The Twilight Years

I enjoyed this little spoof and thought I'd share. It pokes fun at both Twilight and the LDS Culture, and if we can't laugh at ourselves, well ...

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

A Valentine's Finish

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43

This is my first start-to-finish quilt for 2010. A friend gave me the printed panel with the flower vase and coordinating squares. I added $40 in fabric for borders and backing (I had to have fabrics from the coordinating Moda lines) and $60 for quilting (Ramona at the Corn Wagon Quilt Co. does a beautiful job) to the 'free' panel. So much for free. It is fun to have a Valentine's Table Runner, though. The runner is fairly large, finishing at about 32½" x 54", but that's OK, because I have this big white table (that I absolutely LOVE and got on clearance for $55 -- have I mentioned that I LOVE to bargain shop?) that it fits on perfectly. Click on any of the pictures for a closer look.

Here is a close-up of the center panel. This is part of the 'free' part of this runner. I love the details that Ramona quilted in the vase. I also love the tight stippling around the flowers and vase and how each flower is accented with quilting. Did I mention that Ramona does a beautiful job?


Because of the busy heart pattern I used in the borders, it is difficult to see the quilting details. I washed and dried all of the fabrics before beginning to work on this project and when it came back, I washed and dried it again so that the batting would shrink up a bit and highlight the quilted details a little better. Here is the back of the runner, though, because the details are difficult to see in the photographs. Ramona quilted in a running heart border all the way around, accented each of the printed squares in the checkerboards on top and bottom and quilted very cute hearts in the squares with heart fabric. It reminds me of a hand-made elementary school Valentine's Day Card. The overall look of the quilting is very whimsical and almost vintage. Almost -- but not quite. I really like the finished effect.

Here is another close-up of the quilting on the back. This is the bottom checkerboard.


I got this back from the quilter on the Monday before Valentine's Day. It took me a few days to get the binding on (it was all cut and ready to go, though), so I think I'll leave this on my table for a few more days. It's OK to celebrate love for more than just one day, don't you think?

What's In A Name?

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
-William Shakespeare, spoken by Juliet, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

My name is Elizabeth. And I love my name. There are lots of wonderful women named Elizabeth doing all kinds of wonderful things. Actress Elizabeth Reaser plays TwiFandom's beloved Cullen Coven mother Esme. Fictional character Elizabeth Bennet is my favorite of Jane Austen's heroines. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first female doctor in the United States. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth took the throne in 1558 and ruled for nearly 45 years. Queen Elizabeth II is the current figure head monarch. Crowned in 1953, her reign has lasted for nearly 57 years, the third longest in British history. I might add that both of these women governed without a king. I think my favorite Elizabeth is Elizabeth Swann, King of the Pirates. I mean, who doesn't want to be king of the dirty, sweaty, British pirates? I swoon (yes, I said swoon) when Will Turner whispers our name at the beginning of the movie. And when Captain Jack calls us, "Elizabeth, darling" I melt into a puddle of goo.

Perhaps the first name that comes to mind when you say Elizabeth is Elizabeth Taylor. Known for mysterious violet colored eyes, she was rich (the first actress to earn a $1,000,000 salary for her work in Cleopatra), seductive (married eight times to seven different men and might be called Elizabeth Rosemund Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton {Burton} Warner Fortensky), doted upon (Taylor Burton Diamond, need I say more?) and considered the most beautiful woman in the world in her day. She could drink any man under the table. Yet, as powerful as she was, it seemed that fame gave her fans certain personal liberties over which she had no control, like deciding what she should be called. I read somewhere that she wanted this on her tombstone (Googled like crazy but couldn't find the exact quote):

Here lies Elizabeth Taylor. She hated to be called 'Liz.'

And I quite agree with her.

The name Elizabeth was chosen for me by my mother late in her pregnancy while she was up one night with the discomforts of growing a baby. She says it just came to her that if I were a girl (I was born in the pre-ultrasound days) that should be my name. And she insisted that I always be called Elizabeth; there were no nicknames allowed. As a teenager, my sort of rebellion was to have my friends start calling me Liz. It didn't last too long. I discovered that Liz wasn't me.

So, what do I like to be called? Elizabeth, of course. But that's quite a mouthful, or so I've been told. Most of my family drops the 'E' and just calls me 'Lizabeth. I don't go much for Beth or Liz. Eliza isn't a favorite either. So, if Elizabeth is too much and it must be shortened, I like Elle (you could spell it El, but that conjures visions of masked marauders with Spanish accents), and sometimes I sign my letters E. I have an aunt who calls me Libby and I think that is just fun. I also like Lizzie. Yes. I like Lizzie. You might be wondering what the difference is between Liz and Lizzie. Three letters and a whole lot of flirt. Liz is angular and severe. Lizzie just sounds like more fun.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Anne Shirley points out that a rose called a skunk cabbage just might not. This is my adorable family. They all have lovely names, but in order to keep their privacy I've devised nicknames for them while talking about them in the virtual world. DS, DD and DH are quick and easy, but I wanted something that fit each of them. In the virtual world, I go by LizzieBug. Sort-of. I blew my secret identity a long time ago because I really like my given name, Elizabeth. The Bug part of the name is the fact that I had a 1968 VW Bug when I was in college. My dad painted it for me. It was Candy Apple Red with an Oxblood back end and a zigzag on the sides where the color changed from one to the other. I loved it. LIZYBUG would have been on the personalized license plate (Lizzie is too long to fit) if I had been clever enough to think of it at the time. Branching out from there, I call our son, who is 10, Grasshopper but apparently I should have consulted with him first because he says he would rather be called Mantis. And our daughter, who turns 8 in just a couple of weeks, is LadyBug. That one isn't such a stretch because I've called her LadyBug since she was little. She had some cozy jammies with a ladybug on the tummy and I loved her in them. When she was five we had a ladybug themed birthday party. And my husband is Mr. Bug. He's fine with his pseudonym, as long as I don't call him Cockroach. And there you have it -- a family of Volkswagen loving, Pirate ruling, virtual garden critters.

