Just because it's gorgeous...

All Done on All Hallow's Eve

This finally finished quilt top waved free in the crisp fall air on Halloween way back in 2010. I began this project in April of that long-ago year, after a somewhat focused hour-long trip to FABRIC DEPOT! in Portland, OR. I was pretty set on the design idea for the quilt, and pretty solid on my fabric choices, so I set forth with my SHOPPING CART (seriously, how great is that? because one totally needs a shopping cart in a fabric store, am I right?) and even though I had some "help" from Thing One and Thing Two (actually they selected some lovely fabric, a Kaffe Fasset print, and a lovely, swirly blue peacock sort of design) I ended up purchasing 80% of the fabric back then.

Then it was on to a long summer of working part time, walking a lot and getting some fabulous bike rides in, sliding into an early fall of back to work full time and futzing around endlessly with each over-anguished sloppy square. I continued to like my fabric selections throughout the quilt (a rarity - usually about a third of the way through you start to loathing one particular fabric and then about three-quarters of the way through you start to hate them all) and once I got past the halfway point I started to feel like it was do-able. The fact that each finished panel measured 19 x 12' made for an easy and fast assemblage - so presto!

I'd midway through given this quilt the rather fussy name: Rube Goldberg's Variation, which process led me to the really cool imagery from the epic Goldberg Variation album by Glenn Gould, and through a quite stacked memory bank of Jerry running gleefully through various Rube Goldberg machines. I do regret that the panels didn't end up being six by five as in the album cover, but hey, you can't win' em all.

I'm sure you will all wait breathlessly for my next post about the pain of pin basting such a large quilt and the joy and terror of the actual quilting...stay tuned.

Home-Cooked Goodness

Ahhhh. Although it felt like I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner there for a moment, I have to say, I was soul-satisfied and nourished by the meal I just cooked for my boys. The meal topped off a day of stress-free domesticity as Graham and I stayed home from school. He had gone down last night with a slight fever, a bad tummy-ache and the palest face he's worn in months.

It turned out he wasn't that sick - so, we got to make some fresh new cooked play-dough (he chose the color "recipes" from the box of "Stormy Blue," and "Apricot); I made a pretty good loaf of Cinnamon Swirl bread and a good batch of almond coconut granola. I also got to do some...quilting! And, we had a good 45-minute snuggle on the couch, where I *almost* fell asleep, and would have, if not for someone's wiggliness.

And on to the dinner. Two pounded flat chicken breasts marinated in fresh lemon juice and microplaned garlic, dragged through melted butter and coated in fresh bread crumbs mixed with fresh basil, pepper, parmigiano reggianoo and salt. While they were baking I boiled up some Russets for mashed potatoes and made the boys (and mine!) favorite green bean recipe - the almond coated one from the big yellow "Gourmet" cookbook. Aaah. It just all tasted sooo good!

I think I really needed a day off. Hopefully, the school traveled on safely without me - and I'm guessing that I'll be back there tomorrow to GET THINGS DONE!