Pulling Things Together

Monday, February 11, 2008

I leave in the morning for a sewing retreat with my Bee so I am frantically (yes, always seems to be frantic when I am going anywhere these days) trying to pull things together. Am making shrimp salad and a chicken/cheese tortellini salad to take for one of our meals. We like to have salads and soups, easy things we can do ahead so cooking doesn't take time away from our sewing. I plan to work on my memory book pages so I made a quick trip to Houston yesterday to my favorite fabric spot and spent some time auditioning fabrics for the pages . Here are the pages - I have put the names of their creators under them.


.
Claudette -----------------------------Lynnis

Dolores ------------------------------Barbara



Mary H. ----------------------Maureen

Melanie ---------------------------------Jan

Mine


Each page has different colors and elements as you can see, so this was not an easy thing to do! What is so great about the pages is that you can see the style and personlity of each individual in them. You just can't help but smile as you study each one. One of our dear friends, Mary H., whom we lovingly refer to as "the Queen", suffered a stroke a couple of years ago and can no longer stitch. This is so sad because she is truly a master stitcher and has won many awards including Best of Show at our local City Quilt Show. She used to do a lot of painting so we scanned a watercolor she had done and printed that out on silk which we will each embellish and add to our Memory Book. You can understand why this is such a special project.

I definitely want the focus to be the pages, but for some reason didn't want to use just an ecru or basic black for their background - I wanted something a little more fun. I finally found what I think will come together nicely. I found a beautiful solid shrimp colored cotton broadcloth that has a wonderful feel to it and a yellow/shrimp/ecru plaid dupioni silk. I think the two fabrics will compliment each other well. In the picture it looks more orange, but really it is a beautiful shrimp/apricot color - much lighter than the picture. I have not decided if I will do every other page differently or just have one fabric as the page background and the other fabric as the cover for the book...we'll see. At least this is a start in the right direction. I also tea dyed 20 yards of small-width lace which will go around each of the pages as they are set on their background fabric. One of our Bee group found this lace at a resale shop and graciously shared, otherwise, 20 yards of any lace would be quite costly indeed! Thank you so much Linda!
My design must take into account being able to add pages as well for I hope to add pages from other CQ friends and maybe even a page or two of my CQ journey as it progresses.


While shopping for fabrics, I also found a nice light orange cotton that I think will work well for the center background of my Fiber Goddess project. Her logo has mostly navy blue so I think the orange will set it off nicely. (Now this fabric is really orange - which I never used to like, but now have a fondness for). Since I plan to do some needlepunch, I washed some cotswold and got out some roving I have so that I can dye this navy blue to use for the figure in her logo. I sure hope it will work the way I envision it - you just never know till you try. This project will have to wait till I return from the retreat; however, as I don't want to haul my machines with me - just want to do handwork and relax. I guess while fabric shopping today, I was in an orangey, shrimpy kind of mood, eh? I am funny that way....one day I will buy greens, one day I am in the mood for pinks. I wonder if anyone else is color moody?

I let JJ (our parrot) out for a while this morning since I will be gone a few days. He was helping me with my bible study at the computer and then decided he would browse the books over on the shelf in the corner of the room. He definitely has a mind of his own. He has now returned to his cage for a bit of preening (and to potty). What a good bird!

My bible study has not yet reached the crucifixion in the book of Matthew, but as we are enterring the Lent season, my pastor went to Luke 23 this week and we focussed on the words of Christ on the cross. "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." We have all heard what an agonizing way to be put to death this was - the Romans did not even do this to their own citizens. Christ was subjected to many agonies even prior to being put on cross. I know as Christians, when we mentally view this scene, it makes our hearts ache. We can't even imagine the pain Christ endured for us - or fully fathom the love it took to do so. My pastor had us think about whether we could reach out in reconciling love as Christ did, while suffering at the hands of the very people he was asking His Father in Heaven to forgive. OMG, could I? I doubt it. I would probably be feeling sorry for myself and asking for God's blessing on me. What would my last words be? "Help, me!" "Please ease the pain" "Judge them for their evil" "This isn't fair".

We are so blessed that Christ is filled with compassion and intercedes for us. We are so blessed that Christ has such "Amazing Love".

Well, I am off early in the morning - will be back late Valentine's Day! Surely I can't let DH celebrate without me. See you then - have a great week!