This one’s for DebR…. Here’s the entire shot of the mug you liked. Believe it or not it is from (gasp, shudder) the gift shop at Yellowstone near Old Faithful! The circle on the front says Yellowstone on the top, National Park on the bottom, and has a moose or elk (indistinct horn structure…you pick) in the middle. I really like the thumb “pad” on the handle. It’s also very large, so usually I don’t fill it all the way. If I do, the tea is tepid (at best) by the time I reach the end of the mug!

Some mugs, by the way, are definitely “morning” mugs. Others, like the Sleepytime mug (more on that one in the next entry), are definitely “evening” mugs. And some are afternoon/evening. This mug is an afternoon/evening mug. Please don’t ask me WHY these mugs go with a certain time of day, they just DO. Like Earl Gray tea is truly an afternoon tea.

What fun…I got to meet Elizabeth, a fellow pirate from aboard a slightly creaky but fun cyber-ship. Elizabeth moved to Maine last year, not long after we moved here, and lives about an hour or so South of me (I’m in Camden, for those who are familiar with mid-coast Maine). We decided to meet for lunch, at Elizabeth’s suggestion at the Thomaston Cafe in (you guessed it) Thomaston….

What FUN…we ate and gabbed and shared projects and were there nearly two hours. Interestingly we were both intrigued by the same thing…Wild Mushroom Hash with poached egg (I like my very well done, she likes hers runny) with home fries. It was quite tasty, a bit tart and tangy. I think I need to go back to this cafe!

Clearly, this lunch thing and getting together needs to happen again. So it’s good news, next month I’m driving down her way and we’re going to a bead store I haven’t visited yet…wooohooo! After seeing her quilts, I now know I need more BIG beads….even “pony” size (size 6 I think) beads are on the small size compared to her beads…and I love the way they work on her pieces. She’s really an embellisher and embroiderer where I am much more a machine quilter….in love with the thread and line. But there’s room to grow…and I think the next thing I need to grow is more beads!

I thought we’d share our lunch, but since the thought of taking my own photo makes me shudder, and since I wouldn’t want to ask someone else to flash their face on my blog on the first lunch (ahem!), I thought this would be a fun phoot. Elizabeth’s long blonde hair was held in place with these great hair ornaments with silver tips with Celtic interlace designs on the top the comb… So for all you pirates out there, here we be…I’m behind the camera, eco is in front of it!

When we moved to Maine, I got a great place to sew (as long as I share it with the guest bed, which is fine since that stores the quilts!). The only drawback is the lack of flat wall space…one side is windows (a good thing), the other side is narrow dormers in a sloping (garage) roof, the far end is two windows in the middle, and the final wall has my “design wall.” The surface area goes up to maybe 7 1/2 feet at the tallest point, maybe 4 feet at the bottom of the slant, and is 6 feet wide (which isn’t bad at all). I still dream of an 8×8 design wall, but for now this is great.

The outsides edges have evolved into bulletin board type of things, with various and sundry bits pinned up on them. The right side is the fun one:

At the top, Deb B’s bird, a b-day gift. Wish you could see the “look” in his French knot eye…he makes me grin! Next are two photos…one taken at arm’s length of me and the boys the day after hubby’s open heart surgery for him to have in the hospital, another kayaking on Lake Megunticook this past summer.

Next are three postcards…a simple yet stunning card by Carol Thompson (mango/fuschia stripes on black–how did she know mango and fuschia are some of my favorite colors?), one of my own Hot August Night cards–a yellow female nude, and Deb Richardson’s Tequila Sunrise with her red toenails and red shoes!

The knight slaying the dragon is Eli’s artwork (he’s 7)…the original drawings are cut out and pinned next to the fabric postcards. I helped him with some of the cutting of the fabrics, but he picked all the fabric, and told me what thread to use and how to quilt it…a collaborative effort!

Finally, Kate Cutko’s flower, using some of her discharged fabrics for the leaves, another b-day present from another of the Frayed Edges. Along with Deb B and Kathy Daniels, the four of us started our mini-group in January, and we are already mourning Deb’s upcoming move to Dallas….we met yesterday and….boo hooooo….the for sale sign was up outside the house. We know she’ll bloom even in the Texas heat, but we’ll miss having her here! But we still have her for at least another three months…….

So I may be hopelessly behind (as usual), but here goes, in the unlikely event anyone wants to read all of these LOL!

1. Mom launched me the same day the Russians (excuse me, the Soviets) launched Sputnik. You can figure out how old that makes me…..heh heh!

2. I love chocolate. Why waste your calories on other desserts when you can have chocolate?

3. I was 28 pounds overweight. I am now 14 1/2 pounds overweight. That means (a) I’ve been working hard at getting rid of the fat for the past 5+ months, and am determined to get the rest off before menopause hits and it becomes impossible. It also means (b) shrieeeeeekkkkkkk…that I’ve only had chocolate twice in the past five months.

