For the first time ever, I quilted yesterday. Hold it. I'm wrong. About 6 years ago, I "quilted" using an old sewing machine my mom had given me and some old shorts of Brian's. I used no iron, no rulers, and no pattern. The resultant pillow was very ... casual looking. If anyone is interested, I'm betting you can still find it at the local second-hand store.
This time I was prepared. I set up everything before I even turned on the sewing machine--ironing board, iron, cutting table, cutting mat. All of this in a space very close to a play area for Lucy. This allowed me to spend about six hours quilting yesterday--which was a little surprising. Frankly, I was a little dubious about whether or not quilting had the power to suck me in like that. I really shouldn't have wondered. I love to make all kinds of things. You name it, I can probably spend a day making it if I'm given a chance.
The pink, white, purple and blue quilt block (stunning, yes???) which you see above (under Lucy's left hand) is the direct product of a "block of the month" (BOM) class that I enrolled in at a friend's invitation. The deal is, everybody pays 5$ to start. If you go to every class and complete every block in time for the next month's class, you don't have to pay a cent more. They give you all of the material for the quilt month after month and after 12 months, you basically get a quilt for 5$. It's a different story if you fail to show up on time with each block completed, on time, to each class. They also fail to mention that in order to finish the quilt, you have to buy material for the backing, joining, etc., but all in all, it sounded good to me. The clincher? If you finish the quilt all on time (using only fabric purchased from the store that teaches the class), you are invited to present it at a "show and tell" class the following January. If all the criteria are met, such as the quilt being 100% finished, quilted (not tied) at least every 4 inches, and label sewn on, then your name is entered into a drawing where you stand a chance of winning a basket full of $300 dollars' worth of quilting schwag!
I gather that this type of class is a fairly common scheme to rope beginners into the addictive world of quilting, but to me, uninitiated, it came off as exceptionally well thought-out and...well... sneaky, too. Anyway--the lovely color scheme (which Lucy prefers to mine) is their doing.
Last week, I went shopping with my sister and found some cheap remnants to practice on. Now I have my very own little blue and brown quilt block. (See above picture.) It was fun to make it up as I went. I especially like the arrows. That was not intentional, by the way, just fortuitous.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes/thoughts:
"If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment."
Yesterday morning, before quilting, Rachel and I subjugated ourselves to Corena Hammer's brutal 8:00 am yoga class while Lucy breakfasted with Grandma and Nan. That class is a killer. Forget waterboarding--Corena would make an excellent "interrogator."
I like to complain just a little bit, but I'll be back to her class for more. She's incredibly good. I don't think I'll understand how she can give instruction so steadily while she does the same things she asks everyone else to do. I was fighting so hard yesterday not to suck wind and she sounded fine. (To understand this better, if you've never tried yoga, try to do 40 - 50 push-ups very slowly with impeccable form while breathing in and out as thoroughly and as slowly as humanly possible. Now breathe slower. And push more air out when you exhale. I didn't put a lot of thought into this experiment, but I bet it really would give you an idea of what it's like.
Another aspect to this class having been so hard is that I haven't attended for...oh, about 4 years. It's bound to get better. Her class isn't even "hot yoga," but I sweat so much I have to have a towel on hand to wipe up the mat so it's not too slippery to continue. I had forgotten that this is a usual thing in her class for me. Before Lucy (BL), I drove to Salt Lake to take the 90 minute long hot yoga classes at Bikram. They were really good. Each class is the same. Well, same routine. I had expected to hate doing the same sequence every class, but I ended up liking it quite a bit.
It's kind of like having the same thing for dinner every night. If it's good food, it's not bad. I only know this because when I was in college, I spent nine months in Senegal. While I was there, I lived in dorms in St. Louis for a few weeks and the menu was the same every night. Rice and fish and a roll. When I lived with my host family, my host mother had a fixed menu too, but it changed according to the day of the week. Monday -- Yassa Poulet, Tuesday -- Ceebu Jen, Wednesday -- Mafe, etc. I found that it was nice knowing what to expect. It was easier to just eat my fill rather than eat too much. ...And eating too much was a serious danger--my host mother was a ferocious cook.
Check out this article featuring a study that shows that the more mundane your meal plan is, the less you are likely to overeat. Sometimes I want to confine the menu Chez Nous to 7 meals--one for each day of the week. I'll let you know if that ever happens. Don't hold your breath.
Confession time.
I finally took the time to look up the rule on its and it's. Somehow I got confused about whether the apostrophe was used in the possessive or in the contraction. I have intentionally avoided using either its or it's for a month because I was not sure of its proper usage. No more!
I feel liberated. Now: How long will it take me to go back and edit those pesky its and it'ses from the rest of the blog? Maybe I won't even do it.
Can you handle that cliffhanger closing?
