Sunday Sundry - Vol. 29

How y'all are?  

Does anyone remember Justin Wilson, the Cajun chef and humorist?  That was one of his famous lines, along with the catchphrase, "I gar-ohn-TEE!"  I used to love watching his cooking show on PBS and hear his funny stories.

I seem to be all about the tangents today, so hold on to your hats as we steer and veer along the Sunday Sundry path! 

First things first, I want to wish my home girl Kathy (no blog) a very happy birthday!  I sent her this card, which tickled my funnybone.  This will be us in 35 years or so, with any luck.

Meanwhile, I'm still thinkin'...

I made up a couple of sample blocks for a quilt I've had in mind for several months now.  These are not the fabrics I'll be using, just some scraps.

The idea for this quilt started with a song on the radio.  This particular song had some interesting lyrics, the kind that evoke visual images, as well as the kind of lyrics that make you go hmm (or, what was he smoking?).  Kind of like when you hear an odd phrase and think, that would be a cool band name (or product name, or book title, etc.).  You know, something interesting enough to ponder.

For instance, the lyrics "...with a purple umbrella and a 50-cent hat..." (Led Zeppelin, Livin' Lovin' Maid), or "...the pompatus of love..." (Steve Miller, The Joker).  One is very visual, and the other is like, WTF?

Anyway, I heard this particular lyric and said to Norm, who was in the car with me at the time, "I'm going to make a quilt and call it X" (where X represents the interesting phrase from the lyrics).  Sorry, I can't tell you what the phrase is until the quilt is done.  I've got to maintain a little bit of suspense, right?

Now this is kind of a backwards way to make a quilt, I know.  Usually the naming of the quilt happens after, say, you decide on a pattern and cut some fabric.  But in this case, the wheels started turning pretty quickly about how I might represent X in fabric.  In keeping with the era of the song from whence the lyrics came, I knew it would have to have a funky, retro vibe to it, though I wanted to do it in modern fabrics.  

These are some of the fabrics that will potentially be going into this quilt.

Are you saying to yourself, Hmm...?  Yeah, me too.

I'm not going to rush this process.  There are still things I need to work out, and I want to take my time and enjoy each step and not hurry for the sake of producing something.  This quilt is going to be an exercise for me in value, i.e., dark, medium, light.  This is outside my comfort zone, so there's that.  Just looking at the stacks above, I think I have a lot of medium value fabrics, a few darks, and not enough lights.  So this is going to take some pondering.

Karaoke'd Away

You know how there are some songs you hear that you feel compelled to sing along with?  Hopefully, you're in the privacy of your own home or car when the urge hits to let fly with your vocal accompaniment, but we've all got our faves I'm sure.  Here's one I found on YouTube today.  Even if you don't like Journey—and I prefer the pre-'80s incarnation of the group myself—watch this, if nothing else than for a glimpse at the most awesome white person 'fro ever on Neal Schon, the guitarist.

Then again, who am I to talk?  I was rocking the UniPerm myself back then.

The UniPerm was this perming system in which your hair was rolled onto rods, a solution applied, and then hot and heavy clamps were placed over the rods to, I don't know, cook your hair into curling.  You were then left alone to "relax" with a stack of outdated Cosmo mags and a head full of stank that weighed 20 pounds more than it did when you came into the salon.  Good times.  It was kind of expensive too.

Finally, here's one you've heard before, but more than that, it's a fabulous retrospective of fashion from the late '60s.  Don't miss this—you might even find your creative inspiration!