4. When I found quilting (in 1988) I was elated…at last a way to marry two of my favorite things, art and sewing.

5. Mrs. Hoffman, my art teacher in high school, was bummed when I had to cut out an elective (I was one of those horrid over-achievers…when five academics and one elective were the norm, I took seven academics, two electives, plus piano, ballet, and did a couple of sports–the latter rather poorly) and chose to stay in sewing instead of art. That was an awfully nice way for her to react–thank you Mrs. Hoffman!

6. I thought for years I’d never have kids….hubby didn’t want them. At 35, I figured even if I tried to start over, by the time I found someone, I’d be too old. Heh heh…Mother Nature has a wonderful sense of humor and irony and out-maneuvered hubby. I had my first son at age 36, my second when I was 40. My body (see number 3) is still recovering from that last pregnancy. That’s OK!

7. I like myself and my body a whole lot better now than I did 20 years ago.

8. I always wanted to do a degree in Literature (probably comparative or world lit, not just English), but bowed to my parent’s pressure and majored in Humanities in International Affairs at Georgetown Univ.

9. I used to commute to work by bike (at the US State Department), but haven’t been on my bike much since quitting my job / “career” (which I didn’t much like) as a Foreign Service Officer. I’d like to get back into riding my bike next spring. Shockingly enough, I might even like to go back to the Foreign Service some day—after Eli is out of school in 11 years—and get my full pension and travel to some remote corners of the world one more time before I settle down for good.

10. After college, I took photos as a creative outlet. Now, I’m using some of those…and some of the artistic penchants I developed then….in my work now.

11. I’m not a night person. I’m not a morning person. I’m a DAY person…get up when it is beginning to be light. Don’t stay up ’til all hours.

12. I drink tea. Coffee tastes like swill (sorry all you coffee drinkers– to each his own!), unless it is espresso, preferably in hot milk…cafe au lait, cappuccino, caffe latte…..you get the idea here…. oh yeah…coffee ice cream rocks, especially when drowning in hot fudge (see number 2).

13. The world is not black and white, so neither was my photography, nor is my art. There may be many shades of gray (can you tell I’m a Libra?), but I’d rather do COLOR COLOR COLOR!

14. I’m a cat person. I don’t think I’m a dog person, which I know is due to having the canine horse, Yeti, (the 149 pound Tibetan Mastiff) in the house. Of course, I might like dogs more if the one in our house weren’t so dang huge. Good thing he’s terminally sweet. Dumber than a dirtclod, hubby says (accurately), but sweet.

15. Books are about as essential to life as breathing….the worst part about raising two kids on hubby’s pension (besides not having new clothes or money to travel) is not being able to afford to buy books at will….. I’m finding lately that many of my quilt ideas are now coming from books…translating the imagery in my head into cloth…..

16. Sheesh…is anyone ever going to get this far? Why? ummm….. OK, I have sparkles and crinkles. Other folks may call them gray hair and wrinkles, but I earned each and every one of them, I’m proud of them, and have no intention of ever disguising them. Plus, after lo these many years seeking the perfect perm, my hair now (!!!!) of its own accord curls exactly perfectly!

17. Besides color and cloth, my favorite thing in the studio is thread. I must have easily 400 spools, and need more. Yep, need!

18. I’ve been married 22 years, and neither of us is yet in jail for homicide. Yet. Since the boys are 12 and 7 and not self-supporting, we’ll likely stay out of jail a few years longer…..but if he tries to introduce another canine horse into the household, all bets are off.

19. Before I die, I will visit:

Australia and New Zealand
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe
and eat shrimp in Mozambique

20. Sometimes I feel like a “pretender”….how can it be that me, little old me, with just my “stuff”, in these great quilt shows. I’m not really anywhere near as good as the others, but I’d still love to get in, and maybe even someday be good enough to win a prize. I figure that means I have to be good AND be lucky in the judges. When I visit the big shows, it seems to me that at least half of the entries could reasonably be a winner, and often I like quilts that didn’t win better than the ones that did. But I’d still, someday, love to be that good. So I guess I’d better stop blogging and blathering on about myself and get back to work. Time to sketch an anemone, a seagull, and a parrot fish….

Hi all! On one of my e-lists, June Underwood posted a link to an interview with Michael James. Be forewarned, it is loooonnnngggg, but it is so fascinating I can see why she stayed up past her bedtime to finish reading it! The interview was conducted on Jan. 4 and5, 2003, and covers his life, from growing up in a large French-Canadian Catholic family in New Bedford, Mass., to the date of the interview, including his current work printing on fabric. To be honest, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it looks so promising that I wanted to share….and log the url somewhere that I can find it! Now, back to reading…..