Sometimes you don’t get in. In this case, I entered two quilts in the special exhibit “In the American Tradition” for Houston, but neither was accepted. The e-mail said they had over 100 quilts to consider…26 were accepted. That means 1 in 4 got in. I know that I am not an expert traditional quilter, but I had hoped my log cabin would get in, not because of the piecing, but because of the quilting. And this time, my photos were MUCH better, and you could actually see the quilting. Sigh.

Here are the two quilts:

From Sea to Shining Sea (51×51 inches, machine quilted) and detail:

Oceans Alive (93×93 inches, hand quilted) and detail; pattern by Mary K. Ryan, original quilting design by me:

So I’m kinda bummed. I’m at least getting into the second tier shows, but can’t figure out why I’m not getting into the top tier. Is log cabin just to boring, no matter how good the quilting? I was thinking that if this were a wholecloth, it might have gotten in, but maybe because it was an old fashioned (well, not really but you know what I mean) log cabin, this didn’t get in.

Anyway, with my misgivings about the nativity quilt, and these “declines”, I’m wondering if my work is any good at all…. and wondering what it takes, and why I don’t seem to have it….. getting juried into a show (and not throwing away the entry fee money) would be nice about now….

Oh well. Back to quilting the nativity quilt. Since Tableau is an odd word for most folks, and they won’t know the link to Fra Angelico, I think I’ll title the quilt after one of my favorite Christmas stories, They Followed a Bright Star by Joan Alavedra and Ulises Wensell. The illustrations are lyrical, and it tells the story of the first Christmas simply and beautifully.

I’ll get over it. But I still wonder…..

Deirdre asked…silly me, I’ve forgotten to add a few key details!

The Sea Dogs WON! It’s way fun when they do, or when one of them hits a homer: a lighthouse pops up from behind the centerfield wall and gold sparklers come out of the light tower! So we got to see the lighthouse at the end of the game!

The nativity quilt is large: once I get the final borders on it will be about 54×72 inches. It grew. I didn’t intend for it to be that big, but if the figures were much smaller, you’d lose all detail. So the buildings had to grow to be in scale with the figures. Then I decided it really needed a border… the plaid inner border was initially going to be appliqued on after the quilting was done. But there were too many figures that would have been covered (or interrupted the border), so that didn’t work. Plus it needs the dark all the way around. Stay tune…you’ll see!

Cheers, Sarah in muggy, drippy Maine!

Yesterday I basted the Nativity quilt, and today I began quilting. Here’s what it looked like first thing this morning (I love Thursdays…don’t go to Curves or anything else…it’s my “entire day to quilt”):

I got a lot more done today than I expected, thanks to having done a lot of the stitching as free-motion embroidery (which also means fewer threads to bury!). I began with the slightly wonky gray building on the left. I am not happy with the way it looks, but it would require major surgery to straighten it, and that’s not going to happen. I’m hoping it won’t bother me as much when all is said and done. Unlikely, but anyway….

I quilted the words of the Prophet of the Shepherds (a verse from Luke I think it is… the one about the shepherds tending their flocks, hearing from the angel announcing the birth of the Savior in the city of David….) into the outside of the building, contour stitched the columns and Corinthian (oh dear…what’s that architectural element called…the one at the top of a column….) capitol (?), and the inside of the archway. The verse is continued on the walls of the interior building and on the ground below it.

I also managed to quilt the sheep, the goat, the wood of the stable, the hair of the various figures (which was really just a few lines each), the snow on the mountaintops, half of the mountain area, the cat and the manger. Not bad for a full day!

But why is it that I always like the backs of my quilts better than the fronts? Here’s a so-so photo of the back (color is off, but at least it shows the quilting ….. At least I know that the quilting is working… now, if I could just be sure that the front of the quit is working, too, that would be oh so comforting. Sigh….

Sometimes smaller is better. Minor league baseball is a case in point. Now, usually I could care less about pro sports…too much big business, too much money, not enough soul.

