Cynthia – Page 17 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

2006 International Quilt Festival

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Well worth clicking to see a larger version

The largest quilting event in the world happens in Houston every year at the George R. Brown convention center each November. The International Quilt Festival is something that Cynthia never misses.

From their web site:

The largest annual quilt show, sale, and quiltmaking academy in the world attracts more than 53,000 attendees with 2,000+ quilts, cloth dolls and garments on display; more than 1050 booths selling quilts, supplies, books, notions, antiques, and crafts; and more than 400 classes, lectures, and events for all skill levels.

It’s pretty impressive. In the past I have had to miss it due to obligations during the fall, but not this year. You might think it’s too girly or froo-froo or whatever but you would be wrong. Some of these quilts are works of art that are amazing to behold.

Here’s a picture of the entire quilt from the above photo:

Click it, you won’t be disappointed

Cynthia and I agreed that this was the coolest quilt at the show.
Just take a look at some of the detail:

Clicky and drool!

There was one other quilt that I saw that I particularly liked

More detail when you click

Cynthia was able to get some good fabric swatches for a quilt she is planning to make and we found some awesome fabric for a new custom shirt for me. All in all, a great outing and one I recommend to anyone.

The little things

As part of our Sunday grocery shopping routine Cynthia always picks out some fresh flowers for the house. It’s a minimal expense that is well worth joy and warmth it brings to our home.

Deconstructing a Cynthia prank

gg3 Over a year ago Technology Bytes celebrated our 10th anniversary with a party downtown. For reasons now quite forgotten, Cynthia decided to make aprons for herself and for our friend Katie. They wore them while serving birthday cake to our guests that evening. The one that Katie wore was done in a dog theme because of her pet Beagle, Lucy. Cynthia thought the apron would be a nice gift.

Cynthia has also been known to make the occasional apron as a birthday or Christmas gift for a friend or family member. She also has an extensive collection of hand-made aprons she has sewn for herself and hang in in the kitchen next to the refrigerator.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I am having a drink at the Continental Club and conversating with Alison Fisher, a local musician and long time friend. During the course of of our discussion she discloses that she has no apron. An odd thing to bring up but she was at the anniversary party I mentioned previously and I figured maybe she was fishing for a hand-made apron from Cynthia or something. I asked her what her favorite thing was and she said she loved dogs.

I made a mental note and when I went home I mentioned this to Cynthia.

Keep in mind that Cynthia does not know Allison. She met her at the anniversary party over a year ago but has no lasting memory of the interaction.

Cynthia volunteers to make Allison an apron. We go to the fabric store and pick out an appropriate dog print and Cynthia puts it together and we present it to her while she’s playing a show at the Big Top. Allison is very surprised and appreciative.

One might think that would be the end of that, but no. Cynthia gets it in her head that Allison, a woman she has spoken to for a grand total of maybe 10 minutes over the last year and half, should not have just one dog apron. Oh no, Cynthia decides that Allison should have a collection of dog aprons.

We set out to purchase all the dog print fabric we can find and over a several weeks we come up with quite a few. Cynthia takes a few days and sews together 7 aprons.

Allison’s band plays at the Big Top two Saturdays a month and we settle on a date to ambush her during a show with the aprons. Last night was the night and we showed up with 7 separate gift bags, each containing one apron. As Allison is playing a song Cynthia goes up to the stage and places a bag at her feet. We expected that she would open the bag at the end of the song and be surprised to receive an apron and then continue presenting a new bag during each subsequent song.

As it turned out, Allison eyed the bag and made a comment about her curiosity but did not open it. As she started up the next song Cynthia placed another gift bag at Allison’s feet. When the song ended one of her band mates asked what was in the bags and Allison said she did not know. Still she did not open the bag and started the next song and, as before, Cynthia place the third bag at Allison’s feet.

This went on for 7 songs with the conversation turning to the bags with more and more frequency. Eventually Allison did open the bags and was quite flabbergasted but seemingly delighted at having an instant dog apron collection.

