Sea Fever

On the list of things I need in order to be happy is a pathway that leads to the sea.  March is the perfect time to be at the beach in North Carolina.  The weather is sunny but not hot, and the nights are cold enough to want to be in the hot tub looking up at a clear starry sky, and the beaches are empty of people.  And what is it about the ocean that calls to us?  The heartbeat of waves, the endlessness of the horizon, the never ending ebb and flow...  I am speechless but full of love for the beach.

Yesterday I walked for a long time next to the waves as the tide came in and cast ashore billions of shells.  I saw a hollow hermit crab shell.  Pelicans dived into the rolling waves, and a flock of inky blue-black grackle sat on the fences that protect the dunes and chuckled at me.  How little acquainted I have been with nature lately.  How much I love to be in the outdoors!

And mostly, I'm blessed with wonderful friends to spend the weekend with at the beach.

Church of the Week, and a Bonus

Love, Faith, and Power, at Deliverance Temple Church.  I've often caught a glimpse of this church as I peer down a side street near where a friend lives.  So yesterday I decided to go have a look at it more closely.  I am charmed by the gothic windows and the detail around them in this architectural mix of renaissance revival, gothic, and southwestern elements.  And it's hard to see it in my photo, but there is a red cross on the sidewalk leading up to the door.

While on my way there, I noticed a building being torn down right next to one of my favorite signs in Durham.  Thinking they may tear it down next, I snapped a photo, so here's a bonus for today.  It's not a church per se, but it has a scripture on it!  And the reason I love it so much is because it is such an odd mixture of text, color and shape, which someone must have really been passionate about at one time.  I'm not sure what it looked like when it was first built, but it looks like it started out one way, then many letters fell off, then it was all painted whitish and red, and then someone went back and painted all the letters that had fallen off in blue, adding the extra touch of elongating the plus sign to make it look more like a cross.  I don't know why, I just like it.

Max's Daffodils

I love it when C tells me stories about Max, his dog.  When Max was just a puppy, C adopted him, and it was twice lucky for Max, who had already survived a car accident as a stray.  Now Max had a master, and C had a good dog.  Max grew up to form a close bond with C, who once on a long hike saw that the puppy was tiring quickly, and carried him the few miles home like a lamb across his shoulders.  They were an inseparable like-minded two, and Max lived a good long life.  Dog days go quickly though, and I only met Max once, when he was very old.  C no longer wanted to risk leaving the ailing old dog at home, and so would bring him to work in the bed of his truck, then go out and visit him periodically through the day.  I was C's coworker at the time, and didn't realize the situation until one day I happened to be passing through that area of the shop and C motioned for me to "come and see."  I, curious as ever, followed him outside and met the friendly old blind white dog, whose age could not hide his devotion to his master, and who licked my hand with dignified friendliness.

Several weeks later I happened upon C again at work, and he was trying not to cry.  It's very shocking to see a man cry, and I realized Max had died.  Not having words, I bought the most cheerful thing I could find, a miniature daffodil plant in full bloom, and gave it to C.  He planted it on Max's grave, where he lay buried under the Rose of Sharon tree in his back yard.  And sometimes when C tells me about Max, tears still come into his eyes, he misses him so much.  And that makes me want to cry.

Nine-odd years later, C and I are married, we have no dogs but memories, but the miniature daffodils continue to bloom and cheer both our hearts.

Jesus' Word

This week C and I have had a few doctrinal discussions related to scriptures.  He recently finished reading a book called "Misquoting Jesus" in which the author identifies and discusses specific areas of the New Testament gospels that scholars feel have definitely been changed, either deliberately or accidentally, by translators and transcribers throughout the two thousand odd years since the original Apostles wrote them.

C wanted to know how it affects my relationship with Jesus, knowing that the words in my scriptures may not be the exact ones that Jesus spoke.  So I told him that, besides the fact that anyone with some understanding of how the Bible came to be knows that it was written down and then copied and recopied multitudes of times before it ended up in our hands, my faith is not based in the text, but in the living Jesus Christ.  If we put our faith in the literal words on the page, we are worshipping language and semantics, yet if we put our faith in Christ, knowing that He lives and He is in control of the world, there is nothing to worry about.  If He needed us to have more information than the current version of the Bible contains, then He would give it to us.

