Wasn't it late January/early February that I was concerned that things were a month ahead? That will teach me.

A Woman's Writer Book Meme...

Found this from Liz at Badgerbag... The directions/key:

• Bold the ones you've read.
  
• Italicize the ones you have wanted/might like to read.
  
• ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of?? **
• Put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.

*Alcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
* Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
* Atwood, Margaret–Cat's Eye
* Austen, Jane–Emma
??Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
??Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex
Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
*Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
* Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
?Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
?Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
?Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics
?Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
* Eliot, George–Middlemarch
?Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
?Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
* Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
?Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
?Gordimer, Nadine–July's People
*Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology (atleast parts)
Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
?hooks, bell–Bone Black
*Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
?Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona
Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
* Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
* Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
*Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
?Larsen, Nella–Passing
* L'Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
* Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
?Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
?Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them)
* McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
*McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
?Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
?Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
* Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
?Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
*Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
?Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
* Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller's Wife
* Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
* Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
?Picoult, Jodi–My Sister's Keeper
Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
* Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea
?Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping
?Rocha, Sharon–For Lac
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
?Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
?Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
* Steel, Danielle–The House
* Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah–You're Wearing That
Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife's Tale
?Urquhart, Jane–Away
*Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
* Welty, Eudora–One Writer's Beginnings
* Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
* Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One's Own

If I spent the time, I could add other women writers that I've read who probably deserve to be on this list. But there are gardens to weed and floors to vacuum and life to live. Though there are times that I regret not keeping a Life-Book list.

You knew I was going to do this...

I might have SAID that I wasn't going to work on the garden this week because it was so wet. We all know that I could resist for only a day or so, right?

Back in February, the plan was to remove the hated juniper bushes, add some compost to the poor clay, till it all in, add some sand and dirt, bury the drip irrigation lines, then dig up the plants I'm moving and plant them. Cheay... right!

Reality: remove the hated juniper, rain for 9 weeks, spread 4 bales of compost on top before one week of rain, dig up the plants and replant them. Wednesday I got most of the plants dug up, divided and replanted. It felt really strange to have to water my garden after all this rain (especially since the clay is still rather damp).. still, new plantings new waterings.

Thursday I thought I only had one plant left, a pink penstemon (I think)that just about reached the max size for its space. First step was to cut the foliage down by about 50%, to limit stress on the roots. Here are the two piles: plant and "hair cut". Clearly this plant was as wide as the bed.



SURPRISE. There was a white lantana hiding under some of the growth. The lantana was moved first. It looks insignificant here... but the roots were ready to hold it in place for a 7.2 quake!!

Back to the Penstemon. It had a HUGE woody base, so I couldn't divide it with my standard pull-apart or chop with the shovel method. But it sure looked like it needed to divided. (heck it looked like it needed to have been divided 2 years ago!) I improved a new method:

I got a tree saw, leveraged it between my feet and cut it in half.

The new garden bed is completed planted. I've added some annuals to fill in while the plants settle into place. In a few months things should start to fill in; by next year it should be a very nice butterfly/hummingbird garden.

The small portion of this garden that runs between the spa and the deck doesn't look like much at the moment. It's kind of a mini-herb garden, with sweet basil and sage mixed in among the fuschia and yarrow. Again.. I'll take pictures in a couple months to show the difference. Yeah, this looks just like dirt.

TO DO over the weekend:

• Install the irrigation supply lines.
• Lay out the footpath to the steps.
• Clean up the lower terrace levels for vegetable planting.
• Weed the other garden beds.

Down to the "T"

A number of the ladies attending BlogHer this summer are beginning to plan some wardrobe options. Tshirts from their blog or other blogs.

I've decided that I want... NO NEED.. to take some of older tshirts with stains on them, discharge them, maybe soywax batik them, dye them?? Paint them?? Overdye them?

Anyway, I need to make my own shirts for the couple days.. and maybe make a few more to sell while I'm there. (No I won't be selling old, stained shirts). And I need to figure out how to get my blogname on my tshirt. I really need to visit Dharma (though I can't do it today)...

Shopping list:

some discharge paste
some tshirts?
some cotton socks (shirts and socks to match.. who could resist?)
Check my dyes..

