Christmas decorations

Everyone is posting such nice pictures of their Christmas decorations, so I will show a little bit of mine:

Yep - Three Stooges. They grace my TV console every year. We're connoisseurs around here. Last year my husband received the entire Three Stooges oeuvre on DVD for Christmas. And they say we aren't cultured in Tennessee!

Does anyone have this book?

OK, here's the deal: My husband wants me to make a Christmas quilt. I want to make one too. A bed-sized, applique, Santas and everything quilt. I have been looking for patterns but couldn't find anything I liked. Then I stumbled upon reviews for this book:It's "A Slice of Christmas by Piece O'Cake Designs". One look on Amazon convinced me that it has the patterns I'm looking for. (If I'm going to hand applique this quilt, I have to love it.) The thing is, it's out of print.

So I went looking for it on Amazon Marketplace and Alibris. I'll just find a secondhand copy, I think. Well, they both had it. For $99.00 and $122.00, respectively. Being as I am what is commonly referred to as NOT CRAZY, I will not be buying the book there.

So I put it to the quilting bloggers out there: Does anyone have this book? Are you willing to sell it? (For a price that's somewhat less than my first-born child? Just kidding.) Are you willing to loan it? Could you copy pages for me? If there's anyone out there that can lend a hand to a frustrated quilter, drop me a note. Thanks in advance!

Steinway pianos

This evening, NPR reported that the University of Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music is buying 165 new Steinway pianos, more than four million dollars' worth. This includes the venerable Steinway Model D nine foot long grand, one of the best pianos on earth. I know, because I once played one.

I studied piano when I was a child, and have played on and off most of my life. I don't play much anymore, but really should get back into practice now that I'm retired - but that's another story. When I was in high school, I attended Kentucky Girls' State, a kind of week long seminar on government and civics for high-ranked high school juniors. (There was a Boy's State too.) It was held at various universities around the state right after the end of spring semester, so we had the campus to ourselves. Ten girls went from my high school, a usual number for most, so there was quite a crowd in attendance - hundreds. The year I was selected, it was at Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky. (OK, don't laugh. That's the name of this small private university. And it's very well regarded.)

The last evening of the seminar, there was a voluntary talent show. Now, while I had been playing piano for some time, I was terribly shy and very nervous, but I decided that it would be good to participate. So I signed up. Then, I had to decide what to play. Classical? Good in theory, but my selection should be entertaining, and Bach or Debussy might not be everyone's cup of tea. Also, there were a number of pianists and classically trained singers on the bill and I wanted to stand out a little.

I decided on a wonderful piano transcription of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" I had learned earlier in the year. Think what you want about Simon and Garfunkel, that was a beautiful song, and this arrangement was stunning. And that year it was THE song. So I was all set.

The day before the show, I slipped into the auditorium to practice at lunch break. The Steinway sat on the side of the stage, ignored, in the hall where we had been holding mock caucuses and elections, and creating a model state government. The piano was black and shiny. It was big. REALLY big. I sat down, folded back the fall and played a few cords.

Holy Moses. Now THIS was a piano. I warmed up and played through the song. The instrument was stunning. Responsive didn't describe it. It purred, it roared, it sang. The touch was flawless, and the tone. . .I had a nice studio piano at home, and I had played on some good instruments, but this was amazing. It boosted my confidence. It made even an average pianist sound good.

The night of the concert, I was shaky but marched out there in front of hundreds of people and performed. I like to think that marvelous piano helped my nerves. Close your eyes and remember the song - delete the vocals and just think about that lyrical piano line in the background. Now add the melody over it and imagine that ascending crescendo of chords at the end. Imagine it performed live on a nine foot mammoth of a piano, thundering into the auditorium, filling the air above the audience with an expanding wave of music. When I finished, there was dead silence. Then the auditorium erupted in applause. They were on their feet!

I took a flustered bow and bolted for the wings, blushing bright scarlet. Thank you, Steinway.

Getting dressed up

I don't have a life any more that requires anything more dressy than a nice pair of gabardine slacks and a sweater set. I have even given up on jackets. However, sometimes an event comes up in your life that requires you to buy - gasp - a dressy dress. Not as fancy as an evening dress, more festive than a church dress. Specifically, a guest-at-the-wedding dress.

This is something that I haven't had to do for a while. Sadly, I needed to pull out my going-to-a-funeral dress this summer when my neighbor passed away. But wedding guest dress? I haven't been there since my sister-in-law got married. That dress was stuck squarely in 1985, and has since been re-homed. (It was a really nice dress, but the shoulder pads and all dated it badly. Wearing it, you expected to turn around and see Joan Collins.)

After my brother-in-law announced that he was getting married in April, I decided to face up squarely to the challenge, and not wait until March and panic. A good starting place was online shopping. I perused a few stores that had served me in the past, and then turned to the old faithful, J. C. Penney. (I know, there's a Penney store at the mall not 3 miles as the crow flies from my house, but it's the holiday season, people, I wouldn't go there if they were giving out gold bricks. I have experienced that mall at Christmas shopping season and lived through it - no good pressing my luck.)

