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.

Its Billy / Willie Day

Today, January 11th is what we call Billy/Willie Day in honor of Mike's father Bill who passed away on this day and my mother Wilma (Willie) who was born on this day.

William Leroy Andrews was born March 10, 1928 in Waukena, CA to Roy and Hazel Andrews. He was the second child and first son. A talented athlete, he was the star of Corcoran High School for two years before the family moved to Visalia and then became a star athlete at Visalia Union High School. After High School, he entered the Navy and after his discharge married his sweetheart Daisy Pryor in 1950. He was called back into the Navy during the Korean War. He worked for Pacific Telephone, advancing from lineman to supervisor to chief engineer, and in his spare time, loved to have a good time and watch sports on TV. He had two children, Chris and Mike and three grandchildren, Sarah Andrews, Scott Andrews and Stephen Day. He is pictured at the right with Stephen who is days old and this picture was taken several days before his untimely death of a heart attack on January 11, 1984 at the age of 55.

Wilma Aileen Jones was born on January 11, 1920 in Sparks, Nevada to Everett and Emma Jones. She was their only child. Mom was the belle of Sparks High School and her sorority at the University of Nevada where she joined the newspaper staff as a requirement of her sorority. She immediately fell for the editor, my father John Brackett (pictured with her at the right, 1986) and thus began a romance that lasted until her death of emphysema on March 31, 1993. They had three daughters, Jonelle, Jan and Jo and seven grandchildren, John, Mindy, Rachel, Kate, Daniel, Jessica and Rachel. Willie lived to meet one of her great-grandchildren, Cristina. Mom could usually be found with a pair of knitting needles in her hand and we all enjoyed the bounty of her talents.

So, on this day we drink a toast to our parents--they certainly would approve of that!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

To daughter Kate and hubby Steve on their fifth anniversary!

Kate and Steve, pictured above at Steve's graduation from Redwood High School in 1995, shortly after they began dating. They were introduced by mutual friend Lauren.


In 2000, Kate and Steve received their Bachelor's Degrees, he in engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and she in psychology from Fresno State. Kate continued on to pursue a Masters Degree in Social Work and Steve got a job so he could prepare for his licensing as a Civil Engineer.

On January 6, 2001, they married at the First Christian Church in Visalia, CA with a reception following at the Sons of Italy Hall. A good time was had by all and Kate got to dance with both of her grandfathers that day.

Life has moved on for the Cates family in a big way, most especially with the addition of their finest member (sorry K & S) last February.

On February 17, 2004 at 12:02 am, the family was enlarged with the addition of Benjamin. They are a sweet family.

So from my heart to yours, Kate and Steve:

HAPPY 5th ANNIVERSARY!!!
With many more to come!

Rest in Peace

To the victims of the Sago Mine disaster, I say God bless you and rest in peace. My sympathies are with your families and friends, whose lives are forever impacted by nature's folly.

Pictured at the right is my grandfather Antone Giovanni Brachet holding my father John Brackett. Since my father was born in July 1914, this picture is probably from 1915.

Tony and the family, which consisted of my grandmother Aurelia, my Dad and his siblings lived in Manhattan, Nevada where Tony worked as a gold miner in the White Caps Mine. As a teen, my father also worked in the mine.

On May 29, 1933, the mine alarm sounded signaling an accident-- Tony had been electrocuted when his miner's lamp hit an overhead wire.

Life changed forever for the Brackett family that day. My grandmother, also an Italian immigrant, was left with five children, Louis, 22; John, 18; Blanche, 13; Tony, 12 and Madaline, 8, and a thousand dollars in debt (in the height of the depression!)

My grandmother, by reputation, was a fabulous cook so she rolled up her sleeves and took in boarders for meals to supplement the small widow's benefit she was given. In four years' time, she was able to move the family to Reno and purchase a house on Lake Street for $4,000 cash (where the Ramada Inn now sits). In Reno, she rented out parts of her home and also served meals to boarders to support herself until her death in 1945 at the age of 58.

I never knew either of my father's parents, but they live on in family stories and treasured recipes. The watch chain my grandfather wears in this photo was given to my son on his first birthday by his Poppi, my father.

I hope that the families of the Sago miners will treasure their family memories and stories so that the miners may live on for the children and grandchildren they will never know.

Happy New Year!!

I wish I'd written this.

