Bookcase Quilt - Part 1

 Amanda asked for a bookcase quilt. I've never done one, but hey, it's a new challenge!  After the lighthouse quilt, designing my own quilts is kind of fun! She wants it scrappy, as nearly all of them are, and I'm going to try to embroider the titles of some of her favorite books on some of them.  

This is how it started - pulling out my strips and blocks. 

I drafted out an idea, but not sure how much the strips are actually following along with it. But it gave me a general idea. 

Drafted idea

Practiced a book title.  It works!  The second was a bit better. I'll do a couple more practice runs before I actually do it on the quilt. 

Making progress! I figured I'd lay it out with my 12" square and see what I come up with.  This will work! I will be adjusting color placement some, as I'm using so many different fabrics. Some of the blocks will have lighter, more subdued colors, some these brighter/bolder ones.  

First block sewn together and trimmed to 10 1/2".  Now to continue with the next 19 blocks!  She wants it throw size, so roughly 50 x 65, which means 20 blocks, adding sashing for a "bookcase" in brown.   

Stay tuned!

 

Lighthouse Quilt - from Inspiration to Finished Product

 If you've read any of my other blogs, you know I like to quilt.  I was visiting my sister, Becky Centofanti, in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida last year. She's an artist, who draws a lot of inspiration from Van Gogh and other impressionist painters.  Near her is the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse.  Well, it inspired her, and hanging in her pool area is this painting:

I was equally inspired to figure out how to turn it into a quilt!  So I set out to figure out the best way.  First, I used my trusty browse and "Googled" sites to turn pictures into pixels.  This was my first try:

Even at 1" blocks, this one to the left would have been HUGE.  So back to the drawing board.  

This is what I settled on.  The blocks are still 1" finished, but the size is much more manageable. 

I had to take it down for about 2 months as my machine's LED display went out on me, so until it was fixed, it sat on my design wall.  Finally, I was able to get back to putting it together. 

And here it is - borders added, free motion quilting done, finished!  I want to add a ship's wheel to the bottom, but need to find just the right one.  It was fun!  Challenging, but fun! 

England, Scotland and Wales - Part 3 - York

Our final leg of our trip included York and London, with a day trip to Cambridge.  We started out by train from Edinburgh. This was the first train ride that had, well, issues.  We got to ride seated for about an hour, but it turned out that it was a Bank holiday and we had neglected to reserve seats ahead of time, so we were bumped and ended up standing for the remaining one and a half hours.  But that turned out to be ok, as we ended up standing with a couple who also hadn't reserved a seat.  He was a retired university professor and the conversation was very good.  He asked a lot of questions about the States, and we asked a lot about the UK.  

We arrived in York, which, like every other town, was lovely.  We stayed at the Grand York, which is a 5-star resort and easily the nicest place we stayed. Interestingly enough, it was also the cheapest!  We had a porter who took our bags to our room which was an amazing room. Breakfast wasn't included and it was pretty pricey, so we ate breakfast wherever we could in town, which wasn't really all that bad.  

York also boasts of Roman Walls that are easily navigable but we didn't walk on them on this trip.  We did visit The Shambles.  It's a street that dates to Medieval times, cobblestoned and lined with shops. The street is very narrow to keep light out because it was where the butchers were, so the meat wouldn't rot, well not as quickly anyhow.  Now it's just a lot tourist shopping, but interesting nonetheless.  

We spend a lot of time in the York Minster.  A Minster differs from a Cathedral by who was in residence there.   A cathedral was where a Bishop resided, while a minster is a more general term for a large or important church.    

We had tea at Betty's.  There are six different locations of the tea rooms. It is very "posh", the atmosphere and food were outstanding.  There was a line about 20 deep (maybe more!) standing in the rain waiting to get in, and the wait was worth it.  

We visited the York Castle Museum.  It's housed in the former prisons, and while the part that showed the conditions prisoners had to endure was unsettling, the rest of the museum was good.  One feature was a recreated Victorian street, complete with character actors.  Lots of other good stuff there, with insights into how life was for various different social/economic levels.  It really lent to a better understanding of the times. 

York is also home to the Railroad Museum, a tribute to the role trains had and still have in the UK.  We found that it is extremely easy to get around there using a number of different railroads, most notable ScotRail and the LNER.  My father, who is a huge train fan, would have loved the museum! 

I took a ton of pictures in all the museums, but due to the funky way the powers-that-be changed how to load pictures in this program, I can't figure out how to post them next to each other to get more on a page!  Ugh.  The limits to technology! Sometimes "improvements" aren't really!  Ok, off THAT soapbox!  


