A Crock Of Gold-(en Quilts)---For The Day That's In It

March.

 Quilt show season! 

So off we went to the big one yesterday.

 Before going I checked my photos from the last few years' shows (which I forgot to share with you--I know, how could I be so heartless?) I just wanted a reference point....to compare this year's offerings. As I was going through them all, the amazing, the beautiful, the traditional, the innovative, the ordinary and the blah, I had an idea. Because, as I perused them, they sometimes made me think of some of you.  So, here they are---quilts from last year's show, a few from the year before's show and from yesterday's. I decided to pick one, at least, for each of you based on what little I know of you. I'd be very interested to know if I'm miles off the mark or spot on!

This may take a while. I hope you ate your Wheaties!

Since it is the 17th. of March, I thought we should start with a green one! It's for Patty who loves all things Irish.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge so you can better see the beautiful detail work.

This hexagon/sashiko beauty made me think of Birdy, maniacal hexie maker!

When I came to this one I knew it was perfect for Relatively Retiring (Judith?) because of her recent post about sitting perfectly still in a garden in Madeira, so still that little lizards felt completely safe, crawling around on her, as though she were merely another feature of the landscape!

This beautiful detail of a large applique quilt was for Ali for sure, as she often reports on mischief wrought by the peacocks who visit her garden.

This piece made me remember a similar bird wall hanging Ali made a few years ago......

Secret Agent Woman seems to be able to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of life so I choose this colourful, vibrant beauty for her....

                                 This bold and daring quilt seemed a good fit for Susan Kane

Thimbleanna does such precise, detailed work, these little Dresden plates seemed a perfect Anna choice.

For Isabelle, what else but a pair of black cats! And because she loves flowers so much .......

.......this gorgeous piecing and applique combination. I've had my eye on this pattern for a few years. It's one of the many I want to make---hopefully in this lifetime.

This one's for Gillie, detail of an applique quilt embellished with stitchery such as she excels at.

For my fellow countrywoman, WiseWebWoman, this seemed most appropriate since she lives by a sweeping bay in Newfoundland. I think the pattern is called Storm at Sea, of which she has described at least one, making me thankful I live where I live!

 

I'm sure that when Friko is out digging in the dirt with Gardener she must come upon plenty of these, or their British relatives!  Bonus point: I'm fairly sure the talented lady who made this one hails from Germany too.

And here's another that could make you think you were out on a walk with Friko and Millie in Valley's End........by the same artist.

 I thought Elephant's Child, that bird obsessive, would enjoy these flamboyant fowl.....

.....and these wild lovelies.......

Pauline gives us matchless poetic descriptions of the changing seasons from her cottage in the Berkshires, so I thought this mantel cover was perfect for her.....

And since winter is sooo long up there I thought I'd throw in this traditional charmer to keep her warm!

If ever I met anyone with the gift of the gab it's Lee! I thought she might enjoy chatting with these two ladies I found enjoying the quilt show from the comfort of a bench....

Marilyn, my friend in New Mexico, reads here but hasn't figured out how to comment! I thought she'd like the southwestern feel of this quilt.......though, on closer inspection, it looks more Australian than American Southwest.

Marlene always has such cute Christmas projects I picked this one for her.

And how about this one for Dianne, that innovator---Doesn't it look as though there's a giant ball behind it? And yet it was perfectly flat....

Here's something to cheer Julie up and take her mind off all the health issues she's had the past few years....

For Smitonius and Sonata I thought these Dutch tiles would hit the spot. This is another I want to make before I die!

This next one's for Persi who appreciates all things beautiful and has been struggling to bring order to chaos after some big life changes...To me this illustrates both beauty and order.

For Meggie who loves flowers.....

Here's one for Dee who, I feel, would like the old fashioned feel of it...

For Frances, a newcomer to this blog, some more flowers...

For Denice, also a new face and a quilter. Only someone who has tried it can appreciate how good you have to be to make something as small as this---and have all the points be perfect!

For Jen who is always so positive and upbeat...

For One Woman in her cottage in the woods....

And, last but not least, here's the quilt I'd have brought home for my sister if I could have snuck it out of there, because I know she'd love it! It's also on the bucket list.

If you've made it this far I congratulate you on your stamina! There were a lot of beautiful quilts. If I inadvertently left you out and you didn't "get" a quilt, you may pout and I'll run and find you one!

I hope everyone had a happy and peaceful "Irish" day!


***Amended on Monday to include a quilt for Ganching. Of all the people to forget---another fellow Irish woman! You don't often see a comment from her here but she lurks I'm pretty sure! And I hope you read her outstanding version of "Where I'm From" a few posts back. Not sure what colours she'd go for besides green, white and gold, so I selected this vertigo-inducing number!