In fact, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I believe that Jesus speaks to a prophet in these current times, and has given us further scripture, so that we are not left wondering what is true and what is error.  He gave us the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price to both confirm truths in the Bible, and give clarification of important doctrines.  These books are translations too, but have less human error than the Bible may have, so I can grow closer to my Heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ by reading from these texts, as well as from the Bible.  I also have another tool, and that is the Holy Spirit, which can tell me if something I read is true or not.

It doesn't worry me that Mark may have originally described Jesus as "angry" and that word may have been removed by monks who didn't think it appropriate.  I can find out the personality of Jesus myself by reading all the accounts of Him, by praying, by listening to modern-day talks by prophets who have interacted personally with Him, and by doing the things He commanded us to do.  If he was angry, it won't be with me, if I can help it!

So, when I saw a Durham church called "Jesus Word," it seemed appropriate for today.  Sorry the photo is a little blurry...

Little House

For Book Club this month, I read Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  It was fun to revisit a childhood favorite.  And it's still a favorite!  I got sucked right back in to the world of 1870s Wisconsin frontier territory, and re-read the whole book in one evening.

There are so many things I love about the Little House series of books!  This book in particular, the first in the series of books that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote as an adult reminiscing on her life, is wonderful for it's coziness and simple charm.  Laura describes her life as a 5 year old child, which is full of some things we might not associate with a child.  She devotes a whole chapter to her father's gun, describing how the bullets are made and the gun barrel cleaned.  She speaks frequently of bears and panthers, but also corn cob dolls and maple sugar treats.  There is no huge story arc, a la Harry Potter.  No sensationalism or controversy here.  Just a joy in retelling the simple day-to-day life of Laura's family.

Part of the fun, too, are the pencil illustrations by Garth Williams, as above.  My favorite one I couldn't find online to copy, but it also has a bear in it.  Laura's father has gone out to check his traps in the winter (he trapped animals for their fur) and comes across a bear that has just killed a pig.  He shoots the bear and "brings home the bacon."  Anyway, the illustrations shows him approaching the bear, who is standing up on his hind legs and holding the pig in his arms, like a doll.  I don't know why I love it, I just do.  It makes me laugh.

It must sound awful for me, in this day and age, to be laughing about a man shooting a bear that has killed a pig, but for the Ingalls family, it was their way of life.  They had to survive the long cold winter days and nights by fighting with the wildness of the world around them sometimes.  I can only marvel at what they went through in that little Wisconsin cabin!  All I need to survive the winter is an electric blanket, and a good book.

Church of the Week

I'm reviving my old habit of posting pictures of churches on Sundays.  I don't live in Harlem anymore, but Durham seems to have just as many interesting houses of worship.  Today's choice is, I think, currently closed, but it is located on the corner of Sowell and Glenn and used to be the home of the Miracle Temple Holiness Church.  Before that it was the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  It's kind of tucked into a neighborhood at the top of a little hill, near the footbridge that crosses the Durham Freeway.

Anyway, it made me think about the name Ebenezer, which comes from the Bible.  There are actually a lot of churches in the South named Ebenezer, and it makes sense because the name "Eben-ezer" means "stone of strength."  When King Samuel, in the Old Testament, was in the middle of battles with his enemies, he "raised a stone" or maybe built some kind of altar with which to give thanks and perform worship to God.  He called it Eben-ezer, and that is what these churches are named after.  Churches are like rocks in the community, centers of immovable strength in some ways.  So, I think Ebenezer makes a great name.  And, this church is made of stone!

An Etiquette Lesson

This week I had the novel experience of having to take a new employee to task about dressing inappropriately.  My workplace has a very casual dress code, so not very many things cross the line, but there's a first time for everything.  It was another reminder of how little we keep private these days, what with facebook and Twitter and all other types of social media and celebrity culture.

I feel like I gave that young woman some good advice about developing professionalism no matter what her job is, and I'd like to give some more advice, or at lease suggestions, to young people out there, about privacy, especially online.