 These last picture was taken in the Museum Gardens as we were walking back to our hotel.  They have a Monet exhibit coming soon, so they had frames set up in strategic locations. But what caught my eye more than those was the scene here.  It reminded me of Georges Surat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte", which is easily one of my favorite paintings. I had the pleasure years ago of seeing it at the Art Institute of Chicago. It's massive, covers an entire wall.  I stumbled several years ago the Stephen Sondheim play with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters which tells the story of the painting, and fell in love with not only the musical, but the painting as well.  

And since this has gotten so long, I'm going to finish the trip in yet another blog entry of London and Cambridge, which should be my final entry! (But no promises, we'll see how it goes when I start writing! 

England, Scotland and Wales Part 2!

 Our last day in Glasgow was visiting the Kelvingrove Museum. (https://tinyurl.com/5dzkac7f). There were some amazing pieces of art, including a weird hanging head exhibit that greets you when you walk in.  

They also had many, many paintings by some of my favorite artists - Georges Seurat and Mary Cassett.

From there, we headed to the train station for a short trip to Edinburgh. They are only about 47 miles apart, so it was a quick trip.  Did you know that Chewbacca and the Storm Troopers spoke with a Scottish brogue? There were several characters walking around the Edinburgh Train Station. 

We stayed on Prince's Street, which is down "The Mound" from Edinburgh Castle. It is a majestic sight to behold, sitting on top of the hill like that.  

While we were there, we visited our church's missionary, Ben Canstaneta. Ben is teaching at the Free Church of Scotland's seminary, training those who want to learn conservative Reformed Theology.  He took us on a tour of the seminary, including a hike up to the very top, where we were treated to stunning views of the city. He also showed us the library, where there are many ancient texts, totally uncatalogued. I volunteered to come back for six months and work on creating an index of them.  Honestly, I would do it in a heartbeat, if they wanted me to!  

I half expected to hear Dick Van Dyke singing "Step in Time" when I saw this view! 

Edinburg is beautiful. It was raining a lot of the time we were there, but it also cleared up frequently. The saying "if you don't like the weather, wait a minute," is so very true there!  We had fish and chips, again, at Berties, which is a popular spot. Tom got the traditional fried fish, but they had a baked option, which I got, and yes, it was just as yummy.  

A must-visit to the Edinburgh Castle, which is so full of history that I really don't know. I need to read some Scottish/English/Welsh history books now!  They had numerous displays that were dedicated to various regiments of Scots that served in various wars. It's actually a military museum.  

I took tons of pictures, and simply don't have the bandwith to post all of them, but suffice it to say, it was sobering and at the same time very moving and beautiful in its own way. 

We toured St. Giles Cathedral, which served as John Knox's parish church, and is considered the mother church of Presbyterianism.  

If you have never heard of the story of the Greyfriar's Bobby, read about him here:  https://tinyurl.com/ms3jffff.  If in Edinburgh, you have to find him and rub his nose.  We didn't get to grab a bite at the pub, so that's a definite plan on our return trip!

Another highlight of Edinburg was having the opportunity to worship at St. Columba Free Presbyterian Church.  It was literally like being at home at our own church! Up to and including the fact that their pastor is from the States - Mississippi, to be exact! That was a bit of a shock, but the people we met who were Scots or English were very engaging, friendly and really reflected the love of Christ.  

The National Museum of Scotland was fantastic, and we really didn't have the time to do it justice. We also visited a Chocolatorium where we were told how chocolate is created, and got to pour our own samples, which, by the way, were amazing. Our chocolate here doesn't hold a candle to theirs. The quality is simply superior.  

The last highlight I'll tell about is the Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour. Yes, it's a walking tour (likely in the rain as ours was!) but honestly I recommend taking it if you are a literary fan.  The two gentlemen/actors who gave the tour were not only very entertaining, but very knowledgable about Scotland's literary heritage.  

Since this has gotten pretty lengthy already, and I haven't even gotten to York, London or Cambridge, I'll stop here and add a part 3!  

Oh, one last picture. Bagpipers were a frequent sight and sound. Honestly, I'm not sure who can dislike a man in a kilt, blowing on a bagpipe! 

Devotional Musings

 Yes, the continuation of my trip will come up, probably not until next week. But in the meantime, this.

