Deep Fried Kudzu

After we left Lafayette, we stopped in Washington because we needed to visit a cemetery there. I found the prettiest marker:


On the way to Alexandria, we passed some really pretty cotton fields:


The yarn shop there was closed, but we drove around the historic district for a couple of minutes and saw some beautiful houses! I love these arches:


I would have never thought about painting the chimney and other brickwork red, but it really stands out!:


Isn't the ornamentation on this house pretty!?:


Love these:






In front of one of the houses we passed, we saw this Halloween decoration!:

After we left the Saints game, we made reservations at the Hampton Inn in Lafayette. It was okay (regular Hampton).


For supper, we went to Prejean's!


It was fantastic, just like always! I had the crawfish platter - it was fried crawfish, crawfish etouffee, crawfish boulettes, crawfish pie, and dirty rice. It was served with a crawfish salad and crawfish bisque! I could only pick at it because it was so huge!


Av had the catfish catahoula - soooo good!!

Sunday, we went to the Saints game - we were playing the Baltimore Ravens. Two Ravens fans bought tickets right next to us from our neighbor season-ticket holders. I was really hoping they wouldn't be too obnoxious, and they were fine (they were really nice, too. One of them was a political science professor from a university in Houston). One of the good things about our section is that I haven't seen anyone really taunting out-of-town fans, or any of those fans being really crazy!



The best thing about the game (we needed good things...we lost the game 35-22) were that so many people dressed up! Close to us, there was a group of people who dressed up like Willy Wonka and the Oompaloompas! They held this sign that says "Willy Nagin and the Who Dat-loompas":


Here are three of them! Love those cotton-ball eyebrows!


Close to the end of the game, a band came to our section and played - they were *great*! Where else but a Saints game!?!

Saturday night, we stayed at the new Island View Hotel - well, it's sort-of new! Before Katrina, it was the Grand Casino Hotel and Casino (which we stayed at in January 2005 and I posted here), but with all the damage, the only part of the property to really be restorable was that portion across the highway, which was the hotel part we stayed in back when it was the Grand. I liked the new look of the rooms:


The Cisco phones had welcome messages for us, and the HD television was nice too (although it was strange that they didn't have a local NBC or ABC affiliate on the lineup). We didn't go into the casino, but we enjoyed the room, and would stay here again.


For supper, we changed into nicer clothes and walked over to Vrazel's, which is one of our favorite restaurants. I had the stuffed flounder and Av had one of the fish specials that night. It was lovely!

Back in August, I mentioned how much I love a paper in Guntersville/Marshall County, Alabama called the Advertiser-Gleam. It only writes about things that happen in that one specific part of the state, so there's no AP wire stories about what's going on anywhere else. ANYwhere else.

In August, I wrote about how they did a story about a man who loved to eat rattlesnakes and how his neighbor swerved to hit one in the road to give to him (and the skin was going to hang in the public library), and the classified ad about the cockatiel that flew away from home, noting that he left heading South.

Lately I've been following the story about a lady there named Patty Jackson who started a rubber band ball last March. She named it 'George' after one of her cats.

Every few weeks starting this summer, there was an update in the paper about its growth (even once, the update was "above the fold" on the front cover, which in the news world is big stuff!). The September 20th issue (which is the one on the left in my pic above) shows Patty peeking out from behind the ball. It was 5'4" around and she was about to put in an application to the Guinness Book of World Records to see about getting it certified.

The pic on the right is from October 21st, and it shows the ball on a flatbed trailer. She and her husband got a dozen people to help move the ball onto the trailer so it could be weighed. It came in at 3800 pounds - almost 700lbs more than the old world record! Yay!

The article says that her friends have already made an official-looking sign declaring the ball the new world record holder, and Patty should hear back from the Guinness people in six - eight weeks. I am so happy for her!

I've been waiting for the new Gee's Bend book, "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt" to come out - on my calendar, I have it marked that it's being released tomorrow (Saturday) - but when I just went to Amazon, I noticed that the one being released tomorrow is the **slipcover** version of the book!

The book was actually released back on July 28th, and it's not particularly important to me that I have the slipcover edition...so it's on order now!

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston had the exhibit from June 4 - September 4 of this year, and they're selling everything from a Gee's Bend ruler to ties and scarves inspired by the designs of the quilts.

Right now, there's an exhibit of the quilts at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Indianapolis Museum Art through the end of the year, and until November 5th, the Austin Museum of Art has an exhibit. The Orlando Museum of Art will have a quilt exhibit from January 27 - May 13, 2007.

This month's issue of Smithsonian Magazine has a really nice article about the quilters, too.

Probably the very best thing about Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion is that they not only feature artists, but they show whose work those artists admire and collect. The October/November issue has a feature on author Walter Wick (who does books around just *amazing* dioramas) and his home and studio - and in his greatroom, there is this huge, gorgeous painting by Julie Heffernan.

It is just unspeakably gorgeous. A NY Times art critic described her work as, "an impresssive imitation of 17th-century high style...a magical mix of Old Masterism, Surrealism and post-modernist pastiche." Um, yes. It is.

Some are at P.P.O.W. Gallery in NYC. Julie Heffernan's works are from around 18x22 to a *huge* - 82x60. Some of the smaller ones are available at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. Beautiful...

