Last-minute sewing

I finished the last of the four Martha Circle quilts that I had set out for myself for November. It was fun playing with the moving squares. All the patterns are the same (five unequal patches - two on the outside and three for the inner strip), so the variations are in the fabrics and the arrangement of the patches in the middle strip.

The fabric in the lighter blue one (with two red squares) didn't seem as stable as the broadcloth-like fabrics I used in the other quilts, so I ended up top stitching the pieces together. The fact that these quilts are tied, not quilted, concerns me. I wonder what the additional fray-factor is for a tied quilt.

I've already been thinking of what I might do for December, and I think I've decided on four unequal patches. I played around with the idea a little, using EQ5, and there seems to be some possible variations there. I don't want to do something with complex piecing because of the fray factor. Well, December is a while away, and we'll see what I'm thinking then.

I started packing today, but first I checked the weather in Tel Aviv for next week. Looks like it's about the same as here, which means that it will be cool in the mornings and evenings, but we might have a chance of pretty warm early afternoons. That means that I want to be sure to take things I can layer easily. I don't want to take many things, so I need to be careful with my choices.

As I started getting myself organized to pack, one thing lead to another ... and I decided to take a black sweatshirt and make a jacket out of it. I wanted something loose but warm, and definitely something soft. I did a little searching on the Internet to see what tips I could pick up for sweatshirt jackets, and I found this: http://www.geocities.com/~sewntell/sweatjacket.html

That was a really good find. Although I didn't find anything else useful for this little project, I used the iron-on interfacing trick to stabilize the center front before I cut it open. It works like a charm! It keeps the sweatshirt fabric from rolling or raveling - and if you sew, you know that's worth a ton! I know there are some really nice fancy things out there, but I didn't want anything elaborate for this project. Quick and dirty - that was my goal.


This sweatshirt is large, and I figured I'd probably like something that made it look more like a jacket - like a collar, so I cut a 5-inch wide bias strip , folded it in half, turned the raw edges under and pressed them so I wouldn't have to zig-zag or serge the edges, and pinned it just below the rim that's there from the neck ribbing. I then seamed that and made an identical seam on the rib-side of that rim, and it seems to work really well.
I put iron-on interfacing on the wrong side of the front facing strips - they're about four inches wide (not bias) before folding. That gave me a good solid surface for the separating zipper. I actually had a separating zipper, in black, the exact size I needed, so I didn't even have to do any modifications to it.

A travel jacket has to have pockets, of course! So I cut a couple doubled pieces about 8.5 x 9, some of the contrasting fabric for a little decoration, and then I cut some flaps. I didn't want to go to the trouble to put snaps on the flaps, yet I feel more secure if there's some kind of closure, so I included a strap on the pocket that will hold the flaps down. I don't keep secure things in my jacket pocket, but it's always good to have a pocket to stuff little things in. I have a vest with zippers and a wallet I wear around my neck to hold my secure items, like my money and passport, but I'm always losing the little things I carry - so some kind of closure is a must for me.

Before we started traveling last year, I made a couple pairs of slacks with pockets that have horizontal openings (like jeans), instead of the standard slit along the side seam. Boy, was that a good idea. Hardly anything can fall out of those pockets. When we were RV'ing a lot, I had sewn Velcro to a lot of my pockets. Having horizontal openings makes my pockets just about as secure without the sticky mess Velcro sometimes causes when things don't get closed in the wash!

That fancy piece of check under the jacket, abovce, is a shirt I keep on the back of my chair for when I'm just slightly chilly. You can tell, I don't have a keen sense of design!

So, tomorrow is another day and I'll make a little more progress toward getting ready to go and cleaning up my sewing projects. I think I'm just about ready to put all my sewing gear away for a while now. I'll use my needlework time over the weekend to work on the shawl I'm knitting. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out. There are 13 repeats of 12 rows, and I have 9 of those repeats done.

Chain piecing - getting the hang of it!

Wow! I had a ball today chain piecing a quilt top for the Martha group. Once I got onto this chaining trick, I think it caught hold of me. I just love watching those little flags stack up behind the machine. Wow! Such fun!

This is one of those quilts for the military hospitals - and I decided to turn my attention to those, this last week before our trip, in hopes of getting at least four tops to Carol by Sunday. From everything I understand, the troops and the care providers really love receiving these quilts.

I also decided to do some learning while I was at it, and the idea behind the design in these four quilts is to see what happens when I use a simple off-center shape and rotate the block throughout the top. There are twenty blocks in a quilt, so I cut 20 of each piece, chain piece them together, turn them around and chain twenty more, press them, and then chain piece each of the side strips.

I wanted to experiment with rotating these off-centered blocks because, although I can intellectually understand what happens, it's another thing to actually do it - just like chain piecing. The doing is when I learn the best. My design skills are the bare minimum, and that's where they'll stay if I don't actually practice. So, humble as my results may be, I am at least putting a foot forward.

This is the result of today's efforts - only one completed top. I have all the blocks pieced and pressed for a second variation, but I took a couple hours and started my portion of our Christmas cards today, too. We hope to have them all done before we leave, and then we'll just drop them off at the post office when we return. Hopefully, I'll rise at my usual early hour in the morning and lay out the blocks for the second top. Maybe even get them sewn. I have the layout settled for the next two, and if I can get those done, it will be like meeting a little goal.

I decided to set the solar system quilt (In the Beginning) aside until later. I'm not getting anywhere with it. I think I'm trying to combine too many concepts, and I chose a too-busy pattern to use. If I don't make some mistakes, I'll never learn - but I'm not giving up on this right yet. I want to give it some time to settle in my head so I can figure out exactly what's not working. There are probably a number of things, but until I know what they are, I won't know how to avoid it in the future. I may end up with two quilts along this idea - one that works, and one that is a companion.

On Sunday, I made some planets from some batiks and a stylized sun from a piece of strange fabric that caught my eye on one of the trips Judy and I made to Hancocks in Paducah. For the circles, I used a technique that Donna found on the Internet - from Anna Maria Horner at http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com/2007/02/super-circles.html She has an interesting Web site - she actually designs and sews for a living. Her current blog is about her appearance on the Martha Stewart show. Impressive young woman!! The aluminum foil trick works really well, especially for the smaller circles which are more difficult to turn (I don't want to use raw-edge applique for my first applique project). So, my planet-making time was well spent. I learned quite a few things.

In the picture, the planets are just laying on some background fabric. I may end up putting these on a piece of solid black in the center of a medallion quilt. But we'll see ...

My time will be tight now until mid-summer 2008, so I'm mentally working on a schedule for the times I'm home between visits with family and friends. I think I'll set up and quilt the Fassett pink quilt over the holidays. I'm anxious to try out some new ideas for machine quilting it. I think I just about have the courage to start drawing on the top of it now.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. No pictures, except mental ones. Satos were here Thanksgiving day, and we enjoyed them as usual. They have been friends forever. And Stephie and Scott were here Friday for our second Thanksgiving. That was so good. You just don't know how much you miss family until you get to spend some time with them. It's just so right!

In preparation for our trip, Lauren got the medium sized suitcases down from the attic today. Tomorrow, I'll lay mine out and start throwing stuff in it. It's our goal to pack sparsely so we don't have a bunch of stuff to lug around from place to place. Not too long now.

Last things before Thanksgiving (latest quilt)

Lauren picked up our turkey dinner - yes, we again purchased the basics, ready to heat, from Stater's. We usually pick it up the evening before, to allow time for thawing (yes, it's partially frozen) before putting everything in the oven; but Lauren did it all on his own this time, and he decided Thanksgiving morning would be early enough. He was right. The turkey is in the oven now, heating for about three hours. The dinner came with mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry relish (not as good as Lauren's, but good, nevertheless), rolls, and stuffing. We'll add some green beans almondine (with some sweet onions mixed in), some fresh pineapple, and a few snack-type things, and that will do it.


I finished piecing the quilt top yesterday morning, except for the corner triangles and the borders, and Lauren sketched out some ellipses for me, using the back of some Christmas wrapping paper.

As a result of meeting my goal to have this main part of the top completed, my sewing room is now organized and much less cluttered, my project is at a stage where I won't be totally confused when I pick it up again, and much of the dust of sewing is now nicely tucked inside the vacuum cleaner bag. Excellent!

The quilt background (the entire top) is really busy, so I'll have to experiment with various colors to see what makes the ellipses show up best. Hopefully I can make that decision next week while I'm thinking about what to pack for our December trip. In my imagination, my first choice is to use the gold fabric, but I never can never really see what the impact is until I actually get the fabrics together. Adding pieces for the planets will change the appearance, too. I have some of those narrow pressing bars I can use to help me make bias strips that are about 1/4 inch wide.

I'm thinking of sprinkling some other elements around, too, to balance out the big picture. Maybe some additional planets of various colors will do it. These are certainly uncharted waters for me. I have construction paper around somewhere. I'll keep an eye out for it the next couple days and then start cutting out experimental shapes Saturday.

I never thought I would be able to learn to do this kind of sewing. I've never been exact enough; but I find with practice, it's coming to me little by little. I learned (or relearned) some additional things with this quilt, and I'm sure I'll learn more.

- Evelyn Sloppy, in her book Strips and Strings, made strips and then cut them to the right size using a quilter's template. I can truly appreciate the why of that method now. With all these strips, it's nearly impossible to make sure all the edges are the same length. The width is another problem. Each seam takes up its own space. That 1/4" rule is so very, very important.
- Although you can warp fabric during pressing, you can also fix potential problems when pressing. If the strip seams make a block too narrow, for example, I found I could carefully press the seam flat and "block" the block to size.
- If I'm making strips that have an organized pattern (not random), I have to remember that it's important that I lay the strips in correctly. I really confused myself when I saw the gold stripes going in all directions. I ended up ripping out several blocks, turning them around, and repeating this mantra "gold left, gold top, gold left, gold top."
- Sashing between blocks helps minimize the corner mismatch error that's so easy to make. Most of my corners are pretty close, if not right on the mark; but I kept thinking that this would have been easier had I inserted a sashing between the blocks.
- Thinking a design on paper is pleasing doesn't mean that the design in fabric will be as pleasing. The layout of these blocks isn't the same as the layout I created in EQ5. In my EQ5 design, I alternated between the 9-patch and the strip blocks, but I wasn't pleased with it at all when I laid the fabric blocks out in that configuration. I'm much more pleased with this arrangement, where all the strip blocks are grouped in the middle of the quilt.
- When a quilt is so busy as this one, having a few plain blocks settles it down. The idea for this quilt was to create a feeling of being in a forest at night, seeing the sky and feeling the mystery; but it was such a jumbled night sky that the feeling was one more of chaos than mystery. The solid green blocks helped center the focus.

If one of the ideas behind all this is to help keep my mind elastic (and it is), then it's succeeding. I'm having to think about things in a way I haven't thought for a long time.

A foggy morning ... nesting instincts

There's something about a foggy morning that settles in me and fills my emotional environment with gratitude. Just a glance down my street this morning was enough to trigger an overwhelming sense of contentment.

How appropriate that this is also Thanksgiving week, making a perfect pair of events to bring home to me how very blessed I have been these past 66+ years with such wonderful caring people who I call my own. I am so grateful for family, for friends, and even for casual encounters with some who were close only for moments.

Every life has unsettling events, but to have such a group as I call my family and friends, through all the good and not-so-good times, is really a blessing.

I am thankful. I count myself blessed. And it was the fog this morning that brought it so clearly home to me.

As I work on the new quilt top, I grow more and more fascinated by this stack of strips sewn into blocks. They will take various shapes before they are finally part of the finished product, but this short-lived step seems to be its own kind of art. If I don't become distracted, I will have all these blocks completed this morning. The 9-patches will go fast, and I might actually meet that (laughingly made) goal of having the top pieced together this week. Can't believe (I sewed) the whole thing!

Four quilts

Note to self, so I'll remember when I get back to these at some future date: I finished four quilt tops for the Martha Circle today. They will join others and find their way to the U.S. military hospital in Germany. Here's snapshots of them taken from EQ5 (gee, the more I use that program, the more I like it):




These aren't terribly interesting, but I had a couple objectives when I plotted these out:

- Use more blue fabric than the other fabrics. I have a lot of the blue and not as much of the others, so I'm trying to stretch the prints to be able to make more quilts. I succeeded at this. I cut more blue patches than any other single patch. I suspect, though, that if I used blue and only one other fabric, it would probably have been half and half.

- Learn to make triangles from a full square and practice what I learn. Here's the deal:

1. Cut two squares (contrasting fabrics) 7/8" bigger than your finished size (as contrasted with 1/2" larger if the square is one piece).
2. Mark the center diagonal, then sew a seam 1/4" from the center, on both side of the center mark.
3. Cut the fabric on the center diagonal line, and you have two squares, each made of a triangle of each of the fabrics you used.

This works just as the book said, and I was so pleased. I'm sure quilters can do this in their sleep. As a quilter-in-progress, I'm getting the hang of it

- See what kind of interesting variations I can make with this 20-square lap quilt. I don't know that I succeeded in making anything interesting, but they are different. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I may go back to the old alternating squares with the next set of quilt. Somehow, they turn out nicely!

I used my Sears machine to make these quilts, instead of my Bernina. Lauren made me a nice sewing table to fit around the free-arm, and I wanted to give it a good workout. Nice!! He'll make one for Donna's machine next. I think she will like it. When I was growing up, the machines all came with cabinets, and the sewing machine sat down inside the cabinet, making a nice level surface for sewing. These portable machines are really great for today's mobile society, but we lost something (as is usual) with the improvement.

Chopin was my background all day. I got out some of my old CDs and chose piano works (no orchestras), and it was such a pleasant thing to listen to the music. Maybe some day I'll get out some of my books and see if I can finger through some of this lovely music again.

Tomorrow's the monthly Saturday for Lydia Circle. This will be the last time I can go until next April because I'll be somewhere else on this Saturday until then. It's the same with the Martha Circle. I really enjoy the fellowship with the women from church as we sit and work with our hands and chat about this or that. Such a pleasant way to spend a morning.

Tomorrow afternoon, it's back to my In the Beginning ... quilt. I'm excited to get moving on it after a day away from it.

So, am I a quilter yet?

Ah ha! I figured out when and how to use the chain piecing method that I've read about so much! I figure this method is good only when you have a bunch of like-kind things to piece together, when you're making sets of something. Whoo Hoo! I'm beginning to understand some of this stuff I've read about for so long! Does that make me a quilter? (How fun!)

These pieces, while still on their chain of thread, remind me of prayer flags used by some religious traditions. Well, that's fitting. I'll just consider each of these little flags a prayer when I cut them apart and press them. That's a good thing because this quilt is for a very special fellow.


I also used another technique I've read about, but never used, to make these 9-patch blocks. I sewed lengths of the fabric together and then vertically cut the size I needed. I think I'm catching on.

The good news is that the blocks for this quilt are simple enough that I think I just might have the main body of the top put together by next week. Can't believe it.

The idea for this quilt all started with the black fabric. It looks celestial to me, something that might cause the imagination to wander off for a while. It looks like a nighttime sky. I chose the subsequent fabrics thinking of gazing into the skies at night, pondering the universe.

As I put the first two patches together, the rest of the quilt becomes clearer to me. I need more elements to complete the picture, and those elements seem to be something from the solar system. Lauren is doing some Internet looking for me in hopes of finding something we can use to stimulate our creation of an artistic rendition of the universe, in applique, to put against this background. I haven't appliqued before, so that will be another new adventure for me (and that's one of my goals with each quilt I make).

Here's a quote I discovered in the November/December Discipleship Journal:

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away."

(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

In one of my writing groups several years ago, one of our sayings was that creativity is subtractive. That's sort of like the saying, above.

Our method was to throw it all in, and then start subtracting from what we had in hopes of coming up with the jewel we were looking for. It was a good way to thwart writer's block, and we came up with some good pieces using that method.

That's the mode I'll be using as I think about the applique elements for this quilt. I have no idea what needs to be there, and I'll only find out when I start throwing stuff on it. I think I'll use construction paper to mock up my elements, and then I can add (and take away) until it feels right to me.

The quilt now has a working name - In the Beginning... I think that describes what I felt when I first saw the black (nighttime sky) fabric.

The thought of getting to the applique point makes me want to work faster, faster faster. I'd better get back on task, right?

Another quilt

No, I don't have the pink quilt completed, but I have both the front and back pieced, ready to layer with batting, carefully pin, and decide if my idea of a quilting pattern is too complicated for me. I'm really pleased with both the quilt and the backing, but I have complicated matters for myself by piecing the backing so that I must (absolutely must) have the backing layered evenly with the front or the quilt will be off. And then there's my idea of a quilting pattern. We'll see.

