Mystery in the park 04-17-21

There aren't very many organized events in the park behind our house.  Used to be the Scouts, girl or boy, would do adventures, but not this past year.  And some years ago there was a summer "camp" where the kids would put up tents, play games, and have lunch, only to take everything down in the late afternoon. This is the second time this group has set up back there and I haven't figured out what they are doing.  My guess would be "war games", but surely not with such young children.  There are no weapons in sight.  I see some plastic tubs beside some of the structures, which appear to be filled with air.  There doesn't appear to be any organized activity, just kids running around and arraying themselves near the structures.  About 3pm they had packed up their equipment and left.  Any ideas?

I cannot make out what the lettering says. 

#   #   #   

 

Looking back 04-16-21

Every now and then I try to think of a way to sort through my thousands of pictures.  As you have read here previously when Picasa sold out to Google all my titles and captions were erased.  I have never been able to get things sorted out.  I need a computer picture guru to hold my hand.  Know anyone like that?  I added Photoshop Elements, but haven't spent the time to figure it all out.  I think I am just getting too old and my brain is not as flexible as it once was.  Anyway, I came across a picture of this piece I did in 2018, but I hardly remember it. And I don't know who owns it now.  

"Camellias"  Del Thomas  2018   Maybe 36" square.

This was a contribution to the Surfside Quilters Guild Monthly Mini where items are donated and tickets sold at the meeting for a drawing at the end of the meeting. I rather liked this one, but it didn't draw as many buyers as I expected.  The background is pieced and the flowers raw edge machine applique.  Machine quilted. 

 

What do you do when at the very last minute you realize you have messed up the label?  Just grin and make a correction!  No time to rip it off and make a new label.  

#   #   #

Normal like - or normal ish? 04-15-21

Morning walk, load of laundry, out to lunch,  KoKo bath, ZOOM meeting of the SDiego art quilt group (only five of us this time), afternoon nap, towels into washer/dryer, fold clothes, evening walk, soon to bed!

Carol and I had lunch at Lazy Dog in Brea.  Soup/salad for her (tortelli/chicken) and a bison burger for me.   Tastes just like a hamburger, but maybe juicer and lower in calories.  We HAD to have dessert - banana puddng for her and apple/huckleberry tart for me.  It was huge!  I brought half of it home and had it for dinner along with a cheese stick.  Eating a big lunch makes me not hungry for dinner.   I didn't take any food pictures, but was tempted to snap some of our fellow diners.  I hadn't realized how much I miss people watching!  A lovely assortment of ladies-who-lunch, older couples (happy or crabby), business men in suits, and a family of about nine with three or four small children - cute!  It was just fascinating.  I think I need more people watching opportunities.  It made me feel alive!!

I have another scrap piece in the works.  It is laid out on the cutting table, so every time I go by I want to stop and look and move things around.  

This is a partial pile of scraps, mostly long or short stripes from evening up fabric edges.  They lend themselves to landscape.  

This piece is a horizontal orientation, but it shows better vertically on my blog.  So the left side is the sky and I am working my way down to the beach and the greenery at the bottom.  Maybe I will put an appliqued bird on it.  I am enjoying "messing" with fabric after a long desert of not wanting to do anything.  Might even get to some UFOs before too long.   

#   #   #

 

And even more flowers! 04-14-21

A bit cooler today, but still the flowers bloom.  We are trying to walk a little earlier, by 9am, in preparation for the summer temps when we will have to walk about 7am to avoid the heat.  I don't tolerate it as well as I once did, but KoKo doesn't seem to mind.  The prediction for the weekend is in the mid to upper 80s, but it was only 65F today and low 50s overnight.  

These pink flowers popping up in neglected lawns are Mexican primroses, not related to the primroses one finds at the nursery.  They are very invasive , which is obvious when one sees them growing in downwind yards where they are not wanted.  But they are very delicate and a lovely pale pink.  They look a bit like giant crocus. 

