Mad Men Yourself

C'mon, you know you want to . . .

If you're a fan of Mad Men–or maybe even if you're not– go to MadMenYourself.com and create a mid-century version of yourself, complete with accessories and props like the martini that the MadMenMe is holding . . .

You can also put yourself in a scene with other cast members and create wallpaper for your PC.

(You all know how easily amused I am, right?)

One thing led to another and another . ..

Recently one afternoon on a DART train, a woman sat next to me, pulled out a book and was soon engrossed in My Life in France by Julia Child.

I had recently seen the movie, so I was curious. When I had to bother her to get out for my stop, we chatted briefly about it. She was enthusiastic, so, while I was out shopping, I picked up a copy of the newly printed release featuring scenes from the movie on the cover. I started reading on the trip home. (You can click the image to follow the link to Amazon to buy it for much less than my impulse purchase that day.)

As I had really enjoyed the "Julia" scenes in the movie, I was happy to read much more of her adventures in France throughout her life. I confess to a little bit of something akin to homesickness when she wrote of her house in Provence, trips to Grasse, stories about her friend and chef, Roger Vergé and his two fabulous restaurants in Mougins. I never knew she and I were nearly neighbors when I was lucky enough to be living and working in that corner of the world. There are still two versions of Vergé's Cuisine of the Sun cookbook on my shelf–one in French and one in English.

Meanwhile . . . a friend in California–curiously, a male friend that I would have never suspected of an interest in such things–has been reading Julie Powell's book, Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. He sent it to me when he finished; it arrived on Thursday. I finished reading it with my cafe latté this morning.

It has been fascinating to see the film, then separately read each perspective presented over the course of only a couple weeks . . . and, as usual, noting the poetic license and subtle ways the movie differs from the books.

I suppose the only thing left for me to do to wrap up this particular literary and film adventure would be to go to the cook book at the heart of both of these books and cook a fabulous French meal for friends. (All this reading about cooking yummy french food has inspired this foodie to get back to some serious time in the kitchen!)

As you might expect, there's a new printing of this one coming soon, and, yes, there's a photo of Meryl Streep as Julia Child on a wrapper around it, too. The original volume is quite pricey, as you'll see if you click the book and follow the link to the 3rd party sellers on Amazon.

I think the cross-merchandising is complete with this new edition, but maybe there will be giant-sized mortar & pestle sets and Julia's favorite copper pans for sale in your favorite kitchen store with "Julie and Julia" tags (and photos of the actresses who portrayed them) soon . . .

Thanks, Kate

I realize that I have, once again, disappeared out of sight . . . mostly because of work, which is, in the grand scheme of things, probably a good thing. (I mean working again, not disappearing, of course.) Tonight my group went on a field trip and by the time I had a drink with a couple of colleagues and road the DART rail home, it was 10 PM. Yawn . . .

While catching up on blogs, Kate directed my attention to Kellie's lovely quilt, called Lilly Pilly, part of which is pictured here.

I'm popping up to share this amazing piece because, incredibly, it is part of a blog giveaway and–as much as I'd love to win this beauty myself–how could I not share the news with my friends?

Do go check out the rest of her photos of this quilt on her block Don't look now (and all the other eye candy she has there.)

I love the use of the striped fabric for the tree's trunk, limbs and brands. I adore the birds and the quilting is just spectacular!!

A Film for Foodies

Have you seen Julie & Julia? It's so much fun and Meryl Streep is absolutely wonderful as Julia Child.

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If you haven't seen it yet, prepare to leave the theater craving something interesting to eat . . . for me it was a crusty loaf of French bread, some soft Brie cheese and a nice class of Merlot.

Bon Appetit!

I Surrendered

As much as I love being able to walk to work, I finally surrendered to the summer heat and now only walk about a third of the way, four-to-five blocks, to catch the DART rail, where I ride two stops in air conditioned comfort to Union Station, then walk a couple blocks from there to my office. If I have enough time, I pick up coffee at the Opening Bell along the way.

Many of the people who jump off DART at Union Station in Dallas with me are jumping on the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) on the adjacent tracks and heading to Ft. Worth, but I'm nearly at my destination, with only a couple more blocks to go on foot.

When the TRE to Ft. Worth pulls away, I have a clear view of what's left of Reunion Arena. Someone told me recently the plan to implode the roof hit a snag when they discovered some potentially toxic insulation in the ceiling. Exploding the structure would spread those chemicals around too much, so until they come up with a new plan, it sits waiting, looking like this.

The rest of my "commute" takes me walking around to the front of Union Station–that's Reunion Tower, "towering" above it–no, I haven't been up there . . . yet, but I hear there's great sushi up there.

Last week I started wondering if every city had a Union Station? I've personally been to Union Station in Chicago and LA and I knew there's one in NYC. I wondered what the origin of the place name was, went looking for an answer and learned that the name was used when a station was shared by two or more rail roads companies or lines. There are a lot of them–Wikipedia has a list, if you're curious.

From there, I pass the Dallas Morning News Building. On the face of the building is an interesting inscription.

If you can't see it clearly in the photo, it says:

BUILD THE NEWS UPON
THE ROCK OF TRUTH
AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.
CONDUCT IT ALWAYS
UPON THE LINES OF
FAIRNESS AND INTEGRITY.
ACKNOWLEDGE THE RIGHT
OF THE PEOPLE TO GET
FROM THE NEWSPAPER
BOTH SIDES OF EVERY
IMPORTANT QUESTION.

What a great mission statement for a newspaper . . . I'm not sure I believe most modern new sources–television networks, web sites and yes, newspapers, approach the business of publishing or broadcasting the news exactly like this . . .

Quilt Plano 2009

Yesterday I drove to Plano for Quilt Plano 2009. The odd thing was, I knew exactly where I was going because I had attended several Job Fairs at the same location . . . the place had a completely different energy when it was filled with quilters and vendors: so much lighter and happier.

This miniature, Caught in a Crazy Spider Web, by Ann Maxwell of Carrollton, Texas, was one of my favorites from the show.



The piece is tiny. This photo, which includes the blue ribbon it received for first place and the label give you some idea of scale. I also took a detail photo of just the "quilt" itself.

Here's a detail photo from "My First Texas Quilt," by Sheri Smith of Plano, Texas. It got me thinking that I'd really better get started on my first Begun in Texas quilt, huh? Sheri moved to Texas in 2007 and started her quilt "immediately." Nearly 8 months later, I'm definitely falling behind here . . .

You can see all of the quilt in this photo. I love the barbed wire outline of Texas in every block.

I am a believer in the magic that happens in group quilts and there were a lot of group quilts to love in this show. I liked this one a lot, titled, Happiness is . . . A Primitive Garden, which won second place in the Group Quilts category.

It was made by a quilt shop staff and customers and had lots of wonder appliqué, including some three dimensional elements and scrappy pieced sashing.

These photos and the rest that I took at the show yesterday of these quilts and others that caught my eye appear in the slide show below.

At Last, Some Quilt Content

If you have been paying attention, you know that since moving to Texas, the quilt content in my life has been extremely limited. I've barely managed to make blocks, write directions and keep things organized for the monthly Block Lotto and, recently, I've joined the Quilters Guild of Dallas. It's funny how time-consuming looking for a job and networking has turned out to be, especially when you're in a new town with no professional network at all. (Yes, more than once since moving here, I have asked myself, WHAT were you thinking?) But enough about the advisability of my crazy risk taking last winter . . .

I did say I'd be writing about the QUILT content in my life lately. At the latest Guild meeting, I fell victim to the charms of a couple of raffle quilts. First this one, made by visiting guild, quietly hanging at the side of the room during our meeting was singing a siren song and calling my name.



It looks unassuming enough. I can't say what it was, exactly. Was it the colors or the block combination? The appliqué in the border definitely drew me in. And, of course, the quilting is WONDERFUL. All I know is that by the time Spike Gillespie finished her entertaining presentation, "Quilty as Charged" (subtitled "Dallas made me do it." ) I knew I wanted raffle tickets and was wondering how much cash I had in my wallet . . .

The other raffle quilt of the evening was our own guild quilt for the upcoming year, unveiled for the first time. I didn't get a great photo–I'm sure there will be other opportunities soon–but I'm sure you can get an idea of the big beautiful quilt it is.



I can't wait to get an up close and personal look at this one myself.

Even if all I manage in a month is hanging out with quilters for a couple hours, it's definitely better than no quilt content in my life at all.

Let's Get Together and Feel Alright

After you've enjoyed the music, click over to Playing for Change to read the story about it's making and the effect it has had.

Summer Reading

What are YOU reading this Summer? I've just finished a couple books and am ready for some interesting recommendations.

My recent reading has maybe been a little unusual for me–focused through the lens of my job hunt . . . but I've found these two books fascinating nonetheless and would highly recommend them, whether you are job hunting (or even working) or not.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel Pink

Whether you are part of the working world or not, all right-brainers should read this book, if only to be able to articulate to the left-brainers of the world the importance of our special way of seeing and doing.

Daniel Pink's book is written in the context of the modern western world of abundance where many of the things we do can be done cheaper by someone overseas or done faster by a computer.

I was a little taken aback to see a reference to the phrase "high-touch" . . . something I have been saying forever to explain how the fiber art I practice balance the high tech work I do in my personal life, but something I have never seen used anywhere else. It made me smile . . . like a lot of things I read and wholeheartedly believed or agreed with in the book.

StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath
This one comes with an online test in which you discover your top 5 strengths, so you know I was going to love it . . . and I did. This book is the updated version of a very popular title, Now, Discover Your Strengths, which spent a lot on the New York Times Bestsellers list and made the rounds through large corporations and small companies a few years ago. I found it an interesting, quick read and I couldn't disagree with my results. A friend hooked me up with an excellent coach who interpreted my results and explained how they worked together and what that meant, how common (or not) they were, individually and in combination. It was fascinating . . . I know, I already said that, but I thought it was worth repeating. The information definitely correlated with the jobs I loved and the ones I didn't love so much . . . there were definitely some "a ha" moments during the discussion with the coach.

So . . . after these two introspective volumes, I'm ready for some just plain fun. A light-hearted mystery maybe? A travel book . . . since I won't have any vacation time for a while? What are you reading? What would you recommend?

"We Need the Rain"

"We need the rain."

It was a phrase I heard a lot yesterday and one I truly tried to embrace–because I know it's true. But after getter soaked three times, it became a little bit harder: first I got caught in a downpour when I was just a few blocks from the office in the morning on my walk to work. Later, during an informal tour, it was still coming down and I got really drenched again, when I was walking between buildings and crossing the street in a downpour . . . and it was still raining when I went out to get some lunch.

I had a big umbrella and it helped . . . a lot. But my nicely starched and pressed linen pants were soaked from the thighs down before I got to the office (and again and again) and so I wasn't anything close to neatly pressed. And, even though I had taken special care in the morning and even pulled out the flat iron to ward off the humidity-inspired frizz, at the end of the day, when I met a an old friend for dinner who happened to be in town–someone I hadn't seen for almost 10 years–I felt like my hair looked a lot like Alice's, from Dilbert.


Except in my case, there were no curls, just frizz that created my pyramid-shaped do.

Dinner was great, though, and my friend was so distracted by my "blonde" hair so much that I don't think that my crazy frizzy Alice like hair made that much of an impression. (She said I looked great as a "blonde"–aren't old friends the best?)

Cattle Drive on my Walk to Work

Yes, I did say cattle drive.





And like many interesting things, it's beautiful when you drive by, but when you walk past, you have the opportunity to notice more, like just HOW MANY of those big, life-size bronze longhorns there are.


I didn't have a lot of time–did I mention I was on my way to work, an idea which truly makes me happy–and I realized after doing a search about this Monument to the West at Pioneer Plaza, created by Robert Summers of Glen Rose, Texas, that I may not have even seen it all, because I only saw two of the three cowboys. Here's one of them.



And a closeup of one of his longhorn steers:



After a few quick photos, I left the plaza, just as the first few of them were emerging onto the sidewalk ;-)

Famous Failures

Have you failed lately?

In a Gallery Far, Far, Away . . .

In Lauderhill, Florida, the Bear and Bird Boutique and Gallery has an exhibit opening on Saturday, called Stitch Wars of more than a hundred hand-stitched Star Wars figures. Doesn't it sound like fun? Follow the link for the slide show on the Miami New Times website–here are a few of my favorites:

Hans Solo by Dennis Rodriguez


Jawas by Cutesypoo


"Jabba: The Early Years" by Kit Lane

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet

Translation: Happy July 14 (Bastille day)

Today seemed a fine day to make Clafoutis from the beautiful dark sweet bing cherries I bought last week. As soon as I bought them on impulse, I knew I wanted to make Cherry Clafoutis. It didn't occur to me until I came home with my cherries that I had almost none of the other ingredients I needed: no flour, no sugar, no half-and-half, no vanilla extract . . . it was really rather pathetic and a true testament to what a baker I am not.



But ingredients were purchased and Clafoutis was made using this recipe from the Simply Recipes website. I also borrowed their image, since my Bastille Day treat was not nearly so photogenic.

Cherry Clafoutis Recipe

Traditional clafoutis recipes call for using cherries with their pits still in, which are supposed to lend some almond flavor to the dish. In this recipe the pits are removed, making the clafoutis easier to eat, but you can do it either way.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of fresh sweet cherries, pitted
• 2 tablespoons of slivered almonds
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of whole milk
• 2 teaspoons of Amaretto -or- 3/4 teaspoon of almond extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and lightly flour a 9X9 or 10X7 baking dish. Toss in the cherries and slivered almonds.

2 Whisk the eggs, sugars, salt, and flour together until smooth.

3 Add the milk, Amaretto (or almond extract, if using), and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth. Pour into the baking dish.

4 Bake for 40-50 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. When you pull it put of the oven it will wiggle a bit which is normal. Place on a wire rack to cool. The clafoutis will have puffed up quite a bit and will deflate while cooling. When cool dust the clafoutis with powdered sugar. Serve.

Serves 6.

I had another reason to celebrate today . . . I was offered and accepted a job. Yes, I will soon be joining the working class again. Did you hear a sigh of relief coming from the general direction of Dallas, Texas?

I figured it was reason enough to add a scoop of Blue Bell Home Made Vanilla ice cream to the top of my warm Cherry Clafoutis, in lieu of the powdered sugar–not traditionally French, but quite YUMMY ;-)

I am the Star (What Tarot Card are You?)

You know I can't resist these silly-but-fun tests . . . here is my result from this one:

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

TAQG Rally Day

The Texas Association of Quilt Guilds' Rally Day was held yesterday in Mesquite. It's a one day event (with classes held in the days leading up to Rally Day).


Thirty-two guilds belong to TAQG. If you are a member of any of the member guilds, you can attend Rally Day for free. As you arrive, you receive a goody bag little gifties from all the guilds.




I arrived as the event was beginning and the guilds were setting up their raffle quilts. Two long halls had raffle quilts displaced on both sides. It was the next best thing to a quilt show.





I really liked this sampler quilt from the Allen Quilter's Guild.





And this one, called Home Tweet Home, from the Cotton Patch Guild.





Here's a detail photo from Home Tweet Home. Yes, there was definitely no shortage of eye candy , nor opportunities to buy chances to win beautiful quilts of every style and colorway.

Sharon Schamber, the speaker of the day, also brought patterns and instructional DVDs to sell, so there was also ample opportunity to shop.


Another part of the event was a miniature quilt silent auction. There were some great miniature quilts.




(click any of the photos for larger versions)

The main event were the presentations by Sharon Schamber before and after lunch and the hundreds of door prizes–I came home with a couple of books and some Halloween-themed FQs.


Despite some forgotten cables and some technical difficulties, Sharon and her husband, Gene, did a great job of sharing quilts and stories and information about color and quilting. My photos were taken quite far from the stage and mostly serve to trigger my memories of the event–there certainly are better photos to be found elsewhere of most of these well known quilts.

The quiltholders in yellow shirts were from the Irving Guild. The quilters from Fort Worth were in red T-shirts. Another guild had great turquoise embroidered shirts. It was fun to see everyone wearing their colors. The Dallas Guild doesn't have shirts. "It's too big," I was told. I think we need to fix that, or make yoyo pins or wear bandanas or *something* for next year.

Signs of Progress at the Urban Café

A couple months ago, the cafe on the ground floor of my building abruptly closed. Before long, signs went up saying that it would be opening "soon," under new management. Tonight, the bar was open . . . it was a definite sign of progress.



It was all smiles behind the bar at the Urban Cafe . . . and all the residents and others from the neighborhood that stopped by for a drink were pretty happy about it, too.

I'm looking forward to breakfasts in the building soon.

Texas Weather

Earlier tonight, in a matter of moments, the sky went dark, then light, this rainbow appeared, and then we were pelted with hail and when I looked out window to see what all the racket was about–Gracie the scaredy cat had already run for cover–it looked like nothing to me as much as a SNOW STORM.



You would have thought it would have cooled off our 100-plus temperatures but . . . no such luck.

You definitely need to add new and interesting weather patterns to the list of things you learn when you move to a new part of the world.

Popsicle Quilt Blocks

Last week at their meeting, the Quilter's Guild of Dallas had a "make it but don't take it" event. Instead of the usual speaker, after the business part of the meeting, we worked on blocks for Covers for Kids charity quilts.


There were large tables set up around the room, each with a designated project. I had been having a frazzled day and showed up without my machine and no tools in hand. I came planning to volunteer to cut fabric or iron or sew bindings.


But while chatting with people before the meeting, someone mentioned they had brought along a spare featherweight and offered to let me use it. They were sitting at the table that would be making a paper-pieced block. I could do that, I thought, and took them up on the offer.



Marie (on the left) organized an adorable quilt for us, based on an easy block to learn paper foundation piecing. After a quick how-to-do it demonstration, we were off and running. Marie was also juggling her duties as an organizer for the upcoming TAQG Rally Day and selling lunches and pins–she's an organizational wonder.






Here are some of our first blocks–aren't they charming? At the end of the evening, we'd made about a dozen.

If you'd like the pattern for the blocks (and the quilt), it's called Lotsa Pops and is available on the Quiltmaker site, here: Lotsa Pops

I knew Marie wanted to make a larger quilt than the pattern, so at the end of the night, I offered to take some of the double pop foundations home and make more and bring them to her on Rally Day. Here are my blocks.




I can't wait to see the finished quilt.