Bonfire

 Today we enjoyed a bonfire in the front yard. There is always spring cleaning after wintery weather takes down branches and trees. It's a great opportunity to have s'mores and roasted Starbursts. Pam's mother is here from Brazil and has never enjoyed a bonfire.

Marnie showing good technique.

Jim and Bonnie got to play around the fire, which their parents loved.

And Naomi chilled in her stroller.

Design Elements

 I was invited to be a featured speaker at a guild in the north. I drove to Lynden to a community hall with most of my quilts to talk about design elements. Shirley took a bunch of pictures, to my surprise, and sent them to me. Otherwise, I would have forgotten about the whole thing.

I love this picture. I'm trying to explain the ombre effect from top to bottom.

These are the four trees I made in Lorraine Torrance's class years ago. Using the color wheel, I can explain the difference between warm and cool colors, complementary and monochromatic combinations, , and harmony.

Warm and Cool colors in the same composition.

Two different album quilts. One with a dark background and one with a light. Feel the difference?

The same quilt in different colors. Cathy's Millefiori is on the left and mine is on the right. It is not yet finished, so the women are having a hard time holding it up. The papers are still in the edge pieces. There isn't a stitch of yellow, orange, or red in my quilt. Warm and Cool in one shot.

My spring quilt by Scott Hansen and a block of the fall version.

Simply Delicious proves you can use many different colors and still have a cohesive quilt.

Silk pyramids uses only a small section of the color wheel. It's a very harmonic usage of neighbors yellow, orange, red, and magenta.

Cactus rose is a Judy Niemeyer pattern that I used to play with purple and green. I didn't have trouble filling an hour of talking!

Family Fun

 Church with two babies is super busy. Pam and Howard are learning how to manage it. They attend the Edmonds building and have a great choir for Howard to join.

Winter Stormy

 I'm remembering that some years no snow falls on our island. When the light hits it, the snow is beautiful, and hopefully disappears by the afternoon. However, these are three consecutive days. I'm ready to be free of it.

Kitsap Quilt Show

 With the Kitsap Quilt Show in Silverdale and an opportunity to see Jen Bay (and drop off quilts), we took the ferry to Kingston and drove south through Poulsbo to the Kitsap Fairgrounds. Marnie and I enjoyed the quilt show while Paul drove around. Then we met up with Jen, enjoyed some teriyaki and headed to the Naval Undersea Museum.

Trip to the Naval Undersea Museum

 On 6 March 2009, an era in Navy undersea operations ended when the Deep Submersible Rescue Vehicle Mystic (DSRV-1) was retired at San Diego. With that event, more than a half-century of U.S. Navy manned deep submersible operations was over.

The Navy's first manned vehicle was the bathyscaph Trieste. Built in 1953, it was purchased from Professor Auguste Piccard of Switzerland in early 1958. At the time it was one of only two deep submersibles in the world.

Completed in early 1964 at Mare Island in San Diego, Trieste II was placed on board USNS Francis X. McGraw (T-AK241) and shipped, via the Panama Canal, to Boston.

Trieste II recovered bits of wreckage, positively fixing the remains as that of the lost Thresher, in September 1964. I read about this history in the book, "Blind Man's Bluff."

USS Sturgeon (SSN-637), was the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines. She was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sturgeon.

What a great day! It's our 29th wedding anniversary and I get to look at submarines. I'm a Navy girl!

Philip Arrives

 Marnie and Paul and I arrived at the Edmonds hospital where Marnie and Jack were born to see the arrival of Philip. Pam was just about to deliver. At the last moment, Pam asked us to go get her mother who was staying at the apartment with a sleeping Bonnie. Pam's mother had come from Brazil to help her with this new baby.

Marnie was kind enough to stay at the apartment as we returned to the hospital. We waited another hour or so and Philip arrived!

This is the following day meeting his snuggly self. He is a big boy!