No Posts Today

I have been working and stitching but no posts today. It has been an absolutely SHITTY day, sorry; I just don't feel like putting up any pictures and trying to say anything about them. It'll be better tomorrow.

News from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative received a thank you letter  from Dr. Domenico Praticò, Professor of Pharmacology at Temple University in response to receiving a research grant from the AAQI.  Please click through to read the story. This is the eleventh such grant from the AAQI, which has raised over $700,000 for Alzheimer's Research. This money -as you know - comes from the sale of small art quilts donated by quilters like you and me. Please support the AAQI by donating or purchasing a quilt!


Also, The May auction is right around the corner - May 1. Take a peek at the quilts that will be auctioned - please consider purchasing one:

Gone Fishin'

Well, not really, just a brief hiatus down in Savannah. But, we're near water and sometimes do see dolphins jumping about.

So I'll post when I return, or maybe down there if one of the daughters brings her laptop (HA. as if they could be without it). My camera is packed.

I've got my stitching packed and I hope I can get a lot done in the evenings.

The weather looks good; it's very chilly here this morning, and overcast.

I was checking out the CQJP blog for inspiration and found Plays With Needles, the blog of Susan Elliot. My goodness, what a skilled stitcher she is! I could look at her work all day long. What an inspiration.

Looking at her photostream on Flickr, I thought: what a great idea, a quilt based on your favorite movies or books. She is a genius.

Happy stitching, everyone!

Storytelling

I'm not posting much quilting or embroidery lately but it's getting done, slowly. Meanwhile, here are a couple of fabulous websites, one which I just discovered and another I've been following for awhile. Both use photography to tell their stories.

Amber Reunion : Irene's parents were immigrants from Lithuania. She tells their story, and hers, and other relatives', through old family photos. The posts are charming in their simplicity. It's a warm and touching insight into the lives of  post World War II immigrants. I believe Irene lives in Wisconsin.

Chasing Light is Doug Kim's photography blog. I love street photography. If I had the means to do so, I'd travel the world and stalk people on the streets.

How does my love of photography, particularly candid or unstaged, improvisational photography, related to my love of quilting and embroidery? I discovered why, I think, this week.

I have been working on a quilt for a friend that is very structured. Pieces have to fit, things have to be symmetrical, or it will look "funny." It was inspired by a quilt I saw on the webs. It has been a struggle and honestly, while it has been satisfying and fun when it all worked, it's also been frustrating as hell. I only wanted to get back to the crazy quilt blocks and embroidery which is not so restrictive --improvisational, candid, and unstaged as it were -- and tell my story.

So there it is - quilting tells a story, especially (I think) the kind that I've been doing lately which is (if I may flatter myself) the art quilts for the AAQI and the crazy quilt blocks for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project. It's freewheeling and forgiving. And much like photography - for me at least - in that it tells a story I want to tell and pass along. Much like Irene's family snapshots tell the story of her family. And Doug Kim's photographs get you to look and observe and tell your own story.

Enjoy the blogs. Sometimes the internet is a wonderful thing.

March CQ Block - Finally

 The weekend was fraught with printer and computer problems, and I did not get the photos I wanted to use printed out. I am working on a quilt for a friend which has photos included. My printer decided to stop printing halfway through two of the photos, and you know what that inkjet fabric costs! Fortunately I think I can still use the two sheets for smaller photos of my own if I can orient the paper correctly in the printer. I had to buy more inkjet paper but the Hobby Lobby did not have the same brand I have been using. I bought what they had - the only other choice being the local quilt store 10 miles away - hoping it would blend in ...but no. As I feared, the stuff I bought from Hobby Lobby resulted in a much sharper, deeper image. I was about to reprint ALL the photos for the friend's quilt when I HAPPENED to find an envelope with ONE SHEET of the other brand of inkjet fabric sheets in it. SAVED from spending yet another $20, I thought.

Then I ran out of ink ...

Finally, Picasa, which has been my friend for so long, turned on me and would not let me upload. I keep getting the message that my disc is full , or read only, or something - I have no idea. This PC is only 6 years old, how could anything be wrong with it?

Oh, but that's not the end of it. I decided, to heck with it. I had bought some fabric to make skirts for the summer and thought I could still manage to be somewhat productive for the remainder of the weekend by cutting out several of them and have them ready to sew up during the week. I have a tried and true skirt pattern that is very simple, very comfortable, and easy to fit. It's great for summer - a throw on skirt that you can wear very casually but can get by with wearing it to work too. I bought some really pretty crinkly gauze for a couple of skirts for our trip to Savannah later this month.

Then began the great pattern hunt. Although my favorite skirt pattern was in my hot little hands just days ago, it had apparently vaporized since then. The frustration just wasn't worth it so at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon, I hiked to the Wal Mart and bought the pattern again - a sure fire guarantee that the old pattern will show up any minute now -- just so I could say the weekend had not been a total loss.

Some weekends, I'd rather be at work.

On a more pleasant note: this afternoon I uploaded the photos below directly to Google web albums from my camera's card and was able to edit them in Piknik (which is going away soon.) If you're still with me and not sick of me and my travails, here's my March CQ block with a few of my favorite details. Still a lot more to do:

March CQ Block, Aunt Mae in the right in the photo and my grandmother on the left. Still lots to do - I have another photo or two of my aunt to include..

This vine with the french knots is one of my favorite details in the block.

Here I used the barred chain stitch with French knots.

All three blocks together. Clearly I have more to do. But I like to let them rest for awhile and then revisit. 

This was one week that I welcomed Monday morning where I could get back to my cube.

Hope you had a saner weekend!

March CQ Block

I've been trying to upload and edit pictures all day - Picasa, or my PC, is not cooperating. It's been than kind of weekend, and I will spare you the boring details!

I'm still working on Block Three and have more details to add but as soon as something gives with either Picasa of this jalopy of a computer, I will post the pictures.