Well we really didn't have a good connection up at Flaming Gorge so I didn't watch the US Open. I did check the scores on Thursday and I found out that Roger Federer didn't make into the semifinals. He always loses when I want to watch but can't. It's not cool. lol. And because of rain in NYC the finals are delayed to Monday. Too bad I'll be working. Maybe it will be sort of a slow day and I can watch it. Ooh! We have ESPN at work. I can watch it on tv. lol.
Flaming Gorge was really fun. We toured part of the lake, went on hikes, played games, had campfires. Today we headed home but made a detour to Dinosaur National Monument. We haven't been there for ten or fifteen years. It was cool.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Family Week
My family and I are on our way to spend the week at Flaming Gorge. It'll be fun but I'm sad that I'll be missing the second (and always best) week of the US Open. Hopefully we have a good internet signal because if we do Dad said I could watch tennis. I'm mostly just worried about the weekend when the semifinals and finals are being played. I finished all but one book that I borrowed from Colton. Well, two books but Green Rider I'll borrow from the library because it's part of a trilogy and I have read them before. And I think there is another series I want to read first. The book I brought this week is a 1050-page science fiction novel. It'll be nice to get out of the "real world" books that I have been reading and read a really long and completely different book. The book is by L. Ron Hubbard and it is called Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. From the reviews in the book and the introduction that I read this morning apparently this book is Star Wars meets Indiana Jones or something like that. lol. I think it'll be interesting to read.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Room Cleaning
Several months ago I started putting together a 5000-piece Van Gogh "Starry, Starry Night" puzzle. I even created a giant puzzle board with that size puzzle in mind. (Although it will be nice for other, smaller, sizes as well.) And then it sat in my room for months. I have the stars put together and a bit of the streak in the sky, and the edges of course. It's a really great and hard puzzle.
I also have been practically hording my magazines thinking I'll do something with them. And I have looked at them but after that they just sit in a pile at the foot of my bed.
Those two things combined with my bed not ever being made caused me to declutter and clean my room this weekend. I am tired of things just being plopped down and laundry never being folded and then I can't walk around my bed because there is baskets and a puzzle in my way. When cleaning my room I made sure I had the three magazines that I will use (Success, Better Homes and Gardens, and Saveur) and then I recycled the rest of them. There were a lot. I don't know why I was keeping them for so long. I also put my puzzle away. But it took me like ten minutes to put it away because I didn't want to undo the work I'd already done. Therefore I had an idea to put the stars and stripes and moon into envelopes. Each element has it's own envelope and I labeled them so I'd sort of know what was what. I then put the edges on the bottom of the box and separated them from the rest of the puzzle by placing a paper over top of them. They took two layers to get in the box. Next in went the star-envelopes. And lastly, the bags of loose puzzle pieces that I had already sorted by color went into the box. To make sure I, or anyone else, didn't shake the box and made a sign and tied the box with yarn. It's awesome. lol. I did find one puzzle piece I missed on the floor so I put in a plastic bag and put it with the box. I couldn't put it in the box because it was already tied up. But I stapled the bag around the yarn. While all that was being done and I was straightening the rest of my room my comforter and sheets were being washed. I put a little bleach with my comforter to get it to be a crisp white. I had to dry it twice because it's so big. lol. My room looks so put together when my bed is made too.
I decided that I do really like the black and white contrast I have going on in my room. My bedding is white and my headboards are black iron-looking. My book shelves are black and my books on the shelves are covered in white. I have two black end tables in my room which I'm not sure what to do with yet. I like the color scheme so much that I decided to go with it and add my throw pillows back on to my bed with slip covers on them. I keep seeing quilts with a large word fabric and every time I see I love it. So I did some digging and found out that Ikea is the maker and beholder of the fabric. So I went on Saturday to Ikea and braved that maze of a store to the textile department to get my Britten Nummer fabric. I decided to get four yards because My original thought was to have that fabric be the back of a throw quilt. But I decided I could always go back for more later when I'm actually ready to make that quilt. Not all of my throw pillows are going to get a word slipcover. I want a pop of color so at least one will get a colored one. I haven't decided on what color to accent yet. It's either purple or green. I want to pull colors that match my painting above my bed. I think I'm leaning toward a nice rich green color because I like green a lot more. I haven't looked enough into the different colors from Kona to decide on a good color scheme for my quilt. One of those colors will be made into the slipcovers for that accent-accent pillow. lol. For right now I plan on getting a white sheet from the second-hand store and then (after washing it of course) creating a undercover-slipcover for all the pillows so those non-word pillows will still be white. I decided since my pillows are not white to begin with and the word fabric is a bit thin I would whiteify the pillows a bit before the words go on them by adding a white slipcover underneath the real covers. lol. It's maybe more work but I don't really mind. I think it'll make it look nice.
