We woke up today to the first snow-misting (too light to be a true snowfall) of the season, so I’m celebrating by sharing this YouTube video with you.

The first time I heard the Hallelujah chorus was shortly after college when I was living near Washington, D.C.  I was friends with a Jewish guy (whom I wanted as a boyfriend, but alas he was coming off a serious break-up and wasn’t interested….sigh….don’t recall his name but his car was an ancient Pugeot named Ogg) who loved classical music and opera.  For Christmas, he gave me a gift of a ticket to go with him to the Kennedy Center for the holiday performance of Handel’s Messiah.

I was utterly mystified when everyone suddenly stood up!  The not-a-boyfriend explained that when first played for the King, the King was so moved that he instantly jumped up on his feet.  Since no one was permitted to sit while the King stood, everyone else in attendance at the performance also stood, and that tradition has continued now for what, almost 300 years?  So, I invite you to stand up with me and enjoy this—wouldn’t you have loved to be there?

Here’s to joy and sharing and the unexpected in life!

PS—just looked it up in Wikipedia, there it said about the King (George II of England) and standing during the chorus:

• He was so moved by the performance that he rose to his feet.
• Out of tribute to the composer.
• As was and is the custom, one stands in the presence of royalty as a sign of respect. The Hallelujah chorus clearly places Christ as the King of Kings. In standing, King George II accepts that he too is subject to the Lord of Lords.

Cool beans (as my teen would say)!  And I can sing along and my lack of ability to carry a tune won’t offend anyone except perhaps the cats and the pug!

Oh what fun!  I just love it when someone takes one of my classes or reads my book or an article, makes something, then shares it with me!  In this case, Janet from my Janome yahoo group shared with me a fantastic variation on the needlekeeper pattern in ThreadWork Unraveled.  In the pattern in the book, I use a couple pieces of fabric (flannel in one instance) and maybe some batting to make a “needle keeper”–one of those things to help you keep track of what needles have been used but not used up, and what needle is IN the machine:

My version of the needlekeeper, with sections labelled by type of needle

Well, Janet’s fantabuloso twist is to use her practice free-motion quilting samples to make a lovely roll-up needle-keeper! Janet cut her sample into suitable sizes, zigzagged the outside edge, then added muslin and batting to the center for the storage part of the needlekeeper.  This is the business side of Janet’s version:

Janet's needlekeeper using her practice Free-Motion-Quilting bits for the outside

And the lovely quilting on the back:

The back side showing the lovely quilting and how Janet attached a ribbon

And how it looks rolled up (perfect for travel!)–this would be a great variation to use for handwork needles, especially if you work in different parts of the house or on the road:

Janet's needlekeeper rolled up with a red ribbon (sewn to outside)

What a great gift!  Janet even typed up information for the recipient:

Information for the recipient

Now…do I have time to MAKE any before Christmas…what a great gift idea!  Thanks so much Janet for sharing with me and, in turn, letting me share with those of you who read my blog!  OK…everyone to their sewing machines!

This year instead of two league teams, we ended up with just one because we didn’t (a) have enough boys to field two full teams and (b) didn’t have coaches (volunteer!) for two teams.  That meant for the first time there were cuts (SOB) to the roster.  We really miss the other boys, but my goodness this combined team has really improved dramatically this year!   They WON the Harvest Cup tournament in York over the Columbus Day weekend, a first for our area, and on October 30 they beat the PAYSA team to advance to the semi-finals and finals next weekend!

It's a big wide field to run; that's our son as goalie in the yellow shirt, far right

Sometimes it is terrifying for the goalie, but better when your team is there to help you defend the goal (Pen Bay is in blue)

The PAYSA team (red shirts) was by far the best team we have played all season. In honesty, the outplayed us the entire game, dominating the pace and direction of the game.  But in the end, Pen Bay (short for Penobscot Bay, the large inlet halfway up the coast of Maine on whose shores you can find Lincolnville, Camden and Rockport, among other towns) United won by 3-2, holding off yet another surge by PAYSA at the last minute to hang on to the win.

Sometimes it is lonely being the goalie. And cold. It was so chilly--a high of about 50 with the wind blowing--that the refs let the goalies keep on their long pants! (In Eli's case, flannel holiday jammies!)

Another nail-biting moment as the other team attempts to score...notice how well placed the PAYSA kids are to receive the rebound

The ref just blew the game whistle--PenBay had held off PAYSA by 3 to 2!

A team of very happy 13 year old boys and very happy coaches, too!

The end-of-game shaking of hands of the teams and refs

As we were walking to the car, one of the PAYSA coaches was wonderful…congratulating our boys on a win.  We allowed as how, frankly, they had outplayed us the entire game, but he said yes, but your  boys were still able to make the points when it counted and win.  Gracious, generous…and I agree:  our teams would both improve if we could play each other more during the season.

But before we left the field, the boys surprised us (the parents walking across the field to the team bench) by stringing out in a line and racing across the field, bursting through and round us:

Team spirit--after the game, racing across their half of the field in unison (sorry about the overexposure, no idea what happened)

And racing back–yes, they covered the field!

And back...thatsa lotta boys!

