Random Bits

I spent the day at may parent's house cutting, piecing, and sewing a smallish quilt. Two weeks ago, my sister in law called me to ask some advice about whether there was time for her younger daughter's kindergarten class to make a quilt as an art project (as well as the class gift to the teacher).

Long story shortened considerably, they did the art. I am doing the quilting. And it has to be done before June 12 - as I am busy all day June 13, and I leave for California on June 14.

So the quilt is called "Kindness is" and the art the kids did is all about what kindness means to them. The art was done with special fabric dye sticks (used like a crayon), which is then heat-set with a dry iron. Apparently, kindness involves a lot of reading, helping, and cleaning to these five and six year olds. And some of them write really well.

My niece's block was mostly all words. Even in a soundless medium she has a *lot* to say (she's the chatterbox - she never stops talking. For two such incredibly quiet people, they are raising a very loud kid).

I spent the day putting the top together and making the bias-tape for the binding. Tomorrow I get to do finishing work - like binding it, and finish quilting it. I am ti-red.

Think I am going to call it a night and go beddie-bye.

Three times a year, I travel for work. The trips are mapped out way ahead of time, and the days I'm on travel are between eight and thirteen. So, three times a year I am issued two "comp" days to make up for the fact that there is usually two weeks in a row I don't get a weekend. Today, I used one of my comp days.

Today, I drove my mom up to New Hampshire to attend a quilter's show and expo. It was the first time I'd gone to this quilt show, and we enjoyed it very much. I was impressed with some of the artistry, and less impressed with some of the color choices. One of the categories in the show was "Kids Can Quilt" - the youngest entrant was six. And there were quite a number of boys who entered their quilts!

I got to see long arm machines do their thing. Those things are incredible! But they are also quite large! I want one, but for one thing $$$$ and for another, you basically need a shed or large room to house just that (and damn, some of the vibrations those machines set up is amazing).

A trend we decided we were Not Fond Of was the use of heat-seal crystals on the quilt tops. I mean, what? Also, one entrant to the show appliqued a feather boa to her quilt. Again with the what?

My mom and I agreed on our favorite. It was not flashy or glitzy, but it was so artistically crafted, and the artist took a theme (one she obviously loved) and made the prettiest wall hanging for her home. It got a third place ribbon in the Art/Pictorial category. It was called "Letters From A Broad" and her theme was the alphabet.

One thing I wish they spelled out was what the criteria was for each award category.

I mean, I understand some of them, but some weren't as obvious. Like "Our Daily Bed" was for bed quilts, and "Edge to Edge" was all about the quilting transcending the borders.But what exactly were they looking for with "Innovative Template"? And while I could appreciate the meticulous work that went into the one ribboned Best In Show, it didn't knock my socks off, so what made it so spectacular to the judges? What were they looking for, specifically, with each category? I wish I knew. Because some of them were dreadful, and some of the better ones didn't win any ribbons, and there is really no way to know why.

Anyway, after a couple of hours we were both kind of reeling. So many colors and patterns! I think my mom was still overloaded when I left her at her house. We called my dad from the road home, so he knew we'd be home in about an hour, so he could go play golf (while Max is growing up, he still can't be left alone for too long or he'd have an accident - about an hour and a half to two hours is his limit).

Really really nice Friday off.

I spent this weekend haring off every which way, it seemed. Or maybe it was just 'cause I was so busy all the time. I started the weekend driving up to Groton to pick our EMACT Festival timeslot. EMACT is the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatres. The EMACT festival is just about one month away, and I am stage managing a one-act for the festival. Since out director wasn't available, the producer and I were going to go anyway. Our props mistress came along to check out the performance space.

I've never been to the Groton School - but man alive, their theatre is fucking beautiful. And the set onstage? Likely nobody but gwendolyngrace will care, or get it, but they're mounting a production of "Stepping Out" and had the beginnings of a truly gorgeous church basement started... right down to church pew bench, (painted on) industrial tile floor, and ugly radiator.

Anyway. We get up there, and there are fourteen groups represented - at least one newbie group that has never done this before. We are called up one at a time to choose our "chip" that will tell us in what order we were going to choose timeslots. We got our application in about seventh or eighth, so a number of groups picked chips before us (and the first group chose chip 12). By the time we picked, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 were already picked. The odds of us getting one of our top three choices was slim.

The gods were with me, because I chose chip number 3!!! So our timeslot is second on Sunday - which means we move into the space at 7:30am, tech at 9am and go at around 12:30pm - done for the day by 1:30ish - and just have to watch the last two groups, relax, and go to the awards show in the evening. Yes, it is a fucking long day, but if we went on in the last afternoon slot? Move in at 6:30am, tech at 7:00am, show at 3:00pm - which to my mind drags it out unnecessarily and painfully. That is *wicked* hard on the crew (read: ME) not even including the actors.

So we were happy, and done and back from Groton by 1pm and I went on to the next thing. I was making a square lap-sized quilt for my mom for mother's day, so I spent most of the rest of the day trying to finish that. Gwen came over and we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark (man, it's been an age since I'd seen that movie).

I kicked her out after midnight so I could go to bed and get up early Sunday to finish binding the quilt.

Up early Sunday, finished the quilt and went to my folks for Mother's day. My brother, sis-in-law and kids stopped by with a plant for my mom (columbine). K looks good, if slightly uncomfortable - she's at that too-pregnant-to-want-to-voluntarily-move stage. Six more weeks or so. The minivan is lovely, and my brother is not real happy to be driving the mommy-van, but he's okay about it, just grumbling under his breath a little.

Mom loved the quilt. I was thinking she could snuggle with her grandchildren with it. She is thinking she's going to hang it on the wall. She doesn't want the grandkids *touching* it. I told her it was hers, so if she wanted to keep the sticky, drooly, messy ones away from it, I was okay with that. However if she had wanted to snuggle up and actually *use* (and abuse it) like any quilt, that was okay, too. I spent a long time just *talking* with my mom. My dad was in the family room watching golf and my mom and I went into the living room and lounged on the couches. They are going to be going to New York or New Jersey next week because one of my cousins is getting married. I don't know exactly where - none of my generation of cousins was invited (likely just to keep attendance to a reasonable number - there is a hella lot of us!).

I hope all the mommys on my flist had awesome mother's days!