Quilters Sweat Shop

We had a fine quilty day today. Instead of having our usual mini-group meeting for the UFO (UnFinished Objects), we met at Teddy Bear Quilts to have a work party. Our mini-group and the guild are making a memorial quilt for our friend and member Norma Viglienzone, who lost her son in Iraq when his Humvee was hit by an IED on February first. Caesar was an only child, and Norma and Dennis are obviously grieving. As quilters, we had to do something , so of course we decided to make a quilt. Doh!

Aided by Norma's sister and group member Vandy, we obtained a number of pictures of him from the slideshow presented at his memorial service. Vandy printed them on fabric and SR Quilt Guild members donated tons of patriotic fabric. I designed the quilt to be able to deal with the different sizes of the photos and today we got together to make the blocks.

Here is a shot of a few of the workers, Jackie in front on the left, Lynn in the yellow shirt, Carolynn and Angie are behind Lynn. On the right, in back, is Linda and Pat has her back to the camera. The gorgeous quilt top in the back of the room is owner Jim's block of the month program for 2006, and the blocks are gorgeous.
Heres a shot of Barbara, Phyllis (in red) and Vandy. Pat is peeking out from behind.



Heres a picture of Linda, hanging out in the back room where we had to overflow and stash the ironing board.

Finally, here is a picture of the blocks we finished in the workshop today. Pretty good work, don't you think?

Amazing myself....

with my productivity.

I finished friendship blocks for two members of my quilt guild. To the right is Marilyn's block. Marilyn requested that we use any method to create a block that shows our personal muse--that force driving us to make the quilts we do. My muse invades my brain in the wee hours and busies me with ideas for new projects. The same force also nags me about UFOs, WIPs and PIGs (Unfinished Objects, Works in Progress and Projects in Grocery Sacks to the uninformed.) I used MS Publisher to create the dream bubble and included some of my favorite quilt blocks and notions and on the left is my logo, a little girl stitching with patches flying all around her head. I titled it "My Muse is Moonlight Madness," and lest you think this is an ode to midlife insomnia, I'll have you know that I've been visited by this selfsame muse for most of the 30 years I've been a quilter. The embroidered saying is intentionally quirky as I used the swirls in the background fabric to help form my letters. It ended up a bit more primitive than I'd hoped, but I didn't want to fire up the embroidery machine at that point.


To the left is a block for Pat M., who requested blocks representing Sonoma County. Pat and her husband plan to retire to Oregon at some point in the future and she wants a block that represents her home and friends here in Sonoma County. I chose the Fountaingrove Round Barn, a relic left from Thomas Lake Harris' utopian community founded in 1875. We live in one of the subdivisions that dot the hills above the Round Barn, a neighborhood known as Fountaingrove, so I chose the barn as my representation. Rather than try to embroider the name of the barn, I took a digital picture of the sign and printed it on a treated fabric sheet as I did the eyes, dream bubble and clock in the "Muse" block.

Finally, here is the row I submitted to Phyllis in January for the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild's 2006 Sew-A-Row program. It is a mini-row, measuring perhaps 18" long and features Civil War reproduction fabrics.
That's it for today.

Getting Caught Up

I've been hopelessly behind in working on a few sewing projects and was actually able to do some catch-up over the last few days.

At the right, are four of the Eensy Weensy blocks (4 1/2 inch finished) that I'm exchanging with my pal Nancy, Near Philadelphia. My blocks are coming from Judy Hopkins' book Around the Block Again. The top two blocks, Grandmother's Pride on the left and Glacier Bay on the right are catch-ups for January. On the bottom row, Jack's Delight is for April and Mosaic is for May. Nosy Gretl is pictured in front. Sensibly, we've cut back to one block per month. Now that I've adjusted to working small (as in--I'm paper piecing them) things are going much faster. Now I have only to do my blocks!

The other project is the Sew-A-Row for 2006 masterminded by Phyllis. I added the top row of circle of life blocks, the middle row of checkerboard was started by Vandy and the bottom row as pieced by Pam. I'm still trying to decide if I want to add some tiny white heart buttons to the centers of each "flower." Two more people will work on this project between now and the end of October and we'll draw names among the participants to see who gets to keep it. I'm actually done early with this one, which is a shock.

Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting is one of my favorite quilting magazines ever. I've been quilting since 1975 and began subscribing to Quilter's Newsletter Monthly shortly thereafter. While QNM is a great magazine as well, you just can't beat the projects in Love of Quilting. Not only that, F & P gives our guild a rebate on each subscription the guild sends in as a group! You can't beat that kind of marketing, can you?????

On the nature front, hubby spotted a coyote meandering up our street this morning and I got outside in time to catch a glimpse of him. During the three years we've been here, we have seen a fair number of wild turkeys and deer, but never a coyote before. We live in a suburban subdivision in the hills above Santa Rosa, but with 80 or more homes, it is hardly rural. I hope the little guy was able to move out to the hills behind us safely....

Visit With a Healthy Toddler

I got to spend three days last week with Mr. B. and his parents, and amazingly, he was healthy which made us all happy! His Mom said that he was fond of twice baked potatoes, so we made some. He went crazy for the beaters when I mashed the potatoes. Once baked, he loved that too, but he tried to share the skin with the kitty, who wasn't having any of it.


Kate said that he liked vanilla yogurt, and I'll let the picture speak for itself. =) He ate continuously while I was there and even offered to share bites of his waffle. (Icky, but his heart was in the right place.) We had all sorts of fun and he was a good sport about the quilt shop, having been indoctrinated early.

On the home front, we have been working in the yard every afternoon and have moved through about 2/3 of the flower beds. Our nasty clay soil, though heavily amended when we first planted, is back to it's usual self in some places, so we are amending yet again. Thankfully, our homemade compost is saving the day.

On the book front, I finished Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright, an odd tale of a young man born to abolitionist parents in the pre-Civil War era. Very quirky, but entertaining.

Happy Birthday Kato!!!!

Happy 28th Birthday to my beloved daughter Kate!

Kate made her appearance at St. Mary's Hospital in Reno, Nevada on Saturday, April 22, 1978 at 2:26 p.m. She was two weeks early by the Dr.'s calculations and weighed in at 6 lbs., 4 oz. and 20 inches long.

After a stay of a couple of days at the hospital, Kate came home and began getting the lay of the land. Her Grandmother Brackett was there to help out and Kate returned the favor by letting her have the early a.m. shift during the scream-a-thon that became a daily/nightly ritual.

She is pictured at the left with me on the day after her birth.

The first year of Kate's life was very long. She hated being a helpless baby and as each milestone passed and she became more independent, her attitude improved considerably.

In the blink of an eye, Kate was chomping down some cake on her first birthday. Her party had an all-star cast including her Grandparents Marge and Jack Gibson, her Grandparents John and Wilma Brackett (she is pictured with her Poppi B. at right), Poppi's sister Aunt Madaline and her husband Merle, Madaline's son, Cousin Barry and his new bride Tova, and Aunt Gail Morris and her family.

Kate impressed one and all by taking five steps between her father and mother that day with all the witnesses. It may be noted that she didn't walk independently again for two months!! Talk about a show off!

A few years later, Kate and I went to Disneyland with our long-time friend Chris and her daughter Mallory to celebrate Kate's 4th birthday. To the left, she is pictured on her bike wearing her souvenir Mickey Mouse ears and T-shirt.

During her Junior year of college, step-sister and bosom buddy Sarah was studying abroad at the University of Leeds in England. We decided to celebrate their mututal 21st birthdays (Sarah is in one week on the 29th) by taking Kate to England with us when we visited Sarah. The girls took a 24 hour trip to Paris while we slept off the trip and we ended

up in an Edinburgh, Scotland pub to celebrate their first legal drink together. (Even though neither was quite 21 and the drinking age in the U.K. is 18). Aren't they beautiful??

Kate continued to grow up to be a wonderful woman. She's married to Steve and mother of the amazing Mr. B.

