Buy me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack and a Funnel Cake and a Cheesesteak and Chocolate Fondue and Maybe Some Dipping Dots if I'm Still Hungry

Tonight was a perfect night for a ballgame--dry, cool, and comfortable.


Our Stitch Your Art Out group had a great time.





The quilting and knitting guilds had tables set up:


Kim and I posed with Ike the Spike, and Ike made us pretend we were on CSI:


The players blew bubbles:


But they also played really hard and won the game!


And then it was over....


maybe until next year?

It's a Sure Sign!

Okay, let me tell you about Sign People.

When we first opened--which was 6 years ago--we needed a sign. So we started calling around. We called about 10 sign people from the yellow pages, and the response from all of them was....

crickets

I was still teaching at Penn State the time, and one of my students said that she knew a sign guy. So I called that person. I told him what we wanted. He sent me a proof. I asked him if we could make the sign bigger.

crickets

About a month later, having not heard from him, we were surprised to have a truck pull up, and a guy install the original small sign:

Their sign was the left sign. Note from the picture how you can't read it from the street. On the right side, we had a bar sign that had come with the store. Our store really does not have that "smoky bar feel," but at least the bar sign was set so far back that you couldn't notice it anyway.

Although it was imperfect, we had a sign, and we decided to let it go. It had taken a year to get that far.

A few more years came and went. We knew the sign needed to go.

It was time to find a new sign guy.

I called a guy who was very responsive. He immediately sent us an idea for a sign that had lettering which looked as if it belonged on "Joe's Garage," except that it was colored teal and pink.

I told him we'd get back to him.

So then I called a person whom I was told had made many of the beautiful signs around town. I called him about 5 times to try to get a hold of him. Although he never returned any of my messages, on the 5th try, he did actually answer the phone and seemed to want to help us. And then....

crickets

One day, about 6 months after that, I called him. He called back. "I'm calling you here from the beach in Florida, and drinking a Pina Colada," he said. "I'll get with you when I'm back." I waited.

Crickets.

I was talking to a friend who owned a yarn shop in New Jersey, and telling her our tale of woe, and she said that they had had the same problem. The sign guy they used was smoking dope--literally.

So after a few weeks more, I called our sign guy back. (Hey, at least he was only drinking.)

He seemed more enthusiastic this time. He even sent us an idea for a sign!

Here was his idea: He thought was should have out in front of our store a giant, pink spool of thread the size of a barrel. It looked like something that would advertise for, say ... the world's LARGEST ball of STRING! Yes! A sign for a souvenir shop in Florida! Here in Pine Grove Mills! One thing I will acknowledge is that people would have found us.

I'm just not sure that they would have actually stopped.

I suggested that maybe he could stop in to see what our atmosphere is like to make a sign that is a little more congruent with our business. He said that he didn't need to do that--that he just "created things."

I drove around town for 3 hours one day, taking pictures of signs we liked, and emailed them to him. He said that they were all his signs. This was promising!

So we went back and forth with some more ideas, none of which would have remotely worked for us. I suggested again that he stop by. He said that there was no need to do that: He didn't work that way.

And then he stopped calling. I guess it just didn't work out between us.

A few more months went by. A number of people informed us that we needed a better sign. One of them was our printer. He told us to call the Sign Stop. So that's what we did.

It was kind of weird: they answered the phone.

By now, Kim and I had come up with what we wanted the sign to look like, and so we had both the Stop Sign and my friend Ellen, who is a graphic designer, work on our concept. Again, we went back and forth a few times--but in normal ways, ways that seemed to make the sign better. We like the Sign Stop very, very much. Thank you, Scott!

And today, on June 26, 2009, on this very momentous day, we got our sign:

Remember to Turn It Upside Right, Guys!


Ta da!


Kim sez: I Can Haz a Sign? I Can Touch It?



Be Careful with Our Sign!


We are So Happy!

There is only one little problem with our sign. We know about it. We can't do a thing about it. Fortunately, it will go away in the fall....

...but it will come back in the spring.

Thank You, Kim

It's handy to have a business partner (most days, at least--heh).

You see, it was only a week ago that I was feeling completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by projects. We have been working to prep for summer and fall, and it was getting to be a bit much. So I made a list of them, and I asked Kim to help me set priorities--what to finish first, next, and so forth.

Number one on the list turned out to be the summer sweater I had started back in April, which was almost finished. It was called Hey Teach!

Because Kim said I should, I have been working on it all week, and tonight, I finished it:

Well, actually I lied. Kim said that number one was getting the block designed for this week's block of the month. In fact, I promised her today that I would work on it tonight. So far, that hasn't quite happened. But Hey Kim! the sweater--it is finished.

P. S. Remember that our Anniversary Sale starts tomorrow and goes for a week. Come on in! And while you're there, feel free to pressure me to finish designing the block.

Sewing at Last

The weekend was gorgeous and sunny, which finally gave me an opportunity to stay inside and get some sewing done.

Correct: I am not the outdoorsy type.

I started out with the fastest, easiest project: An Amy Butler apron, which I am doing this summer as a class. This apron is very, very cute. Here I am, with pale skin, posing with it, looking all 1950ish:


Check out the close up of what's in my bowl:


You say you don't see anything?

