Piecing Away!

I know I've been quiet for the past week, but the good news is that I've gotten in a significant amount of sewing. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm working on a quilt with a September deadline and am up against the fact that I will be away from home for an entire week at a conference and pre-conference workshop (hooray, San Francisco, here I come!).

Here are quick photos of some of the 120 blocks that make up this quilt - 60 light and 60 dark. I now have 115 of the 120 blocks totally done and the remaining 5 are about 2/3 pieced. One third of the quilt is totally pieced together, the remaining blocks are sewn in pairs, and the backing is in the dryer (I got smart and had the quilt shop cut it into three three yard segments to make it easier for me to manage).



Do you think I can finish in time? I'm pretty much down to tonight and tomorrow morning. I think I can... I think I can!

iPods and Podcasts

I cashed in on my credit card points to purchase a refurbished iPod Nano, as my old iPod was no longer holding the charge well. Quite an adventure: the first shipment arrived from the vendor and the box was completely empty. Nothing inside. No inner box with the iPod, no invoice, no air-filled pouches to keep things from rattling. (Ben called me crazy when I picked up the shipment and told him I thought there was nothing inside: he reminded me that they're much smaller nowadays than back when my first one was made, so of course the box should have been light.) But I was right: no iPod. Bummer. After some waiting, the vendor did come through and shipped another iPod, thankfully.

But look at that difference in size: at left is my first iPod, purchased for my birthday in October 2002. 10 gigabytes of storage. At right, the Nano, 8 gigabytes of storage. It is SO tiny in comparison! Don't you love the case? I picked it up at the local Apple Store; made by Agent18. Brown and blue with lovely little flowers (look at the vendor site for a picture of the back of the case.) I don't think Ben will run off with mine by accident. Do you?

The first thing that I was sure to do was to download via iTunes some quilting-related podcasts to my iPod - Alex Anderson's Quilt Connection and Annie Smith's Quilting Stash. Then I had to get NPR's Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, This American Life, and a new one Back Story with the American History Guys (I'm still not sure how I feel about the last one). Do you listen to any good podcasts, quilting-related or not? If so, what are they?

I've been madly sewing blocks and will share some photos with you soon.

Quilt Exhibit - MSU

Journey to Freedom Memory Quilt, Close-Up
Boitumelo Quilting Group
South Africa
Made for an event at the University of South Africa reflecting on the demise of apartheid. Each square represents one woman's memories.

We drove to Lansing two weekends ago to visit our college friends Erica and Mark. Had a great time catching up with them and found time to fit in a few quilting-related activities, including a visit to local shop Country Stitches. I'd never been to the shop in Lansing, but had driven to their store in Jackson a number of times when we were living in Ann Arbor. Found a few more Christmas-related projects (I need more of those like I need a hole in the head) and helped Erica with some quilting questions (I hope she'll share photos when she's made headway).

We were lucky enough to catch the free exhibit Quilts and Human Rights, which is at the Michigan State University Museum, just minutes from their house. According to the museum's website, the "exhibition [explores] the role that quiltmakers have played in raising awareness of human rights issues around the world and the power of textiles to communicate important ideas and information... [featuring] inspiring and often provocative quilts made to document and express transgressions of human rights, to educate others about human rights issues, and to pay tribute to leaders of human rights movements."



Southern Heritage, Southern Shame
Gwendolyn Magee
Jackson, MS
Response to the failure of a 2001 referendum within the state of Mississippi to adopt a flag without the Confederate battle emblem.



The quilts really were inspiring and touched on a wide range of human rights issues, including apartheid, U.S. bombings abroad, lynchings in the United States, incarceration rates, AIDS, etc. In all, a nice exhibition for a museum on a college campus (although personally, I was a bit concerned about the environmental conditions in the building - it was horrendously hot and humid inside the day that we were there; certainly not good for collections).

The other images I took are available in my Picasa album.

Quilts & Human Rights

The exhibit runs through the 24th, so you still have time to check it out, if you're in the area.

Four Seasons Quilt Swap - Received

I've been monitoring the mail ever since the mailing deadline for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap, and Ben surprised me when he picked my up yesterday by bringing along a package that looked like it might be my quilt. Sure enough, it was.

