#6 Ride a Train

Well I just booked passage on a train (this is my #6 on my 52). I cannot wait - I'll be riding the Cardinal Train to Chicago (sadly this won't get completed in June but I'm doing it shortly thereafter - stay tuned for details of the trip. It's a real train with sleeping cars and dining cars and despite that I'm traveling early in the morning I'm looking forward to a cocktail in the dining car.  Woot!  Jodie - I can still ride a train with Dennis especially if it's a caboose.

June Goal - It's a Quilt

I had my doubts about getting this done, but I did some binding by hand in the car to make it work.  And now we have a quilt which is a goal completed.  For the record I do not really care for binding by hand I think I will keep with machine binding in the future.  This could have possibly been the simplest design ever I hacked off a triangle of 6 fat quarters, stitched them together and boom quilt top.  I love these colors and these fabrics together.  The Kate Spain Animal print is adorable, and I was able to use more of the insane amount of Denise Schmidt that I had purchased on this too - it was a perfect fit an unplanned happiness.   And then imagine my surprise when I found a yellow circus stripe to match for the binding hidden in my stash - delightful. 

I did the back also simple not sure what you call it - big piece, pieced strip, stripe, pieced strip, big piece and done! 

Movie Time - Company Men

Movies again this month have been "ugh" - but I did rent a good one recently.  The Company Men - it has an all star cast with Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, and Kevin Costner.  I really liked Tommy Lee in this one it was a better roll than his cop or FBI parts. Anyhow without giving too much away it's a movie about a guy who gets laid off in downsizing and his struggles after he loses his big impressive job.  But more than that it's about greed, pride, friendship, loyalty.   While I thought the movie had a good story I really felt like they could have shown the main character struggle a bit more you almost couldn't believe that charming good looking Ben was downsized and couldn't find a job it was almost as if he wasn't really looking in the movie but instead golfing or driving around in his Porsche.  Or that his family was really noticing the loss of income aside from random Xbox comment and his son all pouty after school.  But overall this movie was worth seeing, and I really liked the ending.  

I will save you the reviews of the other junky movies I saw although Another Year was almost as boring as Somewhere but at least there was some dialog and character development save yourself the time and money on that one.

Quilts & Pizza

This month IMQG went out for Pizza to celebrate projects completed which was our June Challenge. (FYI I haven't completed mine yet but I ran out of thread). But I thought I would share a sneak peek of the meeting recap here on my blog.  Lots more details to follow on Indy Modern Quilt Guild's Blog.   We are growing and we have lot of fun events planned for the rest of the year so if you live in the Indy Metro Area and want to join up do it and we even have a special challenge right now if you sign-up before we run out of fabric.

Tisha's Circles

Pizza - this is only the best pizza in Indy.

And Linday's Robert Kaufman piece.

Favs on Friday - Cilantro

Since it's Fajita night I thought I'd make my Fav go along with that.  Fajita night is also sort of a favorite however I also like grilling night, soup night, and kebob night etc etc so I didn't want to exclude anything.  So today's Fav is Cilantro.   I LOVE this stuff it just makes foot flavorful.   I had a mass of it in my garden recently and made pesto, cilantro lime honey butter, and pico and some other loveliness.  I still have some so into the rice it's going.

Places I Go: Salem

I think I'm going to make a new series on here called "Places I Go" which will of course feature all these random places I visit in my travels or just random excursions.  I've been meaning to blog about Worcester for a while but then I took these random photos in Salem so we'll start there.

So the other night my friend SJ and KJ (me) went to Salem.  We wanted to check out the nightlife - which let me tell you is almost non-existent with the exception of all the random girls who seem to walk around in the worlds shortest shorts and/or dresses - I'm not kidding when I say we saw no fewer than 10 girls who seemed to be missing the bottom part of their outfits.   But we did enjoy a few good beers and some not so good wine.

Salem has lots of places to go here are a few some we hit others I'd been to before:  

• Rockafellar - which is in an old bank with beautiful architecture well preserved, but is now used as a restaurant bar (they have live music on weekends).
• Murphy's - which I could taken or left but it seemed to be a popular spot
• Gulu's - I think that's right - I didn't get to go there this last time but they serve beer in the morning have random jam session in the middle of the bar and they won't let you order a bud lite (here's to more places like that)
• Beerworks - This is an extension of those in Boston it's newly remodeled and the Dan's or Dave's that work there are great - we got our beer for free. 
• Shoppity Shoppes - Sorry I'm not listing them all but check out the antique store on the main strip it has cool stuff.  There is also a fabric store, a bead store and a knitting shop which I can appreciate. 
• Peabody Essex Museum - which is rather pricey but still an interesting place. 
• Witch Sights - most of the real sights aren't in Salem but nearby but you should check the Seven Gables, and the Rebecca Nurse Home, skip the Salem Witch Museum as it's just the history of Salem and the witch trials not even well done.
• Waterfront - Oh don't forget to see the waterfront area here too.  Salem is right on the water. 

