Deborah asked me to post the other banners I have made for my church. This is the Advent banner:

and this is the Pentecost banner

and here is a peek at the progress of the straight and narrow banner for the ordinary season

It will get fused down and have crosses in the colors of the rainbow added to show our inclusiveness as a parish.

I am taking part in a challenge on the Quiltart list called the Straight and Narrow. The challenge is to create a piece in which the length is at least five times the width. I am doing a banner which will hang in my church. In liturgical churches we have seasons of the church year and the altar paraments have different colors for those seasons: currently we are in lent which is purple, Easter and Christmas are white, Pentecost is red (we had red for Palm Sunday today), Advent is blue or purple. The rest of the year is called ordinary times and the color is green. So I am doing a banner for ordinary times. I have already done Advent and Pentecost. It will be 18 inches wide and 90 – 96 inches long. I am using silk and it will be fused. I want to do a color gradation from dark blue/blue greens to very light green at the top.

Here is my palette:

Here are the fabrics fused and ready to go:

How do you design and fuse a 96 inch long quilt? Well I had Steve bring another table up from the garage and put it end to end with another I keep here. Fortunately I had a piece of batting that was over 96 inches long. Here is the work area set up ready to go:

First, I decided to make a couple of postcards using the fabrics to see how the fusing and gradation looks. Here they are:

When I started ths blog, I promised an occasional political rant. Here it comes. Yesterday and today, my thoughts have been about Terry Schiavo and the two year anniversary of the illegal war on Iraq. In my mind they are related.

The parents of Terry have turned to conservative, Randall Terry, the leader of Operation Rescue, to help them keep their daughter alive. Yesterday, he lashed out at the US Congress for not doing everything they could to keep Terry alive. He said that he and others of the Christian right have worked mightily over the past 10 years to get a conservative congress that would be at their beck and call. (OK, I am paraphrasing a little) Terry Schiavo is brain dead. Sure she looks like she is smiling and reacting to family, but that is an illusion. A feeding tube is a bazaar and invasive means for keeping someone alive. My mother-in-law died from a terrible infection brought on by a feeding tube. She would have been much better off dying a natural death brought on by an inability to eat food. Terry Schiavo’s husband is a remarkable man who is standing by his wife until the end to preserve her right to die with dignity. Randall Terry and his ilk should stay out of this. The legislative branches of the state of Florida and the United States should stay out of this.

How does the war in Iraq related to this? Here are two quotes I found on Iraqui casualties.

Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force.

Many media outlets self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion because of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content, according to a survey of more than 200 journalists by American University’s School of Communications.

To date we have lost 1520 young men and women. Who knows how many are maimed for life? We watch The Jim Lehre Report on PBS every night and at the end of the show, they show photos and stats of our dead young people in silence. It is very moving. Most of us are sheltered from these facts. And the war goes on despite the spin that this government puts on the whole debacle.

The conservatives in control of our government (did any you see Tom Delay speak out for saving Terry Schiavo, yesterday? Give me a break) are more interested in promulgating the wishes of the conservative right and saving one brain dead woman in Florida than dealing with an illegal war that is killing and maiming too many of our young and saddling this country with an obscene debt.

So there you have it, an occasional political rant. Now back to my fiber art.

I saw my surgeon today and had the drain and dressings removed from surgery. Tomorrow is a big day, I get to take a shower! Whoopee! I got the pathology report earlier this week and it was very good news. The cancer was in situ and a centimeter in diameter with clear margins so I feel that it is gone!! I have to wait 4 – 6 weeks before I can get fitted for a permanent prosthetic.

On Monday, my fab friends came for lunch. It was fun to have time with my quilting buddies. My husband heard us chatting from his office and told me later that it is obvious how much we enjoy each other’s company. Diane brought her new quilt, Smoke Signal. It is even more beautiful in person.

On Tuesday, Steve took me grocery shopping as I have now got to start cooking for us again. I sure did enjoy the meals on wheels that arrived from friends and my son’s cooking over the week-end.

I have assembled 6 more thank you post cards. I really enjoy this process, but now I need to get back to some larger scale quilting. Here are two of my creations:

With apologies to Mrs. Mel, here is my version of a Matchstick Moon and Nipon Moons which is made from antique Japanese textiles and silk organza.

Aubergine and Antique Japanese Textile Flowers