Last Day with Beth for Awhile at Marcia's Studio

Beth is leaving soon for the "wilds" of North Carolina and her beach house and we spent a last sewing day at Marcia's for quite a few months. Linda worked on a combination of her hand made fabric for a possible quilt.

I applied molas to a Butterfly Jacket sample I was making for upcoming classes.

Beth was basting a few of her scrap quilts she has been making recently to take to the beach to quilt.

I really liked the one on the table.

Linda quilted one of the painted canvas pieces she made in a class with Katie Masopust.

Yikes! The Plastic Pink Flamingos are Coming!!!!!!!

Ok...we are used to flocks of Canadian Geese flying overhead and making lots of noise in the Spring and Fall.

People are not so thrilled when they settle for awhile in their yards and make a mess.

But pink plastic flamingos?

I though the real and the plastic ones only hung out in Florida? I used to see them at the Hialeah Race Track when I lived there.

Much to my surprise a flock of plastic ones has appeared on a lawn on my street.

They are everywhere. All over the yard and even on top of the air conditioner.

They are even hanging out in the trees. Could this be a new fad I missed out on somehow?

The plastic pink flamingo was invented in 1957, when a young designer named Don Featherstone rendered it for Union Products, a lawn-and-garden plastics company located outside Boston. Featherstone’s art tapped into a national fascination with all things Floridian at a time when middle-class tourism was booming. After World War II, families began en masse to take road trips; many of them to the Florida beaches. They drove back north with their cars brimming with knickknacks; porcelain palm trees and plastic flamingos. The fact that the state’s real flamingos had been hunted to extinction in the late nineteenth century for their plumes and meat didn’t seem to matter. At $2.76 a pair, the plastic birds were a cheap way to lend a bit of “nature” to manicured lawns.

Flocks of plastic pink flamingos spread out across America in the 1960s. However, as with all “hot” trends, the birds then began to draw our ire. In a 1969 book titled Kitsch: the World of Bad Taste, author Gillo Dorfles called mass-produced lawn ornaments the epitome of vulgarity and the archetypal kitsch.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This was a favorite poem of mine and that of my 2nd husband Bruce, who died 20 years ago today. I miss him every day.

In 1974 we took the chance and took that second road.....and what a trip it was.

Sunday at Dempster Grove Campground

On Sunday I picked up a classmate from when I went to school in Mexico, N.Y. and headed out to Dempster Campground for the Sunday Service and lunch with several other friends from Mexico. The campground is between Oswego and Mexico and my paternal grandparents used to live just up the road in New Haven.

The choir singing in the chapel.

Listed as number 401 on the UMC Register of Historic Sites, Dempster Grove Christian Campground was founded in 1875 and has been offering a summer retreat here every year since then. The property was originally founded as a Methodist campground, with folks arriving by horse and buggy and camping in tents under the shade of trees. The annual week of worship at Dempster Grove begins in mid-August each year. The campground consists of many small camps and cottages surrounding a central chapel, which has walls that open up by pulling on ropes, allowing plenty of fresh air to enter, especially on those hot August days.

After Church we had lunch in the Dining Hall.

When I was a child the "cabins" looked rather small and were surrounded by more trees. They have been spruced up in recent years.

Quilt Show at Patricia's Fabric Store-Rochester, N.Y.

Twice a year the wonderful Patricia's Quilt Shop in Rochester, N.Y. hosts a quilt show near their shop.

This was the first showing of Beth Brandkamp's beautiful quilt based on a photo her daughter took in Africa.

My quilt made from Nepal batiks.

This was a really cheery one.

My wolf quilt.

This was really striking.

My very favorite , made from batiks.

Beautiful colors in this one.

The entrance hall was full of small gems.

The Amish are Coming! The Amish are Coming!

My interest in the Amish in Upstate New York was recently renewed when I happened to pass an Amish barnraising on Route 14 above Lyons a few months ago. It was fascinating to watch a "swarm" of Amish men quickly build a barn. Then I happened to hear that a group had settled in upper Oswego County...where I lived as a child.

