Addenda Day

Padua was highly amused by the foot-foto day. Can you tell he's perched on top of the shredder? I can't leave it plugged in for fear one of the fuzzballs will shred a foot or a tail or something!
This is the first quilt top I did at Asilomar. One way that I like to work is to go through the whole process once, naturally trying to get a good quilt top out of it, but also to get a handle on how it's all going to work. This was a good example of that for me. Picking the right values of fabrics, for instance--and who would have thought that I, having endured the 70's and the stream of orange/brown/gold that characterized it, would ever decide to make an orange quilt? Or even have so many orange fabrics? Truly amazing. Anyway, I am very pleased with this quilt top, even though I made a glaring mistake. I'm sooo smart. I had to buy a new cutting ruler, since I managed to get away without one; I didn't realize that it was one of those newfangled ones that's actually 6 1/2 inches wide--and I cut my 2 1/2" strips with the wrong side, so they actually came out 3" wide! didn't even catch on till the blocks were all assembled and I was measuring them for proportions on the sashing. Sigh. It's okay though, because since I mean to teach this as a class, I think the larger blocks will actually be "friendlier" and less intimidating to prospective students. I hope! I also know that it will look a whole lot better once it's quilted--it is very square, as is the other one, but being pinned to a board makes them look a little askew.

You know I can't resist putting in wildlife photos when I can. Asilomar has quite a herd of deer roaming around--this is the view out of the window of our classroom. On this particular day, there were 6 of the critters grazing on the hillside. They didn't even look up when we went out on the deck to take pictures! Too bad I didn't take pictures of the "midnight raiders" aka raccoons, who knocked over our trash cans and then stared me down when I went out to see what the noise was!
Finally, some more flowers. These are along the sidewalk at the entrance to the Apple Farm's restaurant/gift shop. It's one of our favorite places to stop since San Luis Obispo is about halfway between home and Monterey and is just south of a particularly difficult stretch of road--the Cuesta Grade--so fortification is needed before or after driving it. Also (especially poignant today) Bob and I stayed there for the weekend to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. (Today would be the 44th.) The grounds are beautifully landscaped and even in the winter they put on a magnificent floral display--the purple stuff at the back of the picture is kale. Yes, that kind of kale! The tall green thing in the pot is another kind of kale, but this one has "bolted" and no longer looks like a flower.

One more note--I have resigned from the bookstore and am now a "lady of leisure." With everything that needs to be done here at home, I don't think I will be at a loss for things to do, and hopefully I'll have a little more time to do some of the things I love. It was a real wake-up call for me to find that my quilting tools and fabric were still packed up from my trip to Asilomar last year. There has to be something seriously out of whack when I don't touch something I love to do for that long! I still love to read, and will spend lots of time in the bookstore, but I'm hoping that I'll also be able to quilt, and teach a few more classes, and spend lots of time KNITTING up that yarn I've brought home!