I also have been practically hording my magazines thinking I'll do something with them. And I have looked at them but after that they just sit in a pile at the foot of my bed.
Those two things combined with my bed not ever being made caused me to declutter and clean my room this weekend. I am tired of things just being plopped down and laundry never being folded and then I can't walk around my bed because there is baskets and a puzzle in my way. When cleaning my room I made sure I had the three magazines that I will use (Success, Better Homes and Gardens, and Saveur) and then I recycled the rest of them. There were a lot. I don't know why I was keeping them for so long. I also put my puzzle away. But it took me like ten minutes to put it away because I didn't want to undo the work I'd already done. Therefore I had an idea to put the stars and stripes and moon into envelopes. Each element has it's own envelope and I labeled them so I'd sort of know what was what. I then put the edges on the bottom of the box and separated them from the rest of the puzzle by placing a paper over top of them. They took two layers to get in the box. Next in went the star-envelopes. And lastly, the bags of loose puzzle pieces that I had already sorted by color went into the box. To make sure I, or anyone else, didn't shake the box and made a sign and tied the box with yarn. It's awesome. lol. I did find one puzzle piece I missed on the floor so I put in a plastic bag and put it with the box. I couldn't put it in the box because it was already tied up. But I stapled the bag around the yarn. While all that was being done and I was straightening the rest of my room my comforter and sheets were being washed. I put a little bleach with my comforter to get it to be a crisp white. I had to dry it twice because it's so big. lol. My room looks so put together when my bed is made too.
I decided that I do really like the black and white contrast I have going on in my room. My bedding is white and my headboards are black iron-looking. My book shelves are black and my books on the shelves are covered in white. I have two black end tables in my room which I'm not sure what to do with yet. I like the color scheme so much that I decided to go with it and add my throw pillows back on to my bed with slip covers on them. I keep seeing quilts with a large word fabric and every time I see I love it. So I did some digging and found out that Ikea is the maker and beholder of the fabric. So I went on Saturday to Ikea and braved that maze of a store to the textile department to get my Britten Nummer fabric. I decided to get four yards because My original thought was to have that fabric be the back of a throw quilt. But I decided I could always go back for more later when I'm actually ready to make that quilt. Not all of my throw pillows are going to get a word slipcover. I want a pop of color so at least one will get a colored one. I haven't decided on what color to accent yet. It's either purple or green. I want to pull colors that match my painting above my bed. I think I'm leaning toward a nice rich green color because I like green a lot more. I haven't looked enough into the different colors from Kona to decide on a good color scheme for my quilt. One of those colors will be made into the slipcovers for that accent-accent pillow. lol. For right now I plan on getting a white sheet from the second-hand store and then (after washing it of course) creating a undercover-slipcover for all the pillows so those non-word pillows will still be white. I decided since my pillows are not white to begin with and the word fabric is a bit thin I would whiteify the pillows a bit before the words go on them by adding a white slipcover underneath the real covers. lol. It's maybe more work but I don't really mind. I think it'll make it look nice.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Weekend Activities
This past weekend our single's ward went on our super activity. On Friday we went up to Pineview Reservoir and hung out at the lake. There were five or six boats there, including our boat. They also had a water trampoline. It was a lot of fun. I was so sore that night. We had pizza and a movie at the church that night. The next day, on Saturday, we had breakfast at the church and then went up Provo Canyon on a hike to Stewart Falls. It was not a long, strenuous hike but since most of us were sore from the activities the previous day it was harder. The falls were very pretty. After the hike we went to Vivian Park and had lunch. And then, in two groups, we took tubes down the Provo River. That was fun. I don't think I've ever done that before. After tubing we had dinner and a devotional from the bishop at the park. I was very good about putting sunscreen on the whole weekend so I didn't get burned at all. Although I think my face did get a tiny bit of a sunburn because it itched on Saturday but it was fine Sunday.
