Mothers Day

 

Hope you all had a very nice Mother's Day.  I sure did!  We had the first sunny day all month, and everything outside is green.  My son came over to help me clean the garage and brought me a lovely bouquet.  We scraped the garage floor of road salt and sand, and then he investigated a possible leak in the garage roof.  I held the ladder while he hopped up there, and I worried the whole time.  That never stops when you're a mother, even if he is 43 years old.  He also took a broom and swept away the cobwebs on the ceiling.  The garage looks presentable, at least superficially.  It will never be squeaky clean, but that's OK.

Afterwards, we had a delicious ravioli dinner, Chris went home, and we all took naps.  Later, I talked to Mom on the phone and then even later watched Call the Midwife and Miss Austen, my two favorites on PBS.  A perfect day!

Dear Jane revisted

Yesterday's state quilt guild meeting is over, and I am now the former president!  It was a great meeting, if I do say so myself.  A large number of new people joined, and attendance was up by quite a bit.  It makes me especially happy because when this particular board took over six years ago, the previous board was set on folding up.  The treasury was pretty much depleted and no programs were planned.  We managed to weather the pandemic by publishing additional newsletters and upgrading our web presence.  Once it became safe to meet again, we returned to our twice annual gatherings, with excellent speakers from within the state and fun programs.

My favorite part of our meetings has always been "show and tell."  In the fall, I had issued a presidential challenge to use the "Snowflake Bentley" fabric that had been copies from plates at the Smithsonian.  Bentley was a Vermonter who photographed snowflakes and learned that no two are alike.  Here's what one quilter showed yesterday.

Debie cut the snowflake blocks from the panel and then added snowflake blocks she designed herself along with some she machine embroidered.  It's a huge quilt!  And!  When she finished this quilt, she made a lap quilt with blocks she'd made using sashiko embroidery.  

Ginny and I did a short program about our journeys with Dear Jane.  We showed some of the "Baby Jane" quilts we've made over the years since the book came out in 1996.  Here are a few of mine.

This is my Asian Jane, made with those stunning prints and a black background.  (That's Tess holding the quilt)  Mary quilted this on her longarm.

Here's the baby quilt using 1930 blocks, some of them swapped.  I machine quilted in the ditch on the sashing and then hand quilted the individual blocks.

And here's the Christmas one I drape on the couch every year, again with some blocks that were swapped.  I machine quilted this quilt.

I walked over 8,000 steps yesterday, but it was well worth it!

Rainy days

 It has rained every day for at least a week.  Our grass is "as high as an elephant's eye" (and this ain't Oklahoma!).  But it is a lush green, and plants outside are growing fast.  My tulips look lovely.

I spent a lot of time sewing this week and yesterday was spent at the library.  Paul and I went to set up chairs in the reading room in the morning, and after lunch we returned for a concert.  This picture doesn't do the concert justice.  The pianist was a retired high school music director, choir director, local performer, and artist, who played, sang, and encouraged us to sing along.

57 people attended, and all seemed to enjoy themselves.  It was the Friends of the Library's fourth annual concert in memory of our late president and our good friend.  Christine would have loved the whole event which ended with one of her favorite songs, America the Beautiful.

I had made a "Death by Chocolate" bundt cake and there were other goodies served after the show.  There was no cake to take home, much to Paul's regret.  I made sure he had a piece after the concert, though, so don't feel sorry for him.  I was so glad the afternoon was a success, and people who came all pitched in to clean up the chairs before I even knew what was happening.  

It's raining again today, so I baked some healthy muffins, a variation of "morning glory" ones, went to the bank, and did a little preparation for Saturday's state quilt guild meeting.  Tomorrow I have a doctor's meeting early and then will bake some brownies for Saturday (leaving one for Paul, of course!).  I'll load up the car before evening so that I can get a nice early start.

Green Up Day

Yesterday was "Green Up Day" all around Vermont, a day when folks get out and pick up any trash along the roadsides that's accumulated over the winter.  Paul and I went to the playground down the road and picked up a small amount.  On our way home, we picked up a little along the road behind our house.  We left two basketballs and a black hoodie at the playground, hoping the owners would come by for them.  The telltale bright green bags make it easier for town crews to find them now and give me a sense that all's right with Vermont (in sharp contrast to the country and the world).

It started raining soon after we got home, so we were glad we went when we did.  I got busy finishing this month's blocks and then remaking a block I'd made a few months ago for the Optimism monthly quilt along.  I'm using fairly basic colors for that quilt - red, yellow, blue, green - from my stash along with a beige-y Liberty print background to tie them all together.  I'm not sure what I'll use for sashing yet.  I suspect I won't know until October or so when the quilt along ends.  It may be another neutral, but probably not the same one I'm using for the background since I expect to run out.

In the afternoon, an unexpected phone call sent me to the quilt shop to meet Beth who had a carload of quilting books to give away.  Her mother isn't quilting anymore due to Alzheimer's.  Judging by Beth's age (thirties?), her mother must be fairly young, poor thing.  I will take the books to the state guild meeting and sell them for $1 a piece.  There are some great books in the bunch, and I allowed myself to take four.  I will need to weed out a few from my own collection to make room.  One has a great variety of setting ideas for blocks which might come in handy as I try to tackle my "orphan" collection.

Today, I'm not sure what I'm going to do!  It's going to rain so much-needed gardening is out.  I should finish sewing down the binding on the Exploding Heart quilt and knitting the shawl that has been languishing for a few weeks.  Maybe I'll turn on the Hallmark Mystery channel and knuckle down on those two projects.  I might also cozy up with a good book...

Spring has sprung!

These last two weeks have flown by.  Last week my brother Rob and his wife Linda visited, and we spent a lot of time just catching up on our lives.   It was great to see them.  There was a lot to do before and after their visit, and then there was catching up on things not done.  I spent some time outside on nice days, picking up sticks in the yard, edging the front flower beds, and simply enjoying nicer weather.  I did snow - hard - one afternoon, but it all melted within a couple of hours.  We hope not to see that again until November.  

Our daffodils and tulips are blooming, and every day I see something new peeking out of the dirt.  There will be violets and lily of the valley soon, as well as flowering crabapple trees.  Spring is always a surprise around here after the long winter.

This week I finished Row H for my modern Dear Jane quilt and then caught up on some blocks of the month.

The block on the left is going into the lottery at my guild meeting later this month.  The other two are for me, with the one on the bottom being blocks for the quilt designed by Kristin Laura.  She has given our guild permission to make her quilt as a block of the month.  We will only have 9 guild blocks and 12 Kristin Laura blocks, so I decided to make them in the same colorway and combine them.  Hope it works out.

Then I made the "rows and pathways" (?) block for the lottery at the state quilt guild meeting May 10.  I initially wondered if it would turn out OK, but I like my block and assume the other quilters' blocks will turn out just as nice.  It will definitely be a scrappy quilt when they're all together.  It's supposed to look like garden paths.

I've spent some time in the last few days getting stuff together for the state guild meeting, too.  This will be my last meeting as president, and I'm looking forward to "just" being a participant and not responsible for anything.  We'll see how that turns out!

A friend and I are doing a short program on Dear Jane-type quilts at the meeting.  That's how Ginny and I met long ago.  We each have stories to tell and variations to show.  I have encouraged others in the guild to bring their variations along for show and tell, too.  One person has a mini that I think is just amazing.

And speaking of amazing, the other day as I was watering my indoor plants I noticed that my orchid, which I repotted a few weeks ago, is sporting two blossoms, with more on the way!  It hasn't bloomed in years, so it just goes to show that it needed a bigger pot.