Sabbath Songs: I Stand All Amazed

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.
–Cecil Frances Alexander, LDS Hymns I Stand All Amazed

Woman's Work: Apron

Aprons don’t hold us back, they take us back. –EllynAnne Geisel

I kind of have a thing for aprons. This one is no exception. Look at that adorable baby rick-rack. Aprons with rick-rack are awesome. If you click on the picture for a closer look, you can see that it is stitched on with some pretty yellow embroidery floss. This method of attaching the rick-rack is the genius method of Lori Holt, quilt designer extraordinaire. You'll see rick-rack again later in this quilt, applied using the same cute method.

I'm wondering if I can count this apron towards my total even though no one will actually wear it? I think it took roughly the same amount of time to make as it does to make a wearable life-size apron. Or maybe a smidge more.

This apron is section six of the quilt, and so now I have seven of thirteen sections finished, but not quite half the blocks done {15 out of 31}. I love the huge amount of progress that I have made on it on the last three months. My original goal was to have it finished in six months' time and that might still be possible. For now, this apron has to go back in the box with all my other finished blocks and fabrics for this quilt and be tucked back under my bed because it is time to finally stop procrastinating the Christmas presents. I'm going to do one thing, though, before I put it away for a few weeks. I'm going to sew the scrubbers block to the top of the dustpan block. I was looking over the pattern to see which blocks are coming up next {and then the ones after that} and also had a look over the finishing instructions. Lori has the quilt divided up into groups of blocks when you piece it together and then after you get the groups pieced together, you put them together to make the whole quilt top. The scrubbers and dustpan are next to each other in a group, so I'll be ahead when it comes time for that if I put them together now. Wohoo! After I finish the next section of blocks, I'll be able to sew a whole group together. I'm kind of excited about that. But for now, anything that is not a Christmas present is getting put away. Wish me luck. I think I've procrastinated it exactly the right amount of time to arrive at Christmas Eve completely frazzled and worn out, cursing myself for not starting sooner, and vowing to never procrastinate again.

Favourite Things Friday: Gene Kelly

Any man who looks like a sissy while dancing is just a lousy dancer. –Gene Kelly

If you could spend a day with any one person in history, living or dead {boundaries of time, distance and money are not an object} who would you choose to meet? For me, it would have to be Gene Kelly, circa 1952, and I would want to spend the day doing dance lessons. Oh, and I might ask him to sing while we dance.

You know the theory that there are only six degrees of separation between you and any other person on the planet? It all depends on who you know . I have this amazing friend, Sparkle, and Sparkle's Grandma-in-law took dancing lessons from Gene Kelly. That's only two degrees between me and Gene Kelly . If Sparkle were to introduce me to her Gram-in-law, Gram could introduce me to Gene Kelly. And I could have those dancing lessons. If Gene hadn't died in 1996. Details. Whatever. This is my Land of Make-Believe.

My crush on Gene Kelly started when I was about 16. Around that time, I started having problems with insomnia and the only thing on TV at 2:00 am were old movies on PBS. I loved them all, but soon decided that my favorites were the musicals and among the musicals, the ones starring Gene Kelly were my most favorite. I started to watch the TV listings for his movies and make a point to be there for them. Singin' in the Rain is one of my all-time favorites. Debbie Reynolds is absolutely adorable, Donald O'Connor is fabulous as the comic relief and The Man himself is unstoppable. He had a fever of 103˚ when he shot this scene. You'd never know it.


Did you know that Gene Kelly taught Frank Sinatra to dance using baseball moves? Gene was incredibly talented and graceful. It is one thing to look graceful in tap shoes, but a wholly other thing to do it on roller skates. From It's Always Fair Weather, 1955.


These next two clips pair Gene Kelly with another of my favorite performers, Julie Andrews, and they are just delightful. From The Julie Andrews Hour.




And last, but not least, from 1980 {and probably the first Gene Kelly movie I ever saw}, Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly with Whenever You're Away From Me from Xanadu. At 68, he still gives a wonderful performance. Sorry about the sound and picture quality. It was the best I could find of the entire clip.


Quoting Irving Berlin, Gene Kelly's last words recorded on film were, The song has ended, but the melody lingers on. And while Gene Kelly is no longer with us his, music, his dance, his melody lingers and will remain forever in my heart.

