Monday, June 29, 2015

Quilting in the North Woods

Nine women went to the cabin and quilted for four days. We had a great time, great food, great laughs!

the beautiful lake

the mess we made inside

some stuff I made

more stuff I made (The pie is in a cake-pan, because I didn't think the cabin had two pie tins, so we had a strawberry-rhubarb pie-cake; I was wrong, though.. there were two pie tins there!)

We ice-dyed!

C and I modeled our free "Two Men and a Truck" t-shirts (Quilting in Minnesota's North Woods with Two Men and a Truck")

Friday, June 26, 2015

Friday Books: TKAM

Well, I finally finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Of course, it gets all the stars possible. What a great book in so many ways -- characters, story, plot, setting, emotions, life's unfairness and the beauty of it all! It makes me sad that our racial inequities go on and on and on.

I'm looking forward to reading Harper Lee's next book which comes out in July. I understand she wrote it first, 50-some years ago. It is about Scout as a grown woman. The publisher suggested that a story about Scout as a young girl would be interesting, and that's where TKAM came from! Then Lee hung on to the first one and never published it 'til now.

Did you know that my mom was a friend of Harper's sister, Alice? Alice was an attorney who lived and continued to practice into her 90s.

Thanks for checking in! Keep on reading!

Friday, June 19, 2015

Loose Threads, Challenge One

I know it's Friday and I should have a book review for you, but I don't. I'm still reading To Kill a Mockingbird. So far 2015 has not been a great reading year for me. I have read some fabulous books, but not many of them. I have been a slow reader this year.

Instead I'll share with you some pictures of the first challenge we did in a new small group I am a part of. We call ourselves The Loose Threads. There are five of us, so far. We just got started in April, and we meet once a month. When we had our first meeting, I had purchased a piece of red floral fabric that said clearly "use me for a challenge." So I did. I cut pieces for everyone, and handed them out at our first meeting and said, "make something." Four of the five of us made something. Here's the photo of the results:

table runner by Karrie, small bag by Sally, table topper left by Sunny, wall hanging right by Carol (me)

My little people are paper-pieced. The pattern shows five of them, but I got tired of the tiny, putzy work after two. The woman on the left is wearing the challenge fabric, but I colored in the white spots with a pigma pen. And I also used the challenge fabric on the bottom right for the garden. Mine is called "A Walk Through the Garden." This was fun.

At our recent June meeting Sunny gave us some fabric by Kaffe Fassett which is for our next challenge, Challenge Two. Same rule: "make something." I have my thinking cap on. Maybe I'll let the ideas percolate while I ... finish reading TKAM?

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Look-Alikes

Does anyone else see the resemblance? Do you know who these people are?



Louie Anderson, comedian, originally from Minnesota.

Prince George of England, third in line to be king.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

I'm Sewing!

I finally got some motivation and time to sit down and sew. I got a lot done over the last few days. It feels fabulous!

Here's a baby quilt I made:

I also put together a couple quilt tops from blocks made by other people. These will be for Sunshine projects:

Today I'm trying to convince myself to do some housework before I sit down and sew, but it's tough. (Confession, I already did some sewing this morning, but to assuage my guilt, I also did some picking up and organizing in my sewing room... a little.)

It's a beautiful day! Maybe I'll go outside and read! (Too many fun choices - housework NOT being one of the fun choices.)

Friday, June 12, 2015

Friday Books: To Kill a Mockingbird

This week I am re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Our book club at church will be discussing it on Sunday. I'm not done yet, but I have read it at least two times before and have seen the movie multiple times. So, I can tell you now that I will give it a five-star rating. It's fun to read a great book again after several years away from it. But at the same time, I am eager to get back to reading something of my own choosing. I was hoping our church book group would take a summer hiatus, but it decided not to.

After this I will have to read the book for my on-line book group. THEN I can get to a book of my own choice.

We are finally getting somewhat caught up on our yard work... not completely, but at least I got the flowers put in as I want them, and we have done some weeding. That seems impossible to keep up with, but we're trying. So far we have only had one very hot day, so it hasn't been too bad to be outside weeding. Here are some pictures of our flowers. Try not to pay attention to any weeds you notice or the lawn that needs mowing! (As I said, it's hard to keep up completely.) Ha! I think everyone with a yard is always a little bit behind; isn't that true?

A lot of my flowers are just in pots, but I also planted some of the marigolds in the actual garden space between the pots. Once they fluff up and fill in, I think it'll be quite pretty. The white flowers, in a previous photo, were mostly buds on my relatively new bushes. They really popped and are now already nearly done. I am happy with those pretty bushes, whatever they are.