I started the pink quilt about the first of September, and I just took the last seam on the backing today - that's just a little more than two months. Of course, I've done a lot of other things in the meantime, but I would suggest that a majority of my sewing time the last two months has been spent on this quilt. But that includes both the front and the back, and there has been a lot of down time in the last month while I diverted my thoughts to other things.

Because we're getting ready for some traveling in the next several months, I'm going to block out time, after I get my next top and back pieced, to sit down and machine quilt both quilts. That should be worth a few good books on tape!

I have to be careful that I don't bite off more than I can chew. I have a way of doing that. Judy suggested, Saturday, that I might leave these to be quilted by the next generation. Oh, I hope not! At least for the pink one. Maybe this new one. (I'll try hard, Donna!) With each quilt, I want to do something I've not done before - that's not hard since I've rarely ever quilted before.

So, this is the new one that I'll start cutting in the next day or two and hopefully have it pieced by Thanksgiving (running a little short on time here). I guess a lot depends on what else gets my attention between now and then. Hmmmm...

I like working on the diagonal (on point) because I think it does a lot to make the quilt more interesting without much effort. All these blocks are 9 inches, and I think the construction is a little more simple, especially since the quilt is smaller.

Thirty of the blocks are strip pieced (see above), and twenty are 9-patch blocks. I think strip piecing makes a quilt interesting, too. The only problem with this particular strip-pieced block is that, except for the two outer strips, each strip is made up of two different fabrics. Unless I come up with a brainstorm while I'm sleeping, that will mean that I'll need to piece each of these separately. There are 10 strips (9 seams) and 8 strips are made of two shorter strips (8 more seams).

I'll use a lot of straight lines to machine quilt this one because it's for a boy (young man), and I've always understood that circles are feminine and straight lines are masculine. The fabrics in these pictures approximate the fabrics I'll use, but they aren't exact. There are no flowers in the fabrics I'll use, so that makes the overall quilt more masculine, too.

After using a spreadsheet to draw the pink quilt, I decided to invest in EQ5 (Electric Quilt), on sale at Joann Fabrics. The software has a lot of shortcomings, but as I learn to understand it better, it has a lot of plus points, too. It actually gives me fabric requirements, but I worked them out on a spreadsheet because I trust my own calculations more than I trust the calculations from this automatic software. I purchased the software primarily so that I could easily create designs and then easily modify them. I created the picture of the design in EQ5. I probably went through 20 iterations before I decided on one that looked interesting but which didn't seem above my level of competence (plus a little challenge). This quilt will be smaller than the three I've made previously - more like a twin bed size. I don't know that I'll make another large quilt. Well, maybe one - but I kind of doubt it.

Israel itinerary

Dec 3-4
UA 346 - SD to Chicago
LH 431 - Chicago to Frankfurt
LH 686 - Frankfurt to Tel Aviv

Dec 4-9 - Grand Court Hotel, Jerusalem (972-2-591-7777)
Dec 9-11 - Golden Tulip Hotel, Tiberias (972-4-671-4444)
Dec 11-12 - Blue Bay Hotel, Netanya (972-9-860-1000)

Dec 12-13
LH 691 - Tel Aviv to Frankfurt
UA 901 - Frankfurt to San Diego

NAWAS International Travel Group
Tour SF/07/1063 - lead by Rev Matthew Richardt, pastor of Gloria Dei Lutheran in Escondido

A weekend in San Francisco - Part 3 (Final)

After church on Sunday, we had hamburgers at Lori's Diner, another 50's type cafe, and then we decided to try our muni passes on the buses.

San Francisco's transportation system is so easy to use, and we had no problems at all. With a population so large, a muni transportation system is a must. Even so, the freeways are still crowded, and the buses are packed much of the day on weekdays. It's hard to imagine what it would be like if everyone drove their own cars to get around.

We've been to the Golden Gate bridge a few times in the past, but we had time to kill on this trip, with no definite agenda for the weekend, so we read our maps and found the right buses to take us to the view point at the bridge.

I don't think I'll ever see this bridge that I don't remember when I, as navigator, got us on the wrong street near here when we were RV'ing through the city on a Sunday morning a few years ago. It's one of those memories that causes me to lose my breath when I think how much trouble we might have had if I had diverted us from our route on a busier morning.

I found a place to sit while Lauren walked a little bit of the bridge. I snapped a picture of him (in the blue circle).

