Goodbye ole egbdf!

That would have been the title of this blog if everything had gone as I hoped it would!

I bought this piano in 1991 when I was sure I wanted to be a top notch (or even medium notch) piano player.  I took some private lessons from a lady who had a studio in her basement, and I stopped them because unfortunately I must have been her only adult student.  What difference would that make??  I'm glad you asked!

I had my lessons after leaving work, which means she'd had at least 3 school-age students before me, and for some reason she thought she could yakkety yak to me about her day while I'm supposed to be learning piano!  How she had tea at this or that embassy, and had to make popcorn balls for her teen, and oh how glad she was to have an adult to talk to after such a difficult day!  Meanwhile, she's dashing to and from the kitchen to stir her stew, and back and forth to take clothes from the washer.  Well, that didn't last long.  My next lessons were in a church on Saturday, from a former concert pianist who played for Sunday services in that church.  I remember he got ill and had to suspend lessons for awhile, and for some reason I stopped after my paid-for lessons were done.  I tried to keep up practice by using books but without the discipline of regular lessons ... you know the drill! 

So... this nice Jesse French piano has been sitting idle for close to 15 years, and you have to know it needs tuning.  What to do?  Donate it to the Salvation Army, of course!  I was told they could only climb 3 steps; I said fine, I have 3 steps from the sidewalk, then a 3-foot flat area, then 3 more steps to the porch.  (Well, actually it was 3 steps and 4 steps).  BUT... when they came to pick it up he told me they couldn't take it because I had too many steps!  For safety sake, they could only do a maximum of 2 steps, he said - sheesh!  And so it sits while I regroup.

All this could have been theirs!

Moving right along... When we visited Capitol Quilts last week we saw this pretty quilt displayed using some gorgeous Australian fabrics... 

I made a test block to see if I'd like making the pattern:

It's okay but I don't like the bold contrast of the black and white against the colored fabric.  I think if I make this one, I'll replace the white with a sort of beige-y color, and maybe a softer color to replace the black.  But this would be a really good block to show off your large-scale prints - you know how we hate to cut those up!  The test block should be square, I'd need to make some adjustments.  

Well, that's it for today -  so forth and sew on til later!