I have been wanting to sew, but my main machine isn't working properly; I need to take it in for service and don't want to! So I'm just stymied while I decide what to do and what I could work on with my slightly less nice machines.



I hope you are all enjoying a lovely summer, and a lovely fall/winter in the southern hemisphere! It has been beautiful in Minnesota.. plenty of rain and beautiful sunshine. Lucky us!

Friday, June 05, 2015

Friday: No Books Today

I have been in a reading slump lately. One reason is that the book I'm currently reading, while extremely well written, is kind of boring. Nothing happens! I'm slogging through. I can't wait to get to a page-turner.

I've gone back to work now, after my month off for traveling and meetings. I was a little nervous to go back, hoping I hadn't forgotten how to do everything. I hadn't. Whew! Also, I was told that I received a compliment from a customer (it's anonymous). They can submit a compliment or complaint any time they want. This is the first time I have received an official compliment. I'll get a little certificate. Whoopee! My first one in four years. I know the customers have to kind of go out of their way to submit these, so I really appreciate it. The official kudos are rare birds.

We've been working on weeding our garden. It is full of tall weeds! When we left for Oz and Kiwi, it was too early in the season to have any weeds or to plant. When we came back, the time had almost passed, so our weeds were tall, and we hadn't put in any flowers yet. It's hard to catch up.

I have a couple little bushes that I planted a couple years ago. I don't even know what they are, but they are flowering nicely this year. I'm happy about that. The smaller bush, that I did not photograph, has way more buds on it. Yay!

That's about the only excitement going on around here. Life has resumed to its normal, quiet yet chaotic pace.




Monday, June 01, 2015

My Hands2Help Challenge Quilts

I'm finally getting back to my real life after Australia, New Zealand, and then a 4-day conference in another town here in Minnesota. Whew!

It's time to post pictures of the quilts I'm sending to Hands2Help for their annual challenge. Thank goodness I was busy sewing before May, because I haven't had any time to sew since late April. And these quilts are the result of many hands, not just mine. I couldn't have done these without help from my local guild. Thanks to all of them!!

This one is going to Layers of Hope: Quilting 911 which gives quilts to 911 Dispatchers who experience vicarious trauma during tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina, natural disasters, and traumatic emergencies.


The next charity, Happy Chemo, is getting two quilts. These go to people undergoing cancer treatments.

The last one is going to a charity in Canada, Because You Matter. Quilts are given to any person who is having a hard time. Most of them go to children in foster care. Of all these quilts, this is the one that I worked on the most, and I love the colors; I also have a tender heart toward kids in foster care, so I'm glad this one is going to that cause.

I hope ALL these quilts will provide some comforting cuddles to whoever receives them. Thanks, Sarah, for organizing this fun annual quilt drive.

P.S. Almost forgot... go HERE to see all the gorgeous quilts others are donating to the H2H Challenge.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Random Observations Down Under

Any time a person travels, that person will no doubt observe some funny random moments -- unusual habits, interesting or bewildering slang, customs that are done a little differently from home. I collected a list of things while traveling in Australia and New Zealand. These are my random observations.

Some of the slang I already knew. I started writing them down as soon as I heard them. For example, right away, when going through customs in the Sydney airport, a customs worker said "ta" when I put my luggage in the right place.

A hotel worker said "g'day" to me.

I heard a guy on the phone saying to his friend, "see ya, mate." Eventually I heard "mate" many times here and there.

"Bugger me" = I heard man say "bugger me, my ..... whatever... isn't going well." Can't remember his exact words. This one means something like, "my bad luck" or "what a bummer."

Learned these new words. I hope they are not offensive:
wogs = Italians
poms = Brits

A guy at Hubby's trade show said, "Let me just check this over and make sure it's all tickety-boom."

A guy will be called "Mack" if his name isn't known.

In a previous post I already told the story of "return trip" meaning the same as what I call "round trip." After I returned home I heard this on a radio news story.. a person from Sydney had flown to Ireland at the time of the same-sex-marriage vote, and had paid so-many dollars for a "return trip." For an instant I was confused again.. thinking that was for the trip BACK to Sydney only. Then I remembered that it meant "round trip." A lesson I learned that helped me back home! Cool.

Salt and pepper shakers--
Here in USA we put salt in the shaker that has bigger and/or more holes. We put pepper in the shaker with small and/or fewer holes. In both Australia and New Zealand it is the other way around. I learned this by attempting to put "salt" on my eggs. It was awfully dark salt! So from then on, I tested every shaker on a napkin before using it on my food.

