Saturday, June 27, 2009

Stuff White Christians Like

So, I was visiting Sharon last week, and she had a copy of "Stuff White People Like" out of the library. This is a book, based on a blog that basically is an ironic list of things upper middle class white people with libral arts educations like. The list includes coffe, Apple computers, yoga, the outdoors, organic produce, indie rock and NPR. It is a pretty funny and, as a GenX, liberal arts educated white person, pretty painful list to read.

This led me to my own riff on the topic, which is Stuff White Christians Like. To explain a little, I grew up as a Baptist Pastor's kid, so I've had my share of experiences with Stuff White Christians Like. I won't go into a lot of detail, but a few that came to mind:

Missions Trips
Pop
Buffets
Leather Bound Bibles
Zip-up Bible Cases with Handles
Arguments about Predestination and End Times
Leaving Tracts instead of Tips
Applying Singles Verses out of Context to Justify Anything
Abstaining from Alcohol
Faith Fish Jewlery
Subtly Christian Tatoos
Evangelistic T-Shirts
Christian Music Festivals
Rallies
Summer Camp
Retreats
Car Rallys
Sharing Other People's Prayer Requests
Popcorn Prayer
Singing Praise Music by a Campfire accompanied by a Guitar
Christian Replicas of Popular Music
Christian Celebrities
Being "Led"
Soup Kitchens
Being in a Worship Band

Anyone else?

General Update

Well, I still have no camera, so I'm feeling a bit out of the blog / Flikr loop. Plus I tend to get a bit grumpy and introspective when I'm pregnant, and after the winter we had around here, I'm sure you've all had enough of grumpy and introspective Jill.

So instead, I shall give you funny / clever Jill's kids. One story from each.

Andrew longs to have a Playmobil castle or pirate ship (despite having two other plastic yard sale find castles). The other day we got out his piggy bank and counted up his money to see if he had enough yet. He has $16, because every time Dave empties his pockets, or I find change in the laundry, Andrew immediately swipes whatever he finds. So, after I told him he needed another eighty or so dollars to get a playmobil castle, he said, "You know what we should do tomorrow, Mom? We should have a Money Hunt. It will work like this. You get some money, and hide it around my room and your room. Then I will find it and put it in my piggy bank. Then I can get my castle." (I wish someone would do a money hunt for me.)

Aaron has decided that he is Batman. This means that he wears a superhero cape whenever he can, feels like he has the right to punch everyone whenever he wants to (sigh) and insists on being addressed as Batman at all times. Last night he woke up around 10pm because he had to pee (no, I don't know how you can get your kids to do this, so just enjoy your sleep and put them in diapers). I set him on the potty, and after a bit said, "Are you done, Aaron?". He said, sleepily, "I'm Batman." I corrected myself: "Are you done Batman?" Aaron: "Yes. Batman went pee."

The new baby is beginning to recognize voices. S/he has started turning and kicking whenever s/he hears Andrew or Aaron or Dave start talking after they have been silent for a while. No one else can really tell yet, but it is very cute for me.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Dear God:

Overall, your design concept "summer" is perfect. Watermelon must have been thought of on a particularly brilliant day. But mosquitos? Have you fired the guy that came up with mosquitos yet?

We have had a couple of brilliant days here: hot and sunny. Full of watermelon and waterguns and wading pools. Its been a two-bath-a-day kind of week so far. Perfect. Flawless. After such a long wait, I am loving the heat. Although cooking roast beef yesterday was not one of my brightest plans, it has otherwise been great. Hooray for summer!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Threads Together Update

I realized I haven't actually shown you guys any of my quilt blocks so far. I finally finished the infernal triangles, and they look pretty good and will hopefully stay together. Then I did my May blocks and sent them out. Ironically, I picked up the fabric for my June blocks (not finished yet) the day after I sent out the other two sets. So here goes:

These were the blocks for March. We got some beautiful Kaffe Fasset fabrics to play with. One block is improvised, and the other is a block from the "New Orleans Star Quilt" in Kaleidoscope of Quilts:




