Guild speaker and my other hobbies

Last night’s speaker at guild was Cynthia Regone.  If you get the chance to see her or take a class from her, do it.  Her presentation style is so fun that it will be worth it. 

I knew that I recognized the name, but I didn’t really study up on it.  Then, she started to pull out her quilts and I recognized the Fons and Porter syle of mixed piecing and applique and wondered who influenced who.  Wonderful quilts.  And, she brought a ton of them.  She is friends with Liz Porter and Liz, who lives near here and is a member of the guild, was in the audience.

Mostly, I was swept away by her version of the Emily’s Wedding  quilt.  I saw it and immediately thought of the small bin of 30’s repros I have.  There’s really nothing like seeing the real quilts, face to face.

There was also another one that blew me away in it’s simplicity.  I can’t find a picture on her website, but it’s the one in the background of her headshot.  It’s cheddar and green and white and red and flying geese and FABULOUS!

In other news, one of my roles over the last couple weeks has been Brewmeister Lane, as in “Brewmeister Lane is in da’ house!”  You gotta say it like I’m a rap star.

Anyway, it’s not as exciting as it sounds.  I had given up on making any more good beer.  Something happened and my last batches all tasted awfully the same.  So, this year, I did a ton of scrubbing and bleaching and scrubbing and rinsing and using a whole lot of winter water and I bought a kit and gave it one more try.  The last batch of beer smelled so bad that we kept looking for dog accidents.  But, this batch didn’t really smell much and when it did, it was like rising bread. 

54 bottles of beer on the floor; 54 bottles of beer.  If one of those six packs should happen to fall…we’re not even going to think about that because the sticky mess would be like cleaning up syrup.

And, you know how I”m always bragging that there’s something in bloom in my yard year round?  Well, in winter, it’s this Camelia Sasanquah.

 

These are just the first few of hundreds of buds that are set, ready to open from now until the first week of the new year.  My Grandparents had huge, red Camelias in their front yard on either side of the walk and I can remember those beautiful flowers when we would go for Christmas.  We were told to only look because the flower would get a brown spot where our fingers touched.  I still don’t know whether that’s true, because I still don’t touch the flowers.  Some lessons run deep, eh?

Everybody have a great Tuesday.  I’m off to work and to get home so I can quilt out some of this guild meeting inspiration.  I should just start taking the Tuesday after guild as a vacation day.

Lane