Mosaic Quilt

This week, I made a mosaic quilt.
I had attended a class in August taught by Tammy Bowser, who developed this method. She wrote a software program that allows you to enter a photo, and it will print out this paint-by-number type graph. You decide how large your finished piece will be, and how many colors you would like to use. The examples she had at her booth in Nashville were striking. Her uncle was a jazz musician in the 50's and she had wonderful photo mosaics of musicians playing and singing jazz.

I used 15 colors, divided into light, medium and dark color values. I placed a tricot fusible over the chart, and placed my squares over the numbers. I then fused them down with my mini iron, (and I have the burns to prove it!) My squares were 1/2 inches. This is my work in progress...can you tell who it is??

I finished it today, it's Bill! (Love Bill) Now, I have to peel off the fusible tricot and layer it over the batting and backing and quilt it together. I hope to give it to Janey for Christmas.

Dana's Magnolia Quilt

This weekend, before the kids came, I machine quilted this quilt for my friend Dana. She couldn't remember what the name of the pattern was, so we just call it the Magnolia quilt. I was a little distracted when I was taking the photo at the end, so I didn't get a close up of the quilting, but I was happy with it. I used a pantograph called Dynasty and she picked a beautiful sage green thread color. It is a Christmas gift for her Mom, who is also a quilter. She just has to put the binding on. Yikes, Christmas!! I've been so focused on the upcoming election, I haven't even started to think about the Holidays this year!

Michael's Birthday Weekend

This weekend, my husband turned the big Six Two! (I, being a mere one year over the half century mark, don't mind announcing this to the world). We had a great family celebration. His children and grandchildren came up from Miami. The girls rode bikes up and down our long driveway, despite intermittent sprinkles. Abby still has her training wheels on, but it won't be long now!
She is participating in some kind of a bike rodeo at school this week where the kids raise money for St. Jude's hospital. Abby donated all of the money in her family's change jar, over $35. to St. Jude's! We were very proud of her for being so thoughtful. Haley was working hard to keep up on her trike.

Abby has inherited some of her grandpa's gardening genes. Her Mom calls her Diggy, because she loves to dig in the dirt!
She and Grandpa planted some tomatoes, and checked on the progress of the beans they planted last time.


The girls have thier own tools and gardening gloves...too cute!
Then, we played endless games of Candyland when the rain started falling more heavily.
Our best friend made a HUGE pan of lasagna and a beautiful bread braid. We had a great cake made to look like a Chikee hut, and we all wore leis to sing Happy Birthday!

In The Garden

Yesterday, I played hookey from work...well as much as I ever can. The work is still there waiting for me, I just didn't go in to do it until late afternoon. Instead, I painted some words on a gate into the garden for my husband. He had been asking me, and it had been raining so it was too wet to paint until today. I am not used to working outside in the 90 degree heat and humidity. What's up with that? It's October for goodness sake. I felt like I was going to keel over, just standing there painting! Then he took me out to lunch, at our favorite local hole in the wall that has great food. It felt like a vacation day!

Last night, we had quilt guild. We had a speaker who has a degree in textiles and is a conservator of vintage quilts. She had a trunk show and did a really interesting presentation. My favorite quilt was a silk pineapple log cabin quilt in black and peach. Probably the peach was once red, and had faded. But it was a striking combination still.
Well, I am off to work. Wish I could take the day off to sew, haven't been able to do much of that this week.

Crisp, Light, Refreshing!

Well, I have embarked upon a personal challenge that is long overdue. I am not proud of this, but for over 30 years, I have had a serious diet Pepsi habit. To the point that my friends have expressed concern for years over the contents of my recycling bins. (That's bins, plural!)
Last month, when I caught a bug from my grandkids, I didn't drink any soda. I was too sick to even think about it. And I went through the full spectrum of caffeine withdrawal, which is never pretty. After I got through it, I just decided that I never wanted to go through that again, could not continue to poison myself. I have switched to water, which is different. I am definitely a more mellow person without all the caffeine. And I feel free. It is nice to not have to constantly be thinking about whether I have enough soda to get me through the day. I have saved a ton of money, too. Maybe 6 to 8 dollars a day!
I remember when I was a teenager, some friends of mine told me about a woman who lived in our town who was an alcoholic. She had bottles of whiskey stashed every couple of feet along the rural road where we lived. She would go out to walk her dogs and drink from her stash. They thought it was funny to steal her bottles. I really didn't have any exposure to addiction then, but I remember thinking even then that it was not funny.
I indulged in similar behavior. I carried soda in my car, had it stocked under my desk at home, in my sewing room, at the hospital, at my business, in the garage...and I was seriously longing for small refrigerators in every room where I spent time. I would easily just drink one can right after another. If I was out of soda, I would invent trips to the store. While shopping, I could never pass by the soda coolers right near the checkout without getting a nice cold one. My Mom and my husband hated the habit, and I always felt guilty about it.
Looking back, I can't even explain the attraction. I didn't LOVE the taste. It made my heart race and gave me headaches and messed up my sleep patterns. I guess I would drink it as a substitute for eating. But I know I've lost weight since I have stopped drinking it.
So, it's been 20 days. Do I miss it? Sometimes. I still have my stash all over the place. I guess this week I will go through and round it up and...not really sure what to do with it. My quilt guild meets this Thursday night. We hold our meetings at a church that has a food pantry. It isn't really food, but I guess I might just drop it off there. Maybe someone would want it while playing Bingo at the church or something. I guess soda is marginally more socially acceptable to donate than say, unwanted cigarettes after someone quits smoking.
Anyway, that's my story. There is life after Diet Soda! And it's good. Life is good.

It is Fall here in South Florida! What that means at our house is apple pies, and time spent on the porches. Last night, Michael cooked a delicious dinner and we ate by candlelight on the breakfast porch

After dinner, we hung out on the front porch. I did some work on the computer, and Michael read the paper. A soft rain was falling, which is great, the garden is thirsty! We slept with the windows open and the fans on. I love this time of year!

Working on the Cranes

Today, I am working on the crane quilt.

My husband is out of town for a few days on a fishing adventure with his best friend. So I am free to sew ! It seems so quiet here without him. I have been looking forward to this time alone to work on my projects, but now that it is here, it feels wierd.

Here it is up on the design wall. Still not sure about the color of the little blocks between the cranes. But, will move beyond that for the moment and start to cut my squares for the borders.

I have also just figured out how to move photos around in the blog, a blogging breakthrough of gigantic proportions for me, as I have been struggling with it for weeks.