Well, here it is.

When it's quilted, it'll have a narrow dark red binding, and probably loops for hanging. I've been feeling so relieved to have it done, and thinking I'll lay off of quilt-making for a while. But now that I look at the picture, I want to hand-quilt it. Soon.

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The house block isn't smaller than the others; it has a flocked white strip at the bottom to represent snow on the ground.

Leftovers and rejects

This is what's left after the quilt top is done--or nearly 'most done. I hope to have a picture of the finished thing tomorrow.

One of my pepper plants had a beautiful green pepper on it this morning, about 2 inches long. Unfortunately, I dropped a rock on it and the pepper broke off. But maybe there'll be others.

II. Another Squirrel Dream

I dreamed Bonnie Ann had a big beautiful squirrel, as tame as a housecat, and she gave it to me. I was on a bus, going home from somewhere, with the squirrel in my lap. The person in the seat next to me was admiring it, and it went over onto his knees, and then down onto the floor. But while it was on the floor, it also appeared in his lap. I looked at the one in his lap and exclaimed, "It's a remainder!"

These dream squirrels are enormous, and they have beautiful soft fur like a rabbit.

Another Country Heard From

Jed drove from Atlanta to Decatur, Alabama yesterday morning, worked in Decatur all day, then stopped by here about 7 p.m. on his way home. We ate dinner at the C. Barrel, then he went on. But not before he looked at the quilt blocks and made a remark or two. He said the block representing Giles and Kit (although he didn't know this) was messing with his brain. I wish someone else would read the book so they'd know what they're looking at. I think Susan has read it, but not sure.

Today is bill-paying day, and after that star-making day. I've dropped behind on the quilt top, as I've still got 16 (little) star blocks to make. And after that, I'm starting on a writing project which I won't talk about, lest I talk it out and then don't do it.

"I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung." - Rabindranath Tagore

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P.S. I finally canceled the order for The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, with the note, "I'm very sorry. This book has been lost." I know I'll find it, and when I do, I'm going to tear it into tiny pieces and burn it. No, I'll probably send it to the customer and tell her not to send me any money and never to mention it to me again.

Yesterday my sister Ramey came by to help me decide how to arrange the quilt blocks. We exulted over her having won two writing prizes, briefly reviewed "old times," and commiserated over the death of a favorite author, Frank McCourt.

Crisis! I mention this only in the remotely possible hope that someone has borrowed it from me. Last Thursday I received an order for The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and have been searching for it ever since. There are only eight places it could reasonably be, and after that--chaos! Only an Amazon.com bookseller would understand. Well, I'll think about it tomorrow. Actually, I'll be looking in every unlikely nook and cranny between now and tomorrow.
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Added later: Buzz Aldrin was on the evening news, also Gene Cernan, sort of mourning the demise of our space program. Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I'm proud that I worked on that program, and sorry that succeeding government administrations have chosen to spend money and go into debt for wars in Asia instead of pursuing the exploration of our solar system.

"The lunatic, the lover and the poet..."

Through my sister Susan's blog, I find that the Charming Girls Quilt Club members have been tagged to answer the following questions, which will give us an extra entry in this month's prize drawing. So here are my answers.

1. My favorite fabric: I'm not familiar with many brands and designers, except that when I really love a fabric, it usually turns out to be from Cranston.

2. The pattern I'm most looking forward to finishing is my patchwork interpretation of an antique appliqued leaf quilt. The original, called "Halcyon Days," is featured in Quilts for All Seasons, a book compiled by my sister Susan, edited by Patricia Wilens, and published by Oxmoor House in 1993. My quilt is almost finished, just lacking one corner quilted and the edges bound. I think this will be my UFO for August.

3. The food that is my weakness is currently Ball Park franks.

4. If I knew I couldn't fail, i.e., that it would be worth reading, I would write another novel.

5. The best "life advice" I know is "love God and do what you will" (so said St. Augustine). The premise being that if you love God, you'll try very hard not to do anything to offend Him.

I have great difficulty accessing Charming Chatter/Charming Girls. I spend about five minutes just getting into the site, then get confused about where to post, and getting back to the main page takes another five or so. It's probably the fault of my computer having too many encumbrances and not enough memory left, I don't know. But I wish Kelly and some of the members would visit Sourwood Mountain to say hi and to check my progress on the Una quilt.

I've been sewing since 7:00 this morning, and am just about ready to start on the border of the quilt top. So I do expect to have it finished by the end of the month.

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My sewing machine is currently situated in the living room, adjacent to the TV cabinet. This more or less slows down the sewing, but keeps me entertained. I just watched "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on TCM. This is one of the most delightful films I've ever seen. It was made in 1935, and I've seen it maybe a dozen times; I first found it in a video rental place about 1985. It's a charming and rather spooky production of Shakespeare's play; if it had been filmed in color, it probably wouldn't be spooky, but it's all black and gray. Victor Jory plays Oberon, the fairy king. James Cagney and Joe E. Brown are the chief and funniest of the players who produce "Pyramis and Thisbe," the play within the play. Dick Powell and Olivia De Havilland are the main love interest, and little bitty Mickey Rooney is the craziest Robin Goodfellow imaginable. Some of the theme music is suspiciously similar to that of "The Wizard of Oz" film.

AMND is at least as good as The Wizard. It's mostly populated by little people and fairies, and everybody can fly except the humans. The caption of this post is from the play; it's the (human) king's statement of those who have the most vivid imagination.

Forever Young

Shhhh! Artist (?) at work.

I think I'm working on the last large pattern block of my project. It started out as a wall-hanging with one central block and a couple of borders, but it grows as it goes. Anyway, here's a glimpse of my work table at present.