These are Betty's triangle blocks. The odd little bits of yellow peeking out of the edges are some gray martini dots I had drifting around. The grey matched with the grey background fabric I recived, so I used mostly tiny pieces of it to fill in the gaps:




This was the fabric Cris sent us for May. She said she wanted something fun, so I tried to comply. Again, I did one improvised log cabin-y block and one from a pattern found online (although I modified it -- first on purpose to use five fabrics instead of 3, and then by accident because I can't ever keep track of what's supposed to go where:




So there you go. I still don't have my digital camera. I actually used our film camera, and got a photo cd with my prints. Handy, eh? If I can learn to wait 5 days (ha!) I can even get the film processed for .99 cents. Remember when One Hour Photo finishing was a luxury, and we expected to wait 5 days for photos once we had finally finished a roll of film and taken it in to be developed at the photo shop?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

What's In a Name?

Tamara over at 1/4 of an inch is asking bloggers to tell the story of the name of their title.

I started this blog before I started quilting. I had just made the giant life transition from being a childless professional to being a stay at home parent. I had also just moved to a different province. So I didn't start this blog with a huge focus -- the idea of a craft blog,or that I would take up crafting to the extent that I have, was foreign to me. I wasn't sure if I was just going to write about my life, or comment on things that were going on around me, or discuss ideas, or what. My friend Kris had started a blog, and I kept hearing about blogging on CBC, and I thought it might be an outlet for all my ideas and thoughts and randomness, and keep me writing something.

I used to write plays and fiction, and was directing my plays in local play festivals and submitting my short fiction to magazines. Nothing ever got published, but with that in mind, I thought that Life and Times of Jill (as in Life and Times of Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Jane Austen) might be a fun title. It would sound a little bit grand, but then have a note of self deprication and bathos, because I'm just Jill, not some famous person.

It was kind of funny, because I thought that it would for sure have been taken by someone already, or that there would be lots of Life and Times of . . . titles out there. But I've never heard of another one. Which is all good.

If you want to check out the what and where of other bloggers' titles, or add your name and description to the list, you can go to 1/4 of an inch and add yourself to her Mr. Linky here .

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Hello! Still here, and still no camera. I managed to mostly salvage Betty's blocks, and got my May blocks done, too (um, yeah, in June. Bad Jill.). Once I finish the roll in my film camera I shall post photos. TTFN

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Disaster Strikes!

Its late (for me) so I'm feeling a little melodramatic, I admit.

But seriously. What do you do when you make a total mess of someone else's quilt? In my Threads Together quilting bee, betty ninja asked us to paper piece her some triangle blocks. After my first batch of fabric got lost in the mail, I finally received my second batch. Completely overestimating my abilities to paper piece precisely, I decided to do some of these . The finished blocks on the twiddletails quilt are 6", so I thought I would just do four for each 12" block and it would be all good. But I didn't quite have enough background fabric unless I cut really, really closely.

So I cut really closely. Too closely. And now I have 16 finished rows of triangles that are slightly wonky, have a very scant 1/4 of an inch seam allowances and aren't going to make 12" blocks, because there's just not enough fabric left on the edges for proper seam allowances. Blech. The secret perfectionist in me is doing its best impression of "The Scream". The rest of me is madly scrambling to fix the blocks so they'll be usable and look okay when they are finished, with only four very thin triangles of background fabric to patch them together with.

On the other hand, the points are brilliant. I think I only cut off 3 points out of 48 triangles. There is that about paper piecing, it certainly is precise.

I think its time for me to go to bed and look at this with a fresh perspective in the morning. It can't possibly look worse than it does right now, right? Right?

Pseudo-Soxul

Still no camera, sorry.

We found a happy solution to one of our worst problems around here these days . . . Soxul Furry is just getting too much love. Andrew's little purple bear has been co-opted by Aaron. But she is still Andrew's favorite bear, as well. This has caused endless screaming fits, wrestling matches and general removal of said bear to high, safe places.

The answer? Pseudo-Soxul. A small blue bear, the same size and shape as the beloved purple bear.

Thanks, Extra Foods.