Vacation, Day 1

I'm on vacation! What did I do with my first day off?

I read a book. All the way to the end. I finished it before Eileen finished hers. Neee-ner, neee-ner, neee-ner, Eileen!

I finished making the cherry stems thicker.

I cleaned the house.

I made cupcakes! (No watching calories on vacation, right?!)

I made more applique pieces--but you'll have to wait to see what they're for. Maybe on Day 2 of my vacation.

Would you like a cupcake? I made these for you--I knew you'd stop by!

Orphan Train Book Readers

For everyone who left me a comment saying they would like to read They Named Me Marjorie, I'm going to make a list to send along with the book. I believe Caryn was the first to comment, so I'll send it on to her. As you receive and send on the book, please make mention on your blog where it's traveling next and let Carol E. know you have it.

A few of you said you were interested in purchasing the book but hadn't been able to find a source. Ann Zemke, the author, left a comment on my post with her website address--the book can be ordered directly from her if you'd rather not wait. Thanks for your responses!

They Named Me Marjorie

Do you know about the Orphan Train? Perhaps you've read Finn's blog, Riding the Orphan Train. If you aren't familiar with either the history of the Orphan Train or Finn's Orphan Train blog, take a moment to jump over HERE and read this blog post--it will give you a basic background on both. Then come back.

Did you read it? Then you know what the Orphan Train was.

When her grandmother passed away in 1991, Ann Lemke discovered Marjorie's autobiography tucked away in a cupboard amid her diaries and photo albums. The book They Named Me Marjorie was written by Ann based on her grandmother's posthumously discovered writings. It tells the story of an orphan named Mary and the difficulties she faced and overcame along her journey to adulthood. Mary was a rider on the Orphan Train.

I love to learn and I love history. As an adult who was adopted as a child, the idea of the Orphan Train interested me, and I asked that the book be passed on to me. Now it's my turn to pass it along to someone else. Are you interested? If so, you can read a little bit about how this book is making the rounds of Blogland HERE. The ladies who began circulating the book ask only that you post about it on your blog so they can track its progress. Eventually, Carol E. would like the book to make its way back to her, so if it comes your way, please let her know you have it and where it will go next. Please email me or leave a comment if you would like to be added to the list of potential readers.

A Revelation

On Sunday, my hubby and I took a little trip to the downtown area to check out our city's monthly antique fair. I had heard a few vague mentions of the fair, but I never really knew much about it until we went to the local flea market a few weeks ago and were given a promotional flyer by one of the vendors there. We're glad we discovered the antique fair, and we have plans to go back--perhaps next month. Next time we'll get an earlier start on the day, though, so we can make it over to the farmer's market that's held a few blocks down the street.

(I like this photo of this guy staring intently at the poster of "Marijuana Girl," who was kinda hot looking. I wonder if that's his wife up ahead? As a matter of fact, Hubby was staring at Marijuana Girl too, but I didn't take his photo--it's enough that I talk about him without plastering his photo all over the internet! Sorry you can't actually SEE the poster very well, but you know me and photos.)

If you're anywhere near the Sacramento area, you might be interested in attending. It's held on the second Sunday of each month, from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and antique and collectible dealers from all over Northern California come to town and set up booths to show their wares. It's like a giant flea market but with better "stuff"! The fair is held in a couple of parking lots that run under the freeway, so at least part of the area is shaded--a nice benefit during the hotter months of the year!

I fell in love with this piece:

Simple, homey, and utilitarian. I could just imagine it restored and looking beautiful. Unfortunately, neither my husband nor I possess the necessary knowledge and skill to retore it, but it sure was hard to walk away from. Still, walk away we did, with just one parting look when I snapped the photo.

Instead, I contented myself with rummaging through a lot of boxes of old papers and photos--I could have spent hours at one guy's booth looking for "treasures," but hubby was waiting--patiently, but still, I knew he was waiting. So I ended up selecting three old greeting cards whose graphics and colors I loved. Later, at another booth, I picked up the wooden bowl they're sitting in.

My patient hubby is more interested in glass objects for his yard creations. Glass insulators caught his attention during this excursion, and we bought two that were priced "right." I'm sure price is based in part on color, size, and style, but some of the insulators we found were priced at several times what these cost. Since hubby's not actually a "collector" per se, price was the most important consideration. (Besides that, hubby is cheap! He's always hunting for a bargain. One thing I DID notice about these vendors is that for the most part, their wares were reasonably priced--something we don't always find at the flea market or antique shops and malls.)

