Queen of Rambles

I’ve been very amused the past couple of days. Several months ago I picked up a bunch of old quilting magazines on freecycle. I haven’t looked at them because it seemed overwhelming, but with the move looming, I need to figure out if I really want them or not. I’m thinking not. You wouldn’t think that quilting would change much over the years, but the magazines from the early ’90s haven’t wowed me yet. The colors are off and many of the quilts they show are just tied. You would almost never see a tied quilt in a modern quilting magazine. Also, most of the patterns say you should use polyester batting, which was cracking me up. You will REALLY never see a quilting magazine say that these days. There are no rotary cutting directions–instead there are directions on how to make templates out of plastic or cardstock. As if I am going to make templates for squares and rectangles. I had no idea rotary cutting was such a new concept.

The biggest laugh had to come from an article about the “future of quilting.” It was actually pretty accurate, but it missed a major concept: the Internet. It predicted that in the year 2010 we would all wake up in the morning, log onto our computers and video teleconference with our quilting friends from around the world. Pretty accurate. We could do that if we wanted. It also predicted that quilt shops and other companies would send out CD-ROMS (very carefully explaining what a CD-ROM was) that would contain their entire catalog. Sort of true. We use websites. It had a lot of ideas about how the computer could be used to store pattern data. We could buy CD-ROMS with patterns and magically search for a pattern, calling up the pattern and pictures of completed quilts. Again, close call, only no CD-ROMS. The funniest bit had to be a little paragraph about how quilters might be able to talk to each other “on-line” with Prodigy, CompuServe or Internet. I admit, I was giggling at the Internet just being Internet and on par with Prodigy and CompuServe. Back in 1994 I had no clue about the Internet and how it would change my life. I couldn’t even imagine meeting people all over the world, buying stuff on the computer, writing about my daily dramas. The article made me smile.

The other big, amusing thing is my dear son. We had a Valentine’s party at preschool today with lots of games. Not to be mean to the other kids, but Erik kicked ass.

Is he fierce, or what? You should have seen it before I edited out the red eye. This was taken during an intense game of tug-o-war. He and the other boy who is just his age were the only two to really get it. They went at it for four round until we finally had to take the rope away because they were getting too agitated. It was pretty funny, but a little scary to see them so into it. Erik won every round, but he outweighs the other kid by about five pounds.

The other boy his age is pretty shy, so that was the only game he would play. The other kids are shy and a bit younger so it was only natural that Erik would carry the day. He was basically the only one playing the games.

Preschool went a little better than normal because the teacher put out laminated spots for the kids to sit on. Such a simple idea, yet very effective! Erik never sits, but today he was glued to his spot. She also made a sock puppet and sang the alphabet with the puppet. Again very simple, but VERY effective. I have to remember all these things for my next teaching turn.

Afterwards, Erik and I went to the mall and got the shaggy boy a haircut. You have no idea how bad his hair was annoying me. I need to get some detangler spray like someone suggested. I have some adult detangler spray I bought for myself but I can’t stand the smell. I guess I need to trash it (or give it away on freecycle. Would someone really take a partially used hair product? That gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I see people take open food all the time *gag*).

I finally remembered the forgotten post worthy nugget of last night. It probably doesn’t mean much to any of you, but I’d like to record it for posterity’s sake. Last night as we were reading Rolie Polie Olie he noticed the difference between small letters and capital letters for the first time. He was very confused (it doesn’t help that the l and y are cursive) and didn’t really understand my explanation. That’s progress! Right? It must mean something, though I don’t know what.

Speaking of Olie, here’s a video for Auntie Julie and anyone else who so desires to CHECK OUT. Nothing too exciting, just Erik telling Julie thank you for the gift. We haven’t been home much today, but he’s been watching the video every single second that I allowed the TV to be on.

And now I guess it is off to bed to have nightmares about piecing curves. I made a New York Beauty quilt years ago and never had problems with the curves. I just drafted my own New York Beauty blocks and somehow the circle is no longer a circle even though I used a compass. The curved piecing is not working. Tomorrow I forget the machine and go straight to applique. Surely that will work.

For the curious, I’ve added a couple of pics from the new house HERE. You can sort of see the color of the dining room and kitchen, though the lighting isn’t the best. You can also see how much better the house looks without those stupid poles. If you look a that pic, you can better see the dining room color compared to the color it used to be (the wall in the hall).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.