We didn’t have a team photo of ALL the boys (one or another was always missing before), so we got a team photo….a line of kids and coaches, and a line of mostly moms armed with cameras snapping away madly…of the 12 or so shots I got, this was the best (no one making weird faces, blinking or looking down!)

A team photo--victory!

So, you might ask, what have I been doing?  OK, no, you probably haven’t been asking.  But it has been insane here.  We are hoping to buy a new house and move in January, so there have been MANY (way too many hours) doing real estate related stuff.  The good news is that our house got a contract on it in 12 days, in this economy!  The bad news …well…. I’ll share when all is said and done (you won’t believe the story when I can finally tell it).  Let’s just say EVERYTHING is on track, and we do expect to move (so much for January as making quilts time!) in January—yeah!

In the meantime, I’ve not been able to concentrate a lot on art quilts.  But I liked that use-a-big-print sampler I made for my free-motion class  so much that I decided to make a bed quilt, possibly as a project piece for a future book (yeah, shoot me again please!). Here are the squares pieced with the sashing into rows:

Big prints with white sashing (vertical pieces)

Adding the horizontal sashing....it has been a LONG time since I've done precision piecing!

And the first of the rows with the horizontal sashing added..I am going to LOVE this quilt.  But it’s a good thing I am probably buying an HQ16 sit-down machine early next year as I will need the space:  this quilt will finish at about 100 inches on each side!!!!

The top three rows now have the horizontal sashing....

And I’m getting ready to head out on Nov. 2 for the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  I will have four quilts and two photos on display!

Cookie? PLEEEZE Cookie! is in Art Quilts-Miniatures in the juried show

Joshua is in the Beneath the Surface Exhibit

Koi and A Sense of Place:  The Wall are in the 500 Art Quilts exhibit, where the quilts are from the Lark Books book of the same name.

and in the Eye of the Quilter Exhibit, I will have two photos!  I’ll post those photos in a post in a few days!

But here is the pile of “getting ready to take” stuff, including some in progress postcards for a swap. I’m going to take some of this round’s swap cards for my demo in the MistyFuse booth!

SAQA is the Studio Art Quilt Associates, a non-profit group to promote art quilting with members around the world.    There are regional groups, including one for New England.  Those of us in sparsely populated Maine –the state population is about 1.3 million, the same as San Antonio, Texas or San Diego, California!–live far enough from the majority of the regional group members in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire and Vermont, that we don’t often get to the meetings.  So Sarah Carpenter, Beth Berman and Wen Redmond had an idea an made it happen:  SAQA-Maine retreat weekend in Searsport, Maine the weekend of Sept. 18th!

Beth VERY generously hosted much of the meeting in her home and new studio.  Other meetings were at the hotel just a mile or two up the road and a nearby church (the evening show and tell…alas it was part of the event I couldn’t attend). I forgot to take pictures of the first part which was meeting, at Beth’s house, or when the workshops began.  Various regional members offered to do demos or mini-workshops, and oh was it fun!  Valerie Poitier’s talk on perspective (my right brain was confuddled but I did get it eventually!), as was Wen Redmond’s demo on making thermofax screens and printing with them.  At least  I finally remembered to take the camera out during my mono-printing session with Margaret Sheehan.  I sure hope she comes back and does a two-day workshop near enough for me to take…talk about utter playtime! You can visit Margaret’s blog here and see some of the sheers featured below in the photo at the top…wow!

Here are the pics from that session:

Valerie Poitier looks stunning in Margaret Sheehan's sheer artcloth (also seen in the first photo of this blogpost)

Margaret S's red sheer mono-printed cloth---I LOVE that bird's nest design

And holding the red sheer up with the light from the open doorway behind...

I think this falls into the category of “Be Still my beating heart” and “I wanna do that NOW!”

Margaret explains some of the techniques used on this cloth

This piece of Margaret's shows how she used freezer paper resists when mono-printing

Yet another heavenly sheer--the synthetic sheers come from JoAnns mostly, the prom dress section, and obviously are vastly improved with paint

A different red sheer with sunswirls

Margaret showed us how to use heavy mil plastic drop-cloth, textile paint and common tools for surface design; notice the whisk.....

Transferring the mono-print (paint on plastic) onto the cloth is a tactile experience

In the upper left corner, Margaret pulls away the plastic with spiral she has just printed onto the cloth

The table I worked at! My stuff is on the near side and in the center

A closer look...here on my blue/green I used too much paint and lost definition. It is a learning process!

Even my paint tray was pretty!

one of my classmate's circle design...ooooh! I'm pretty sure she used an Afro/Hair pick for those marks

Drat I wish I could remember how she told me she made those marks....you can see this is addicting!

Again..I forget how shemade those purple marks, but I love them!

As you might gather, for a 2-hour session that was about an hour of demo and an hour hands-on, we the students really were inspired and went to town with our scraps.  Thanks SO MUCH to Margaret for sharing her time, technique and paints!   Next year we REALLY need to chip in to cover expenses for supplies…. Margaret, if you see this send me your snail mail address and I’ll either send you a fiver or a bit of hand-dyed as thanks!