Grand Palais Lions

These lions are at the entrance to the Palais de la Decouverte, a wing of the Grand Palais devoted to scientific discoveries. I was tempted to write "guard the entrance" but these lions look too friendly and serene to be guards. That and they're surrounded by roses and cherubs.

The lion on the other side of the steps. I love his face.

My friend Susan arrived on Tuesday for a month-long visit. She's an easy guest since she's lived in Paris before and speaks French. Yesterday we went out for a fantastic Indian food lunch and a trip to the Musee d' Orsay. It was really cold - felt like winter was back.

After some initial skittishness the cats have all adapted really quickly to having her here. I don't know if it's because we just had a guest last week and nothing bad happened to them or if they actually remember Susan - she's visited them in three different countries.

I got a package in the mail yesterday from Tanya all the way over in Japan. She sent me these letters. I think they're all left over from her marvelous wonky words quilt.

These ones in particular are amazing. They are Japanese words. Tanya has done great work getting these characters just right. I'm sorry they didn't find a home on her quilt, but I feel really honored to have them for one of mine.

By the way, if you've sent me letters or other quilt blocks and I haven't acknowledged you, please remind me. I am the queen of the scatterbrains.

Some quick links. Jessica just finished an adorable little wonky house quilt with a wind-up bird. Plus you can learn the dangers of having extra fabric while you're machine quilting.

Cheri is in the zone making free-pieced letters. Instead of having to double-check the procedures, she's got it all internalized. See, this does get easier. Look what a great job she's doing on her fun Stroop quilt.

Eileen Paulin is the founder of Red Lips 4 Courage which published the Collaborative Quilting book by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston. (or should I say Eileen got Sterling/Chapelle to publish it - I'm not quite sure how that works.) Go check out her blog post about Freddy, Gwen, and Collaboritive Quilting and read about their new book. Even better, leave Eileen a comment and tell her thank you, thank you, thank you for publishing these two wonderful quilters.

It is entirely possible that there was something else I meant to write about here, but can't remember it at all. Just bear with me for the next six weeks or so. I'm going to have guests, touristing to do and a quick trip to Florida is in the works.