Black Belt Treasures in Camden is having a Folk Life Festival on Saturday in honor of the one-year anniversary of the gallery opening, and it's from 9am - 3pm. It's going to be soooo good, too - they've got some of the artists demonstrating their work, bands coming in to play music, and Kathryn Tucker Windham doing storytelling. The schedule of events is at their website here.

I really hope we can go - there's no telling, though, because this is Av's "surprise weekend" since it's the weekend before my birthday (on the 30th). We always try to do something really fun, and I never know where we are going until we actually get there! I've mentioned us driving the Trace, staying somewhere in the Delta and going to all the places we love there, staying in New Orleans and going to the Saints game on Sunday, lazy-ing around at Orange Beach, and my big idea was going to Santa Fe or Phoenix for Dia De Los Muertos.

Yesterday, I went to a flooring company here in town to see about replacing the floor in our kitchen. The bamboo I want was quoted at a little over $5000 installed, and this crazy-beautiful floor from the Biltmore Estate, called "Conservatory Plank" was quoted at over $10000! That made me want to just stay at home and eat toast and water to save up! hahaha!! We'll see.....!

Reason Av is a great husband #49zillion:

...as we were leaving Kentuck, he didn't say anything about where we were going, and drove right over to Serendipity Needleworks in Tuscaloosa, which he knows is one of my favorite yarn shops! Yay!

Serendipity groups a lot of their yarn by color, which is nice when you know you want to do a certain hue. Everyone there is really warm and helpful, too!


They were having a *really* good sale, and I got some Crystal Palace Fling (color 9495, lot 940108H34) and some super-beautiful Karabella Cosmos (color 7, lot 04), half-off!

I usually knit two or three different yarns together when I make my scarves, but the Karabella has so much going on that I think it will be great knit by itself! I'll post some pics when i start on these!

My super-sweet friend Darlene shared her "Martha Stewart Great American Wreaths" book with me and it has some really wonderful ideas (thanks Darlene!!). I saw this swag of Indian corn on page 74 and *had* to make it!


The book's version was made with miniature Indian corn, but I have mostly the large ones, so I modified it a bit to use those:


I took a bundle of raffia:


...and from the raffia, took eight or ten strands to make a line:


...then made knots every inch or two:


Once I had enough on the end to use to hang that side of the swag, I knotted an ear of the Indian corn in the raffia:


When the end of the raffia is near, just take more strands and combine them in the middle of a knot to make a sturdy longer string, and keep knotting and adding more corn:

Leave enough raffia on the other end to use to hang the swag. Once it's hung, it can be neatened up with a pair of scissors if it needs it.

I put this swag along the front of our mantel - it should last forever (I can't say the same about the Indian corn I've hung outside...seems the squirrels like it too!):

We're back from Kentuck - and it was OHmygoodness *so* wonderful this year!!!

This is Peter Loose's work - last year he had a bunny dulcimer, and this year he brought this crazy chicken - isn't it great!?:


We spent a long time talking with sweet Myrtice West. We have some of her artwork, and I got to know her better last year when I had a book she was in, that she had lost in the fire she had. She wanted to pay me for it, and I wouldn't let her, so instead, she sent me (without me knowing she was going to do this) two paintings! The super-nice thing about visiting with her this year is that her daughter and baby granddaughter were there and we chatted with her daughter for a little bit too. See the big Noah's ark painting in the middle/back? I am still thinking about going back and buying that one!


Ab the Flagman's work:


Butch Anthony's display (that's John Henry Toney and his art in the right of the pic):


Lorraine Gendron's art - she's from Hahnville, Louisiana and she and Av got talking about the Saints:


Chris Hubbard's Heaven and Hell art car:


The Bucket Man:


Charlie Lucas, the Tin Man's space - I really like the dinosaurs he makes from wire:


George Jones, Jr.'s brooms - we have one of them - he is wonderful...:


This is Chris Clark's space - we have one of his angels:


He does some really great quilts, too - this one has stuffed animals all over:


Yes!! Yvonne Wells' quilts - we bought one of the small ones!:


This is the Standard Deluxe space:
(Yee Haw from Knoxville was at Kentuck again this year, and just like last year, we got some things from them, including Chanukah cards!)


Here's Lonnie Holley - we have one of his sandstone pieces - total genius:


Amos Paul Kennedy was there, too (Suzanne went and I saw her with some of his prints she bought!). Isn't the print for Tee's Lounge great!? We have some of his prints...what I think is really neat is his subscription offer - for $1000 you're sent every poster he does for a year, and for $1500 it includes a copy of all ephemera he does, too!:

Friday night, we went with a group of friends to see CATS! I had never seen it before, so I had no idea what it was going to be like. It was *wonderful*!

I have to admit...I hadn't read the program before we sat down, so when the cast started singing, I thought they were saying "angelical cats" rather than JELLICLE cats!! All through the first half, I was singing in my head, "angelical cats, angelical cats...." hahahahaha!!!

Everybody had a great time and we were all *so* happy especially to have a little one with us to see the show. Darlene's niece, Montana, come along - she was soooo pretty, and I gave her a little cat-ear headband to wear - she was the absolute cutest thing there!!