Splendid Spring

It has indeed been a pretty splendid Spring.  Weather-wise, at least here in Central Florida, it's been on the cool side, more rain than usual, but that heavy humidity after the showers pass hasn't set in yet.

And kids were here! 

 

 

Josh and Steph came to visit for ten days or so of swimming, playing, golfing, Disney stuff, etc.



So much fun.

Just wanted to get a few pictures up for now because after our Vermonters left, Jim and I packed up and drove to Salt Lake City for a Spring visit with our Utah-ers. 

Also much fun, lovely scenery, lilacs and snow.  And on the way home, there was this:

We've checked the Grand Canyon off the bucket list.  Much more later - right now I have (more) laundry to do.  --cds

Blue Flowers

Some basic blue flower shapes.

I intend to embroider and embellish the heck out of these flowers. Love the handstitching.

It is raining so hard right now with 50 mph wind gusts - rather frightening, actually.  Our street is a river.  I'm thinking about shooting Noah a text - Raining like hell (sorry) all-get-out here. Toss the monkeys and armadillos o/b and pick us up on your way to Ararat. Love, C, J and LoLo

What do you think about the new Noah movie? I love a good disaster flick and Russell Crowe does make a mighty fine seafarer.  Speaking of Crowe, I  read all those Patrick O'Brien books a long, long time ago and when Master and Commander was being made into a movie I remember thinking - yikes! who knew that Russell Crowe was Capt. Jack Aubrey?  I reread, of course.  Don't judge me! I couldn't care less if an actor is a douche in real life, long as they look nice on screen (or in boats).

Speaking of movies,  I must be seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel, if only to watch Tilda Swinton as Madame D. in full-on old lady make-up.  Looks like my kind of movie, madcap and crazy.  I mean how can you pass up a movie with such scenes as prisoners carefully dividing up a delicious pastry with a throat-slitter.  --cds

Yellow Wednesday

Yeah, so it was a yellow sort of day.  This started out as four 9-patch blocks that I quartered and twisted and put back together again.

I have plans for this yellow background involving blue-ish batik flower appliqueing.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, in the Salt Lake City suburbs, six-year old Evie was having a bit of a tiff with her friend, the long-suffering Owen.  She apparently left this sticky-note message on the door for him:

 Oh, she's tough.  --cds

Baby Quilt

I am breezing through the unfinished project basket like nobody's business.  Here is another baby-size quilt all done.

These are crappy pictures, my apologies.  I took 'em with my phone outdoors in the really really bright sunshine and the colors are really off.  The background is straight-up white, but the backing is a cute duck pattern in beige.  It is machine-pieced and machine-appliqued, but I hand-quilted it because sometimes I just need to hand-quilt.

I had no particular baby in mind when I started this (a number of years ago), I just had a collection of very cute repro-vintage baby fabrics.  So, how about this.  I will give this quilt to the first family member who has a baby in the next nine months.  Not a baby puppy.  A real baby.  Okay?  So, get ready, get set, GO!  NO!!!  Wait, wait, WAIT!!!  At least let me sign off first.  Sheesh.  Okay, go.
xo--Claudia

Springtime in the Tropics

Boy is it ever spring here.  Mockingbirds are flitting all over the place, hopefully setting up housekeeping in some nearby magnolia so I can listen to them all day.  Unbelieveably, our neighbor to the right CHOPPED DOWN their perfectly lovely magnolia because it was blocking their view of the street (!!!).  I, on the other hand, am painstakingly training our bougainvillea to screen our front porch and my delicate eyes from... well, let's just say gentlemen of a certain age really should wear shirts. 

So anyway, the sand hill cranes are nesting in the grasses of the pond next door and someone says two babies have hatched, tho I can only see Mama's head so far.  The osprey pair have built another nest on top of the light pole by the pool and this morning I saw one fly in breakfast, either a very long-legged frog or a small dog (oops!).  Something large-ish, I'm telling you! 

It's a constant battle with nature here in Central Florida.  I haven't told my next-door neighbor mother this yet (and when she reads this I'll hear her screech, I'm sure), but the other morning, I got up before dawn as usual, walked into the bathroom and found myself looking eye-level at a frog on the wall.  He was only about 4 inches long while quietly clutching the wall, though sensing me he decided to flop wetly from wall to wall.  I slammed the door shut, but knowing I was the one who had to capture the thing (Jimbo is SO not a nature boy), I finally cornered it on a picture frame with a yoghurt container and we set it free in the neighbor's yard (the magnolia killers, not my mother's).

So it goes here in the tropics.  Spring is on its way up, dear Northeners, never fear.  Then perhaps YOU will have to worry about frogs in your bathroom.  --cds

Finishes, Part II

More completions from the Unfinished Projects Grab Bag:

Whoops!  How did that get in here.  Above is some of Mother's strawberry shortcake that she made for Chuck and Sue who visited with us last Monday.  It's strawberry season in Central Florida, believe it or not.

The quilt below is a smallish square, maybe 60" by 60", that I started probably 15 years ago.  The pattern called for a bigger quilt, but I had to quit because it was horrendously time consuming.  It's all pieced from these little 6" strips of fabric and meant to be a sort of modern-ish take on your basic log cabin design (yeah, I know). 

I think this is about the time that I quit making quilts from book patterns and just starting designing my own, made to the dimensions I wanted, etc.

Also I could never figure out how to quilt the darn thing so after 15 years of pulling it out of the bag, trying something, hating it, throwing it back in the bag, I finally decided to just give it some curved machine quilting and called it a quilt.

Looks nice in my living room draped over the sofa and it's just big enough to keep my legs warm in the mornings when it's only 50 degrees (sorry, Northerners, but really, come visit!  It's quite pleasant here).  --cds

Ok, Back Again

Normally when I have been absent from the blog, I like to wait until the first of the month or something to post my return - I somehow think that beginning afresh on the first day of a new month will magically make me stick to a routine.  Nah.  But I mean to try and so I'm jumping in again on Friday, January 24, for no other reason than I've got a couple of finishes to share:

This is a crib-size quilt for Marcus who will be ONE YEAR OLD on February 5.  Seems like only yesterday we were in Vermont awaiting his birth during one of the most bitterly cold spells I can ever remember in all my forty years as a Vermonter.  I remember saying at the time that we would most likely be celebrating his future birthdays from afar because I'm not sure I can handle that coldness anymore.

So we plan on singing Happy Birthday via Skype (and they have airline reservations for a Florida visit toward the end of March).

Anyway, after eleven years of buying only girl stuff, we have had a good time focusing on boy things.  Marcus WILL love trucks and racecars if Grandpa has anything to do with it, so when I found this fabric, I figured it would make a cute quilt.

The back is a fleece fabric, so it'll be nice and warm (and you can race cars on it!).

I had even forgotten how much fun it is to buy boy clothes.  I bought him some shorts for his March visit - that tee-shirt says "I Still Live With My Parents."  So cute.

And it will not surprise my relatives that I saved my sons' sports teams tee-shirts all these years with the intention of making tee-shirt quilts.  Well, I finally stitched this one up for Jamie since he was here for Christmas.  It's actually quite hard to get these shirt-fronts squared up and laying flat.  It's not perfect, but with the navy-blue fleece as sashing and backing, the thing is warm as all get out and will be nice for him to wrap up in during the Utah freeze.

I'll be back tomorrow, I'm sure.  I seem to have words stored up.  --cds