Off my rocker?

After work yesterday, I loaded the kids in the car and we headed over the mountain to my mom's house. I love this drive, curving up and down the hills with a canopy of leaves overhead.


And along this drive, there is an old abandoned storefront that I fantasize about buying and fixing up and turning into a quilt shop of some sort.

Don't you just love the name?

A crazy idea, I know. For many reasons, a few being...

1) It is 45 minutes and one (small) mountain range away from my house

2) It needs A LOT of work and I have NO money

3) It is in the middle of nowhere - who would come there?

4) It is tiny!

But I can still dream, right?

I had a great visit with mom. We caught up, chatting on her bed while I mended a place in her quilt where the binding was coming loose - her quilt is still one of my favorites I've ever made.

I also finished putting the sleeves on Jason and my quilt for the fair. Yeah, that was a sickening moment two days ago when I realized that all fair entries needed hanging sleeves and I hadn't done that yet. I hope they don't judge on sleeve contruction because I just basted a strip of fabric on the back of both of our quilts, in part because I didn't have time for more, and in part because I am planning to take them off again as soon as the fair is over - these are both quilts to be used. I just turned them in this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that Jason wins a ribbon again this year. His quilt is not perfect, but he worked SO hard on it, and is understandably proud.

Then we all journeyed to my brother's girlfriend's house for a cookout. My brother is a GRILLMASTER!

and so darned cute!

So is my mom, although she hates having her picture taken so you have to sneak up on her or take photos from afar.

The kids had a great time running around with the other kids and the dog

But by the end of the night...

(they did this to themselves, it was not me, I swear!)

I was seriously happy but dragging by the time we made it home last night, but I perked up when I saw that my husband had surprised us by coming home early from his recruiting trip. Gotta love family time!

Honoring a friend

I already mentioned that I've had a particular friend on my mind a lot lately. She's kind, funny, generous, intelligent, creative and always, always, ALWAYS has a wise and supporting word when I am down. Sounds amazing, doesn't she? What's really amazing is that I've never met her in person, yet she has affected my life more than many of the people who walk in and out of my life every day.

So when I found myself making this little FRIEND quilt, she was my inspiration.


I even found some fabric to include me and her on the quilt - I'm the one with the "tan", she's the one with pigtails and crazy glasses.


Have you figured out yet who it is? If you don't yet know her, I encourage you to get to know EM at Em Celebrates, and if you already know her, then I know I am preaching to the choir.

So, Em, thanks for being a friend! There is squishy mail headed your way!

The colors of my life

RED - Jason and I earned our Red Belts in American Freestyle Karate this weekend. If we stay on track, we should be Black Belts sometime next summer or fall. Woo hoo!


BLUE - The kids and I went to a birthday party for one of their friends this weekend, and the kids had a ball playing in the blue water of their backyard pool.


PURPLE - The color our hands were stained after picking blackberries in our yard on Sunday. Yum!

MULTICOLORED - After a busy day on Saturday (karate testing, an auction, a bday party and a baseball game), I was determined to stay home on Sunday. While putzing around my house, I found my way down to the sewing studio where I putzed around with some 1.5" scraps. Originally, I was going to make my name, but then I realized that the letters in ERIN are all in the word FRIEND, and I was moved to create that word instead. I've since added a border and hand-quilted it, and I hope to get a binding on tonight and send this off to one of my special friends who has been on my mind a lot lately. More photos when it is done. This could possibly be one of my fastest start --> finish projects EVER! Cool!

My stars!

I was DREADING coming back to work on Tuesday. Not because of the actual work - I like my job - but because it would be my first time facing my co-workers after my miscarriage and I just didn't want to have to deal with the sidelong looks and awkwardness. I need not have worried; while on vacation I must have forgotten that I work with some of the coolest people on the planet, and everything has been fine!

Well, fine at work, anyway. I seem to have left all of my motivation on vacation somewhere. My house is a wreck, but I don't want to clean. I am hungry, but I don't want to cook anything that takes more than a few minutes. I have a to-do list a mile long, and I don't even have the inclination to pick it up and read what is on it. I've turned into a bum. I haven't even wanted to quilt. (gasp!)

Last night, I thumbed through some magazines hoping for inspiration. It works every time. I found some stars in a Halloween quilt that I just had to try, so once I got the kids tucked in, off I went to the sewing room. I lit a fragrant candle, a gift from Em, turned on some country tunes, and got to piecing. If I had known how LONG it would take me, I never would have started, but I really like the end result. (HUGE YAWN - I was up until 1:30!)

Now, to get to some other projects! I managed to sew another row of my ribbon quilt as my leader/ender for those two blocks, plus I sewed together a couple of the color strips for the karate quilt I want to make for Jason this year. I don't know why, but I just HATE sewing long strips together. That's part of why I have so many UFOs, I get all the blocks done, and then sewn into rows, but I find sewing the rows together to be such a drag. I need to do it though, so I can get that ribbon quilt off my design wall and get something else up there, perhaps these stars. I have three rows left to assemble, and then about 8 or so to sew to the ones I have already sewn together.

