Happy day after Pumpkin Day!
This weekend I was a prime example of productivity at it's finest....kind of..
Friday evening I worked at the shop as usual and had the pleasure of waiting on the infamous Jo herself ...you know, the writer of one of my favorite blogs,
Jo's Country Junction. If you haven't taken the time to parooze her fun stuff, you're missing out! She also (along with the help from her daughter who is also a ton of fun) has written several awesome quilt patterns/tutorials available for free at the
Moda Bakeshop. I talked with her for a while and she encouraged me to go out of the box and try something new. I did just that and hope to share more with you about that adventure in weeks and months to come....Thanks Jo!!!!
Saturday I finished my Ruby quilt using a pattern from Little Louise Quilts.
I'm very happy with how it turned out and can't wait to see it quilted as it's headed to the shop today for quilting! When I finished all the Ruby goodness and got the back pieced and the binding sewn together, I also pulled out my Postage Stamp Posies (the Spring Darlene Zimmerman class quilt) blocks and tried to figure out what was next...pretty sure this is another project that got packed up at 80% complete....why do I do this to myself!!! Progress picture coming soon :)
Sunday after church I took a nap...a long one...a glorious one! I now know what being a cat is all about and I must say that it really isn't all that bad. Here is Miss Kitty demonstrating how I spent a bulk of my Sunday afternoon:
(PS: Miss Kitty is not supposed to be in the downstairs bedroom...I evicted her shortly after I took her picture. She looks crabby (like Maxine) because she knew she was in trouble!)
After the nap I put some serious time in on my very first hardanger piece and actually finished all the eyelets and cut it out. I'm pretty proud of this little piece of art and can't wait to start my next little doilie. Here she is in all her glory:
Seriously, I know it's small and not overly elaborate, but I'm so stinkin proud of it! I nailed the doves eyes and all the little eyelets around the edge...I feel like a second grader that just got her license to write cursive.
Then off to play in the community band concert which produced a very interesting / entertaining story that lead me on the path of believing that after all these years of hoping, I was finally going to get to say the dental floss saved my life....yes, a true MacGyver moment. You see, I play the french horn which has rotors...rotors have strings which help them move back and forth so the right sound comes out. Somehow in our quick pre-show run through one string came untied and pieces flew everywhere...screws were missing and my world had ended. For a moment, I thought I could just restring it using dental floss but I never did find one of the screws...but I did have dental floss readily available...thank you Dr. Potache for the little sample floss you gave me which I keep in my Jeep :) Fortunately our concert was in Alden (a suburb of Albert Lea) and across the street from the High School and lucky for me, the HS choir director was there who was able to send her daughter with me along with her keys to borrow a school horn. She was very happy to help me because every year I volunteer my time to play solo horn for the High School choir Christmas Concert. Small school = only one double horn which the beautifully helpful daughter informed me was "..um...really old, really smelly, really dented...and nobody EVER played it". Yes, she was correct, however she didn't know that it was an awesome horn. It didn't look good but like my usual horn, it (labeled FH#7with the good ol' label maker every school uses...I call her 007 for short -James Bond humor- ) was a Conn from the 60's. It looked a lot like this one I found on eBay just now so I could show you a pic...just add a LOT of dents..and LARGE dents at that and you have the instrument du'jour:
I paid an arm and a leg for mine about 7 years ago...yes mine has no dents, is still shiny, has beautiful scrolling on the bell, and doesn't smell...but this one had a very mellow tone quality much like mine and responded just like mine. Also, sweet little choir directors daughter who should remain nameless to protect the innocent, informed me that "just last summer the band director took all the horns down to the car wash and blew them out." I've never heard of taking the "horns" down to the "car wash", but it added an interesting element to my story.So, I played it and it was gorgeous. Moral of the story, I'm trying to buy it from the school for a spare and you also can't judge a book by it's cover. I'm thinkin 50 bucks should get the deal done.
When I got home I washed the horn stink off my hands (seriously, the horn made my hands smelly funky) and started in on the first months blocks for a new club that is going to start at the shop in January that I have committed myself to leading. More on that later...it will be awesome...I promise.
Enjoy the day!
~K