Mexican primrose

On Brian Street there is a large patch of morning glory vines that have been there for years.  Someone cuts them back occasionally, but they generally just vine all over the place.  They have recently worked their way under a hedge and a few a blooming in the lawn!  The lawn doesn't get mowed very often, or very well! 

Morning Glory 

They are much deeper blue than this, but this is the best my phone camera will do. 

As the day wears on the blue fades to pink and finally to almost white before the blossom shrivels at night.  I have not previously observed both blue and pink blossoms at the same time of day.  Don't know why this is so. 

The lobed leaves are very attractive and generally rather darker than this. 

#   #   #

Reading 04-12-21

April is the time of Literary Orange which is presented by the Orange County Library System.  It is usually a lovely one-day event held at a big hotel in Newport Beach, CA, and features several keynote speakers, authors all, and "breakout" rooms with panels of writers who cover different genre.  There is usually a mystery panel, a food panel, a humor panel, etc., a total of about thirty, I think. The registration fee usually includes a couple books by the presenting authors, but this year we received all four of the keynote speakers books, picking them up at the closest Orange County Library, in my case in Brea, CA.  In past years lunch was  served, not bad for a hotel meal, and there was lots of visiting and even a book sales room.  I especially enjoyed seeing the ladies (and a few guys) dressed in their going-to-lunch clothing.  Nice outfits and jewelry and even some behatted ladies, besides me!   Of course, Covid has changed all that.  This year's Literary Orange in via ZOOM and features interviews with four keynote speakers on consecutive Wednesday evenings.  No "break out rooms".  Last week I watched Harlan Coben talking about his book "Win".  I enjoyed the interview, and I had read the book.  Mr. Coben's books are a little too smart aleck for my taste.  The title character "Win" is a minor person in a long series of Coben's previous books.  

This week the book will be "Cilka's Journey" by Heather Morris, author of the best selling "The Tattooist of Auschwitz".  I will watch the interview, but I cannot read the book.  With all the turmoil of the past year it seems I cannot read anything about human's inhumanity to other humans or animals.   In the past I could, but no longer.  

However, I managed to read "The Book of Lost Friends" by Lisa Wingate.  It also deals with inhumanity, this one is about freed slaves in the 1870s trying to connect with their lost families from whom they were separated by their owners before the Civil War and emancipation. It is a well written book, but hard to read.  I also find I struggle with books that move back in forth in time, chapter by chapter.  Here the odd numbered chapters occur in 1875 and the even numbered chapters occur in 1987-88.  I did my usual modification by reading all the odd numbered chapters first and then leafed back to the beginning and read the even number chapters that take place in 1987-88.  Something I have done with this odd format in past books.  In this particular book I don't understand why the author used this format. 

The remaining book from the keynote speakers Is "Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu, which is a National Book Award winner.  I will start reading it tomorrow! 

I have not been very creative during this past year.  I have three completed quilt tops, none larger than baby size, and none quilted.  And I have done half a dozen small projects - mug mats, fiber post cards, 12X12s and mending.  But I have read a ton of books and spent hundreds of hours on Facebook.  I regret that I have essentially "wasted" a whole year, but I just lost my "mojo" and could not be very creative.  No concentration, so even reading a book took maybe twice as long as normal.  Of course, the question is now "What is normal anyway?"

#   #   #

Master quilters 04-11-21

 I'm glad that several people have sent me this link because I'm sure I would have missed out on seeing these great quilts.   The four artists were in a critique group with Ruth B. McDowell for quite a few years.  So, I have watched their work for decades.  Nancy Halpern's "Archipelago", which is part of the collection at New England Museum of Quilts, is one of my top ten favorite quilts.  The Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection does not have quilts by any of the four artists, someone always seems to be there first when their quilts go up for sale.  Anyway, it is just great to be able to see this video and enjoy the commentary by Nancy Halpern and Rhoda Cohen.   Ten  years ago I might have flown back to MA to see this exhibit, but not something I can do these days.  Sad. 

https://vimeo.com/512799912

 

"Archipelago"   Nancy Halpern - Massachusetts  1983  96"W X 74.5"L

#   #   #