Old magazines are always fun on a number of levels. The old ads can be pretty campy and can be used in collage/art projects; the stories are often interesting from a "historical" perspective; and looking back at fashions from a period can be a real hoot! But tell me this--looking at these two early 1950s Life magazines I picked up--am I getting old or does it seem like styles really haven't changed that much?! Okay, maybe we don't wear the long white opera gloves and chunky necklaces these days, but other than that?

Finally, I picked up a small lunch pail that's kind of cute and is just about the right size for carrying sewing notions and things to quilting classes. I also picked up this old weights and shipping data pamphlet--this and one of the glass insulators were priced at 2 for $1 toward the end of the day. Don't you love bargains? The pages of the pamphlet might make an interesting background for an arty collage project.

This guy had the most interesting booth--to me at least. All sorts of stuff that was particularly geared toward my tastes! Quilty and embroidered stuff, vintage printed tablecloths, old cooking utensils (flatware with bakelite handles!), etc.--tons of neat stuff. But he knew it, and his things were priced accordingly. Not many bargains to be had at this booth, but if you came with a pocketbook full of money and a house that needed some cute touches, this is probably the place you would have wanted to hang out.

About now, you might be wondering about the "revelation" mentioned in the title of this post. Well, sadly enough, I've realized that I'm most definitely "vintage" too. At this last booth pictured I found some old red and white Schilling spice tins, priced anywhere from $5 to $11 or so. I have a couple of those here at home--at some point during my life, my mom bought them new. Now I'm just hoping to stick around long enough to become "antique."

A Good Weekend

Sadly, what turned out to be a nice weekend is now drawing to a close, and it's back to work again tomorrow. On Friday night, I mentioned that I had a couple possible ideas about how I wanted to spend my quilting time over the weekend, so I thought I'd show you what I ended up doing.

For now, I'm holding back on revealing the project so I can surprise you when it's done. Well, that and the fact that I haven't really worked out the details in my mind yet! In any event, this weekend I decided to work on the patriotic quilt. First I made eight of these stars:

Every now and then, I like to sew up the "waste" pieces cut from flying geese blocks and make up half square triangles. That's what I decided to do with the waste from these stars.

Once I got done squaring them all up, I made eight more, smaller stars:

So, that part's done, and I'll probably put this project aside for now and go back to working on the cherries--I think I'm ready for a little hand work again.

Today my husband and I went to a local monthly antique fair--it was great! This was the first time we'd been, although I had heard a little about it. I'll tell you more about it and show a couple photos tomorrow.

While I was busy sewing this weekend, my husband re-worked his pot man. He needed a couple repairs and my husband had come up with a few improvements he wanted to make anyway.

Didn't he turn out cute? The butterflies/dragonflies on his head, hand, and toe are new additions.

And speaking of cute, have you seen the Christmas Thimbleberries line yet? It's supposed to hit the quilt shop shelves in May and I've gotten my pre-order in already. I was able to see the sales rep samples about a month ago, and I really like this one!

I hope you had an equally enjoyable weekend! Thanks for visiting with me!

Communication Breakdown

If you have a blog, no doubt you've gotten comments from people whose return email shows as "noreply-comment (at) blogger (dot) com". I know we get a little frustrated about not being able to answer someone who takes the time to leave us comments, and we wonder whether they realize they may not be getting replies from us because we can't write back. I have several nice people who leave me comments--or ask questions--and I can't respond to them. And if you're one of them--if you've left me comments or questions and wonder why I don't respond--I'm sorry. I'm not being snotty; I just don't have a way of getting back to you short of leaving a comment on your blog, and that always seems like an awkward way to answer a question. If you do have a question and you don't want to change your your email/comments settings, please just click on my profile and then click on "email me"--you can email me directly that way and I think it will give me your email address so I can write back.

Lately I've run across another problem. I've been trying to communicate with another blogger who has a Yahoo email account--as I do--and whose blog host is Blogspot--as is mine. I left a comment with questions on one of her older posts that was the subject of my questions and I never heard back from her. Later, she commented on one of my posts and I emailed back. Still later, she commented again, and it was apparent she had never gotten either my comment on her blog or my email reply. Have you ever had something like that happen? Here are a couple possibilities I came up with on why this would occur:

1. She doesn't have her blog set up so that comments are also emailed to her.

I know this is one of the options in the Blogspot set up, but I can't think of a reason why a person wouldn't want the comments also sent to their email. I know I have sometimes gotten comments on old posts, and if I didn't get them sent to my email, I'm not sure how I would ever know anyone had commented. When I set up my blog, I didn't want the comments going into my "regular" email account, so I just set up a different email account that I only use for this purpose. Simple, free, and it helps me stay somewhat organized!