I went to the jcp.com site and pulled up the page of dresses. Idly scrolling down the column of photos, I was stopped dead in my tracks. There it was. There it was. The dress I had in the back of my mind but hadn't even verbalized. A medium rose colored crepe faux two piece column dress with embroidery at the neck and waist. It was dignified. It was festive without trying too hard. It was on sale.

I filled out the order so quickly it heated up the keys on my laptop.

It was delivered today and fits perfectly. And it's beautifully made, fully lined, hidden zipper, lovely embroidery with tiny little sequins at the neck and waist. The only thing I have to work on is the back slit. It's a straight skirt so you need some walking ease, but the slit goes a little too high for my taste. I will either just lengthen the back seam or, if I can find some rose crepe to match, turn the slit into a placketed vent. It would be an easy sewing job.

Pearl necklace - check. Gold dress watch - check. Beige pumps - check. I'm ready.

Now, the question is - does my husband's suit still look good? He's the best man.

Jacob's Ladder for Jacob

Now I can show what I was making last week - for Calico Cat's new baby Jacob, a Jacob's Ladder wall quilt for his nursery. I had made the Jacob's Ladder for the giveaway, so the pattern was in mind when I read the baby's name. I decided it was the perfect quilt, and I had a new selection of blues from Connecting Threads to use. It's 21" x 27", a bit larger than the giveaway quilt, and uses seven different fabrics.

The back is pieced of 6" squares of leftover cream, brown, blue and navy fabric, which makes the perfect base for the label. There's a hanging sleeve, too, in case she needs it. I did straight diagonal quilted lines through the pieced center and outlined around the border. I didn't think this small quilt needed any more embellishment.

All in all, it turned out as cute as I had imagined, and I hope it brings a spot of brightness to his room. Welcome to the world, Jacob Henry!

I've been sewing, but it's a secret

I just completed the most adorable small quilt, but I can't post a picture because it's a gift and the recipient might see it. ARRRRRGH!

Gratitude

Now that Thanksgiving is over and my houseguests are gone, I have reflected on my last post and decided it was a bit strident for the holidays. (Oh, I still believe what I wrote, but maybe I can soft-pedal the grouchiness a little!) I decided to think about gratitude, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Where does someone begin to list things they are grateful for? The obvious answers, of course - health, happiness, family. But let's get more specific and a little bit more personal.

I'm grateful for my grandmother who pieced quilt tops, even though she wasn't all that domestic by nature. And grateful that those tops were quilted by a good country woman named Mrs. Abshire, so that I could spend my childhood snuggled under them - especially my favorite, a red and white turkey tracks design.

I'm grateful for my mother who taught me to sew. This skill helped me make all my clothes in high school (and spend one of the most boring semesters in my life in home economics class, watching other freshman girls struggling over the construction of the simplest shift dress in history) and for many years after. Sewing has been a life skill, a hobby, a comfort, a creative outlet, a money-saver. It gives my nervous hands something to do. It has decorated my home and warmed my bed. I don't feel right unless I have a quilt top at some stage of construction.

I'm grateful for a husband who doesn't begrudge the money I spend on my hobby and appreciates and compliments my creations, who overlooks the threads that sometimes festoon the carpet when I'm on a sewing jag and finds the pins I drop on the kitchen floor before the cat does.

I'm grateful for all the cats who have paraded through my life, each distinctly different in personality and each giving me company and pleasure in his or her own way, even the ones who weren't the best pets in the world (an orange tabby named George comes to mind). You can learn a lot from a cat if you pay attention. If you earn their trust and affection, it's a big accomplishment. You can't bully or domineer a cat. You can't buy their love. A cat will never kowtow to you.

I'm grateful for all the tools the quilting industry has developed since I began this hobby. Rotary cutters, cutting mats and rulers that beat cardboard templates any day. Corrosion-proof basting safety pins for the times when a project gets sidelined, so you don't have to fight rust stains on your work when you return to the task. Easy-thread needles (now, there's a brilliant idea) for catching and hiding thread tails. I'm grateful for the vast array of fabrics available, almost any color or design you could want. And for quilt shops with their helpful, enthusiastic employees, usually quilters themselves, who will trudge the aisles to help you find just the right fabrics, even when you don't know what they are yourself.

I'm grateful, oh so grateful, for retirement so I can sew to my heart's delight, and for a retirement system at my former employer, so I could retire when I needed to and didn't have to work until I was decrepit. That's a big one nowadays. I watch with pain while people who never expected to be on the street lose their jobs (including my own niece, who is currently job-searching). I watch people try to live on Social Security and pitiful small pensions and give a prayer of thanks for my husband's and my circumstances.

I'm grateful for this house, even though I might grumble sometimes and would definitely like a dedicated sewing room. I understand what a good house it is, especially after I have company like last weekend, and have plenty of room for them - and multiple bathrooms to accommodate everyone in comfort! (That's a biggie - I grew up in a one bathroom house.) I'm especially grateful for my renovated kitchen, which serves me so well when I cook for company.

And I'm grateful for the blogging quilters of the world who let me have a peek into their creative and personal lives, who inspire, entertain and inform me. I want to wish them all a wonderful, happy, blessed holiday season.