13th Steet Studio

Thank You Internet!

 

Is nothing sacred?

Now that there are toasters that burn faces on bread, I guess Jesus has to start appearing on other surfaces...

Although the first image I saw was a sphinx, and sometimes I see Jane Eyre. It all reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons:

Spring Break

We have been consumed with college basketball here, deep into March Madness. It has been so much fun watching a team exceed expectations-which is rare here. We are so spoiled with a great coach and very good teams year after year. This year my long suffering husband and I got off the sofa and went to the first two rounds of games, first to Omaha and then to St. Louis. It was a lot of fun! Here is a self portrait of b-ball fans in Omaha:

Now, a shout out to Portlandia fans... We had breakfast in an Omaha coffee shop/bakery one morning, and lets face it, I always clean my plate and have never really understood what folks are talking about when they say something is "too rich". BUT the lovely cinnamon rolls we bought for breakfast had double frosting and no noticeable cinnamon. I couldn't finish my near tasteless blob. Possibly a first.

I decided we has stumbled upon a "Cup of Joe, Side of Dough" special.

To complete the Portlandia theme, the coffee shop had a nice exhibit of bad art:

Lenten Lesson

 

Book Fair

Just a quick note to anyone that might be wondering if I have abandoned this blog... No, I have just been busy refurbishing our worn out rental so our #1 daughter could move into it. Funny how if you tell someone you are a painter, they don't immediately think of house paint!

But here is some news:

Saturday, Sept. 24 at 3:00 pm in the Archives and Library Classroom of the Kansas Historical Museum in Topeka, I will join Amy Barickman, author of "Vintage Notions" to discuss our books. I will be showing my sampler quilt that celebrates 150 years on the prairie from my book "Happy Birthday Kansas!". After the talk I will be in the Barnes and Noble tent to sign books and answer questions.

Clutter Problem Solved

Do you have too many magazines? Is your book collection out of control? Are you being hounded by the "Hoarders" production crew to be featured in the next episode? Well, here is the product for you:

It can be purchased here. You may have to brush up on your German. I think I'd have seating for 50. Wonder if they make a sofa model?

Angry (at) Birds

We have some "love" triangles in my house.

One Amazon parrot (Gladys) loves me. The second Amazon parrot (Major) loves Gladys, hates me. Gladys hates Major, and will not allow him within 24 inches of her. This is measured rather exactly. After each rebuff, Major attacks me. Gladys hates my husband. Major might be friendly to husband, but husband only tolerates birds and does not want any bird friends. The third Amazon parrot (Nana) is not fond of any of us.

Every day I let Gladys and Major stroll around the house for exercise (Nana prefers to stay near his/her cage). Just like a couple of human children, if these two are out and not fighting, they are probably doing something they shouldn't. A couple of days ago they were out and very quiet. Too quiet. I should have investigated faster. Major stood guard while Gladys destroyed a pair of long-suffering husband's shoes. Well the shoes are still usable, but husband refuses to wear shoes with pinked edges so carefully created by a bad bird's beak.

Bad bird! Bad, bad bird!

National Quilting Day Celebration

March 19 at about 10:30, Deb Rowden and I will be giving a presentation about Kansas Quilt History at the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library. I will, of course, have my book available for purchase.

How much do I enjoy getting up in front of a group and trying to be coherent? Just a little bit more than I would enjoy this job:

 

Excuses, excuses

I've got a million excuses for not posting.... I did the program at the two meetings of my quilt guild. I made a quilt for a local halfway house. (But didn't get around to photographing it.) My book came out and I've been doing some feeble attempts to promote it.

Oh, and I adopted another parrot. I now have two pairs of parrots, but they are not paired. The sunroom (aka birdroom) has all four cages occupied by a single noisy bird.

This is Nana, a 30+ year old Blue-fronted Amazon parrot. Probably a male, but he has a high pitched voice and Nana seems like a girl's name. So I am having a hard time not referring to him as her. Like my other Amazons, Nana outlived his owner and was passed around as an unwanted inheritance a bit before ending up in a parrot rescue. I need to put up a no-vacancy sign on my home for unwanted geriatric Amazons....don't want to end up on an episode of "Animal Hoarders".

Did I mention I have a book out and that it can be ordered here?

p.s. Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my book.

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself. - Anne Rice

Happy Birthday to my blog which I started... lets see... four years ago today.

Remember how I was wishing I had added a party hat and noise maker to the meadlowlark on the cover of my "Happy Birthday Kansas!" book? Well, check out what my daughter did:

Perfect!

Happy Birthday Bird, Happy Birthday Blog.

Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear

Tomorrow Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are having their Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear. I will be there in spirit, but not in person. Here are the two posters that I loaded onto the Sane or Not site:

This one for the Reason part of the rally.

This one for the Fear part of the rally.

