twelve by twelve

I have a beautiful book to share with you. Twelve By Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge.

The book is about the 12 x 12 group and their challenges to make 12" square quilts. Rather than go into the details, I'll just send you to their blog to read more. As far as the book goes, it's published by Lark and they always do such a gorgeous job with their books. It's my favorite kind of quilt book = wordy. That is, there are stories to about how the challenge topics were chosen, how the quilters picked what to work on, their techniques for putting the quilts together. Plus, I LOVE pictures of quilters' studios and collections and the book even includes that, as well as biographical details. So much information packed in here.

Holy Cow, the Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge is actually 50% off at Amazon right now. I highly recommend the book anyway, but at this price? Go, go, go. 

My longtime blogging friend Kristin LaFlamme is a member of the 12 x 12 group. Kristin and I actually got to meet in Houston - woohoo! I was also lucky enough to meet her darling (but tired after the long flight from Hawaii and now we're at a quilt show) kids and her generous husband, who is known in Internetlandia as IBOL guy. IBOL = Iraqi Bundles of Love, in which quilters (knitters and anyone else who wants to help) send sewing products and fabric to share with Iraqis, to try and show some love and generosity. Read the IBOL blog to find out more.

So, this is me (on the left in my new Just Bobbin Along necklace that I bought at the show but you can buy here) and Kristin:

I have been working my way through the 12 x 12 book, savoring it slowly, but not doing much fiction reading. I go through booms and busts. Partly because once I get really hooked into a novel I can't put it down and I stay up until 3am reading it (just like I did all throughout my school years - not very bright).

TV has been really pathetic lately. When my sweetie was home we finally got to watch the rest of Burn Notice season 4. I hope he's not reading this, but I thought it was really disappointing. The whole Jesse thing just took too much time away from the main characters whom I all love. Not to mention that I am so tired of the whole Burn Notice thing. Let it go already.

Also finished The Closer's most recent season. (Can I just say how annoying it is for some of these summer programs to take a break in the middle of their already short season? gah). That show just doesn't intrigue me or make me laugh the way it used to. Always have too many kinda preachy episodes. But it did have one of my favorite episodes ever, The Layover, with Flynn and Provenza. I love those guys.

Hee hee hee. I was looking for a Closer clip to show you and came across this Sesame Street takeoff. It's short and a hoot:



Have ya'all seen Downton Abbey? Fantastic show. I had to order the dvd before the show even finished airing on Masterpiece Theater. Here is a quote from Jace Lacob's Daily Beast article on the show

Downton Abbey offers a lavish take on the period drama, depicting the lives of the wealthy Crawley family and their servants at an English stately home just prior to World War I. When the sinking of the Titanic takes the lives of the next two heirs to a vast estate, the Crawley family is left with a dilemma as the next in line to inherit is a distant cousin, a middle-class solicitor whom none of them know.

Whee, so looking forward to the sequel, filming soon in the U.K.  Man, it's gonna take forever to get here!

Okay, so not only do I have a thing for shows made from Jane Austen's books, but also for shows set in this later time. The writer of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellows, also did Gosford Park which I love and is set in the same time period. Edwardian, right? Speaking of which...

Has anyone else ever seen the U.K. series Flambards? It's about a teenage girl Christina who's been orphaned and sent off to live with her mean uncle and his two sons. The elder is very virile and horsey and the younger, William, is crippled and extremely intelligent (and of course despised by his father and brother). Oh, and the good looking stable boy. So there are horses, early motor cars and aeroplanes and it's just fabulous. And uh oh, World War I is looming...

The show aired on PBS when I was about 16 - the perfect age for the show. I sooo loved it. Taped it on the VCR and watched it over and over and over again. When it played ten years later, I watched it all over again, sucking a roommate right into it too. Just writing this makes me realize how much I loved this show and the books (starting with Flambards) it was based on. I had to go see if it was on DVD and it looks like there is an old crummy transfer available and a new dvd set is coming out next month. But has it been remastered?

So funny thinking about this show as an adult because there is all this romantic tension between Christina and her cousins. Kinda icky. Hmmm, maybe it was a step-uncle or something. It appears I don't remember the ENTIRE thing as well as I thought. I could certainly tell you all the plot points though and about the adventurous Dorothy in her motor car....

Okay, that's enough of a novel to write for today. Oh wait. If I forget to put kitty pics in a blog post (again) my husband will kill me (with his sadness). While he was home, he managed to get some rare shots of all four kitties in the same place. Of course there was sunshine:

ah sunshine