The Elephant Man and 75% off Fabric Sale

What do the two have in common? You ask. Not much except that I did both
today.

Went to see the Elephant Man play this afternoon and got to see a gorgeous hunk of a guy, fully muscled and rippling, wearing only a loin cloth for the entire show. When the cast came out to bow, and this young hunk walked out, the old ladies in the back row left shrieked reminicent of Beatles days. It was hilarious!

And this morning I hit a 75% off fabric sale at Quilt Corner and bought 35 yards of material for $62. This also included some at $1 a yard. I was most pleased with myself! That made available the opportunity to complete about 4 quilts since the yardage will be for backs. And two mystery quilts i am leading at one of the LQGs.

I would say a great day. It is going to be a bitter cold night tonight. Valerie will be driving home from Florida tomorrow. And of course the Krewe of Mutts Parade will roll.

glen: Busy weekend...............But I have lots of new material!

bright and sunny, if only on fabric

Today is dreary and rainy. At times violent rains swell the canals and block up traffic. So I went fabric shopping.

I am enamored of the quilts I see on these more modern girl blogs. They are what I seem to be loving now. Very square blocks, lots of color on stark white.

So while at the quilt shop choosing colors for the Patch No Work quilt, which was really really fun thanks to color guru Beth, I saw a couple of FQs in lime green and sunny yellow. I envisioned them against a stark white background. Squares. Definitely squares.

So I bought them. What else could I do?

Quilt of Valor - a personal hero

I heard from a Swissy Friend of mine who recently returned to Maine after being stationed at the Naval Base in Belle Chasse LA with her husband and two boys. Hubby is a Marine who has been to the Middle East more than a couple of times.

She said he was being promoted to Colonel and we were invited to his promotion party in New Orleans! Yeah!

So I decided he needed his own personal Quilt of Valor! Since I met them though the dogs, Greater Swiss Mountain Dog guys, it is a red/white/blue 9 patch with a Swissy sitting on it. Billie Lauper's pattern "Who's On My Quilt?

In fact, Dutch and my first Swissy Quilt is on the back cover of her book!

So even better!

glen

Whew! Another String project!

They are addictive! LOL. Especially when you see how many scraps they use up. Scraps that I have lovingly saved just knowing there would be a wonderful use for them down the road. And here it is. Thanks LC for having this challenge. These wonderful projects would still be in an incubator somewhere in my head!

I figure I can make these bags and in the coming year, when I need a gift bag, VOILA! there one is! I did some bags for Christmas presents, but since Bonnie Doon was sick then it was not possible to sit and sew so much. I miss my beautiful girl!

Anyway, here is the front and back of a tote bag!

glen

An interesting String project completed

I wanted to do something different. (Who woulda thought it!!) So I looked at some of the string diamonds I was creating, and saw pears. Imagine that.

So I started what I thought was going to be placemats, but turned out to be a small table runner because now I have something even better for my string diamonds! Not a word yet, you will see when it gets there!

So, back to the pears. The Pears use up the red and black border left over from my Black and White Birthday Block Quilt from the Cyberguild Ladies in 2009. And I even used more leftover of the black and red by cutting strips and making the binding. How creative to use a scrap that has been sitting in my way for a year now! LOL.

And look at the quilting motif. That comes from 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting. Thanks Leah! it was fun fun fun.

Hope you like The Pears.

glen

Weekend coming on fast

The poor Swissy Quilt I gave Valerie was one of my early quilts. Kip, her Swissy boy, decided to eat the tongue of the Swissy and chewed through the whole shebang! Bad boy! So I have the task of making a new quilt for her. Bigger and better is the mantra!

And keep Kip away from the poor Swissy quilt!

Artist's reception for Swamp Exhibit is Sunday evening. Exciting. And we convinced my mom to come up for the weekend to get away from the dreary task of sitting with Stan in the Nursing Home day after day. It is hard for an Alzheimer Mom to change patterns, but this will be good for her. If I can keep her busy she won't obsess about being at home until she is ready to go home on Monday morning with Franklin.

And Carrie doesn't know that when she comes over on Saturday for lunch that her grandma will be here! What a wonderful surprise for a granddaughter who never calls her grandma when she is supposed to! And if she would read her momma's blog sometimes she would see the news! LOL. So that is a joke on Carrie.

