Super (long) Saturday

WARNING: As it turns out, Super (long) Saturday turned into a Super (long) Blog post. Please don't feel obligated to read it. It was just a Super (fun) Saturday and I wanted a record of the things we did and saw...

Earlier this week someone asked me when the last time was that Russ & I had been on a date. Well...I had to think. We've done sewing, and traveling, and gone to the beach, and gotten our daughter married and our triplets baptized...but how long has it been since we've had a date? I just figured it out, this very minute. One night at our family reunion I was stressed by the mass of humanity sleeping in our beach house bedroom. (And no, it really didn't help that it was a mass of humanity that I'd given birth too--it was still too crowded!) We needed something at the grocery store, so Russ decided (smart boy) that we should go together, and while we were out he bought me dinner at a little Chinese restaurant. I don't remember if the food was good or not, but the company certainly was.

So let's see....we're in October now, so it's been approximately 12 weeks since that little impromptu date, and many weeks before that since anything else resembling a date. I decided that it was definitely time to follow the advice of our church leaders, and take my husband on a date.

Fortuitously I had an opening in my schedule. I had been planning to go to the Durham Quilters Guild quilt show with an old neighbor, but found out Thursday night that she was ditching me for a weekend in Maine. (I'd ditch me too!) I still wanted to go to the quilt show, but now I needed someone to go with. It was the perfect date.

Russ was not enthusiastic. Let me explain something about Russ and quilts. Russ grew up thinking that a quilt was for sleeping under. It was made of squares of fabric sewn together, then tied with yarn. He was surprised when I started making a quilt as we were moving from Idaho, and worked on that quilt for the next two years. He was startled when I asked him to make a hanger so that I could hang it on the wall.

"Hang it on the wall," he asked? "A quilt is for a bed!"

"No," I assured him, "this quilt is art."


So he made a nice hanger, and this quilt hangs in our stairwell now. Every time I look at it I think that one day I will be able to quilt again. I'm sure that every time Russ looks at it he thinks that a quilt belongs on a bed.

So you can understand his lack of enthusiasm at going to a whole show devoted to quilts.

I sweetened the deal by offering a breakfast at IHOP before the quilt show. And by reminding him of how long it had been since we'd had a date. He finally agreed.

We started our Saturday morning at IHOP, where we split a large omlette. I let him eat the pancakes himself, since I'm not eating sugar this month, darn it. Then we were off to Walmart where we replaced our crockpot that must have been left at the beach and bought fabric to make our little Obi-Wan a cape for Halloween.

After that it was time for the main event--the quilt show. The quilt show was held at a relatively new place in Durham--the American Tobacco Campus. We were very interested to check this place out, and enjoyed walking around it. I came home resolved to learn more about the campus. In my research I learned that this complex is made of rennovated warehouses and cigarette manufacturing buildings, many of which are over 100 years old.

I thought this description from an article I found was too good to not use:

"The buildings are described by architectural historian Catherine Bishir as a combination of functionalism, exuberant brickwork and medieval-inspired historicism."

Next time we go I'll have to notice the exuberant brickwork!

The quilt show was held in a space called "Bay 7." We considered having Cindy Lynn's NC reception in Bay 7--until we noticed that the price for renting said space was about $3000. Ouch! It's a good thing we didn't have the reception there, though. People would have had a much longer walk through the pouring rain of Tropical Storm Hanna if we had been able to afford to have the reception there!

But I digress. Back to the quilt show. It was simply amazing. There were 300 quilts on display, hanging neatly in rows.

As we walked in the door, there in front of us was the "Best of Show" quilt. It was incredible. Made by a quilter for her husband in celebration of their 50th anniversary, each square was a different applique design. Having only done a little bit of applique quilting in my life, I can't imagine making a king sized quilt like that. Fortunately I think it's safe to say that Russ isn't expecting anything like that for our 50th anniversary. Because this quilt was Art. With a capital A. Wow.

The next quilt we saw was this one. It was also very beautiful. And, as it turned out, their raffle quilt for the year. Now I've always heard that raffles are like gambling, and I would never gamble. But I did donate $5 then and there to the quilt guild...and should they decide that they want to give me that beautiful quilt I would be delighted!

I enjoyed looking at the quilts so much. I probably haven't been to a quilt show since we've lived in NC, and it was interesting to see what kind of changes there have been. Machine quilting is definitely mainstream now--I'd say that as many or more of the quilts were machine quilted rather than hand quilted. There also seemed to be more quilts made with bright and playful fabrics, which was really fun to see. I was wishing from the minute that we got there that I had brought my camera, but I didn't. Next time I will.