On Saturday during the hike Colton and I talked about us. We concluded that our relationship wasn't really going past this point so we are no longer together. It's kind of sad because I think I'm more lamenting the fact that I'm single again then the relationship itself. Don't get me wrong. I like Colton. He is a great guy. I like hanging out with him and everything. But for whatever reason I was feeling no attachment to the relationship. I was neither for it nor against it. It just was. The first month was really fun and new but about the third was when I started to think this wasn't going to work out. Four months is along time though. And do hope that Colton and I can stay friends and still hang out.
After I read the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini and couldn't decide on what to read. So I borrowed a bunch of books from Colton. Most of them are short one or two day reads for me. I have already read two of the books I borrowed. Right now I am reading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.I think I'll read the other three books in the Shoes series before I move onto another book.
On Saturday during the hike Colton and I talked about us. We concluded that our relationship wasn't really going past this point so we are no longer together. It's kind of sad because I think I'm more lamenting the fact that I'm single again then the relationship itself. Don't get me wrong. I like Colton. He is a great guy. I like hanging out with him and everything. But for whatever reason I was feeling no attachment to the relationship. I was neither for it nor against it. It just was. The first month was really fun and new but about the third was when I started to think this wasn't going to work out. Four months is along time though. And do hope that Colton and I can stay friends and still hang out.
After I read the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini and couldn't decide on what to read. So I borrowed a bunch of books from Colton. Most of them are short one or two day reads for me. I have already read two of the books I borrowed. Right now I am reading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.I think I'll read the other three books in the Shoes series before I move onto another book.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Wedded Bliss
It's not my wedded bliss. I'm not engaged yet. lol. It's my trip to Colorado last week.
For the past week I and my brother, Eric, have been hanging out in Colorado. It was so nice and relaxing. We drove there in my car. We drove there on Wednesday. And I, primarily, went for my high school best friend's wedding which was Thursday afternoon/evening. Eric came to parkour and just hang out. I went with him to a few places. But mostly we just had a good time hanging with our host family and each other. I always have fun when Eric and I go on road trips together. (Which I think we have done a couple of times. Going to/from Utah and Colorado.)
Like I said this trip was for a wedding. I had tons of fun at the wedding on Thursday. It was up in Estes Park and it was gorgeous, if slightly warm, weather. Kristine and Tyler both looked awesome. They were emotional and it was perfect. They are SO cute together. After the ceremony there was a dinner and then dancing. They ceremony started at 4:30pm and I didn't leave until 11pm. I was having so much fun dancing and being with Kristine. We really need to stay in touch. lol.
While I was at the wedding Eric went to Boulder to hang out and parkour at a gym over there. It's also one reason why I stayed so late at the wedding. He had the car and didn't get back to Estes Park until we all were going home.
On Friday and Saturday Eric and I went and parkoured. Well, he did the parkouring. I filmed and took photos. It was insanely hot while we were in Colorado. I am pretty sure on Friday and Saturday when we were outside walking around it was over 100 degrees. Surprisingly, I didn't get sunburned at all. I got kind of irritated on Saturday probably because of the heat and I wasn't drinking enough.
We had late nights but since we didn't have any plans we were able to just sleep in the next day. I did bring two books because I knew I'd be finishing the first one while we were there. But I didn't read as much as I thought I would. I probably read less then ten chapters total. I had to have read at least five. Because I read the last three chapters of Eragon and then I read a couple in Eldest.
Eric and I brought a cooler for some water and snacks to have in the car. We ended up bringing it in the house during the night/morning because our frozen water was thawing out and then in turn the candy was getting soft. We brought a box of candy bars, a bag of trail mix, granola bars, and a bag of Skittles and Starbursts. With the Starbursts I got a lot of wrappers/links for my chain. It was awesome. And there are still more candies to eat.
