Bogart brought his favorite teddy bear and came to visit us at quilting one evening.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

Here's a slice of buckle. I'd never heard of this rather unusual pastry -- its name comes from the way the surface develops cracks and fissures as it bakes. The bakers swear to me there's no added sugar, but the fruits embedded in the dough make it VERY tasty. This is becoming a regular weekend tradition. From Sweet Adeline's, a fabulous new bakery just south of Alcatraz Avenue on -- ADELINE.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

The whole quilt -- it's not very big, but this pattern is rather difficult. And while it's fun to pick the fabrics, it's also pretty tricky if you want to achieve the illusion of steps.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

My friend Carol Mann made this amazing quilt using the "tumbling blocks" pattern. There's a larger view, too.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

A beautiful traditional quilt from the Marin show -- though the red and white Hawaiian floral is not exactly typical.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

Fascinating use of a complex print behind a solid, sewn mola-style. From the Marin quilt show.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

Umbrellas are featured in this quilted wall hanging.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

Smaller version
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

This quilted wall hanging almost looks like an Oriental woodblock. The photo on which it's based is seen below the block.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

Giraffe quilted wall hanging, and the photo which inspired it. From the Marin quilt show.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

On Sept. 10, my beautiful cat Maria Callas had stopped eating. I tried to tempt her with salmon -- usually her favorite -- but even after I put a little shred in her mouth and she swallowed it, she wasn't interested in more. Monday morning when I woke up, she was standing next to her water bowl and gave me a sad bleat, as if to ask, please help me. I cried and cried, then phoned a friend who drove us to the vet. She probably had kidney failure, he thought, and didn't even suggest making any effort to save her. He just shaved a little patch on her arm and injected a sedative. She was gone a minute later while I petted her.
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

I've been experimenting recently with creating both art deco and freeform images using iron-on fabrics. WonderUnder is cheaper, but I find that I like Steam-A-Seam2 better. Of the small sample images here, only the dark purple one is sewn. I intend to embellish them with embroidery afterwards. Most of them will probably become pockets (probably on tote bags).
Photo by Rachel E. Holmen

The Marin Needle Arts Guild usually hosts the season's foremost local quilt show, with cash prizes for top entries. But this year, they handed the show over to a vendor, and filled the fabulous Frank Lloyd Wright hall with a slightly different show: an expanded set of booths selling fabrics, patterns, embroidery patterns, and other wonders; and quilt exhibits from smaller groups. The Mount Tamalpais quilters had a fine display, a group of friends showed off their "fire" quilts (they plan, in successive years, to show earth, air, and water as well); there were some lovely small journal quilts. One of my favorites was by Maureen Nass, describing old age. Another nice set showed photos and then small quilts based on the photos: here are four. The artists are Pat Dicker, Ancella Toldrian, Joanne Berry, and Maureen Nass.


I spent a lot of time the rest of the weekend working on my own quilt designs, and came up with this wall-ful of ideas (most based on Craftsman-era textiles). These won't be finished until I add some embroidered details to them; then each will be separate, used as a pocket or in some other isolated way.


-- Rachel

Upsala Parade

My father, sister, and I went to Upsala, Minnesota, where he was born, in mid-August. We loved the 2-mile parade through the 1-mile town to celebrate Upsala Heritage Day. We also had a great visit with my cousin Ted at the cabin his father had built in imitation of traditional Swedish log cabins. The weather cooled off just as we arrived, so we never swam in the lake next to the cabin, but we enjoyed several evenings in the screened gazebo, watching the sunset.
-- Rachel

Home improvements

First you notice the new mailbox. At least now my crazy mail lady will be out of excuses for holding, tearing, and returning my mail. Anyway, that's what I hope. She'll probably think of something -- she's quite creative in her resentment of the people who provide her paycheck.

In the back, I finally put up my folding clothesline -- the kind that's sort of like an umbrella. I bring it in every night, but especially with this weekend's hot weather, it did a dandy job of drying my clothes without making me use a drop of electricity.

The strawberry pot I bought a few weeks back has also been planted; I hope the snails don't wipe it out too quickly. The instructions called for a piece of PVC pipe with holes drilled in it, run down the center of the pot to aid watering. I used flexible clear plastic tubing, with notches cut into it with my roseclippers, the whole tube spiraled through the pot and sticking a little out the top.

And the gardenia's about to be in bloom, another boon of hot weather.

-- Rachel

Lawnmower headaches

I should ask Will Shortz -- is "lawnmower" the only English word that has "wnm" as a consonant cluster?

Anyway, mine won't start. Bought a new sparkplug. Didn't do it. Emptied the gas tank and let it dry overnight (since there did seem to be, um, WATER in the tank, and surely the mower wouldn't be happy about that). Refilled the tank with fresh gas. Didn't do it. Bought some Gumout and poured it in, left it overnight. Didn't do it.

Came home last night, and my neighbor in a combination of annoyance and helpfulness had mowed my driveway (taking out several nice flowering plants -- a platycodon and a California native with nice coral flowers) that had been engulfed in weeds, and leaving a 6-foot-high hawkweed [giant dandelion to you, city boy].

-- Rachel

A cute car

I rode last Friday in a Honda Element. One of my friends thinks they look "too boxy", but then -- my current car is a Volvo station wagon (1982, with almost 350,000 miles on what I assume is the original engine) -- and didn't somebody parody Volvo ads a few years back by teasing that their company slogan was "Boxy but good" ?

I was in the back seat, which was elevated just slightly so that I could see easily out of the front window. The driver says this is called "stadium seating". The ride in back was a bit stiff but basically quite comfortable -- MUCH better than riding in the back seat of an Aerostar van I remember, where it seemed like the back seat was part of a totally separate car.

The other thing I really liked was the lack of a centerpost on the passenger side of the car. The front door opens from the front -- duh -- but the back door has its hinges at the BACK of the car, so when both side doors are open, there's a HUGE opening at the side of the car. I assume one can move seats in and out to configure the vehicle for passengers, cargo, camping trips, etc. And the overall length seems quite short, so I assume the turning radius is pretty good. I may take one for a test drive, not that I can afford anything right now. It's always good to do ... RESEARCH.

-- Rachel

Octavia Butler died in late February

I was in awe of Octavia Butler, and now we've lost her. See my writing blog for more information. I'm very sad. -- Rachel

Write SFF

A nice photo of Octavia, taken by Beth Gwinn:

A comment about creating art

I heard a lecture yesterday by Fran Skiles, a textile and collage artist. Her work is nothing like I would ever create, but I found her comments on the creative process, its anxieties and rewards, to ring true.

Towards the end of her talk, she was asked if sometimes things just didn't come out right. She gave an unexpected response: "I believe in ruining work. But I wasn't getting anywhere!" The whole audience, familiar with trying to balance perfection against the need to grow as an artist, laughed with her.

Gallery in Santa Fe that carries Fran Skiles' work

-- Rachel

FilmLoop -- one of my MacWorld faves

Another booth I really liked at MacWorld was the FilmLoop folks. They make an easy-to-use product that puts a slideshow on someone's desktop; no charge. (The hitch: one ad per loop -- but a loop can be 200 photos.)

Mac and Windows versions (though I can't run the Mac version since I don't have system 10.4 yet.

http://www.filmloop.com

-- Rachel