Laowai

Nothing much that is exciting is happening around here. Fall is just humming along. The girls have had about three weeks of school and we've had hardly a rain drop in all that time. Brian is in Switzerland for the week – his first big work trip in a year and a half. And as for me – I'm just enjoying the season. Here are a few photos.

I went for a ride on the tandem bike with Brian. Here is my view.

Out to dinner on a warm night. Is this a photo of Bea or of Brian's beer?

Feeling pie crust proud.

Thawing raspberries.

Brian and I went down to the city to see Macbeth at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Gold!

My morning glory plant is growing like crazy! I think it's trying to come in the front door.

And here is a photo of my kitchen windowsill – it's always full of flowers and tomatoes lately.

I've been spending a lot of time in my sewing room lately. I made two more dresses. The pattern, from Liesl and Co., is called the Bistro Dress. It has lots of darts, an invisible side zipper and a fabric belt. It's a nice semi-fitted sheath style dress. The first one I made out of denim and right before I cut the fabric I decided to use the light colored side. I like the color and I like how it looks with the belt, but it was a little too tight. So I went a size up and used a herringbone patterned flannel for the second version. Both fabrics are inexpensive from Joann's. Now that I know the pattern and have adjusted it a bit I would like to make it in a nicer thick suiting fabric or some sort of pretty wool. 

Also, I'm not a model. I hate having my photo taken. Uhg.

Getting ready to see Neil Diamond in Zurich.

For the first time in a long time Brian has gotten us season tickets to the Lyric Opera. So I decided I needed a new outfit – I made a skirt. It's the Extra-Sharp Pencil Skirt pattern from Oliver + S. I made this pattern once before and I love it. The pattern directions are so good I even put in the invisible zipper without cursing. The fabric is a canvas from Cloud 9 – from the Under One Sky collection. I love the birds!

And before I started my skirt I (sort of) finished the top of my ugly quilt. As I mentioned it's supposed to be a scrap busting quilt but oddly my pile of scraps only seemed to grow. Perhaps they just got spread out over my whole sewing room. This quilt is all about piecing without thinking. Some of the areas I really like, some not as much. But it's all about the process and being surprised at what I end up with. Anyway – the tall husband held it up for a photo and now I've put it away. I'll add to it another day and I'll quilt it when the snow comes.

Thanks to Rash Hashanah's timing this year my girls had a four day weekend instead of a three day weekend for Labor Day. We decided to take a spur of the moment vacation close to home. 

Hey Aunt Donna – can you guess where we went?

The badger above might give a clue. Isn't he cute!

It's Madison, Wisconsin. 

This was my first visit to Madison and I discovered it's a great city! I'm starting to think mid-sized cities (smaller than Chicago, bigger than Midland are where it's at)

We toured the capital and enjoyed some nice architecture around the capital.

We arrived right as a University of Wisconsin football game was starting. The girls got to see the atmosphere of a big university on game day. So many red and white striped overalls! 

We went to the University's Geology Museum – very cool!

Madison is full of Lakes.

Hotel breakfast.

We went to the Olbrich Botanic Garden. Looks like we're having a great time doesn't it (rolling my eyes).

We went to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin which is about an hour's drive from Madison. What a beautiful drive – I can see why FLW wanted to build his home there in the middle of the beautiful hills and valleys. 

The house – built in 1911 – felt so old and precious and fragile to me. It also felt mini. The (FLR designed) chairs looked like they were only six inches off the ground. And Brian was the comedy highlight of our guided tour because he had to have his head bent to the side to walk around because most of the ceilings were so low. 

It also felt like a magical place because it was so ahead of its time and it was the beginning of a change in American architecture. I was shocked at how similar it felt to the Alden Dow Home and Studio. I'm so glad we went!

Back to Madison.

On our last day we went canoeing/kayaking on one of Madison's lovely lakes.

Good times! Thanks Madison.

I made raspberry pie with streusel topping.

I think I'm going to call this my ugly quilt. I would call it my crazy quilt but that title brings to mind a much more artistic quilt with embroidery and velvet. This quilt is a slapdash attempt to entertain myself and to use up a mountain of scraps.

I'm simply trying to turn this:

Into this:

On the last day of August I went for a walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The prairie was looking so beautiful. Signs of decay and decline – signs of fall were everywhere. I'm not mad about it.

The fall colors are just the best! Look at how the greens and browns mix with white and a few pastels. Pretty, pretty, pretty!

I'm still in a bit of a funk. I managed to work on my window this morning but only for a while because it was so hot and humid. So it's back to my sewing room. I'm just playing and using up all the little scraps.

The girls are both back to school as of today. Bea started 9th grade and Claire is in 6th. Highschool!!! Things are not back to normal (pandemic wise) but they are able to go in person everyday and that's good. I snuck a photo of each of them taking off on their bikes.

Bea got a little lost on her way to school the first day. I thought we had ridden and reviewed the route enough but she ended up going out of her way on big busy roads. She was a couple minutes late. Oops. At the time I was super stressed out as we watched her progress on Brian's phone, but really it wasn't a big deal. She took it all in stride. Ha!

I made cookies. Must have homemade cookies to pack in lunches. These are a new recipe from The Vanilla Bean blog – Neapolitan cookies. They have freeze dried strawberries to make the pink part. I think we liked them.

I should be here in my garage workshop working on my window restoration project, but I've been pretty unmotivated lately. Maybe I can blame it on the oppressive heat. 

So instead of doing useful things I retreated to my sewing room and made two quilt blocks today.

They are small – only six inches. The one above is an Ohio Star block and the one below is a Sawtooth Star block.

So maybe the heat will break and I will get my energy back – I'm ready for FALL!