Our host family was very nice and let us stay with them the whole week. We were planning on staying with five different families, one for each night, but due a tragic accident we ended staying with one family the whole time. Well, Sunday night we did stay with another family for the night.
(Tragic accident involves a canoe capsizing with three kids who weren't wearing their life-jackets. One teenage kid going missing while the other two were able to get back okay. People looked for him all that day and finally found him the next morning. He drowned. He was 17 and I knew him when we lived in Colorado.)
While we were there we got to see 'Brave' with some friends. That movie is so cute. I really liked it.
The High Park fire right near Fort Collins made some days smell smokey. I was having flashbacks to the Cerro Grande fire that I was a part of. Fires suck. And there are so many that are burning right now all over the west in the USA right now. It's not cool. We need rain. Everyone, pray for rain. I got some cool pictures of the smoke and sunsets though. lol.
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| Smoke and the Sunset |
Other cool photos I took were on the way to Colorado.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tennis Fabric
So here's my idea for the tennis fabric which will be the backing and side panels of my tennis court quilt. I think some of the rackets need to be rotated more and I'm not sure about some of the colors of the rackets. But this is the idea. And I want it to be some sort of repeated pattern on the fabric itself. I want the fabric to look like it's not repeating and more of an all-over pattern. I might have to play around with the placement before I actually have Spoonflower print the fabric.
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| Here is the idea with the rackets in black. |
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| Here is more of what I want with the rackets in color. |
Monday, June 11, 2012
Times and Tangents
Sorry. It's been a while since I wrote here. I haven't busy per se but I haven't made time to update the blog. Well, I'm doing it now. lol.
Let's see ... Have I told you about Colton? He is my boyfriend. I like him. We have been hanging out a lot and it always fun. A while ago we started watching 'How I Met Your Mother' from the beginning. We are currently over halfway through the second season. I remember watching some of the episodes but they are all great. We also started playing LEGO Batman on his computer which is a lot of fun. The first day was hilarious because we found that you could punt the rats that are in the town. It's awesome. I think we just got through with the good guys side of the story. We found out you can play through as the bad guys and we are going to be next. And then we'll probably go back and get all the mini-kits and stuff. We have just played in story mode. I have been the second player as Robin. One night we somehow got switched and we confused because I was Batman and Colton was Robin. But we sorted it out. lol.
Speaking of LEGO games I have been continuing my quest to get a 100% in LEGO Star Wars. I bought all the characters yesterday. For some reason I haven't bought the last fifteen or so but I had the money so I did. I also bought all the gold bricks. It helps that I have times 12 coin bonus. lol. I am able to get a lot of coins really fast. I think I got all the Jedi bonuses for all six episodes and now I'm working on finding all the mini-kits.
The French Open ended today/yesterday. The men's final was started yesterday but got rain-delayed to today. It was actually kind of funny for me. So the final started at 7am (UT-time) so I got up and got ready for church at around 6:30am so that I wouldn't have to miss anything. And then I watched tennis for the next three and a half hours. They did have a 30 minute rain delay which I think help Novak Djokovic get his head in the match and out of life and his possibility of making history. He played like we know he can after the delay. At the time of the delay Rafa Nadal had won the first two sets. And after the delay, like I said, Novak really stepped up and was able to win the third set. At about 10:30am they were just closing the third set and I was sad because I had to go to church. I wanted to watch the whole match. I left. I went to church. After church I made Colton check the score to see who won. I wasn't really expecting the match the have play suspended due to rain. I was SO happy. Colton's family probably thought I was crazy. I was laughing because I was able to watch the rest of the match. And the funny thing is they suspended play only a few minutes after I left. So I was really only missing a few points. Anyways, this morning I got up around 5am so that I could watch the rest of the match. Rafa was killing the ball this morning. I'm sure he didn't want it to go to a fifth set. Final score: Rafael Nadal def. Novak Djokovic. 