First of all, young people, now that Valentine's Day is over and you've come down from your sugar and endorphin highs, please tell me that you are a little bit embarrassed that you posted online a photo of you and your true love passionately kissing, with some kind of message full of gushy extended words: "I looooooove my smoooochy boo!" Because you should be embarrassed.  I don't care if 6 people clicked the Like button.  All 578 of your other mutual facebook friends felt a little bit nauseous at the sight of it and laughed nervously and scrolled past it very quickly.  You and Smoochy Boo should definitely keep sending those messages to each other, but you should do it privately.  I know you are happy and proud of each other, but love notes are immensely more powerful, more sincere, and more meaningful when they are directed to your lover's eyes only, and not the world's.  Also, despite what you see on TV and in the movies, nobody likes to watch other people kissing, and if they do then they are gross.

Second, about those Valentine's gifts he gave you...  Everyone who is in a happy relationship got some kind of gift on Valentine's Day, not just you!  Yes, yours was the most special, but only to you!   I'm not trying to be mean, but when I see six photos posted on facebook in succession, beginning with the wrapped gift and ending with the unwrapped gift, with every stage in between tagged with #lovemyhubby, #besthusbandever, #hugsandkissesforever, etc., then I wonder if you are in a reality show that needs publicity, or else you have a super eager personal assistant, or maybe just plain too much time on your hands.  Or, heaven forbid, bragging.  It's not that I'm against posting photos of sweet gifts on facebook, my suggestion is to try and have a little more tact, a little more self control, a little less "look at how rich and wonderful my husband is because he got me this stuff!"  Okay, so I'm a little guilty here because I did post a picture of the heart-shaped cookie cutter that my husband made for me out of a tin can, and the cookie I then made for him using said cookie cutter, but my post was more out of a sense of "I can't believe he just made a cookie cutter out of a tin can!" than "look at me unwrap this name-brand thing he bought at the super expensive store for me!"  It has always been rude to proclaim one's wealth. It alienates you from your friends in some cases, or brings you the wrong kind of friends.  So, when you feel like bragging, think twice.  Tone it down.  Enjoy your blessings for sure, but remember that not everyone has what you have, or cares that you have it. Yes, they want to see cute pictures of your kids.  Yes, they want to know what fun places you are visiting.  But mostly your friends and family just want to know that you are happy, and that is all. 

My third and final bit of advice for this post is to remind you, young person, that what you post online has the potential to exist forever.  Just because you delete it doesn't mean it is gone.  So before uploading pictures of your naked pregnant belly, or writing a status-update about how you breast-fed your kid until they were 5, or how much you are going to love and adore your current boyfriend who can be seen kissing on you in the majority of your photos, think about how embarrassed your kid is going to feel when their friends see that, or how you are going to feel when you break up with that boyfriend and start dating someone else.  Just think about what you write and what you share with the world.  Sharing an abundance of personal information and feelings with close friends and family is wonderful, but to do so in a public forum is so often inappropriate.

Anyway, as with all advice, you are free to take it or leave it.  You may completely disagree with me, or you may have learned your own lesson from experience with the above.  Perhaps I have broken an etiquette rule by presuming I have something to teach.  Nevertheless, I just hope that with all the amazing ways we have to communicate with each other these days, we remember that not everything is meant to be communicated with everyone.

Back to Nature

One of my resolutions was to make a painting each month, so when a 70-degree January Saturday fell in my lap, I had to jump on it and go paint.

The night before, C helped me get my stuff ready.  I dusted off my trusty paint box that journeyed through many a western Massachusetts field in college, as I learned the art of plein-air painting in college.  The tubes of oil paint inside were crusty and twisted, but C carefully wiped them with turpentine and picked out the dried obstructions.  The paint inside was perfectly good, though they've sat for at least 5 years untouched.  My handful of brushes were fine too, minus one with a loose ferrule, but it wasn't a good brush to begin with.  One day, back in college, I was painting with my class at the edge of a waterfall, and my teacher commented that I might as well paint with sticks rather than use the paintbrushes I was using.  I couldn't help it--I was a poor art major!  A few of those "sticks" remain in my collection, though I do have several nicer brushes to work with these days, he would be happy to know.