Retrospective

I just emptied out my camera and found that I had taken a couple of pictures of the K.C. Plaza Art Fair that I was going to talk about. I don't remember what I was going to say other than I liked this year's banner (skyline of the plaza with a giant bird) and that the weather was beautiful and we had a great time.

I stuck to my pledge to spend as much on art as on food and got a couple of things. A promise to spend twice as much is not hard to fulfill. This may be only resolution I have ever kept.

Here is another picture of the fair and one of the many Kansas City fountains.

 

Art for All

I went to pick up my piece from an exhibit at the 1109 Gallery Monday and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had sold. Here is what I had entered:

Fabric designer Barbara Brackman gave me the fabric for this quilt, so I  mostly had time invested in it. The gallery workers gave me some good natured trouble about pricing my work too low. They pointed out that the gallery and I would both make more money if the prices were higher. I replied that the reason my work sells is that it IS priced low. One of the workers said that she had sold one of my pieces from the previous show to a homeless man. He had the $25 that it took to buy the piece, and it just fit in his backpack. Does my work help the decor of a space under the bridge? Or add just the right spot of color to the inside of a car? Funny to think about... or maybe a bit sad. Either way, it is a better fate than being stuffed in my closet.

Hello?

Major Bird wonders if the owner of this blog has flown the coop...

No, she has just had little to say. I suspect this will be a temporary situtation.

Still Here

Just a post to keep in touch. This short movie is one of my favorites:

 

There is information on it here. I like it because it depicts how I often feel about life passing me by, and it is even more appropriate now that I am trying to get a book written! More on that later.

Unless I get even more motionally challenged...

Finish Line

Remember how I have been talking about procrastinating on a project with a deadline? Well, I shipped off the quilt yesterday... almost two weeks before the deadline. So, good for me. After thinking about what I was going to do on the quilt for over a year, I finally got to work and put it together. Unfortunately, just as I put the last piece of tape on the box, I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of the final product. But I do have one detail shot and a bit of advice... If you are working on deadline and have wasted most of your lead time, Do Not decide that the quilt needs a lot of individually sewn beads and don't decide at the last minute that the project needs to be hand quilted.

Stylish Carbs via Dezeen

What the heck have I been doing lately? Just wandering around putting my foot in my mouth. If I was wearing bread shoes made by R. and E. Praspaliauskas, it would be a lot more fun.

As seen on Dezeen and Craftzine:

 

Basketball Memories

I have lost the link that told me about New York Public Library's digital image gallery, so I can't give credit where due... but I can spread the word. Go here to see a great collection of photos on many subjects. I found the following photo in my first few seconds of browsing the gallery:

Amazing, because this picture was taken on a farm near Hutchinson, Kansas (my hometown)and taken of a subject dear to my heart (basketball). The reason this photo has survived the years is because this farm was one of the first to raise a crop of Pawnee wheat, a high-yield wheat used in the production of Wonder Bread. Who knew Wonder Bread had a Hutchinson connection?

But back to basketball...

Yesterday my team made an early departure from the college championship games. March Madness has an inherent evil in that it makes all but one of the top teams end their season in a loss. Great seasons end on a bitter note. The agony of defeat. I have been a fan of basketball since junior high school. I started going to the games because we got out of school early to attend the games, but stayed to watch guys in skimpy outfits run and jump and shoot last second shots. We had a star on our team of Greek heritage who was heart-breakingly beautiful. I think he dated the head cheerleader...they were like gods of the gym. Where are they now? My high school had a good basketball team (the Salt Hawks), and I attended every game playing clarinet in the pep band, wearing the required outfit of a "Briny Bird". The community college I attended had a team that was a contender for the national championship. Their best year during my time there was erased when it was discovered that one of the team had not graduated high school. Oops. Then I went on to attend the University of Kansas, and cheered my Jayhawks on to many victories. Thirty years later, I am still attending those games, thanks to my husband's faculty tickets. We are very spoiled with the long time winning records of KU... expecting to be included in every final four. Well, not this year. Maybe next year.

Poetry from the Plane

This is a compilation of Blackberry messages from a recent trip made by my husband. Who knew he was such a poet? I think I'll call this work "Talk to You Later". Enjoy.

Boarded on time
I am in my seat
It is snowing
But
Now they have closed the airport..
So here I sit at the gate
How long we do not know?

Update you later

We are leaving the gate
Hopefully that is good

We moved ten feet
Have been de-iced
I hope we move soon

Just landed in Atlanta
Now let's see what is next
I made the earlier flight
On plane
Talk to you later

Owl City

A Bird of the Day? It could work. I got to see my current obsession in concert last night at the Beaumont Club in KC. Adam Young (pictured below) is the driving force behind the synth-pop band Owl City. The only word I can think of to describe his work is sweet. So sweet he even has a song about going to the dentist. Counteracts the sugary lyrics, I guess. But I do enjoy the music, even on the blown speakers they had to use at the Beaumont. The only remotely appropriate thing I can say about Adam is that I wish he was my son.