I must not cook much, either.

After the apron was finished, I decided to make a shirt for Kevin. He picked out this fabric about 7 year ago, and I promised him I would make him a shirt out of it for when he plays in his band. I decided the other day that it was truly nagging at me, and it was time for him to get this shirt.

He was not super-enthusiastic about posing, but here is the shirt. Can you tell he plays guitar?


You might be able to see him in it either at People's Choice on July 11 at 12:30, or at the Lemont Village Green the evening of July 17. I don't know if he'd wear it twice in a row within a week. That depends on how much he loves me.

And then I started to tackle the big project. This is a quilt-as-you-go project. I have one block finished, which isn't much--but hey, at least it's quilted already.


This is my "mystery project" in the newsletter. Keep encouraging me to work on it. I have to teach it in a few months; but at least I can stay inside all summer and sew.

Greetings from Quilt Market

Thinking about Sewing

I've been thinking about sewing lately. I've been working a bit on my brother's quilt, which remains in little snips and pieces:

It will build and grow. I have faith. Target date: Christmas 2009.

I've been working on the next block for block of the month. I know what I want to do; I just have to write up the instructions.

So I've been putting that off.

I'm thinking about this:

I'm loving this Amy Butler apron with our funky 50s fabric. I have the fabric, and the book. All I have to do is cut it out and sew it, and it will be done!

And I'm also working on a quilt for myself. I'm making pretty good progress: half the fabrics are washed, and I have a rough design in my head. So all I need to do is finish washing the fabrics, finish the design, cut it out, sew it together, have it quilted--and I'm good to go!


Can you get things sewn simply by wishing them sewn?

Old Kids on the Block

Most of the time Kim and I only work together. We have fun, and we're friends at work. But it's mostly work.

Every once in a great while, however, we get to do something together that's not tax deductible.

About two months ago, Kim was saying that she'd sure like to go to the New Kids on the Block concert coming up, because she used to live near Boston, and she used to have friends who dated the New Kids and their body guards. Kim was sad as she said this. She was sure no one would go with her.

*****

The concert was tonight. Kim and I left right after work, ready in our 1980s-style clothes. You can see here how happy and excited we were!


(I had been to the hairdresser not a few hours before, and she done her best to puff up my hair.)

I was in college when the New Kids were popular, so they were a bit out of my age bracket. Right before we left, Kim gave me a 30-second lesson on who everyone was. There was no way to remember all 5 of them, so I picked one. He looked sort of tough, and his beard reminded me of my brother who lives in Colorado. I liked that about him. (I suspect that my Colorado brother would probably rather die than be compared in any way to a New Kid on the Block, given that my D. C. brother flatly said he would rather poke his eyes out with sticks than go to one of their concerts.)

"What's that one's name?" I asked Kim.

"Donnie," she said.

"How do you spell it?" I asked.

"d.o.n.n.i.e."

"Okay then," I said. "He's my favorite!"

So we went to the concert. On the way there, I was toying with getting a Donnie t-shirt because he was my favorite. But when we go there, they were $40, and I just couldn't bear to spend $40 on a t-shirt for someone who in my mind was the equivalent of a first date.

Along with t-shirts, they had $10 buttons of each of the boys. I decided to get one of those. "I would like a 'Donnie' button," I said to the girl at the counter when it was my turn in line.

She beamed. "He's my favorite too!" she said to me.

*****

The Donnie Button was huge--roughly the size of a dinner plate.


I cannot tell you how strange it is to walk around with a button that covers half your chest.

*****

Now, I didn't tell Kim this part of my story until just now, as she reads this along with you.

After I had told her I would go to this concert, I went home and tried to remember what on earth the New Kids even sang. I pulled up some of their videos on Youtube.

And as soon as I did that, I remembered them. I remembered fully. I had hated all their songs.

So I figured that when we got the tickets, I would be a good sport for the fun of being with Kim.

But it turned out that something happened to them over the past 20 years: They got better.

Kevin and I have noticed this with a lot of musicians after they've played for 20 years. They improve their stage presence, they become better at singing, and their technique gets better. And believe it or not, despite a few weird things here or there (the weirdest being when one of the boys stood on a platform, opened up his white shirt, and they blew wind at him so that the white shirt ruffled behind him), I loved the concert. I got into the spirit of it, and even put my fist in the air when they told us, "Everyone! Put your fists in the air!"


At the risk of sounding old, the thing I liked about them was this: They sang a lot of songs that had good melodies.

See, they were singing 5-part harmony. In order to do that, you need to have some kind of melody. I come from a family of barbershoppers, and I love harmonies like that. I loved the concert.

So did Kim.


And it turned out that my favorite really was my favorite. First of all, he knew the word "flummoxed" and used it properly in a sentence. And then, I loved the solo he did during this picture: My dear Donnie, all in white, so ethereal:


Okay, please, do me a favor. Just focus on the lone white Donnie figure with the fabulous lighting.

Ignore the part where you can see his giant, white hat on the big screen.







(Read Kim's take on the concert here.)