When we lived on San Juan Island, Wash., though, the boys of course got caught up in rooting for the Seattle Mariners. When we moved to Maine, allegiances were shared (transferred?) to the Red Sox, with glee that the curse of the bambino was stomped into history the year we moved here. So the boys wanted to go to a game…where to go? Boston is about 4 hours away, and tickets cost a fortune. Why, the Sea Dogs home stadium in Portland (2 hours) of course!

Hadlock Field seems to me to be what pro ball ought to be and maybe used to be. You get to meet the players downstairs. You can actually see their faces even from the top row of the bleachers (sat there and can attest to that!). They have folks from Maine sing the anthem, and a kid from the stands launch the game with “Play Ball!” (this past Sunday, the little boy couldn’t have been much more than 2!). They announce things like “most improved students” and post names on the scoreboard and let the kids walk onto the infield and get a round of applause. They have a “lobster toss” at the 7th inning stretch where two folks from the stands get to try to catch toy lobsters in an old-fashioned lobster trap gizzy and win a dinner at a local restaurant. Here are “my guys” (L to R) hubby, Joshua (trying to avoid being in the shot) and Eli (red t-shirt):

This Sunday was HOT…mid-80s, amplified by the dark green plastic seats and shiny aluminum stands, bright sun and screaming blue skies. And lest you think I’ve totally lost it, I take my hand applique or hand quilting with me! And actually work on it. Or, take pictures for visual reference…. Look at the lines in these crowd shots:

Or even the physical contours of a pitcher doing his thing:

Just proves you can find art anywhere if you just look!

From time to time I have mentioned the “canine horse” or the “dog-beast”, also known as our dog, Yeti. He is a Tibetan Mastiff, which is considered an “ancient breed,” so old that the females go into heat only once a year…at the beginning of winter. The puppies are born in winter and weaned as spring arrives. So here is “the legendary guardian of the Himalayas”:

Clearly, the boys wanted him to be warm (with all that fur he needs help?)!

Tibetans were traditonally the guard dogs in villages and rural areas of the Himalayas. They were kept chained during the day, then turned loose at night to watch the flocks and homes. Hence, they are large couch potatoes who, upon whim, get up and bark, then go back to sleep. Before we moved to Maine, we lived on San Juan Island (Washington), where there are lots of bald eagles. Our neighbor told us one day Yeti had been asleep in the driveway for so long an eagle dive-bombed him to see if he was road-kill. Apparently he did twitch enough to be left alone LOL!

Here in Maine Yeti (named, of course, for the legendary Bigfoot of the Himalayas) LOVES the snow…loves romping in it, and eating it. Every night in his before-bed “constitutional” he has to snarf a bite or three of snow.

These are large dogs… yes, he really is as long as the sideboard is wide. A bit larger than a Saint Bernard. He drops his chin to rest it on the dining room table–a whole new experience in guarding your dinner plate. Ahem. He also has a long tongue. Sigh.

Here’s a (horrible) picture of me with the boys at Christmas which will give you an idea of his size. At our old house, if he stood with his front paws on the deck railing, I looked him in the eye. I’m 5’6″.

Legend has it that Alexander the Great (famous conqueror guy) brought them with him when he returned from Himalayas, and that these dogs were the foundation stock of all the large breeds in Europe: Saint Bernards, Bernese Mountain dogs, Great Pyrenees, and Newfoundlands. You can easily see a “family resemblance” in the general shape of the body, head, and size, though some traits have been selectively bred (like larger head and longer coat in the Newfs). This is a Link to the Tibetan Mastiff Association, or you can google Tibetan Mastiff Images and get lots of pictures. The colors vary from black to red to gold. Yeti is considered a “cream sable.” The breeder calls them “independent minded.” We, however, have decided he is beautiful, sweet, and dumb as a dirtclod. Loveable, but DUMB.

Here’s some dog breed info. And that’s probably waaaaaayyyyy more than you ever wanted to know about my dog. And because I couldn’t resist, here is one more photo of the wonderbeast, looking his usual “intelligent” (AHEM) self… like I’ve said, sweet, beautiful, dumb: