Happy Birthday to Me!

Today has been a great birthday!

Got to work and there was a vase of flowers from my staff there and although swamped for the conference, the whole staff (there's only 9 of us and an intern!) took a bagel & muffin break to wish me happy birthday. So nice!

My hubby and I went to see X-Men 3. It was okay. I normally love Marvel movies, but it left us a little unimpressed and being fans of the comics--confused at the end. Ugh. Unsatisfying movie. I always go to the bookstore and treat myself on my birthday. I buy books I've been really wanting for a while.

Given our love of the Korean drama/soap Rooftop Room Cat, my hubby surprised me with dinner at a local Korean restaurant. It was fantastic. Our entire table was covered. First, they brought us about 7 little dishes. I've read that it's called panchan--like Korean tapas. Pickled veggies, tofu, radish, seaweed, tiny silver dried fish, and 2 types of kimchi--fermented, pickled cabbage with a kind of tangy spicy kick. I LOVE kimchi. We had yummy fried dumplings and I had a noodle soup and the yummiest beef spareribs. My husband ordered the tolsot bibim bap, a rice dish with veggies and a fried egg on top. The staff seemed to enjoy our enthusiasm over the food, so they were giving us tips on how to eat it, such as stirring up the bibim bap to get some of the crispy rice from the bottom and adding a red sauce to it. Yummy! Add to the list little dishes of steamed rice, a light, frothy steamed egg and soju--sweet potato liquor similar to sake--and you can see we had quite a feast!!!

I had a great birthday!

Plugging Away on Harmony Quilt

Got home from work, ready to get to crackin' on the Harmony quilt and realized (after much moaning and groaning about it) that I was out of Wonder Under. I braved the 93 degree weather again and went out to the fabric store, grumbling all of the way. While in the store, I ask for the rest of the bolt and the cutter is measuring it out, when a section comes off. She looks as surprised as I am. "Um, do you still want it?" I sighed and took the 7 1/2 yards, lol.

Hey, Pellon folks, if you're listening...I don't know what's going on with your darn Wonder Under right now, but it's screwing me up. It releases badly, it's coming off the paper at the store, I mean, craptacular! What is up already? I thought the bad batch was over. Ugh.

Anyway, I did the best with what I have and cut out the pieces from my freezer paper drawing (that I cut up to use as a template). I made sure to trace it with that mega tracing paper first though so I won't be looking at it crazy later like, "This goes where?"

I think it's shaping up. The faces and hands are painted and the major parts are cut out. Woo-hoo!

Quilts & Auctions

This quilt I'm working on will be autographed by choral leaders on our Board, and auctioned off during a silent auction. My boss thinks it'll be popular with choral conductors. Normally, I don't take a buyer into account--either they'll like it or they won't--but this time, I chose subtle colors for the background, something that could fit into anyone's home. I usually don't care, but we all know that people who are unfamiliar with art quilts do seem to take a "will this match my home" approach to buying, being unfamiliar with what it's really worth, and I want this to go for what it's valued as quilts tend to be bought under value at auctions like these.

Not to denigrate traditional-style quilts, but those who are unfamiliar with art quilts just don't always "get" it.
Do you find yourself having to explain that "Hey, this isn't a bedcovering?"

Fabric Painting Frenzy

Now that I've resolved my uploading issues, I'll show you pics of the fabric I painted. The top one's the copper and gold flecked background fabric, but my fave is that golden fabric. It just shimmers.

And you also get to see what happens when you threaten your hubby with a dye squirt bottle!

Rooftop Room Cat

Okay, why are my husband and I addicted to this show??? It comes on in the evenings on AZN, a network of Asian American programming. We love this show! Rooftop Room Cat (Attic Cat) is a Korean drama/soap opera about a spunky, hardworking young woman named Jung-Eun, who lives in a rooftop apartment in Seoul and somehow ends up with cutie law student Kyung-Min as a roommate. He's immature and can be quite a jerk. Add in manipulative rich chick Hye Ran and Jung-Eun's cool-as-a-cucumber boss Dong Jun, and it's way too fun (and funny!) to see them all stumble through their relationships with (or against!) each other.

Can you tell that I love this show?

Post-Show and Pre-Quilt

Well, Chesya has gone home and the BookExpo is now over. We had a great time. It was HUGE. Every publisher you could think of in a football field-sized area. Chesya and I were so tired and laden down with free books that we were dragging. I thought you'd enjoy a pic of me with Dora the Explorer and views of the Expo.

As for the quilt, I am laying it out. I've got the fabric on my drawing board to get started. The larger piece is laid out on a table with sketches on freezer paper. This is going to be a quick turnaround. Yikes. As soon as I resolve my picture loading issues with blogger, I'll post pics.

