Wonky Stars

This month's block for do.Good Stitches is the Wonky Star.  We had to make two 14" wonky blocks (one with a tan background and one with a gray background):

I love wonky stars, so these were a lot of fun to make.

Ides of March

It just occurred to me that March is already half way over and I haven't sewn a thing - so sad!  I started making a list of the things I'm supposed to get done in March and then I remembered I never finished the quilting on the Skill Builder blocks from February either.  Oops.  Looks like it's time to get sewing.  During nap time today I pieced together the 2 March Blocks for Sisters Modern BOM: School Girl's Puzzle. 

Dancing on 42nd Street

This past weekend I made my annual pilgrimage back to my hometown to see the high school musical that my best friend's mom (from high school) choreographs.  This year they performed 42nd Street.  It's an old-school musical (it won the Tony in 1980 and again in 2001 for the revival) that is about behind the scenes of the production of a Broadway musical.  It's full of chorus-line girls and all the typical Broadway characters like the arrogant producer, the famous but not all that talented diva, and the starry-eyed chorus girl from a small town.  It actually has a number of really well known songs.  Most people have heard of We're in the Money and The Lullaby of Broadway even if they don't know where the songs originally came from.

Source

I'm not as huge of a fan of old-school musicals, but I have to say that these kids did a killer job on the dancing.  I've never seen so much dancing in a high school musical before and it was almost all tap dancing.  Most of these kids had never had any dance exposure before, and tap dancing is one of the most difficult genres of dance to just randomly pick up, so Cathy did a phenomonal job with them.  I was seriously so impressed with their dancing.  Even the guys did a great job tap dancing. 

Just a funny little side note on how far removed from the high school scene I am:  The director and choreographer of my high school musicals were married, and during my senior year the choreographer was pregnant.  They had a little girl.  It was that little girl who, as a Junior in high school, was the lead in 42nd Street this weekend.  Time certainly flies by quickly.

Blocks Are In!

I got the last of my 5 blocks from the Winter Round of 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee in the mail yesterday!  They are all wonderful!  I now have 10 blocks in these colors (purple, turquoise, and gray with a black background), so I'm going to do one more round before I put together a quilt top.

Never a Dull Moment

It's been a crazy day at the Thompson residence.  I should have known it was going to be an eventful Monday when I got all the way through the grocery line before realizing I had forgotten my wallet.  I have to say that's a first for me, and I'm hoping there's not a second time. 

We were having someone over for dinner, so I was running around trying to get the house clean and all that jazz.  I had a meeting for church, and then I took a couple of minutes to finish up my Bookshelf Block (based on Elizabeth's tutorial here):

My do. Good Stitches quilting circle is making a quilt in conjunction with an effort to make a quilt for each of the families of the victims of the shooting in CT.  We are assigned to the family of the principal that was killed.  We thought it would be fitting to make a Bookshelf Quilt for the family since she was an educator.  I'm really excited to see this quilt come all together.

That part of the day was ok, but then this afternoon Little Man's aide came upstairs and said, "Um, I thought you might want to know there's water flooding your basement."  Say what?!!  It turns out our washer was leaking, and all the water was traveling down the heating vent that's right in front of the washer.  The water formed a T-shaped waterfall in our basement off the heating ducts.  Luckily, because of Brooke we caught it early.  We shut off the water and started moving things right away.  The loss was minimal, but the annoying part was that all of the hoses were still completely hooked up to the washer and the front door wasn't the leaking part, so it's got to be something underneath.  It's only 2 years old and is still under warranty, but they told us they can't come to look at it until March 7th!  I love that they say they come in cases of emergency, but even with a flooding home they can't make it out until March.  Sigh.  Looks like I'll be washing clothes at my friends' homes until then.  I'm so grateful though that it was my last load of laundry when it started leaking.  At least we have clean clothes for now.  I feel a little like white trash though, because we have stuff lining our front rooms to dry out, and we have tons of towels hanging in the backyard in freezing weather.  Good times.

Linkin' up to BOMs Away.

Another Skill Builder

I pieced together the other Skill Builder block last night: The Mood -

I actually pieced the wrong rectangle triangles together for the bottom right corner, so they're inverted.  I was going to sew the other triangles together to fix it and then I remembered that it's a sampler quilt, and it's not matching anything or anyone else's block, so it was a silly perfectionist extra step that I didn't need to do.  The block looks fine as is.  It's definitely a very different design than what I normally do.  I kinda like it. 

Musical Love

We're a bit behind the times, but Joel and I finally saw the movie version of Les Miserables.  It reminded me why it's my favorite musical of all-time.  I was very impressed with the acting, and liked the perspective the movie brought.  It made Fantine's fall more poignant and the life of the poor in France more vivid.  It also made the reality and danger of the barricade more realistic.  When it's on stage it is left more to the imagination, and the music is foremost in your mind. 

I know it's nigh unto treason to love anyone but Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean, but I confess my favorite version of "Bring Him Home" was sung by Alfie Boe at the 25th Anniversary Concert.  This version is him singing at the Christmas special with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir this past December.  His delivery is breathtaking:

February Stitches

This month's block for do.Good Stitches was an adapted version of Road to Tennessee.  It typically has 4 rows, but we made the color blocks bigger and made it 3 rows using blues and greens with a gray background.

Next up is an extra block we're making for a special quilt.  We're making a library books block.  It should be a lot of fun.  Linkin' up to BOMs Away.