Mermaid Round Robin

Hi y'all, I wanted to post the little video I made with Picture trail on here but  gotta admit don't know how.   So here is the link to my other blog.  It is all the same bunny trails as this one.  Here is the link and hope you enjoy it.   You do need flash on  your computer but thank goodness it is something free in the world      here for other blog 

Sorry about some not getting to see the video below, so here is the book with out the video.   Thanks for looking

The cover of the book, cardboard covered in beautiful fabric a sweet friend gave to me.   Thank you Kathleen. 

The spine with lots of goodies to say "pick me" on the shelf.  

The first page to put the table of contents card in the  block embellished by Mary Beard.  

This block embellished by Kathy Semone and me.   I embellished the left hand side pretties. 

This block embellished by Renee Younger and I embellished the left hand side.

I

I did both sides of this part.

The block embellished by Nicki Seavy and I embellished the left side

The block embellished by Sandy Black and I embellished the left side.

I embellished both pages, this was suppose to be the cover but now the back page.  Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world

Annette

2018 Youth Sailing World Championship

Hi y'all, well this post has absolutely nothing to do with CQ, Art of any kind or any other bunny trials I go on one.  Well one precious story but that is at the end of this post. 

We had heard on TV, yes TV ( we admit proudly we watch TV) about the  Youth World Championship Sailing.  We have never ever been around Sail Boats, but do know one lady who is a Sailboat Captain ( if our memory serves us correctly-  Lela).   What a treat for us to see all of this activity.  They bid for the chance for this event and were granted it in 2016. 

There were 382 young sailors up to the age of 18 from all over the world, actually 66 countries to be almost exact.  We did hear the number 420 and 400 several times but didn't know if that number actually entered or what they ment but I didn't want to leave that out just in case it was a magic number.  Remember I don't know one little thing about sail boats.    They had boys and girls fleets.

We wondered if they had their own boats shipped over but heard a lady or someone say that Great Britain furnished the boats and had them shipped over here to Corpus Christi. The kids could of course use their own banners on them.  After the races they did hose off all of the salt water and take care of them as if their own.    There was 110 races over a 5 day span and included 9 different classes for all to be in.   Now that is a herd of boats no matter what you say.   They loved the Corpus area because the wind.   A lot of the places they have these at didn't have the consistent winds  and to me ya gotta have wind to go somewhere. 

We didn't know when we went over to Corpus  that their take off time was by 11 am and coming in time was 6 pm.  We know now, we had made another stop before getting to where the sail boats were.  I did take a few pictures, there is a bit of the Saharan dust in the air so you will be able to tell which photos are mine.  The rest of the birds eye photos are from the TV from the two  television stations in Corpus Christi.   What a treat y'all get to see these besides my puny attempt of photos of the sail boats. Kiii and KRIS.   They did fantastic coverage of this even. 

So here ya go---the flags representing the countries entering the races.  No matter where I stood I couldn't get all of the flags in one pic but this way you might can make your country's flag out.  I see ours. 

when we walked over to where the boats were launching we saw all these things on the beach.  Several areas had a lot of them, I didn't have a clue what they were but hubby knew.  Dolly's that the boats were on and how they got around with them on land.  

Now we did get to see on boat getting ready to join the others to race.  So interesting to us.  

A couple of the TV shots with some of the boats.  Told ya it is a herd of boats.  What an adventure for these young adults.   What tales they will have to tell.  

Birds eye vies of one of the races.  I didn't know why this little group of sailors had the orange sails.  They were pretty. 

We did hear the colored dots ment what place they were in, I do know for sure, I think, the red dots ment 3rd place but not sure which was first or second  blue or red.  My guess would be blue for first  but hey that is a guess from a land lover.  

Here is the police stand they had so they could view all and if any wrong doings going on.  That is a birds eye view for sure .

From where we were at this particular beach we could see the USS Lexington.  Now this ship has some stories.  We have been on it years ago but when cools off less than 100 million degrees we will go back on it before we leave this part of Texas.