2. She has her Yahoo mail account set so that bulk mail is automatically deleted.

This is one of the options I used to use in mine before I had a blog. In my "regular" email account, most of what Yahoo considered "bulk" mail was spam. But since I've changed both of my mail boxes from the "automatically delete" setting to the setting that deletes bulk mail after ten days (or something like that), I've noticed that I do get a fair number of "valid" emails going into that folder--and I would have missed them all if I didn't have my mailbox set up so I can check those.

I think the internet is wonderful, and I've made many good friends through this technology. Today I spent time trying to catch up on the blogs on my list--something I had fallen behind on. I may not have left you a comment if I dropped by, but I did get caught up, so the chances are that if you read and comment on my blog, I stopped in to visit yours. Your blogs inspire me and refresh my creative spirit--without this resource and all of my bloggy buds out there--and even a few FWOBs (Friends WithOut Blogs!) who email me directly on occasion--life would be a lot more boring. Thank you for taking the time to stop in and "see" me and leave me a comment when you're so inclined. I enjoy hearing from you!

The Weekend Has Arrived!

It's Friday night, and the weekend is here! Not only that, but I've finished the nine cherry blocks I've been working on:

Well, sort of. A package was waiting for me when I came home from work, and it contained the additional perle cotton I had ordered as well as some Valdani thread, so now I'm ready to start over again on the cherry blocks, making the stems a double line of stitching.

Well, sort of. Actually, I'm getting a little weary of all the hand work and I'm itching to do a little piecing. Besides that, over a year ago, I was diagnosed with SASD. So maybe the cherries will have to take a little rest over the weekend while I play with something else. Here's my Basket of Joy:

Can you spot the Mary Engelbreit fabric? That's a possibility. So is the Blackbird Jubilee fabric. (Which is hiding in Basket of Joy 2, and which you can't see. Neither can I. I need to recover from the Tequila Hangover before I look at it again!) Another possibility is an idea for a patriotic quilt project that's been in my little brain for the last few months.

It was such a beautiful day here in Northern California and I was feeling SO GOOD about it being Friday, that I thought maybe I should make a trip to the quilt shop at lunch. Except, I told myself, I really didn't NEED anything from the quilt shop! So I talked myself into staying in for lunch. (Gotta wonder sometimes how I ever get any work done with all this talking to myself!) And that was all well and good, but then one of the other quilters in my office--who was feeling grumpy and in need of a little retail fabric therapy--emailed me to see if I wanted to go to the quilt shop at lunch. And, you know what? My willpower only goes so far before it snaps, shreds, and sputters out, so I said, "yeah, sure!" And off we went.

I found a couple black and white fabrics--I NEED some black and white fabrics for the cherry quilt. In fact, here's a photo of today's black and white fabrics together with a couple other fabrics that may find their way into the cherry quilt.

I also "found" this Australian quilting magazine at the quilt shop. I remembered I wanted to check the Australian quilting magazines for something, but I couldn't remember what, so I just bought it--I figured I'd remember later.

When I was flipping through the pages, I came across this quilt, which looked awfully familiar. "Gee," I thought, "That looks like Tazzie's quilt." So I looked at the name of the designer--nope, someone named "Tara." I flipped on, but I had to come back to it because it was really bugging me. Well, sure enough, there at the end of the pattern was Tazzie's blog or email address or something--SOMETHING that told me "yes, your mind isn't a totally shriveled raisin." And isn't it funny? It seems like I've "known" Tazzie forever--at one time, she belonged to my online Thimbleberries Yahoo group long before blogging came along, I've been reading her blog for a long time, and over the last year or so, we've occasionally emailed back and forth. Tara? Who knew? Probably everyone but me, I'm sure! I love this quilt of hers--simple but really effective in its controlled scrappiness. Lovely!

So, the weekend's here and I have plenty of fun stuff I'd like to do. I hope you do too!

Book Report

I've just finished reading a very good book, and a few other books have made their way through the mail to my house in the last week or so, so I thought it was a good time to talk a little bit about books.

Although I don't talk about books very often, they are an integral part of my life. I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to get to sleep at night without one. I usually don't enjoy reading anything very serious but I do greatly enjoy a decently written piece of entertaining fiction.

If you enjoy a good psychological suspense novel, particularly of the British genre, and haven't read anything by Minette Walters, do yourself a favor and pick one up. My favorites have been her early books, but they are all good. I just finished reading The Devil's Feather and I highly recommend it.

