Hi all….been very busy here, hence the quiet on the blog. Downloaded photos today…65! And that’s just in the past few days….herewith:

Easter eggs. Asked Paul to buy eggs to color for Easter—Eli asked special. So Paul returns….with brown eggs. How am I supposed to color brown eggs, I said, at nearly 5 pm Saturday? So, we made them after the fact…..when *I* went to the store and bought white eggs.

Here’s Eli in progress (and a can of peaches in progress, too….does anyone else besides me, and now my kids, love them? My dad fed them to me when I was a kid, and it turns out my father in law loved ’em too….as did his dad (who was the same age as my dad…my dad was OLD), so we wondered if it was something with folks who grew up circa 1900-1920?).

Here’s the finished display:

Then, Joshua had been pestering me to dye his hair red. Well….I convinced him to do a wash-in, wash-out color instead. Then, of course, Eli wanted scarlet hair, too. Actually, if they had had turquoise, I would’ve joined them….. where DOES one get a selection of more than two colors (red or blue) for this sort of thing? Anyway, hereis Joshua, with the “mom you are not going to take a picture” look, sporting the team color for the Camden-Rockport Middle School:

Then, there is the daily wrestling match in our kitchen (which all too often migrates to the living room and back) and all too often also includes dad, giving pointers…sigh….. it’s that Defective Chromosome with the Missing Leg (aka the Y chromosome, versus the intact X…..):

And last but not least, Joshua with his trophy for being on the CRMS wrestling team this year at the banquet last night:

Next: fiber and / or fur content….perhaps fur……

Just wanted to add a new button to my blog, and let you know what it’s all about if you didn’t already know. Last year, Virginia Spiegel had a brainstorm that has taken on a life of its own: using fabric postcards to support cancer research. Karey Bresenhan, one of the founders and president of Quilts, Inc., and godmother to quilters everywhere who know of the annual Festival in Houston as “Mecca”, became the honorary chairperson and donated space at Festival to help Virginia’s efforts, and again at Spring Festival in Chicago. Virginia has raised over FIFTY THOUSAND (!!!!!!! yep, I’m shouting!) dollars through the generosity of the artists who donated the cards and the many, many purchasers.

Here’s the button:

If you click on the button in the side-bar area, to the right of this post, it will take you to Virginia’s site. There you can get a sneak peek at some of the postcards and, currently, of the items in the reverse auction, all to benefit cancer research (and we hope, cures!). Thanks to DebR for creating this button and sharing her computer expertise!

Or, what a difference a good camera and some sunshine make! Below you will see a comparison of photos taken with two cameras, and with the new one, indoors and outside on a sunny afternoon. I used a tripod in all cases. Hint–if you click on the pictures, they will open up larger. In Firefox, I can right-click and open in a new tab or a new window…that lets you compare large (and therefore detailed) shots side by side on your screen. Amazing differences!

1. a full shot (and then detail shots) of my log cabin quilt From Sea to Shining Sea taken with my old 3.2 MP Kodak point and shoot digital at maximum resolution. Photo taken in my sewing room with a combination of halogen, daylight, and “reveal” color-correct bulbs.

2. a full shot taken with my new Panasonic DMC FZ30, 8 MP (!!) at full resolution jpeg (haven’t started messing with TIFFs and RAW files yet, due to limitations with Photoshop Elements). Photo taken in my sewing room with a combination of halogen, daylight, and “reveal” color-correct bulbs.

3. a full shot (and then detail shots) taken with my new Panasonic DMC FZ30, 8 MP (!!) at full resolution jpeg. Photo take outside on a sunny afternoon (and even though there were no shadows from trees apparent when I stood there I can now see I ought to try this again tomorrow morning, perhaps less interference from the surrounding trees).

4. Detail shot taken indoors with the same lighting setup with the 3.2 MP Kodak at maximum resolution:

5. Detail shot taken indoors with the Panasonic 8 MP, same lighting, blah blah.

6. Detail shot taken outdoors with the Panasonic 8 MP in afternoon sunlight.

So what did I learn:

1. I need to work on my studio lighting, since given that I live in Maine and it is winter 6 months of the year, I can’t count on taking photos outdoors all year long. But when I can shoot outside, just do it– Mother Nature rocks!