We rode the buses from end to end on Sunday, stopping here and there. On Monday, after we'd packed and were ready to go home, we checked our luggage with the hotel desk and took off on the buses again, just riding through the city.

There's a sign in the buses that the front seats are reserved for the elderly and disabled; and every time we boarded a bus, someone would offer me their seat. A couple of times, I refused because the offeree seemed to be at least my age, if not more. I'm guessing that it was my cane that made them want to relinquish the seat they needed as much as I might have needed it; but maybe it's because I don't think I look as old as I actually look. Maybe that's the way all of us older people think. Inside, we are still young and as agile as we were in our 40's (or younger), but our outside betrays us. On the other hand, though, I was surprised when people offered Lauren a seat, too. I think he still looks quite young - but maybe I'm fooled again. Maybe I see him through the eyes of my memories. Maybe he will always look young and virile to me. Having never been this old before, I can only speculate.

Some things we learned on this trip:

• Transportation:
  Buy a multi-day pass for the transportation system. We didn't research the system well enough before we took our trip, and when we asked the hotel desk persons what to do, they recommended that we just board the cable car and purchase a one-day pass for $11.00. Any single ride on the cable cars is $5.00, so if you have to take two cars to your destination, it would cost $10.00. The one-day pass made sense.
  
  Later found that we could have purchased a 3-day pass for $18, and that would have been much more economical. We ended up with the $11.00 one-day pass plus the $18.00 three-day pass (with one day left unused at the end of our stay), making our out-of-pocket $22 ($11 x 2) more than it would have been had we researched and understood the system before we traveled. Our lack of research cost us that $22.
  
• Hotels:
  It isn't necessary to pick the highest rated hotel. We selected a three-star hotel in San Francisco, and it was adequate. There is no need to spend more for a hotel on a trip where you don't expect to do much except sleep there. The purpose of the trip was to see San Francisco, not to see the hotel, and we were satisfied with our accommodations. We saved a little money here.
  
• Planning (or not):
  This probably goes along with what we learned using the transportation system. Research before we go. What's there to see? What are the highlights we want to catch while in this town? How do we get around? Exactly where is our hotel in the grand scheme of things?
  
  At the same time, we should leave room for spontaneous sight-seeing, for checking to see what's around the corner. Because we were going to a place near to home, it seemed local to us and we didn't research enough.
  
  We probably could have benefited by checking out the calendar of events for San Francisco, the list of top attractions that would be of interest to us, a guidebook (from the library, perhaps) to gather additional information about the location, and so forth.
  
• Senior benefits:
  Be sure to carry our Golden Age Passports (National Parks, etc) with us, along with any other discount-type card (such as AARP). We were able to save $5 each when we toured the Maritime Historical Park because we both had our Golden Age Passports with us. That was a good thing.
  
• Experiment - try something new:
  One of the reasons we like to travel is to do something we haven't done before. We realized more than ever on this trip that just getting there isn't enough. Staying in our hotel the entire weekend would have been like not going at all, obviously, so that meant we had to make sure we stayed on the go and saw things while we were there.
  
  Just seeing things wouldn't have been enough, either, so we needed to explore other ways of seeing things than we've used in the past. Public transportation was our new thing this time. The first new transportation was the cable cars, and then we graduated to the buses.
  
  Lauren's walking a bit on the Golden Gate Bridge was another new thing. He's never set foot on it before.
  
  My walking up and down steep hills was a new thing for my fairly new condition of not being able to walk well. I figured the exercise alone, for me, was a bonus for taking this trip.
  
  At every step of the way, we hope to examine what we're doing and asking ourselves if there is a new way to do this step than we've done before, and if the new way safe for us.
  
  Travel, for me, is about experiences, and new experiences make my world a little larger. My gauge for a successful trip is that when I come home, I feel changed and more aware of my co-inhabitants on this earth. For me, it's a way to break old, nonuseful habits and ways of thinking and, hopefully, to become a better member of society.
  
  
• Buy package deals:
  We've purchased package deals a few times, and each time, I felt we saved money.
  
  I put this San Francisco trip together beginning with Yahoo Fare Chaser. Fare Chaser first gave me a list of travel sites with deals (Orbitz was among them and the one I chose), and then after I made a selection based on air fare on my selected carrier (Delta), it gave me a list of hotels, including ratings. We could have added a car, but we decided not to.
  
