happy day

It's a good Thursday! I have everything done for my 2 new patterns and company is coming! I have the day at home to tidy up for our overnight guests, Jan, Serra and Aurora. That's my sister, Jan, from San Francisco, along with her daughter, Serra and her daughter, Aurora, from near Seattle. I don't think Serra has ever been here, and I'm absolutely sure Aurora (age 3) has not been here before. So I'm thinking we should have some fresh sweet corn and green beans from the garden. The basil is prime for pesto, so maybe a pasta dish? No tomatoes from my own garden yet, so a trip to the Green Barn is on the schedule.

While we are on the subject of barns, that reminds me of the fun wedding we attended last Saturday! Out in the countryside of western Wisconsin, near New Richmond, is the home of my cousin, Reanne, and her husband, Lester. Their daughter, Stephanie was married to Spencer in the front yard under beautiful shade trees (and black clouds and thunder but not a single raindrop). Followed by dinner in the backyard sheltered by a huge tent and then music and dancing in the barn. We left before the bonfire and that may have gotten rained on, if the deluge we drove through moved in their direction. It was one of those rainstorms that makes you wonder whether it's safer to pull over or keep driving slowly along with the other cars on the road. I chose to keep driving. Anyway, this is the spot for the "I do's"--

And here are the 3 sisters that I haven't seen together in a long time, my cousins Lori, Lisa and Reanne (mother of the bride). We had a little chance to catch up with each other and remember things about the best grandma ever.

It was a wonderful party and I even got to step into Reanne's creative space. She designs and makes custom garments, including the dress she was wearing in the photo. I always find it fun to see the sewing room/design studio of other people.

My own latest design--Row Low--

I had quite a rigamarole getting this picture finally done. Since this measures 70 x 80, I don't have a good indoor location to get a full photo of it. My next choice is the pergola in the backyard, but it was partial sun/shade by the time I got organized to do the picture-taking, and that doesn't work because the picture comes out looking spotted. So my next choice is to use the styrofoam panels propped against the front porch. Those panels are stored in the basement, and getting the 4' x 8' up the stairs with a landing and 180 degree turn is probably comical to watch, but I wasn't laughing! Then get them propped up and duct taped together, standing as vertical as possible. Haul the ladder out of the garage and get the quilt pinned up as perfectly straight as possible. Spill the box of pins on the landscape rocks, which causes the dilemma of whether to just let them stay in the rocks and use other pins, or take the time to pick up the pins while the sun and shadows are moving. Get the tripod and camera in place, realize the tripod won't extend far enough to get the camera centered on the quilt. Find 3 cardboard boxes of matching sizes to put the tripod legs on. Take several pictures, download to the laptop and examine them to see where the pinning needs to be adjusted. The crooked spots in the edges really show up in the pictures much more than when I am just looking at the quilt, and will really really show up on the cover of a pattern. Go back outside and pick up the styrofoam and quilt off the ground because a breeze blew the whole thing over. Have a little hissyfit and put it all back together. Get smart and duct tape the panels to the porch. Take a bunch of pictures, download and delete the worst, make some adjustments to the best ones and send the pick of the litter off to Dan for placement in the pattern cover template. Decide that it was really too shady, take the quilt inside, and in the afternoon full sun put the quilt back out there and take another set of pictures that I like much better. Dismantle everything and put away, reverse the image of me struggling to get those big panels of styrofoam back to the basement without breaking them in half. Send new and improved picture to Dan and breath a big sigh of relief! Now it's time for supper and some creative quick cooking! So just in case you are thinking of how easy it would be to design your own patterns, you do need to consider how much fun it is to just get a simple little picture taken! Now the quilt is on display at Bear Patch, and the patterns are ready, and it is truly rewarding to have total strangers stand in front of it and say, "Wow, I really didn't much like this fabric until I see it put into this quilt! Can I buy the pattern and kit?" Bingo!