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5. He won his seventh French Open title becoming the winningest French Open holder in history. lol. On twitter Rafa had the hash-tag of #HIS7ORY. I thought that was pretty cool to have the number seven as the T. I was somewhat sad that Novak didn't get his first French Open title and hold all four majors at one time. But his still number one on the rankings. lol. Actually according to the ranking Rafa didn't change at all. But Novak went up more. Which doesn't seem right to me. I'm pretty sure that no one changes in position but the numbers should be different. Oh well. lol. Some interesting things that happened during the match ahd to do with the crowd and Novak. First the crowd was really subdued the first two sets but then they came alive and were supporting both players in the third set. I agree with one of the commentators when he said that the French Open spectators like drama and they haven't really seen that in the past few years because Rafa wins so easily on clay. And the other drama happened with Novak before the rain delay. He got very mad (with himself, I think) and he hit the side of the bench with his racket and broke a hole in the bench. I was disappointed in his conduct and I really think he should have gotten a fine for his outburst. But I'm not sure that he did. If I was his coach that's one of the things I would have told Novak during the 30 minute rain delay. "Calm down and get you're out of your nerves. Play tennis. Play one point at a time. You need to control your emotions or else this match might as well be over now." I feel like that is why Novak has become the number one player in the world. He is play great tennis but he also knows that his emotions can get the better of him and it affects how he plays. Rafa on the other hand never really shows emotion. I feel like that has helped him. He doesn't get angry and he doesn't let it affect his game much that we can see. I do feel like when his parent's were going through their divorce back in 2009 he was playing a little off but I also feel like that would affect anyone who has a tight family. I am glad that Rafa's parent's are friendly enough with each other to come and support Rafa at his matches. Yeah, emotions and tennis don't go hand in hand. If you want to win you have to focus on your opponent on the other side of the net not in your head.
The French Open has made me excited to create my tennis court blankets. Have I told you that idea? Several (several) months ago I got this idea to create a blanket of the tennis court for each tennis major. So a teal blue on for the Australian Open, a orange one for the French Open, a grass green one for Wimbledon, and a navy blue one for the US Open. So this last week a scaled down the dimensions of a tennis court to 1/9 scale. The length is good but since tennis courts are longer then they are wide it doesn't translate to a good sized blanket with just the court. So I have to add a panel to the side so the width is good. I think I might put the name of each major up the side of the blanket to add width to them. With that in mind I was attempting to design some bubble lettering that would translate well to fabric. But I gave up because my letters just looked crazy and didn't work at all. I did find on Etsy some awesome lettering that gets paper-pieced. And the pattern is under $10. So I'm thinking I'll just use that for the words. I was kind of hoping they have a numbers pattern too because then I'd have matching letters and numbers. I like the letters because they are somewhat wonky but they all work with each other. The seller does suggest you put a strip of fabric in-between the letters when making words so that the letters don't run into each other. And I do agree that it looks better. So I plan on doing that with the names. I have to figure out what fabric I am going to use for the panels and the backing still. I think I want something plain for the panels so that the letters standout somewhat. Ooh! I just an idea! What if I do the panel thing on the front but the names are across the back of the blanket. It would give some interest to the back then it's sort of a two-sided blanket that way. I'll sketch out each and show you what mean later.
You can see the first set of drawings have the court offset with the words on the front and the backing is very plain. And with the second set of drawings the words are on the backing with just the court on the front. The words would be able to be a bit bigger if they were on the back. I think I want all the words to be about the same size on all the blankets. But I haven't decided. Since "Australian Open" is so much longer than "US Open" I think I have to sketch out all four words in the blanket length to see what works best. The more I think about that solid color for the letter backing the more I like the idea to do the contrast color like the majors have in real life. I know that the French Open contrasts the clay orange with a teal green. Let me think AO and USO might now contrast much. I can't think of what Wimbledon does. Okay so maybe that idea doesn't work with "real life" much. Maybe I'll just do the same white as the lines for the lettering background. And while were on the subject of undetermined things with this blanket I haven't found the right backing fabric yet. I want something fun and tennis-like. I think something with tennis balls and/or rackets would be fun. But tennis fabric is hard to find and the ones I can find I don't like. So I might have to design my own fabric and print it with Spoonflower. I really like one of the French Open towel designs this year.
