Beach Art

My kids built this o the local beach.  School starts tomorrow, and I am sad to see the summer go. I am deeply ambiguous about how our local "good" schools are education my kids.  I'm not sure I have the chops to home school, and as I am the only one with a paying job at the moment, it is not really an option.

 I also have my own school issues.  Back when I was a child ( when dinosaurs roamed the earth) bullying was just a fact of life.  The fact that both my brother and I considered suicide to escape from the constant teasing, bullying, and physical abuse we suffered at the hands of our classmates- well that was just more evidence that it was our problem. If we hadn't been so weird, then we wouldn't be bullied, right?

Despite being very, very bright kids, my brother and I both barely graduated from high school ( his an expensive private school, mine a public alternative school. I actually made the stupid but deliberate choice to move away from the parent who loved me to the parent who did not, just because I was so afraid of the school .) We both had mediocre college careers, and while I fell into being a nurse, and am very happy with my job, I could have done a lot more with these brains.My brother, who was really a brilliant child, has worked for a bank most of his adult life, never married, never really recovered from his school years. I try to keep my own past out of it, but it's like trying to run away from my own shadow.

So, I will put on a happy face as I send them off- we went through the supplies, packed the backpacks, and so forth today.  They both got haircuts and picked out what they wanted to wear, and I will be happy and cheerful and reassuring until they get into their new classrooms, hopefully to have good school years with teachers who see the goodness and smartness in them.

And then, me and my shadow will walk home.

What I'm hand quilting

Funny, when I laid it out I thought it looked like a star. Now I don't see the start! I'm quilting this with heavy gold thread, like what is used to topstitch denim jeans. My usual giant stitches. Another experiment in using just a few colors. I had this laid out for a while, then had to pick it up and forgot about it, now I am back to it. The olive fabric is a shot cotton of lime green and purple that optically blend to an olive.

When life gives you clotheslines

Make a groovy pin holder. I cut a scrap as wide as a plastic hanger and hemmed the short ends. Then I folded it, inside out, and traced the shape of the hanger, and sewed the "shoulders" and side seams. Maybe the next one, I'll put fake sleeves on, and make as a little Hawiaan shirt. Next time I'd make the opeing a littlw closer to the top. I like it, but not eough to not get the dryer fixed.

This is the top I'm currently working on. I actually hate it, right now. To the left is Muggles, the dog that is not Magic. He looks like he'd be perfectly willing to bury it in the yard for me, i that would help. I assure you, it is even brighter in person. An experiment in using a few fabrics rather than a few hundred. I might like it more, latter, or not. Can't tell yet.

Have I posted this one? The house in the middle is where the quilter lives! I had to take the sleeve off and try again, because it is giving me trouble hanging right.

A Good Way to Hide the Power Strip

Although it looks like I ought to send Roomba on a mission.  This is just a cardboard git box, with a slot cut down one side.  The power strip and all the charger thingys go inside, and you don't have to look at them.  I guess you could also make a slot on the opposite side, if your wires needed to run off in the other direction, but mine is just for the laptop and kindle charger.  The laptops and kindles are stored on the end table, above this box in a wooden rack meant to hold cutting boards.  There are three laptops and one Kindle in the family and one cutting board rack it the four of them.  It doesn't seem to get hot inside the box.  If I'd know how much I would like this, I would have made an effort to find a box that coordinated more. I guess I can paint this one when it gets too nicked up.