On the topic of eating locally: it’s now strawberry season in my yard, and my mostly-organic technique of “plant and ignore” is working well. This is one of my first pickings of the year, from last weekend. Now I’m getting more berries at a time – plenty to keep one berry-lover satisfied on a daily basis. The strawberries are not super sweet – I haven’t yet tried adding sugar yet since adding milk or yogurt provides some sweetness, enough for eating them with cereal.
I think I am the only Crackpot to make the block for which Rebecca provided us with fabric at Thanksgiving. We all got the same fabrics and were challenged to make the same block, the cover block from the March/April “Quiltmaker.” The object is to see how many different variants we Crackpots can come up with. I pieced my block during our last visit to the Cute Little House. It was so much fun that I am thinking about doing a second one, making it as different as I can from this one. Of course, since we are all supposed to make our blocks independently, I probably should be keeping my effort a secret. But I can’t. So either take a quick look and then try to forget what you see, or avert your eyes now. Here it is:
The issue of the Room Soon to Be Known as the Room Formerly Known as Pink remains. The previous inhabitant has relocated to Someplace Else, and she refuses to claim the room any more. She is no longer fond of the pink color she picked out at age four.
The room has since morphed into my sewing room. It works quite well, especially since we had new lighting installed last winter. And I keep bringing more and more of my sewing supplies up from the basement.
However, every time the boys come, I have to move my sewing machine out to make room for the air bed. And with the new blue quilts I made for the boys (see earlier post), the pink is looking a little sad.
This morning I told the boys that we had some work to do to get the room ready to paint.
“Peel off the wallpaper?” was the response.
Hmmm… that was not exactly what I had in mind, although a three-year old and a five-year-old could probably do a pretty good job at it. No, the work was to sort through the dolls and stuffed animals of the previous inhabitant. We would decide which ones to send to Rebecca and which ones to keep here to play with.
No surprise–all the dolls are in the bag for Rebecca.
And now look at the additional shelf space I have. I’ll reorganize some things to make even more space on the shelves.
Tomorrow after the boys leave, I’ll move the sewing machine back in and start on a few Christmas projects.
The turkey this year will not be as crackpotty an event as in the past few years. And here is the reason why:
An oven that actually works!
As promised, a photo of quilt plus baby. No time for much else; young Master J may be stirring in the next room.
He was recovering from a strenuous tummy time experience.
Here he is – my new and totally wonderful bike, Franklin!!!
I know that a photo of a bicycle may not seem especially Crackpotty to non-Crackpots, but I am sure our most loyal readership will understand. Besides, please take careful note of what Franklin is hauling on his rear rack. It is none other than Nancy’s Christmas present of a new fabric cutting board. The picture was taken just after Franklin and I returned from our first real shopping expedition – to Joann Fabrics, of course – and he and I were both quite please with his ability to haul large collections of miscellaneous stuff. Obviously the picture was taken before Christmas, but I could not post it at the time because of secrecy constraints. Just a note – the large red bow in the photo is on the bush behind Franklin, not on him.
A few technical notes about Franklin’s accoutrements. He has 24 speeds, grip shifters, and shock absorbers on the seat post and front fork. Also, I can lift him with one arm. For those of you concerned about dear, faithful Esmeralda, she has been transferred to MI and seems quite happy exploring the new territory there.
Hi, Crackpots,
My contact at The Villages recently sent me several photos of our scrappy heart quilt complete with baby. I thought you would all like to see the fruits of our crackpotty labors in use, so here it is. The original photo was a polaroid that Lou scanned and e-mailed to me, so the quality may not be all that good, but I am sure you will all be able to appreciate how cute the baby is.
Ann
For a photo of one of my wackiest projects, go to http://junecookscreativesewing.com/newsletter.pdf. Go to page 5 and check out the picture. I’m pretty sure I am the third from the left.
Marty
Welcome, Crackpots, and Merry Christmas!
This is my Christmas present to all of us: a weblog, or “blog,” that I’ve put together so that we can have a place on the web to share our Crackpotty projects and other stuff. We can post pictures and stories, and comment on each other’s projects and ideas.
Each of you has been given a username and password for access to the blog, and I’ve written up a series of entries that show you how to use the blog, going in gradual steps from logging in, through commenting and posting entries, all the way to uploading digital pictures and adding them to your blog entries.
One thing that sets this website apart from other blogs is that we five are (hopefully) the only people who can post entries and comments. Many blogs are set up with one or several authors, and then comments are open to the whole world. I figure we don’t especially care what the whole world thinks of our quilts and other Crackpot projects, so I’ve set things up so that only the five of us can participate.
Since I’ve set up the blog (and the web domain registration, hosting, and all the other stuff that goes along with this), I’m the administrator of the blog and have administrative powers to do all sorts of things, and fix all kinds of problems. The end result of which is, if there’s a problem or you can’t figure out how to do something, let me know! I’ll do whatever I can to fix the problem. If you’d like some technical information about the blog, you can read The Fine Print.
Because blogs are generally set up so that the most recent entries are at the top of the page, and proceed backwards in time, the “how-to” entries that I’ve put together are in backwards order. So to get started, scroll down to the bottom of this page, to the entry titled “How to log into the blog,” and start reading the directions.
Have fun!