But that is for when I am at home. Right now, I am at the office and there is a mountain of work waiting for me here; I should get back to it. As I said before, I really like my job. There are, of course, those days when I don't, but I have a remedy for that. Framed on the wall in my office is an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, which I read whenever I need to:

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Whatever you do today, do it with joy!

Vacation, week 2

We left Martha's Vineyard last Sunday and headed to Amherst, MA to spend a week with my twin sister and her family. We make this trip every year, and it is one of the things I look forward to most in life. My husband and my oldest spend the week at Amherst College basketball camp, and my sister does her best to wear me out with all the activities she plans for us and the three younger kids. We went swimming, we rode bikes, we took a road trip to New Hampshire, we went to a playground, we had FUN!

The camera missed most of the action, but it didn't miss the train ride at the park,

(my twin sis and my beautiful niece)

(Donald - no, you don't need a helmet to ride the train, but we had been riding bikes)

(my nephew and Donald - so glad it isn't my son making the face this time!)

and it didn't miss the visit of my college roommate and her son, who hopped in the car to come down and visit from Vermont.

It also didn't miss all the quilts I have made that are hanging on her walls - gotta love seeing your stuff in other people's homes. In my nephew's room (the first quilt I ever completed),

in my niece's room,

and in my sister's room.

Now I just need to get a completed quilt in MY room! I did get quite a bit of quilting done on my Bright Future quilt - it should be done this week, I think. I also picked up my new nephew's Bright Idea quilt to use as my fair entry this year, but it looks like some of the red has run! Ideas, anyone? The woman at the quilt shop told me to get Color Catcher from the laundry aisle for when I wash it, but does anyone have ideas about how to get out the small red stain? (Yes, I pre-wash, but this was a string quilt made from scraps from lots of people, and I can't guarantee that all scraps had been pre-washed.) I don't think I can enter a quilt with a stain, and I certainly don't have time to finish another in its place. I'm going to do my best to get this out before the quilt has to be turned in later this month.

Troopers!

No, not state troopers.

No, not storm troopers.

I'm talking about my little troopers. These guys are up for any adventure! On Wednesday, it was riding across the island to check out West Tisbury, a town I had never been to despite all my visits to the island. There was a lovely bike path, but it was a 17 mile trip (round trip). There are many people who would have complained, but not my guys. Down the hills, they yelled, "I have a need for speed!" On the straightaways, they raced. Going up hills, they counted the pedals to get up the hill, and when it got to be too much, they cheerfully jumped off and pushed their bikes up the hills. I had so much fun!

Here they are pretending to be tired...

Yesterday, it was beach time. We went to State Beach, a serene water scene rather than the waves of the day two days previous. Of course, we brought boogie boards this time when there were no waves, and didn't have them when there were. That's OK, we'll get it right today. In the meantime, they made new friends, got thrown in by Daddy and generally just had a good time. The only frustrating part is that I'm not allowed to go swimming yet - argh! I could almost forget the sadness of last week if it weren't for that.

I didn't bring any quilting with me on this trip, just my backpack and my bike, so I don't have any of my own quilting photos to show you, but check out these cute quilts on the kids' beds in the bunkroom. I need to master applique so I can do something cute like these. I love all the different fabrics that were incorporated into these.

(OOPS! Did I wake you up, Donald?)

It has been a lovely week. Here is where we are staying:

http://bootstrapfarm.com/

But I'm also looking forward to next week at my twin sister's house. I love vacation!

Happiness is...

Happiness is meeting your nephew for the first time. It wasn't as hard as I had imagined it would be, in light of what I had gone through just two days before. My sister was a gem and let me hold him as long as I wanted. I love babies!

Eventually, I let the boys have a turn...

Happiness is seeing a quilt you have made being used. When I showed up at my sister's house, the Dresden Plate quilt I made her was on the bed I was to sleep in, and she was in a rocker, nursing Dorian with his Bright Idea quilt draped over the two of them. Just what a quilter wants to see!

Happiness is getting an unexpected pedicure from your niece - it is nice to be pampered!

Happiness is watching your husband teach your just-turned-5-year-old how to ride a bike with no training wheels. Just in time, too, because we are currently on Martha's Vineyard on vacation - no car, just bikes, heaven!

Happiness is watching your kids frolic in the waves. I was a bit sad because I'm not allowed to go swimming yet, but when I put my feet in the water, all of a sudden I was happy to have an excuse to not get in that frigid water!

Happiness is coming across your child asleep, worn out from an 8 mile bike ride plus 3 hours in the sun and surf.

Happiness is realizing you can feel happiness again after something sad happens in your life. Thank you all for the kind and encouraging words!