I had a great weekend sewing. I spent two nights with some friends at the CraZy 9 Patch Quilt Shop finishing up some UFOs (Unfinished Fabrics Objects)PIGS (Projects In Grocery Sacks) or whatever you call those quilts that you started but have not finished.
Christi finished quilting a picnic quilt done in fruit fabric and quilted with black 12-wt thread. She quilted cursive phrases like "where's the picnic" and "the ants go marching" and little black ants all over the quilt. It was adorable.
Kim was working on some borders but then got side-tracked by other stuff. She has a great method for reducing her backlog. She prioritizes her projects and puts the top 4 or 5 in a big bag. She concentrates on that bag until all the projects are finished. It works for me. I would probably lose the bag.
Carol quilted a super long table runner. Her Bernina was clackety-clacking along.She used a meandering pattern and it turned out great.
Debbie was finishing up the borders on a quilt so she could send it home with me to quilt on my longarm.
Patty had her head down working on a new quilt. Beautiful fabrics. She was flying along until she realized that she had trimmed some pieces 1/4" inch too short.
Brenda was cutting fabric for a new project. Brenda had a major stroke in May and has made a great progress. This was her first time since May that she has been able to use a rotary cutter. She did great.
I was putting on borders. I had 3 quilts with multiple borders. There's 2 borders on the Eleanor Burns 3-quilt pattern; a pink floral border with black cornerstones and a blue floral double Irish Chain. I am thrilled to get these projects done. I asked Lexie, my Lhasa Apso, which one she liked best. She is still trying to decide.
I received a quilt job from the friend of a current customer. )I love it when a quilt makes my customer so happy that they refer me to their friends.) Jody is my customer's and Shirley is her friend and neighbor. Shirley is 83 yrs old; her quilt is a 94 x112 quilt for her grand-daughter. This was supposed to be my last quilt before my foot surgery tomorrow. Good so far. Then I measured it. The backing was too small by about 11 inches. Not so good.
I called her and had a nice chat with her. I found out that she had more of the backing fabric. She lives about 40 miles from me up in the mountains. It was a beautiful drive up to Palomar Mountain. It is a small community with a population of 3,200. Summer tourists swell that number filling lots of summer cabins.
We found Shirley's senior cabin nestled under a huge Redwood tree where the deck was still covered in snow. She invited us in for a visit. Right away I noticed a chalk drawing on the wall. It was a good likeness of Shirley but I was more interested in what Shirley was wearing in the drawing. It was a WAVES uniform. WAVES was a term used by the U.S. Navy describe Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service from the 40's to the 70's. Shirley served in the Navy starting in 1953, during the Korean War. I recognized the uniform because I wore a uniform just like it from 1968 to 1990. We swapped stories about duty stations, etc.
Shirley was assigned to be an Electronics Technician and was stationed at Coronado Island in San Diego. Shirley and a friend had a week off coming up and they decided to bicycle up to Palomar Mountain to visit the observatory. Clearly she did not have access to the internet or Shirley would have known that this was a 68 miles trip one-way. She laughs about how innocent they were setting out on that adventure. But it was the 50's and people were more trusting then. Shirley and her friend got rides from strangers part of the way. They made it to Palomar Mountain but they were too exhausted to bike the last 5 miles up to the observatory.
They checked in at a small snack bar on the side of the road. Shirley noticed a tall, dark and handsome young man working at the snack bar (now called Mom's Kitchen) and asked about finding a hotel room for the two girls. The young man directed them to his mother who rents out a room at her house. The rest is history. Shirley and the young man, Wayne, fell in love and got married. One of their sons, Mark, works at the observatory. Mark's best friend since grade school is named Lloyd. Lloyd is my customer Jody's husband and he also works at the observatory. It's like we are all connected.
We had a nice visit and decided to drive up to the observatory. My husband was there years ago with our son and a troop of Boy Scouts. It was all new and exciting to me.
The mirror used by the Hale telescope is 200 inches in diameter. We had the place to ourselves, no other tourists. I loved the history about building the South Grade road to get the huge telescope parts up the top of the mountain.
We were standing in the observation area and heard some motor running. It turned out to be the dome of the telescope was being rotated. See the movie below. You can see in the first photo that the doors on the dome are on the right side; then the photo later shows the doors have rotated around and are on the left side.
I love reading blogs. I have been so busy with medical stuff and trying to keep up with my quilting that I have fallen behind on my normal blog reading. So I had some spare time (huh?) yesterday and checked out some decorating blogs like Jenny Komenda's Little Green Notebook, Shannon Darby's The Designer's Attic and The Nester's Place and some others. It is both addicting and inspirational to read these wonderful ideas from people who have way more savvy about decorating than I do.
I have to admit that my living room looks a bit dated, even haggard and needs some updating. Constrained by my budget, I took one of these "thrifting" ideas to heart and starting window shopping Craigslist. I figured that I would start on something small and easy. Lamps seemed like a good place to start. This is what I found. Aren't those circles cool? Both lamps for $45 was the deal. When I got there to pick up the lamps, the seller apologized that one of the lamp shades was damaged. So he discounted the price to $40 for the 2 lamps. Still a good deal. But now I have to think about buying a replacement shade; Well, shades really. These lamps are so striking that it would look odd to have different shades on them
I went to Lamps Plus looking for the replacement shades. As soon as I spotted it, I knew it was perfect. There were only 2 so I grabbed them up. I love lines with circles, it is such a good-looking contrast. As I headed for checkout, I glanced at the price tag. $40 per shade. Hmm, that took the thrifty wind out of my sails. Then I added it all up and decided that $60 a lamp was still a darn good deal.
Now, I'm going to see what other bargains I can find on craigslist. I need some extra storage for my quilting thread. Maybe I can find an old dresser that needs some funky paint. Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.