What else??

Today I am headed to the regional quilt council meeting. I'm actually looking forward to the program: planning a guild/mini-group retreat. And I may get to meet Annie Smith of Quilting Stash podcast!!

What I'm Reading

I do most of my reading in the bath each morning. I realized that I just wasn't setting aside a time to read, and establishing this works for me. Run a bath and read until I've read atleast one chapter or the water's gotten cold.

At the moment I'm reading Fool Moon, book two of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. These are "light, fluffy" novels about a Private Investigator Harry Dresden in Chicago who happens to be a wizard. One friend describes them as "harry potter all grown up" but I think that's a bad deal for both series. First, this series was started before Potter hit the world; second.. they are very different universes. Dresden lives in a more real world and most of his problems are dealing with the world we know, when he knows there is more there. They are good fast simple reads.


Anyway, there is one character in this series.. the author writes that she's a small tough woman of Irish decent. But as I read the books, I can't help seeing and hearing Chandra Wilson as this character!! Yep, Dr. Bailey from Grey's Anatomy!! If they ever decide to DO SOMETHING with this book, I hope casting directors listen. This is your Murphy even if she written this way.




We are talking about going away for a couple days this weekend (weather depending) and if we go, I'm going to pack Ruth Reichl's Tender At the Bone. It looks like it would be a good "read aloud" book when we're driving, though Steve has a major problem with that idea.

Ruth was food critic for the NYT, and a writer for Gourmet magazine. This tells about her starting to cook because her mother was "The Queen of MOLD".

Things are finally gellin'..

And I'm not even wearing Dr. Scholl's Insoles!

The sun is predicted to be out for the next three or four days... but it's way too wet to work in the garden. So, gee, I may have to sew! Think I will be experimenting a bit with the ideas I mentioned the other day.. how to get from concepts to a design.

In the meantime, I still have tons of handwork stuff I'm working on. It's amazing how much time is spent and how little to show for it. And for those who seek visual content, this is Sunday's photo.

Let's Pack Up and Move Toward the Fun

If it's Sunday, it must be time for fun and games..

First the weekly quiz:

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Secondly, for the Spring Resurrection Celebrations... two games:

One from my friend Stan lets you play miniature golf without the corndogs, the whiney kid behind you or the overly competitive father in front who hoots when he beats his 5 year old daughter. I think the best I've done is 5 over par. The worst won't be mentioned.

And the fabulous blogger Pam of Beancounterscame up with a fabulous game: Eggrun. Oddly, I find the "harder" courses easier to handle than the "easy" one... but I'm not posting a score.

Seriously addictive fun both!! Listen to egg yell when you accidently have it jump into oblivion.

And in the vein of planning ahead.. I will be Calgary in a couple weeks.. if anyone lives nearby or can recommend things to do while I'm there, I'd appreciate it. I will be on my own from rising until about 5:30 pm.

Query #1

Ok, Karoda gave me a really great question... but I'm saving it. I'd say "for a rainy day..." but then I'd have to use it today. Karoda asked:

What are you reading? Not online but actually book(s) that you hold in your hands. Tell us about the story, the characters, the place, the author, and the effects the book is having on you.

Still waiting for other great questions to put in the pile...

So today I thought I'd answer a question that I've been asking myself lately:

Do have any purely original ideas?

I've got to say, probably not. I can take a couple ideas that others have had, mash them, mix them up and come up with something that is my own, but I don't think I've come up an idea that is 100% original.

Sometimes it bothers me. Usually it doesn't. If the old adage is true that there are only 7 plot lines and all fiction derives from these, then I see no reason to not acknowledge it.

Case in point... a hint at what I'm mashing up at the moment. There is nothing in fiber yet to show.

#1. I've been following Dijanne Cerval's work with Lutrador all year; it's intriguing and fascinating to have transluscent layers in a piece. Now the hunk of Lutrador I have is fairly thick and I'm not sure that it will ever appear transluscent.. that's OK. If translucentcy is important to the work, I could use a sheer in a similar way. (I have already admitted to the world that I'm fascinated by transluscent layers of fabric and color).