Hey, I can start posting news for her on the blob and she may will start to look at my blog sometimes! LOL. What a novel idea.

Sassi Strippers Guild meeting was interesting. They want to do a mystery quilt, so fun. And they kinda got excited about my progressive box round robin idea. They even took the boxes I brought! Really exciting. Maybe this is the year the guild will gel.

The Challenge this year for the Remember Me Guild is to take Jelly Rolls or 2 1/2 inch strips and design a quilt. It cannot be made from a kit, it has to be a design. How they will determine that I am not sure. And I have a few other questions to ask. So I am looking for an idea to do with strips. I am thinking black strips and bright solids formed into a square. Wow. I must do squares this year. I must!

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/576393217DZlZdO?vhost=home-and-garden

If you click on this link you should go to my webshots album and view the 2010 Quilt the Swamp in 3-D Exhibit.

My piece is the alligator. It is so cool to see your stuff hanging!

glen: more later, off to a quilt meeting!

Here is another tote done with strings. And I am working on some 8 1/2 inch blocks that are looking good. I have completed 8 of them so far.

More pics to follow.

Frank and I went to dinner with Valerie's parents who are in town from Florida to celebrate her birthday. And we celebrated my own birthday with Ted and Jerel and Valerie, her parents and her brother Eric. Don's Seafood has the best Stuffed Eggplant full of crabmeat. Val's dad wanted crawfish, but of course they are not in season yet. So he settled for a Crawfish Etouffe and some fried Crawfish tails.

He liked them. What more can I say??

Use those scraps

I have joined a group on another blog who challenges us to use those scraps! She encourages us to create blocks by foundation pieceing strips to muslin squares. They are called String Blocks.

And I already have one finished! I am on a 2010 Roll! I have another one but I have already given it away. I put Cousin Karen's present in it instead of wrapping a present.

Reception was warm, I hope she liked it! I have to get her to take a picture of it.

Sunday is my birthday so I am wondering if I will get anything quilty. Didn't for Christmas and that was a total surprise! Last year Daughter Carrie gave me two gorgeous art quilt books.

New year, new resolutions

Well, sort of old resolutions renewed and revamped. My goal this month is to begin to organize my quilt room. I have a beautiful space that is totally a mess. It needs Carrie-ganizing.

When I first took over her old bedroom as a quilting space it was pristine. Frank built the most beautiful cutting/sewing table against a wall, my computer stuff moved to a new desk and Andrew helped me build book shelves for the wall. My closed down recruiting company and current dog training business resided in places where fabric wasn't.

Then I lived in it for a while. Carrie came in one day and started tossing my stuff. I liked my stuff. She was ruthless. She found she could only toss my stuff for about 2 hours each day, where upon I would just get too upset to continue. We worked this way through a mountain of stuff.

Now I need to do that again. Althought this time it is more "organizing" than tossing........I hope anyway. I have fabric everywhere, and I don't even know what I have, some of it.

I need Carrie-ganizing.

glen: but I am scared to tell that to her!

Rippling Waters Bonnie Doon, CGC, HIT, NWPD (1998 to 2009)
I sent her off on a clear cold day. The kind she loved to sit on the porch and just watch when it was cold cold out there.
And even though my eyes are swollen from the tears, I can see her walking on four good strong legs, looking for the chihuahua section.

She was a dog whose presence among other dogs was clear, she was the alpha. She decided who could play and who needed to stay on the deck. While she pretended to be aloof, she never took her eyes off me. She never refused to do anything for me, if I asked her to do it, she gave it her all. She was just like that. She was smart, confident, willing and bold. Everything you could ever want in a Swissy. And more.

And she was beautiful. Her breeder, Peggy Roderick, told me that in the litter of 13 puppies, you never had any problem picking out Bonnie Doon, she was the whitest face there. And the one usually in mischief!

Thank you Peggy and Dave, I cannot imagine my life without my beautiful girl.

Go far, my girl, on four strong legs........find those chihuahuas..........they keep them somewhere over there!

On our walk with the two dogs last night, we turned the corner and faced our house at the end of the street. The moon was rising just above it. We saw the moonbeam stretch from our back yard, through Max's star and the Orion constellation and on to the edge of themoon and I felt Pepsi’s breeze on my cheek. Frank said they were guiding Bonnie Doon home.The moon will always remind me of my girl.

Deeply missed by Glen and Frank Parks, Baton Rouge, LA