2. My new camera is SO good that I need to remember the lint roller before taking photos …. I saw a thread that was less than 1/2 inch long and two cat hairs when I enlarged the detail photo! Yes, individual cat hairs! I think I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new camera!

OK. So the sub-title to this posting should be “How pathetic is my life.” Oh well….

Yes folks, today I am blogging about the lowly sink brush. A bit of background: last fall, I got fed up. I decided we didn’t need to live like paupers with ragged holes in the kitchen towels, tatty potholders shedding their innards and so on (hubby detests spending anything on the house). I decided that each month I would replace something small and shabby…nothing expensive, mind you, but still… (we are still on a tight family budget…retiring and then having kids, who keep eating and growing, is not the smartest thing financially, but it sure beats not having the kids!).

At about that time, I visited a Target for the first time. LOVE at first sight! Reasonable prices with style! (“For the first time” I hear someone muttering? “Where has she been, living under a rock?” No…just on a small island of 7000 off the coast of Washington State, where it is very expensive to take the car ferry to the mainland….and even then there were no nearby Target stores…that required a couple hours of driving….even now that we live in mid-Coast Maine (two hours north of Portland) the nearest one is about an hour and fifteen minutes away.

On my last visit to Target, in early March, I needed to buy a new sink brush. Among the boring white usual stuff, I saw the lovely “dot” brush in my favorite tropical citrus colors (well, the blue is tropical, the lime is citrus). Decision made! Then, a wonderful thing happened at home….

After nearly two months of use, it’s not smashed! In this second photo, you can see the business side of it, and it barely shows use compared to the (!!!!) extra brush head that comes with it! Even better, the bristles are kinda krinkly, not super-straight. For some reason, that means food and gunk rinses out of it relatively easily!

The negatives: I’d love it if it had a straight edge on the end for scraping pans, but we have one of those on the soap/sponge wand, so I can cope. And the handle is a little short: But I’ll live LOL!

As for Mr. Clean …. have you tried those magic sponges? WOW…they even got the rust stains from water drips off the kids fiberglass tub…took a bit of rubbing, but nothing abrasive needed that would scratch the tub. I bought an extra box and now have one in each bathroom (we have 3 in the house….one on each floor…good thinking by the guy who designed it!). Now, if I can just get anyone else to USE them!

Oh…and as for being fed up: tossed the old ratty potholders, have two nice new ones (from Target!), two new kitchen towels, two old ones were relegated to dog-drying towel duty and two others were so awful they went into the trash, and the yellow lemon thing under the sink brush: four new placemats on sale at a dollar each…score! Next, new bath towels without shreds on the edges……..

Hopefully soon I’ll get back to blogging regularly, reading my favorites on the blog ring, and actually include some quilting / fabric content that isn’t the same picture with a little progress of the Tableau quilt!

Hoooray! I got the background of the Tableau quilt finished today…well, most of it…think I’ll add some borders once I get the rest of it done. Here’s a picture of the background without any figures:

Then, here’s before I finished the sewing (both “piecing” and mostly invisible applique..I actually turned under the edges!), but placed figures on it. I like the placements here better than in the last photo. In addition to the Mary and baby, Joseph and the kings, there will be a manger to the right of Joseph, three or four shepherds on the left (see the faces pinned up) and an angel in the upper left. I plan on adding a comet in the upper right sky area (kinda pointing down toward Joseph’s head), a cow in the stable, a donkey coming in from the far right with the kinds, a sheep sleeping in the foreground somewhere, maybe a cat, a dog…another sheep?

This last photo is after I finished the background, and pinned up just the completed figures. Think I like the placements, above, better. I am thinking of adding a border on three sides, only…left, top and right, with a bias insert of the green plaid (winter uniform fabric), then the navy “batik” of the sky. I can quilt some larger words into this area……I also need to do something to punch up the contrast between Joseph’s garment and the stable…he may acquire a cloak….

I LOVE the mountains, but at the moment they seem kinda distracting. May need to tone down the white with a wash of green paint. Will wait until I have all the figures done, the halos added, and the comet in place and then decide…..let me know what you think!