I cut up some old clothes into rags, found a small glass jar to use for turpentine, and threw in some sharp pencils and an eraser.  There was just enough turpentine left in an old container to take along, too.  We went over my paint colors and C filled out my collection with some burnt sienna, lemon yellow, and raw umber that he'd squirreled away in his own paint box.  He also had some old pads of palette paper, still good enough to use!  Then C cut a piece of masonite to fit in my box (it has a slot for the painting to go) and we attached a piece of gessoed Bristol paper to it, hoping that Bristol paper would be stiff enough to paint on without buckling.  I usually paint on mat board, as I dislike the texture of canvas.

The next morning we threw a few folding chairs and a blanket into the car, along with the stocked paint box, a radio, snacks, and a camera, and headed out on a painting journey.

C knew of a country-ish road in Orange County that had some nice vistas.  In fact, he had a feeling that a house where he'd stopped once to look at a for-sale car was now sitting empty, though still kept up fairly well.  We stopped and knocked on the door just in case, but no one answered.  And so we set up camp in the driveway, which looked across a road into a rolling field with layers of trees and further fields, and an interesting cloud patterned sky behind.

First I covered my paper in a wash of reddish brown, then mixed my colors.  When I started painting, I worked on the sky first, and then from back to front, as taught (I guess we always do things the way we were taught, but there is no "right" way to paint) but it was slow going.  As I worked, C told me stories, cranked the radio (it has a thing that you wind to recharge it's battery) to keep it going, walked around, took pictures, and constantly laughed at my suggestion that he ought to paint too.  "Art is for suckers," he said, and frequently says!

And maybe it is.  For me, it's like a butterfly that I chase, and sometimes I get close to it and catch it, sometimes I don't.  This time I didn't even get near.  I feel like my art muscles have all atrophied!  It was very difficult to get my paintbrush to do what my brain wanted it to do.  But that is why I set this resolution, and I intend to keep working at it until it becomes easier.

The next day I worked a little more on my painting, and every day since I peek at it.  It's good to look, study, plan, and learn.

Resolved

1. To paint one landscape painting each month.
2. To make one Christmas gift (or more) each month, so as to be ready in advance for next year.
3. To not have any more cavities.
4. To have my wing. (The front room of the house to be mine for making beautiful and for receiving guests)

Those are my only resolutions. I suppose there are a few more I could and would like to make, but I will just keep it simple.

Still Life

Still Life with Goblet and Fruit by Jan Jansz van de Velde

Go now to the North Carolina Museum of Art and see the exhibition of still life paintings on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston!  The exhibit is only here until January 13, so I'm glad I was able to see it.  Still, I feel like going back, because I was needed to give a friend a ride home from the airport, and so didn't have much time to spend looking at all the paintings before I had to leave.

The title "Still Life Masterpieces" is correct, because most of these paintings are true masterpieces, including this one by Jans van de Velde, of blackberries and a glass roemer.  This electronic reproduction does it very little justice.  It is by far one of my most favorite paintings ever, because when you stand in front of it you think you can reach out and actually touch the juicy berries, or see your own reflection in the surface of the clear glass goblet.

The exhibition includes masterpieces by Renoir, Cezanne, Gris, Peto, and many others, almost all of them a pure visual treat.  I highly enjoyed seeing these paintings, and recommend this exhibit to anyone!

Zipper Pouches Galore

I've been home from work today, trying to tackle items on my to-do list, but it's hard to stay focused when I have a brand new smartphone for the first time in my life.  It's like being a kid and knowing that cartoons are on TV all the time!  I have to constantly check my work email and facebook.  I'm suddenly addicted.  Plus, there are treats in the kitchen from holiday-cheer-giving friends (cookies, chocolate, stollen...) and my husband to distract me as well.  I got some dress-sewing done, and then we took a break and went to Chapel Hill to look for fountain pen cartridges and fancy soap.  Then the day was pretty much over, because it gets dark so early now!  Still, I got a few zipper pouches made.  They are fun and easy.  Tomorrow I will make even more!

My To-Do List

Ahh, it's that time of year again!  Time to wish I had started making Christmas gifts a long long time ago.  But oh well.  If I can just get a few of them done, I'll be happy.  Here's what's on my To-Do List.  I'll check it after Christmas and see how much I actually got done!