Anyhow we had a nice time and I recommend checking out Salem if you are ever in MA and have time for more than just Boston. Oh and Sorry I didn't take more photos of the city.  I was much more interested in documenting the blueberry beers I was drinking. ;o)

This is the Sea Dog Blueberry

(Photo Removed SJ be glad we are friends otherwise I would have left it.)

Beers available right now at Beerworks

Remains of SJ's twin lobster's from Murphy's apparently it was good but you need to bring your own pick.

Hey Jackie you are missing lobster & beer!

I liked these little Monsters although I am now wonder why the one is wearing a diaper and mittens?

I think this the North Shore Light not another blueberry

iPhone Lately

Since I have been using the SLR around Indy, but the iPhone hasn't been tossed by the wayside completely.  My love affair still continues with it (oh wait that doesn't sound right).  I have found recently that I have taken lots of photos at the gym or on the treadmill.  I'm not sure what is so interesting about that location except I'm BORED - I can safely say I don't have any real desire to run marathons.  But I am happy to report that I have shaved off about 45 more seconds from my 5K in the last week although I didn't want to run jog at all last week but I sucked it up.   Anyhow I thought I would share some of the latest.  I retouched all of these into Polaroids with my camerabag app - something everyone with an iPhone needs clearly.

Okay so Fermin took this one - but I still loved it and wanted to include.

Jamming and Quilting

I did some Jamming and Quilting this weekend. I made tons of strawberry jam - it's a little thinner than it should have been probably because I put extra berries in and didn't add more stupid sugar.  Oh well it's still tastes good. Thanks Lynley for helping.

I also started and almost finished a baby quilt (which is a June goal).  Please put out of your mind the fact I didn't change my machine foot because I am in a contest with myself to finish this in less than 24 hours I still have 5 left to go and I'm 1/3 of the way done with the quilting. 

Oh and it even has triangles.  This could however have been one of the simplest quilt designs EVER.

Oh and as an FYI as the end of the month approaches I'm doing better than I thought on my monthly goals but I feel like a slacker.  Enjoying Summer, Book Reading, Scrapbook - DONE.  Everything else well not so much.

To My Adoreable Aunt Thea

Happy birthday! I wish you and Paul lived closer like right across the street. Then we could take you on all our adventures. I hope you have the best birthday!
Xoxo Katie :)

image from here

Congratulations Momo! aka That's One Fine Looking Gang (Da Weekend Part 4)

Another Penguin Adventure happened this weekend as well. Momo retired after 37+ years of teaching school.  She has always only wanted to do one thing - Teach.  She taught in one room school houses, in catholic schools, online, in traditional classrooms, she taught grades K-8 and I'm sure it's been challenging as well as rewarding.  She has been inspiring learning in young minds since she was very young and I'm sure she'll continue to do it in one way or another.  Momo thanks for being a catalyst for learning both in the classroom and out.  I'm so proud of you and I cannot wait for the next phase in your life.  I hope you had a great penguin retirement party.

Anyhow we threw Momo a party in Penguin theme since this is the year of the penguin (Penguin Adventure #6 under our belts yes I realize I never blogged #5 but we didn't take pictures the horror!).  I think the party was a success it was great to see old teachers from our past like my kindergarten teacher, as well as other longtime family friends.  

Anyhow I'm not going to make this long winded because I have like 1 gazillion things to do this weekend and blogging wasn't really on this list, so onward to the photos!

This is Momo and Brianna opening Penguin gifts.  Brianna is the daughter of my childhood friend Beth who was in one of mom's 1st grade classes um like 25 years ago. 

Shreve is getting ready to slaughter the penguin. (The cake turned out well but his little feet melted).

This is the Schreve and his Kindergarten teacher Sue.

And Mick

Mom and Smeatana's (I think I spelled that right).

Sue and Mary Jane who was momo's principal for like 10 years.

Jones and Co avoiding the paparazzi

Oh that's better

This is Kelly (momo's friend) who also taught all the Jones and Co crew science in high school and her daughter in law and grandbaby.

More teachers from Kramer with momo.

Ashley has baby fever - look out Jono

Schreve I'm not sure what this is

Mel on his new toy

And the weekend would not be complete without family photos since all of Jones & Co was present - we set-up and then momo wandered off and JJ went to get her

You know these pictures aren't perfect partially because of the sun flare but that's okay - here's the whole gang - not we no longer fit in one car unless we get a bus (although I'm not sure that's really changed as I recall days when Jono sat on the floor or we sat 4 across in the van). 

Oh and Just in case you don't know everyone. 

Back - JJ, Mel, Lita, Chris

Front - Schreve, Alicia, Momo, Me, Jono and Ash

And because we like to have fun - here's a funny shot.  I love you guys!

In case you missed all the other posts about the kick-off to summer aka da weekend you can relive them here - #1, #2, #3.   Until next time.