So I think I might use that idea of the different color so and the large rackets. But I did want to through in some tennis balls in the mix. I also don't want them all lined up like the towel. I want the design to be more turned and random looking. I like those fabrics more when it come to large scale usage. I also think it would look better when/if I need to cut part of it off. lol. I still can't decide what colors to make the rackets though. I want a match to the four colors I am using for the courts. But I also want some other colors as well. I'll have to do a few designs and figure out how many colors to do. I think seven or eight would be good. Which means I need to find three or four colors to go with the court colors. And I'll save yellow for the tennis ball color. So I could do the four court colors Teal (AO), Orange (FO), Green (W), Navy (USO) and also Red, Black, Pink. What other colors would work? Remember the tennis balls on the fabric are going to yellow so that can't be a racket. Maybe I'll do a quick mock up in just black to figure out more what the backing fabric will look like.
So enough about tennis quilts. lol. What else have I been doing? Oh I went on a vacation with my family a couple of weeks ago. We painted our rental house in Colorado. It was fun. lol. We painted the house fast so the last few days of our vacation were more fun. On Sunday while we were there my niece, Laura, was blessed. That was fun. They decided to do it that Sunday because both sets of baby Laura's grandparents were there and we thought it's a good a time as any. lol. Monday night we spent the night camping at Vedauwoo. It was fun but it was also windy at night. It was really hard to cook hot dogs or s'mores because the fire kept getting blown around by the wind. I couldn't find any good coal sport to roast my marshmallow but I still tried. It wasn't as nice and evenly cooked but it was still yummy. Eric and I went and hiked around the rocks Monday afternoon. At one point Dad showed up on top of the rock we were just on. It was odd. lol. When Dad showed up Eric and I were actually heading back to the motor home. We were working out way down the hill. We went and saw the beaver dam ponds after we got down. They are really neat. Eric has some photos of that. Maybe I'll snag one and show you. I didn't take any photos because I found that my camera was almost dead on battery. (I really should invest in a second battery for both my cameras someday.)
Next week I'm going back to Colorado for a wedding. My best friend from high school is getting married to her high school sweetheart. I remember when she met Tyler. She talked about him a lot. He was in college at that point and older then her. I think she liked that fact. lol. Anyways I guess she really likes Tyler because they have been together since then so it's been four or five years now. And they are getting married. I'm so happy for them. Anyways, that trip is going to be fun. Eric is coming with me. And we might be bringing a few of Eric's friends with us too. Eric wants to meet some of the Parkour people down there in CO so that's mostly why he is going. We'll be gone for a total of six days. (Two of those days are for driving there and back.)
I haven't really been reading much the past couple of weeks. I did read to really quick books because I was bored. Today I started reading Eragon. I want to read the conclusion to the series but first I'm reading the previous three books again. Reading Eragon again made me think about how horrible the movie was. lol. I hope someday that gets remade because it could be so awesome.
Let's see ... Have I told you about Colton? He is my boyfriend. I like him. We have been hanging out a lot and it always fun. A while ago we started watching 'How I Met Your Mother' from the beginning. We are currently over halfway through the second season. I remember watching some of the episodes but they are all great. We also started playing LEGO Batman on his computer which is a lot of fun. The first day was hilarious because we found that you could punt the rats that are in the town. It's awesome. I think we just got through with the good guys side of the story. We found out you can play through as the bad guys and we are going to be next. And then we'll probably go back and get all the mini-kits and stuff. We have just played in story mode. I have been the second player as Robin. One night we somehow got switched and we confused because I was Batman and Colton was Robin. But we sorted it out. lol.
Speaking of LEGO games I have been continuing my quest to get a 100% in LEGO Star Wars. I bought all the characters yesterday. For some reason I haven't bought the last fifteen or so but I had the money so I did. I also bought all the gold bricks. It helps that I have times 12 coin bonus. lol. I am able to get a lot of coins really fast. I think I got all the Jedi bonuses for all six episodes and now I'm working on finding all the mini-kits.