• Finish making my temple dress (this needs to be done by Tuesday.)
• Finish making a quilt for my brother and his wife.
• Make 40 small zipper pouches (gifts for my employees.)
• Buy gift cards for the FedEx guys and the mailman at work, and the cleaning people.
• Finish crocheting a blanket for my nephew.
• Make skirts for my nieces.
• Send Christmas cards out.
• Crochet hats and scarves for a few people on my gift list.
• Get a Christmas tree and decorate it.
• Make slippers with leather soles for my husband.
• Go shopping for everyone else on my list (which is long).

When I write it down it doesn't seem so bad.  But I'm too tired to work on anything right now.  I won't think about it today.  I'll think about it tomorrow.

P.S.  I can blog again because I have a hotspot!!!  So excited.

Kittens

Mama Kitty was little more than a kitten herself when she first appeared in our backyard.  We thought at first that she was a stray, but it turned out she was our neighbor's new cat.  But she didn't know anything about whose yard was whose, so she spent a lot of time growing up in our backyard.  She used to stalk my husband and jump out from behind things at him.  She would sit still for hours just watching the birds at our backyard feeder.  Then she grew up and became a magnet for all the tom cats on the block.  And that is why her name is now Mama Kitty.

Mama Kitty

But Durham is no place for kittens.  From her first two litters, none of Mama Kitty's babies have survived.  It's too sad to talk about that.  Though she is smart, and a survivor, Mama Kitty just wasn't able to protect her kittens from all the dangers they face here in a busy city, and our neighbor, though kind, let them fend for themselves.  So I decided that I could not sit by and watch a third batch of kittens not survive.  I was delighted when Mama Kitty chose to have her third batch of kittens in our backyard.  C and I were the first to see them, before their eyes were even open all the way.  But the tom cats started prowling around again, and Mama Kitty kept moving the kittens around.  Fearful for their safety, C and I decided we had to intervene.

When we found where Mama Kitty had stashed them, we took the kittens and put them inside our screened-in back porch.  We let Mama Kitty come and go in order to keep feeding them.  Now I am happy to report that they are big and strong and healthy.  They are full of energy, and I don't think our back porch can contain them much longer!  My allergies can't be restrained much longer, either.  I've been on drugs all month, because I'm actually really allergic to cats!

Now they need homes.  They are 8 weeks old and weaned and litter-box trained, and ready to go out into the world.  As much as we will miss them, C and I know that these kittens are ready to be adopted, and it will be much better for them to go to good homes with people who can take better care of them than our neighbor will.  So, do you want a kitten or two?

Gray Kitten

The fattest and fuzziest of the kittens is the gray one.  He might have been the first-born, because he used to be the biggest and most curious.  Now some of his brothers have longer legs than he does, but he still loves to gallop back and forth across the porch at top speed.  He loves to climb and play.  I love it when he starts running around playing and gets all puffed up.  He acts all tough, but when you pet him he loves to roll over onto his back and have his belly scratched.  He has a funny mew that sometimes sounds like a little bark.  He's probably going to be a gorgeous tabby gray like his mother when he grows up.  He tends to growl at the other kittens when he eats, but it's all just show.  He's a sweetheart.

Tiger & White Kitten

The tabby and white one is very sweet, too.  His fur is white with beautiful brown striped spots.  This picture I took of him was from when he was playing and, like the little gray kitten, got all puffed up and energized.  It's hard to take good pictures of these kittens, because they are always playing and jumping up and down like popcorn!  One of his favorite games is to play in a cardboard box.  Do not invest in cat toys, because all they want is something they can get inside, claw at, and jump in and out of.  

Black & White Kitten

The black and white spotted kitten is going to be a nice lap cat.  When we first caught the kittens, C called him "Volt" because he would spit and spark like a live wire.  Now he is the complete opposite.  He is super energetic and plays like crazy, but he is always happy to curl up in a lap and fall asleep purring.  And he started out as the runt, but now he has beautiful long legs, which will probably help him to be a good hunter.  Also, he has a black spot on his back that is shaped like a heart!

White Kitten

The little whitish cream colored kitten is the only female.  She has faint gray tabby stripes on her ears and tail and paws, which will probably darken as she gets older.  She meows a lot!  Just like a girl.  But she is also a fearless climber, and loves to just jump onto something (a leg, even) and climb it to the top.