Kat in Ohio, one of my online quilting buddies (and quilter of the famous Acorn quilt), shared it with our group. It is from Quilt University's newsletter and sums up my feelings quite nicely.

*~*~*

Happy New Year! What is it about January 1 that makes us look back and resolve to do things better? Differently? As children, we picture life as a linear progression. Finish school, find a job, get married, have children. Somewhere in there, we expect to start living happily ever after.

It turns out that life is not a straight line. We change houses, spouses, friends, cities, jobs. Whole industries disappear as technology changes and we end up on paths that didn't even exist when we were young.

As we get older, we reach what we thought was the end of the path and realize there is a lot more to come. The little things of life have a funny way of becoming the turning points to big changes. We make dozens of decisions every day and never have a clue which one could be life altering.

Along the way, we hit bumps and potholes and it sometimes seems we are in a dense fog and not sure which road to take. Then there are those wonderful moments where you find yourself at the top of a hill and you can see for miles, with roads branching off in a hundred directions. Everything seems possible. You can have a lot of fun taking those side roads.

On this eve of 2006, I am resolutely ignoring my bad habits, the pounds I wish I could lose and all those unquilted tops in my closet. My only resolution is to keep turning corners and see what happens next.

*~*~*

To the left, a portion of the Fannie B. Shaw Prosperity Quilt: "Prosperity is Just Around the Corner" from the Dallas Museum of Art. Ms. Shaw's quilt was commentary on President Herbert Hoover's promises during the depression.

Soggy in Sonoma County

No, this isn't a local lake, its the Russian River flooding, but still a few hours and feet shy of cresting. That should happen tonight sometime in the wee hours.

Hubby and I were scheduled to drive to Chico to celebrate the New Year with Cousins Lori and Bob. Anyone who has ever visited Sonoma County knows that the ways in and out are limited. Our main arterial, Hwy 101 is a traffic nightmare and to be avoided at all costs. That leaves traversing the Napa Valley at either the top (Calistoga-Middletown-Clearlake) or the bottom (Napa via Sonoma). In clear and nice weather, Calistoga is do-able but very, very curvy and not for the carsick prone. Sonoma/Napa is easily done, but feeds into I-80 near Vacaville and can also be a traffic nightmare many times.

We opted to try Calistoga and encountered flooding, mudslides and large amounts of debris in the roads. After 15 minutes of white knuckling on my part, we opted off the road and rather than head directly home, we headed up towards the Russian River to see how high the river was getting (see above).

My heart goes out to the Guerneville residents being forced out of their homes. It takes a special personality to live in West Sonoma County and they always take the brunt of our storms. Towns only 20 miles west of Santa Rosa proper can get half again as much rain as we do and the clay soil is easily saturated resulting in mudslides.

Keep the good thoughts coming for these good folks.

I got tagged!

Lynn (BigFatLiberal) did it to me.
I got tagged.
Had to really think about some of these things and yes, Lynn, I'm using your format:

7 things to do before I die:
1. Go back to the UK and see it all
2. Take a train across Canada
3. Learn to draw
4. Read the classics
5. Live someplace where I can use public transportation or walk everywhere
6. Watch my grandson (and any new grands to come) grow up
7. Do more volunteer work

7 things I can't do:
1. Say "no" easily
2. Lose weight
3. Learn to like modern art
4. Sports or anything requiring physical coordination
5. Rapid hand-eye tasks like video games
6. Tolerate snobs and bigots
7. Play any type of musical instrument


7 things that attract me to blogging:
1. Gives me a place to show my quilts
2. A place to show off my family
3. Because everyone's entitled to my opinion
4. I like to read others' blogs and get to know them
5. I'm more of a reader than poster because others say it so well
6. I get to share my love of books
7. Getting to know new people


7 things I say most often:
1. "Gawd I hate that SOB" when watching the Preznit
2. Gator stop it! (to my dog)
3. I can make that!
4. ....and then you woke up
5. I need to go to the fabric store
6. Darlin!
7. Seeya

7 books I love:
1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (anything he writes)
2. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
3. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (anything he writes)
4. La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture by Lily Prior
5. The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
6. House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende (anything she writes)
7. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingolver (anything she writes)
Only 7?????


7 movies I watch over and over:
1. The Shop Around the Corner
2. Airport
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still
4. Bridget Jones's Diary
5. The Mortal Storm
6. Rebecca
7. Dirty Harry


7 people I want to join in too
1. Greyhair
2. Mister B
3. Quiltgranny
4. Qultville
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?

