Walls

We don't have a lot of wall space in this house.

I like the walls for "hosting" some of the quilts from my collection. My "Peggy's Sistine Chapel" quilt (pattern from Mary Sorensen "Delectable Pathways") is finally up on the wall, but not where I had planned. I wanted to put it up over the stairs, but DH says it's too close to time to move to go through the trouble of using a ladder on the stairs. However, little Johan had pulled down the quilt I had on the wall in the hallway, and I hadn't put it up again, so it seemed like the perfect solution. Here's a closeup.

All the appliqué is needleturn, and the quilting is hand. The Delectable Mountain blocks are paper-pieced by machine, but the pattern has regular piecing as an option, and there is an identical but smaller version, in case you want to go to all the work but not end up with something so big (59" X 79" for the larger size, or 38" X 51" for the smaller size). Mary has some great DVDs that teach needleturn appliqué. Her website is maryappliques.com.

The reason there isn't a lot of wall space is because we have so many windows. My friend Cleo has spent her "life" surrounded by walls of glass, so her walls are entirely windows.

You may have seen Cleo in photos of the dolls. She's just the right size for them.

Cleo is a paperweight. (Remember when we used to need those?) She was given to me about 1952 by Aunt Gertrude, a lady in her 90s who used to tell me tales of her youth, which included a story about riding four horses, all at once, through the streets of Paris.

After her life as a paperweight, Cleo was a pet for a succession of well-loved dolls. The Götz girls love her. She was named after the goldfish in Pinocchio.

Aunt Gertrude was a special friend. She often invited us to the Hotel Vendome, where she lived, in Boston, for dinner on Sundays after church. We would eat vichyssoise and use finger bowls and cloth napkins. Sometimes I would order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (not really on the menu), and the waiter would arrive with it on a silver platter with a silver lid over it. He always had a cloth napkin over his arm, and he would unveil my sandwich for me by lifting the lid and winking at me, grinning with his teeth sparkling white against his almost ebony skin. He called me, “Madmoiselle!” 

Along the lines of food, we had pizza at The Pie in Salt Lake City before going to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Pioneer Theater Wednesday evening.

The walls at The Pie are decorated with graffiti, some of which you can see behind our pizza. We're going to miss the theater and opera here when we move...and the pizza.

Speaking of moving—and walls—here's a look at where my loom used to be.

We plan to get one of those pod things to fill up with our stuff and have hauled away to Bend. Then we can live in our house like in a hotel with cooking privileges while we show the house to prospective buyers. I took another load to stuff down to Savers in Salt Lake City on Saturday. Tuesday I'm taking a load of quilting magazines to Davidene's Quilt Shop. We plan to have a garage sale.

With all the moving stuff, some of the residents have come out of hiding. This little guy was probably living in our walls.

Lotte says, "That's OK. We can read the book together."

While cleaning up the living room, I decided I should host Common Threads one last time. Margareth was working on this appliqué project...for the wall.

She plans to take my schefflera plant, which is huge. She has a vaulted ceiling. Lynda left with my Thanksgiving cactus and one of our cacti.

What's on my needles: Still the Coastal Skies, a little more progress made.

What's on my Featherweight: Still fabric and miscellaneous things to sort through.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, but a lot of progress made this week.

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is put away but this week I added some fiber (“Frog Prince” from AlohaBlu) for Tour de Fleece, just in case I’m where I can spin when it’s time. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz, with the next one in the series due out soon.

What's in my wine glass: Bolla Romagna Sangiovese 2015, good with spaghetti and other Italian food.

What's my tip of the week: There are few things more disconcerting than needing toilet paper and there's only one sheet on the roll. Rather than nag family members to replace the paper, I like to keep an extra roll handy on the back of the toilet. When that one is installed, I get another one to replace it first opportunity.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.