The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

My dear Hubby, knowing my love of all things bookish, sent me a recommendation for a book that served as inspiration for the new movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The story is a memoir written by Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former editor-in-chief of the French magazine Elle, who suffered a cerebrovascular accident to his brain stem at the age of 44.

In times of less sophisticated medicine, such a catastrophe would surely have been fatal but Bauby survived, a victim of Locked In Syndrome, unable to control any part of his body but his left eyelid. Through a painstaking method that involves a scribe reciting the entire alphabet in a sequence of letters most frequently used, Bauby dictated this short memoir during July and August of 1996.

The story begins with Bauby's descriptions of daily life and about how his trapped body still feels discomfort, though he cannot even reposition an aching shoulder or ask to have a too-loud television set turned down. He tells of his mental travels to places far away and gourmet meals he consumes in his imagination while being fed via gastric tube. The final chapter tells of the day he suffered the stroke and how ordinarily the day began. A day, supposedly, like any other.

This book is very touching and I highly recommend it to everyone as solemn reminder to enjoy every single day because life can indeed change in the "blink of an eye."

I'm SEW Lucky!

We had the drawing for Sew-A-Rows today at our Holiday Luncheon and I am happy, happy, happy!!

I won the color study on black that Phyllis started, and if that wasn't enough, I also won the 1930's Mini that Betty started.

How lucky can you get?

Not only that, a couple of members presented me with some very precious vintage pieces. I'll photograph them tomorrow in the daylight and post then.

Many more starter rows were also submitted and I think the drawing today encouraged folks to submit more starter rows by our first meeting in January.
One gal, Susan, won four of the five tops she worked on!

After all the excitement, I got to sit and chat with some of the gals who've been sitting at the same table with me since I joined the guild in 2003. We had such a great time chatting--are there any people better than quilters to hang out with?

Dancing and happy in Santa Rosa,

More Eye Candy

I've been working on getting the house decorated for Christmas, so not sewing much. I am working on the first round of Karrin's block for the Round Robin Bloggers. Since we made a pact not to reveal what we're doing, I won't, but it was a fairly challenging foundation pieced block with some applique.

Since a blog post without pictures just ain't any fun, here are a few more of the Sew-a-Rows that will be given away on Thursday.

I love this Halloween quilt and the sign-ups went so fast that I couldn't get in on it and I'm the organizer. I'm planning a couple of Halloween starters because they go fast, obviously.

This quilt is an ultra-mini and started with what appears to be the second row. Betty's Log Cabin blocks are about 2 inches on a side and the half square triangles are about 1/2 inch! I did the fans and posies row and if I win, I'll add something else to the white areas.

Finally, here is the Sunny Skies top that began with Carolle's darling kites. I love the sun peeping over at the kites.

More tomorrow!

Nancy Pays It Forward

Lucky me!

My longtime pal Nancy, Near Philadelphia decided to participate in "Pay It Forward" last summer and I got a little surprise in the mail yesterday.....

These dancing ladies have become Nancy's trademark and I am so lucky to get some of them. I'm thinking that these darling gals are going to go on a tote bag. After all, you can't have too many tote bags.

Stashbusting Sunday: no sewing/no progress. I did, however, get caught up on my dreaded ironing. Not so bad with a new ironing board cover!

A Little Eye Candy

Since I haven't been sewing too much this week, I submit to you a few of the 2007 Sew-A-Rows that have been turned in. We will select the winner at our last meeting of the year next Thursday.

At the right, we have our Polarscape, started with the wonderful polar bears by Linda and finished with Inuits, Penguins, a walrus and the northern lights. It is one of my favorites. Linda designed and painted the Art Quilt for our guild and she is a wonderful artist. (See link to SR Quilt Guild at left).

The quilt at the left started with the sailboats and turned into a "By the Seaside" top. Very creative.

This was my first year as Sew-A-Row coordinator, taking the job from Phyllis, who was our programs coordinator for 2007 and while she's a whiz, she can only do so much....a girl's gotta sleep sometime. She let me keep it because she's taken over the job of being the organizer of the Moonlight Quilt Guild's annual quilt show and that ought to keep her busy for a while.

Finally, here is Moon Over the Mountain and Kathy just turned this one in today. It started with Justine's Moon Over the Mountain blocks and has progressed very nicely.

More tops tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's a couple of the starter rows for 2008. Doris turned in these darling Victorian ladies with a fabulous Civil War reproduction border.

Sharon, the amazing Librarian of our guild made these adorable paper pieced Red Hats and included some great paper-pieced shoes and handbags as possible additions. Today she gave me some great lavender fabric with red hats to go-with.

More fun tomorrow!

