Jessie at the Beauty Salon

This is Jessie's friend, Alisha and her mom, Wanda. Wanda is "One Crazy Puerto Rican Lady!" She talks fast, in Spanglish, and uses her hands a lot!.

Jessie Lee does not like this part because it burns and stings the scalp. Carmen is being very careful not to get it on her ears and neck.

In this beauty salon EVERYONE talks very fast in spanglish and uses their hands a lot! I was dizzy from trying to follow all the conversations at once. Then, every once in a while everyone stopped to Mamba a bit.

Those are some really big rollers. Jessie sat under the dryer until she was twice baked. Then finally, after 5 and 1/2 hours, she gets done!

Wow! She is one gorgeous girl!

Jessie's Hair

The main topics when discussing my children with anyone are Rubin's size and Jessie's hair. Both are large. Quite large. Jessie's personality is pretty big also, but this post is only so big. One thing at a time. Here is a good shot of Jessie a couple of years ago with her hair in it's natural state. That's big brother, Rubin, right under her. The girl and boy on the sides are 'normal sized' kids, Alisha and
David. My kid's are 'SUPER SIZED'!

Okay, back to hair...

Jessie and I have experimented with many methods to keep her hair manageable and beautiful. I like it a lot in it's natural, curly (albeit frizzy) state with a wide headband to keep it out of her face. She does not. Straightening irons are an option, but it takes about 3 hours to straighten it (me or the salon) because it is so thick and long. We have bought at least one each of every kind of leave-in conditioner known to woman. The olive oil type, made for black hair works well, but she didn't care for the oil in her hair. After spending 3 to 4 hours straightening, if she gets it wet, it goes right back to curly. This was especially hard because (see first picture), she loves to swim and be in the water. I burn my thumb at least once per session, too. bummer.

After much discussion we decided to chemically relax her hair. This is common practice among her black friends, but they have black mothers who know how to keep it beautiful. Enter my Puerto Rican friend, Wanda. She has taken my daughter underwing. Her hair is close to Jessie's. So we went to the latino hair salon with Wanda and Alisha.

Sad Days

A good friend has passed away. Diean (yes, that is how her name is spelled), was a member of the Tuesday sewing group, a charter member. We would tease and cut up every week about being charter members of our little group. Then they would do silly things to compete to be Teacher's Pet. Diean was the ringleader of silly. She had the best sense of humor I have ever seen in a person. She had a gift of talking to people, putting them at ease, making them laugh.
Here is a picture of her and I. Don't tell anyone about this picture.See, my mother was the Queen Mother of a Red Hat Society group. I had to drive her where she went. Therefore I was (by Diean, Mom and others) told that I must be a "Pink Hat Lady". That is, someone who is of the same spirit as the Red Hat Lady, just not old enough to qualify. Well, I wore that ridiculous hat a couple of times, but after that I started declaring myself "just the chauffeur". Not soon enough that they didn't get several pics of me in that get up.
I guess now I'm glad, I have this great pic of Diean to share, and tons of good memories of her to help through the sadness that Tuesdays will not be the same without this beautiful lady.

A friend has a blog and posted a pic of Duke, my little doggie.
http://patchworkpie.blogspot.com/2009/01/hello-2009-bgpc-at-quilt-house.html
He got fan mail all the way from Australia! He is awful cute. Here are some more cute pics of my favorite guy under 1 foot tall.

Duke LOVES to go boat riding! This trip we were stranded for hours out on the water with motor troubles. Everyone was so ready to step onto dry land. Everyone but Duke. He was ready to hit the water again!
Duke likes to quilt with Mommy. He keeps all the loose threads off the carpet. Such a big helper! Okay, not so big. He's eleven pounds. and about 9 inches tall.

He also does some modeling on the side. Here he can be seen on my Holiday email greeting to friends and family. He's a very good sport about silly hats and such, as long as he gets to stay near me.

Here's Duke judging a Hoola Hoop contest. He was happy to do it, considering all the entrants were pretty girls who wanted nothing more than to scratch his ears and talk sweet to him.
This is Duke's best doggie friend, Diane. She is a graceful old lady of 15. She is very patient and loving to her little impetuous friend, keeping him out of trouble when he barks at the neighbors and the squirrels.

