The Circus has come to town: a journal quilt

click to enlarge

         Every year, good friend and active Shriner Neal buys tickets to the circus and gifts us for the grandchildren. It is our duty to ride the elephants and horses, buy lots of cotton candy of which all the money goes to the Shriners' burn centers, and engage with other goodies, treats and rides for a super concern. This year I made a movie but forgot the journal quilt.

        I am far enough behind on journal quilts, I thought I would use the very first block which I made to teach myself patchwork quilting. Of course it would have helped to have read the instructions: I did not leave enough margin on the edges to sew to another. Sooo SEW! I thought I would use the elephant block to stand in for the circus journal, because I could not use it otherwise (no margins). Serendiptously, I see that the movie Water for Elephants is showing down the street. The reviews haven't been tops, but I liked what Ebert said. I read and enjoyed the book.  Of course, I am still disturbed by some elephant training videos I observed recently.

Homemade craft kit as a gift

    Trilla had a big birthday this year and her daughter flew her home to hear Joan Baez (who at one point lived where I live now). Of course I could not compete with such cleverness, but knowing Trilla is a book lover, I took Abby's advice from her  June 28, Weave a Rainbow blog to make a gift kit from a pleasurable craft. I had loved making Neal's bookmark and happily found a design attributed to Virginia Woolf or Vanessa Bell (see the beautiful Bloomsbury Needlepoint: From the Tapestries at Charleston Farmhouse by Melinda Coss), I mailed Trilla a Comic Life birthday card with the idea, the canvas, needle and threads to sew. What I enjoyed about the Bloomsbury pieces, was that the people didn't fanatically stitch everything perfectly exactly balanced, but perhaps made up the designs as they went. Coss thought this might be a design for a pen holder or an eyeglass case. But I am into bookmarks and Trilla is a supreme reader, writer and clever friend. Comic Life is an inexpensive software I use all the time. (click on links to read more and photo to enlarge)