So, on your 28th birthday, I say to you, my darling daughter, happy, happy day and many, many more. I love you tons!!

xoxoxoxoxo
your mommo

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Today is the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake, sanitized to be known in history as the "Great San Francisco Fire" so as not to inhibit rebuilding of that great, but shaky city. The quake occurred at 5:12 a.m.

At that time, my grandmother was 17 years old and living with her mother in the city. My great grandmother, Rachel Samuel is the woman seated on the left side of the shanty they jokingly named "Cafe Tincana." The young woman standing to the right pouring tea is either my grandmother Emma or her older sister Etta. I've not been able to identify the others in the picture. Hubby and I were watching a special on KRON/4 Sunday night and one of the pictures that flashed on the screen was of Rachel taken from a different angle.

My grandmother died when I was eight years old, so I never heard about the event from her, and by the time I asked my great-aunt, Etta about it, she really didn't remember much. Too bad, I would love to know the stories of my family members who were there.

According to the shows we watched, much of the city was rebuilt without proper building codes in order that rebuilding progress as quickly as possible. Scary!

I love San Francisco and always will, but I hope the next BIG one happens when I'm not there!

Fun Quilty Stuff

Last weekend, I got to go to the Napa quilt show where I met my buddy Kathy B. from Yolo and her school nurse buddy Debbie and Debbie's sister Stephanie. Debbie and Stephanie are new quilters, being mentored by Kathy and they were on a mission to find Southwestern fabric for a quilt for a relative in Arizona. After the show, we visited Quiltmaker in downtown Napa before heading our separate ways.
Pictured to the left is my new pincushion, purchased at the quilt show. She is made of a couple of log cabin blocks in sweet 1930's reproduction fabrics and I've named her Gretl.

Lately, I've been working on a swap of "Widdle Biddy Blocks" with my pal Nancy, near Philadelphia. I was soooooo behind in making the blocks that we declared a three month break from January to March so I could catch up (not to mention the birth of Nancy's grandson Sam on February 1st!!!). Here are my blocks for August through December (2 per month). Nancy got caught up with the six blocks for January, February and March and I still have those to do. We've decided to continue on at one block per month, which will be much easier to stay up on.

I have other swap blocks of 1930's repros and think I may use one of Judy Martin's fabulous new sets from her book Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts. Judy has been a quilt maven since the early resurgence of quilting in the late 70's and I try to collect all of her books. Not always easy as she owns her publishing company and some are out-of-print, but Ebay and Half.com have come through for me more than once.

Tomorrow, I'll be working on some Frienship Blocks for guild, so more later.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Part II

I got home from Fresno today, weak in the knees, having contracted another intestinal virus from Mr. B. during his stay at Children's Hospital Central California. After a 36 hour stint in the E.R., he was finally admitted Monday morning. He seemed to be perking up until Monday night when he and his Mommy suddenly started having gastric distress from both North and South Poles. Yikes! Of course, it was 2 dirty diapers later that the RN on duty told me to glove up when changing him. She told me that no matter how hard I scrubbed, I would miss something and boy howdy was she ever right.

They sent Mr. B. home Tuesday night sans his IV hep-lock, hoping all would be well, but it wasn't, so we ended up back at Kaiser in a treatment room while they juiced him up on IV fluids. It was very scary to watch him lying there so listless and not responding and when the lab work came back, his blood sugar was only 40! I don't know about kids, but an adult with that blood sugar would not be doing too well!! He began to perk up and ate pretzels, slugged Pedialyte and was sent home with the IV in place. This morning he was given the go-ahead and they removed the IV. He lost 5 pounds in a week and a half, but I predict that like when he had rotavirus, he'll eat like a longshoreman and beef up quickly.

On the other hand, for six lovely hours Wednesday afternoon and evening, I was, well, nevermind. I'm OK today, just weak and very tired, so we drove home and I slept in the car most of the way home and took a huge nap when we got here.

His diagnosis? Who knows? The EBV and CMV tests take a minimum of 4 working days, so those results may be in tomorrow. According to the charge nurse at Kaiser Peds, kids have been suffering badly from a wide variety of non-specific viruses this winter, but little flu. Go figure.