Stomper Girl! You really can't blame me too much---You just haven't been around much lately. This one reminds me of all the posts you wrote about Climber and Cherub as they grew from toddlers, right before our eyes, into almost teenagers!

Our Gentleman Caller....Maybe?

Our neighbours, Bird-Legs-Bob and The Russian Bride, have a large woolly cat. His name, we think, is Caesar.Their house is hidden from ours by fairly dense foliage, brush, and trees, and they keep very much to themselves. Their cat, however, makes the rounds every evening. He stalks about in a manner worthy of his Patrician name. Our cat, Casper, is insanely jealous of such freedom to wander, being himself a house and pool-deck cat only. Since he is the biggest chicken on God's green earth, his notions of Great-White-Hunter-hood are all in his head. He is snow white and highly visible. We figure if he were wandering about outside, it'd only be a matter of time before one of the large owls that "whoo-whoos" from the trees out back would swoop down and scoop him up for dinner. How happy their babies would be if Papa brought home such a tasty morsel! So Casper doesn't get to wander. He's confined behind the pool cage, his sense of adventure cruelly thwarted (or so he thinks.)

When Caesar first came visiting, Casper was aghast----

"Oh My goodness! Another creature with four legs! And fur! And a tail! What can this mean?"

I think this may have been his first inkling that the six foot four inch, two legged Bean, was not actually his brother, but a different species altogether who just happened to enjoy wrestling with him and hanging out.

Caesar, having got Casper's attention, would throw his considerable and elegant bulk down on the warm bricks by the barbecue and proceed to look inscrutable. He might have been whispering to Casper, through the pool cage, about the adventures to be had in the woods by a cat with the cojones for it.(Casper was relieved of his at a very young age.)

Caesar: "Betcha don't even know what a mouse looks like, ya pansy! Let alone a rat."

Casper, with an involuntary shiver quivering along the ridge of his spine: "I would go out there except for the owls. According to my humans, they're very hungry and extremely large.  And partial to pussy cats."

Caesar: "Nah. Them owls don't bother me! Let 'em try somethin'....See these claws? My pride an' joy. Sharpen 'em every day on them logs your Bean piled up over there."

Whatever whispering was or was not going on, Casper would sit and watch his debonair visitor with nervous admiration, wishing with all his heart he was as big and fearless and worldly wise. They'd sit there companionably, on either side of the screen, until either Caesar got bored, rose to his feet with a languid stretch and sauntered off, with a "See ya later" over his shoulder to Casper.....or.....a loud noise from someone driving by on the street would startle Casper, the lily-livered one, and he'd make a mad dash back into the safety of the house.

Caesar has been coming over around six each evening. He stops at the cage door and calls----

"Rowl! Rowl! Roooowl!"

No matter where he is in the house, Casper speeds to the door, keeping himself low to the ground in stealth mode, and dashes over to greet his friend. Today Caesar had a lot to say. Casper listened attentively.  (I was spying from the doorway. If I take a step in his direction Caesar suddenly remembers he has business elsewhere.) As I stood there watching the exchange Caesar turned and waggled his (??) hindquarters at Casper.....Whaaat?

One can't help speculating.

Is Caesar courting Casper?

Is he unaware that Casper is a boy? Well, he's got boy parts. They just don't work......

And then a startling thought occurred.

Could Caesar be a girl? A very husky, gravelly-voiced girl, saying to Casper not

"Betcha don't know one end of a mouse from the other, ya pansy!"

But rather, in her sexiest, gravelliest, come-hitheriest voice .....

"Hey big fella! Why doncha act like a man, break outta that screen and take a girl for a waltz in the woods!"

It is Spring after all.

Rowl.....

Bad Hair Day

Baby, not only is it cold out here, this wind is wrecking havoc with my hairstyle

A Very Blusterous Day (with apologies to Owl)

Coming out from the Post Office, I debated whether I should turn right or left. Right would take me to the park, left would take me home. The guy on my left shoulder (he's the one with the horns) said slyly

"Ah shure, you can walk tomorrow. 'Tis terrible cold and windy today! Go home and make that meatloaf you were planning on.....Wouldn't want the OC starving to death when he gets home tonight!"

The guy on my right shoulder (he's the one with the halo) pursed his lips and tsk-tsked.

"You've become very lazy lately; no yoga, no walking. The park is just around the corner. I think you know what you have to do!"

Guilted into it, I turned right, much to the chagrin of the guy with the horns.

The wind nearly wrenched the car door off it's hinges when I parked and got out. Grimly I laced up my sneakers, and told myself (and the two shoulder boys) --- "Just one lap then."

