Just piddlin'

It is spring break. The boys are home, actually, they are in and out at odd hours, but they are mostly home. Gilbert took the week off.

Yesterday we took my baby to be groomed. We took her in the little truck.

It was a little bit snug.

But the de-fluffing was totally worth the trip.

Between loads of laundry and visiting with kids I finished this today

It is the Bluebird of Scrappiness! He, he, he. He loves a quilters stash habitat, noshing on fabric worms is his favorite thing, AND he doesn't mind a little acupuncture now and again.

I also put together this mini top. I used bits from a charm pack of Salt Air from Moda. The pattern is a result of trying to remember a Japanese Cross block...and not quite getting it. I guess you could call it a "Not Quite Japanese Cross.

I'm playing with ideas for a quilt for my son's favorite professor. This is the man responsible for the amazing scholarship program that my boy gets to participate in. Evidently, he has a colorful way of speaking. Noah regularly Tweets "#Shit Doc Says", and tells me not to read them.

That in mind....I'm thinking he needs a quilt that implies those little marks we make when we don't want to actually print out what someone says. Visual bleeps. Check the out....

I started here. Howard's school colors are Red, Grey, and Black.

 

Then I tried it with scrappy blocks from Sweetwater's Reunion for Moda....but I lost the + signs.

This one moves the scrappiness to the big patches used to make the x's, keeps the + signs the same fabric throughout its construction, and adds the red centers. Again, I used Reunion for the scrappy fabric.

What do you think?

 

Wish I was...

"I wish I was the person that my dog thinks I am."

I don't remember where I saw that. It was probably scrawled across a t-shirt. I thought it was true when I read it. A dog tends to be fiercely devoted, loving us at our worst. It seems that my dogs are always by my side. I don't think it is because they attribute greatness to my character. Dogs are not dumb. They, as a species, have done amazing things: can sniff out cancers, find people hurried under tons of snow, comfort the broken hearted, guard, herd, shepherd, catch Frisbees in mid flight, love man. Maybe the shirt should have said, "I wish I loved as well as my dog." My dog know exactly who I am, at my worst. It isn't very pretty. If that is all I aspire to, then the world is in trouble.

I think it might be better to be the person that I get credit for being. In general, people are much easier to impress than a dog. We leap to conclusions about another's character based on the clothes they are wearing, or the company that they keep. I have loved in response to an act of kindness delivered in my moment of need. Whose to say that that act was typical, or genuine? I don't mean to suggest that my friends actions were less than they seemed, rather, my dogs judgement of character might be better founded than my own. People are easily manipulated by the way things appear. I would like to be a person who is who they are, 100%, all of the time, what you see is what you get. That, I think, is something to aspire to.