That is guitar-speak for really crazy wicked wild guitar playing, I think of the heavy metal variety.   Yes, it has been eons so I decided I should blog about the boys.  We will NOT tell them that when they were young I referred to them as C.O.U. (Center of the Universe), as they already think they are.  Just because it’s true doesn’t mean we need to let them KNOW that, after all one is a teen and the other will be (sigh, sob) soon, and we all know about teenage attitudinosity.  Still, they are both pretty cool.

Recently, it was Easter.  Here is Eli searching for his eggs:

And here is Joshua, searching (Not!) for his.  I guess at 15 one is too cool to search for eggs? So to make up for it, I’m helping Eli eat his 100 percent share of the eggs.  Ahem.  Plump goes the Mommy.  Anyway….

And HERE, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, video camera, Joshua’s uploading to YouTube skills as well as guitar, is the teenage beast shredding, with a perfect take on the first try.  If you are over 16 and/or not male, you may want to make sure the speakers are turned down a bit…..

Later this week, Eli’s latest artwork…..now I’m going to pop the lasagna in the oven and enjoy the first balmy day since last October or thereabouts!

Hi all!  Thanks to Loreen Leedy, and the post on her blog, I found out about the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.

Since I, too, won’t be in Chicago for Quilt Festival Spring Edition, I decided I’d love to play too.  The hard part, though, is deciding which quilt.  See, you are supposed to post your favorite quilt, then blog about it.  Is that the most recent quilt (Little Brown Bird, a corner seen here) ?  The one of which I’m most proud (probably Bijagos Warrior) ?  The one that features my kid(s) (two kids/rooms combined into one composite quilt)?  The mystery quilt that is the favorite of the entire family for snuggling under (bright colors, fleece backing and super cuddly even tho the fleece is now old and pilled)? The Queen sized Mariner’s Compass, the second quilt I began but, thanks to living in Africa where it was too hot to sit under the quilt when I started on it, finished ten years later on cool San Juan Island, Wash.?  The answer:

Bedtime, of course, because it is my kids.  Made for the I Remember Mama exhibit, it was juried in to the third year of the exhibit (the last one on the list of accepted quilts…eeek?  did I just barely make it in?).  Karey Bresenhan conceived of the 3-year exhibit as a way to honor her mother, Jewel Patterson, who died several months before the first exhibit.  (Because of the short-notice, there wasn’t enough time to make quilts specifically for the exhibit, so that year  you could enter quilts made at any time related to the theme…the “kimono” quilt that I made for my mom’s 80th Birthday was in that first year.) There was a book, too, so my quilts are in that.

To make this quilt, I dragooned hubby into taking pictures of me sitting in bed reading to each of our kids, one of my favorite pastimes.  In the end, I decided on a composite picture.  The face on the boy is Joshua’s (my oldest), but the child pictured is aged between what my two boys were at the time of the photos.  The room is Eli’s (our youngest), and the quilt on the bed is made from leftover blocks from his “big boy bed quilt.”

The bedstead in that room is one of two my mom bought for my grandparents, and which I remember in their bedroom.  After they died, the maple bedroom suite went to mom and dad, and daddy used it in his room.  When daddy died, Mom sent it to me, and now the fourth generation, in the shape of Eli, is using it.

My favorite part of the quilt, though, may be the pajamas.  Both boys had the light blue/navy blue jammies from Hanna Anderson.  As usual for them (and alas this continues to this day), they trashed them.  Ran outside in them.  Played in them.  Skidded on rough stuff in them.  Ripped out the knees. Snagged holes in the legs and elbows.   Ahem.  Clearly I am more into the boys having fun than discipline about what they wear where.  Ahem.  So I took the tatters and rags and made the pajamas on the quilt from the pajamas from real life.  And I can still stroke the cloth and remember when they were little (not so long ago).  Some day, I hope I’ll show the quilt to their (I hope they have) kids and say hey, that was your daddy/uncle and their rooms when they were your age…..

When I taught recently in Connecticut, my contact told me there was a great quilt shop…since I’m watching my pennies, I had thought I wouldn’t stop in so as to avoid temptation.  Hah!  And I’m so glad I did stop in…what a treasure of a shop!  Here’s a photo of what you see as you walk in the door of Sew Inspired!!!!

To backtrack a bit, the shop is located inside a small complex known as Fiddler’s Green, on the main drag in downtown Simsbury (well, I think it is the main drag!).  Here’s the entrance to the complex:

And the entrance to the store:

Once you get inside, it just gets better and better. The staff is friendly and helpful, and I had a great time talking to Viv  and Sandy.  Here is a close up of the glorious array of batiks:

And over on the left are Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassetts, notions, patterns, friendly staff, great lighting… in the back is a class room to die for:  great and adjustable chairs, the best lighting I’ve ever seen overhead, a big window for real daylight and a view of what is going on outside….