Today's post brought to you by:

Not-So-Vintage Thingie Thursday: Victorian-Style Pitcher and Basin

Grandmothers are just antique little girls and grandfathers are just antique little boys. –Unknown

Last spring, when we were cleaning out my maternal grandparents' house so it could be sold, I picked up a few great heirloom-y {a valued possession passed down in a family through succeeding generations} type items. I'm sure none of them have much monetary value, but the sentimental value is pretty off-the-charts for me. I was kind of excited to show these things {like my grandma's 1965ish Noritake china set} ala Vintage Thingie Thursday, but wasn't sure exactly what qualified something as a Vintage Thingie and was timid about linking up. I wasn't sure of the origins of a couple of things, so I posted them without the Vintage Thingie designation. I gave away a lovely set of milk glass serving dishes that I think were in the neighborhood of vintage, but I've held off on posting the other things that are researchable and identifiable because really, I'm not a collector of vintage {except for these few things of my grandparents, which hold sentimental value} and don't know much about the world of collectables and antiques.

So it is with trepidation that I make my first official Vintage Thingie Thursday post, because I'm not sure if this Victorian-style pitcher and basin are actually vintage {but I wanted to show them off anyway because they look vintage }. The underside of the pitcher is marked VB Athena California, so I Googled. The company was founded in 1977, so at best, this pretty set is only 33 years old {which is not even as old as I am}, but I'm pretty sure it is more like just 30 years old. Where is line of demarcation for a vintage thingie? {And do I fit into the vintage category ? I'm not even 40. If I am vintage, how does that define me? Because I certainly don't feel vinatage. All good questions, but subjects for another post. Sorry for the tangent. Hopefully the close-up of the flower detail was entertaining. Moving along now.}

While I don't know exactly know old this pitcher set is, it looks vintage and I do know a bit of the history of how it came to reside at my grandparent's house. When my grandpa's mother passed away, my grandpa and grandma inherited her old brass bedstead {which has now been passed on to my youngest brother}, and redecorated their downstairs bedroom around that big brass bed. They put up blue damask wallpaper, placed an old rocking chair next to the bed and filled the shelves above the bed with their own collection of old-fashioned things {this vase being one of them}. They also kept my grandma's mother's old 1960's Bernina Sewing Machine {a post for another Thursday } in that room and on top of the cabinet that housed the machine sat this pitcher and basin. I'm pretty sure they bought the set new and for the express purpose of decorating the old-fashioned room. When it came time to clean out their house, I couldn't bear the thought of it being sent off to a thrift shop. So I brought it home and found it place on the corner of my dresser. And while I think it looks lovely there, I am glad that I don't have to use it.

Today's post brought to you by:

Bradbury 13: Night-Call Collect

There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves. –Ray Bradbury

Continuing with my series of thirteen posts about Bradbury 13 {an old-tyme radio drama from the spring of 1984}, today's Bradbury is Night-Call Collect. It is based on a short story from the collection in I Sing the Body Electric and is a variation of The Silent Towns, which is found in The Martian Chronicles. In my last post, I mentioned that I would include a link to a site where you could download the mp3 file for each episode. However, in my travels along the information super highway, I found that Amazon has the set of 13 stories available on CD for $18.21, so I'm including a link to that with each post as well.

Night-Call Collect
He sat silently. He sat, a man eighty years old. He sat in an empty house on an empty street in an empty town on the empty planet of Mars. He sat as he had sat for sixty years, waiting. Outside the martian wind raged, shaking the telephone poles and causing the wires to sing in chorus. Inside on the table in front of him lay a telephone that had not rung for a long, long time. Until now.

My Rating:
I gave this episode a three out of five, but you have to understand that they all start out with the rating status of really cool. The reason it gets a three is because I think that Barton's reaction to the phone call is pretty disproportionate, a little bit paranoid and lacks rational thinking. Then again, I've never been stranded on an empty planet for sixty years.

And so I had to stop and think about it; what would I do if suddenly there was no one left on the planet but me? That would be pretty cool for about 20 minutes. Imagine all the goods {read quilting fabric} out there, free for the taking. But it would get lonely fast. And the supply of fresh food would run out quickly. Frozen and canned foods don't last forever either. I could get by on my meager gardening skills, but I know absolutely nothing about raising livestock, and I really would rather not go vegetarian. After thinking it over, I realize the implications of being alone on a planet are huge. And I have to give Barton credit just for surviving, not to mention the creative ways he kept himself entertained all those years.

{Mike McDonough recording for
Night-Call Collect.
Photo courtesy of Phil at Ray Bradbury & Media
©Mike McDonough}

Air Date:
April 7, 1984

Narrator:
Paul Frees

Cast:
Morgan White
Mike McDonough

Music:
Roger Hoffman
Greg Hansen

Production Assistant:
Patrick Mead

Associate Producer:
Jeff Raider

Created, Produced, Directed:
Mike McDonough

Executive Producer:
Dean Van Uitert

Audio Clip of Night-Call Collect

Buy Night-Call Collect mp3

Buy Bradbury 13 Audio CDs