Quilts, pancakes, ponies

I managed to grab some quilt photos of the newest top yesterday afternoon.

It was still windy.



It took a little patience to try to get a photo of the quilt hanging up, but I finally got one. This is a hard quilt to photograph because it's so many pale colors - it's easiest for me to photograph quilts outdoors, because I have a bigger space to do it in (and can back away farther to get the whole quilt in the photo), but some colors are harder to capture.



Here's a close-up. I really like the prints - funny little novelty prints of children at play. (There's also one of a little spotted dog running around). The colors are a little different from what I normally use, and I might not have chosen these exact colors if this weren't a kit.



This quilt was also a challenge because there were comparatively few "different" prints in the line - the girl on the swing, the kids on scooters, the little dogs, a scarf print (looks like the traditional British school scarves), and a couple geometrics. So I wound up just having to accept that some prints would wind up next to each other in the quilt - normally I don't care for that, but this time I just had to do it.

***

I decided to have my own quiet little marking of yesterday. (Yesterday was Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day/Paczki Day). I don't really do a lot of the things that the traditional Mardi Gras involves.* And Pancake Day is actually more in line with (at least some of) my own heritage. (And I'd get a paczki if they sold them around here but I'm guessing one of the Polish/Slavic stores in Dallas would be the closest place that had paczki). So I made pancakes for dinner. Pumpkin pancakes, in fact.

I don't make pancakes often (I guess it's that I feel like there are more healthful things I "should" be eating, though considering that there's whole grain flour, eggs, and milk in pancakes, they are probably not so bad), so it was kind of a treat.

(*I got to thinking about how when I was a TA at Illinois State, every year I taught Tuesday labs, I'd have students asking to be absent on Fat Tuesday - apparently quite a few people drove down to New Orleans to go to Mardi Gras - they'd drive down on Friday, stay the weekend, and then wend their way back on Ash Wednesday....I think the trip is something on the order of 800 miles, so that just seems very long to me. I suppose if you're seeking one of the biggest parties, and if you have the money to spend (I hear Mardi Gras in New Orleans is very expensive) and a bunch of friends to trade off the driving with...I don't know. I have never heard of any of my students HERE going to Mardi Gras, but then a lot of them have jobs and families - most of the kids I knew who went to Mardi Gras were rich kids from the Chicago 'burbs who, how do I say it? Didn't have the strongest sense of responsibility.)

Someday I might like to go to one of the smaller cities' Mardi Gras - especially the ones that bill themselves as "more family friendly" (I don't think I could do Bourbon Street. Not just because of the fear of pickpockets and such - it's just, that kind of crowds, noise, drunkenness, and debauchery would pretty much fit my mental image of Hell). I think the parades would be interesting but so would not be up for the crush of humanity, being surrounded by people who had partied hard, and some of the other stuff that seems to go on at the "stereotypical" Bourbon Street Mardi Gras.

***

I got an order from We Love Fine - the site that sells adult-sized MLP shirts. (I bought the Derpy Hooves "Misunderstood" shirt. Partly out of my fondness for that silly little pony, but also partly out of the odd and fierce loyalty I still feel to the child I was - I WAS misunderstood, at least by my peers). I don't have the guts to wear it out of the house (most likely), but I do plan to use it as pajamas, with a pair of shorts or flannel pants.  I also ordered couple of bags from them - I always need more bags to store my projects in. (And I might be brave enough to carry the Steampunk Ponies one out of the house).

We Love Fine is one of those places that includes goodies with larger orders - free stuff. (Penzey's Spices does this too - every larger order I've placed (over about $20), I've gotten a small bottle of some kind of free sample - last time it was Turkish Seasoning). We Love Fine sent a couple of stickers, and one of those squishy foam keychain things that's supposed to float (provided you don't load it down too much with keys) if you happen to drop it overboard when you're on a boat, and a poster (which I think I will save for the next MLP swap I do - I'm kind of past the poster stage). And a HUGE bag with their logo on it and a steampunk Rainbow Dash (seriously, this bag is almost 4' long - it would make an excellent laundry-lugging bag if I didn't have my washer and dryer mere steps from where I keep my clothes hamper). And they sent a "blind bag" pony.

Blind bags are toys where you don't know WHICH one you'll get until you open it. (The Re-Ment stuff I love so much works the same way. And the blind-bag aspect is part of why I love it). I briefly considered saving it for a future swap, but then I decided: MY pony. MINE.

So I opened it. I got one of what some of the fans call "repaints" - ponies modeled similar to one of the ponies on the show, but with different pelt and mane/tail colors - and a different personality. The one I got was molded off of Applejack's mold, but was a pale aqua with a two-tone pink mane. And her "cutie mark" was a cupcake. Her name is given as Sweetie Blue, and apparently her trait is that she likes "decorating sweet treats with sprinkles and fun toppings," (Most of the repaint ponies - they include a little "collect 'em all" booklet - have some kind of a sweet/food theme to them.)

Looking at the tiny (1 1/2 inch or so) figurine, I realized one of the reasons why I love this "generation" of ponies so much (and partly why I was left cold by the earlier generations*): It's the eyes. The huge, limpid, anime-girl eyes. Somehow, I interpret them as "trusting" eyes...there's an innocence there. (And really, the sheer innocence of the show is one of the reasons I like it: it's such a nice escape from a world where so many shows seem to feature people either screaming at each other or scheming against each other).

(*I'm sure the fact that the cartoon is well-written, funny, and makes regular references to classic cartoon tropes has something to do with it. And the fact that when the original Ponies came out, I was trying hard to shed anything that was "babyish" from my life...and now, as a 40-something woman carrying probably-too-heavy a load of responsibilities...I'm getting to the point of not CARING if something that I enjoy looks silly or babyish to others.)