My son Jed came over from Atlanta Saturday, and we spent a nice weekend admiring the deck and the chimney. Saturday dinner we ate out, and Sunday I made cornbread and a very fine beef stew, if I do say so, and I do.

Fits and Starts

Late yesterday, I was seized with a fit of furniture moving. I cleaned out the "art room" and restored it to a dining room, resulting in not being able to walk through the kitchen for all the junk piled up. Today I'm doing a major throwing away of things that I know I'll want next week, if not sooner.

Jed is coming over today, and I hope I can remove a few piles of stuff before he arrives.

The quilt project is not going well, or at least not quickly. I've made three blocks, but two of them are no good. I made a Milky Way block on the sewing machine, and ought to have known better. Maybe someday I'll learn to machine-stitch in a straight line. But I'm not discouraged yet.

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I just thought of a funny book title I saw on Amazon.com. By Lewis Grizzard, of course: If I Ever Get Back To Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet To the Ground.

I Must Remember This

This is a pep talk, I guess.

The reason I don't get more things done is that I'm always worried about other things that I ought to be doing.

Occasionally, I get a tiny glimpse of the idea that it's my life, I'm the boss of me, what I want to do is OK because I don't want to do anything bad. But these moments pass in a flash, before the idea has time to take root and blossom.

However, though, this time the idea has lingered for almost 24 hours. For me, it's a revolutionary if not a novel idea. Hmm, as they say.

P.S. I've quit drinking Cokes. I've been on iced tea, etc., for two weeks.

Hit the floor running--

This is a work day. I've been up since 6:30, washed and dried 2 loads of clothes, cleaned up the kitchen--sorta--and watched "Sensible Chic" on TV. Now I'm going to change out of my pajamas and make pancakes for breakfast, then get on with the swabbing and scrubbing. Sometimes when things go wrong, if you leave them alone they'll fix themselves. But it has become obvious that the house isn't aware of that maxim, or at least doesn't agree with it. So I guess I'll have to do it myself.

It's still Monday.

Had to do another post. I finally got around the error message and onto Susan's Blackberry Creek blog. There I found two delightful projects that I want to join. First, Suze's friend Kai sent her this award, with strings attached. Susan passed it along to me as one of the "strings," which specify that you have to name 7 things that you love, and pass the logo on to 7 more bloggers. Well, since I don't know 7 other bloggers, I'll just name 7 (unexpected) things that I love, and won't really take the award.

1. Rain
2. Black velvet
3. Pink sequins
4. Fireflies (lightning bugs)
5. Rocks
6. New lumber--the looks of it, and the scent
7. Snow

The second project I joined through Susan's blog is at Kelly's Charming Girls' Quilt Club (see link in left column). Kelly challenges members to post an unfinished sewing project, and finish it before the end of the month. The rules include prizes for finished projects, but I think the chief reward is getting some of my dozens of unfinished pieces done.

My project for July is to finish the top for my Una quilt wall-hanging. So far, all I've got done is the central block and a pile of discarded attempts at more blocks and borders. Plus cutting out all the diamonds for the star border. There's a better picture on my quilting blog (link in left column).



I really do aim to finish the quilt top by the end of this month. I really, really, really do!

"Seed time and harvest..."

Last fall, I placed this pile of beautiful colored leaves on the cabinet, and it has been there ever since, undisturbed. I have dusted around it occasionally. It's there to remind me that fall will come again. No matter how hot the summer burns, relief will come, will come.

We have had some light rain yesterday and today, much appreciated by all, including my poor plants. I've stretched the garden hose its full length, and toted gallon pitchers of water here and there, throughout the dry spell. But there's nothing like rain. Nothing in this world.

Willis came this morning to collect his ladders and a few misplaced tools, and his final check for work done. His brother, whom he calls Bubba (I haven't heard his real name), is Willis's opposite. W. is medium-tall and stout, with blue-black hair shot with white, and a deep suntan. B. is very tall, so thin you want to hold your breath around him so he won't blow away, pale of complexion and gingery-gray of beard and hair. I resisted the impulse to hug their necks; they'd probably be horrified.

Le Morte D'Arthur can be read as an indictment of chivalry, even more so than as a showcase for it. The system drove Lancelot to a spell of insanity, which now we would call a "nervous breakdown." It spurred Arthur to commit more than one atrocious act. At last it caved in on itself and ended, in this book, in a general free-for-all bloodbath. This is my over-all impression, many years after I read the book.

I love Lancelot because, through all of the stilted language and magical thinking, it is obvious that he hated the system. All his life he loved one woman, who was the property of the king, and he never stopped trying to save her from Arthur's jealous wrath. Every knight who met him wanted to fight him, like the gunfighters in the movies about the Old West--everybody wanted a shot at the champion. Lancelot often went in disguise to keep from having to kill another knight. And when the Round Table cast uneasy glances at him when declaring Galahad the best knight of the world, Lancelot tactfully put them at ease. But by gosh, he was the best knight of the world, to me.

It may be inane and immature to love a fictional or mythical character. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who tumbles now and then.

If you love somebody, or some pet, who most likely never existed, I invite you to post it on your blog, and to tell why you love him or her.

I sold a book! I sold a book!

An old paperback of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and I cleared almost $2.00 on the sale. Amazon got $2.75. And that was odd, because the sale price was only $2.75. My profit came out of the shipping charge of $3.99. I'm sure everyone wanted to know all this.

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I've been thinking about good blogging topics. Every time I look at my "Famous Quotations" post, I remember how I cried when I first read Le Morte D'Arthur, when Lancelot said, "I always knew I was not the best knight of the world." I may pursue this later in the evening, after I've been to the post office.