Summer 2009 Favorite Things

1. GT-Jess on top of Rendevous, 2. He likes peanuts, 3. It was a dark and cloudy night, 4. Ella, 5. On the Back of the Boat, 6. YS-Buffalo up close, 7. Front Elevation, 8. Full Quilt Top 2, 9. Wind turbines, 10. CotM-Cave Trails, 11. YS-Buffalo Swimming, 12. Jason and Fish, 13. YS-Yellow Bellied Marmot, 14. YS-Snack, 15. YS-Lily, 16. Jess and Fish, 17. YS-Jess at Falls, 18. Fire Cooked Corn, 19. GT-Lodge, 20. YS-Bears #2,3,4, 21. GT-Sunrise, 22. GT-Village, 23. Burr!, too, 24. Jason rebating, 25. We Beat the Storm, 26. CotM-Jason in Cave, 27. Jason in Campsite, 28. Bighorn Sheep, 29. Abe, 30. Nice and Easy, 31. Jason Cruisin', 32. Sea of Red, 33. GT-Sunset, 34. Jason's first gar, 35. GT-Moose-field, 36. YS-Jason in Yellowstone Hills

I'm pretty certain this will be my last post for this week of summer send-off blogs. It's was a good summer, but I'm ready for fall.

Family Tradition?

Can it be a family tradition to make stuff?

If so, then I think that's one of my family's traditions. Both of my parents are very talented at creating things. My mom is more of a fabric/fiber kind of creator where my dad is more of a functional creator.

He needed a toolbox for his wallpaper hanging tools. Well, why buy one if you can make a really cool one?

Here's what he created:






This is where I came from. Fun, eh?

In Search of Apples

We went to Weston, Missouri in search of an apple orchard. Unfortunately we were too late in the year to be able to pick any. We left with these photos instead.

Vaughn's country store was awesome. They had some really good smelling barbeque sauces and jellies there.


After leaving Vaughn's we headed over to the Red Barn Farm. These were a few photos I snapped at that farm.
I found a few quilts in the country store.
This old thing was sitting next to the entrance/exit of the Red Barn Farm.
Aren't the mums pretty?
This was on the side of a trailer.
I thought this arch thing was cool.
There were piles of gourds and pumpkins. They came in all sorts and sizes.









There were fun scarecrows.
And these adorable little pigs.

Jargon of the Week - Block

Dictionary.com defines block as:

–noun
1. a solid mass of wood, stone, etc., usually with one or more flat or approximately flat faces.
2. a hollow masonry building unit of cement, terra cotta, etc.: a wall made of concrete blocks.
3. one of a set of cube-shaped pieces of wood, plastic, or the like, used as a child's toy in building.
4. a mold or piece on which something is shaped or kept in shape: a hat block.
5. a piece of wood used in the art of making woodcuts or wood engravings.
6. Printing. the base on which a plate is mounted to make it type-high.
7. a projection left on a squared stone to provide a means of lifting it.
8. a short length of plank serving as a bridging, as between joists.
9. a stump or wooden structure on which a condemned person is beheaded: Mary Stuart went bravely to the block.
10. auction block.
11. Machinery. a part enclosing one or more freely rotating, grooved pulleys, about which ropes or chains pass to form a hoisting or hauling tackle.
12. an obstacle, obstruction, or hindrance: His stubbornness is a block to all my efforts.
13. the state or condition of being obstructed; blockage: The traffic block lasted several hours.
14. Pathology.
a. an obstruction, as of a nerve.
b. heart block.
15. Sports. a hindering of an opponent's actions.
16. a quantity, portion, or section taken as a unit or dealt with at one time: a large block of theater tickets.
17. a small section of a city, town, etc., enclosed by neighboring and intersecting streets: She lives on my block.
18. the length of one side of such a section: We walked two blocks over.
19. Chiefly British. a large building divided into separate apartments, offices, shops, etc.
20. a large number of bonds or shares of stock sold together as a single unit.
21. Computers.
a. a group of data stored as a unit on an external storage medium and handled as a unit by the computer for input or output: This file has 20 records per block.
b. a section of storage locations in a computer allocated to a particular set of instructions or data.
c. a group of consecutive machine words organized as a unit and guiding a particular computer operation, esp. with reference to input and output.
d. (on a flow chart) a symbol representing an operation, device, or instruction in a computer program.
22. Railroads. any of the short lengths into which a track is divided for signaling purposes.
23. Philately. a group of four or more unseparated stamps, not in a strip.
24. Slang. a person's head.
25. Glassmaking. a wooden or metal cup for blocking a gather.
26. an obstruction or stoppage in mental processes or speech, esp. when related to stress, emotional conflict, etc.
27. writer's block.
28. Geology.
a. any large, angular mass of solid rock.
b. fault block.
29. (in Canada) a wild or remote area of land that has not yet been surveyed: the Peace River block.
30. Automotive. cylinder block.
31. Falconry. a low perch to which a falcon is tethered outdoors.

