106. It Takes a Village

 In 2012, I again entered a challenge quilt for the Quilters Paradise quilting retreat at Bass Lake.

I had the best time making this quilt. I pretended my friends (who also attended the retreat) and I lived in this little neighborhood. I wrote a little story about each one, and added some personal touches. I put a little "kerchief girl" in the top half of each front door with a house number above each door--the number of our real addresses. Following is some of what I wrote about each of us.

I moved into my new house today. Even did the laundry and hung it up to dry. I still need to plant the flowers in my front garden. Later in the week, I'll go explore the rest of my small village.

I think it's fun to move to a new place. You can kind of reinvent yourself and how you want to live. I decided to go all "green" and "save the environment," so I bought a bike and started hanging my laundry on the line.

Well, yesterday, my friend, Dotty, moved next door. I'm so excited. We have been friends for a long time. We share a love of reading, and in fact, she even formally started me on my quilting journey.

I really like her new home. Dotty and her husband, Al, have four kids, all married, with lots of cool grandchildren. So when they moved next door, they decided to get a snazzy new sports car. And Al is a Master Gardener, so it looks like they are starting their landscaping project with wildflowers.

Here is a funny true-life story. Years ago when they built their home, they were on the outskirts of Fresno, with lots of acreage around them. A nearby neighbor had peacocks. Al and Dotty hated the peacocks. The peacocks would come into their yard, make a big mess, eat the vegetables in their garden. Really. They are not fans of the peacock.

So imagine my surprise when they decided to build a fancy new fence on the side of their house and then decided to have a peacock as a pet!! Very odd...

Oh, and I think another new neighbor's house will be done today. The interesting things you find out about your friends when they move next door. Just like Dotty, she is making some "interesting" decisions...

And in case you were wondering...do you live in a neighborhood that has a lot of CC&R codes? Stuff like the color you are allowed to paint your front door, or how many cars you can park at your house? Well, this particular housing development has only one: it is a requirement that you wear a kerchief at all times...

One of my best friends, Deborah, moved into the neighborhood today.

 

The first thing you should know is that before she moved into this new house, she lived in a really beautiful and classy home. She and her husband also happened to live in a neighborhood that at Christmastime is decorated like the Griswolds in Christmas Vacation.

Seriously. But instead of just one house, it's the whole neighborhood. They are nearly held prisoners in their home each night for the nearly the whole month of December as people by the carload, truckload, haywagon (again...seriously...) weave their way slowly through the neighboorhood.

So you have the picture, right?

Imagine my shock when the first thing she did when she moved in next door was hang Christmas lights on the front of the house!

Then she planted a huge Christmas tree on the side of the house. And covered the yard with these big inflatable children that make snow angels. All night long.

This was a side of her that kind of surprised me. I guess you never really know your friends as well as you think you do...

But if you ask me, I think she and Jim are secretly planning on turning on a snow machine that runs 24/7....and then taking off in that little travel trailer they are trying to hide on the other side of the house.

Today the final person, Jennifer, moved in.

Here's the thing about Jennifer. You know all the CC&R building codes? Can't paint your house this color....can't have a basketball goal in your driveway...stuff like that. It's kind of strange. Because in real life, Jennifer is a family nurse practitioner. So you can imagine all the rules she has to follow in that kind of a job! Maybe that's why she, hmmmm, crosses the line just a bit when it comes to her home. When the code in her old neighborhood didn't like yellow for the exterior paint, that's the color she chose. When they said it was too bright and wanted her to repaint, she told them to chill, that it would fade in the hot summer sun to a lovely shade of yellow. Her front door here is the brightest yellow she could choose.

She and Peter have two adorable daughters, and they wanted to a playhouse in the yard. So Jennifer and Peter got the cutest little playhouse for them. Code violation. Too tall, visible above the fence line, and they had to get rid of it. She and Peter built a three-story playhouse for the girls here (with a bright yellow roof). Because, as I mentioned before, the only enforceable code here is that we have to wear kerchiefs. All the time. I don't think anyone will complain about their vintage VW van either.

I had my own problems today with the city planners. I had just finished paving the roads in front of each house and  was planting a beautiful flower hedge around the whole housing development when the code enforcers (i.e., the quilt retreat challenge general rules) told me that I would be violating my allotted maximum perimeter. Rather than face a possible shutdown, requiring everyone to move out of these super cute houses, I adjusted my landscaping plans. I'm not as happy with the looks of things, but you know what they say: you can't fight city hall.

I made little books for each of us that told the story of our neighborhood and shared the progress photos.

 I didn't win any prizes (Jennifer or Dotty are usually the winners) but I had such a good time making my little quilt.

My village: me, Deborah, Jennifer, Dotty

Title: It Takes a Village

Pattern by: Me

Date Completed: 2012

Size: 39" x 39"

Quilted by: Me