Anyway, my precious husband is treating me like Typhoid Mary as we are having a houseful this weekend for the Hearts of Sonoma Valley Barrel Tasting so I need to get well quick

Hopefully that will happen.

Benjamin, my darling, we must stop meeting like this........

Fresno Here I Come

Well, its back on the train and down to Fresno to visit with Mr. B. Sadly, it is not a happy visit as the little bugger is back at Children's Hospital with an unspecified virus that has him down and out. They are testing him for Epstein-Barr / mononucleosis and keeping him in the hospital as he is a bit dehydrated and not eating well. I tell you, hasn't this kid had enough? Not to mention his Mom and Dad!

I can't wait to get there and hug him, but I think I'll pass on the dental exams this time....

On the literature front, I just finished a book loaned to me by daughter Kate, entitled The Time Traveler's Wife by
Audrey Niffenegger. This book absolutely batted it out of the park for me...loved the love story, however improbable and I thought the writer did a fabulous job.

Also a good read, and tackling a very hot subject is My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. It was also a loan from Kate and I was really excited to read this book when I found out what it was about (parents having a child specifically to be a genetic/donor match for an exisiting child who was ill). I loved the story as it unfolded, showing how a family can go totally out of kilter when only one member becomes the focus of the parents' energies.

Finally, I'll be taking Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin, a tale of a fictional Prince and Princess of Wales who are inept, spoiled and totally unprepared to take over the crown in the Queen's estimation. They are exciled to the "colonies" sans clothes and cash and forced to fend for themselves--the modern version of a quest. The author contrives the most hilarious names for his characters and this book has had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion, and I can't wait to see what happens to these clueless castaways next.

'Til I get back....

Girl's Weekend Out!

I had a fun and quilty weekend at a Mystery Quilt Retreat with quilt maven Linda Ballard in the lovely Interstate roadstop town of Williams, CA. The retreat was held at Granzella's Inn and took place Friday night through Sunday afternoon.

What, you ask, is a Mystery Quilt? A mystery quilt is a class in which the participant does not know what the finished product will look like. We are given quantities of fabric to bring and desirable values/scales of the fabric prints that will work well with the design. A certain amount of pre-cutting is required so sewing can begin immediately in class.

I met my online "Fat Quarter" friends (this is the name of an email list we've all belonged to for 8 or 9 years). For the ignorant, Fat Quarter does not indicate a body part. A Fat Quarter is a half yard of fabric that is cut in half horizontally (on the fold) making it still a quarter of a yard, but it is now 18" x 22" instead of 9 1/2" x 44". Capisce? Anyway, Kathy B. from Yolo and Molly E. from Sacramento met me at the retreat and our other partner Nancy M. was unable to join us due to family committments.

We are pictured at right: Ms.Jan, Nurse Kathy and Miss Molly. The teacher's sample is pictured behind us. We considered this a "warm up" weekend for a week-long retreat we will have at Sisters, OR next summer when The Stitchin Post hosts the 31st annual Sisters' Outdoor Quilt Show on July 8th. We will spend the week before the show sewing sweat shop style and of course shopping our little hearts out at the local stores.

My fabric was actually out of my stash and they were nearly 20 years old! I picked out some fabrics that I bought in 1987 or 88 for a Christmas quilt for my son Daniel. He was 7 or 8 when I bought the fabric, he's 25 now, but better late than never I guess. =) And, since his sister's quilt took 18 years, so who is he to hope for a better record? I do promise that Mr. B will get his sooner......

I came home in the rain and it has been blustery as can be today with more predicted for the next week. I'm very glad because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to winter. We did have a few nice weeks sitting on the deck at night and those days will be back, but I'm glad to have a few more days of good sewing and film noir weather.

Happy Birthday Mr. B!!!

I just got back from five days visiting Mr. B (and his parents, of course). =)

Mom and I did some get-ready shopping for his birthday bash on Saturday that was attended by more than 50 adults and children.