  We did a package deal a few years ago when Lauren and I went to Oklahoma City, and we got a great rate at the downtown Sheraton. (Note about the Sheraton: this was a good lesson to us that higher-rated hotels aren't always the best ones. This hotel, although it's a big brand and its rates were higher, nickled and dimed us for everything we did there, from Internet usage to parking. Ugh!)
  
  
• Purchase tickets online:
  I've really become a fan of online airline and travel reservations. I initially started out using Yahoo a few years ago on our second trip to the Philippines, and I've been buying online tickets ever since.
  
  For this trip, after using Yahoo Fare Chaser to track down the best deals from several other sites, I ended up with Orbitz. Consequently, I used Fare Chaser and selected Orbitz for my trip to the Philippines in February and for our UK trip in April. Using Fare Chaser to get to Orbitz seems to get me a better deal than going directly to Orbitz.
  
  Using Orbitz as my main travel site turns out to be a really handy way of keeping all (or most) of my trips in one spot where I can access them easily at any time.
  
  Unfortunately, Southwest, the airline I take when I go to Nashville to visit my sister, isn't available except at Southwest.com. They don't let other agencies handle tickets for them. Maybe that's one way they control the cost of their fares. I wish Orbitz's My Trips allowed me to enter trips I didn't purchase through them. That would be a big benefit for that site.
  
  

Because of this trip, we have added New York City to our list of places to visit. After our success at getting around San Francisco, we think we're ready to try the Big Apple next fall. In the meantime, we'll start our research early. But first, we need to finish our research for our UK trip in the spring. We have a good start on that, but there's a lot more to do. I don't think we can do it all on public transportation, but we're going to give it a try for at least part of our trip. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We just need to be careful not to bite off more than we can chew. We like a little risk (a little unknown), but too many unknowns might confuse us -- at any age. At this age, we want to minimize risky adventures, but we don't want to entirely eliminate them.

A weekend in San Francisco - Part 2

After our tour of the Maritime Historical Park, we went to Ghiradelli Square and sampled some chocolate (always a treat!) and then walked to the Aquatic Park and watched the boats and the people for a while. We were so fortunate to have such clear and mild weather this time of year. It was cool enough to walk without becoming too uncomfortable, and warm enough that our light jackets and jeans were sufficient. And the sunshine! How did we get so lucky to have this much sunshine in San Francisco. I always think of it as being foggy. No matter where you looked, the view was spectacular.


We took the cable car back to Union Square and came across an event conducted by the Falun Gong. They had a lot of art work, depicting their purpose, on display, and they were having sort of a recital by some of the cutest little girls. They weren't a bit disconcerted by their huge audience, and watching them was thoroughly enjoyable.

One of the first times we had heard much of the Falun Gong was when we were traveling through Austria and we were stopped by the local police just before we arrived at St. Wolfgang . We didn't know what was going on at the time, but we saw a man in a yellow jacket, and it looked like he was having problems with the authorities. As it turned out, he was a member of Falun Gong, and the authorities were concerned about what might happen in St. Wolfgang if Falun Gong were allowed to protest during a visit by a high-ranking Chinese dignitary. After that time, of course, we heard and read more about Falun Gong and the injustices they have suffered.



The art work was highly stylized, but when I stop to think about it, I suppose most religious art work is stylized. What struck me, though, was that they depicted the victims as already reaching a state of bliss even while undergoing the torture that was the subject of the picture.



Having become old hands at riding the cable car, we set out Sunday morning for church. Except for this old lady who had a camera in her hands, snapping everything in sight, we could have been mistaken for locals! We could tell we're getting older, because we had to keep consulting our map (which is really ragged and torn now) to make sure what we thought we were supposed to do is what we really needed to do. We used to say that given 24 hours, we could pretty well memorize how to get around any town. That's still true, to a large degree; but, thank goodness, we've gained wisdom to equal our years and realize that we shouldn't always always trust our memories these days.