There you go, I just thought this was certainly a blog worthy post and so much energy here with all the young people around. they were all so happy and just thoroughly enjoying themselves to the fullest.  

Now for the cute story, just have to tell it.   Our daughter Debra, while going to college and for two summers, was a counselor at Camp Champion.  It is a summer camp around Marble Falls, Texas area.  She said some of the campers would come in there private planes and it was a busy and full place.  Anyway she had a group of girls that wanted to go sailing.  Debra was like me, knew nothing about sail boats.  She told the girls and they didn't care.  So off they went and the girls squealed and giggles like  little girls do  and said they had the time of their life with her on the sail boat.  They would lean  over and yell to anyone who what close to them in the water " move out of the way she doesn't know what she is doing" then they would all laugh.  When they made it back from their sailing adventure, safe and sound,  they wanted to go again and said that was the most fun they had ever had sailing with Debra.   Now when Debra told us we died laughing and was a summer memory for she and the girls.   

There ya go and thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  

XOOXOX

Annette  

Just stuff for July

Hello and happy July.  It is toasty here as in other places but hey it is Summer and it comes every year.  No, really it comes every year and usually the same time of year also.   Sometimes a slow starter and sometimes it lets go of the heat later but that is a fact.  Now I can remember way back in the olden days when kids played outside until it was darker than a starless night and we never thought of it as being dark.  Well until someone tells you it is dark.  It was Summer and you were playing.  That was a job for you---playing.  You were having a good time playing Cowboys and Indians,  (taking turns who was what ), making mud pies or playing hide and seek.  Yes back in those olden days.  Now this may come as a surprise but Autumn or Fall will be coming also and then Winter.  My favorite time of year is Fall, everything is pretty and we have gotten past the ugly stages some plants go thru and it is a tad cooler.  Just a pleasant time of year. xoox

As you may remember we are here on a "vacation" so to speak.  After Harvey we could have left but felt like we needed to stay, be it to explore this area more or just get the feel?   I wonder why ? Are we here for a reason?   I feel like we are and maybe after August our little vacation here might have fulfilled as to why we are here.  You never know.  I think often that we are here in this little town to learn some things about ourselves maybe and also for a reason, maybe to be here for someone or just impact something?  We never know whose paths we will cross in life do we?  Maybe meeting someone you didn't even know was in the world and that would be worth it for sure.

I have a good excuse to stay inside and enjoy the cool air conditioner is the heat.   AND AND I get to paint, which I laugh at because that is my "job" now.  Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  I feel like I am growing in this field and maybe on a path to something or just to keep me entertained and not drive hubby nuts.   Could be.  I am doing lots of portraits and will just see what my next step in this art adventure will be.

  

This is one painting I just finished.   The sweet lady doesn't have my blog address  so I can let y'all sneak a peek. She loves my colors so I thought I will just surprise her with not such a stuffy portrait.  A fun and light painting.   It is in acrylic and seems like I am enjoying that medium a lot.  It does dry quickly and I don't have to raid the cookie jar or anything like that while waiting for it to dry.  Well truthfully the cookie jar is full of the candies Eldon likes, so I could raid it.   Hummmm a thought.

Now here is another portrait I finished in charcoal and no one in particular just a magazine gentleman.  I have been on a charcoal kick so kick away Annette.   Love the dark dark around him and it really makes his white beard pop doesn't it?  I am doing these while watching TV at night.  I don't have much of my Crazy Quilting going on at the second so why not sketch and just dilly dally?  I laugh because if I don't do art or stitching while I watch TV I go to sleep.  What kind of a TV watching partner would that be?   Kind of bumish I think.   

 Now a little up date on Hurricane Harvey goings on and cleaning up.   I might have shown these pictures or something similar but just refreshing your memory of all the debris in the bar ditch of Highway 35.  Well it is all gone, every tiny bit of it, maybe a little mulch still hanging around but nice and clean and the highway department as madethe bar ditch just as smooth and pretty as ever.

