I DID IT!!!

I like to sing. When I was in high school, I was in the SMA Choral. We did the musicals, concerts and sounded like angels in the IHM Motherhouse Chapel. Once out of school, I didn't join any choirs because I felt like I could just sing among the parishioners. So, when we moved to Oregon, after one year of being a member of Christ the King Church, I joined the choir, sang at the Grotto and was going to begin cantoring. Then we moved parishes.

We have a cantor, Vivian, and an electric piano pianist, Andrea, who do the music at our new parish, St. Michaels. As their is no choir, I told them if they wanted me to fill in for the cantor when she is not available, I would be happy to. So, Vivian said that she was going to be out of town at the end of March and would I fill in. I immediately said "yes".

I then asked if I could practice with Andrea, the pianist, maybe a few times before this weekend. That was when they told me that THEY BOTH WERE GOING TO BE GONE!!! Yikes!!!! So, not only would I be the cantor, I would be everything - cantor singing acapella!!!!

Last night and today were the days. I was really nervous last night, but only knew a couple of people at church and Fr. Kraull was grateful for my involvement. I also wouldn't let Phil sit where I could see him. Didn't want any distractions. I did fine until the "Holy, Holy, Holy". Somehow the music was nearly the same as another song and so we sang one verse of it instead of what I was supposed to lead them to sing. AARGH!!!! But I got through it and had many people come up to me and thank me for leading the songs.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I then had to go to St. John of the Woods in Welches and do Mass there as well. Wonderful little church, in the woods with great acoustics. Only about 20 people and I didn't know anyone so that was good. Noticed that they were singing songs I didn't know, so we changed that fast.

Then this morning, I went back for 9:30 Mass at St. Michaels and did it all over again. Only knew one person there and she sat in the choir loft so that was ok. Oh yes, I did all the songs correctly the last two Masses and am now done. Whew!!!

I did enjoy it and was glad that I only did one big goof and my voice didn't crack at all this morning. Vivian is going to be gone again in May but so am I so they will have to wing it themselves!! But I will look forward to serving in that capacity again in the future. Thank you God for getting me through it - it was great!!!

Oops - Forgot a photo

I meant to put this into the Northwest Quilters Quilt Show entry but forgot. The venue was Multnomah University which used to be called the Multnomah Bible College. So this gymnasium was used for their church services. As we looked up, there were these pipes and musical instruments in these boxes. And behind the glass was the pipe organ that they used. It was fun to look at - all the men who attended the show would be trying to figure out how it worked, I am sure.

My project for the week

I am involved in the Sandy Quilt Show which is held in the middle of July. About now is the time to think of what your entry will be for the show - or maybe not. Some people wait until three weeks before and then start scrounging through their stash to see what they can complete. Anyway, between April 1 and July 1, I will be gallivanting for a total of 5 weeks, so I need to make sure I have one in the works to be finished. Last year I did this top which is a wall hanging of the full size $5 quilt class. I didn't want a full quilt (already have two that need to be finished) so I chose to do this smaller version of "Kaleidoscope of Color".

Because I chose to do the "miniature" version, I had lots of pieces left over. So, I proceeded to do this as my backing. Now I will get time on the long arm quilt machine and quilt it. Yeah, an almost finished project. :-)

As you can see I still have some fabric left over. So, these will make nice borders for some of the squares we did last year at the quilt show called "Build a Block". More on that at a later posting.

Northwest Quilters Quilt Show

Yesterday my Q-FAC (Quilting and Fiber Arts Club) friend, LaDonna, her daughter Nissa and I ventured to Multnomah University to see the Northwest Quilters Quilt Show. They had 25 vendors, demonstrators and almost 300 quilts in their show. Very impressive and over-stimulating for the brain. Here are a few pictures I took of some of the quilts we saw.

This quilt was called "Pumpkin Soup", some piecing and some applique.
This was an indigo blue and white reverse applique quilt - meaning where the white is usually the blue is and where the blue is the white. These squares were 4 inch finished. Quite the eye opener when you first walked into the gym.

This was a three dimentional turkey called "Run, Tom, Run". His tail feathers were folded material and sewn into the seam and then fluffed to give it the 3-D look.