The Ghosts are Done

My ghosts are finished and looking very scary in my opinion. The top of the lower ghost can't be finished until the blocks are sewn together as the top of his head overlaps the other block.

In the spirit of further stashbusting, I used some new yardage I acquired on a field trip to Eddie's Quilting Bee when we were at P.I.Q.F. in October.

I fell in love with the Fresh Air by Chez Moi line from Moda when I got a fat quarter of it in a Sweet Treat from the Pincushion Boutique. I found more and used it as my fabric in our Fat Quarters' online group block lotto. Ad Eddie's, I found it in a darker colorway than I'd used for my lotto block and I was crazy for it so I bought 2 yards of one print and 3 yards of the other. Just because.

So, I'm looking at these two fabrics on my cutting table and thinking "What was I thinking?" "What am I going to do?" I was also looking at my ironing board with its slick specialty cover I'd bought at PIQF a few years ago. If you've been to a major quilt show on the West Coast, you know the ones I mean. The vendor is always there and they have these covers in every conceivable size and they sound too good to be true. Everything slides off the darned things and onto the floor! The things come with a cheesy sponge pad that wears out in no time flat and my bigger-than-standard ironing board was sadly in need of a facelift.

Enter an old bathsheet style towel folded in half and trimmed and a quick cut out and stitching of a casing on the edges and voila! An ironing board covered with a fabric I absolutely love.

Now maybe I'll get caught up on the backlog of shirts piled on the floor!

Stashbusting Sunday

In baby steps, that is....

Judy Laquidara at Sunshine Quilts issued a challenge to all of us in Blogland to work at busting our stashes and no one needs it more than I do.

I'm also knee deep in the final Santa Rosa Quilt Guild Newsletter of the year and winding up the 2007 Sew-a-Rows and organizing the 2008s.


In the spirit of both tasks, I dipped into my black and white and pink stash and made up a little Sew-a-Row starter project that I designed in Electric Quilt 6 last night.

I have a darling striped print with pink and black on white that features French femme fatales, the Eiffel Tower and other pink and black harlequin patterns and dots that I'll include in the package along with generous scraps of all the fabrics included in the row.

I guess this qualifies, doesn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are visiting with my Mother and Father-In-Law in beautiful Carmel. The weather is cool and clear and we spent yesterday afternoon on the cliff above the beach with wine, cheese and crackers. We always have fun with Daisy and Ed.

We have much to be thankful for and we know it.

We Can Say We Knew Her When...

Congratulations to Miss Bonnie at Quiltville!

Bonnie has long been renowned in the online quilt world for her smarts and generosity with the designing and sharing of patterns using scraps. She's been published in the new issue of Quiltmaker! Congratulations Bonnie!!

I'm a Stitchin' Fool

We've been watching our latest Showtime serial (and I mean serial) via Netflix.....Dexter, the blood spatter specialist who is a forensics technician by day and a serial killer by night. We are enjoying it, in a warped kind of way. Given that, it is fitting that I continue stitching on Happy Hauntings.

The candelabra points were a pain in the behind to do with the freezer paper method--the method in which you iron freezer paper to the back of the applique piece and press the seam allowances under with starch or sizing. I really prefer needle-turn applique so I've decided to use a combination of both methods, depending on the location.

As you can see, I used a fabric marking pen in a color that was very close to the ghost color to mark the edges of the applique piece. Outside marking is favored by Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins of Piece O'Cake Designs and all you have to do is roll the marked edge under as you needle turn. That doesn't work as well for darker patches, so I'm using Pearl Pereira's method used by my pal Becky who took a class from Pearl herself.

Now that I'm getting caught up, I wish the blocks would come faster, but I'll bet I won't feel that way when the skeleton and haunted house arrive.

After a chat with Benjamin today, we decided to make chicken enchiladas when he comes to visit in December. The boy loves to cook and I love to cook with him.

W.I.P. Wednesday

Sooze put out the call for a W.I.P. Wednesday post, so here goes.

I'm working hard to keep up with my Block of the Month Happy Hauntings.

I finished block #1, the man in the moon and block #2, the blackbirds with candy apples.

I finished all the prep work on the #3 the candelabra and #4, two ghosts and all I need to do is stitch down the applique. Hopefully, I'll have that done before the end of the month when block #5 arrives.


I was a bit annoyed that the candelabra block was missing the fabric for the candelabra, but I had just the thing to substitute and that seemed easier than waiting to get some from Thimble Creek. Had it been a background fabric, I'd probably been a bit fussier.

The preparation is such a pain, but I do love to applique and I really love this project.
Here is a sneak peek at the whole thing :

I doubt it will be finished for Halloween next year, but perhaps 2009.