Isn't this quilt absolutely gorgeous? It was made by Jeanne Mitchell of Perry, Oklahoma. Inspired by what she says are the only flowers she can get to grow: her purple coneflowers. It's almost as if she knew that purple coneflowers are my favorite flower and if I could, I'd have a whole field full of them.

I love the colors and they definitely make me think of summer. And it's handquilted. Some day I might get brave enough to try that.



I've hung the quilt in a place where I can see it regularly, and where I often find that I could use a bit of an uplift: in my cubicle at work. Jeanne also included a CD of summer songs to which I look forward to listening.

Really, this swap was a ton of fun and I would definitely do another one. I heard from Margaret, who organized this one, that she won't be doing one in the fall (I can totally understand how life gets busy), so I'll have to look for another option.

Four Seasons Swap - Finished

My quilt is now in the mail to Oregon and seeing as I don't think my recipient reads my blog, I thought I'd share with you photos of my finished project. As you might recall, the swap rules are pretty simple: a quilt between 16 and 20 inches square, with a "summer" theme. You can pretty much go anywhere you might like with it.

I settled on ice cream, as you probably already knew. Here's the finished view:


I'd originally wanted to do an ice cream truck and some music like Pop, Goes the Weasel!, but when I realized the actual size I'd be working in, I didn't think I had the skill to pull off something that detailed in the relatively limited amount of space. So, I went pretty basic.

I'm not sure how I feel about it; it's really my first original design effort, other than a small quilt I made for the guild's coffee cup challenge a few years ago. I was inspired by advertising for ice cream in general (do a Google image search on some particular products, like "ice cream sandwich" or "ice cream bar" and you'll see what I mean) and wanted to make it fun and bright.

Now, I don't generally do a lot of applique, so this is a bit of a departure and a challenge. I did my best - downloaded a fun font from online called Heartbreaker (I think this is the one!), used it to type out the words for the quilt at the right size, printed it out, cut the letters apart and taped them back together so I could get the desired level of "overlappingness."



I had fun quilting the cone to really look like a cone. And I sewed bugle beads on the top scoop to look like sprinkles. Not being experienced in beading, I hope that they stay on. Had a few miscues with beading needles and such, but they do seem to be well affixed. Ben helped me a bit with drawings of ice cream sandwiches and cones. Thanks a million, honey!

This was a fun challenge, but I must say I'm relieved to have it finished and in the mail. I waited to the last minute yet again, and this caused more than a bit of stress. I'll certainly be checking my own mail in the coming days to see what fun quilt I might receive. I still need to upload my images to Flickr with tags for the group, but will do so soon. You can search on the "4sqssum08" tag to find those images already there. Quite an inspiring group; very interesting to see how many directions the theme can lead.

Now it's time to get started on a major project that has a mid-September deadline.

St. Louis, Baseball, and Hogwarts

Since we moved to Milwaukee 4+ years ago, we’ve been talking about going to St. Louis to add a Busch Stadium to the list of those we have visited. But we just never seemed to get around to it. We finally got around to it this year! Unfortunately the Brewers were not in town for a weekend series at all this year, so we settled for seeing the cellar-dwelling Padres in a weekend series July 19 and 20.

Boy, did we pick the wrong weekend to go: we had bleacher seats for Saturday afternoon’s game at 94 degrees and in the sun the entire time. Thankfully we enjoyed Sunday’s 96 degree heat in the shade along the first base line. It’s a nice park for the most part: check out the view of the Arch from behind the plate! We have some cool panoramas as well, but I don’t know how well you'll be able to view it. (The one I have included here isn't sewn together too well because I really want to get this up and done with, so my apologies. At least you get the idea.) While it’s a nice park, I also have to say that it is an expensive park. SRO tickets are $21 if that gives you any indication. A bottle of water or soda: $5. You can bring things in with you, but keep in mind that in 90+ heat, you need to find it somewhere close by if you’re from out of town. And there really is NOTHING close to the park where you can find such amenities. No Walgreen’s. No CVS. No convenience stores. No gas stations. Thankfully there was one street vendor and we were able to purchase a couple of bottles of water for $2 each. After draining them, we refilled the bottles from lukewarm drinking fountains spread throughout the park. At least it was wet! Cardinals won both games, with come-from-behind wins, and we saw Yadier Molina win Sunday’s game with a 9^th inning walk-off grand slam!