At my last Jo's Little Women Club meeting, one of our members brought a cat quilt for show and tell. Although I like cats a lot, I've never had any great desire to make a cat quilt until I saw hers, so I went home after the meeting and got on the computer and ordered this book--

Here's a photo from the book of the quilt I would like to make one of these days. Maybe it's because the cats look a little like Spike, but I really thought this was a fun quilt!

Then, a couple more arrived in today's mail. A book by Marcia Muller, another favorite author (you can barely see it lurking in the background here--sorry), and the newest Elm Creek Quilters book by Jennifer Chiaverini. I'm sure I'll be reading the Elm Creek book soon.

Finally, I recently received the book They Named Me Marjorie. This is the orphan train book that Finn's talked about on her blog. I know a little bit about the orphan trains but I'm anxious to learn more about this part of American history. I'll be starting this book tonight and I'll write more about it later and see if any of you would like me to send it on to you.

Happy reading--and quilting!

Oh, and by the Way . . .

I think I used up all my deep and insightful thoughts on yesterday's blog post and there's not another one rattling around in my brain right now, so today's post is mostly just a little fluff and catch up.

You may need your sunglasses again. Remember Montezuma's Hangover (aka the Bad Cherry Tequila quilt top) from a couple days ago? Did you happen to notice the stars in the hourglass block sections? One of my blogless internet friends, Synthia, emailed me to mention she had noticed four of them, so I thought I'd mention it. It's kind of like Where's Waldo. Can you find the six stars? Yes, I even amuse myself when I make bad quilts!

Seriously, though, thank you all for your support. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised by all the nice things you said. One of these days, I'll finish it. And if I still don't like it, maybe I'll have another giveaway on the blog!

Okay, now cats. Or my goofy young one Spike to be specific--the one who wanted her own bed and still seems happy to have it. Sometimes I'd like to kill her. Like when she opens the kitchen drawer where we keep the dish towels and digs them all out onto the floor so she can climb in. Several times a day. I thought I'd take a photo of her tonight--this, I think, was about the fourth time this evening.

What goes on in those little cat brains? She also likes to open all the cupboards. She must have the strongest paw muscles of any cat I know. If we could only harness all that energy into doing some kind of housework I'd be a happy cat mom.

But here's why I let her live: She makes me laugh. This is one of her favorite poses:

There she is, laying on the floor in front of the television because she knows hubby and I are both looking in that direction, and she's hoping that if she's cute enough, we might abandon the evening's television program and pick up that feathered stick she's laying on top of and play with her. And if she doesn't think we're noticing her, first she'll stare at me for awhile--

Then she'll stare at hubby for awhile.

She's so obvious, isn't she? Hussy! Tramp!

Nature or Nurture?

When it comes to creativity, is it something passed on to us in our genes or do we pick it up because creativity is part of our upbringing?

Last night, I was reading Mary Ann's post about her family and her creative grandmother. Then I thought about quilting friends who have said they first developed an interest in quilting because a mother or a grandmother quilted. I started thinking about creativity and wondering why it develops in some of us but not in others.

I was adopted at birth and never knew my birth parents, nor do I know anything about my genetic background, so I can't say whether I come from a long line of creative people. My adoptive mother, though, was involved with painting and art for a time, until alcoholism overwhelmed her desire to create. Still, during my formative years and until I was in my mid-teens, my mom would paint or sketch periodically, and she was always interested in home decorating, sewing, and making our home attractive. My mom's father was a fairly talented artist as well. On the other hand, my brother, who is my parents' biological child, appreciates art and creativity but has never seemed to have much of a desire to create anything himself. Still, when it came time to get a job, my brother went into commercial house paint sales, so he works with color regularly--is that his creativity coming out?

The other day, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked if I was still quilting. "Yes, of course," I replied. "Why do you want to keep making quilts?," she asked. "Don't you have enough?" "For the same reasons YOU painted pictures, Mom," I told her. At that point in the conversation, she told me she had to stop painting because framing was too expensive. We've been down that road before--next she would have complained that my father wouldn't let her paint because it cost too much money. So, of course, I changed the subject. But you know what? I think that if she had felt the same need to create that I feel, she would have found a way to continue with her art, even if it meant sketching in pencil and charcoal on a drawing pad. I'm not sure what led to her periodic spurts of artistic endeavors and whether it was the alcoholism alone that quenched her creative spark, but I don't think my mom ever truly felt a passion to create, because she doesn't recognize the motivation in others.

So where did I get it from? My early exposure to an artistic parent and a need--particularly as an adopted child--to be more like her in some way? Some gene passed down to me by ancestors I never knew? I don't suppose I'll ever know for certain, but maybe it's a combination of both. How about you? Where did you get your creativity from?