What's your WIP this Wednesday??

Mini Round Robin

A few weeks ago, inspired by the Mini Round Robin quilts produced by May Britt's group, Nancy, NP suggested that interested USA bloggers might want to consider such a project. Well, I've done swaps with Nancy in the past and had been thinking myself that this would be a great project, so I happily jumped in.

The project is quite small, even with 15 participants, so each rotation can be as simple or elaborate as the maker desires. I've pictured my submission here, a skull block I borrowed from one Justine did for Linda at the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild as part of the Friendship Block program. Justine's block was close to 8 X 10 inches, mine is 4 inches square and I made it with a combination of measuring and using Tonya's free piecing technique. My theme is "El Dia de los Muertos" for the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead. I love Halloween and always set up an altar for Dia de los Muertos honoring my parents, hubby's Dad and our grandparents and anyone we care for who has passed. My main decoration for the altar is my quilt Eternal Beauty, but I thought a little quiltlet for the side wall would be fun as well.

I've chosen brighter colors for my quilt, rather than the muted tones of most Halloween decorations, but have been unable to find a scrap of my skeleton fabric in my horribly disorganized stash.

Check out the RR Bloggers webring on my sidebar to see what my fellow Round Robin chicks are up to. We've decided as a group to not share photos of the projects after we submit our initial blocks. The end products will be a great surprise!

We decided to mail the projects in a geographic rotation, so I'll always receive from Karrin and always mail to Julie, and Karrin says hers is in the mail. I'll be mailing to Julie on Tuesday.

Tried and True

Years ago, my Mom bought me a sampler set of DMC embroidery threads. (My mother passed away in 1993, so it has been quite a while) The kit had a few yards of each DMC color in existence at the time and a small storage container filled with plastic goodies on which to wind the floss. Also included were the color labels. All I had to do was assemble it. It was, and continues to be, a most handy gadget, and very reasonably priced at $25.00.

I can't tell you how many times this set has saved me when I was just a few inches short of having all the floss I needed for a project.

Well, it saved the day yet again. I recently enrolled in a Block-of-the-Month from Thimble Creek, formerly of Walnut Creek, now of Concord. The BOM is called Happy Hauntings and was designed by Verna Mosquera, owner of The Vintage Spool in Danville.

The project starts in the upper right corner with Mr. Moon, and he was the block in question. Apparently the embroidery was designed for 2 strands of floss, and of course, I used 3 and ran out. DMC collection to the rescue. I had exactly the right shade of orange to finish the block. =)

I'm also working on Friendship Blocks for some Guild buddies. Marilyn wanted blocks that were either "California Rice Bowls" and/or "A Cup of Christmas Cheer." I decided to do both and got those completed yesterday. Denise wants a Sonoma County theme and asked me to make her a Fountaingrove Round Barn like the one I did for Pat last year, so that's in the works, too.

It feels SEW GOOD to be back working on my Bernina again!!

Four Season Quilt Swap Round Two

It's that time again!

The Four Seasons Quilt Swap is taking sign-ups for our second installment--Winter!

Go to Margaret's blog (link above) and if you are interested in this fun swap project, sign up. The more the merrier and it won't be due until after the first of the year....

What's On My Bed

After being away from home 15 of the last 26 days, I am so ready to stay put for a while. I've not even touched the Bernina since before our trip to Maine and Salem.

I did enjoy my visit with Kate and the Boys. Benjamin is shown here wearing the Oh-So-Appropriate shirt Pop and I bought him in Baa Haba Maine that says "I'm 2 years old and there's nothing you can do about it!"

This is also my "What's on my bed" picture (thanks to Nicole at Sister's Choice Quilts) as this is the bed I use when I visit Fresno without Pop. Benjamin graciously loaned me his robot quilt and I placed Alex's new baby quilt on top.

By the way, Alex's baby quilt is a new finish! I started his quilt in January, right after we found out that he was a boy and I enjoyed the making of it so much that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. He will be 7 months old on Friday, so it was about time.

We did have a near catastrophe with this quilt. One of the red fabrics bled like a son-of-a-gun when I sprayed off the water soluble marking pen. I was literally on pins and needles worrying about getting it out, but given a bit of Tide To Go and Spray-N-Wash Stain Stick , it all came out in the wash (just as the old saying goes...)

You can see here that the quilt passed an intense examination from Alex, complete with drool testing.

I have to say that after all these years making quilts largely for other people, the two quilts I've made for my grandsons are my favorites.

I guess that's a good thing. To quote Mrs. Goodneedle...."Life is Good."

With any good luck, more sewing and pictures to follow in the coming weeks. Michelle is pregnant again, so a new baby quilt will be in the works soon.