–verb (used with object)
32. to obstruct (someone or something) by placing obstacles in the way (sometimes fol. by up): to block one's exit; to block up a passage.
33. to fit with blocks; mount on a block.
34. to shape or prepare on or with a block: to block a hat; to block a sweater.
35. to join (the ends of boards or the like) by fastening to a block of wood.
36. Theater.
a. Also, block out. to plan or work out the movement of performers in a play, pageant, etc.: Tomorrow we'll block act one.
b. to draw a floor plan on (a stage) in order to indicate placement of scenery, stage property, etc.
37. Pathology, Physiology. to stop the passage of impulses in (a nerve).
38. Computers. to group (contiguous data) together so as to allow to be read or written in a single operation.
39. Sports. to hinder or bar the actions or movements of (an opposing player), esp. legitimately.
40. Glassmaking.
a. to shape (a molten gather) in a wet cup of wood or metal.
b. to plunge a block of wood into (molten glass) to aid in refining the glass.
41. Metalworking. to give (a forging) a rough form before finishing.
42. Electronics. to apply a high negative bias to the grid of (a vacuum tube), for reducing the plate current to zero.

–verb (used without object)
43. to act so as to obstruct an opponent, as in football, hockey, and basketball: He doesn't get many baskets, but he sure can block.
44. Theater. to block a play, act, scene, stage, etc.: The director will block tomorrow.
45. to suffer a block.

—Verb phrases
46. block in or out, to sketch or outline roughly or generally, without details: She blocked out a color scheme for the interiors.
47. block out,
a. block (def. 36a).
b. Basketball. to box out.

—Idiom
48. put or go on the block, to offer or be offered for sale at auction: to put family heirlooms on the block.

Origin:
1275–1325; ME blok log, stump (< MF bloc) < MD blok; perh. akin to balk

Not one of those 48 different definitions of the word block explains the way a quilter uses the word.

In the quilting world, we use the term block to define a portion of a quilt. In a traditional quilt, it's the basic unit used to make the quilt top. Each block can be different or the same on a quilt top.

Husker! Power!

Jason and I headed up to Lincoln, Nebraska for the football game versus the Arkansas State Red Wolves.

I'm ready!
I didn't quite get it. A lot of people released these balloons after some first play (maybe a touchdown?). Jason said they let them go early, so I'm not sure exactly.
Note: I'm not much of a football fan, thus I don't completely understand everything that happens at a game.
The sea of red...
This guy had the coolest hat I saw at the game. It's a crocheted helmet! The photo is a little blurry, but it was the only one we were able to get without him scratching his head.

Lake of the Ozarks - Shootout Weekend

A few weeks ago, we joined our friends Andy & Beth and Andy's parents at their cabin in the Lake of the Ozarks. We went down to see Captain Ron's Shootout Weekend. It was a blast. We were able to see a boat go 196 mph! That was incredible.

They raced all sorts of boats. This one is a pontoon and I want to say it went around 110 mph, but I really can't remember for sure.



