New Orleans House Project

Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Days of August

My neglected blog has been calling my name all day today.  Stitching has taken a back seat to some other activities over the past few weeks, although the Quilt Muse has not been completely quiet.  In the meantime, I'll share some of the other miscellany that has filled my days.

We had a new floor installed at our camp.  Although we didn't do the actual installation, we had to pack up and move lots of stuff in preparation.  Now we get to put everything back!  The new floor is engineered plank, which I guess is the latest term for vinyl flooring.  It is supposed to be impervious to doggie wear & tear and if covered with flood waters, able to dry out and be re-installed without problem.  I hope I never have to report on how it holds up to flooding, but I will report on the doggie wear & tear in a couple of months!

Last weekend, while rummaging in the closet for Quilty 365 fabrics, I had a fit of organization and straightened several fabric drawers that had become totally unruly.  It was great therapy to pet all kinds of fabric and discover several forgotten friends!
The drawer of brights/tropicals was out of control, so I did my best to get everyone to play together nicely.
 I'm especially proud of the blue drawer.  This one is always overflowing, so I moved all the really dark blues to another drawer and sorted these by multi-colored prints and shades.  Woo-hoo! I can actually find what I'm looking for in this drawer now.

A little estate-saling happened last weekend.  I scored some vintage napkins, a linen tea towel with rabbits and a Lily Pulitzer drawstring bag.  The napkins could easily find new life as tote bags.  Not sure about re-purposing the drawstring bag, but Lily fabrics are a favorite, so it had to come home with me. 

It turns out one of my all-time favorite recordings was made 60 years ago this week.  Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong went into a recording studio on August 16th and along with some other extremely talented musicians, set down all the tracks for this recording in one live session!   There is really no video here, just the recording in its entirety.  Take a listen as you stitch or when you're unwinding from a long day.  They don't make 'em like this any more!

Are you still reading? Well thanks for sticking with me!

You may have heard we had some rain and flooding here in South Louisiana over the past week.  The flooding occurred (and continues to occur) to the west and south of New Orleans.  The areas hit by unprecedented rainfall are not prone to flooding - in fact, some of the areas are considered high ground - so most of the residents do not have flood insurance.  Not only have folks lost their homes and all belongings, but in many cases, their workplaces were severely affected, too.  

The company I work for is headquartered in Baton Rouge, one of the affected areas.  Fortunately, the company offices were not directly impacted, so employees all have jobs to return to.  Unfortunately, many of my co-workers have been affected and are dealing with ruined homes and vehicles, loss of simple necessities like clothing & food and the infrastructure of their neighborhoods is shot.  

Louisianians are tough and resilient folks.  We've been through this before and we'll survive, but it's going to take time to heal everything.  Please keep us in your prayers!





Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Quilty 365 Loves Summer Vacation

Many of this month's Quilty 365 circles are inspired by Summer Vacation activities.  Not that I actually did much in the way of vacation fun, but I was inspired by it nonetheless!  
And Pink.  Lots of pink inspiration this month - thanks to the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I've laid out my blocks to mimic the calendar page for July.  I started in early November and I'm up to 270 blocks now.

One reason I didn't have a lot of vacation fun of my own is that I did a lot of dog-sitting so my sons could vacation.  Hence the two circles with dog fabrics.

These two circles represent some July milestones.  My oldest son went hiking/camping along the Pacific Crest Trail in California.   This was his first really long-distance hike (he did about 70 miles) and he came home with a grin from ear to ear!  Another milestone was Dear Husband and I celebrating 37 years of marriage.  We had a wonderful dinner at a cozy French bistro here in town.

Summer vacation wouldn't be complete without 4th of July fireworks.  We had plenty of those, both in New Orleans and at our camp.  And we had added patriotic flourishes this year thanks to the presidential primary conventions.

I used lots of pink for this month's circles, but these are some of my favorites.  The pink sewing machine marks a Friday night I got to stay home alone and sew!  The sunglasses are a reminder of a fun Saturday DH and I had, crusin' the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  I always love a good pink flamingo fabric, and one day I just needed some nostalgic pink fabric therapy! 

Just a little more than 3 months left for Quilty 365.  I plan to keep going until the end, but almost all other hand-stitched projects have come to a halt while I focus on my circle journal.  I've been daydreaming about what hand-stitching project(s) I'll focus on next.

There are more Quilty 365 circles at the monthly link-up hosted by Audrey!