#2. Last year it was leaves and layering.. this year I'm back to real fascination: the shape of bare trees. The stunning sillouette of branches against the sky.

So I've wanted to combine these two ideas into a piece, mixing the treeforms up so it's not simply a tree silloutte against a background. How to do that?

Diane gave me another piece of the puzzle last week...

And I'm almost ready to start physically working out the construction details...

Image originally from: The Ecology Center Terrain for Schools.

I Have Almost No Hair Left

For most of the winter I've been trying to grow my hair a bit longer. Thinking that I could get back to my old "wedgey" kind of hair style. One problem, though. My hair grows forward... toward my face. So when I sit down to work, it falls into my face.

After minutes/hours/days of frustration pushing a piece back or away, I'd grab my scissors and whack it off. (yep, thinking Bong is gonna hate me. She's my hairsylist). Last night I talk with myself:

Self: what's up with your hair?? Either you need to cut it short or you need to stop trying to create bangs that go almot back to your neckline.

So I searched online for short haircuts, found a website that will take your face shape and search for the haircut, and took their advice. I printed off 3 pictures and visited Bong today. She asked which one of the three I wanted. I told her to me they were all the same cut, just styled a bit differently.






Bong that these each had distinct differences. That's why she's the stylist. We kind of decided on the middle of the three as more workable for me. Now if only she could style me that chin!!

Anyway, she wielded her scissors and comb.. and I now have a summer weight hair style that will not fall into my eyes.

For Future Posts, Ask and You Shall Receive.

This is an idea I'm taking from another blog...Though I do not know if it was begun for the reason.

Often I'm completely uninspired about something to write about. I either babble or stick in a quiz or meme to take up the space. I'm resisting the almost daily challenges (SPT, IF, Alphabet Soup, etc..) I'd like to do something different. So I am opening this up to the readers for my inspiration. Putting this blog in your hands in a way.

You can ask me any question, and when I have no worthwhile inspiration of my own, I will carefully and thoughtfully answer your question. Check out some of the questions given to Scheherazade. I won't write about being a lawyer or a sailing coach because I've never been.

So I'm challenging you. Email me with a question that has been niggling away at your psyche. Whenever I am dull and flat and without inspiration, I will take inspiration from you, search out the answers to your questions and post a (hopefully witty and telling) post.

Another similar challenge you can do: Tell me what to photograph.

Something Goofy

Ya know how I talk about having adventures with a couple friends where we ALWAYS seem to eat Thai? Well one of them (Janice) just returned from viewing the eclipse in Egypt and we are planning our next adventure.. but a couple weeks ago the two of us who remain who here spent an hour investigating the new JoAnne's ETC.

It's not worth much more time. There is even less fabric then has been in the traditional JoAnne's that are all being replaced. Thank goodness I rely on StoneMountain and Daughter for my fabric purchases!!




Anyway, I brought my camera with me.. and remembered to use it a little. Here are Judy and I trying on what may be our Easter Bonnets. Judy is such a clown!! That's what I love about her. Later we found more goofy hats.

Mine (We think it was a pink alien) just didn't turn out... but Judy seems rather apropos for the
weather.
We followed up the stop at JoAnne's with lunch at a newly opened Vietnamese restaurant (Judy thought it was Thai, and the menu didn't look very different). Lunch was OK but I took some home and realized that is smelled like any Chinese takeout I bring home (this was supposed to be a Lemon chicken thing.. and I never tasted any lemon). So I probably won't return.

After Lunch, we headed for a quilt store. I picked up a couple yards of background stuff there and got home just as the heaven's opened up for the day.

While I don't appear very creative..

I'm really just building my ark. And doing all the online searches to figure out what the heck a "cubit" is. Then I realized I'm not the only one doing this.

Actually, I've realized that I just don't think very creatively during all this dreary and rainy season. So rather than anguish over it, I'm just accepting it. I'm storing this all up and will burst forth in creativity when our weather improves. Like a daffodil!!

When will that be? The latest weather forecasts show rain until next Tuesday...

Just so's you know... In March we had 6 days without rain. So far in April? We've had 1. And it started raining in the end of February. So... in 7 weeks we have had 7 dry days.

