Sunday, June 26, 2016

Quilt Britannia

It seems appropriate to write about my second Beatles quilt a few days after the Brits have (apparently) lost their minds.  Or maybe not.  I guess time will tell.

I saw a news clip with some anonymous British man who said, "What are we gonna do?  We'll get on with it.  We're England; it's what we do."

So, hopefully.

On to the quilt.  This is my second piece for the same customer - I did a similar (but slightly more Beatles/Lennon) quilt for her about a year ago.  This year, not long after Christmas, she contacted me and said she still had more shirts and wanted to do another quilt.  What with one thing and another, it took a while for me to get the shirts from her, and longer to get started.

Thankful for understanding (and local) customers.

I think this quilt turned out better than the first, not just because I've gotten better at doing them, but because of her extra contributions this time.  First time around, I simply used varying colors of denim in between the shirts.  This time she gave me a selection of her own tops that she no longer wore, which she said she had a similar sentimental attachment to.  I like the variety of colors and prints mixed in with the shirts.

In addition to the Beatles and John Lennon (and the particularly cool Lennon artwork and original lyrics in the bottom left), this one also has shirts from four local Philly music festivals, and a Rock the Vote/Censorship is UnAmerican shirt front and center.

One more thing . . . she still has more shirts.  There might be a third quilt in our mutual futures.  She said that even if she can't display them all, they take up far less room on a shelf than a bag full of unworn t-shirts.





Tuesday, June 14, 2016

It has ceased to be

Forgive the Python reference.

I went out to the coop yesterday morning to feed Bonnie, and she wasn't downstairs waiting at her food bowl, like a feathered, personality-free version of my cats.

I opened the roost door upstairs, and there she was, head tucked under wing, no longer a live bird.

Cue John Cleese, who has been banging on in my head for the rest of the day:

"That parrot is definitely deceased.  It’s not pining, it’s passed on.  This parrot is no more!  It has ceased to be!  It’s expired and gone to meet its maker!  This is a late parrot!  It’s a stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace.  If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies!"

Awful, I know.  But Bonnie hasn't laid in the last 6 weeks, and I assumed that meant she was aging out of the breakfast business.  And I've always considered her an employee, not a pet.  She fed me in exchange for food.  Our relationship lately had become a tad one-sided, and I'd been mentioning my handy cousin and the slow cooker with increasing frequency.

So she took matters into her own hands, I suppose.  Death before dishonor?  Death before crockpot?

I may not get new birds until next spring.  I'm well into craft show season, plus I'm temping 3 days a week.  On top of that, Mario and I have planned a trip (to London!!!) in the fall, and this will be one less mouth our housemate will have to feed while we're away.

I leave you with Monty Python, because I can.