Next Banner Sections

Here are the four sections of the banner on the right side, from top to bottom. Starting with Friends. Some of Perry’s friends are pictured here. At school, Perry and her friends have created their own holiday, “Cupcake Day”. This year she missed it to go to Boston with the Affirmation class, but although they are very hard to see in the photograph, there cupcake ribbon on her banner.




Interests. Perry loves entertainment. Some of her favorite music, books, movies and television shows are represented in this section of the banner along with her favorite places to shop and her favorite clothing designer, Betsy Johnson. Her life would not be complete without Starbucks, her cell phone and ice cream. The tv shows reflect her varied interests ranging from CSI and the Secret Life of an American Teenager to American Idol and Pimp my Ride.






Travel. Perry loves to travel. The patches represent some of the places that she has been including Florida, Arizona, New Orleans, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Boston.










Animals. This area includes animals that we have (two dogs, two cats), animals that have lived at our house (a rabbit), a pig (Perry collects pigs and was born in the Year of the Pig), and a lizard (the pet she wants but that I would not let her have). I found patches of a blond shar pei and a black lab to represent our two mixed breed dogs, but could not find a black and calico cat. Instead I settled for two cats that are shaped like ours.

Banner details

Here are more detailed pictures of the individual sections of the banner with descriptions. I am starting in the upper right and proceeding clockwise around the banner. The first three are in this post, the next four will be in tomorrow's post.

Family. This section includes pictures of Perry and different family members along with charms that spell out the word "love" and jewelry from different family members. The coral and gold pin is very old and came from my Great Grandmother, Grammy Baugh. the piece of Zuni inlay and the cat pin belonged to Perry's Grandmother Berman. The Celtic tree and the silver and citrine piece are mine. The ceramic mask was made by one of my father's friends.

Church. North Shore Unitarian Church is represented by the sanctuary windows, two pictures of Perry’s Affirmation Class (one at the beginning of the year and one in Boston), and a picture of Perry delivering the clothing she collected during her service project. The word "faith" spelled out in charms and some pieces of jewelry that belonged to her affirmation mentor finish out this section.

Sports. Perry is quite the athlete. She tried gymnastics and ice skating before discovering karate. She was a cheerleader for several years and has played soccer since she was 5. She also plays basketball. This year, she ran cross country for her middle school. The tiger is her middle school mascot.

March Take it Further Challenge

This month the Take it Further Design Challenge theme was about details. I cut my left thumb at the beginning of the month in the kitchen. Since I am left handed, holding a needle was out for most of the month. So I started thinking about machine patchwork. I have also been thinking about small pieces this month, particularly inchies. Since a 1 inch square has to be about details, I made a series of inchies using fabrics that match the month's color scheme. When I was done, I decided that a bookmark would be more useful than a pile of 1 inch patchwork squares. The end result is shown at right. I am also including some close up pictures of the inchies -- blogger would not cooperate with positioning all 5 so if you want to see them all, you need to take a look at the Flickr group for the Take it Further Challenge.




I mentioned in my last post that I have been listening to podcasts. One of my favorites right now is The Classic Tales podcast. B.J. Harrison reads classic stories and short works in this podcast. Right now he is reading Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness in installments. I have been sampling different knitting podcasts that I find on iTunes as well. Cast-on by Brenda Dayne is one of my favorites. Another is Faery Knitting by Spinning Erin. Please share your favorite podcasts with me.

More EQ6 Lessons and some reading

I finished the second lesson in the EQ6 User Manual, my second quilt is show above. I had fun playing with the randomize features and it is cool to watch the computer match the colors you use to real fabrics. I followed the instructions and added the entire wild west library to my sketchbook so the brown fabric with arrow head repeats came up often. It didn't do much for me and the arrowheads detracted from some of the more intricate designs. I will have to go back and play some more when I have time.

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I looked at the Take a Stitch Tuesday selection for this week -- Butterfly Chain -- and I am thinking barbed wire, multi-colored lines, and porcupines. I am going to think about the porcupine idea some more -- it could be interesting.

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There has not been a whole lot of reading going on recently -- more listening. I listened to The World is Flat while watching gas prices rise to $3.30 per gallon. Then for some escapism I listened to Whiskey Sour, a Jack Daniels Mystery, by Joe Konrath, and started Looks to Die For by Janice Kaplan. Whiskey Sour was a bit violent but entertaining and I liked Jack. Looks to Die For is annoying, one review suggested that the author should have stuck with romance novels. I have moved on to more intellectual listening and have started John Banville's The Sea, the language and images are beautiful but I am not sure listening is the best way to enjoy this book. I am reading one real book, Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts. The women of the revolutionary generation were quite independent and resourceful.