The Grand Rapids Women's Chorus sang downtown yesterday for the dedication of a statue of Rosa Parks. The event was outdoors, in front of the new Art Museum. As we stood around waiting for the start, we noticed behind us one of the installations for Art Prize [local two week event of 1700 artful items on public display].
By waving your arms and moving toward this sculpture, you can make the "strings" sing different tones.
We had plenty of fun before the "real" event started!
These are the scraps left from the fat quarters, not much!
Yesterday I received this "Pay It Forward" gift from Christina Cameli -- a quilted potholder, some vintage #8 needles, and a lovely pair of earrings. Isn't that a splendid surprise to get in the mail! Thanks a bunch Christina!
One photo from the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus concert last Saturday. I am at the extreme left, announcing the next song, "The Peace of Wild Things". We had a hilarious change of costumes after the intermission, but Charlie said that the camera battery died right at the crucial moment!
We are still having gray skies, but down the hill to the lake a Kousa dogwood has turned a bright color.
And meanwhile I have gone rather crazy with doll quilt #11. 
This is just four log cabin blocks that have the strips set so they form a Greek key or maybe a labyrinth. I chose VERY bright colors, and now I think that I should have put a wider border to contain the impression more. Too late, it's done! Hope there is a mod and crazy little girld somewhere who will love it.
Last night I went to a concert by Holly Near. Loved her informality and her social action music!
Today she had a workshop for our Women's Chorus (we sing something by her every year) and the women's chorus in Lansing. She talked about some of the things we need to "practice" for social change, such as being allies rather than antagonists. And she also listened to us sing, and then had us all sing some simple songs without music on a page. Says we need to have some songs like this ready for a possible opportunity. Good teaching and good fun!
Sara
Gratitudes:
Gaining a little energy around budgeting
Time with Lynne (DDIL) in the car to and froom Lansing
Conversation with Chorus members at lunch
Made from left-overs of Double Delight again. Don't remember that I made so many extra blocks, but there they were in a shoe box!
This time I decided to showcase the light corners of the Nine-patches by using a dark background fabric. The paisley was a long time resident 
of my Blue stash shelf.
Added a border to "float" the blocks.
Almost enough fabric left for the back, so I added a little strip of African style fabric to eek it out.
We had a bass sectional rehearsal tonight for the G.R Women's Chorus. We have a lot of foreign language songs: this year French, Macedonian, Serbian, an African tribal language.. .altogether nearly half of our songs! But tonight we mostly worked on our notes and rhythms.
We are having a workshop with Holly Near on Saturday in Lansing, and we need to have a piece to present. Lori, our director, has chosen "Rosa Sat So Martin Could Walk". The rest of the chorus is "Martin walked, so Barack could run. Barack ran, he ran and he won, so that all our children could fly!" The tune is jazzy and syncopated, a fun song to sing--and appropriate to present to Holly, who does a lot of social action songs herself.
Sara
Gratitudes:
Tenth doll quilt finished [photo tomorrow]
Made tapenade, yummy!
Maples on driveway turning more orange today
Two days at the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus workshop/retreat were lots of work AND lots of fun. WOW, there's a lot of music to learn.
I was impressed by Jacquie's work at our quilting retreat. She had flannel scraps and made a BUNCH of doll quilts for the Guild collection in November.
I took a walk around the garden this afternoon in order to calm my spirit.
The concert tonight has me very worried I will "let down the side" and make mistakes affecting all the basses and our performance.
So it is very good to see that the pink saucer magnolia doesn't care if I hit that interval correctly.
Nor do the late multi-bloom narcissus.
And I can see that the peonies are still coming up behind this group of daffodils.
The white "Snowdrift" crabapples are in full bloom and the dark rose crabapple is coming along.
And yesterday DS Peter invited us over for dinner on Sunday.....
Then the UPS truck drove in, to the dismay of Zeke. And the box contained.....
Roses from DD Martha and her family for Mother's Day.
So what's to worry about?
Mother Nature is still handling a lot of the world, and my family will love me even with mis-sung notes.
Sara
Gratitudes:
A LOT of right notes
The sturdiness of nature's processes
Family
The 9-patch and hourglass blocks blocks are done, or nearly done. I know I'll be under a few when I get to the end of putting them together. BUT I started the sewing together of the rows, and it's going pretty quickly.
Tonight I went to my first rehearsal of the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus since the end February, when we left on our trip. Oh, my! They are singing songs without looking at the music which I don't know yet. We don't take any written music on the stage with us, so I have a lot of work to do in the rest of this month. Our spring concert is May 9th. We have a new commissioned work this year, and the composer was with us tonight to share her thoughts about this work "Dandelion".
I may have to "fake" some of the foreign languages we are singing in other songs: Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Japanese, Hebrew. . . I hope I will get the musical NOTES nailed down!
