The Breast Cancer 3-Day and Music Love

Ever prevalent in my thoughts is breast cancer. I have many instances of this in my family. Two aunts, both at age 56, and a cousin at age 49, are survivors, and a cousin's son is going through treatment at about age 30 right now.

NOW.

All of us are touched in one way or another. The Breast Cancer 3-Day walk started today, and I am honored to sponsor a walker. The walk is 60 miles over 3 days. I wish her, and ALL walkers for this cause, strong legs and happy hearts knowing how much their dedication to the education, treatment and prevention of breast cancer means to my daughters, myself, and women everywhere. You rock. And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And, speaking of hearts, I LOVE music. Particularly LIVE music. I like a lot of different types of music, but I especially enjoy live music. Not only that, but I really love music that has a positive, uplifting attitude and a jive-y beat. (Well, at least lyrics that I can figure out, anyway, else I make up my own uplifting words!) Last night, I went to the Jason Mraz concert in St. Paul, MN with my daughter and one of my best high school friends and her daughter. (That was fun in and of itself, since this particular friend and I spent every cent we had going to concerts back in the late 70's.) The opening bands were a little bit too much rap - not quite my thing, but had a beat nevertheless - but I really love Jason Mraz and his individual style. His current popular song is "I'm Yours" . (I love the part about 'checking my tongue in the mirror and bending over backward just to try to see it clearer' - makes me chuckle to envision this literally, and I hope it isn't insinuating anything I am not getting!)

During the encore of last night's concert, there was a wedding proposal. Of course, sappy me got teary, which is always so funny to my kids. In any case, it was fun to be a part of this couple's romantic proposal. I wonder who this guy knew to be able to do this?

OK. Enough emotional blabbering. Back to reality. Much singing in my house today :)

Lessons in Design

I've been spending a lot of time doing HOMEWORK. (Yes, homework!) I've been participating in the Design-Tat class, and doing my lessons to learn about designing my own tatting patterns. Hopefully I am not getting ahead of myself before I really learn how to actually tat better, but I think it's helping to see how the number and placement of stitches makes a piece curve one way or the other, lay flat, and of course, be visually pleasing.


I really wish I had more time to just play and test out some thoughts, but I'll be thankful I have a job to hold my creativity back!

So far we've looked at how the length of chains changes the shape of an edge, and where joins are made also changes the direction of the lace. The number of picots in a piece can make the lace look full, but the same pattern without picots can be pleasing straight lines for another reason. Best of all, picots can add about anything you want based on how long, how graduated, how far apart, if they are joins, if they are cut, fringed, etc. It's very enlightening to read other students' thoughts and evaluations of each lesson. I know I'll never remember it all, so I'm trying to keep a good notebook of samples with text and findings for review.

I think I'll be getting to design something of my own in one of the next lessons. THAT should be interesting, if nothing else.

Quilt Minnesota

The third annual Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop 2009 is on, and I just happened to grab a few fat quarters of this year's fabric last weekend. It's fun to see a fabric line made specifically with a Minnesota theme, and I thought it might be fun to make a few quick dishtowels for Christmas presents. Again. Last year, I went on a bus to "hop" to about 12 different shops, and picked up some of the 2008 fabric line, and then never got around to the dishtowels I was going to make. I always seem to do that. I have big ideas and grand plans that don't always come to fruition! I made an apron for my annual lefse making, and that was it.

Sooooo, I decided to give the tatting design portion of my brain a rest, and switch to making use of some fabric. I was able to whip up a few dishtowels and got a tablerunner almost done with this year's Minnesota fabric. I plan to bind the runner with the brown fabric.


















Then I got to feeling guilty about what I had leftover of last year's fabric, and decided to use some of that too. I got another quick tablerunner top together, and have enough for one more towel. I'm not crazy about what I put together for this runner, but it's the fabric I had left. There were better fabric choices I could have used, but I think I put them in the apron. I'll bind this runner with the blue - my only choice, since it's the only fabric I have enough of!

















I'm not sure if I'll use them for Christmas. I seem to have lots of ideas for Christmas gifts - tatted, quilted, sewn, etc. We'll see what I actually get done. More big ideas and grand plans . . .

A Century Farm Reunion

This past Sunday we had a family reunion at the farm where my grandmother grew up. The farm is a century farm this year, owned now by a third generation. My grandmother came from a large farm family, and most of the kids had large families too. Which means this is a HUGE group of relatives. Huge enough that it feels funny to be at a family reunion and feel relieved to see a familiar face! They are warm and welcoming though - typical farmers.

The farm owners line the yard with their old restored tractors, and have a couple of great old cars too. It all looks so nice, and the kids love to climb on the tractors.


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Hayrides through the wooded pasture, good food, beautiful sunny 80 degree weather and even live music! It was kind of funny to be listening to a band playing with a 1934 Ford and a cornfield for a backdrop.



This farm is in west central Wisconsin, where my parents both grew up on farms. On the way to the farm reunion, we pass through some very Swedish towns in Minnesota. There are about 4 cities in a row that have abundant Swedish heritage and have sister cities in Sweden. One of my grandfathers grew up in this small City of Shafer.



The route we take is through some very beautiful, hilly countryside on both sides of the St. Croix River, which is the Minnesota/Wisconsin border.

This is my favorite water tower in Lindstrom, Minnesota - how cute is that?



And there's a buffalo farm along the way too. We were lucky enough this time to see them close to the highway with their cute babies.



What an enjoyable way to spend a day!

Sidetracked Again

I am always starting another project that I didn't plan! I found I needed a little needle keeper to put in my tatting bag so I could keep track of my needles, needle threader and scissors instead of leaving them all on the end table. Of course it became somewhat of an adventure to figure out how to make one fit in the pockets of the tatting bag I made a couple of months ago.














So I spent the better part of a day making this little packet.





























I think it works exactly how I meant it to. For once! Now I feel a little more organized with everything I need in my one bag.




















Another sidetrack this week was that I also joined an online group (that I found on the InTatters site) with Sharon Briggs to learn how to design tatting patterns. Hopefully this isn't premature - I think maybe it will actually help my tatting if I learn how the patterns are designed. (More big ideas.) So, I've been reading the discussion on the first lesson, and now have some samples to tat for the 2nd lesson. I don't think I'll get much else done this upcoming week - I'll be thinking about designing. (And I'm lucky enough to be working long hours this week, so time will be short to boot.)

Needless to say, I didn't get any of the tatting practice I had intended to! But, I did see a pattern on another blog that I thought would be a good, small project for me to work on one evening. This is my one tatting accomplishment this week - a very small heart. I'm trying to think of what I can do with some of these hearts - notecards, maybe?