More Sew A Row

Here's another installment of the Sew-A-Row quilts from guild this year. Being a Halloween afficionado, I was lusting after this one, big time, but alas, I didn't win it.

Sharon F. started with the bug jars, followed by Lynn W. and her bats. Joanie B. did the cats, I did Drac, the Mummy and Frankie and Pat M. did the pumpkins. Lucky Pat won it. Rats.

This was probably the most fun one to work on because I had more ideas for it and I may pursue Halloween as the topic of this year's starter row.

To the right is the Chicken quilt. Pat M. started this one with the sunshine and it was to be modeled after a pattern by someone who spoke at Moonlighter's last year. (Can't remember her name) I did the second row using a chickn plate print appliqued onto the chickenwire fabric. The third person bailed, so I did that row as well, using printer fabric to include chicken and egg sayings on egg shapes, and I can't remember who did the final row. I didn't win this one, thankfully, as I was all "chickened out."

The Japanese quilt was started by Angie, who did the Square in a Square boxes. Sharon and Lynn also worked on this--I did the fans and Angie won it. I really liked this one and wouldn't have minded winning it, either. Oh well, maybe next year.

The Sew-A-Row has really been fun and I need to get cracking on my row for 2006 or Phyllis is gonna be all over me!

2005 Sew A Row

Thanks to the superb organizational skills of Phyllis G., we just finished a Round Robin project for the year 2005 at the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild. Interested members submitted a row of blocks that was 24" to 36" wide. When the initial row was submitted, four people could sign up to add rows and we were each given a two month rotation to complete our work. At our December meeting, each participant was assigned a number based on which rotation she took and a die was rolled to determine who won the finished top.

To the left is the row I started with the dorky gingerbread men. I bought a cookie cutter and traced it, but should have gone with my original idea of just drawing one. Oh well.

I know that Pat M. did the mitten row, but I'm not sure who else worked on this one.

The project to the right was started by my friend Joanie with the big dog faces. Betty surrounded it with the dog paw prints and I added the paper pieced dog houses with dogs printed on them.

The Sew A Row project, like any round robin, is a great way for me to trade work with other quilters, and to stretch myself as a quilter. Since I never know when I sign up what will be delivered to us (other than the project I start and the project on whick I add row #2), it is a challenge to add something that will coordinate and yet add a new technique or element.

We are now starting rows for next year, but more of 2005 later.

Ho Ho Ho

I submit the Eighteen Year Christmas Quilt. A sampler quilt I started in a class at Diane's Fabrics in Reno, NV (later Log Cabin Calicoes) in September, 1979. My teacher was Marilyn Fashbaugh who later purchased the store with her partner Joyce Ganser.

Taking the class with me was a gal named Rochelle Summers, whose daughter Kirsten was a week older than my daughter Kate (both were 18 months old at the time). We became good quilting buddies and were the first employees hired by Marilyn and Joyce when they took over the shop.

I began this quilt as a Christmas Quilt for Kate as suggested by an issue of Quilter's Newsletter Monthly, a special quilt to be brought out only at the Christmas season. I finished the top in good time and set it on my room sized frame to quilt, but then life kind of got in the way.

No sooner was the quilt in the frame than I discovered I was pregnant again. Time to hand piece and quilt a welcoming for my new son! Soon, having a toddler and a new baby really cut into the quilting time and I removed the quilt from the frame and continued to quilt it as time allowed.

Not even a year after my son's birth, his father and I divorced and I moved the kids back to Visalia, CA and quilting time became even more scarce as I went back to school and entered the work force. A second marriage, step-parenting, many baby quilts to be made for friends and family, another divorce, a remarriage (more on that later) and fast forward to 1997.

I finally finish the blinking quilt and present it to my daughter at my new mother-in-law's house on Christmas Eve. She is dumfounded and immediately snuggles under it on the sofa. I believe she's had it on her bed ever since.

The label for the quilt reads:

Seasons come and seasons go,
And I've been very slow, I know.
But I've been busy and feel no guilt;
For this, your eighteen year old quilt!
"Life is what happens when you are making other plans"- John Lennon
Made for Kate Aileen Gibson
With love by Jan Aileen Brackett Andrews
Septemer 1979 to December 1997

After I finish my girlfriend Maureen's 50th birthday/Christmas quilt, Mr.B. is next. I don't anticipate an 18 year wait for either of them!