Fortified by a Cheeseburger at Daddy Ed's Restaurant in Mexico (where I grew up) I headed out to see for myself. I didn't have far to go. I found an Amish buggy entering town as I was leaving. I took Route 11 toward Pulaski, my final destination, in a vain attempt to locate my Grandfather's old farm just outside town. I found two likely candidates, but both barns had been demolished (as most barns in the area have been) I noticed many Amish buggy signs on the highway so I assume they now own many of these farms.

My final destination was the Farmer's Market in South Park in Pulaski, a town about 12 miles north of Mexico where many of my relatives formerly lived.

There's music at the bandstand most evenings.

The beautiful Art Deco movie theater closed around 1982. A car parts store took up about half of it for a few years but now even that seems to be gone. There are no longer any movie theaters in Pulaski or Mexico.

The downtown area has been designated as an "historic district" Of course, a couple of buildings have been torn down and banks erected in their place. And no one sells "things" anymore (I guess you have to go to Walmart) There were restaurants, a lab, and a Laser clinic (I suspect they have a lot of wrinkles and such in Pulaski now), a Dance Studio, and a Martial Arts School

The horses wait patiently attached to their Amish buggies at the Market. I succumbed to a Raspberry Pie and two Fried Raspberry Tarts. The Tarts were delicious. This could become a bad habit.

The Amish around Pulaski are a Swartzentruber Amish group founded by Mose Miller in 2006. Two years ago they had 26 families, mostly from Wayne County, Ohio. Now there are 36 families with more being added. They had been homeschooling, but now they have two schoolhouses, with another under construction.

They presently have no bishop, a bishop from Heuvelton in St. Lawrence County has been presiding over this flock. They do have a deacon and other ministers, but have no bishop of their own yet. The Farmers Market in Pulaski has been running for a few years and the Amish people have been selling there since they got the ok from the Bishop. At one time they were forbidden to attend because of the music.

The Amish vendors with their wonderful baked and other goods at one end of the Market.

Amish continue to arrive in New York today. The Amish population in New York has been described as the fastest-growing in North America.

In the past ten years, Amish have established over a dozen settlements in New York, many attracted by the prospect of inexpensive farmland and communities more isolated from pressures found in other Amish settlements. These newer settlements typically number just one or two church districts, but prospects for growth in many are good.

As New York continues to offer Amish settlers suitable land and relatively sheltered locations in which to found communities, Amish settlement in the Empire State is likely to continue.

Another Great Sewing Day at Marcia's Studio

Inspector Suki, ever on the job, was in the studio early to greet the guests and try out the space in my shopping bag.

Pat displayed some beautiful fabric she had made recently.

And started arranging blocks for some future quilts.

I worked on a sample Butterfly Jacket for upcoming classes scheduled for this fall.

Nancy worked on some beautiful blue blocks.

I displayed squares from the class I took from Katie Masopust at QbL two weeks ago. I will use one as the focus of a future quilt.

Joyce displayed two great quilts she is putting the finishing touches on.

Jazz And Wine Festival in Beautiful Downtown Wolcott

This is the 2nd or 3rd Annual Central New York Wine & Jazz Festival held in "Historic Wolcott, N.Y."

It was held in the Park and in the main block downtown which was closed to traffic.

Of course there were two local policemen overseeing the activities to keep out interlopers and such.

Our beautiful famous fountain at the town traffic light.

The downtown street was full of Helavagood Cheese, Wine tasting booths and a few assorted dealers.

And a Jazz musician who seemed to be his whole band.

One of the wine tasting booths. They were using real glass wine glasses.

As usual, you can sit out front of the Hotel

The fancy grape logo was everywhere.

You can also sit out in front of both Pizza Parlors.

Back in the park I succumbed to homemade black raspberry ice cream.

Which i ate while listening to a really good Jazz Band.

As always there was other food available, but why bother when there is ice cream?