Away We Go

I'm off this weekend - I'm going on a quilt retreat with Mom. We're off to the Palisades Centre near Jasper, Alberta (in the mountains, in Jasper National Park), where we will be working on different quilts.

Mom is making Dancing Leaves by Animas Quilts, and I'm making a variation of Drunkard's Wave by Judy Niemeyer. Why a variation? Because I just can't follow a pattern exactly as written. My need to "tweak" and to do an individual interpretation is strong - so strong, in fact, that even though I purchased the kit (pricey, too) I'll be ignoring some of the kitted fabrics and substituting from my stash, not making up the blocks as the pattern sets out, adding extra borders, and generally changing things until my quilt looks nothing like the original. At all! But, that's me.

I had to phone ahead and check that I can access my Etsy account and email program from the Palisades Centre so I can keep up with Internet orders of the Agatha pattern while I'm away - shouldn't be a problem. Shawl pins ordered on Friday won't go out until Monday, though (we leave Friday morning).

And then on Monday - I have a surprise for Tom! He has been in Cambodia for 10 days (I'm picking him up at the airport at 1:45am tonight/tomorrow morning), and when he gets back I'm promptly taking off for the quilting retreat and leaving him alone with the critters. So, I wanted to do something special with him to make up for not being here long when he gets back, and I found just the thing!

Henry Rollins is coming to Edmonton. Tom remembers Henry from his days with Black Flag, a punk band (Tom has always liked punk music - yup, he's a bit funky), and we both enjoyed him very much as the co-host of Full Metal Challenge on the Discovery Chanel. Right now he's on tour doing a spoken word thing - apparently it is a rant type of performance - Henry has very strong political leanings, is a comedian, and reminds me a bit of Lewis Black (often featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart). Tom doesn't know Henry Rollins is coming here (I just found out today, and was able to get tickets in the nosebleed section, at the last minute), so this is a surprise. I wonder if I can keep the surprise? Probably not. Huh.

Anyway, I hope to resume regular blogging next week - I have a new shawl designed that I want to get started on. In the mean time, I hope to finish Agatha's socks.