But first, a few reminiscenses of February 17, 2005. Benjamin was born at 12:02 am Thursday 02/17/05 after 72 hours of labor on the part of his mother and her attendants (Dad, Nana and Auntie Sarah), but hot-dam was he worth the wait!

The newborn nursery RN who worked him over at birth commented that his head was larger than his chest and suggested that he might end up as a lawyer.......lawyer or not, we like good sized craniums in this clan.

This picture was taken after he got home from the hospital--isn't he adorable?

Here he was on his birthday enjoying his delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs.
Some other changes and milestones:
No more backward facing car seat--yippee!!
The transition from formula to milk.
Is an official "toddler."
Has been walking for about a month (walks like a T. Rex)
Has four words: Mama, Dada, "D" or "Ditty" for their cat D aka Dinah. I tried my best to get him to say "Nana" while I was there, but he waited until after I left.

Here he is with his Mama Kate, who, I can assure you is a whole lot more comfortable than she was a year ago!

We celebrated the official birthday by going out for pizza with Dad and Pop at Me-N-Eds and everyone got to have a beer but Mr. B.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early and we begn the setup for the party.

To the left is a picture of Mr. B enjoying a delicious saltine while posing in front of the "Birthday Card Quilts" I made for him. Using an idea from Sharon F. in the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild, I decided to make mini-quilts for each birthday that could be attached to each other and added-to each year. Thanks for the great idea Sharon!

His "birth" quilt was machine embroidered on my Bernina 440 Aurora using some designs and a font I bought on the internet. It includes some of Benjamin's favorite items (rubber ducky, pacifier) and not-so-favorite (bibs). I hand quilted it on the train ride from Santa Rosa to Fresno during the 3 hour delay. =)

I designed the first birthday card quilt using an alphabet I traced in Electric Quilt 5 and bonded to the background. All the motifs and letters were machine appliqued and then hand quilted.

My idea for the official two year quilt is percolating already, but hey, I have 360 days to procrastinate, so why not?

Happy Birthday my darling Mr. B. I'm so glad you are here!!

I love you,
xoxoxo
nana

Happy Birthday Daisy!!

Happy Birthday to my Mother-In-Law, Daisy, pictured here with her parents Waldo and Grover Pryor of Yonkers Oklahoma sometime in the year 1932, in the middle of the Depression and middle of the Dust Bowl.

The family migrated to California several years later ala the Joads in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, moving around the state before settling in Tipton and then Visalia.

The family included Daisy and her brothers Vernon, Loren and Mark and sister Maida.

Daisy graduated from Visalia Union High School and was married to her sweetheart Bill Andrews as a child bride.

Sadly, Daisy's father Grover passed away not long after her marriage. He was only 40 years old.

Daisy and Bill had two children, Catherine Christine (Chris) in 1951 and William Michael (Mike or Michael) in 1954. The family moved from Visalia to Bakersfield to Salinas to San Jose following Bill's career with the phone company.

Sadly, Bill died in 1984 at the age of 55. Daisy and Bill had recently built their dream home back in Visalia on five acres that they planted with almond trees.

Daisy moved to Carmel, CA with a roommate and while there she encountered Ed, a retired VP from IBM, a widower with 12 mostly grown children.

Daisy and Ed were married 20 years ago and lived in Maryland, Ed's old stomping ground for a time before settling back in Carmel.
She is the adoring (and adored) grandmother of three great kids, Sarah Andrews, Scott Andrews and Stephen Day (right to left in picture).

Daisy is a self-educated woman and well versed on many topics, and one of the two most well-informed people I know (the other being her son, my dear husband). My two very favorite lefties are pictured at the "left".

I treasure time spent with Daisy and look forward to every visit and mostly I wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and MANY MORE!!

Love you lots,
jan

In Memoriam

Most people who know me know that I am not a fan of George Bush and his war in Iraq. Some know that I was in Washington D.C. marching with the thousands who were there to support Cindy Sheehan and the moderate peace action groups who joined her. (There were some uber-left groups there, and I'm not part of that gig). I just do not believe that war is the answer for anything....ever.

