Jun 10 08
Quilting, 17 Year Cicada Invasion, and Web Store
First, thanks to everyone who has been patient with the changes in the new web store. Please know that the webmaster is working very diligently to iron out these problems. Most sales are going through without any problem at all; he is still working to get the shipping fine-tuned. In the meantime, many of you have inadvertently gotten tremendous deals on shipping!
I fused up a small wall hanging the other day. It doesn’t have any thread work or anything done on it yet, but it will have trapunto and free motion embroidery done before it goes into a quilt sandwich:
I met a new friend a few weeks ago and her name is Carol Sloan. She is an incredible multi-media artist but I met her during a free motion quilting demo. Check out her website to see what kinds of beautiful stuff she is creating. I think this is one talented woman who is going to go far-keep your eyes on her!
We just got back from NC. When we first arrived, they were in the midst of a 17 year cicada invasion. I’ve never witnessed this before-it was kind of cool for the first week, then it kind of started to get on my nerves! At about 5 am each day, you’d hear this weird noise. It was a constant sound, kind of like a huge alien space craft was hovering in your backyard. This noise grew louder as the day went on-reached a peak about 4 pm, then was gone each day by around 8 pm. This noise is the cumulative effect of millions of these cicadas singing to one another to find mates; if you hear any of them individually from about 10 ft away, the sound is quite different. Here;s what one of them looks like; they actually have very beautiful lacey wings:
(Also notice those large red eyes-apparently, there are many species and the eye colors vary from one species to another). Once they mate, they begin to die. During this time, they are weak. They can still fly, but only for shorter distances and they fly low. If you’re outside, they fly into you a lot! They are large insects, so it’s a bit unnerving to have them keep flying into you! Once they are too weak to fly, they kind of slowly crawl around on the ground for awhile and you hear them making these low-pitched guttural sounds. Sadly, you found their dead bodies all over the place. Here’s a typical find just stepping out to get the morning paper:
We’re back in OH now where the insects aren’t doing anything interesting!
I am honored to be mentioned here but YOU are the really awesome one! I love the Peace of Mind quilting…We all strive for peace of mind, don’t we? My sister died from cancer last year (renal cell carcinoma) and I remember she spoke of it a lot.
I am so very blessed to have met you Patsy, you are not only a talented quilter but a very special woman that I think a lot of!
Patsy: The cicadas were/are used to make red dye. You should have saved some to try. GiGi