Going to Town, Part Three

Are you enjoying yourself at Lydgate Park? Uh oh...I'm getting a little sunburned (that usually only takes 15 minutes), so we better take one last dip and head home.

I love this road. It looks like Gilligan's Island, doesn't it? If The Professor could've made asphalt, Gilligan's little bamboo car with the grass roof would've been in the next lane over. I loved that show when I was little. I wanted to be MaryAnne. Remember her banana cream pies? I would've married The Professor if I was MaryAnne. I had a big crush on The Professor. Who would you have been? And who would you have married--The Professor, The Skipper, or Gilligan...or Mr. Howell if he wasn't already taken?


Funny, I did sort of marry a guy like The Professor and end up living on a tropical island. But my husband was the one who always wanted to live in Hawaii, not me. His mother once showed me an essay he wrote when he was eleven years old about wanting to be the king of his own tropical island. His adolescent vision, of course, included skantily clad slave girls fanning him with palm fronds and feeding him fruit by hand. (This was 1960 and I'm sure the teacher must've passed that essay around the teacher's lounge a few times!) And here we are! We have asphalt, but no slave girls. Personally, I think it was a good trade-off...unless slave girls do windows--then maybe I'll let them feed him fruit. I hate washing windows.

Looks like the kids are out playing at Kapahi Ballpark. Nice day for it.

Ooohh! Banana trees. This is where the Banana Lady lives. We better stop and see if she has any fruit for our dinner tonight.

I don't know this lady's name that lives down the road from me, but she's always got a garage full of fruit and flowers for sale. I call her the Banana Lady because she mostly has bananas of all different varieties! Finger bananas, Puerto Rican, red, apple bananas (which taste just like green apples); there are a lots of different kinds of bananas! I tried to get her picture, but she's pretty shy. You weigh your own fruit and leave money if she's not around. She's a real sweetheart.

Unfortunately, it looks like we got here too late. Not much fruit left, just flowers. Too bad we didn't have time to stop at the ULTIMATE fruit stand, Banana Joe's Fruit Stand in Kilauea. My quilter friend Cynthia and her husband, Banana Joe, are the owners. Cynthia and Joe also happen to be the parents of lovely Angela, who is my son's girlfriend. (Did you catch all those links and still make your way back?? Wow...your Mai Tai's must be wearing off...)

Ah well, we'll see if we have anything for dinner in our own garden.

My husband's garden, with no slave girls. He grows a lot of things, but it's a constant battle with the fruit flies. Yes, they like vegetables, too. We must grow tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers--anything succulent--in that screen house because the fruit flies are just terrible around here. Tropical fruits are more fruit -fly resistant, so they are easier to grow than Mainland-type fruits and vegetables.

This little pineapple is not quite ready yet:

And the mangoes are just little blooms right now, but here is a picture of one of our gorgeous mangoes last September. I think the colors are just beautiful, don't you?

Now that we're home, I remembered something I wanted to show you. It IS UFO Friday, after all. I put last Friday's UFO in the "save" bin because I decided what I wanted to do with it (more details later). Here's this Friday's UFO, which is an easier decision than last week's UFO:

The Einstein Coat by Sally Mellville. I can't believe I ever wanted to knit this coat. It must've been before the hot flashes arrived. I didn't get very far with this Lion Homespun, mainly because the feel of the knitted fabric creeps me out. It feels like I'm wearing a poodle skin. And look at the picture of this coat! Not only is it unflattering, it's a hundred years worth of boring garter stitch! No wonder it's been a UFO for a year. An unflattering poodle coat--GONE. I frogged it. I actually took a picture of the yarn pile, but I didn't want you to have to wait for a picture of a pile of yarn to download, so I frogged the picture, too. I'm on a roll! Gone, baby, gone! Whoo hooo!

This has been a fun day! Thanks for coming along. I have a class to prepare, so I won't be posting tomorrow. The next post from me will be the Saturday evening "Hawaiian Rainbow Basket Giveaway" results post, which will probably appear in your time zone on Sunday morning. Good luck to you!

UFO Friday, February 29th

Here it is! I'm still feverish, but I felt good enough to finish last Friday's UFO. Here are my little Lemoyne stars made into a doll quilt. Only a couple of nine patches and a diagonal setting, et voila! Thank you all for suggesting a doll quilt--I had forgotten all about that excuse not to have to make a hanging sleeve. I was dreading making another wall quilt because I am sick of making hanging sleeves. So a doll quilt was the perfect cop-out...uh...I mean answer. The black and white stripe is the binding--but after I set the quilt on this black background, I see I could've added a black border, too--perhaps a little bit wider than my picture. Ah well, too late. It's done.


Here is a close up of the quilting. Again, flu sapped my motivation. I did something easy that I didn't have to plan too much:

Swirly things. Easy. I like my backing:Fevers make me a little crazy. I know the back has nothing to do with the front, but I was feeling feisty. And I like surprises. The quilting looks neat on the back:

One UFO down! What UFO shall I show you next? Oh yeah, another easy one. All that needs to be done on this one is a binding:

Piece O'Cake fabrics in a Piece O' Cake pattern design. I'm not sure if the pattern is still available.