 A wonderful thing is happening right now  and you don't realize what you miss until you miss it.   We are getting highway signs up now.  Yea and if you don't know where you are going, you don't know where you are going.   There are still lots of street signs not up so we are in just a wandering bliss when we drive around.  Not knowing where we are just by landmarks.   You know though that is how I find things, buildings etc by the landmarks.   I use to tell people in a neighboring town go down highway yatta yatta and when you get to the tree on the right ( there was only one tree there ) you can use that little road on the left and get you to this back road everyone used.   Guess just a country direction.  Those are Annette directions.   It was called Telephone Road and everyone drove quite speedily on it.  Well very speedily is more like it.

Everything is slowly coming back to normal and one particular apartment complex has it roof on now and some  just have tarps on them.   Now for the inside work on the new roof complex.  The did have a TV story that one particular complex got a giant grant or funding and will get to start on it's repair.

This little guy was strolling across our yard the other day.  I stood and watched him like a tourist or something and then thought ANNETTE get the camera.   He was hooking it but did get him before he got out of my camera range.   He was full of business and love to watch them walk.  

One thing have learned while here is we don't need an acre or 3 1/2 acres for a yard.  When we start hunting for our home with roots for us I may have to do some talking to hubby about this.  Maybe a little more than this but certainly easy to tend to and fortunately for me it is not big enough for both of us to work in it at a time.  Awe shucks what a shame.  No just joking I do enjoy working in the yard, something about getting the hands dirty and just the pride of it all.   We have made this little area, added rocks and pots and plants.   A friend in Florida says she likes plants in pots that is what she has and I love it.   No weeding at all.  Now if I have shown this before just say well she wants to show us how much things have grown.     The one yellow bell on the right  came with the house so we bought another one and planted in the ground. Our gift to the yard and will stay when we leave.  Oh if you notice the plastic zip lock on the little grill?  Fill with water add a penny and the flies stay pretty much away.   We have done this trick for years.  Once when at a restaurant with an outside patio they had these all over everywhere.  So I guess we are doing good with our plastic zip locks 

No CQ for today but coming soon.  Thank you for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  

                                             

                                                            XOXOOX

                                                             Annette

CQ book in the making and other goodies going on

Hi y'all, well my title just about covers it doesn't it?   I guess I could have made it longer and more descriptive?   No, I bet y'all know exactly what I am talking about.

We have been getting major rain the last few days, our little rain gauge after being emptied several times tallied up to 14 inches.    Now all the years we have had the gauge in West Texas it has never had to work so overtime as it did this past week.   We were fortunate enough to get this in about 3 days, maybe less but it did give the rain time to not just stay and flood our area.  Some areas around here got it bad even a creek close by did rise a lot !!!  Part of South Texas the rain all came at one time and that is just to much for the streets etc to handle and the poor people of there had to go thru the flooding.  Like the water was shoulder high to them.   Man alive when Mother Nature clears her throat she clears it. Just had to share what was going on in this part of our world.  The sun is shining and that is a beautiful thing.  I try not to complain about the weather, it is what it is.   Just go with the flow and enjoy it while it is here.  The rain did have a wonderful sound while sleeping, just a good comforting sound.

We voted today, lots of little things to get settled here in our state.   We only had one issue to vote on but we did vote.  I was visiting, I know you can't believe that at all---me visiting,  with the ladies that worked there and asked did any of them remember paying $2 to vote?  Some of them never heard of it .    I remember so clearly, I was 21 and legal to vote and  it was and is such a treat and honor to be able to  vote.  I know I marched up the courthouse steps like I was in charge of the world, getting to vote.  I giggle now about it but it was such a monumental part of my life    I think it was in 1965.  It was call a poll tax but now is no longer in existence.  You know thinking of years past a lot has happened in the years I have had and can remember.

Now don't laugh I said something about the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team,  Hubby said they haven't been that is years.   I didn't know much about baseball growing up and the first time I got to play it I was 12.   I didn't even know it existed.  My Mother was from England and didn't speak of it and  I know I didn't have a clue what to do and when came my time to bat I chopped it like an ax  but from top to bottom.   Can you imagine that?   Well one time I actually hit it and stood there and watched it, all the girls yelled RUN !!!! Oh I was just watching to see what the ball was doing.   I really giggle when I think of that story.    I guess the Brooklyn Dodgers were a team then.   They are now the Los Angeles Dodgers.   OK, now how in the world did I stray to that.?    I guess one of my bunny trails as Grandson says.