All of these kittens would make adorable pets!  My mom is probably going to adopt the white girl kitten, and foster the rest until they find homes.  But please tell me if you want one (or two!)  I'm really going to miss them, but I'll breathe so much better (both literally and figuratively) when they all find happy loving homes.

Massacre

From the title of this post, you can tell there won't be a happy ending.  Well, let me tell the story.

Back in the fall, when I was hard at work clearing out dead leaves and underbrush from the backyard, preparing the garden for it's winter nap, and planning next year's crop of vegetables and flowers, I came across two very unusual papery pods.  I knew what they were: praying mantis cocoons.  Well, I don't know if cocoon is the right word, but I recognized them because once years before, I'd found a very similar one and brought it into the house.  Months later about a million praying mantises emerged and I had to catch them all and put them outside into the yard.

These cocoons looked good, and I thought I'd like to see them hatch, so I put them in a glass terrarium on the back porch, and covered it with fine screen.  I'll watch it every day, I thought, and when they hatch, I'll set them free in the garden to eat the pesty bugs.

All through the winter I checked them, looking carefully to see any signs of insect life.  I knew I had a duty to them, and a responsibility to Nature.  But time passed and my patience was unrewarded.  Spring came, it seemed, and nothing happened when I thought it would.  I wondered if the cocoons were defective in some way.  Then I got distracted and busy and you know how things go.

This morning I looked in the terrarium and saw millions of little tiny dead praying mantises.  Then I was overcome by the worst feeling I've ever had.  I killed them.  If not for my interference, because of greedy curiosity, they (or at least most of them) would be roaming free in the backyard, growing large and eating mosquitoes and all kinds of other things.  Instead, they are all dead, desiccated.  They must have hatched a week or so ago, and I completely missed it.  Maybe even one day of not checking had been enough to kill them--they were so small--I could hardly distinguish them from the dried debris in the bottom of the terrarium.

Crying from the injustice of it all, and from utter self-disgust, I poured my heart out to C.  He tried his best to console me.  Life is like that, he said.  Good intentions sometimes have horrible results.  Life isn't fair, and life is fragile.  He told me about the first time he realized it.  A tiny mole was lost trying to cross a busy road.  He saw it die, and cried--a little boy seeing death for the first time.  "It was just a tiny thing, and all it wanted to do was get off the road, but it couldn't.  Why?" he cried to his father.

"They're just insects, acting on pure instinct.  They don't even know that you killed them or even that they were killed."

"But how can I make amends?" I begged of C, wanting somehow to make the wretchedness go away.  "I don't know," he said.  "You don't have to.  It's all going to be okay."

"I'm fostering orphaned kittens," I said.  "We've put birdseed out all winter, and put up birdhouses.  We let the birds have all the blueberries and grapes, even!"  Maybe, I thought, these good interferences with nature could somehow balance out my terrible mistake.  And maybe they will, if there is even some balance that can be struck.  I suppose it would be impossible to live a life of complete non-interference and neutrality with nature.  I step on insects all the time without even knowing.  I scare squirrels away from the bird feeder.  I pull up weeds and put insect repellent on my body and on my plants.  C pours boiling water on the fire-ant colonies that he finds.  I live in a house, in a town, and drive on roads--all of which displace nature.  And yet, nature carries on.  Despite my best efforts, there will probably still be praying mantises in the garden this year, as there always are.  And a bluebird family will nest in the bluebird box, and a possum will eat the cat food we set out for the kittens, and the black-eyed susans will not overtake the yard because I will pull them up in the places where they crowd my dahlias.  If I am the master of my domain, and a steward of the earth, I will take a lesson from life.  But I will still be sad about what I've done.

This Durham Town

Last summer I took a walk in my neighborhood and photographed this building that I really liked:

Today I walked by it again and took another picture:

Crazy how things change!
Also last summer, someone painted an unauthorized mural on the side of an old building:

But soon after I took the picture, the artwork was removed.  A month or two later, a new one popped up in a new location:

It's under an overpass and right next to a tattoo parlor, which makes me think one of the tattoo artists is responsible for both of these murals. It's hard to read it from my photo, but the text is 2 Timothy 3:2, about the last days when people will be wicked. I like it, and I think the site is a great place for it, but I think I the first mural was better. On this one, the eyes are too close together. There should always be an eye's width between two eyes.  