Sara
Gratitudes:
Learning from the composer
Saved some of the two loaves of bread that got overbaked
Made it through exercise class today
By 2:00 today I had the three quilt tops and BACKINGs ready for my LA quilter, and they were delivered. The third quilt is Bonnie Hunter's latest Mystery "Double Delight". I feel much more ready to leave for a month in Florida with those three quilts being worked on by someone ELSE. [I will see if there is a way to post a little to this blog using Charlie's new laptop while we are gone.]
Then got myself ready for the GR Women's Chorus concert tonight, "A Breast Cancer Orotorio". I have been listening and listening to the recording the Chorus made five years ago, before I joined. The songs really move me, especially the ending song;
"Teach me how to honor this day,
how to walk amid the billowing sheets of sunlight
arm in arm with the brilliant angel of death,
How to find my home with a fire in the hearth
in the green green fields of this life."
How much I need to remember every day that this one day is precious, and life is pretty darned wonderful, even with the difficulties we may run into.
Sara
Gratitudes:
Learning the Oratorio
Friends who came to the concert
This trip which is a gift to share with Charlie
Because of the snow last night our exercise class was cancelled and we were at home this morning to see these visitors. When you see the driveway in front of them, you can get a sense of their size.
The others were scratching the ground and turning up a few from under the snow. They all stayed around for about a half an hour, marching hither and yon. These photos taken from the kitchen window.
I spent the afternoon making eight smalled floating four-patch blocks to enhance the cuff, and then I sewed the pillowcase together with the method that encloses all the seams. This is the first one that I have made WITHOUT a little flap of folded fabric in the cuff seam. I considered it, but decided that it would actually detract from the pattern in this case. I delivered the quilt and pillowcase to the Grand Rapids Womens' Chorus at our rehearsal tonight. 
Catherine Martin finished quilting my "Floating Four-Patch" and I picked it up today. All batik blocks, mostly from an internet exchange, and more were made on our Bee retreat in September.
I took Gwen Marston's idea for long narrow triangles and made a few spikes for each side of the border--something to contrast with all the squares.
And then I told Catherine to quilt it with something like Baptist Fans. I see some circles, which I don't think you would ever get with Baptist Fans, but I like the effect. It's a little whacky! 
I got the binding on this afternoon, so now I just need a label (which I will WRITE on the white muslin backing) and a trip to the washing machine.
This quilt is going to be an auction for the Grand Rapids Womens' Chorus on December 13.
Sara
Gratitudes:
Catherine's work
Enough matching fabric for the binding
Turkey tomorrow!
We had learning and FUN at the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus fall retreat. We spent a lot of time beginning to learn the notes of our new music, "I ain't afraid of your churches, I ain't afraid of your temples, I ain't afraid of your prayin' I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your god."
but we also did a little unplanned DANCING while our accompanist played "I Ain't Afraid" by Holly Near. 
Then we had a fabulous potluck with a table for each of the songs, and appropriate foods. My group had the Finnish table, so I brought Fruit Soup and Dilled Cucumbers. Now Charlie and I are going to have both for several days because there was so MUCH interesting food that a lot was left over.
Maybe tomorrow I'll get back to skinny triangles and finishing another border.
Sara
Gratitudes:
Fall colors are starting
Fruit soup GREAT with whipped cream
Lots of music in my head
The Grand Rapids Women's Chorus, here shown on stage doing a mike check beforehand, had our Spring Concert Saturday night. We had a good audience, who appeared to enjoy our music. I am anticipating hearing the concert for the first time when we get the CD recording in a couple of weeks. Because I am in the backrow, extreme right corner, surrounded by other tenors, I have trouble knowing what any part but my own is singing. And then when soloists step forward to sing toward the audience, I don't always hear them very well either. Just have to follow our director and hope for the best.
We went backstage and warmed-up. We got silly. 
We went on stage. We sang our two songs, one in Italian with piano, and one in Mohawk with drums. She said we were great, that we had the desirable low timbre that comes with maturity. She asked how long we had had our vests/dresses. She said we should stand further apart. She said we should start with a more firm attack at the beginning of each piece.
We drove home arriving at 6:15 PM.
The misrepresentation in the above is that we weren't all there (Photo lies.) In fact there were only THREE altos to 5 basses, 8 sopranos, and 9 tenors (my section). But we did (mostly) hit the right notes at the right time.
Sara
Exercise: Four 5 minute walks to and from the car.
Gratitudes:
Lynne's company
Zingerman's
Good work and humor in the GRWC
Spent all day at a learn-the-new-spring-music event with the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus. It's a good way to get a running start on the numbers we are adding for our Spring Concert. We met at the Franciscan Center for the first time, and it was very nice--clean, spacious, good kitchen, great views, lots of pianos, and no one else was using the place. I was able to walk around the halls three times for 22 minutes after lunch. But I was REALLY ready to go home at 3:45. Unfortunately we didn't end until 4:30! Maybe it's because I haven't yet found that I LOVE the music. More work may well improve my attitude. No more work today, however.