The French Open ended today/yesterday. The men's final was started yesterday but got rain-delayed to today. It was actually kind of funny for me. So the final started at 7am (UT-time) so I got up and got ready for church at around 6:30am so that I wouldn't have to miss anything. And then I watched tennis for the next three and a half hours. They did have a 30 minute rain delay which I think help Novak Djokovic get his head in the match and out of life and his possibility of making history. He played like we know he can after the delay. At the time of the delay Rafa Nadal had won the first two sets. And after the delay, like I said, Novak really stepped up and was able to win the third set. At about 10:30am they were just closing the third set and I was sad because I had to go to church. I wanted to watch the whole match. I left. I went to church. After church I made Colton check the score to see who won. I wasn't really expecting the match the have play suspended due to rain. I was SO happy. Colton's family probably thought I was crazy. I was laughing because I was able to watch the rest of the match. And the funny thing is they suspended play only a few minutes after I left. So I was really only missing a few points. Anyways, this morning I got up around 5am so that I could watch the rest of the match. Rafa was killing the ball this morning. I'm sure he didn't want it to go to a fifth set. Final score: Rafael Nadal def. Novak Djokovic. 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5. He won his seventh French Open title becoming the winningest French Open holder in history. lol. On twitter Rafa had the hash-tag of #HIS7ORY. I thought that was pretty cool to have the number seven as the T. I was somewhat sad that Novak didn't get his first French Open title and hold all four majors at one time. But his still number one on the rankings. lol. Actually according to the ranking Rafa didn't change at all. But Novak went up more. Which doesn't seem right to me. I'm pretty sure that no one changes in position but the numbers should be different. Oh well. lol. Some interesting things that happened during the match ahd to do with the crowd and Novak. First the crowd was really subdued the first two sets but then they came alive and were supporting both players in the third set. I agree with one of the commentators when he said that the French Open spectators like drama and they haven't really seen that in the past few years because Rafa wins so easily on clay. And the other drama happened with Novak before the rain delay. He got very mad (with himself, I think) and he hit the side of the bench with his racket and broke a hole in the bench. I was disappointed in his conduct and I really think he should have gotten a fine for his outburst. But I'm not sure that he did. If I was his coach that's one of the things I would have told Novak during the 30 minute rain delay. "Calm down and get you're out of your nerves. Play tennis. Play one point at a time. You need to control your emotions or else this match might as well be over now." I feel like that is why Novak has become the number one player in the world. He is play great tennis but he also knows that his emotions can get the better of him and it affects how he plays. Rafa on the other hand never really shows emotion. I feel like that has helped him. He doesn't get angry and he doesn't let it affect his game much that we can see. I do feel like when his parent's were going through their divorce back in 2009 he was playing a little off but I also feel like that would affect anyone who has a tight family. I am glad that Rafa's parent's are friendly enough with each other to come and support Rafa at his matches. Yeah, emotions and tennis don't go hand in hand. If you want to win you have to focus on your opponent on the other side of the net not in your head.
The French Open has made me excited to create my tennis court blankets. Have I told you that idea? Several (several) months ago I got this idea to create a blanket of the tennis court for each tennis major. So a teal blue on for the Australian Open, a orange one for the French Open, a grass green one for Wimbledon, and a navy blue one for the US Open. So this last week a scaled down the dimensions of a tennis court to 1/9 scale. The length is good but since tennis courts are longer then they are wide it doesn't translate to a good sized blanket with just the court. So I have to add a panel to the side so the width is good. I think I might put the name of each major up the side of the blanket to add width to them. With that in mind I was attempting to design some bubble lettering that would translate well to fabric. But I gave up because my letters just looked crazy and didn't work at all. I did find on Etsy some awesome lettering that gets paper-pieced. And the pattern is under $10. So I'm thinking I'll just use that for the words. I was kind of hoping they have a numbers pattern too because then I'd have matching letters and numbers. I like the letters because they are somewhat wonky but they all work with each other. The seller does suggest you put a strip of fabric in-between the letters when making words so that the letters don't run into each other. And I do agree that it looks better. So I plan on doing that with the names. I have to figure out what fabric I am going to use for the panels and the backing still. I think I want something plain for the panels so that the letters standout somewhat. Ooh! I just an idea! What if I do the panel thing on the front but the names are across the back of the blanket. It would give some interest to the back then it's sort of a two-sided blanket that way. I'll sketch out each and show you what mean later.