Anyway, you gotta love Durham. It's so full of interesting things and places! After C and I looked at this mural on our walk, we crossed the pedestrian bridge that spans the highway, and on the other side of the bridge, at the end of a dead-end street, a woman was teaching about a dozen Hispanic teenagers how to dance formally. Boys and girls were paired up, music blaring from someone's car stereo, and little kids imitating their older brother and sisters.  It was such a sweet and random thing to come across.

On our way home we passed a woman gardening in her front yard, and said hello. She introduced herself, then suddenly gave us a tour of her garden. Then she gave us a tour of her house, which she is practically rebuilding, the same way we need to do ours.  It was so fascinating! She was a very nice person, and has taken on such an enormous task, but it's good to see someone fixing up something in this old neighborhood, in amongst the boarded up houses and scrap yards. Very inspiring. And now we know a neighbor!

Catch-Up

As you may have learned from my recent post, I broke my hand at the end of February.  Three and a half weeks ago.  I was in a car accident, which was horrible and traumatizing.  Luckily I was the only person hurt and the car was also fixable.  The accident was caused when I went to make a left turn at an intersection where I had a stop-sign, but the traffic I was crossing had the right of way.  I didn't see the car that hit me until it was hitting me on my driver's side front wheel, which must have wrenched the steering wheel in my hands and broke the fourth metacarpal in my right hand.  The other driver was fine, but his car may have been totaled.  I'm glad C had collision coverage on his car, but it was awful when I got home and had to tell him what had happened!  He is a very good man and kind, but I would have been upset too!  But things worked out okay.  I got my hand checked out a few days later (it never really hurt so I didn't think it was broken) and it's healing in a brace now.  We bought a really inexpensive used car from a friend of a friend, and we just got the other car back from the shop yesterday, so we've got two cars now, which actually makes me really happy.  Sharing a car is great, and we really made it work for a while, but there are always going to be times when it's just more convenient and safe to have two cars.

Meanwhile, I just can't wait for my hand to fix itself!  I think my knuckle is going to look different on that hand, but I don't care how it looks--I just want to use it!  I'm right-handed, and it's hard to not be able to use that hand fully.  For example, today I was trying to plant things in the garden, but I can only use my left hand to pull the weeds, dig the holes, place the plants, pick up the watering can... everything gets done, just more slowly and awkwardly.  Still, I think I am getting more ambidextrous and am happy that my left arm is getting more of a work-out!  It's good to learn new skills, right?

So, as for the garden: we have peas, lettuce, okra, and squash planted so far, and C is just itching to plant beans.  We'll plant tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons later on, and C is trying to root a fig tree to go in the center of the backyard.  Also, I've put the dahlias back in the ground and planted ranunculus bulbs.  Next on my list is herbs (basil and cilantro), sunflowers, and zinnias.  Also, I am going to plant some daisy seeds from the 60s!  My niece gave me a vintage pink plastic daisy car ornament from when Amoco used them as a promotion item, and they came with actual daisy seeds in the package.  Who knows?  Maybe they will grow?  I will try to blog more about things!

Spoonflower QR Code Quilt

I work at a fabric company, and every year we have a staff design challenge contest.  Here is the story of my project this year.  When you get to the end, be sure and vote for me!

A QR code, or Quick Response code is a somewhat new technology that, when scanned by a smart phone or iPad app, takes you to a website or texts you with more information about a product.  You see them everywhere now, from cereal boxes to bus stops.  From the moment Jake got his new phone, he was obsessed with them.  I remember he used to talk about how production at Spoonflower could be more efficient if we could just walk around scanning QR codes to look up orders and find out information about rolls of fabric.  As for me, I just liked how they resembled little patchwork quilts.  So when the staff challenge was announced, the idea of making a QR code quilt seemed perfect.  

Our first step was to pick our QR code.  Every web page has a corresponding code, so we had a lot of silly ideas about what site to choose.  For loyalty’s sake we chose Spoonflower and with a simple free online code generator, Jake was able to print out an image of the QR code for the Spoonflower site.  We used this as a guide for our quilt.

