Mystery Quilt Day

Yesterday I spent the day working on a Mystery Quilt with about 50 other ladies from the Frisco Quilt Guild, which I recently joined. For those of you who don't know what a Mystery Quilt is:

A Mystery Quilt is a quilting project that remains a mystery up until the quilt is finished or until the participants figure it out.

Participants are given instructional "clues" and have no idea what the outcome is going to be. It is usually a small, fairly easy project that is completed in stages over an extended period of time; the time determined by the author of the mystery. Most often, participants are informed as to the approximate final sizes and also the theme, if there is one.

We were not informed of how large this quilt was going to be, but it will probably turn out to be a good full size quilt.

Anyway, when I showed up at the hotel where we had rented one of the meeting rooms, I was completely amazed. Mind you, when I go to a class or a retreat or somewhere that I know I won't have the luxury to spread out, I take only my small sewing machine, a small cutting mat, the essential notions (rotary cutter, scissors, bobbins, small rulers, etc.), and sometimes I'll bring my portable lamp. I walked into this room and saw 50 women with a complete individual sewing space set up. They had brought their machines, their irons, portable ironing boards, extra table to spread out on, lamps, and some of them even brought their own chairs. Now I can appreciate wanting to do this in comfort but it was like none of them even considered the space that they would be taking up and/or the encroachment onto their neighbors. AND, nobody thought that when you get 50 individual irons plugged in, 50 individual lamps plugged in, 50 individual sewing machines plugged in, and 50 individual women of a certain age all having hot flashes what the temperature in that room would become...oh, and we kept blowing fuses in the room. I was crazy, and yet a lot of fun. They provided lunch for us and lots of people had snacks to share. And some of the women accomplished quite a bit.

I was slightly challenged at one point and didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped, but luckily when I realized I had sewn 60 squares the wrong way, a couple of really nice ladies grabbed the mistakes and started helping me unsew all of them. The women who got more blocks completed were ones that did things in stages, I personally am a 'complete all of step one before going on to step two' kind of person. Therefore, I have all of my pieces ready to go, I just need to put them together to make the blocks and then the blocks laid out and into the quilt. However, none of this will happen until after I get moved and settled into Casa ABBA in 2.5 weeks.

Therefore, my accomplishment for 9 hours of sewing is:

Only 29 more to go and I'll have a whole quilt!! When finished, I'll post the complete picture.

Cirque du Soleil - Alegria

Last night I went and saw the Cirque du Soleil show Alegria at the Dr Pepper Arena in Frisco. It was FANTASTIC!! I'd never been to a Cirque show before and now I'm completely addicted. I'll even make a trip to Vegas just to go see the ones that are playing there...any takers to join?

Just watching what these youngsters can do really inspired me. Not that I could EVER contort or control my body in that fashion, but just to have an inkling of the power they have makes me want to climb back on that health wagon.

Of course, today I'm counteracting all that amazing physical energy and spectacular visuals for a day of sitting in a hotel ballroom with 50 other ladies and quilting the day away.... Maybe I'll be inspired in a different way today.

Flashback Friday

In 1978 (at least that is the date on the picture) while visiting my grandparents we, my sister, me, and my cousin Debbie, came across our mom's formals and wedding dresses. We were old enough to be allowed to dress up in these dresses. While Marti and I only put these dresses on this one time, Debbie did eventually wear her mother's wedding dress in her wedding.

2010 Book 7 - The Yiddish Policemen's Union

My latest literary accomplishment has been Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. The back cover of my copy is nothing but accolades, so I'll present you with what is written on the front flap:

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.

Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder - right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

This novel definitely harks back to the noire novels of the 1940s/1950s era (that is I think they would, if I had ever read one). It was a good story line and kept me interested....even after I flipped to the back of the book and read the last couple of pages when I was just 25 into the book. I'm glad that I did stick with the book because from where the book started and where the last pages ended was a great trip of nice phraseology and definite twists and turns. There were times as I was reading that I felt that the thread of the story was misplaced and I had to sort of just go along with the jumps, but it didn't take anything away from the overall story line.

I would recommend this novel to most people. It isn't necessarily and brain candy type of detective novel that you can tear through, you do have to take your time and work to connect all of the dots, but I would say it is definitely worth the time.