This poor little quilt has been un-bound for over a year. I'm not sure why I stopped right before the binding. Unfortunately, it's not really doll quilt shape, nor is it tablerunner shape. I thought about making it into a bag, but then again, I think about making everything into a bag. Perhaps I stopped on this quilt because it was shaping up to be yet another wall quilt...and that meant yet another hanging sleeve!

UFO Fridays are educational. I didn't know that I hated making hanging sleeves so much. Perhaps I should re-evaluate my construction method, which I'll admit, is pretty perfectionist. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about patchwork points not meeting perfectly, or sloppy machine quilting, but I guess I'm pretty fuss-budgety about sleeves. They must be straight and perfect and hand-sewn so that the quilt doesn't even know it has a hanging sleeve! I've seen sleeves that distort the quilt so badly! The poor quilt is all curled up around its rod in frightened fetal position, being choked to death by a too-tight rod....gag!! Ack!!

Yeah. Time to let that go. I'll call my quilt psychiatrist and set up and appointment.

I'm also not crazy about the quilting I did on this quilt. I took the time to hand-applique the whole thing, I don't know why I machine quilted it. I like my vines in the green squares, but I don't know why I did that plain ol' meandering thing around the flowers. I think I got lazy. The quilt deserves better....sob...I let it down. Gee, lots to talk about at that appointment this week...

My husband and I were filming his new gizmo today and we decided to take a little film of me quilting my Lemoyne star. Only my hands are visible because I'm still in my jammies surrounded by a flu cloud, but you can see how fast I go. I have my Bernina floored as fast as it will go and I try to move my hands smoothly and evenly. You can hear how fast the machine is going, but the film quality distorts the visual speed of the needle because it's not taking digital frames fast enough. So it LOOKS like I'm going slower than I am, but you can hear that the machine is at max. Click on the arrow twice to play the video:

I go really fast because I have a lot more control that way. Again, it's like driving a car. You can round curves smoother when you're driving fast than when you're driving slowly. When you're driving slowly, you have to make too many jerky corrections. Imagine trying to round a curve at 10 mph. Driving fast, you just zoom and glide, zoom and glide.

Whew...too much zooming tonight for me. More tylenol and back to bed.

UFO Friday

Mmmmm....a toasty rainbow. This, my friends, is Araucania Ranco yarn in "Multy." Guess what I started today?

Yippee! A new sock. This one will be the Lace Merino Sock from the "Favorite Socks" book. I can't wait to see all those yummy colors parade past my fingers, one by one, on their way to becoming my newest pair of handknit socks.
Here's the tiniest little idea of what's to come. Gosh, I love all these colors. The yarn is really springy, soft and nice.

I started this pattern because I needed a simple sock to knit during "American Idol" season. I love that show, even though they do some mean stuff on it. I think the guys have it all over the girls this year, and I especially love the guy from Texas with the dreads! He's such a cutie with that goofy little smile when he sings! Or how about that guy that did "Light My Fire" at the end of the guy show? Whoo hoo! He really channeled Jim Morrison, didn't he? I thought he was hot!

Ahem...where was I? Oh yeah, socks.

Lest you wonder if I actually ever get to wear my handknit woolen socks, I offer proof here:

My socky leg, propped up on a car door for evidence. Yes, I actually do get to wear my handknit socks! On vacation in Washington state, that is. We went to visit my son in October, and I was thrilled to be able to wear my handknit socks. I, of course, packed every pair I own and I wore them all! Unfortunately, the rest of me looked like this at the time:

Honestly, it must take talent to wear winter clothes well. Why didn't someone tell me I looked like such a dork? I blame it on those tiny hotel mirrors--the ones that don't show anything past your neck. I obviously needed a full-length mirror on this day, or perhaps a husband fashion-savvy enough to stage an intervention. How could he let me tromp around U.W. looking like Elmer Fudd?

And oh my gosh, why do you ladies who have to wear all these clothes even bother with dieting? Who would know what size you are under all this?

In contrast, take a look at the clothing department at our Lihue KMart in JANUARY. No lie. I took this picture on January 29th:

Winter outerwear, Kauai style. No hiding in these dresses in winter. Too bad they don't look that great with woolen socks. Or Elmer Fudd hats.

Enough socks and bad fashion pictures burned into your brain. Let's talk some quilting. I've decided that every Friday should be a UFO day on my blog. Inspired by many of you bloggers courageous enough to document your UFO's, I've decided to be brave and show you all my UFO's, one every Friday. You can help me decide to either:

1. Finish the entire quilt, or

2. Give up and toss the project, or

3. Save the blocks for a future project, or for the back of some future project.

Let's start small. These are 8" blocks that I made in a Sharyn Craig class when she taught at Quilt Hawaii in 2004. There are only six blocks made, but I cut stacks of diamonds with a template (arggghhh...it took me HOURS):

I can tell by my centers which blocks were my first ones. I like piecing challenges, but I think the small size of the diamonds is what drove me nuts. I did it; I pieced six, but I don't think I want to piece any more. Is this quilt worth finishing? Or is it table runner time?

I am terribly behind on my email and have a large pattern order tomorrow, so I'm afraid I won't be posting again until Sunday. I have 96 little %$#@! bows to tie tomorrow. My fingers are already trembling with dread. Have a wonderful Saturday and I'll see you Sunday!