Restaurants, including fast-food --
All of them were "leave your dishes on the table" style. I never saw a place for customers to return their own dishes to a platform and scrape your own plate (though I kept looking). They tended to be not very generous with napkins (serviettes?) or with ketchup (tomato sauce, pronounced "to-mah-to.") You'd get one tiny squeeze packet or part of a tiny cup with a bit of ketchup in it. They must not consume ketchup by the bucketful like some Americans do. I personally don't, so I was fine.. just noticed that it wasn't even available sometimes, even with "chips" (fries).

All I had to do was open my mouth and utter one word, and the question would be "which part of North America are you from?" It felt funny being the person with an accent (but hey, it was my turn to experience this).

I tried to get photos of the different signage I saw. The first one, below, is a striped cross-walk, and it's pronounced "zeh-bra." The second one is just a really cool place name.


This must be where a person goes to find some really handsome "mates."

above: hardware store says "It's your local." Then there is a kangaroo-crossing sign. I saw two koala-crossing signs, too, but they came up too quickly; I couldn't grab a photo. I hate to think of cute little koalas trying to cross a highway. That's how they end up in the Koala Hospital.

a speed limit sign -- 110 km/hour = 68 miles/hour

Well, as you see, none of this is very profound.. just the interesting or odd things one runs across on a daily basis when traveling.

P.S. I never did see the swagman in the billabong.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Down Under, Chapter 7

I'm sad to be writing the last chapter. We would love to go back and have more time to explore New Zealand. We saw only Auckland while there. We would have had time to explore a little more, for example there are ferries to islands around Auckland. But Hubby was tired after his conference. He needed a day to just hang out and rest. And we were both getting tired of spending money on extras such as entrance fees, transportation, and eating out. We were feeling ready to get back home.

We did enjoy Auckland. The weather there is interesting. In our morning bus-tour hours we had clouds, rain, wind, and sunshine. The weather can change in a moment! Here's the Sky Tower in different weather conditions. It was close to our hotel, and a good landmark for finding our way back home after exploring the city.

The brown building is the Ferry Building. Next one is the War Memorial Museum which is excellent. It has much more in it than just war memories.

We attended a live Maori performance at the museum. It was excellent.


Here is my brush with fame. I saw this person and thought she looked a lot like Molly Quinn who plays the daughter on the TV show "Castle." Hubby didn't think so. I'll admit I was being a sneaky paparazzi person. I hid behind a column upstairs and waited for her to look away from her phone. I never did get a very good face shot. But, after returning home I did some sleuthing, and my BIL did also, and we confirmed that this person is, in fact, the real Molly Quinn. She was in NZ with a touring group and performed in Auckland later the same night that I saw her. Cool!! I present to you, my good friend, Molly Quinn.

My husband being photographed as he ate lunch at the museum café. A bride being photographed outside the museum. Two guys in "outfits" being photographed at an intersection. Maybe they'll appear in some fashion magazine, and I can claim another brush with fame???

The Skytower is everywhere!!!

Auckland from above (inside the Skytower, of course), including the Skytower shadow.

Suddenly a body whizzed by. People were jumping off the top of Skytower! Here's a picture where you can just see some feet at the very top of the photo. I clicked a split second too soon.. the jumper whizzed by, and I thought I had missed him or her, and I was mostly right, except I got the toes! LOL. Here's one of the jumpers, but he's so blurry.. he's the blob in the middle of the photo, with knees bent, feet by his butt, facing to the right.

On our way out, we met the jumper down below. He was going back up for another jump.

Sunset from Skytower:

On our last day we took a short ferry ride to a neighborhood called Devenport. It was a nice shopping and restaurant area, fun to walk around and look at the cute houses and gardens, AND -- I found a beautiful quilt shop there! I was so excited, because I had about given up hope of finding one in NZ. I was able to buy some unique-to-New-Zealand fabrics. That made my day!

Interesting trees in Auckland: they twist and turn all over the place and take up LOTS of space.

Our fabulous trip had to come to an end. We were eager to get home, but full of wonderful, happy memories of a lovely holiday. Remember how I said we lost May 5 on our way over to Australia? On the way home, we had the longest day on earth. We arrived in Los Angeles before we left Auckland, and we gained another whole day. We arrived home on May 21, but really, we had already experienced several hours of May 21. Funny world we live in, isn't it?
... in the Auckland airport.

P.S. Our cat was happy to see us back home, but yelled at us for half a day, to make sure we knew how terrible it had been for us to leave him! (Daughter was feeding and checking on him.. he was just being dramatic.) Now it's back to real life and responsibilities.... do I have to??