~ America the Beautiful ~

On this Eleventh of September

I offer this picture of patriotism.

I was blessed enough to take a trip to Boston over Labor Day weekend.
My son, his wife and I walked miles (and miles) of history laden streets and I loved it all.

I snapped this photo of a charming cobblestone street with my iPhone, and it wasn't until I was home and browsing through all my pictures on a larger screen, that I saw the flag.

After a full weekend of American history ... it touched my heart.

I hope ... on this day ... that all American hearts are touched.

Congratulations to Cathy who is the winner of a BOO on the Beach pattern.
  

~ Sister Act ~

I cannot tell a lie ... I have been gone.
For ten (count 'em 10) days.
I left the beach and travelled to the woods.

I spent a week in Sisters, Oregon.
Think of it as a little bit of heaven.

My purpose in going there was to hang out with a bunch of fabulous friends and to attend a weeklong class taught by Gloria Loughman.  She is a purely delightful Aussie who has talent up the wazoo.
Her work can be seen on her wall o'samples above.
And here.

I worked hard every day and then laughed myself silly every night.

I tried to encorporate some of her techniques ... like "tiling" my sky and ... inserting a picture within a picture.

Here is a sampling of some of the "skies" from around the classroom.  I was in awe of all the artistic flair  and pretty much considered myself the new kid in class.

While the week was spent in class it was sandwiched in between two weekends with these splendid ... Sisters.

Once again I cannot lie ... the bread was my favorite part of the trip. 

~ What I did on my Summer Vacation ~

My arrival in the Big Apple.
I was here to visit my one and only son, Sonny Boy, and his wife Mrs. Boy.
It was my third trip here.
If you have been here you know that every new trip here ... is new.

On our first morning, SB and I took a stroll around Brooklyn, which is absolutely oozing with charm.
You can see that charm spilling over this window box.

On the ferry on our way to see the Big Statue.

One World Trade. On the rise.

Sailboats.  Sigh.

Seeing her from the boat.

And through the trees ... and the chain link fence.

The next day Mrs. Boy and I went down to the memorial at Ground Zero.
It was stunning and heartbreaking all at once.

I did my best to capture the sparkle of these falls.  Amazing.

SB (an architect) explained that the outer perimeter of the fountain is the footprint of the building. The inner opening is a footprint of the core of the building, the elevator tower.
You might already know that.

The next day was a 'trip withing a trip' to see the landscape of Connecticut and a visit to Yale.
I'm pretty certain I felt smarter there.

They don't call it the Ivy League for nothing.

The architecture was stunning.

The foliage, amazing.

The water droplets on the lily pads ... freakishly large.

Thanks you SB for being my bestest boy.
Thanks Mrs. Boy for taking a precious day off to hang with your MIL. Who does that??

And thank you NYC for being so Grand.

~ The Eastern Sea ~

I've been gone.  On vacation.
Although, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I was not sitting around ... vacating.
I was walking miles of pavement and absorbing years of history and laughing heartily.
I was with my son and his wife.
They live in Brooklyn, NY.

There are weeks worth of pictures from our forays into the Big City.  Today I am just concentrating on the day we drove up to Connecticut, visited Yale and ended up on this little stretch of beach on The Sound.
I'm a little bruised from pinching myself.  Yes ... this bucolic beauty is very real indeed.

 For starters there was this very charming lighthouse.
I love my SoCal beaches ... but I am not seeing lighthouses on my walks there.

The water was very warm and lovely.  The sand was darker than I am used to.

The sun as you can see ... is setting over the water.
This is because we were situated east of the Long Island Sound.
I foolishly asked, "Why is the sun setting in the West?" as a way to express how odd that was.
My son is still laughing.
At me.  Not with me.

The sunset was incredible.

As were the lobster rolls.

We were so busy doing stuff for three days that I never bought any souveniers.
Not even a foam Statue of Liberty headband.

Before we left the beach, I picked up these beauties to add to my collection of shells.
These, combined with umpteen wonderful memories are fine souveniers indeed.

What's your vote: East Coast Beach or West Coast Beach??  

~ Color Day: Red, White, Blue ~

Truth be told ... I really don't have any red in my home, other than at Christmas.  But I revel in red whenever I see it ... and I love to see it in the summer!

This picture above was taken last weekend at Balboa Island in Newport Beach. Just a fun little beach house along my walk that wanted to stand up and salute.
There are also umpteen fun little shops on Balboa and I saluted almost every single one.

This piece of patriotic happiness is from a trip to San Franciso two summers ago.
Taken on Pier 39 (duh) ... on a clear and sunny day.

This is actually wallpaper from a friend's beach house.
I hung out in that bathroom probably longer than I should have ... just to inhale it's beauty.

OK ... so this letter "S" is in my studio.
It stands for ... Studio.
Or Sewing. Or Sea
Or Sand or Sun.

This small quilt ... I want to say I made it around 2007 ... is from a Jo Morton pattern.
With my own embellishments.
It's almost impossible for me to follow someone else's pattern exactly, which I find highly annoying.

This boat with it's own red, white and blue flag is from my Permanent Wave quilt.
You can find that pattern here.

These fireworks are from 2008 in Tempe AZ.

I suspect that at the moment I took this picture the temperature was still topping 100 degrees.

That made no difference, whatsoever.

Because I love fireworks.

Happy Birthday America.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

~ A Wallpaper Weekend ~

My Memorial Day Weekend involved two plane flights and a lot of food that was NOT good for me.
It also involved a DIY project at my daughter's new home.
And as a result ... it involved Amy Butler.

All of the walls in this room were painted a peachy beige, so the first thing we did was paint the other three walls white.  You know I love white.

Then we applied this to-die-for paper by Amy, called Lacework - Moss.

Oddly enough, it was the kind of paper where you actually put paste on the wall first making it significantly more difficult.

But still worth it.

Please understand that my role in this whole thing was to hand Ms. G things as she needed them.  I did play a slightly more significant role in the painting process.

Apparently, I am really good at handing people things.

This room (once the bed frame has an actual ... bed ... attached to it) will be the guest room ... which I like to call "my room".

I daresay that there will be many more of those same flights (or drives) in the future.

Do you blame me?