This was a wonderful fall applique piece. I loved the look of it - reminded me of Michigan in the fall.

This was a miniature pieced called "Button Baskets". Very cute - would be a neat hanging for a little girl.

This Quilt was done by a number of ladies. The blocks were all cross stitched and then put into a quilt. I believe it said it took them 5 years to complete.

This quilt was called "Almost Insane". Each square was 4 inch finished and put together with lots of little scraps of fabric.

This was one of the blocks in the quilt in the above picture. This 4 inch square has 200 pieces of material in it. (You can count them if you want - I took her word for it.) There was another one nearby that had 185 pieces in it. Very well done and the quilt was really neat to look at up close. Not for me to do!!
This quilt was fun to look at. The creator did log cabins for the baskets and then appliqued grapevine wreaths for the handles, flowers, birds, butterflies, etc.

Hope you enjoyed my little version of the Northwest Quilters Quilt Show.

Garden Party

Last year we had a container garden with rosemary, sage, basil and chamomile in one long container, two tomatoes in another container and lavender in one more. It was hard to keep them up because some require more water than others, and the deck was too warm so you had to keep up with the watering. So, this year, Phil is making me a tiered garden next to the deck. He starts by sawing the boards at the garage.
I took this picture from the deck, with Phil working hard on removing the clay, loom stuff that they call dirt here. We will remove it and put good garden dirt.

This is the first of three tiers; each tier being 6ft by 3 ft.

A man and his shovel playing in the dirt!!

A Fun Week - Stitching, Massage and Shopping

As many of you know, I belong to the Embroiderers' Guild of America (EGA) and have since our sons were little. We recently took a correspondence class called "A Swiss Sampler". I started mine, but only finished up two and a half of the motiffs before deciding that I didn't care to do blackwork and had too much on my plate to complete it. So, this is a picture of my work in progress, which is now on the back burner.

But here are the finished ones of three of my fellow Rose City Stitchers Chapter members who did complete theirs and received the certificate of completion from the teacher. Good job!!

So Tuesday was Massage Day. Sorry no picture here. I received a gift certificate from my sons to go to Dosha Day Spa for a massage, hair cut, manicure, etc. So, I chose just to do a massage to get the knots out of my shoulders from the last few weeks of hectic sewing on HUGS. Ah, the bliss of Hannah's hands as she massaged, soft music, just a great pamper afternoon. Have to go back soon to get another one as I still have money left on my certificate. Thanks Greg and Nick - a wonderful gift!!

Then Wednesday we went on a field trip instead of sewing as usual at Quilting Delights. We started out at Elmers (like a Bob Evans) for lunch. Then on to Acorns and Threads in Raleigh Hills, a needlework shop filled with fibers, material, kits, beads, etc for hardanger, cross stitch, pulled threads, etc. The store owner had just returned from market so there were lots of great things to see. (I forgot to take a picture so you will have to imagine it.)

Then we went to A Common Thread in Tigard to shop for quilting material. They have a wonderful classroom with these neat tables on wheels that are perfect for quilters to lay out their tools, sewing machines and projects for efficient sewing. We decided we will have to talk to Thea at QD about getting some.

We then asked a kind fellow who was shopping with his wife to take our picture among the batik fabric. We were helping Betty to get purple and blue materials for a wallhanging that she wants to do for the beach. (left-right- me, Dixie, Marilyn, Betty, Donna and Cindy. It was a fun, relaxing day, even with the drive back through rush hour traffic on the freeways.

Hope you enjoyed looking at my week as much as I enjoyed doing it.

More Quilting Pictures

While looking through my stuff, I noticed that I had a couple of more pics of things that I had made. Here is my Mom modeling the Sack-It-To-Ya Bag that I made here. She wanted something to carry her shoes to weddings to dance in comfort. I have made a few of these and they hold lots of items, such as material, 4-5 library books, etc.
This is a quilt that I did for our second bedroom. It is called "All By Me" as I pieced the top, quilted it on the long arm machine and bound it. It is hanging in the Sandy Quilt Show last year and won a first placd ribbon in the "First Time" category - the first time the entrant has placed something in the show. Our Show is the third weekend in July and we have a wonderful time putting up all the magnificant quilts that people enter. More on that in July.