This year, we went to Wings Over Houston - advertised as one of the top five air shows in the country. Sadly, my 4 year old really only wanted to go in the bouncy house, but I loved it. The best part was a reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor called Tora Tora Tora. If you ever get a chance to see this, it’s worth the ticket price. It is extremely moving. I can not imagine the terror of that day. But I’m grateful to the men who had the wherewithal to shoot back.

Here’s a link to the 15 Medal of Honor recipients and their citations from that day. Only 5 survived the attack. And anyone who’s served knows that for every guy (or girl) that got an award, there are probably 100 more doing countless other acts of courage that went unseen.

I’m forever grateful to past, current and future service members. I appreciate your sacrifices. I honor your courage.

Today, I’m dreaming of a farmette. Like the one I love reading about over at Five Green Acres. We had contemplated a move to Texas, but it didn’t work out. That means its time to stop dragging my feet and dig out the garden and get to work. I’m starting from plants this year since I didn’t get any seeds started and don’t really feel like having my kitchen counter covered for weeks with peet pots. Limited space. Plus, I find the racks of plants so much more inspiring than racks of seed packs. Although, I am quite proud of last year’s garden effort - and it was awesome to see so much grow from seeds.

The other thing I’m dreaming of is a box of veggies every other week. I was thinking about joining a CSA, but again, we were planning on moving. Turns out I was really putting life on hold for that possible move! Well, no more. I want my box of organic veggies. I found one CSA who’s farm has all these events - open houses, work-for-the-day events where kids are welcome, farm to table dinners. I think I’m going to do it.

Haven’t been doing much sewing lately, but today I added my name to the Process Pledge - you can read about that here. That rOssie is a smart girl :)

SYTYCD starts tomorrow night! Woo hoo!!!

Rest in peace, Papa.

Lawrence Frederick Petters Sr.
29 May 2024 to 16 April 2010.

Obituary in the Florida Today, April 25, 2010.

It’s been a busy weekend around here - lots of eggs! I think it was a successful Easter, though.

First, we dyed our eggs. Good teamwork here. William and I did the colors, and David helped with the stickers.

Then William and I used some more teamwork to make our Easter Egg cake pops. This was much messier - but fun. I tried using corn syrup to stick the sprinkles to the pops, but that was annoying. The sprinkles don’t immediately stick to the syrup, so I used the food writers instead. Those, along with Wilton’s bottles of cookie icing, worked much better. There are so many fun decorating items on the market!

And of course, we had a million Easter egg hunts in the living room. William wanted to re-hide them a million times. Nobody tell him that there was some Halloween candy in those eggs! Don’t worry - sweet tarts don’t expire :)

This one is super awesome. The Fresh Modern Quilts group on Flickr has reached 2000 members (awesome!) and to celebrate, rOssie is doing a giveaway. Leave a comment here by April 8 to be entered.

I’m pretty excited - I sold 3 camera straps yesterday!!! The two Denyse Schmidt ones went right away, which doesn’t surprise me. I need to make some more of those RIGHT AWAY. And an owl strap is making its way to Poland! So awesome! My sales were to NY, LA and Poland…how’s that for a little internet shop? Super cool.

I’m working on my packaging - what do you think? It’s not perfect, but without making any kind of big investment - I think it looks nice.

And even more exciting, my most wonderfullest friend, Pancockies, sent me a box of Munki Munki treasure. When I was on my serious Munki hunt a few weeks ago, she took up the challenge and scoured her own Marshalls…all the way in the Sunshine State! She found these adorable kittens, which I believe, are the find of the century. She also found a lovely shoes robe and a couple sets of coffee pjs. She is the BEST! Think a coffee camera strap is a good idea?

I had a ball sewing with the LA Modern Quilt Guild yesterday at the Saturday Sew. I got all 45 blocks done for my crazy nine patch (thanks to Elizabeth at Oh, Fransson! for the awesome tutorial.)

Although, somehow, I managed to mix up the stacks and ended up with two of the same fabrics in a bunch of blocks. I’m still not sure how I managed that.

I had planned to forgo the lattice layout and do white sashing instead…to make the quilt bigger and to calm down the craziness of my blocks. But it turns out that they lose most of their charm with the white sashing, so I’m going with the lattice. I also think my mistakes are VERY hard to find in the lattice layout…not that my sister would complain about them anyway. And this is for her. I may still have to add a border to make it a good nap size quilt. We’ll see. What do you think?