Duke's feline friend, Red, outweighs him by 10 pounds. Red likes to intimidate Duke with his size. Duke is only a little afraid. If Mommy is around. Red is a very sweet cat who happens to like toying with small dogs.

We are actually looking at adding another puppy to our fun family. Probably another dachshund. More on that later.

Assembly line fabric kits

I have started making kits available for my quilt classes. I don't make that much profit from them, but it makes classes much, much more pleasant. I don't worry about students not having read the supplies list correctly and bringing the wrong thing, or worse, omitting important items.
These days I have several upcoming classes and one retreat where I'll do lots of classes in a short time. For the time being I am done with elephants, and moving on to sunset birds and shadowy leaves. I am knee deep in kits!
Today I went to Joann to use coupons on batting and kona cotton. I like to go alone. I wander several times through each department, thinking of different projects.

Orange Juice Chicken

One of my family's favorite, easy dishes is Orange Juice Chicken. My 2 teenagers are pretty good cooks and contribute to mealmaking daily. This is easy and tasty and pretty healthy too!

It's a pyrex dish, one yellow, one orange, and one red pepper (the 3 pack from Winn Dixie), one big tomato, all sliced and 8 chicken pieces (we like thighs) with a little cajun seasoning. Add 1 cup of OJ with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch whisked in. Bake for 40 minutes at 350. Viola!

I notice I have a stalker commenting on my blog. I hope he's cute or rich or both.

Stepping Stones Quilt Shop

Today I got a bonus day with some of the Tuesday Ladies.We went to St. Simon's Island, GA and paid a visit to my favorite quilt shop, Stepping Stones. I bought fabric to make kits for upcoming classes for this egret

and this elephant. A good friend, Dottie, will come tomorrow and help cut and build kits. We'll use the church tables in fellowship hall to spread out.

Tuesday Quilt Class

Tuesday is sewing day! We meet at the church and sew/quilt on Tuesdays, usually 15 of us. We are growing. Brand new quilters, experienced quilters and in between quilters. Some I have known all my life, my mother's friends, now my friends. They taught me in school or Sunday School, or were my Youth Fellowship Leaders. Some are old friends, some brand new. New members coming every week it seems.
We always have some homemade goodie, fresh coffee and lots to talk about.
Today we had lots of show and tell. 3 tumbling block quilts, 2 lone Stars, one beautiful pinapple batik wallhanging, and my latest art quilt, a landscape with lots of sunrays through the trees.
Next week someone's bringing lunch for after sewing. Is it any wonder I can't lose weight?

"Other Junk - Cakes"

I'm holding back the quilt goodies, validating the 'other junk', as my daughter called it. I make cakes sometimes. Mostly for family and friends. They are usually over the top. More than expected. here are two that were pretty cool.


This was my daughter's Luau


birthday party cake. the bottom was a plastic container full of candy. We called him the Tiki Dude cake.


He tasted good for chocolate and yellow cake lovers.


When we lit the candles the 'grass' headdressing caught on fire and she had to blow really hard! What a fun day!


Another cool cake was the chopper cake for a friend who really liked Harley Davidson motorcyles. I did not intend for it to be so BIG, but it kept growing. The motor, gas tank and headlight(complete with flames), seat and tires were all separate cakes. The frame was aluminium foil (of course), but the handlebars were real leather with fringes. That graffiti just above the seat is actually the kid's name. He could read it, no one else could. Wish I would have taken better pictures.

I also have made more traditional cakes like this one for my friend Shirley. She was a blushing bride at 77 years old. Her new husband was completely smitten with her. It was very sweet.

New Beginnings

I stare at the blank screen and wonder at beginning a blog. It seems to be the thing to do these days, and I certainly enjoy reading other's blogs. I am sure that I will not post daily, and nothing here will be consistent nor, at times, coherent. My daughter's first question is, "Is your blog about quilts or other junk?". Both, I think, though quilts are certainly on my mind a lot. I started this impulsively, without inviting friends to 'come see'. So if you stumble in, I hope you enjoy rambling with me a while.

Here is a picture of me quite a few years ago. I like it much better than the recent ones. I made the sundress out of breezy cotton. No pattern, just cut and sew. I don't make clothes since falling in love with quilts, but was quite the seamstress in my BQ (before quilts) life.