Call out for help.

Ok, over the next few weeks I'll be looking for blogs dealing with several things. If you happen to find anything that I may not have seen, please point it out to me:

1. Anything that would fit with the EarthDay theme of Reduce, ReUse or Recycle.

2. Doodling used in any art/craft form.

3. Points and tips on photography (especially for a blog).

I can't afford the ticket..

back to Suffragette City!! But the clerks in Safeway are probably thinking about springing for one for me.

Today my MP3 player is loaded with oldies going back to the 60's.... I pulled a muscle in my thigh yesterday, so I'm hobbling around and these old songs are about the only thing to lift my mood. Well, that and the sun is shining at the moment.

Anyway, I'm listening to music so I don't whine and it means I was walking around the grocery store doing my shopping and singing to myself. Outloud. Most of the help in the store was born after these songs were popular, so I'm sure they found it (how do I put this?) amusing. Yeah, that's the word. (I will not say psycho.. or strange.. or demented.. that won't come til I'm maybe in my 70s....)

Songs in the store:

"It Feels Like the First Time" boston;
"American Pie" Don McLean
"Evil Ways"Santana
"Let's Give Them Something To Talk About" Bonnie Raitt... well, that one was appropriate!!
.

Where was all the Los Lonely Boys stuff?? Much later in the mix...

Anyway, atleast it was a short trip and long songs this time...

But I swear if they played some of this music over the speakers in the store, they'd have the customers dancing in the aisles.

The Wiki Meme

From DebR. It's the Wiki Meme!!

Go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday in the search box, month and day only.. not year. It pops up the Events, Births and Deaths that happened on that day in various years. You list three events, three births, and three deaths that have occurred throughout history on your birthday.

Events:

1864 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation."

1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", where he introduces special relativity.

1971 - The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18, is ratified as Ohio becomes the 38th state to approve it.

Births:

1917 - Lena Horne, American actress and singer. (she's older than I)

1953 - Hal Lindes, Anglo-American music composer and guitarist for the British Rock band Dire Straits. (He's younger, but not much.) And need I mention that one of my favorite earworms is the Dire Straits song: Sultans of Swing??

1959 - Vincent D'Onofrio, American actor (He's even younger than my youngest brother.)

Deaths:

1785 - James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (b. 1696)

1971 - Crew of Soyuz 11

• Viktor Patsayev (b. 1933)
• Georgi Dobrovolski (b. 1928)
• Vladislav Volkov (b. 1935)

1993 - George "Spanky" McFarland, American actor (b. 1928)

Now what this says about anything is beyond me. I saw one blog yesterday where they went a step further: they came up with a dinner party peopled by the people listed in that wiki. But I aint' doing that.

Pictures and Words..

I found a new blog this week... Pictures and Words.. Oh wait she changed the blogtitle as soon as I found her.. it's now..Panta Rhei. She is a new member of the Artful Quilt Blogring and the Simple Still Life challenge.

Anyway this is a German blog.. but she publishes in both German and English so you don't miss much.

Saturday she posted a new set of fiber postcards.. with mini-bundles ala Sonji on them.

Check her out.

The Inspiration for PINK

DebL. asked if the collage photo yesterday came from my yard. That collage is heavenly.. this is the reality. Most of the flowers I took are in this shot. Really. There is the green clump with the pink tubular flowers that the hummers like, the clematis, and the peach tree.

Except the geraniums which are peaking out here. In front of them are a just beginning to leaf out lilac, a pink oleander, some lavender and some lantana. None blooming.

A better picture of the clematis (which refuses to climb the lattice and which blooms off-season I think) and the peach tree/shrub. It will get 4' tall.


Oh, Look!! It's about to rain again!! What a unique experience lately!!


Now a wierd question... Is anyone else using Netscape (not Firefox) to post to your blog? And does it hang up for you? I have both browsers on my desktop but usually open Netscape because it automatically opens my mailbox; for the last 2 weeks, when I try to post here from Netscape the program becomes unresponsive and must be closed. I'm waiting to hear from the Help folk, but it might be as long as a month til I hear from them.