Church at Grace Cathedral was very interesting. This was the high liturgical setting (always impressive), and at the first of the service, the pastor called for all those who were to be baptised to process to the back of the church. There were, at our count, 20 baptisms, four of which were adult baptisms. Baptisms are always moving, and these baptisms were, as well. The church was very full. We don't know if this is typical for the 11:00 service or if there were so many just because this was a special Sunday. We were glad we went. The Anglican or Episcopal tradition, as a liturgical tradition, is similar to ours in the LCMS; but Anglican beliefs are much more liberal than LCMS. I enjoy the way they open their arms to everyone who comes to their doors, and this service - because it was so formal and so many people were there - made me wonder if this is what a church should be like. One doesn't know, but I do believe it's good to think about how others celebrate and live their Christianity.

To be continued (and concluded) in the next installment ...

On a side note, my Bernina is all well again. It's SOOO.... nice to have a Bernina shop here in Poway!

A weekend in San Francisco - Part 1

Because I needed to recharge my Delta miles before the end of December to retain my accumulated miles), we decided a month or so ago to use Delta for a weekend in San Francisco. I could have paid $50 and purchased a thousand miles, and that would have done it; but we thought it would be more fun to spend a little more money and have some pleasure from it.

We flew prop jet from SAN to LAX, and then from LAX to SFO, arriving Friday afternoon to a most beautiful San Francisco day. We've been there only by car years and years ago or as we were just flying through from one place to another. This was a ton of fun, and we would surely take another trip like this.

It was only the second time we've relied on public transportation to get us around, and because San Francisco's public transportation is amazingly complete, we were so glad we didn't bother to rent a car!

On Friday afternoon, we walked for a few hours while waiting for our room to be ready.


We weren't too many blocks from Grace Cathedral, with a lovely park across the street from it, but those few blocks were up and down hills and we welcomed a place to stop and let our leg muscles catch up with us. (We really gave our legs a workout this weekend! Although Lauren walks as a regular part of his daily life, I don't. I need to keep this up so I stay strong and ready to travel again.)

We enjoy visiting churches when we travel, and this one was open inviting us inside. Like all cathedrals, Grace Cathedral is huge. The stained glass windows are beautiful, but we got so caught up in looking at them and reading the inscriptions, I forgot to take pictures. We decided we would return for the 11:00 services on Sunday morning, and we were glad we did. More about that later.

Mel's Drive In (which really isn't a drive in) was attached to our hotel, The Opal, so we stopped there on our way back to check it out. We ended up having supper there on Friday evening. Mel's is made up like the old soda fountain restaurants which were popular during our high school years, and it was cute. The original Mel's, featured in the movie American Graffiti, is down near the water, and we passed it on one of our trips around town. We found another old-style diner, too, called Lori's, and we had lunch there one day. We thought the food at Lori's was better, but on our last day in town, we had hot apple pie at Mel's, and changed our minds! Yum, yum, delicious!

On Saturday, after studying the maps and asking questions about how to get around the city, we walked a few blocks over to California Street and caught a cable car to the downtown area. We'd never ridden a cable car before, so this was a first for us, and it was a lot of fun. We even had to transfer from one car to another to make the journey from our hotel to downtown.



Cable cars have no engines - they are totally dependent on cables that pull them along the tracks, and it was amazing how they could be pulled up some of those hills. They are steep!

At the end of the line, the cars either have to go backwards the way they came (if they are equipped to do so), or they have to be pushed and pulled to a round turn table so they can be turned around. It was fun to watch the turn-around operation.

We found that there were so many people out enjoying the good weather that the wait was sometimes 45 minutes to an hour. As we were riding up and down the hills during the day, cars passed people who were waiting because there was just no room for another person - not even one who was standing on the running boards holding the post. Lauren and I actually rode standing up on the outside once - I didn't think I'd ever be doing that, but I did, and I didn't fall off!


We are somewhat timid souls, trying new things in small steps. But after our successful trip down town to the shopping district (where we didn't shop), we decided that we were ready to take the cable car to the other end of the line, and we rode to the Hyde Street Pier at Fisherman's Wharf.

We were delighted to find that we could see the Golden Gate Bridge from there while we toured some historic old boats in the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Our Golden Age cards, which we both remembered to bring, got us into the Park with no charge.


The Historical Park is really impressive. These boats are practically right out of Pirates of the Carribean! We spent a while being fully satisfied American taxpayers!


The Park has a number of (volunteer?) docents who enthusiastically explained how things worked and to give people a hands on experience of tying knots and other tasks they might be required to take care of had they been part of the crew.

To be continued....