But as I set off at a brisk pace, brown leaves chasing each other noisily across my path, I felt exhilarated. It was a beautiful day, in spite of the wind. The sun was high, the sky a crisp blue, and I was way overdue for some energetic exercise. The toughest part was taking that first step.

Some lunatics optimists were out on the tennis courts, but they didn't stand a chance. The wind had it sewn up---game, set and match.

On a slight incline towards the end of the first lap, I leant into the wind to avoid being blown off my feet, but the cool, fast-moving air was blowing the cobwebs out of my head, so I kept going for another lap. The badminton court stood empty ---nobody was that optimistic! The wind would pretend to die down for a minute, merely ruffling the grass, then suddenly roar through the treetops as though to say "Ha! Fooled you!"

I thought I might stop after two, but my feet kept going and I finished a third lap. I'm hazy on whether I did a fourth or not---I lose count easily while walking. It loosens my grey matter, thoughts and ideas flow smoothly, one into the other. I'll think of wonderful, clever things to write but inevitably, when I get home, I can't remember any of them, or, in an un-walking state, they don't seem quite so brilliant!

It was lovely to climb back into the sun-warmed car, out of the gale. The little devil sulked in the back seat all the way home, while halo boy sat up front with me, beaming his approval. The meatloaf got made, and a quiche to boot, but the OC when he arrived home, after two solid days of driving, didn't even want a smackerel of something ---just a cup of tea and to collapse and his bed!

Striding Boldly Into The Stash

Warning: Content may cause drowsiness in non-stitchers



I had a cunning plan.

 If I left the vacuum cleaner out, in a conspicuous spot before going to bed, I'd be bound to notice it, or at least trip over it, in the morning, thereby reminding my brain that the house needed to be vacuumed.

 It didn't work. I like a clean house as much as anybody, but there are so many more interesting things to do, and I am easily distracted. I did glimpse it as I emerged from the bedroom next morning, but quickly averted my gaze, stepping daintily around it en route to the kitchen.  I think I heard it sigh as I passed by. Giving heartfelt thanks to the gods for inventing coffee, I sped to the sewing room before my eyes could land on the vacuum cleaner again and guilt could set in. My cunning plan, and the vacuum cleaner, would have to wait. I was on a  mission. I'd make something for Miss Oris, who had, after all, just had a birthday. Because I am such an accomplished procrastinator, I had not sent her card,  never mind a present.

When the Prince died last summer (may he rest in peace) Miss Oriss carted three large storage bins from his house, where she had been staying with him, to my sewing room..... yards and yards of beautiful quilting fabric. Miss Oris loves fabric. She loves to buy it, and stroke it, unfold it, admire it, fold it again and store it in pretty, see-through storage bins. The one thing that strikes terror into her heart is the prospect of actually cutting into it and sewing something. She leaves that to me. So since she was returning to her home up north, and her fabric collection was too extensive and heavy to lug with her, it came to live with me.

"Use it, " she said airily, waving in the direction of the towering stack of storage bins. "Take and use whatever you like," and off she went to the north where she busied herself shoveling snow and ----can you believe it?  Buying more fabric! She needs a twelve step program and an immersion course in cutting and stitching. And a chip implanted behind her ear that will sound the alarm if she steps inside another quilt shop. Oy!

Anyway. Having successfully sidestepped the vacuum cleaner, I spent the next three hours making an apron from a panel she had in one of the bins. She even had coffee bean fabric so I made it reversible. And couldn't keep a big old grin off my face. I just love making stuff!

Folded it up, popped it in a bubble mailer and hied me to the post office. Mission accomplished. One small foray into the stash.

                                                                     

She called today.

"You shouldn't have," she said.

It was fun," I replied.

"And besides, we need to sew more, and faster, if we're to make inroads before we die."

That's when she 'fessed up.

"Actually," she said in a very small voice, "I bought more fabric the other day."

Three steps forward and four back!

Up next: Twelve step program for fabric maniacs.....

But first I must go and appease the vacuum cleaner, which has abandonment issues.

Even Old Curmudgeons Have Birthdays

Relatively Retiring got me thinking when she posted her "Where I'm From" a few days ago. She spoke of air raid sirens and food rationing in war time England. I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been---for everyone---but especially for small children.

We had no air raid sirens, Ireland being on the outer fringes of all the action. But I remember having nightmares from hearing of the horrors of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, on the radio, and catching glimpses of awful photographs in the newspaper. We were not bombarded back then, as we are today, with round the clock news on television, so what we did hear really got our attention. That human beings could make other human beings suffer so cruelly was beyond comprehension. Certainly, children were sometimes mean and hateful to each other, but these things were being done by grown-ups, the people who were supposed to keep us safe; the people who were in charge of the world. If you couldn't trust them then where could you turn? And when Hungarian refugees, who spoke no English, knocked on our door, selling little trinkets, it really brought it home to us. These were the very people we had heard of in the newspapers and on the radio, who had suffered so brutally and been forced to flee from their homeland. Reduced to this to try to earn some money, and living in a refugee camp on the outskirts of our town.

