for having fun at the conception end of things….. We did our annual parental pennance this past Sunday, which just happened to be Eli’s actual 8th birthday! Sunday, you say? Aren’t most kids parties on Saturday? Yes, my friends, they are. But Eli had karate in the morning, overlapping Joshua’s wrestling meet which ran until between 2 and 3, and we couldn’t face the idea of then coming home to a house full of boy-kids full of sugar from 3-5. So, it was a party on Sunday!

Here’s Eli, first thing Sunday morning, tearing into the most recent upsurge in Lego stock values thanks to his generous Aunt Joyce and Uncle TJ and his parents. This was supplemented later in the day by his friends. There is no such thing, it appears, as too many legos, particularly of the Bionicle / Exoforce variety (personally, Mom prefers the Harry Potter sets, especially the original Hagrid’s hut…. but I digress).

We scheduled the party to begin at 1:30 to permit his best friends, twins Ben and Kyle (who also happen to be very LOUD) to attend after a church / first communion class. Still….have you ever heard of a kid turning down pizza? Neither have we. And if you feed then, they tear around and shout a bit (but not a lot) less. Then, Paul and Joshua–bless them!–took the six 2nd graders outside for a good game of catch, before cake and presents.

Eli is currently learning about Africa and African animals, so he did the drawing of a giraffe and African trees at Sunset, which I scanned into the computer and turned into the birthday party invitations. He then asked for a cake with African animals–giraffes or elephant–at sunset. Presto…this is the part of kids’ parties that are FUN….getting creative with the cake! I love playing with food coloring! After the party, all four of us…even the boys….retreated blissfully to separate, quiet rooms until dinner.

Eli is a joy and a wonder. And it’s a lot more fun to celebrate his birthday than go through labor again LOL!

Terry Grant, of And Sew It Goes, asked how others have dealt with small works. After I typed my reply, I though it might make a good post here and then I could illustrate it, too! I have:

Hung them on a small dowel or slat, like I did with my Straight and Narrow piece (10 inches wide by 50 something long), Brooks and Branches (sold):

stretched cloth over stretcher bars, then stitched the quilt to the cloth

Painted a “gallery wrap” canvas (the ones with the staples on the back, not the sides) to continue the colors / theme of the quiltlet, then stitched the quilt to the canvas ..here are several: Moonlight (sold), Hot August Night–Plum, Man, and Red Summer Roses,

Purchased 1/4″ thick plexiglass cut to size, *very carefully* drilled small holes for hanging and stitching on, and stitched the piece to float on top of the plexi. This photo is of the quilt only….the picture of it on plexi is awful. The plexiglas extends about 3 inches on all sides. The mint color you see is a Photoshop background color so it blends onto my web page.

Fused fabric to timtex that works with the piece for Red Sea Nautilus (sold) and stitched the piece to that.

Mounted pieces to black foam core (stitched) and framed them in inexpensive silver frames (did that with the At Anchor postcards).

It depends on the pieces….If I were to wrap stretcher bars again, I’d probably choose a heavy weight fabric as you did, or do muslin, then batting, then cloth…I don’t like the way the black cotton wraps over the bars…looks lumpy.

I really like the plexi, but it words better with a contemporary or abstract style, which I don’t do too often.

For the gallery wrap canvases, I (sigh) prefer the look of the 2″-ish deep canvases, not the regular depth, and cost twice as much as the “regular” ones.

So what do the rest of you do?

Some time back, I posted my most recent wall piece, Earth and Turquoise. It is based on a poem by N. Scott Momaday. Today, Jen told me that she had found her tape and transcribed the poem on her blog! Click here to go read it on Jen’s blog. Oh my goodness…..what words, what imagery! And I’m thrilled that I made corn stalks on it, and then in the poem—unbeknownst to me at the time—he talks about planting corn! So would it be too corny (pun NOT intended) beyond words for me to try to contact Mr. Momaday and share a picture of my quilt with him?????

To see the original posts on Earth and Turquoise, click on the link in the side bar (on the right of the screen) for the January Archives and scroll to January 25 and 29. Just to remind you, though I added the picture at the top. In deference to not being arrested, I removed the stripey feather, which a friend found in the woods and is apparently a hawk feather, and therefore not legal to possess. Sigh.

Sometimes I look at Joshua, now 12, and wonder how the heck he got so big so fast! He’s the one in red standing in the doorway wearing ear protection. Last Saturday was about his 5th wrestling meet—he began wrestling in early to mid-February, and he totally loves it. Must be in the blood, as his dad was a Varsity team wrestler back in the day (waaayyyyy back, like in the early 60s).

This weekend, he won two matches (both exhibition alas, and not “team” points matches) with pins! That’s one more pin than he’s managed in any meet, and he almost got a third pin until he made a dumb error and got pinned instead. My new camera is GREAT…has a 12x optical zoom, so got this shot from the stands! I still need to figure out how to get automatic sport shots though…several of my pics were blurred because of fast action!

Some of you may recall I recently asked for help in buying a new digital camera. Well, I’ve done it and I’m thrilled to say I love my Panasonic DMC-FZ30. It is as close to a digital SLR (dSLR) as you can get without being one, and at about half the cost (or less!). In doing the research for which camera to buy, I found several websites that were invaluable. Thinking they might help some of you, here you go:

Steve’s Digicams reviews digital cameras, with useful side-by-side comparisons and lots of techical details (including explanations of what the heck a histogram is, and other new and arcane terminology. He keeps a current list of the “best” digicams here.

Megapixel.net also has fantastic information, reviews, price comparison guides, and more. The articles section explains what to look for in digital cameras, general interest, “peripherals” (the extra doo-dads) and photography tips.

The New York Times also has a good Technology Review section, with many articles by David Pogue. Look in the Product Reviews section for a number of high tech gizmos, including cameras.

The good news is that I finished our taxes today (YEAH!), and (ahem….) got the “Christmas 2005” newsletter envelopes addressed, stamped, stuffed and mailed! Maybe that means I can finally blog about the fun stuff from the past weekend: Joshua’s wrestling meet, Eli’s 8th birthday, the beading class for the Spiny Beaded Bracelet at The Beadin’ Path in Freeport (also the home of LL Bean), and even (gasp!) get some SEWING and QUILTING done!

And eventually I’ll do some test shots comparing the old 3.2 MP Kodak “point and shoot” and my new whiz-bang-I-love-it 8 MP Panasonic and upload them. Oh yeah…and when Changing Perspectives opens on-line (a new show curated by Michelle Verbeeck in conjunction with Annie Copeland’s Fiber Arts Connection of Southern California) in about 2 weeks, I’ll upload pics and info on my latest piece, Looking Inward.