#11 Hawaii State Quilt Square

Hi Dear Folk,

#11 State Quilt Square Hawaii.

If you remember I did make this Hawaiian quilt square up.  It's a little tricky with all those points, but then I am a totally novice quilter and more experienced folk I'm sure would know how to tackle the job and find it much easier.

All these patterns come out of this book.  It was released in 1976 for the bi-centennial celebrations, so forty years ago, my how time flies.  If you would like the complete set in a book you could probably find a copy on eBay or Amazon and other internet sources.

Have a great weekend.

Christy

My Time on Interstate 95 USA, Traffic Jam

Hi Dear Folk,

Yesterday we drove down to Dover, Delaware, to visit a client.  It is just under a two hour drive with good traffic conditions, an hour at the client and the drive back.  Yes the drive back, all was going well until we hit I 95

Interstate 95 runs along the Eastern seaboard of the USA, from New England to Florida, mostly paralleling the Atlantic Ocean and old Hwy 1, as you can understand obviously it is a major highway.

Getting back into Pennsylvania we hit signs for road construction ahead.  Road construction was two trucks filling in potholes with asphalt, blocking two lanes, in the middle of the day, we were all being funneled into one lane.  Can you imagine the backup that causes?  I guess my question is this, why can't that be scheduled at night.  Dear Mr. B. for ever seeing the other mans viewpoint said "well they're saving your tax dollars because they'd have to pay them overtime if they worked at night."  What about all the down time of all those people sitting on I 95 does that count for nothing?  When we did actually reach the trucks and pass them, at about 1:30 PM, not a person was to be seen.

Rain, we so need some rain, it could rain for seven days and it might just rejuvenate things, slow and gentle.  I don't think it has rained for a month.  Although the storm over the holiday weekend came up the coast, it never dropped a bit of rain as it headed out to sea.  My water bill was to say the least rather high.

Well it's Friday and tomorrow we hope to visit Lititz, the other side of Lancaster in the Amish Country area, and have lunch at the Tomato Pie Restaurant.

Christy

#10 Georgia State Quilt Square

Hi Dear Folk,

Continuing on with the Hearth and Home State Quilt Squares, #10 Georgia.

Christy

911 15 Years of Healing

Hi Dear Folk,

15 Years of Healing

NYC Health + Hospitals World Trade Environmental Health Center (WTCEHC) wanted to acknowledge the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 by showcasing patient drawings from their Art Therapy Program. The program has been a source of support and renewal for the quality of life of its physically or mentally-affected patients, many of whom worked or lived downtown on or after 9/11. Works that previously conveyed anxiety and depression are now uplifting, color-rich, visual celebrations of recovery and resilience. 

My company designed a calendar, note cards and posters, using these patient drawings as key elements.  The posters replicated from the calendar pages will be on display at three 9/11 events for public viewing. 

The previous offices 90 West, where we were located in Lower Manhattan, were totally destroyed.  I believe only one person lost their life in that building.  It was an old Gothic copper roofed building that had just finished a multi million dollar renovation. For several months many worked from home and out of our warehouse in Brooklyn, until we found new premises in Mid Town Manhatten, not too far from the Empire State Building.

Christy

#9 Florida State Quilt Square

Hi Dear Folk,

In 1907 the Fancywork Department of a popular farm magazine, Hearth and Home, inaugurated a series of state quilt block patterns.  Readers throughout the country were asked to contribute pieced cloth blocks to represent their respective states.  The block could be an original design or simply the sender's favourite.  The readers responded to this request and pictures of the selected block appeared in monthly issues until the series ended in 1912.

After the 48-state quilt block series was completed, Hearth and Home began another series called "Outlying Possessions"  this series included blocks from such territories as Alaska and Hawaii.

#9 Florida

See my label American State Quilt Squares for the previous 8 patterns.

I know better late than never.

Christy

Woodrow Wilson Speech to Congress 1917

Hi Dear Folk,

S - Simple
M - Measure
O - Of
G - Gobbledygook

Part of Woodrow Willson's speech to Congress in 1917 to get America into WWI

"With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United State:  that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war."

This speech has a SMOG index of 23 and an overall readability index of 55, in other words extremely hard to understand.