I was about eight, and absolutely fascinated by these unexpected guests of the government. The most exotic person I had ever met was my mother's Uncle John, my Granny's younger brother, a movie star-handsome bachelor, who had traveled all the way to America and lived to tell the tale. When we visited out the country, he always told me I was "a saucy miss," which I took to be a terrible insult!

Fast forward a decade and a half and I found myself marrying a refugee of sorts.The fascination must have persisted! The OC was born in a German displaced persons camp after the war. His mother gave birth to him, his father heard he had a son and went off on a bender while the doctor said "Wait! There's more..." and along came his twin sister, Miss Oris! Many hours later, when he sobered up, The Prince learned he also had a daughter! Times were tough, food was scarce. The rations for a family of four were barely enough to keep one alive, but The Prince was enterprising, and charming, when he wanted to be, and soon had a brisk business on the side in contraband cigarettes, silk stockings, and French champagne. They didn't have much but they didn't starve. My refugee's first language was his parents' native Ukrainian. When they were six months old he and his sister became world travelers. The Prince had an uncle in South America so the family set sail....And spoke Spanish for six years, at which time  they were able to come to the U.S. Another language to conquer! No wonder I was impressed. I spoke English well enough, Irish poorly, halting school-room French, and had a nodding acquaintance with the rudiments of Latin. He was way ahead of me, and since the brain is the sexiest organ in the body, I was smitten. Besides, he had brown eyes and no freckles!

Yesterday this linguist/refugee/Old Curmudgeon turned sixty five. Sixty. Five. The mind reels! Where did our lives go? (Of course I'm considerably younger than him, by at least ninety days....).Unfortunately he was out of hugging range, as he too often is. You might think he's ready now to sign on for Medicare, put his feet up more often, and hit the golf course a few times a week. We haven't been on rations for many a year now and there are no air raid sirens making us dive for cover. But old habits die hard. Working is how he defines himself, and he's not quitting yet. His next adventure will take him even further away, to Jolly Old England. His mission: to clean house at the British branch. You better watch out guys!

But he is taking his golf clubs.

And I will be visiting....


And if you haven't done so already, you should go read "Where I'm From" by Relatively Retiring.

One more "Where I'm From"

Murr Brewster, a wickedly funny blogger, posted what, at first glance, seemed like a very long comment on my last post. Turns out it's her version of "Where I'm From" --- in its entirety. Well worth a read........As is her blog, Murrmurrs  after you finish! 

Sugar, Snails, Snips and Spice

Just a few more words on "Where I'm From." I hope you will go and read the versions from Pauline, Ganching, and Susan Kane. You'll be glad you did. They might even inspire you to have a go yourself! I'll let you know if and when any of the others come through.....

Meanwhile, a few more doting grandma pics........

Here's the Big Brother trying to unravel the mystery that is Little Sister.......

.......then deciding that he'll keep her.

I have almost decided what kind of quilt to make for her. Consulted with the Little Blister who opined it should be bright ---I was almost tempted into a pastel dream, my default setting being little sprigs of roses on a creamy background, but I've snapped out of that, since Miss Oriss also weighed in with her two cents--- brights! I'm not a big fan of thirties prints but have a pattern for a Little Red Hen quilt that is pulling out into the lead ahead of all other contenders and I'm thinking thirties reproduction prints would be perfect. Applique is involved though....

The Blister groaned........

"So, she should have it by High School Graduation?"

"Oh ye of little faith, " says I, "just watch me!"

Remember this?

Looks like Big Brother got it way before H.S. graduation....

( We don't need to noise it abroad that it was ten years in the making---applique....shhhhh!)


While The Blister is enjoying (not quite!) the ambiance of leaden skies and incessant rain in the old country, and Miss Oriss is worn out from shoveling snow in the frozen north, we are enjoying balmy weather, even for here. Azaleas are blooming, for heaven's sake! In early February! There'll be hell to pay down the road somewhere, but for now, no-one's complaining.

The OC was home for a full week--- be still my heart! I almost felt like a married woman again with the reassuring bulk of him snoring away beside me while his poor addled brain tried to figure out which time zone it was in.. Having just returned from the UK (where he barely missed the birth of his newest granddaughter) he was at sixes and sevens for a while. More confusion ahead when he returns to the UK in March for an extended stay.  But then he'll have his own digs, so UK bloggers watch out---I'll be visiting!

Look What February Brought Us....