You can see the first set of drawings have the court offset with the words on the front and the backing is very plain. And with the second set of drawings the words are on the backing with just the court on the front. The words would be able to be a bit bigger if they were on the back. I think I want all the words to be about the same size on all the blankets. But I haven't decided. Since "Australian Open" is so much longer than "US Open" I think I have to sketch out all four words in the blanket length to see what works best. The more I think about that solid color for the letter backing the more I like the idea to do the contrast color like the majors have in real life. I know that the French Open contrasts the clay orange with a teal green. Let me think AO and USO might now contrast much. I can't think of what Wimbledon does. Okay so maybe that idea doesn't work with "real life" much. Maybe I'll just do the same white as the lines for the lettering background. And while were on the subject of undetermined things with this blanket I haven't found the right backing fabric yet. I want something fun and tennis-like. I think something with tennis balls and/or rackets would be fun. But tennis fabric is hard to find and the ones I can find I don't like. So I might have to design my own fabric and print it with Spoonflower. I really like one of the French Open towel designs this year.
So I think I might use that idea of the different color so and the large rackets. But I did want to through in some tennis balls in the mix. I also don't want them all lined up like the towel. I want the design to be more turned and random looking. I like those fabrics more when it come to large scale usage. I also think it would look better when/if I need to cut part of it off. lol. I still can't decide what colors to make the rackets though. I want a match to the four colors I am using for the courts. But I also want some other colors as well. I'll have to do a few designs and figure out how many colors to do. I think seven or eight would be good. Which means I need to find three or four colors to go with the court colors. And I'll save yellow for the tennis ball color. So I could do the four court colors Teal (AO), Orange (FO), Green (W), Navy (USO) and also Red, Black, Pink. What other colors would work? Remember the tennis balls on the fabric are going to yellow so that can't be a racket. Maybe I'll do a quick mock up in just black to figure out more what the backing fabric will look like.
So enough about tennis quilts. lol. What else have I been doing? Oh I went on a vacation with my family a couple of weeks ago. We painted our rental house in Colorado. It was fun. lol. We painted the house fast so the last few days of our vacation were more fun. On Sunday while we were there my niece, Laura, was blessed. That was fun. They decided to do it that Sunday because both sets of baby Laura's grandparents were there and we thought it's a good a time as any. lol. Monday night we spent the night camping at Vedauwoo. It was fun but it was also windy at night. It was really hard to cook hot dogs or s'mores because the fire kept getting blown around by the wind. I couldn't find any good coal sport to roast my marshmallow but I still tried. It wasn't as nice and evenly cooked but it was still yummy. Eric and I went and hiked around the rocks Monday afternoon. At one point Dad showed up on top of the rock we were just on. It was odd. lol. When Dad showed up Eric and I were actually heading back to the motor home. We were working out way down the hill. We went and saw the beaver dam ponds after we got down. They are really neat. Eric has some photos of that. Maybe I'll snag one and show you. I didn't take any photos because I found that my camera was almost dead on battery. (I really should invest in a second battery for both my cameras someday.)
Next week I'm going back to Colorado for a wedding. My best friend from high school is getting married to her high school sweetheart. I remember when she met Tyler. She talked about him a lot. He was in college at that point and older then her. I think she liked that fact. lol. Anyways I guess she really likes Tyler because they have been together since then so it's been four or five years now. And they are getting married. I'm so happy for them. Anyways, that trip is going to be fun. Eric is coming with me. And we might be bringing a few of Eric's friends with us too. Eric wants to meet some of the Parkour people down there in CO so that's mostly why he is going. We'll be gone for a total of six days. (Two of those days are for driving there and back.)
I haven't really been reading much the past couple of weeks. I did read to really quick books because I was bored. Today I started reading Eragon. I want to read the conclusion to the series but first I'm reading the previous three books again. Reading Eragon again made me think about how horrible the movie was. lol. I hope someday that gets remade because it could be so awesome.
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