High School Musical Quilt

We're All in This Together
-High School Musical

We're all in this together / Once we know / That we are / We're all stars / And we see that / We're all in this together / And it shows / When we stand / Hand in hand / Make our dreams come true

We're all in this together / When we reach / We can fly / Know inside / We can make it / We're all in this together / Once we see / There's a chance / That we have / And we take it

This summer LadyBug asked me to make her a High School Musical quilt. At the time I was elbow-deep in New Moon Charity Quilt preparations, so I gave her some grid paper and told her to draw out what she wanted her quilt to look like. Here's what she came up with (click on any of the pictures for a closer look).

She told me that she wanted the outside edges to have a pattern in them and that she wanted a wildcat in the middle with the characters in the squares around that. I had her list out the characters that she wanted and then we went fabric shopping. She helped my pick out fabrics. We'd been doing sewing lessons together over the summer and so as part of one of her lessons she helped me a bit with the rotary cutting.

I used Cat's UNI Panther pattern for the school mascot, a Wildcat, reversing it, enlarging it to 200% it and adding a few more spikes to the fur.

We choose pictures of the cast and printed them out on washable fabric sheets.

I made appliqué letters to spell out the name of the High School the characters attend.

Then I put the quilt away for a while. In the week between Christmas and New Year's, I pulled it back out and finished it. The finished size is 62" x 62". I absolutely love how the checkerboard border came out.

After the top was finished, I sent it to Angie to be quilted. She really worked with me to get the quilting that I wanted in it, adding in some really special details. She did a fabulous job.

Confetti quilted in around the Wildcat.

Close-ups of some of the amazing details. A couple of 'catch phrases' from the movies quilted in. They are above and below the Wildcat:

The names of each character quilted in under their picture.

A basketball and a musical score quilted on either end of the word 'School.'

These music notes are quilted in around the pictures of the characters.

Basketballs, hoops and loops quilted throughout the five borders.

And this is the best photograph yet -- the quilt in use. Isn't LadyBug adorable? She picked the red checkered fabric for the pillowcase herself, saying that it would 'coordinate' with the checkerboard in the quilt. Quilter in training? Judge for yourself. She's already picking up the lingo.

Rings

Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her hand she bore.
-Thomas Moore

The girls at our house both got special gifts this week. LadyBug is turning 8 in just a few weeks. And 8 is a pretty special birthday. There's a little custom that girls get pretty white dresses when they turn 8 to wear after they are baptized. But LadyBug just isn't a frilly dress kinda girl. While we were discussing her baptism dress, I stopped to ask her if she would actually wear a fluffy white dress more than just on her baptism day and the following Sunday. She said she wouldn't no matter what we did -- bought a new dress, made a dress, or if she wore the dress I wore when I was I eight. My mom made it for me and I was actually baptized in this dress. I remember it floated up on the water when I walked into the font. That's probably why girls wear jumpsuits now. I explained to LadyBug that it was a lot of money to buy a dress to wear it twice and if she wanted to wear my dress I would take her shopping for a birthstone ring. I think that made everyone happy -- LadyBug only has to wear a frilly white dress twice, I get that neat feeling of having her wear the same dress I wore, and she gets a ring that will last a bit longer than a dress.

Shopping for jewelry was a fun sort of mother-daughter thing to do. We started at a little shop here in town that was having a half-off sale for one day only. Their selection was pretty small. They didn't have any children's rings at all and only a few birthstone rings. We stopped at home for a little bit and then headed out to the mall, a short trip across town. In the first shop there we found a lovely set that included a ring and matching necklace. We put a bookmark in that and headed across the way to a second shop. They had a few cute children's rings, but nothing that was spectacular. The third shop was a bust, so we went back to the first shop and bought the little set, which was on sale (I LOVE that). The ring and the necklace together were less than other individual rings we'd looked at. We had to have the ring sized and we just picked it up tonight.

I pause here to say that I have a 'thing' for LadyBug's hands. When she was a baby I marveled over how small they were. I loved to hold her little hands. I still love to hold her little hands. They are always very warm and mine are always very cold, so they feel good to me. And they still seem very small to me, but looking at her hand in the picture, I can't believe how big she has gotten. Eight already!

And now for a bit about my special gift. I got a ring as well. While LadyBug and I were home between jewelry shopping trips, Mr. Bug hesitantly asked me how he might go about getting me a ring for Valentine's Day. I say he asked hesitantly because he didn't want to spoil the surprise but he knew that I'd probably be the happiest getting to choose something new. He knew that for the last few years I'd been wanting some sort of re-styling of my wedding ring, which was one yellow gold band with three small diamonds on each side and a marquise cut diamond in the center. When he asked about getting me something new I was absolutely giddy at the thought that he would want to do something so completely romantic for me. And so we went shopping together and picked out a new setting for my old diamond. I went with a solitaire setting this time in white gold. I have pavé bands picked out in yellow gold (I love the two metals mixed together) to go on either side of the solitaire and that is something we will do in the future. We're doing the make-over in steps. I'm going to have the small diamonds pulled out of the old setting and put into the new bands. That way, the old will be mixed in with the new.

When the sales woman brought my diamond set in a new ring to me, it absolutely took my breath away. I breathed out a "wow" and I can't stop looking at it. Mr. Bug and I both agree that it is absolutely beautiful.

The girls at our house are definitely two of the most loved and spoiled girls on earth.