With sashing:

Lattice:

I also got a couple of string blocks done for Urban Craft Center’s collaborative Haiti quilts. Thanks again to Latifah for picking up the fabric and instructions so I could participate!

We’ve been hard at work around here…first with the cake pops, which were a big hit:

Then we worked very hard on valentines for little buddy’s preschool class…he’s a great stamper!

My husband and I didn’t manage to get anything for each other…I can’t decide if I like that or not. On one hand, it’s nice. On the other, we’re too lazy about these things. I did let him sleep in though, so that was my lame half-hearted gift :)

Okay, I’m going crazy! I registered for that class! I’m enrolled in Heather Ross’ Fabric Design workshop at PNCA’s Summer of Making. “But you live in CA…that’s crazy”, you say! Yes, well, my husband said, “let’s make a road trip out of it!” And that was all I needed. There were only 15 spots in that class, and they’re almost all gone. You only live once, right? When do you get a chance to go and learn from the best? It’s like someone saying, “Hey, Blabby, want to go take a three-day song-writing workshop with the Indigo Girls for the bargain basement price of $400?” HELL YES! I would have signed up for that too.

I wish I could go to PNCA for real. I’d use up my GI Bill there in a second. I was browsing through the courses and it’s super awesome.

One small intimidating point is that the description says “bring your own creative ideas to life”…wait, I need my OWN ideas? I like Heather’s ideas! I’ll need to work on that between now and July :) Good thing I have some time!

I’m BURSTING with excitement!

I’ve been overusing that word in the last few days, and hearing a lot of John Cusack references in answer, but there’s no other word for it. I’m feeling good about things…so good, I went out and bought a few quick pick lotto tickets! But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

I got hired by my company! So now, instead of being a consultant, I’m an official employee on the payroll. Still part-time, which is perfect. I truly have THE BEST JOB EVER.

Then, my kid finally got into a preschool! I was about to give up - I’m on waiting lists all over town with no nibbles, and I called the top of my list in hopes that there had been a little movement. School #2 said, “Oh! I was just going to call you today! I have one spot for you!” Whew! That is a big relief…I hope this works out!

I was doing my normal eye-candy-foraging on ohfransson.com, and read her post about the Portland branch of the Modern Quilt Guild. I followed the link and found the national page, which led me to the LA branch. So I joined! I lucked out, and was able to make it to a meeting and met a bunch of cool girls, saw a bunch of awesome quilts, and am really looking forward to getting to know everyone better. Then I found out there is a little local guild forming! So exciting. I’ll probably hardly ever get to go to the meetings, but they have a weekend sew once a month, and I think I can swing some of those.

I just wanted to mention this quickly. These girls are doing something awesome. Pioneers! Bringing together modern quilters who have already been grouping informally online for a long time…sharing ideas, forming bees, etc. This is happening because there is a real gap in the industry where modern quilters are concerned!

I recently went to the Road 2 CA quilt show and not one vendor had any Denyse Schmidt fabric for sale. I don’t know how many vendors were in the vendor mall, but there are over 100 listed on the site. Not all of them sell fabric, of course, but still. Not one had Denyse Schmidt, and I’d say she’s easily one of the most popular fabric and quilt designers of the modern quilt movement. Another popular designer who was nowhere to be found was Heather Ross. I did see a couple Mendocino prints, but only one vendor. CRAZY. I saw about a billion reproduction prints from every time period…except my own! So that’s a bummer. The industry is not keeping up with the whole audience. And what’s happening is that the fabric manufacturers and the book publishers see the writing on the wall - or internet - but the trade shows and traditional shops seem to be a few steps behind.

One thing I did see was some of the Gees Bend solids and the kits. Now, how can you make a pattern for a Gees Bend quilt? I mean, doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? Watch it…or we’ll take the magic right out of those beautiful quilts.

Alright, that’s enough of that.

One last good fortune… our family in the Dominican Republic is safe and sound, which is awesome.

I hope to do some sewing this week. I hope you and yours are doing great. I wish all the babies in Haiti were wrapped in quilts right now.