Interesting, I can't comment on a blogger-comment page using netscape either...Really wonder if it's something on my end or bloggers...
Just asking if others are having the same problem.

Simple Still Life: FLORAL

This is my simple still life inspiration piece for the month of April.

Ok, so it's not a Still Life. I didn't see where my assignment for the month really said it HAD to be a still life. The assignment was: FLORAL. And GET ME OUT OF THIS FUNK.

So I went outside during a moment of dry and photographed all the pink and pink-ish flowers in the yard. Then I collaged them in Picasa. Clicked and clicked until I liked the arrangement they came up with. (although I dearly wish I could arrange them myself). Now to do something with this as the inspiration.

I am so middle of the road!!

A Bit Of Both You are 50% Calvin and 50% Hobbes

Calvin & Hobbes, like a scruffy yin and yang, are in perfect balance within you. Like Calvin, you're weird, a bit insecure, and can be a trouble-maker. But like Hobbes, you're down to earth and sensitive. It's a risk to say it here, after just a ten question test, but I'll bet you're smarter than most. Both Calvin and Hobbes are crafty, clever characters, and any one made from equal parts of each is a force to be reckoned with.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 31% on calvin You scored higher than 27% on hobbes

Link: The Calvin Or Hobbes Test written by gwendolynbooks on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Attention Left Coasters.

Tuesday I headed down to The Claremont in Berkeley to check out the classes from the inaugural session of Art Quilt Claremont. Lots of work happening in those classes!!

The instructors who "made the cut" were Jane Dunnewold, Elizabeth Barton, Katie Pasquini-Masopust, and Terrie Mangat. (they had enough students for the classes to go). There was intensive work going on in every classroom.

And here's the important news for us left-coasters. Among the instructors for next year is:

RAYNA GILLMAN .

I signed up for her class while I was there.

Now the website won't be updated for a while, so you can't go there yet and sign up, but if you've wanted to take a class from her, this is a good chance!! As a bonus, Gerrie and I will be there!! Check out Gerrie's blog for updates from this week. Heck, if you don't live on the left-coast, come out for the workshop anyway!! It can't be as rainy next year as it's been this year, can it??

Sigh... Ok I've got to rethink one..

It's NOT Winding Way... It's Winds of Change.

Ya know I read this thing about 5 times while I working on it and I never noticed that.

So the maze thing (that circular prayer thing the name of which I can't remember).. will have to go as a symbol. Darn. I was actually looking forward to stitching that.

Ok...let's think...

Crazy Aunt Purl's Horrorscope...

I know you were waiting:

CANCER (June 22 - July 22)
I have been working on your chart for weeks now. It was unclear to me why I was unable to see a single discernable truth, then I realized: You are me. We are the same, and my utter lack of introspection and self-evaluation is keeping your reading masked from me. And the truth is that while we seem to be caught in some deep psychic fog,(my bolding) we're making progress. Financially, it feels like there's a weight on us we'll never break through. At the same time, we're already making plans for how to get the money situation under control. (Not like the gloomy days of years past when we just hid from these issues, you know?) I say ya'll, we should make a pact to ignore our demons and fears for the month of April and wander blissfully through this month together (well, blissfully as we can, I mean come on -- we're Cancers). Maybe all our old fears will get bored in the waiting room of April and go haunt someone else, like the Libras for a change.

From Sucking Bilge Water To a Colorful Conclusion

Ok, I had a couple ideas for the Ricky Tims thing... Nice line drawings... yucky executed in color and fabric. I tried it a couple ways.

The main idea: come up a nice "landscape" of a Tuscan/NoCal. kind of countryside... with a terraced vineyard, an olive grove and a road winding through and all this and up and around a hillside. Then close up pieces of the olive grove and the terraced vineyard. (and future pieces possible from dividing the picture up different ways).

Let's just say, great idea, dreadful execution. Interesting line drawings in black and white; dreadful colored in. Yeah, I even thought about doing them as black/white line drawings.

So anyway, the rules said to abstract the ideas... so I am really abstracting thing. I've painted up some nice background fabrics... and will abstract the ideas from there.