There is a good selection of notions and, better yet, art quilting supplies!

Then it continues, downstairs.  The shop opened 3 1/2 years ago in the lower level.  They’ve grown so much they expanded upstairs, and the lower area is now studio-for-rent space with 8×8 foot designs walls, a longarm (for rent also), a separate room for co-owner who does quilting-for-hire on her Gammill, and an office area.  They also have a die-cutting machine, again available for rent…..Can you say DREAM STORE?

The design wall area:

The for-rent longarm:

The store is also an authorized HandiQuilter dealer, and recently added a sit-down HQSixteen to the upstairs classroom….drool!

Clearly, I could not escape unscathed….here is my haul –and this was from two visits… I resisted the Goergia O’Keefe morning glory prints, an Alexander Henry that I lusted after when it was first printed 6 years ago… now that it is back out I had to indulge! Plus the three on the right are from Alewives Fabrics, in Damariscotta Mills, Maine (I’m teaching there in July, stopped to drop off patterns for sale, and had to add to the loot.)

Finally, I took my aching, throbbing feet (this was after the night lecture and the full day teaching) next door to the Japanese restaurant which had impeccable service and my favorite, Chicken Katsu, for dinner:

What more could you want…good fabric, good staff  (in both the store and the restaurant) and good food?  The store is just northwest of Hartford; if you’re anywhere in the vicinity, it is WELL worth a stop!

So, how do I know (besides the willow and oak twigs flushing yellow, and the maples sporting a tinge of red on the tips)?  The Library of course…. you see, it has this South-facing stone wall that gets warmed by the sun:

The Stone Wall at the library

The old part of the library is the building upstairs.  In the mid 90s, they expanded significantly the only place they could:  down, under the grassy slope.  Here’s the new entrance:

And the Amphitheatre park next to the library which, as you can see, is still quite snowy:

Amphitheater Park

Here’s the view across the street, over the rest of the slope down to Camden harbor:

Camden Harbor, early March

Well, the readers of Camden know quite well that the crocus at the base of the wall come up about three weeks before any other flowers peek their little green shoots above the ground.  Here is what I saw:

Buds on the climbing Hydrangea

And, for a tease:

Just a bit of green

And last of all, DRUM ROLL PLEASE:

White crocus!!!!

Actual BUDS!!! Soon, true open flowers…woooohoooo! Time to put away the snow stuff!

A large envelope arrived from the International Quilt Festival folks in Houston yesterday; despite its size, I figured it had to be a sorry, no thanks.  WRONG!   I am teaching in Houston this coming Fall!!!!!!!!  I am elated beyond belief… it has been quite the effort to float down to be able to reach the keyboard LOL!

After I met yet another deadline I checked to see when applications were due…it was in six days!  So I quickly put together everything (I had last year asked on my blog for letters of recommendation and received several…thanks Betty, Jan, Mathea and Rebecca for your help!) and overnighted it ($16 well spent!) to Houston to make the deadline for certain.  Well, yesterday I received the results, and will have four days of teaching (I wanted 3 or 4):

Monday, October 12,
Fine Finishes (bindings and edge finishes)

Tuesday, October 13,
Machine Applique Three Ways
(the Blue Gingko pattern)

Wednesday, October 14
Tame Fiddly, Fussy Threads for Machine Quilting
(the More Machine Quilting class)

Thursday, October 15
Chunk and Jigsaw Fusible Applique–
total fun!  fabric postcards plus

The classes will be in the Janome machine classroom (yeah!) except for the Wednesday class, which will be in the BabyLock classroom…better go find a BabyLock dealer and see how their machines are set up!

I’ve set it up to do small kits for the classes, as that makes it a lot easier for both the students and teachers.  They get what they need that is unusual (they are asked to b ring their own fabric, batting, etc….usual items) like crisp interfacing, water soluble paper, fancy threads, that sort of thing.

So, now I’m going to go eat breakfast (Irish oats and a banana) and float again!  THEN, after I finish a project to submit for consideration for the 2009 Quilting Arts Gifts issue (comes out before the holidays) and get that mailed off, I need to start getting my set-up done to use the video camera and digital projector in my teaching.  I actually signed up for a Jan Krentz workshop this may tho I pretty much never do traditional piecing any more just so I can watch how she teaches.  She’s coming to Maine in May at the invitation of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild, and I can’t wait!