We wanted our quilt to be more than just a black and white grid--no cheater quilt for us!  So we decided to make individual designs that would be cut up and incorporated into the larger QR code pattern.  We each made two designs: one predominantly black, and one mostly white.  Looking back, we realize we could have used any two colors with a high contrast, but the QR codes we are familiar with are black and white, so that’s what we did.  Keeping with the code theme, each one of our designs features a different code of communication, and each one spells--can you guess?--Spoonflower!

Jake chose to use binary code and smoke signals in his designs.  And he wants you to know that you don’t even need a computer to make a fabric design!  He drew his smoke signal design with a stylus on his iPad, using a program that would work on an iPhone too.  (He of course needed a computer to upload the drawing to the website, however.)  I’m pretty sure he became the first smoke-signal-fabric designer that Spoonflower has ever had.  I made designs using Morse code and the semaphore flag alphabet.  The night I made my Morse code design, someone actually ordered a swatch of it about an hour after I uploaded it!  (I wonder if they know it spells Spoonflower?)

We chose Kona cotton for our quilt, because it’s so soft and easy to work with.  The Spoonflower QR code is made of 625 squares (25 rows of 25) so for a roughly queen-size quilt, we printed 3 yards of each design and used 4-inch squares with a half-inch seam allowance.  Jake and I argued about whether or not the quilt should be totally gigantic, but I think he’s glad we kept it somewhat small.

As soon as our fabric was printed and ready to go, however, tragedy struck.  I broke my hand.  If only my car accident had occurred after the Daytona 500, I would have known to let go of the steering wheel on impact!  Sigh.  I broke the fourth metacarpal in my right hand, and I’m right-handed.  Still, I was determined to make this quilt, so I just sewed myself a cute cast cozy and started using the left-handed rotary cutter instead.

The next step was to cut the fabric into squares and plot the chart of how to sew them together.  It seemed right that no adjacent squares should be the same design, so in order to plot the layout of all the squares, I drew a map on graph paper of how to sew the squares together.  It’s like a code all on its own!  It took a long time to make this chart with my left hand, but it was so useful during the sewing process.

Jake and I sewed the squares together into strips and then sewed the strips together.  Jake sewed!  This was the first time he had ever sewed, but it was perfect because what can be easier than sewing squares together?  Turns out that sewing machines aren’t as complicated as they look.  After a few squares he was a natural.  He even learned how to load a bobbin. 

Jake’s dog, Grace, a rescued Boxer, looked on with curiosity.

Grace helped us sort the strips of squares.  A huge thank you also goes out to my mom because during this part of the process, she came to Spoonflower and helped Jake and I sew the rows of squares, trim the seams, and iron them.

My mom joked that the only time she sees me is when I need help with something, but I actually need her help a lot!  My mom is a very talented crafter, and she inspires me in so many ways.  I’m blessed to have her live so near!  In fact, she would not let us give up when it was late and we’d been sewing all day.  “I’m not leaving until I see the finished quilt top!” she said. “We have to scan it and see if it works!”  So Jake and I sewed like the wind and finished the top of the quilt.  Then we held it up and he scanned it with his phone and... it took us to the Spoonflower website!  Despite our sewing imperfections (I think some of the Morse code squares might be upside down) and tons of loose threads, it actually worked!

The next day we spread the quilt top over a backing made of plain Kona, with a layer of batting in between, and my mom helped us pin it all over with safety pins. Pin basting helped us keep it all together so we could sew it without a quilt frame.  The next step was to sew down each seam, through all the layers of the quilt, both vertically and horizontally. 

For all you real quilters, please do not be horrified.  This was a quick quilt, renegade style.  A close inspection of our handiwork is not recommended!  However, this quilt does two things: it takes you to the Spoonflower website and it keeps you warm.  What more could a person want?

The very last step was to fold up the edges of the Kona backing around the sides of the quilt top and sew through all the layers.  Gart saw me doing this part, and it was his first glimpse of the quilt.  “I’m geeking out!” he said, incredulous that it actually was a scannable QR code in quilt form.  Yes, it’s a melding of very old and very new technologies.  We hope you like it!  Meanwhile, Jake will be taking a nap in it.

Now that you know the story, please click here and vote for me!