I'm s-l-o-w-l-y working my way through J. I. Packer's Knowing God.  Heavy reading and if you do start, plan a long time to digest all the wisdom. I've got a notebook that is filled with my notes and thoughts as I go along.  I also ordered a devotional called Knowing God Through the Year, compiled by Carolyn Nystrom. I didn't start it at the beginning of the year, so I'm a bit off of her calendar, but the timing of the reading is definitely from God. 

Our church is having a tea this weekend.  For the past two years, we have had a brunch for the women of the church, and, tea lover that I am, I suggested that it take the form of a tea this year.  It met with some resistance, but honestly there were more people in favor of it, so we went with it. It's a lot of work, and I do mean a lot, and there have been some issues with misunderstandings. It definitely is teaching me a lot about how this church operates and how things are/should be done.  

Anyhow, in the devotional, the last day of the "Spring" section, it was the end of several days of talking about God's wisdom.  The scripture passage was James 3:17, and I use the ESV:

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

The journal prompt at the end was to take each character trait and put it on my calendar, looking for opportunities to live out those traits.  Today's word was peaceable.  Fitting, as I wasn't feeling particularly peaceable, so it was definitely a trait I need to work on.  Turns out that my worries were put to rest as the issues I thought I had turned out to be nothing at all.  

I'm curious to see how timely the subsequent days will turn out to be. Well, maybe not, but I'm sure they will be, regardless of how I feel!  Now to put them in practice! 

Trip of a Lifetime - England, Wales and Scotland! Part 1

On May 14, Tom and I took off for an adventure of a life time. We were headed to the United Kingdom for a whirlwind trip that took us to Bath, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Chester, England; Wales; Glasgow, Greenock, and Edinburgh, Scotland; back to England to York and wrapping up in London, with a day trip to Cambridge.  There are far too many pictures to include them all here (over 1000!)  but I'm going to include a few.  

One of the highlights, and part of the reason for the trip, was to get in touch with my ancestry.  Through DNA, Dad, and subsequently the rest of us, confirmed that William McKeith was in fact his biological father.  So I really wanted to go visit where he was born, so I could get a better understanding of what drove his father, Daniel, to emigrate to the States.  Reading the history of Greenock, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and we did come away with a better understanding of the hardships they endured, which is what likely led them to the United States.  It was very sobering. We didn't get to the town where Daniel was from - Creiff, Perthshire which was a bit to far to get to on this trip. It's north of Edinburgh, about 60 miles, and since we didn't have a car (and weren't about to attempt driving on the other side of the road from the other side of the car!), we couldn't make it this time.  But that just means we have to go back. Both of us fell in love with Scotland, even if we were rained out in both Glasgow and Edinburgh!  

Anyhow, I did get to Greenock, where William was born.  There was a lovely museum/historical institute - the Watt Institute - named after the inventor James Watt, who also was born in Greenock.  The town has a history in that it was a major ship building center for Scotland and still is fiercely proud of that heritage. 

But before we even got to Greenock, we had a wonderful time exploring the other towns.  Bath was beautiful, home not only to the Roman Baths, but also to Jane Austen.  We stayed in a lovely B&B, a Victorian home covered with wisteria and had tea two or maybe three times there, including at the Jane Austen House, where we had Mr. Darcey's Tea!

Stratford-Upon-Avon is of course home to The Bard - William Shakespeare.  And yes, it was very touristy, but we had to visit! It is a lovely town though and the weather was amazing while we were there.  

Chester is a very cool village with one of the oldest continuous Roman Walls. It goes around the city center for 2-ish miles, and yes, we did walk it with only one detour to visit the amazing Chester Cathedral.  They had a really cool Lego model of the Cathedral, which definitely caught Tom's eye! 

Day trip to Wales, which is an amazingly, hauntingly beautiful country. I loved that they are keeping the ancient language alive. We went over the highest aqueduct - the Poncysyllte Aqueduct, which part of the Llangollen Canal, over the River Dee.  I would love someday to take a narrow boat cruise on the canals of England/Scotland/Wales - not all obviously - that would take forever, but at least one of them!  

But before we got there, we visited the town of Conwy and the Conwy Castle - ancient and impressive! 

From Wales, we headed to Glasgow.  That's where we finally hit the weather that Scotland is known for! Rain - lots and lots of rain.  The day we spent in Greenock was nice, but Glasgow itself was sopping wet!  It was our anniversary, so we didn't let the rain deter us and had a fantastic dinner where we were treated very well.  The Glasgow cathedral is, much like every other cathedral, very impressive with impressive architecture, and soaring stained glass windows. 

This post is long enough, so I'll do part two later - Edinburgh, York, London and Cambridge!