I Did It

Holy Moley, I did it.  This is the last day of the month and I’ve managed to put up a post every day.  I can’t believe that I actually did it, but Whoo HOOO!!!!!  And yes, I kinda cheated on a few of those days by posting something that I’d written months and even years ago, but it kind of fit in with the whole “green” theme.  I was recycling old material and using some of my stranger works as filler to get me through the entire month.

And thank you Gina for all the comments.  They made it more fun for me to keep posting.  And reason to keep it going on again for next month.  I may not have gotten a lot of important stuff added, but I kept it up each day and that’s amazing for me.  And I can’t wait to see what next month’s NaBloPoMo theme will be.  Not that I’ll stick with that theme for the entire month, but it will be nice to have something to work from.

Plus I have to keep everyone up-to-date on the quilt.  I’ve almost gotten all of the last pieces cut out and am about ready to start on getting the last blocks sewn together.  Once it’s all in place, I’ll get the entire thing put together and post more pics.  And I also want to get started on those Christmas ornaments and see what else I can come up with.  It will be interesting.

So, thanks to anyone who stopped by on a regular basis this month.  It was a total blast, and I’m hoping to do it again starting tomorrow.  LOL.  We’ll see though.  I might use one of my other blogs instead, or I might try and keep more than one blog updated daily.  That would be something, that’s for sure.  LOL

The Legend

(The following is a work of fiction.  This short story was written by Christine Senter in August of 2009.  Any resemblance between this story and an actual event are purely coincidental.  No part of this story may be copied and/or used in any other venue without the expressed permission of the author.  All rights reserved.)

As he climbed through another clump of bushes, Paul could see the mouth of the cave.  There it was just as the old map had shown.  Could he possibly be in a place that hadn’t seen a human in almost two hundred years?

Six months earlier, Paul Montgomery was in a small town library in upstate Maine.  He was going through and studying some of the local manuscripts and newspapers when he spotted something that instantly caught his eye.  In the middle of one of the books of court papers from the original village was an old hand-drawn map.

Paul had been around this region off and on for almost twenty years and knew there was something different about this old map.  According to the older map, there was a cave just forty miles from town.  When he looked at a current map there was no sign of it and that set Paul’s mind in motion.

He talked to some of the older folks in town trying to get as much information about the cave as he could, but nobody seemed to know anything about it.  He did, however, pick up on one of the local legends and thought that maybe the two went together.

The story said that before there was a village, pirates camped on an outcrop that had once jutted out over the ocean.  They supposedly buried a large amount of loot in a deep pit in the rocks.  The ocean protected the rocks for all but one hour of every day.  Otherwise the waves would crash in with such force, that to try to steal the bounty would surely get a man killed.

Finally the legend claimed that Captain Frederick Smythe went mad with fever and murdered his entire crew, fearing that they would take his treasure.  He killed the last man beneath the outcrop where they had camped which angered God so much that he caused the earth to shake and the outcrop crumbled down on top of the captain.  The rocks that held his stolen treasure were lost to the sea forever.

Paul learned every detail and version of the story he could and tried to find the few shards of truth within them.  He sat for hours on the rocky shoreline, searching for a hint of what was no longer there.  He took dozens of pictures from every possible angle and studied them relentlessly.

Finally he began to put all the pieces together.  He laid a tracing of the older map over a current map.  He figured that the cave would show up somewhere within the harbor, which had been proven to have widen since the late seventeenth century.  To his surprise it showed that the cave was quite a ways inland and should still be there in the forest.

Quickly he threw some supplies into a duffel bag and jumped into his jeep.  He followed the road as far as it would go but the cave was shown to be at least another five miles into the forest.  He left the jeep there and started climbing through the bushes which had brought him to this moment.

Slowly he moved on, knowing that there could be any variety of wild animals inside.  He pulled a flashlight out of his pack and picked up a small tree branch.  Wildly, he began yelling and banging the branch on the sides of the cave entrance.  Hundreds of bats swarmed from the cave and caused Paul to fall back down the hill.

He managed to get up and headed back for the cave.  He picked up his flashlight and went inside.  The stench of bat was almost more than he could bear, but still he pressed on.  Deeper into the cave, he began to see a faint scribbling on the walls.  It was three letters and a date.  “CFS 1692”, he stated out loud, “Captain Frederick Smythe”.

He looked around the cave a little longer but found nothing else.  He left feeling as though he had been transported through time.  He had stood in a place that hadn’t seen another person in two hundred years  Though he knew he had a lot more searching to do, he was thrilled to know that he had found a  little piece of truth in an old legend.

My Kid’s Quilt Part 2

In the last post I did about my daughter’s quilt, I promised to post pictures as soon as I got them onto my computer and resized.  Well, I tried to do that the other night and my computer had other plans and totally crashed on me.  But I did finally get the pics resized and all, so here is the latest update my kid’s quilt.

I started out with 7 different colors.  My daughter wanted her quilt to be in all blues, but I had to work with what I had.  A little black and white here and there really set the look.  These were my original color ideas.  I used mostly fabrics I already had on hand, but let my daughter choose one fabric from Hobby Lobby.  That would be the light blue one with stars on the left.

Once I got things figured out exactly how I wanted the, I put all the pieces together.  I started with just one to make sure I was happy with the arrangement, but was thrilled to see it done.

Once I got to this point, I went ahead and made up several more and made a block of 4 squares. They looked awesome together. 

The problem was that I didn’t have enough of all these materials to make an entire quilt that would cover her bed.  So I had to improvise and decided to make an entirely different set of blocks–also in blue, black, and white—to off set with the ones I’d just made.  I had plenty of the black and white at home, but decided to go with 5 other colors of blue.   So, off we went to Wal-Mart (Who by the way has been keeping their remnant rack quite full).  I picked up a couple of remnants I liked and a couple fat quarters that looked cool.  Then I let my kid pick out another fabric that she wanted in this block.  I figured that it’s her quilt, she might as well have some say as to what it looks like.

I got the dark blue with yellow flowers and the dark blue with light blue snowflakes at Wal-Mart, and had the white, black, and the dark and light blues used in the middle.  At the bottom of the picture, you’ll see my kid picked out the fabric with peace signs all over it.  Yes, peace signs.  It’s her favorite thing, which is okay with me since a couple years ago she was into skulls.  LOL

I was happy to see that the block looked pretty good all together, but quickly realized that I’d sewn my pieces together backwards from what I’d done with the first blocks.  Oh Crap!!!  Then my little muse slapped me up long side the head and told me that “it’s a special quilt and this was meant to be.  Now shut the hell up and get back to work”.  My muse is kinda bossy.

But when I put 4 of them together, I was almost heart broken.  Honestly, I wasn’t happy with it.  I thought it looked horrible.  But, it’s not my quilt and I wanted my daughter’s opinion.  She thought it was cool how the “black pieces make it look like I put an “S” in the block for Senter”.   Yeah, okay.  That’s what I meant to do, really.  hehehe.  As long as she’s happy, I’m happy.

That’s when I went ahead and got a bunch more blocks made and put together.  I’m still not done, but I have managed to get 10 full blocks done.  I have 2 more to go (one of each color scheme), and I’m going to add half blocks to each side.  I hope it will look as cool in real life as it does in my head.  LOL  Here’s what we have so far.  I’m happy!!

It’s not sewn together completely yet.  I want to finish up the last 2 full blocks and the 8 side blocks before I put the whole thing together.  Baby girl says she’s thrilled and can’t wait until it’s done.  Her birthday is on the 1st of October, and I plan to have this done by then.  Wish me luck and I’ll keep everyone up to date on my progress.

Have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!