Russ seemed to enjoy himself, though from time to time I did hear him muttering "Quilts are for beds!" to himself. The only time he seemed truly uncomfortable was when we went upstairs to the vendor part of the show. This area was packed with women wearing their Art. This is truly his worst nightmare. That one day I will be making what he thinks should be a covering for a bed, and then I'll turn around and show him that no, it's a jacket, or a vest, or some other piece of clothing. I keep assuring him that that's not my style, but from time to time his fear resurfaces.

After our delightful tour of all of the quilts we walked around the rest of the Campus, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and were off for the next part of our adventure.

Recently I decided that our bedroom would be much improved by the addition of a loveseat at the foot of our bed. We have plenty of room, and it would give us a comfy place to snuggle while watching tv. It would also be close enough to the tv that we might be able to see the ball, or the score, while watching Duke play basketball.

Fortunately, we have a spare loveseat right now. We dragged it into the bedroom and determined that it was a terrific idea. Unfortunately, the spare loveseat is a bold plaid of navy, hunter, and burgendy--which isn't a harmonious addition to our pale blue with yellow accents bedroom. So I have been hunting a loveseat.

One of my wonderful friends found one at a consignment shop for $270, which she assured me was really a bargain. This seems to be a lot to shell out right now in these troubled economic times, however. So I started hunting on Craigslist instead. After a lot of searching I found this. The price? A bargain at $35. Now you may say that this loveseat also does not appear to go in a room that is light blue. (It is a very bright teal in real life.) You would be very right. But it will be relatively easy to buy fabric to recover the cushions, and I am going to work my remodeling magic on the wood frame. Hopefully it will re-emerge in a few weeks (but after the completion of the Obi-Wan robe) as a new and unrecognizeable piece of furniture. I'll keep you posted.

The loveseat's old home was on the other side of Raleigh, in a town called Clayton. Quite a drive, but considering the happy fact that gas is now down to $3.29/gallon, it seemed a reasonable trip to make for a $35 sofa. So we took off from the quilt show and drove to Clayton. The highlight of our trip to Clayton was passing Turnipseed Rd. and Grasshopper Ln. Truly. What the people who made these roads thinking? I always get a good reaction when I tell people the name of my street. But at least I don't have to say that I live on Turnipseed Road!

Since we were now on the far side of Raleigh, I figured that we might as well go to the Raleigh Farmers Market on our way home. We don't go there often because it takes us almost an hour to get there...which eleminates any savings from buying the less expensive produce. But now it seemed foolish not to go. I was thrilled once we arrived at the farmer's market to see that they were selling apples for 99 cents a pound. 99 cents! I've been paying $1.99 for apples when they're on sale! My kids can eat more than $10 of apples a week at those prices. Everyone had samples of all of the different types of apples, and it was interesting to taste them. We bought a lot of apples. And made a plan for Russ to go to the farmer's market from work every now and then, to procure more cheap (and delicious) apples.

The best part of the trip to the farmer's market wasn't the market, though, as good as the apples were. Between the market and the interstate was a local limo company with some really interesting limos. First they had an H2 limo. I think the SUV limos have to be some of the strangest things ever. Then they had an Excursion Limo that was 7 windows long. (That's how we measure limos--by how many windows they have.) Lastly, (and there is no picture of this on their website and I am really, really sad about it) they had a monster truck Excursion limo. It only had 4 windows, so it wasn't as long. But the thing was jacked up so high that you could see daylight above the tires! Russ said it's the perfect redneck limo.

Then after we got back on the interstate, as if to add to the limo-ness of the day, we saw this limo. Really and truly. Larger than life on the other side of the interstate.

When we got home we saw that the kids had industriously occupied themselves during our absence, moving logs that were sitting around as a result of our tree falling in a storm this summer and smashing our neighbor's cars. Russ had the great idea to make the now vacant natural area into an even more natural area, and make a fire pit. Since we have a whole family full of pyromaniacs, they were all on board. We came home to find all of the wood moved and a small fire pit ready to go.

We had a great time sitting outside in the dark with the kids while they played in the fire. Russ thinks we should have a camp out in our back yard. It would certainly be a convenient location!

When it got to be bedtime we made the kids stop playing in the fire, and sent them in to get into pj's and get their teeth brushed. You may think that at this point Russ and I collapsed into bed, too--or at least onto the plaid loveseat. But no, not on Super (long) Saturday. Instead we went into the school room (our dining room) and started dismantling it. We had been talking for a while now about arranging things differently, and I had finally figured out how I wanted things. Wow. I'd forgotten that when you have to take everything apart it is a ton of work, and creates an enormous mess. Thank goodness I have a good network guy--he took the computers apart and got them all back together by 10:30. And then we did collapse. In bed. Exhausted.

And that was the end of Super (long) Saturday.

The End