Valerean

Like Christmas, I'd be happier skipping my birthday every year. I hate birthday surprises, I don't want gifts, and it's never a happy day for me. I don't know how old I really am (based on biological landmarks I might be a year or two older than they say) or on which date I was actually born; I believe my adoptive mother picked the day I was handed over to her as my birthday. Anyway, this year I began looking back on what I did for my birthday in the past, like visiting Tarpon Springs. Lovely people, terrible aquarium, great seafood. My guy decided we should go there. I went to Busch Gardens for the first time on my birthday one year because my daughter loves it. I am not a theme park person, but it made her happy. I did enjoy taking photos of the animals. I generally spend my birthday away from home because my family thinks I should go some place spectacular or exotic and have fun all day, usually doing what they like to do. I like staying home ...

Living in the country means you never know what you might encounter along the way when you're out walking. Last week I spotted this across the street while I was walking Beau, and the glint of gold in the sunlight made me get my camera to bring with me on Shadow's walk. These are two golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila clavipes), also known as banana spiders. These little guys are everywhere now; they build their webs at night and tear them down just after sunrise. Two of them had spun webs that together reached at least ten feet across and maybe seven or eight feet high, and I've never seen two of them so close to each other. The only reason I saw these was that I got up early that day walked the dogs about two hours earlier than usual. Nature is awesome. :)

The July tote for my calendar project is focused on vintage as a theme, and will incorporate the old fabrics that I love: feedsacks, cutter quilt pieces, embroidered linens and such. Working with antique textiles is such a pleasure. I'm starting with a genuine vintage feedsack as the background fabric, and a canvas tote for the foundation. I also invested in some vintage textiles from my favorite Etsy seller to serve as the fabric elements of my design. The problem with the canvas tote is that it has some staining on one handle, so I have to wash it first. After laundering I realized that the tote shrank quite a bit, and I won't be able to use the entire front panel of the feedsack as I wanted to. Easy fix: I will batt and back both sides of the feedsack and that will serve as the tote's background and the foundation. Stay tuned to the blog to see how I put this one together.

After the double DNF of June, I did very much want to enjoy Sandra Balzo's Dead Ends . One of my blind dates with a book, it promised a cozy mystery that would be maybe more interesting than the Pokemon brain the last book gave me. That's when the Universe decided to remind me that interesting is often used in Chinese curses. The book was either 1) not edited by anyone, 2) was not edited by a professional editor with an understanding of industry standards in regard to formatting, or 3) the author insisted on STETing the incorrectly formatted text and the frequent absence of other things like dialogue tags so you know who is speaking. This lack of correct formatting and dropping of tags make the text basically unreadable. If you're not sure why, tell me who is speaking the third sentence on this page. Is it the character above the paragraph, or the character below (who is also unnamed because there is no dialogue tag there, either.) I don't know what ha...

Last week my guy and I went wandering, stopping first to walk through the farmer's market in Celebration and hike around the big lake in the town center. I love Celebration. It's a beautiful town, and there are so many neat places to walk. From there we went to Lake Alfred and hiked around the Mackay Gardens and Lakeside Preserve. This is a gorgeous and very quiet spot for anyone who likes Nature walks. There are plenty of trails that wind through the preserve that make you feel as if you've stepped through a time portal and are visiting old Florida. There are also lots of pristine manicured spots that likely serve as wedding and party venues. Finally we found a lovely little antique mall, Country Primitives, in Winter Haven that has become one of my new favorites. Definitely stop by there if you want to see unique antiques and wonderful gifts for the vintage lover.

Last month I didn't post much about the tote for my calendar project, so here's what happened with it. It started as another fail, as if May's problems were still clinging to me. The thrifted fabric I chose was too short. My hands wouldn't cooperate with hand-stitching so I doubted I could do any quilting or embroidery. I felt defeated before I even began. My spiritual studies have taught me that it's important not to linger in the past or worry about what might happen in the future, so I set aside my negative emotions and started problem solving. I went out and thrifted fabric to solve the shortness issue and to line the tote. I picked out embroidery threads I love from my stash and did a little stitching at a time, as much as my stiff fingers would allow. I embroidered intermeshing circles, which I also love, over as much of the top portion and some of the print as possible. With this tote I wanted to express my happiness (and relief) over s...