Christy

Wander With Me Weekend

Hi Dear Folk,

Would you like to take a little wander with me around the my house?  I don't feel like battling the heat outside and know if I do, I'll just look at all the work that needs to be done in the garden and cry. Leaves everywhere acorns underfoot and those bad, bad squirrels.  I am ready for a convict transportation of them to the park, they really are the limit, have totally decimated several of my pot plants, including my Tahitian Wedding Veil.

On a brighter note a lovely bouquet.

The Hunter fan that I referred to in my previous post.

Last week Mr. B. and I headed out to what we thought was a Polish Festival at a near by town, but it landed up being at a shrine, so we decided to give that a miss and went thrifting instead.  These rather Scandinavian set of candlesticks is what we came back with.  They would look perfect on a really sixties looking table, but I've still fitted them into my very eclectic house.

At the Indian Festival we went to a couple of weeks ago, I rather fell in love with their beadwork, and have in mind to give it a go, I thought this book would fit in well with that, because instead of cross stitches you use beads.  I'm afraid cross stitch has never been my thing not enough free form.

Do you have a pile of books like this?

My dear cousin Esther gave me the above set of plates when I was visiting earlier this year, aren't they lovely?

I found this set in a UK charity shop the plate below was on top of the pile and caught my attention with the poppies.

The field swallow.

The woodland woodpecker.

The farmland chaffinch

The garden blue tit.

The heathland yellowhammer.

I'm missing one plate from the set the Kingfisher.

My grandma used to collect them and had quite a few, I think that used to be the done thing, and that's probably why they turn up in charity shops now.  But the above set caught my attention and I don't know why you couldn't just use them for tea.

Reading from the library for the weekend, a biography of the authors' great uncle.

I have three of these tables in the garden, they are really garden tables from the forties.  The three in the garden range from very, very bad condition, bad condition and fair condition, but this one I found at a thrift in Ithaca, is in quite good condition and it is just right beside the sofa to put a cup of tea on.

While trying to water the garden I accidentally broke this off my butterfly bush so decided to enjoy it inside.

Thats my little weekend wander.

Christy

Rob's Ithaca Graduation Photos

Hi Dear Folk,

It only took four months to get Rob's  graduation photos transferred from his computer to mine.  Rob took all these photos on his camera with a tripod.  This is the first time I have seen them.  Will make some prints from these to frame.

I think they came out nice.

The temperature is 95 f today and high humidity and the house is so hot.  I went down to the basement and pulled out our old 1940s Hunter fan, when you start it up it sounds like an airplane taking off.  Now that is in the sitting room sending out quite a breeze.

I don't feel so bad about venturing down into the basement as we had a bit of a clean up last Monday over the holidays.  It wasn't the way I wanted to spend my day, but it did feel good at the end to get it much more straightened out.  It had been, but when Rob came back home we just dumped a lot of his stuff down there, and then he needed to set his desk up for video and camera work that he does, so the nitch that I had carved out was taken over.

We need some rain, that tropical storm that came up the coast last weekend didn't drop a bit of rain on us, and I think tonight I will have to attach the sprinkler on, as everything is so dry in the garden.

Hope your weekend is great and cooler than ours.

Christy

The Tea Table

Hi Dear Folk,

I wanted to share with you a memory from my childhood, visiting grandma and grandad, both cutting a slice of bread from the loaf this way.  It's the whole way of holding the bread up close to your body.  You just never see bread buttered and cut this way now, maybe because a lot is already pre-sliced.

If however you want to cut very thin slices of bread for a an afternoon tea, then it is best to butter the bread first and then cut the slice off, which she is doing in this painting, although I'm sure not super thin.

This is such a cozy working family kitchen, which I would be quite happy in.

The Tea Table c.1920

Harold C. Harvey

(1874-1941)

Christy

E=MC Squared

"Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."

Albert Einstein

Hop, Skip, Jump

Hi Dear Folk,

I took two days off this week but I cannot post pictures of anything fun, because one was the dentist and the other was a check up procedure and nothing fun there.  But since Mr. B. had to pick me up from the hospital I said how about we head over to IKEA for lunch and have a look around.  I always enjoy doing that, just getting ideas.  My big purchase besides lunch were two $0.79 tea-cloths, with red edges, that would be very nice to do some redwork embroidery on.