Get in Gear

I turn 32 in about 1 1/2 weeks and I recently heard my mom talking about all the medications she's taking. All I could think was, "I'm not bouncing back as fast as I used to myself and yikes, is that me in the mirror?" Soooo...I joined a gym earlier this week. Let's be clear. I don't like gyms. At all. And I've always said that I'm not running if someone/something's not chasing me, but this has become absolutely necessary for my future health.

I prepped the fabric for the new quilt and it's taped onto the drawing board, ready for me to work some magic. I won't be able to do anything for the next 3 days though because my good friend, supernatural suspense author Chesya Burke, is coming up from Atlanta and staying with me this weekend. "Grey's Anatomy"'s Dr. Bailey always reminds me of her--in both looks and personality. LOL. (Chesya's gonna kill me.) We are going to the Book Expo America 2006 together. Woo-hoo! It is the largest book publishers event in the country. Publishers and authors and book folks, oh my! This is also her first time in Washington, D.C. too, so we'll try to squeeze in a little sightseeing.

A Little Birdie

I had to post this morning because I saw something happen on the way to work that really made me sad...

As we're driving with our windows closed, I saw a flutter to my right and a very young bird hit the window. I yelped, surprised. I said, "Wow! A bird!" It was gray and still somewhat fluffy with down. It just sat there stunned and perched on our window's casing. It must have still been pretty green with its flying skills. My husband said he was relieved that our window wasn't open, because it would've flown right in. Still disoriented from the impact, as my husband slowly pulled away with the light change, the bird struggled to take flight and fell off the car. In my side view mirror I saw it fall to the ground and the car behind us ran it over. I started to cry, it was so horrible to me, and we both said it out loud.

I feel so silly in a way, given of all the bigger things happening in the world, but one little bird has me a bit shaken this morning.

On Commission...Kinda

My organization is having a big conference next month. Okay, early next month. I was asked about donating a quilt to their auction. It is a vocal arts org, so the theme of the quilt will reflect a vocal music theme. I'm pretty excited about it, as we're discussing having it signed by luminaries in that field. I'm also glad to do it, as being a part of a choir was so important to me as a child. With so many music programs being dropped in public schools, a generation of kids are not being exposed to the performing arts or musical instrument and voice instruction. It's so sad, because it's a wonderful thing to be a part of!

I am entitling it "United in Harmony" and the pics above are some inspirations for it from different choral groups such as Cantare Chamber Ensemble and The Washington Chorus. I'm inspired by the uniformity of the B&W of their cuffs, pearls, formal shirts, sheet music and music folders. I'm still playing around with ideas.

Oo! Quilt show stuff!

I am so tickled. I've never been in a major, traditional quilt show before and I got my quilt ID and packing stuff for the NQA show next month. The only bad thing?

I can't go to the first major, traditional quilt show I've ever had a quilt in! :-(

I found out that of all the weekends in the year my great new job's big annual conference is on--it's that one!

If anyone out there is going to Columbus, could you please take a picture of it for me? It's called "Tish Groove" and I would love to see it hanging there.

Thinking About Peace

I love to travel, and in my travel downtime I enjoy watching travel shows such as Globe Trekker.

On an episode today, the American female host traveled through Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, so I got to see Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and places in-between, such as the desert in the west. I seems so beautiful there, with the green-blue water of the Persian Gulf and the starkness of the desert. Modern, and filled with futuristic buildings, Dubai is such a spectacular place, and like so many places in that region, a place of fantastic wealth. I couldn't help but think about the state of women in that entire region though. They seemed invisible, sometimes the host being the only one around--and I'm sure the presence of her cameras helped to shield her from a lot of things. I was really surprised that this was filmed in 2006.

I want to visit the Middle East someday. To see these places for myself. It seems like a place of such beauty with friendly people. It is too bad that the current situations going on make that seem like a trip that might have to be on my back burner for a very, very long time.

TV That Cracks Me Up!

I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but all I want to say is that right now I LOVE the following three shows:

1. My Name Is Earl ("How am I supposed to get you a TV? I live in snack foods!")
2. King of Queens (if only for the "jumpball" episode alone, LOL!)
   
3. The Office (I know it was British first and I loved that one too, but Dwight, LOL. Dwight.)
   

I have had some truly gut-busting laughter while watching them...

A-ha!

I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to mark my quilt. Since it's painted, I didn't want to use anything that needed to wash out. No water, you know? Time-sensitive ones don't work for me either as I might not get to it right away. So, I bought a large pad of tracing paper just like the one above (My 12-year old cousin: "WOW. That's huge!") and I'm going to draw the design on there and use my hera marker instead. Ta-da.

Problem solved. Maybe.

I'll let you know how it turns out...