Today is April 5. Yesterday afternoon it began snowing. In APRIL. A lot. At 6 a.m., we checked and school was cancelled…a snow day (so much for spring…the Easter Bunny will need a sled….)! So I rolled over (had taken the laptop upstairs anticipating this) and went back to sleep. By 9 a.m., breakfast was over, so I trotted upstairs grabbed my 24 inch quilting ruler and camera, and took one step and a long reach outside the garage, and took this photo.

Yes, that is THIRTEEN INCHES OF SNOW in less than 24 hours. Now why didn’t that happen back in December when we wanted snow? We had maybe five inches prior to Feb. 14…since then about every two weeks, it is a big snow. This was the single largest snowfall since we moved here in July 2004.

Needless to say, we caved in and called the plow guy to come dig us out! Here’s Eli, 4’6″ tall, in front of the plow ridge at the end of the driveway!

It is absolutely gorgeous out,

so of course I had to enjoy the day and quilt (and make bean and noodle and meatball soup from scratch, and choc chip cookies, and cornbread….I need to work out!). In the interest of keeping my loyal readers reading, here is some actual quilt related content:

This is what I’ve been working on…lotsa stuff. Alas, I can’t share too much detail as it is for publication in three different places…woohoo! Now, if all the deadlines (two real, one self-imposed) weren’t May and June (the latter) I’d be fine! Actually, I’m doing fairly well….have two articles drafted and revised and almost done, one project drafted and made, and another project ready to start. Phew! And I may play some serious hooky from what I’m supposed to be doing and make a quilt to enter in Houston…I want to SO much, and it is just screaming to get out of my head. Anyway, hope you like what’s on the wall!

Last night, I looked out the window at 6 pm, and this is what I saw:

May I remind everyone that it is APRIL, and even here in Maine (where we didn’t have snow until late January) it is STILL April!

This is what we saw this morning:

Of course, it was beautiful:

I think there are more quilts in the “Sense of Place” series….

And guess what is predicted by the National Weather Service for every day for the rest of the week: Sleet / Snow. And tomorrow, there is a Winter Storm Watch!!!!!!! We may actually have a snow day or delayed start on Thursday.

SHEEEEEESSSSSHHHHH!!!!!!!!

On a happier note, here is Widgeon trying to convince Yeti to play. Yeti decided to sleep.

Today’s post is a bit of a miscellany!

First and foremost, the wrestling season wrapped up for the year on Saturday, with the Pine Tree Wrestling League state-wide meet. Joshua made it to the quarter finals before he lost…WOW!

Here’s Joshua about to get his hand raised for the win for the last time this year:

Hubby and I are trying to convince Joshua to attend a wrestling camp away from home this summer; he absolutely loves wrestling more than anything (even skateboarding he told me, though I expect not more than guitar!). But, he is not wild about going to unknown places where he doesn’t know anyone, either. We’ll work on him! We are incredibly proud of him–even though Maine is a small state, it has some awesome wrestlers, and Joshua is in one of the most competitive weight brackets. It is FANTASTIC that he has done so well (and yep, I’m crowing!).

When the wrestling season began, I dug out my knitting (and ordered some new patterns from Just One More Row). Due to me being lazy and not doing a gauge swatch, I ended up knitting this hat about three times, but that’s OK! It kept me busy. I used a chunky chenille style yarn, and finished yersterday. I’m probably an intermediate pushing toward advanced knitter, and I learned new things and stitches from this pattern and another, so I’m quite happy with them. Asked hubby what he thought: “I’m glad you like it,” he said. Oh well. And I DO like it! The front view, taking picture of self:

and the side view (please ignore my profile…ugh!)

And finally, gratuitously cute pug puppy pics:

In the continuing book spree, I thought I would share these books by Graham Leslie McCallum, which may become as indispensable as my favorite Flinders Petrie book. W.M. Flinders Petrie, nearly a century ago, compiled 3000+ images and designs from the ancient world. Reproduced at low price by Dover, this book is my favorite source for design inspiration, from ancient Sumeria and Babylon to the medeival period, it is a treasure trove of design . Truly, what is old is new again. Check it out at amazon, here.