I have been busy with  painting and sketching.  The sketching is with charcoal and I love doing the paintings with Charcoal.   Here is one that I recently finished and she just spoke to me with her gentleness.   I have some commissions to do and the  pressure is on.  I just want to get them Annette perfect.

I remember last post I shared the sketch of "The Guardian"   He is safe and sound at his new home in Oklahoma.   I thought I would share sort of stages.  I have to make myself remember to take pics of them in stages.   

The sketch and the almost rendering of him   The colors are now as vivid here as he is in person and comparing you can see some differences. 

Here he is finished and the pic is a tad short and cuts some antler off but gives you an idea of the finished product.  The owner of "The Guardian" is very proud of him and Fed Ex did an excellent job of packing him and getting him to Oklahoma.   He didn't eat much corn in transit either.  I told the girl packing him if it took to long they might have to feed him corn, she stopped and looked at me.  It took a second and she just laughed.  

I have been working on some fabric books of Crazy Quilt blocks.  I never know what to do with the finished blocks but books seem to fit the ticket.   i thought I would create one large book but one set of 6 blocks were with one Round Robin group and smaller than I work with.   The other set is my normal 8 inch size blocks.   So I will have two books.

  

Here is one example of what the opposite pages from the blocks looked like and the unfinished blocks waiting their turn to be sewn together.  Now in this "giant "of a house we are currently in, if I want to paint and sew there just isn't enough room so I just did the book by hand.  So excuse the crookedness of the the stiches.   . 

I am doing the books Coptic style so they will kind of sort of lay flat.   These signatures ( pages) look like a wild woman stitched them in,   oh it was me that did that isn't it?  Oh well that tells ya something. 

This is the smaller size pages,  and are so fun to look at and touch.  That is one good thing about the books, it makes it easy to look and touch.

 One set of the facing page and the finished page.  Now after they were joined together the pages needed more fluff.  That was all there was to it, so I gathered my left over "blue water organza" and  tacked it between the pages. Then they weren't so naked.

One set of the larger pages.   So they are to this point.  Now you are asking where is the outside covers Annette?  Well I don't know and don't have a clue what to do with them at this writing.   I had a precious seahorse all beaded and nearly finished to use but it is hiding in seahorse haven.   So I guess I will create some special piece for the cover of each book.  I guess something for you to see later.  Right?  I still am working on the Alice in Wonderland book.  I know it will be a chunky book and all the pages sort of the same size.   No telling what Alice and the gang will do while I work on them.   

There you go, getting to share on what is happening in my world.  Just kind of busy and being a bum all at the same time. 

                                               Thanks for looking in and later. 

XOXO                

Annette               

Shapes

 Hello and Happy June,  I know late Spring has hit us all right now being toasty warm or just plain HOT , well except my friends in Australia and it is Fall and I suspect toasty hot also.   Sometimes it is hard to wrap my mind around that.same planet and different season zones.We do have different time zones and hate, yes a strong word but hate daylight savings time.      It is funny to see and think about different subjects like that. I guess it keeps my mind busy and wondering different things.   Well not lay in the floor laughing funny but still funny. When I look at ordinary objects besides cloud formations that we all look at and find objects, I sometimes see shapes of people or just things.

Take this piece of Ginger that I purchased at the grocery store the other day, I say other day, it may have been several months ago.   I thought what an unusual shape and then I got to looking at it and saw a mermaid with her baby and then an angel with at baby .

I then looked close and could see a nose and eyes of the lady holding clutching a baby in her arms.   I never did cut it up wanting to keep the wonderful shape until it dried up and got really really ugly.  Ginger seems to do that when it has dried up.

There is, outside of course, a light pole thing with transformers and such on it.    I see this every day and to me it looks like a ski person with it's poles and legs bent really working at getting down the hill of snow.   It even survived the hurricane and just waiting for us when we got home.  I am very curious about shapes and what they form I guess.   

