Benefits of a private quilt group

I was late, per usual, to my quilt group.  "We're not holding lunch!"  Okay, I got it.  But first, I really need to stop at the grocery store, the feed store for birdseed, pick up my kids stuff that they forgot at a friends and, of course, the quilt shop.

The quilt shop is my last stop.  I am going to make it.  Pick up fabric and be back out the door.  In and out, easy.  I open the door.   No!  The store is having a huge sale and the place is absolutely packed.  I will never get through this crowd!  Lunch will either be cold (for me) or gone by the time I show up but I have to buy fabric! 

I grab the nearest batik knowing that this will placate every one in the group and go to stand in line.  Wait a minute.  There is no line.  Women are still shopping.  They must have just arrived.  Luck is still with me!  I quickly throw the bolt up on the counter, "Seven yards, please."  

"Have you been to our back room --"

"No, I just need the seven yards, please."  I tap my hand on the bolt.

"Perhaps you need needles?  Or thread?  It's all on sale --"

"No, I just need the seven yards."

Slowly she starts to unroll it.  I am half tempted to help her with this as I check my watch.  "Books.  All of our books are on sale --"

"Look.  I'm sorry.  I just need the seven yards.  I am now late for my quilt group and they are going to be eating salmon, shrimp, home grown asparagus, home made rolls and various vegetables and fruits. Someone always brings chips and their family recipe of salsa while someone else brings avocados and makes whatever that dip is called.  I am bringing a couple of chocolate things for dessert -- a few new recipes I tried out --  but I sampled too much which is why I had to stop at the grocery store.  Not that anybody is going to miss my cookies and brownies as one of the gals found some really big strawberries and she chocolate dipped them.  I am very far behind in my birthday giving, hence the seven yards of fabric, one yard for everyone in the group and," I point to my watch, "they are not going to tolerate my showing up late again.  I have been warned.  Please, just cut me the seven yards."

I see the woman staring at me with her mouth open and I suddenly realize that the place has gone dead.  I slowly turn to see everyone frozen in place.  Books partially leafed through, people bent over just pulling out a bolt of fabric, someone showing someone a pattern, one salesperson has stopped her rotary cutting half-way across someone's fabric and all of them staring in my direction.

From the back I hear, "What quilt group do you belong to?"

"It's a private one."

"How does one get into it?" from someone else.

"I'm sorry.  It's a group of friends that get together.  It's closed."

"And you do this once a year?"

"Nnnnooo.  Once a month."

"You eat like that once a month?"

"No!  Oh, heavens no!  Sometimes we have steak or prime rib or just plain ribs or . . . sometimes we have chicken."

The woman across from me is still staring.  I pat the bolt and slowly she comes around.  As people go back to what they were doing she leans across the table and whispers in all seriousness, "My name is Shelley.  I get off in a half hour.  Could I possibly come as your guest?"

Lovina's Pressed Flowers Blocks

I finally have a few of my Pressed Flower blocks up on the quilt wall.  Of the 64 blocks that I need to complete this quilt I have 26 all done, 9 needing yo-yo's and 29 to make.

National Quilt Show

I recently attended my first National Quilt Show in Columbus, Ohio.  This was made possible by the fact that my sister-in-law lived near by.  My husband and I could stay with her and she and I could attend the show.  She is not a quilter but does enjoy looking at them and she got caught up in the buying frenzy with vendors as they had a nice assortment of different things. 

On the questionnaire that I filled out it asked if I was a member of NQS.  No.  Then it wanted to know why.  I don't know if anyone was appreciative of my "I didn't know you existed" honesty.  I had only found out about the organization a few weeks prior when I was surfing the web.

I told my sister-in-law to look for what would be her favorite quilt of the show.  I found our voting ballots in the brochures we received and we were off.  We had differing views through out and whereas I only had written down 2 possibilities she had several with one or two stars.  We thought we were done and were cutting across the room when I said, "Did we go down here?"  It was one temporary wall that had just a few quilts hanging on it.  As we walked up to the last quilt we both stopped and said, "This is it."  A gorgeous scene of a shop window in, I want to say, Venice. 

When my husband and I left the following day for home (hitting a few new quilt shops along the way) my sister-in-law hollered, "If you want to go again next year, I will!"

We will.

Books

How many of you have heard of BookCrossing?  It's a fun way to send one of your favorite (or not so favorite) books on it's way, out into the world and watch where it goes.  My own books (Owe It To The Wind and Truly, Everything) have traveled to places I know I will never visit. 

I am fortunate that I have friends who travel and I hand them one of my books to take with them.  They either hand it to someone or place it in a spot where it is sure to get noticed.  So far my books are in: Sweden, Ireland, Philippines, England, Alaska, Romania and China. 

Now that my third book Beg(ga)(he)r is out it will be headed to Europe as I have two people headed there in the near future.  It's fun when someone writes in the 'Journal' so that I can see where it is.

Bon Vonage!

Picture Books

As a child I read all of "The Borrowers" series.  Little tiny people who live in the walls of a house and their adventures of not being seen by humans and staying away from the family cat.  Years later as an adult I saw one of the Borrowers books that I had never read.  What fun, I thought, to take a trip down memory lane and so I checked it out at the library.

After I was done reading it I thought how refreshing it was that there were pictures (black and white drawings) in it to go along with the story.  It took me days to remember that I had read a childrens book, not an adult book and that of course, it would have drawings and pictures in it.

Recently my daughter had me pick up Jodi Picoult's newest book that she wrote with her teenage daughter Samantha Van Leer.  I glanced through it just to take a look and discovered . . . pictures!  Several.  Some full page, some just a little something on a page.

Why don't adult books have pictures in them?  At what point did we as adults decide that we were too old for art? 

Childrens Journal

Many, many years ago when my children were young and doing cute things I came up with the idea of preserving these memories before they were forgotten.  I bought a journal for just this purpose.  Whenever my children did something cute, funny, memorable it went into the journal.

On their birthday, every year, we would get the journal out and read all about the birthday person.  The kids always looked forward to this and now that they are grown and living around the country I have fun getting it out and reading it myself.  What wonderful memories.

And someday when I am gone I am sure my children will stumble upon the journal and take a stroll down memory lane and just perhaps read it to their children. 

Influences

I know people read certain books when they are going through a trauma in their life.  There are several self-help books for divorce, weight loss, problem children, death, etc.  They purposely  pick up these books.  This summer I found myself reading the book Marley and Me while my own dog was having some health issues (he's fine now).  Makes me wonder if I picked up the book then, which was on my to-read list, because subconsciously he was on my mind. 

After all, what influences us to pick one book over another?  A friend's suggestion?  Best Seller List?  We like that author and will read anything they write?  The few times that I have grabbed a book off the shelf without any thought because I was headed some where and needed something to occupy me, didn't grab me.  That is not to say the book wasn't any good.  But at that time that's not what I was looking for.