The piece to the left is the plain fabric painted as one piece. Today I cut it into pieces, fused it to some TimTex and quilting it (to represent the ground and the sky). The left piece will be Fields of Gold; the middle, Winding Way; the right, Tree of Life. And this picture is sideways.




I need to bead these pieces with the symbols that will represent these objects. (that should take me a day or two), and zigzag finish the edges.

OK.. a question. I cropped and edited this piece in Picasa. So why isn't saved cropped?? And how do you SAVE an edited image from Picasa? There isn't a "save" option. So why, when I view the pictures in my "My Pictures" folder, are the changes from Picasa not saved?

And Answers

#1. If you could choose a name for yourself, other than the one you have, what would it be?

Gretchen. Gretchen March. Gretchen because it was my familiar nickname as a kid, and atleast every 5th female born in the 50s wasn't named that; March because since I read Little Women in 4th grade, I've imagined myself the fifth (and unknown) March girl.

Either that or Lillian Jade. It's a very melodic name, but I have trouble thinking of myself as a Lillian.

#2. If I really wanted to annoy someone, I would continually do this:

(OK, did anyone point out that this isn't a question???)

Correct their grammar.

#3 What's the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?

Yeah, I'm going to tell you!! Let's just say I got home from work that day and burned the dress!!

Another one of the most memorable embarrassing things I've done is wear a dayglo orange to Sunday mass at our huge church. On St. Patrick's Day.

#4. How many jokes do you know by heart?

None. Though if you tell the joke, I can screw up the punchline!!

#5. What are you most neurotic about?

Most neurotic?? Who says I'm neurotic?? What have you heard?? Yeah. I'm most neurotic about the idea of people talking about me behind my back.

#6. If you were to give yourself a creative title for your personal business card, what would it say?

The last creative title I stole for myself: TechnoMage. One who uses technology to create magic. (I'm offering a prize to the person who can name the TV show this came from, because I don't remember the name!!)

Ok, my friend SongBert reminded me of the correct name: Crusade. It was the short-lived off-shoot program from Babylon 5.

Questions

Ok, I an SO stealing this from the Mommybloggers... Comment here that you are answering the questions on your own blog. Then copy, paste and answer!! Or answer in the comments if you wish and you don't have a blog (Del).

#1. If you could choose a name for yourself, other than the one you have, what would it be?

#2. If I really wanted to annoy someone, I would continually do this: (OK, did anyone point out that this isn't a question???)

#3 What's the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?

#4. How many jokes do you know by heart?

#5. What are you most neurotic about?

#6. If you were to give yourself a creative title for your personal business card, what would it say?

The quiz dujour

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is a multi dimensional wonderland, with many layers. You're the type that always has multiple streams of though going. And you can keep these thoughts going at any time. You're very likely to be engaged in deep thought - and deep conversation.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Opening of the Season

We spent the day doing chores: grocery shopping, vacuuming and dusting. And I also went to Papa Murphy's to pick of the traditional "opening day of a sports season" pizza. They make a really nice fresh, uncooked pizza which you take home and bake in your own oven. And the will put most of the cheese on one side, so I don't have to deal too much with the effects of eating dairy.

Yum.

Pizza came out of the oven just as Jon Miller began introducing the night's event: Tommy's Chicago White Sox vs. My Cleveland Indians.

Go TRIBE!! My time of cheering for the White Sox is over until and unless they remain in the October playoffs longer than the Tribe does.

Let me just say, it's really strange to see Jim Thome playing in the game... and trying to beat Cleveland.

The game is scoreless, and I will go before now and watch.

Baseball has begun...Life is good again.

It never rains in California..

but it pours!! I know I've been whining about the rain a lot lately, but there is a reason.

Thursday we set a record; it became the rainiest March on record, raining all but 5 days in the month. And to keep the record going.. it also rained Friday, Today and is predicted to rain every day through next weekend.

I am growing gills!!

I spend hours during the day watching the sky and waiting for a good one hour dry spell to go for a walk. Some days I find it; many I don't. I swear my mood will improve as soon as I see a little sun and get more physical activity.

In the meantime, I'm working on perfecting the sketches for the Microcosm thing.