That is the name of the project I've designed for my class for Adventures in Italy. While it's true that my adventure is not until May 18-24, 2014 now is the time to get the ball rolling. 

I've not yet been to Italy but I have been to France. As I walked around Paris I was captivated by doors. As I thought about what sort of quilt to design for Italy, my mind kept going to doors. I scoured the internet and found many photos of Italian doors. I've gathered some of them on this Pinterest board. I did some reading and found out that Italians love doors. The older the better. They don't throw out or replace old doors, they treasue and use them.

I have a drawing of three doors. Each can stand alone or be set together. I've been working on Door Number One. This is where it started…

I liked the blue door but I also liked these quieter blues. I had to see them both on the desing wall to make a decision.

Well, the light door fades away so it went away. The circles are meant to represent ceramic plates. In several photos I spotted decorative plates hung around exterior doors and I loved the splashes of color.

Even better with plants outside the door. I'm close to finishing this one. I'll post the photo tomorrow or the next day.

In a recent class one of my students had this stool:

She brought it to put her feet on. Great idea! And look at the way it folds up:

This stool is light, folds flat, and it's inexpensive. When we were shopping at Target today I found one for $14.99. Mine is all black with white dots. It holds up to 300 lbs. Love it! Mom got one too.

We found lots more than this when we were shopping. I've started my Christmas shopping which means I need to try to figure out where to stash stuff. I've started a list of what I've gotten for who in Evernote.

And speaking of Evernote, if you have a phone, iPad, or similar device that uses apps, you should check out Evernote. I use it daily. AND – if you have an iPad, check out Flipboard. It's hard to explain but it's a lovely aggregator of the things I like to keep up with.

There's probably more news but I'm kind of tired. Amazing how shopping can wear you out. That said I'll be perking up soon because the grandkids are coming back in a bit to swim with Judy, their other grandmother. Steve's making turkey burgers for us all. I'm so lucky I don't have to cook :-).

It's only Wednesday evening but so far this week I've found every SLOW driver in town. No matter where I was going or what I was doing, it was all slow. I try to be patient but to be honest I got cranky. Just ask Mom. 

So in the spirit of instilling calm, how about some flower pictures?

I have ONE of these lilies. It popped up out of nowhere. I believe it is locally known as a naked lady. I took these photos a couple of weeks ago when I noticed it blooming.

It's gone now. No leaves, just a withered stalk.

I love the hints of purple in the flowers!

It calms me down just looking at it.

Tomorrow Mom, Elanor, and I are driving south to go shopping and to have lunch. I expect it to take some hours…. and there's highway construction to look forward to! It'll be fine, right? I do actually expect to have a good time. Mom and Elanor have a tight bond and it's fun to watch them together. I just need to slow down and enjoy the day. 

Mom, Steve, and I got to see the last performance of Sarah, Plain and Tall on Sunday. 

I knew I would think that my son and granddaughter were very good – which they were! I really didn’t think that I would be as moved by the whole play as I was. I got a bit weepy and so did many others in the audience. Mostly the women, but that’s typical. Christopher played the brother of Sarah – a big but not huge role. He was perfect! And Elanor, who played Violet, one of Anna’s friends, was way better than I had any idea she would be. Darned if that girl doesn’t make you look at her even when she’s not doing much. I was proud.

Instead of cut flowers that fade, I made Elanor a paper flower bouquet. It was really cute and will last a lot longer. Christopher, who did not want or need flowers, got an extension ladder. He has to get up on his roof often and he needs a safe ladder. Now he has one.

Today I went to lunch at my friend Jacquie’s house. I was there on a color consult – although Jacquie’s house is so cool it was hard to find something to give advice on. The house is over 100 years old and quirky. And wonderful!

I took a few photos to share with you. I should have taken more because Jacquie does some way cool things in her house. So, first, for the cat folks amoung you…

Jacquie and Todd have 4 cats – and no cat smell! That in itself is amazing. One cat, Dixie Edwards, is a very active cat so Jacquie installed a series of shelves all the way around her office, mostly up high, for Dixie to climb on. They could be book shelves, but aren’t. The silver brackets came from IKEA. Jacquie covered the first several with a sisal sort of material but she said she’s going to take that off and make them sleeker in appearance.

FYI – that black tree and birds on the wall is a decal.

There’s Dixie and some of the most fun, weird book shelves thatI’ve ever seen. The green behind the books is paint.

Dixie was performing for me. You can see that the shelves mostly hug the ceiling and are a varying lengths. What a GREAT idea!

I didn’t get a good photo of these but I gotta tell you, these photos were amazing. Many of us have similar framed photos/faux paintings in our family. Alone, they are pretty bad. But when you put them together to tell a story – they become priceless! That’s Todd, his grandfather, and mother. In their original frames! I love it!

I worked on a new video today but it will be late tomorrow before I get it uploaded.

Chris and Steve have begun a new project – landscaping. It will take a few hours a day for the rest of the summer. I am only an interested, opinionated*, bystander. 

The first wave of this project involves diverting water away from the foundation. With the gutters gone, water rolls off the roof and onto the ground below which splashes dirt onto the walls and makes a ditch in the dirt. And it can eventually pool under the foundation. None of this is good. 

You can see the old stone walkway between the newer, lighter stones. There's a french drain** underneath these stones. The water will flow through the cracks between the stones into the drain.

The rocks came from a pile on the side of our house that I have wanted to make go away for a long time. We have another, bigger pile of thinner stone that will find a new home somewhere at Chris and Lorna's. Good! I want them gone from the side of my house!

There is going to be interesting concrete poured in other areas around the house and I'll show you that as it happens.

In quilting news, here's a new video. The first videos I uploaded were a little dark. Youtube offered to lighten them for me and I clicked OK. Shouldn't have done that. If you watched a video and the lighting was bad please do watch it again. It shoud be better now.

*The decking boards on the side and back decks are really slick when wet. One of my recent opinions is that the boards need to be power-washed and then painted with gritty porch paint. This is an idea that generates work that I don't have to do but that both guys agree needs to happen. Safety first and all that. I did volunteer to help with the painting…

**Did the French really come up with 'french drains'? And what about 'french doors"? I could google it but I think I'll just assume that, yes, the French did indeed come up with these ideas.

Did you know that we have the French to thank for silverware and oh-so-many other civilized items that we use all the time? I for one am very happy that the people of France have come up with so many things that make my life better.

Or, as it is more commonly spelled, Hallelujah! I'm back to my normal routine which is mostly working but I'm inside (with air conditioning!), I'm clean (as opposed to sweaty), and what I'm doing is quilt-related. Oh happy day! A few weeks away from the norm makes you really appreciate your regular routines. I am hearing this song in my head a lot and it makes me smile. 

I have uploaded the first two of the many how-to videos I promised. I'm starting at the beginning so today let me share with you how to make templates the way Linda and I have made them for more than 20 years.

You hear me but all you see of me are my hands. That's the way almost all of these videos will be because I don't have a cameraman. I've considered doing a short intro to each video that shows more of me but that means foofing* up. I'd want to wear something a little different for each video… You can tell my heart is not in the foofing.

I would love to have some feedback on the videos. It's like anything else, the more you do the easier it gets. Videos are a good way to convey information. The real trick is to say what needs saying in as short a time as possible. I try. At any rate, don't be afraid to tell me if you think there's something I can do better. That's how a person learns to do better.

*I'm pretty sure that 'foofing' may only be a word in our household. I googled it and nothing came up. ('Phoofing' came up but the definitions for that spelling are not the way I use the word. Really.)

Foofing means sprucing up your hair and face, probably your nails (hands and toes), and putting on something nice.