You Might Be a Quilter If....

You might be a quilter if:  when the moving company representative tells you it's okay to leave your clothes, sheets, and towels in the dresser drawers, you immediately start removing the clothes, sheets and towels and instead fill them with quilts and quilt projects, reasoning that they are less likely to lose a piece of furniture rather than a box.

(The current New York Beauty project)

(A vintage Dresden Plate quilt made by my great grandmother.)

(A hand-pieced Drunkard's Path)

While I have no pictures for this one, because all of these boxes are taped closed~you might be a quilter if:  instead of wrapping and padding your fragile items with newspaper, you use fabric from your stash instead.

Monday Miscellaneous

First off, I want to thank everyone who offered their sympathy and reassurance to last Monday's Miscellaneous Meltdown.  (That probably would have been a more appropriate title, don't you think?)

Anyway, since then, the seller's have agreed to make the repairs to the electrical system, and the irrigation guy put in the pressure reducers.  The irrigation guy is a nice person, but he wasn't happy about installing the pressure reducers.  He is one of those people that thinks something "should" be done a certain way--in this case maximum water delivery in the shortest amount of time--and it bothers him when it's not.  I was breaking one of his rules.  I told him that I understood what he was saying, but to humor me, because I could not afford a complete re-do of the entire irrigation system.

Now that we've got most things in order around here, we put the house on the market: 

Mt. Charleston is visible in the background.  It's an 11,000 foot peak that's beautifully decorated with snow every winter.

Listing the house is bittersweet.  Nevada has been good to us for the last 8 years, but our needs are different now.

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We're getting ready for my dad's memorial next weekend.

(1944-2010)

It won't be anything formal.  (My dad hated funerals.)  Just family celebrating his life.  So we'll share stories and remberances, drink some beer, and hopefully get out the guitars and play a little.  My dad was the best musician in the family.  However, my cousin, Ben, has a natural talent for it, so now the honor of primary musician falls to him.  Me?  I inherited no musical ability whatsoever.  I can play a solid blues bass, but it's only because it's relatively simple and I've practiced A LOT.  Don't ask me to improvise though.

 (My dad, Bill, Ben, and Mike, my dad's brother)

We'll try to give my dad a send off appropriate to who he was.

Favorite Things Friday

Ever since Mrs. Pyjamas began Favorite Things Friday, I knew I could put this favorite thing off for only so long.  It's been vying for the place of honor since day one.  Truly, it deserves a place of honor.  My computer is one of my very most favorite things.

The reason is simple.  It has allowed me to connect with people from all over the world, and some of those people have become very dear friends.  Yes, the computer permits other types of coolness~I can read the news, research answers to questions, find a new house, pay my bills, swap my paperback books, and buy fabric to name just a few.  However nothing can compare to the friendships I've made through this little miracle of technology that we've all learned to take for granted.

Head on over to Quilting in My Pyjamas, and check out everyone else's favorite things.

Dark and Stormy Night

There is one project on my WIP list that I have yet to blog about:  Dark and Stormy Night (Storm at Sea).  Despite the fact that I usually find naming quilts an arduous process, this one came unbidden.  Probably because Snoopy in Peanuts started all of his creative writing endeavors with, "It was a dark and stormy night..."  This always gave me a giggle (yeah, I know, I'm easily entertained).  However, it seems perfect for this quilt.

The picture above is courtesy of my EQ5 program.  I have not proceeded very far with the project.  I'm still cutting the pieces.  While the project will be color controlled in that all the blue pieces will be some shade of blue, the green pieces some shade of green, etc., each of the 64 blocks will be unique.  No fabric repeats.  That probably sounds crazy to a lot of quilters, but for me, it's fun.  I'm still collecting fabrics for the purple and green pieces.  The blue pieces are all cut.

My favorite colors are blue, purple, and green.  Yet as a rule, I tend to pair them with at least one warm color.  It always seemed to me that cool colors tend to need warm colors and visa-versa.  Art theory tends to confirm this.  My art background is very minimal, being limited to one art education class back when I thought I was going to become a teacher.  The teacher spent a lot of time teaching us about the color wheel.  Complimentary colors:  those straight across the wheel from each other.  Analogous colors:  those right next to each other.  Apparently, there are defined ways of putting colors together in order to create an attractive combination.


Then she told us about the painting "Blue Boy" by Thomas Gainsborough. 

Apparently Gainsborough broke the color theory rules when he created this painting.  The theory is that warm colors give the feeling of moving toward the viewer, while cool colors--like blue--give the feeling of receding from the viewer.  Gainsborough proved this didn't necessarily have to be the case, because Blue Boy feels fully front and center in this painting.  Of course, if there are any warm colors to be found in this painting they are very muted.

I have no idea why this particular thing of the many things that art education teacher taught us stuck in my head, but it did.  So my Storm at Sea is my own attempt to make cool colors come forward.  I'm doing it by making the background totally black.  A cheat compared to Gainsborough's beautiful painting.  Nevertheless, there you have it.

Monday Miscellaneous

You know copying is the highest form of flattery. P., I've so enjoyed your Sunday Sundry posts, I decided to do one of my own. Of course, I didn't want it to be obvious that I copied your idea, hence the title Monday Miscellaneous. Subtle, eh?

Okay, so you'll all remember that anti-drug commercial using scrambled eggs with the advisement: "This is your brain on drugs"? Well, this is my brain on moving:

Between preparing our current house to sell, organizing a 1200 mile move, and buying house, trying to pin down exactly what is going to happen when, is like trying to herd cats. Just when we think we've about got everything in place, some new, squirmy cat shows up.

Here's the latest: Had the house we are intending to buy inspected last week (at our expense). The house was built in 2007, and so one would expect it to be relatively problem-free. Nope! The electrical wiring in the basement is "sub-standard", plugs not grounded. The working theory is that the owners finished the basement themselves. So now, our Realtor has formally contacted the owners' Realtor with the request that this problem be fixed. They can accept or counter-offer. Since it isn't a direct negotiation, with layers of Realtors (who have other clients) to go through, the process takes a bazillion times longer than it seems like it should. We're on pins and needles wondering if we'll be leaving by our scheduled departure date or not. Or if the whole darn thing will fall apart.

Then there is the issue of the irrigation system here at our own house. Since we did it ourselves, the irrigation system actually amounted to four different systems, added as needed. Worked for us, but it would be tough for anyone not living at the house to manage (like the caretaker we will probably hire until the house sells). So we hire an irrigation guy to attach our four irrigation systems to one central landscape timer. Piece of cake he tells us. Since he put it in last Wednesday, we haven't been able to use it. There have been two leaks, an electrical problem, and too much pressure in the system causing two of our irrigation tubes to "pop their corks" so to speak. I've been kicking myself for not pointing out that our primitive system had pressure reducers on them. But heck, I figured he was the expert. Stupid me. Now he's coming back on Tuesday to install said pressure reducers. I'm hoping the third fix is indeed the charm, because right now, I feel like we've gone nine steps back in that department.

Oh and here's a laugh. His card states "Work done right the first time."

I will say this, he is a nice guy, and it seems to me that part of the problem is that he's overworked.

Although the post is labeled "miscellaneous", it appears that I did stick to a theme, the adventures (or misadventures) of moving. So, maybe I'm a theme writer at heart, but at least the title allows me to pick an unrelated subject next week.