Thursday, August 23, 2007

Story time.

The problem with posting quilt-top in progress pictures is that when you actually do finish the quilt top, it doesn't look significantly different. But trust me... the quilt is much farther along than when I posted the other pictures. The top is finished, and I've actually started quilting it to the backing. I haven't filled in the blank spots yet, but I have finished the stitch-in-the-ditch part.

I decided that my quilt is not so much an I-spy quilt - because the point of an I-spy is that you have to hunt for the pictures in a 'Where's Waldo' kind of way. I'm going to refer to this as a storybook quilt. You can make up a story based on the pictures. As I was explaining this to Mistress J (who's visiting Portland this week!), I found an unfortunate group of blocks. Starting with the pink cat block, the story I came up with was: "Look the cat goes to France and gets hit by a truck, then it needs bandaids & medicine. But then it dies and comes back as a ghost."


There's a reason I don't have kids, you know. =)



Now a little story from tutoring. We had a very good lesson yesterday, practicing "I like" and "I don't like" my student totally got into the lesson - which was really gratifying. Anyway when I first got there the kids were all saying 'Hello, how are you' to me. The little girl had a yellow hat with an elastic chin-strap. I showed her how to put it on, and told her she was very pretty in her hat. Then the kids went into the back room, and I started working with my student.


Halfway through our lesson, one of the little boys came back into the livingroom. He was wearing his own version of a little yellow hat, a pair of underwear on his head! I started cracking up, as did my student. It was so great, it doesn't matter what country you come from, or what language you speak, or what religion you are - if a little boy walks into a room wearing underwear on his head - it's FUNNY!



Oh, and towards the end of our lesson, all the kids came back into the room and turned on the TV. The Sleep Country USA commercial came on. You know the one. As if I didn't have enough reason to hate that store... all the kids were gathered around the TV singing "Why la la ma ma anywa es - DING." They can barely understand English, but they're already learning brand loyalty. Heaven help us. =P

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alternately, Chinese food, Wolves, and Space Travel can all send you to the hospital ;-)

What a fun quilt! It must have taken forever to collect so many fabrics!

Michael5000 said...

Well, there's a long, rich tradition of grim and violent children's stories....

Have you seen the storybook quilts with the little lines connecting the story elements? Same idea, just a fun additional element.

Cool tutor stories.... What is "Why la la ma ma anywa es - DING" in the original?

Mag said...

I see that being a goofball with underwear on your head is a male trait regardless of cultural heritage.
;-)
Love your stories of ESL teaching.

Anonymous said...

If the quilt is for the newest addition to our own rapidly emerging Seventh Heaven-esque family, then I'm all for injecting a little violence and cynicism into their world! You know we'll be the only ones to do it for them (especially considering where they currently reside!)!! Seriously, might have to procreate so I can get me a Rebel-made quilt.... (I like that: Rebel-made, like Ready-made but much cooler)

Rebel said...

Melody - it didn't take too long, only a few months, I bought a lot of fat quarters.

M5K - yes, I'll give the Grimms brothers a run for their money. But I cannot believe you haven't heard the sleep country commercial, it's on TV and the radio ALL.THE.TIME! "Sleep Country USA, Why buy a mattress anywhere else? DING!"

Yes magatha - I've got a picture of my nephew with his potty-chair on his head. I'm saving it to show his future girlfriends. =P

Gorgeous - if you & JP procreate, I will make you un joli couverture.

jovaliquilts said...

Some kids will come up with stories far more gruesome than you can imagine! We always tell one or two sentences of a story, then point to another picture, anywhere on the quilt, and the next person has to pick up from there, and so on. Otherwise we get stuck in the same story. I'm just finishing my 3rd I Spy, but a friend lent me her huge bag of novelty prints to get me going. Have fun!

Bezzie said...

Man, kids love crazy ass stories like the one you used to describe your quilt. Well, at least mine does! ;-)

Zonda said...

Quilt is looking really good! :)Cute story!