 Here is a sketch I have done a painting of and parts of it I didn't know what it was so I just painted the shape and that is all.  In the finished painted you can't tell what I shaped.  lol  Just a fancy way of saying I guessed and painted.

I have this plain Jane wall in this house and just put some of my like paintings on it, lots of shapes in painting these for sure and a tad of color.  Not the most exciting way to hang the paintings until we find the right place to spend our next many years this works for me and they don't have to live in a box waiting patiently for their forever home.  Only "Wind Dancer", the horse is full size the other two animals are prints of original art work I have done    "Tatonka", the buffalo and "The Sentinel", the deer.   

Here is the original of "Tatonka" he is also a 30 inch by 40 inch painting.    I have finished another painting that size but will share him next time.  The young lady that owns this "Tatonka" has displayed him wonderfully and has such a decorating touch.  I told her decorating is certainly her calling.  I just had to share this photo of some of her handy work.   I thought was brilliant to put him on this screen and it really makes him pop.    

I don't have any CQ work to share today but for the next time.   I think the Kite and Sand Fest might have worn out your eyes.   

                      Thank you for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world. 

xooxxo

Annette

Wind, Kites and CQ

The wind, you always love the wind blowing in your hair and feeling so good.   Sometimes when we lived in West Texas the wind is a little, no a lot, excessive and if your hair isn't glued on by roots it might be flying by in the sky.  I chuckle at that sight, a hair wig flying by and you thinking that was an odd looking bird.   Sorry I picture some of these silly things I write about.  I have a friend we have tells us "skirt alert" when it is really blowing.   Good good alert. 

Down here in Rockport they get what they call Coastal Winds.   To us it is a little breeze but still feels good.  We have found out there is not enough humidity here to shake a stick at EXCEPT when the winds come from the water aka Gulf of Mexico.  Here it is the East, we are so turned around in our directions North, South, East and West.  Whew, we are glad that the sun still comes up in the East and sets in the West but it feels North and South to us.    We have also been educated that when the dew point gets above 60  humidity here it comes.  West Texas is dry dry dry so it is some getting use to with the humidity down here.  BUT------ we have refrigerated air and that is a good time to stay in and paint and read and just enjoy it all.

I can't remember if this event was the last of April or first of May but they have started a little kite fest here now.  So we did go check some of the kites out.

There is a large area by the bay and little beach that has no telephone lines and a great place for the kites.  The first part of the morning, of course, there was not much wind but then it picked up for the kites.   One side was designated for the professional kite flyers and the other area for the kids and non professional participants.   A line was marked all around the area so you wouldn't get tangled in palm trees or the one electric line on the area.  We did see a grown up get his kite wrapped around a line so good.  I mean really good but a lady came up to them and knew what she was doing about untangling the kite.  That was interesting to watch. 

Here are a few that had gotten up in the air while we were there and was a pretty site and the clouds did cooperate and came up to play also.   Not West Texas thunder  heads but pretty fluffies none the lest.

The wind did get up enough so this giant shrimp could fly around.

Now this whirly gig kite was pretty up but really needed  a strong wind to make it play good.  Behind the scenes is one of the motels in Rockport that is still not being repaired.  They have started to gut it now but will take time to get up to standards.

There were two of these turtles up in the sky and on the non pro side, pretty colorful 

This jelly fish was pretty easy to get up and the little boy below did an awesome job with a little help from Mom.   

I have been doing some beach theme Crazy Quilt blocks also  and thought the two would go hand in hand today.  This is the last one I have done and now to put a book together with the 6 blocks .

Of course I had to add seagulls and a turtle, well two turtles one a charm and one a little stitched one. this is a vintage image in the center that I got off the internet.  No reason to do these just something fun to do while watching the ball games.  This one took 4 ball games in time to do.   

I have been painting but keeping what I just finished a secret until the owner gets to see it. 

Thank you for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  

                                                   xoxoxoxo

                                                    Annette