Quilt party

Nancy hosted a party for her quilt group yesterday. Normally I wouldn’t mention it on my blog but in this case I was actually drafted to participate. The purpose of the party was to unveil quilts from each of the attendees. These quilts were all built to a certain set of rules and out of sight of the others. Quilts are built by making squares and then sewing the squares together. In this event, each member submitted a pattern for a square. So if there are 10 participants, there are 10 different square pattern designs. The rule is that each quilt has to be built from these squares. The quilter can use additional square patterns, or use any particular square multiple times but each quilt must have each square included at least once. No rules on the material to be used, the colors, or the overall quilt design – totally up to the imagination of the quilter. I think they have 6 months or so to complete the quilt. At the party they each bring in the fruits of their labors all hidden in bags. Here’s where I come in. They give me the bags and then go off to chat, gabber and eat while I set up a display. In this case I had hung a clothesline on our porch and hung all the quilts on the line. I took pictures of all the quilts and then let them know the show was on. The amazing thing to me is that none of the quilts looked the same. In fact, unless somebody had told me, I would never have picked up on the fact that they all used the same squares. With totally random color selection, totally random square arrangement, they were completely different end designs. I can’t begin to describe them but several were geometric arrangements of the blocks, one was a school house, and one was a giraffe. You really had to get up close and study them to spot that they used a common basis.

Rain, rain, and more rain. We are inches from the lake topping the dock. No giant rains as in hurricane rains, but just a succession of 1” days. You know how you see pictures of Asian farmers stooping over planting rice – give me a straw coolie hat and I would look the same. And there are no signs of a let up. Rain chances are forecast at 50% as far as the forecasts go. That’s down from 70% but has really made no difference. My neighbors dock is now underwater with even a little wave action. In a few days it will be over even when totally calm.

Saw some kids who were really happy with the wet weather. I was driving to the beach on a 2 lane, country road. All 2 lane, country roads in Florida have drainage ditches just off the shoulder of the road and right now, all these drainage ditches are full. These particular ditches were fairly wide, maybe 10-12′. I noticed something weird coming at me and was surprised to see a 4 wheel ATV with a couple of boys – maybe 12-14 year olds, driving at a pretty good rate on the shoulder. They had a long rope out the back and were pulling a tube in the ditch with a couple of teener girls hanging on and whoopin’ it up. You know somewhere there are sets of parents thinking their kids are just out exploring on the 4 wheeler. Not sure which was more dangerous, riding on the ATV or the tube.

Had to stop the other day when driving down our little two lane road to let a flock of turkeys cross. I counted 10. They were just walking leisurely across the road, with no particular concern about me bearing down on them. I lived the first 60 years of my life never seeing a wild turkey (except on a bar shelf) and now routinely come across large flocks all over the place.