Another great weekend and fabric cards

Another great weekend with the girls. We hadn't seen Sarah since we went to NY and we still had a couple of birthday presents for her. Keri and Steve put her Dora hot wheeler together and she tried very hard to help them. She's still having a bit of trouble with the pedals, but she's having fun. Here she is from the back - sorry - all you can see is her wet underpants from swimming in the little pool. She forgot her bathing suit. It definitely wasn't easy trying to ride

this in the grass. And then Sarah and Mommy had a game of chase around the back yard.

We also gave her a little fishing game. There is a magnet in the tip of the "worm" and in the nose of the little fish. That's very difficult to do when you are three. That's difficult to do when you are 57! Sarah tried and tried and finally got one! (I think she cheated).

And I couldn't resist my little Sarah Marx shot. She's too funny.

Steve downloaded the photos he took at the coast of the fire situation. No big flames, just smoldering in the peat 3 feet deep. Here you can see how they pump the water from canal to canal until they get it to where they need it.

And here is a helicopter dropping a bucket of water on an area still burning.

And I guess this is the mascot. Steve said this goat and a wild pig just wandered around loose wherever they wanted to go.

He is scheduled to go back to the fire the first week of August for another two weeks. Aside from a hurricane, he'll likely have to go. Of course, the way the hurricanes are flaring up now, who knows?

I'm really excited about tonight. An old friend who moved from Raleigh to Winston-Salem is coming for dinner. I bet I haven't seen Pat in nearly 10 years. We're hoping to cook out, but we're back into that thunderstorm mode, so we might be using the grill pan on the stove instead of the grill outdoors.

I managed to finish 5 postcards for Lynne. She is having a fund raiser for a pastor who has a shelter and needs to raise money to keep it going. I will also donate a quilt, but not sure which one yet. The postcards are my photo transfer/thread paintings. These are fun, pretty, and quick, so they are perfect for charity. These are all from the photos I took of my flowers a month or so ago. Except the butterfly - I took that at Granny & Abbie's last year.

That's only four, I know. My scanner decided to hang up on the fifth one, so that's all I can get today.

I also managed to just about finish my Journal Art Quilt project. I did a pillowcase turn-inside out deal, but it doesn't look too hot. I'm taking that out and doing something else. I really like the piece, though Steve says it needs more branches. He's probably right.

I thought the grand kids were supposed to wear out the grandparents? Keri took this 10 minutes after leaving our house Sunday. Totally out.

And so am I!

One Fantastic Week!

This has been a very good week! Steve came home Tuesday afternoon and I received a big fat acceptance letter from Univ. Missouri's art quilt show, "Threadlines". Woo hoo! I really had forgotten that I'd entered! They accepted my Abstracts Dancing, which was in the PAQA-S show last year (ARTQUILTSmarkings) and the first show I had ever entered. I am thrilled!

I took the day off yesterday to spend some time with Steve, but also had to take my CRV to the Honda dealer at 7:30 am. It was making a grinding sound when I turned the wheel hard to the left. Turned out to be the rear differential - right, like I know what that is! But it was only $70, and added to my inspection, $108. We were worried it might be a lot more, so that was excellent, too.

Steve took a well-deserved nap yesterday afternoon after cleaning out the state Jeep he drives. Poor guy has been putting in 16 hours a day for two full weeks. I hope he doesn't have to go back, but he thinks he might. OTOH, he did make an extra $3800! We could use that again!

Another nice thing that happened was receiving an email from Christine Hager-Braun, the president of PAQA-South, asking me to send her images (jpgs) of 2 of my quilts and 2 others from last year's show to be published in the Town of Cary's PR magazine. I think that's very cool indeed.

I also applied for a position with Davidson County DSS in the Child Support section. The price of gas is forcing me to work closer to home. Almost $600/month is way too much - even if I love my job. That's $7200 a year!!!! That's outrageous. Even if my director allowed me to work at home 2 days a week, it would still be outrageouos. Considering I would stand to get a few thousand more a year in salary and add on the savings in gas - man! What a nice raise that would be!

Tonight is the last night of my ArtQuilt 101 class. It's been a lot of fun and they had a lot of fun, too. Next month we move on to threadpainting. I'm going to give Lynne a couple of my smaller pieces to hang in the shop to generate interest. I do like the smaller sizes - 5 or 6 - but I could make more money if I had more people.

Forest Fires, Flip Flops, and Fireworks

The fire is still going on the coast of NC and Steve left last Monday (June 30th) to join his team. He's supposed to be finished next Wed. (July 16th), but they might decide to keep his team for another 2 weeks after a 2 day rest (the rest would be there, not at home). I hope not. The 4th of July was pretty depressing this year - no one home but me. I gave the second week of my Arquilt 101 class at Lynne's shop on Thursday night. There was a new person there who is an art teacher at the local community college. It was fun to work with her because she's not afraid to experiment. She is not taking the class to walk out with one "perfect" artquilt completed. She's wanting to learn techniques so she can do her own.

Here is a photo from the first week's class - that is Lynne's neighbor, Gail, not the art teacher. I brought a bag of fabric scraps and dumped it in the middle of the table. They seem to be getting it pretty well, considering most of them are totally traditional quilters.

Friday afternoon (4th) I went to Lynne's shop. It was closed, but she and some of the girls were there doing their "homework" from my class, so I worked on some fabric postcards. Made the time go by much faster.

Keri came down Saturday and we went out to lunch, then out to dinner. We've had horrendous thunder storms every evening and there we were, sitting on the deck (it's a covered deck) at La Caretta watching the rain pour down and shuddering at the thunder and lightening. Oh wait. That was me shuddering... Keri was whooping and hollering and having a blast.

Sat. night we watched P.S. I Love You. What a FABULOUS movie! It's one of the funniest/best I've seen in a long long time and we laughed so hard watching it. Lisa Kudrow (Friends) was as nutty as ever and really made the movie. It's on DVD now - and not just for the 2 day rental anymore - at Blockbuster. This is one I'm going to have to buy.

More flower photos. I bought this Lantana to attract more butterflies and Hummingbirds and planted it in the vegetable garden. A nice spot of color in all that green.

I really wanted to make a piece for the SAQA One Foot Square auction this year. I wrestled with what to do for so long and nothing seemed to feel just right. Then I had this vision of flip flops - and knew I wanted to make something fun. I made this the weekend before Steve left and had a blast. I bought a box of shells and beads and a bag of the little beach stones at Walmart. I couldn't believe they had it. Unfortunately, I glued the stones and shells on before I added the back and finished the edges. That glue really holds!

When I showed it to Steve, he just shook his head like I was nuts. I figured it was a lost cause, but brought it to work. All of the women I work with loved it and all the women at the quilt shop loved it and Keri loved it. I decided it's definitely a fun "chick piece of art" and since it would be mostly chicks bidding on the SAQA art, someone is bound to see it and think how fun it is. Right? I mean, really, if you're a chick (of any age), you probably dig flip flops. It's on the SAQA auction website now.

This picture doesn't show the finished edges, but the one on the website does. I had to pull a lot of the little stones off around the edges to finish it, then added them back (plus more!) when it was done.

I think I'd like to try another one. This was so much fun!