Whenever I watch The News Hour or This Week with George Stephanopoulos I wait for the "In Memoriam" segment at the end of the show and I watch the names of the soldiers with their ages and places of residence in silence and privately bless them and wish them well. As each name flashes by, I ponder at the youth of some and when an older soldier comes up I wonder if they have a spouse and children left behind. As a mother, I'm glad that none of my children or their significant others are in harms way, and I sympathize with those mothers whose children are in danger.

Several of my friends in the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild have sons in the military and are members of the local MOMS (mothers of military servicepeople) group. They wear the buttons and insignias of their kid's units proudly and the guild as a whole has joined in supporting the MOMS group by making neck coolers for the soldiers in Iraq and gathering toilet articles, books and other necessities for the troops that our government should supply, but does not.

One friend, N, had her only child, a son aged 21 sent to Iraq in September. N and her husband were lucky enough to spend a number of weeks in Kentucky last summer while C was in training.

Ever since he left, my friend had a "deer in the headlights" look, and I certainly didn't blame her. Who in the world would wish their child--let alone their only child--in a place like that? She was enourmously proud of him as they were a military family and her husband served 20 years in the Navy, but still she worried.

Well, the worst came to pass. On February 1st, his Humvee hit an IED and he was killed in action.

The quilt guild mobilized around the family as did the MOMS group and provided food and letters of comfort. His funeral was yesterday and was standing room only.

It was my first military funeral. The principal speaker was a Brig. Gen. from the 101st Airborne in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. He was an inspiring speaker and I'm sure his words were a comfort to the family. The thought that kept running through my mind was "what a waste of a young human life!"

At the reception afterward, held in the Vet's Hall, some of his cousins did a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of him as a kid and growing up. As a mother, that just about sent me over the edge. My mind cannot imagine the grief these parents must be experiencing. All of their only child's future celebrations--college graduation, wedding, grandchildren--all being mourned this day.

Last night, after a good deal of expensive red wine, I was able to put some of the thoughts behind me, but today during Stephanopoulos "In Memoriam," there they were--more names, more young lives gone.

And this time, the grief became more real because I've seen it up close and personal.

The Gator has pancreatitis and I'm not feeling so good myelf.

We're home from a flying trip to Fresno to see the sicko Mr. B in his recovery from rotavirus. He's doing fine and scarfing up the formula and Cheerios and anything his Mom can shovel in fast enough.

During the course of the illness, he managed to infect his Mom, so we held her hand while she wasn't well and then we came home.....

To our seven year old Miniature Schnauzer Annabel (aka "Gator" short for the Annigator,pictured at right in her sexy marabou collar that Sarah got her for Christmas), who was acting puny and not eating. Swell. A trip to Dr. Patrick and a blood test later, the Gate has been diagnosed with pancreatitis. She is taking a course of antibiotics to prevent secondary infections and pretty much laying around in quilts and sleeping.

That doesn't present a problem for us, having contracted the dreaded rotavirus from our beloved Mr. B., we are pretty much laying low, not eating ourselves. Helluva way to celebrate our Tenth Wedding Anniversary! Not only that, I was scheduled to fly to Ontario, CA with my friend Kathy B to attend the Road to California quilt show through Sunday. After pickup at the Sacramento Airport hubby was going to take me up to Lake Tahoe for a few days. That is still under consideration, but not looking too good at this point. Does this stink, or what?

I'm sure we'll all feel better tomorrow, but right now we are all ready to go to bed without our supper (except Ace, of course).

Poor Mr. B.!

The world's most adorable child, Mr. B., has been stricken this week by the dreaded rotavirus. The poor little guy has been sick for a couple of days with the usual rotavirus symptoms (vomiting, diarrhea) and his Mommy thought maybe he had a touch of food poisoning.

After a four hour visit to Kaiser on Wednesday for IV rehydration and another visit Thursday, he was no better this morning and had the old heave-ho all over Mommy and his Grammie, who was up helping out.

They admitted him this afternoon for stabilization and IV fluids until his poor little gut calms down.

Nana and Pop are worrying from afar and hoping this mess will be over soon.

We love you all and are thinking of you.