Between Trips

Back from Washington, D.C. My daughter is now a J.D. Once she navigates the Bar Exam this summer, she can officially call herself a lawyer. Very proud!!



We had a great time at the official Howard University ceremonies (including a performance by a gospel choir that had everyone in tears), meet-and-greets, and dinners out with her university family and friends--what a terrific bunch of people! But weather was not cooperative. When it wasn't pouring rain, it was sullen and gray and cold. Not the sunny, warm Washington I've come to expect at this time of year.

But despite the rain and chill, it was a terrific Mother's Day for me-- what could be better than to celebrate by cheering as one of your kids achieves a huge life-milestone? Quite the thrill. Will and his girlfriend flew in for the weekend's festivities too, so we were all together. I couldn't ask for more.

Now on to the next act: I'm organizing to leave Wednesday for a quilt retreat in Mineral Point, WI, with a dozen or so quilting buddies. Projects going along with me: the red and white Delectable Mountains quilt, the Serendipity quilt (needing only binding and it will be D.U.N.), a new project involving the Fun Patch template and inspired by this, a table runner project using a set of antique blocks, and the wedding shawl. And a couple small gifty projects too. Should be enough to keep me busy for a few days...

Before packing for the next trip though, there was this to deal with at home:


Not complaining--few things are better than picking asparagus in your own yard, bringing it inside and cooking it immediately.

I'll be back next week, with project updates, some new inspirations, and some Friday Archives projects, fresh from the vaults.

Out of Town

We are heading to Washington, D.C. to celebrate the our daughter's graduation from Law School. Big celebrating is about to begin. Yippee!

Blood, Sweat, Kidsilk Haze,and the Eureka Moment

Something missing from this blog of late has been knitting. I had been sailing along on the wedding shawl but then hit a huge wall and had been unable to get past it. For several months.


I completed the main part of the shawl and had only to make the narrow knit-on border. This would be a new experience for me. But I had already figured out knitting lace--how hard could a tiny border be?




Well, pretty hard. It had me flummoxed. Three new skills at once were too many--the provisional cast-on, the lace pattern itself, and the actual attaching of the border on the shawl. It all sounded doable on paper, but when I tried to put it all together I ended up with confusion. And confusion in that blasted Kidsilk Haze is to be avoided at all costs since it's virtually un-froggable.

I tried knitting the lace pattern in scrap yarn to get a handle on the pattern's workings. I knit it over and over and over again. Only 12 stitches and an 8 row repeat, for goodness sakes! I wrote out each row and that helped, but stitch counts still weren't coming out right. And being unable to handle a pattern over a measly 12 stitches was damn frustrating.

I'm very happy to say that I sat down with it all over the weekend and figured it out. Eureka! The clouds parted and Kidsilk Haze gods smiled down on me. Everything came together.

It all came down to figuring out the charted directions on binding off TWO STITCHES in the pattern and most especially, realizing that the border isn't actually knit on a separate set of needles. Slap to forehead!

It's all happening!

Friday Archives

A new meme! I'm jumping on board Loobylu's Friday Archives bandwagon, unearthing things perhaps best left buried in the dusty vaults. Readers can marvel and/or snicker, as they desire.

We're traveling back to those days of yesteryear when quilters were taking first tentative steps. And mine were more tentative than most. My very first quilt was made in 1976, a baby gift. It was composed of 6 inch squares of red and white gingham and navy and white gingham, in various size checks. It was carried around and loved into oblivion. I guess that means it was a success, despite its being made of icky poly-cotton. The recipient is now grown, married, and mom to her own little daughter.

So that brings us to the oldest quilt I made that's currently in my possession. This was made as a baby quilt for my firstborn in late 1978. I loved it and was so pleased with it at the time.

OK, now this takes courage to show, but here it is:

All-cotton fabric was so hard to find. I'm quite sure the red sashing and backing fabric is a poly-cotton, and there's more of that darned gingham. I know the batting was a puffy polyester. ALL I could find. The backing was sewn onto the quilt pillowcase-style and then turned right side out. And I didn't even try to quilt it--I tied it with yarn.


I had to grow into the patience to quilt a quilt. The whole idea of actual quilting stitching seemed way overwhelming to me when I was in my 20s.

Amazing, isn't it--how we grow into loving the process? It's one of the rewarding things about getting older IMHO.

At the time, I was really pleased with the black calico in this quilt, and I used it to make a teddy bear for another friend's baby. In time, and not too much time as I recall, the color of the teddy bear faded out to nothing. So this quilt stays folded up in a cedar chest to retain as much color as possible.

And with this quilt, being kept in the dark and out of sight is probably the best thing. LOL

No Thinking Required

FINALLY it's spring enough around here to produce a few daffodils. After the winter we had in these parts, even this little bit of color is HUGE.

Over the last three weeks, I've been taking a class in the website design program Dreamweaver. The library website is my baby, and up to now, we've worked in FrontPage. Several years ago, FrontPage seemed pretty challenging to learn, but Dreamweaver--sheesh! I'm expected to understand the file structure of a website? And CSS? and HTML?? None of that was really necessary for using FrontPage.

My brain is stretched to the max.

Something is going to have to start making sense soon, because the entire library system changes servers in two months, and everything has to be up to snuff in Dreamweaver by that point.

It's been nice to come home and spend some evening time with the Serendipity quilt, especially since I decided to go with the mindless squiggle quilting.

Mindless is the operative word here. Right about now, that's a good thing.

Light on the Subject

Something new for the sewing room--two new clamp-on adjustable arm lights from Dick Blick.

My ceiling lights are full-spectrum but are recessed behind panels. I've always needed task lighting too, and my ironing area has always been especially shadowy. This is the perfect and reasonably priced solution. And as long as I was buying one lamp, I ordered a second one for my work table.

::::::

Saturday was tied up with a volunteer appreciation luncheon at the library but I was determined to accomplish something today. I started quilting the Serendipity. So many triangles in the piecing--I had thought I'd do something I hadn't done in years: quilt some continuous curves. Started with this but decided it looked AWFUL.

And so I spent most of the afternoon ripping out the start I made. Few things are less fun than ripping out machine quilting. The ripping takes much longer than the sewing...


I just have no patience with free-handed quilting that needs hit the mark, like ditch quilting and continuous curve. And I sure don't have the patience take the time to mark for quilting. As if! Give me some nice freehand squiggles any day.

Mail Call

Saturday's mail brought an incredible box of color and imagination. It's a wonder the lid stayed secure to the box and didn't blow off from the sheer POW of what was inside.

Look: a box of glorious African fabrics from the huge heart of Lil from Luxembourg.


Can you believe the generosity of Internet friends? A couple weeks ago, I posted this photo of my sewing room on Flickr.


Lil of Addicted (AKA fissiett) commented on the African fabrics and asked me if I needed any more. She said she had piles and piles of them, purchased in Paris in 7 yard cuts.

Of course I need more. *grin*

And so the box arrived today--five days from Luxembourg to Wisconsin BTW--and I am just beyond excited. This is the sort of thing that just sends me around the bend.





So much fun--some of the motifs are like nothing in the world:


I think this one is my favorite of the whole bunch:


I also think an African fabric quilt has suddenly moved to the head of the queue.