Not too long ago, someone told me about one of McCallum’s books. A quick surf on Amazon (my on-line “books in print”!), revealed not one but THREE of these gems:

Pattern Motifs
4000 Animal, Bird and Fish Motifs
4000 Flower and Plant Motifs

The books are softcover, and easily 1.5 inches thick, about 9 inches square-ish. Arranged in roughly chronological order, you can pick designs from the ancient world through Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Here are the three books opened up to sample pages:

Although the designs are listed on the back cover as copyright free, the inside does stipulate they are for personal use. At a mere US$12.21 each, in the US you can get free shipping (via the slow service and mailing option anyway) if you order all three. So of course I had to do just that! At the end of each book is an index so, for example, you can look up “rose” and have it send you to the appropriate page in whichever time-period.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.
– Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881

Don’t ever become a pessimist … A pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun – and neither can stop the march of events.
– Robert A. Heinlein, 1907 – 1988

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.
– Hubert H. Humphrey, 1911 – 1978

Those three quotations came from six quotes in an e-mailing I received recently with the theme of “march.” (I get it most days — if you’d like to sign up for it, visit Quotes of the Day here).

The first and last ones quoted above, particularly, remind me of two songs by Eric Bogle, an Australian folk singer whom I think of as being part of the “Celtic diaspora”…those folkies whose sound reminds me of Celtic music. The first song is Singing the Spirit home, written during the apartheid years in South Africa, about a black man being led from his cell to the gallows. This link takes you to an Amazon page which is for a 5-CD compilation of his best songs including the title song (same album title as my original tape, but a different batch of songs). The chorus goes:

“Courage, Brother, you do not walk alone. We shall walk with you and sing your spirit home.”

This line reminds me of a phenomenally powerful novel called “Remember Ruben” by Mongo Beti, about life in apartheid South Africa. The quality of the writing in Remember Ruben is good but not great, but the imagery is unforgettable. Apparently in the Zulu tradition, when someone dies, the spirits of the ancestors come from beyond the hills, an army of ancestors walking over the hill to welcome you to the beyond. I have this picture in my head and know that some day I will have to make it into a quilt. Thanks to Prof. Donald Herdeck and his classes at Georgetown (back in 1978-79) for putting that book on the reading list! And I just googled, and Herdeck’s 3CP, Three Continents Press, and found this article about the company and this article about his death in 2005. Herdeck published Naguib Mahfouz’s works into English and published them long before Mahfouz won the Nobel for literature, among other things.

The other song is a wonderful march and protest song: Twenty Years Ago, on the album Singing the Spirit Home (and comes right after the title track on side one–I’m lucky this one is on tape, my older Bogle recordings are vinyl!!!!). Here are some of the lyrics (which are, of course, copyright Eric Bogle):

Twenty years ago in a country far away
I marched for the same cause I’m marchin’ today
For a world without shadows and a future without fear
Twenty years ago and a long way from here

Chorus:
I shall not fail I shall not stumble
I shall never give up the struggle
Till morning comes and the shadows pass
And we all walk in the light at last

I’m sorely tempted to quote the entire song, but that would probably be pushing it, so visit his website (click on his name above) and you can read the lyrics by going to that part of his website.

The most amazing thing happened after I wrote the above. I e-mailed Bogle via his website, asking if this song was available on CD, as my cassette tape is old and I’d like it on CD, but couldn’t find it anywhere despite a lengthy Google search. I expected an answer (if at all) maybe from someone who works for him, a publicist or something. Well he wrote back personally! And the CD is “long out of print” so he asked me to send him my snail mail address and said he’d burn me a copy of the CD! ISN’T THAT COOL?!!!! Can’t wait! This may be just the excuse I needed to save up for an iPod so I can burn the songs to my own iPod! Hmmm…wonder if he’ll autograph the disc? Or realizes I’m in America and not Oz……..