We stayed at a B&B a couple of miles from the park in the Lafayette Park neighborhood. The private drive on which the B&B was located had a number of really cool houses built between 1860 and 1890. Apparently, at that time, it would have been a gated drive with a keeper at the end of the street. The houses don’t look all that big from the street, but looks can be deceiving: they extend back from the road in really deep lots.

We didn’t really check out Lafayette Park, which was right at the end of the street, but we did have an opportunity to run the 6-mile route around the outside Forest Park, which wasn’t too far away. The B&B owner gave us the low-down on where to park and what to expect; loads of people were out in the morning, when it was still relatively cool and there was a more than welcome light rain. Would love to go back to check out the history and art museums and it seems like there’d be lots of opportunity to develop longish running routes through the central portions of the park (if we'd had more time, running along the Mississippi would also have been fun).

In addition to the baseball games, we did take the trip up into Gateway Arch. Ben hadn't been up before and wanted to check it out; I'd been up with my parents in December 1994 when we made a college visit to Wash U. (I'm dating myself now). We learned the hard way that times are different post-9/11 and in the summer vacation period. If you go: buy your tickets in advance online!! If you do not, you will have to wait outside to get through the security checkpoint so that you can wait in line downstairs under the Arch to buy tickets so that you can wait until your appointed time to go up, which can be hours later. Because the next available time was in the middle of the ball game, we opted to purchase tickets for a trip up the next day, which meant we had to wait in line again for the security checkpoint. Arg! We did check out the late 1960s/early 1970s-era film that they made about the construction of the arch, and it's worth it if you have time.

We also found our way to Platform 9-3/4. Here's Ben awaiting the Hogwarts Express. Actually, this is portion of wall within Union Station painted to invoke Harry Potter. Do you think they had to put the stanchion up because too many kids had a run at the wall trying to find the train? The Whispering Wall in the station really does work (if you follow the instructions, unlike the people who tried ahead of us), and the central portion of the station is absolutely gorgeous. This photo really doesn't do it justice.


Last stop before we headed for home: Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on the Old Route 66. We're a bit mystified as to why they call their flurry-type product a "concrete," as it exhibits none of the properties of concrete (if it were frozen solid, ok, I'd get it), but it was a welcome reprieve, nonetheless. Ben says Kopp's is better. I say that any frozen treat on a 96 degree day is more than welcome! (Well, maybe not sherbet. Or orange dreamsicles.)

A quilting-related post soon, I promise!

Four Seasons Quilt Swap - Sneak Peak

Yes, I finally began the process of moving from idea to reality for my Four Seasons Quilt Swap. Time is running out and I still have a good amount to go, but I am also showing this picture of the quilt where it stood somewhat earlier in the course of the day than when I left off last evening. Betcha can't guess what my main topic might be? I'm not sure I'll give many more sneak peaks because anything more will give a lot away. Gotta have this done and in the mail by two weeks from Thursday. I do think this will be doable, although I will be putting in some significant hours very soon.

Haven't done a whole lot of sewing over the past week because we had to take care of all of the cherries that we picked while we were in Ohio. Free cherries off my Grandma's tree. How perfect! Cherry jam is my favorite - second only to raspberry! But I have learned the important lesson that 5 gallons of unpitted cherries is a LOT of cherries. A one gallon tub stuffed to the top with the lid on is enough - pretty much exactly - to make a double batch of jam. Three double-batches and 39 jars of cherry jam later, and we were pooped. And still had 2 gallons of cherries to deal with! We opted to pit them, add sugar, and bag them for the freezer so we can enjoy them over the course of the winter. If anyone has any good recipes for sour cherries, I'd love to hear about them!

Probably not too much quilting this week as we're hosting a small All-Star Game party tomorrow night. My favorite player - Corey Hart - was voted in as the final player. Don't ask how many times I voted (I couldn't actually tell you, but it was a lot!). We also had fun this past weekend going to two games between the Brewers and the Reds. It's getting really tough for me to go to those games - I can't root against the Reds, but I want to root for the Brewers because they need to keep up with the evil Cubs and Cardinals. Unfortunately, the Brewers lost both of the games we went to and I still didn't see Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a home run (although I did see Adam Dunn hit two in one game).