In fact, she even played the rest of the show wearing an apron. We got her and her husband/drummer Clint to pose for a picture and a good time was had by all.

God knows what the patrons of the club who witnessed this must have been thinking. Not that we really care. I’d like to think it adds to the mystique of the Big Top and to the Allison Fisher musical experience.

The most important thing is that Cynthia enjoyed playing this out and I think Allison was not only a good sport, but enjoyed this rather surreal evening as well.

Hand me downs

With the acquisition of the new camera there has been the question of what will become of my old camera. Cynthia has decided she would like to add digital photography to her already impressive skill-set.

click for larger image

I am teaching her to use it in the hopes that it will inspire her to work on her own blog.
We’ll see how it goes.

Snakes in a hotel lobby

The East Texas Herpetological Society were hosting their 16th annual Reptile Show & Educational Exhibit at the Crowne Plaza Resort over off 290 this weekend. Today all the vendors/breeders/misfits gathered to display their snakely and reptilian wares for public gawking and purchase.

We only just heard about the event from our camera salesman when I was picking up my lens on Saturday. Cynthia expressed an interest in going out to see if she could be in a room full of snakes without involuntarily shedding her own skin. I thought it might be a good photo opportunity.

While we were walking around viewing the various exhibits we did see some cool snakes. Cynthia did not freak out and I got this awesome shot of a baby yellow python using a magnifying lens I picked up as an add on for my 50mm.

And this is a picture of a very frisky 6 1/2 foot long Australian Scrub Python that, even though it was out of it’s cage and was being continuously reeled back in by it’s keeper, did not seem to bother Cynthia at all

It was an interesting side trip for a Sunday and we’re both glad we went. We’re also happy to report that we did not actually purchase any snakes…

…but we did gawk.

New shirt

Cynthia has been hand-making me a shirt about once every month. I haven’t posted the last several but the one she completed this weekend is easily one of my favorites.

At first glance it looks like a fairly innocuous print.
Almost western in a way…until you study it in detail.

So yea, I’m going to talk about the camera some more.

One of the features I wanted in a new camera was the ability to shoot in black and white (not just converting to B&W in-camera which this one will also do). In the past I have simply desaturated a picture in Photoshop but that just doesn’t compare to capturing the actual image in B&W.

I shot this one of my best friend Jim as we hung out at Onion Creek last night enjoying good conversation and tasty beers:

Here’s Cynthia posing in the garden:

Oh, and isn’t that a lovely blouse Cynthia is wearing? She put that blouse together last weekend. She’s a renaissance woman who can make her own clothing. How awesome is that?
Here’s a color picture:

Borris Ziggy the spider

Cynthia has always been partially defined by her absolute terror when it comes to spiders. If one was spotted her skin would literally crawl. She could, in some instances, start to hyperventilate.

Something has changed.

Cynthia has taken a great deal of interest in the spider I posted previously.

So much interest, in fact, that we have researched it and found it to be a Venusta Orchard Spider. Cynthia has become rather fond of this little fellow and named him Señor Ocho.

This is actually quite mind boggling. And it gets better.

The other day she went into the front yard to check on Señor Ocho and discovered his web was apparently abandoned. She was actually kinda sad he was gone. As we scanned the area to see if Señor Ocho was anywhere to be found we noticed another web with some striking characteristics. It was also empty but the new web really fascinated Cynthia.

We went inside for awhile. Before the sun set Cynthia took one last look around the yard and, to her delight, spotted Señor Ocho smack dab in the middle of his web where he belonged.

She also noticed that the other web was now inhabited…

This fella is significantly bigger than Señor Ocho and actually kinda creeps me out. But Cynthia got real interested and we did some research on the guy and discovered he was of the genus Argiope. Specifically Argiope aurantia. An orb weaving spider more commonly known as the black-and-yellow argiope or the black-and-yellow garden spider.

Cynthia has named him Ziggy.