Swallow Tail Butterfly on my Butterfly Bush

Popped in Michael's and found a nice basket to keep all my jewelry boxes in, just the size I was looking for to slide under my dresser and some velvet black ribbon yarn reduced to $1.99 and I bought seven and hope to make a summer top with it on the style of one I bought and really like wearing, just very loose with raglan sleeves.

This is a holiday week-end over in the States, and let out early today, oh my goodness sounds like school days, well it feels like that sometimes.  Only it's hard to hop, skip and jump, maybe I'll have a go though.  A hurricane is coming up the coast from Florida so there will be rain at the shore, not sure what that will bring for us inland a bit.  My friend went down last Tuesday and said the weather was gorgeous but the sea was really rough and the rip tides were very bad.

So got a go.

Have a great weekend.

Christy

The Village Teahouse, West Point, PA

Hi Dear Folk,

I just ran across this tea house a few Saturdays ago and since Joni and I had a girlfriend date I said how about we try this tea house out.  We actually went for breakfast which seems almost sacrilegious in a setting that so suits afternoon tea so perfectly.  That gives us a good excuse to go again.  We had crepes for breakfast and a never ending pot of tea.

So if you want to check it out here it is The Village Teahouse

The photo above the mantel is how the house looked in the early 1900s.  With a typical American wrap around porch which I am a total fan of.

This is a themed room which I think gets changed out about four times per year.  It had been Jane Austin theme and I'm sorry that I missed that, as you can see it is Princess theme now and will be Steam Punk.

With Victorian houses I love the old fitted cupboards and woodwork.  We were made most welcome by the proprietress.

So after our lovely late breakfast we wondered over to Lansdale for an Art and Craft show, Festival of The Arts, where I bought a photo/glass barrette with an owl on, just very different, and a silver knife flower holder.  Where you cut the end off a knife, where all the filigree work is and stick a pin onto the back and make it into a broach flower holder, such a neat idea.  You could put fresh flowers in it, or I thought a lovely posy of felt flowers would look nice, you know I like felt posies.

And to the end of our day we went back to our single days to an ice cream shop we used to frequent, at a farm, Merrymead.  I had sea-salt caramel and coffee mocha in a sugar cone, the perfect ending.   Here it is Merrymead Farm.

Christy

Tea for Two

Hi Dear Folk,

Isn't this a cool in the idea of temperature, painting? And appeals to me when we are continually topping out at 95 F and the AC has packed up in my car yet again.

Tea for Two

by Anna Todd (b1964)

Simple, some apples in a basket along with chocolate digestive biscuits and iced bakewell tarts. A silver-tone teapot with black Bakelite top nob and handle I'm sure, but you cannot see it in this painting.  The tea-cloth and china is set on the grass in the background, waiting for the couple to come back.

Christy

Frock, Family, Food and Friends

Hi Dear Folk,

Summer is winding down, and autumn is in the garden, plants have spent their life for the summer and are beginning to curl up for the winter season, this is especially noticeable in my hosta and all that is falling out of my oak tree, including acorns which are impaling themselves everywhere.

I planted portulaca in my back pots and I think I have hit on a good flower to plant in them, being under the eaves of our house even when it rains, those pots are very dry and portulaca do not mind that and are so prolific and colorful.

My frock of this summer, I loved the print of hydrangeas and have enjoyed wearing it.  An end of summer sale from Talbot's and it was from the Oprah Winfrey collection, but I just like it. Worn with an Austrian black faceted bead necklace I picked up at a thrift in Ithaca.

It was lovely to get together on Monday evening for a dinner with friends visiting from Minneapolis, Danny and Linda used to live in this area but moved back to where Linda was originally from MN.  The only evening they could make it was Monday so got together other friends, Nancy and Joni and it all came together. We've all know each other from our single days.

Mr. B. made lasagna and swept up the patio, as I worked all day, but was able to get off an hour earlier to set things up, even The Boy was able to join us.  The evening was cool with a breeze.  At one point the cicadas became so noisy we could hardly hear ourselves talk, yes they are back this year.

I've made a decision that the patio needs extending, it's just a matter of getting Mr. B. on board with that thought.

As Joni said "Christy does not believe in paper plates."

We had good food, friends and family all together, what could be better.

Christy

Micmac Tribe

Roasting Ears of Corn Festival