I thought this was the boat we saw go 196 mph, but after looking at the results I'm not sure anymore. This one was fast either way.
It was a nice weekend to be out in the water. All of the spectator boats were tied together in a few rows and stretched the majority of the race length. It was quite a sight. (I wish I would have taken a picture of all the spectators. There were thousands and thousands.) It was amazing to think of how much money we were floating around with there. Everywhere you looked there was a million dollar boat here, 1/2 million dollar boat there. It was pretty impressive to see how fancy some of those boats are.

Andy is a boat lover, so as he was ooing and aweing over each of the pretty boats or the big tough boats, he explained to the rest of us what he liked about them. It was kind of fun to learn about what makes a boat better than another boat.
I've always kind of liked these boats. They are pretty fun looking I think.
These guys just tooted around in this little boat amongst all the spectators selling gear from Captain Ron's.
We had another great time down at the lake.
Sorry the photos are a little blurry. I was shooting on our little pocket camera and the boats were moving really fast. Those two things combined don't make for really good pictures.

Also, today is the first day of Autumn. Enjoy it!

Let's Go Royals!

I've been meaning to write a few posts the last few weeks, but just haven't gotten to it. So, over the next few days I'll be posting some pictures and posts of a few things I've done in the last month or so. Let's think of this week in posts as a goodbye to summer 2009.

Jason and I went to a Royals game a few weeks ago and here are a few pictures.

This was early in the game.
As the sun started to go down, these clouds looked really cool.
He's only a little bit goofy. I promise.
We snuck in this big bag of peanuts. They were tasty.
As we were leaving, we saw this. Isn't it funny? They brought a couch on the back of their vehicle to tailgate with. I found it humorous.

Oops! I forgot to change this so it posts under today's date. Editing that and reposting.

Favorite Things 20090920

Jason and I went in search of apples today. Unfortunately, we learned we were to late in the season to pick them. We did however get some really cool shots.

1. Farmer's Market Truck, 2. Quilting Bee, 3. Mums, 4. Weston Red Barn Farm, 5. Windmill, 6. Barn, 7. Piglets, 8. Light Orange Pumpkins, 9. Pilgrim Scarecrows, 10. Green Pumpkins, 11. Squashed Pumpkins, 12. White Pumpkins, 13. Pumpkin Rows, 14. Squash or Ghords, 15. Green Gourds, 16. Vine Arch, 17. Mini Quilts, 18. Vaughn's Sign

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

Jargon of the Week

Jason came up with this fun idea for a weekly post. Once a week, I'm going to write about some sort of jargon from the industry.

To get the ball rolling, I'm going to define jargon. Don't worry, it can only get better from here.

Jargon
Dictionary.com defines jargon as:
jar⋅gon

–noun
1. the language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group: medical jargon.
2. unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; gibberish.
3. any talk or writing that one does not understand.
4. pidgin.
5. language that is characterized by uncommon or pretentious vocabulary and convoluted syntax and is often vague in meaning.

–verb (used without object)
6. to speak in or write jargon; jargonize.

Origin:
1300–50; ME jargoun < MF; OF jargon, gargun, deriv. of an expressive base *garg-; see gargle, gargoyle

In the future, I will define what the word of the week means in the quilting, crafting, or creative industry.

This should turn out to be an interesting way to think about the words we as crafty people use and know to mean one thing, but mean something different to the rest of the world.

Frugality

My husband has been reading the blog "The Simple Dollar" for sometime now, and sent me these great articles on frugality:

The first article, Frugality as a "Spending Transfer", is a great article describing our choosen lifestyle, and why we feel we don't need expensive things.

The second article, 12 Clever Substitutions That Save Money (Nearly) Effortlessly, lists 12 substitutions to use for various items around the house in order to save money.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Midwest Modern Contest

I just sent in my entry for Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Contest.

Only rule for the contest: Use any of Amy Butler's Midwest Modern fabric to make a project.

Here's what I made:



Notes:
You still have time if you'd like to enter. Photos are due sometime on Tuesday.

All the entries to the contest can be seen on the flickr group.