Cayden

Yet another in the series of quilts.  This one was for my young nephew.  He is a bit older now, and a pretty cool kid, too!

Along with other things that keep me busy, yes folks, I'm still quilting. As always, click the pic for a larger version.

This quilt was done from my nephew Cayden. We got to meet him a month early in January. The little shaver was scheduled to stay in the oven until February....which is when this quilt was completed.

My beloved bride picked out the pale blue materials. They were a pretty good match, but she was
having a rough time figuring out what to put with them. I decided to go bold with the dark blue and white materials. I think it came out pretty well.

Here's a closer view of one panel.

Historic Power Grab

I have seen quite a few posts about the supposed power grab the Obama administration is attempting via "natural resources preparedness".  As Glenn Reynolds points out, this is nothing new.  Presidents...and heck Congress, too...have been exceeding their Constitutionally limited authority for decades.

Rutherford B. Hayes

In case you missed it, Mr. Obama...or his speechwriters... flubbed a bit of history.

Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president as a failure of forward-thinking leadership.

"One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said. "That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore."

"He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward. He's explaining why we can't do something instead of why we can do something," Obama said.

It fact, President Hayes was astonished and impressed with the telephone.  For his era, he was a bit of a technophile.

This whole kerfuffle has introduced some entertaining bits flotsam and jetsam.

Lots more here.

Disgusting

I'm not sure which bothers me more.  Having the media follow the President's pre-teen daughter on vacation, or having someone black hole the media reports about the vacation.

Both represent trends that are not in the best interests of our nation.

Even Sluts Deserve Healthcare

While religion has motivated progress in many areas, it has also exercised repressive and oppressive influence from time to time.  Which is why I question the wisdom of extending some sort of "religious exclusion" for health insurance.

I suppose that a church could elect to not cover abortions for preachers if church doctrine is opposed to such things.  However, they should be compelled to list all of the activities that violate their doctrine and adjust their coverage accordingly.  Opposition to alcohol use comes to mind.

But the line I would draw would be at clergy.  For those that go in for such things, staff and students ought to be considered sinners along with the everyone else.

For those that don't like it, I suppose that we could move to a national a la carte system that separates employment from health insurance.  There are lots of options to be considered.

But allowing religious exemptions?  Next thing you know some "church" will refuse to pay their minority staff as much as their white staff and cite Scripture to justify their actions.

Link for the strip below.  Thanks to my friends in RACS for the pointer.

And since incendiary language appears to be the only way to elicit traffic and comments, expect more in the future.  I respond to incentives!

Hearing Motion

The Singing, Ringing Tree is a very cool piece of art that uses the wind as well as its appearance to make an impression. This sculpture is located near Burnley, in Lancashire, England.

Alyssa

In our continuing series of quilt blogging, we bring the brief tale of Quilt #3.

As my 2.74 regular readers can attest, I took up quilting this year. I have just completed quilt #3 for my nephew, his wife, and their new baby girl. Joe is currently serving in the Marines at Camp Lejune, NC near Jacksonville. He's doing pretty well for himself. I don't know if he is going to make a career out of this, but they seem pretty happy right now.

Following up on my work last summer, I made a baby quilt for the new addition to the family. Once again, I'm using the Log Cabin design. This quilt pattern allows me to run strips of material through the sewing machine rather than having to hand piece everything together. The whole project takes much less time that way.

Seeing as we have a new young lady in the family, I used a bit more pink in this quilt. As always, click for a larger view.

Here is a close-up of one panel:

And finally, here is a close-up of the corner piece:

I had a local stitchography shop machine embroider the logos on a piece of material. I had hoped for more separation so that I could put the chicken, ball, and hooks on a 45° angle. But what I received from them worked well enough.

On to the next one! Only 17 days left until Christmas!!