From the Crane Motel

This morning's wakeup call was the cranes right outside the kitchen door, screaming that raucous and echoing call. "Bring corn!" No one could sleep through that! By the time I got downstairs and grabbed the camera, I was too late for the main event which was Papa Crane beating on a window with his beak. That's right. He was beating on the window with his beak. What the....?

They hung out in the back yard all day and returned to beat on the window twice more. It was quite the little dance--pounding on the window accompanied by lots of wing flapping. These birds have to have a wingspan of five feet or so--the wing flapping is pretty impressive. We went out and checked for what the crane was seeing in the window: it had to be himself. Too funny.

It's been a lazy weekend. But I did get the little blue and orange piece quilted.

I like to do sort of a topographical map style of echo quilting, with the occasional curlicue thrown in. This was Sulky Rayon thread, 30 weight, alternating between turquoise and orange, using a 60 needle.

I'm not a minimalist quilter. What can I say? This is Diane Gaudynski country. She taught us all.

When I got done with the quilting, I could see that there was way too much border. So, what the heck--I went at it with the rotary cutter, and voila-- the wavy border. The quilt is on the floor here; hence the funny angle to the shot.

Everyone's a Critic

A very nice ending to a long week: I arrived home tonight to discover the new Fall issue of Interweave Knits in the mailbox. It was the perfect thing for Friday night couch-sitting, for decompressing, and for gradually loosening the mental springs that have been wound pretty tightly all week.

I'm not going to say I'm looking forward to fall, but I do love wool, and there were any number of intriguing looking patterns and ideas in this issue. Yes, there are some dogs and downright unattractive creations, but I saw more to like than to cringe at.

That said, Glasgow Lace, a sweater by Sharon Shoji, manages to make a young model look thick-waisted and dumpy. Bad proportions. This is the sort of thing that kept me from wanting to get serious about knitting for oh, thirty years or so. And the same model does her best to no avail in the Western Point Skirt by Annie Modesitt. Do they really think anyone will make this? I can't see much reason to EVER knit a skirt. It's a bad case of butt-spring waiting to happen.

And then there was this in an ad. I see some quilt inspiration here but as a garment? This woman looks happy enough but I'm worried she may snag herself on something.

OK, enough snarkiness. Seeing lots of glorious knitting possibility and knowing I'm nearing the end of my Kimono Shawl, I start to allow myself to think toward the Next Big Project. Since I saw Rosedale United , designed by Amy Swenson, in Knitty a couple years ago, I've had a hankering to try it. And I bought a nice big load of Kureyon on sale last fall.

Rosedale United , designed and modelled by Amy Swenson.

Oh joy! The time may be right! I love this design--the block of intarsia on the front is brilliant. Subtle but very effective. And the idea of making the self-striping yarn work for you in more than one way is right up my alley. I'm the type who loves to include bias pockets and flaps and cuffs and plackets when sewing with stripes or plaids.

I do drive myself crazy sometimes.

July Seams

The monthly Seams group get-together was tonight. So glad I went. I'm still feeling a bit dragged down from the battle with the cold--so much so that when show and tell started, I didn't have the energy to find my camera. It seemed like most everyone had handwork--at least half of us were knitting, a couple were hand-piecing, and one person was doing needlepunch.

It's good to be with friends you can talk to. One of our group is dealing with the breakup of a daughter's marriage. She needed to talk and we were there to listen. Sometimes that's all you can do and hope it helps ease the burden just a bit.

It was great to see Kasia tonight. It's hard to believe that it's now been more than a decade since we spent a couple years working together at The Quilt Shop and Bernina Dealership Which Shall Remain Nameless. Those were.........interesting times, but despite the, shall we say, capricious nature of the shop owner, we'd still agree our time was well spent. We learned our way around Bernina machines and sergers (actually being paid to travel and take classes on using them), amassed huge stashes of fabric, quilt-related books, and other sewing implements, and met a lot of other quilters and sewers, most of whom are still in our lives. The jobs went away but the friendships remained.

I'd tally that up as profit.

Kasia is blogless but now has a website, which is looking good despite still being a work in progress. Her bright colors and spiritual approach are carrying her along on her journey.

Sniff....

Not much to say; I'm on my way to bed. I've been fighting off a cold for the last couple days. Not sure yet which side is winning. I made it through today in a super-caffeinatedly fueled state thanks to multiple 44 ounce Diet Cokes. I'm not a huge McDonald's fan but I'm sure loving the extra large soda special this summer. Oh yes.

Above is my "mistake block" orange and turquoise quilt, made two weeks ago. Blogger finally let me upload a photo. Pieced and layered but not quilted. Nothing real special but we'll see if the quilting perks it up...

The past two evenings have been spent on the couch knitting. Some progress on the shawl! I'm determined to have it finished and be on to new challenges by Wildcat in mid-September. Six repeats to go--at my abysmally slow knitting speed, that is a fairly reasonable goal. Speedy knitters: I bow before you in humble admiration.

Black Despair

Do you use much black fabric in your quilts? Have you ever had black fabric weaken and disintegrate within a few weeks or months of the quilt's completion?

This has happened to me twice.

It was 1991. The second bed-sized quilt I made was a Broken Star, made in shimmery jewel tones on black, for my then 12-year old daughter. Within ten days of its being laid proudly onto her bed, it was torn. I looked closely and realized with horror that I could pinch a bit of the black fabric, pull on it, and watch it tear. As they say, like buttuh. The chain store where I had purchased my fabric readily replaced it, but they couldn't replace the hours I had spent piecing and quilting. I determined to be done with chain store fabric forever, even though the nearest real quilt shop for me at that time was a full 15 miles away.

Several years later, I made a scrappy Stars and Steppingstones quilt, in red and black, for my son's bed. Within a few months of its completion, it too had developed ripped areas and areas where the fabric was thinner and more see-through than any Civil War-era heirloom quilt would be. The offending fabric was a commonly seen one--a tone on tone black moire print. And this WAS a quilt shop fabric, made by Benartex.

I repaired both quilts, and so far the other black fabrics in both quilts have held up. But I remain hugely gun-shy about black cotton.

Yesterday I got an email from my friend Renee, who tells me that one of the black fabrics in a quilt she made half a dozen years ago is shredding. I've referred to Renee here before as the Queen of Making All Things As Complicated As Possible. She is such an artist! This was a wonderfully scrappy bed quilt in blacks and turquoises, full of Renee's trademark complicated piecing, excellent fabric choices, and intricate, heavy quilting.

Wonderful except for one thing of course--one of those blacks is now going bad.

A few years back I was at Quilt Market and had a chance to speak to Harriet Hargrave during an autograph session. She was promoting her book on cotton--who better to ask about this problem? She told me the issue was sulphur-based dyes which are still in somewhat common use in the cotton industry. Sulphur-based dyes are undetectable to the consumer. In other words, it's buyer beware.

This is all so unacceptable that it boggles the mind. So many of us have been quilting for years, have well-honed skills, and would like to think we're constructing a body of work that will outlive us and give joy to our descendants, as well as making artistic statements about Who We Are. But when the fabrics don't remain intact (or color-true) for as much as a decade, the whole quilting enterprise starts to look a little bit futile.

I'm SO distressed about all this.

Quieter

Caroline is packed up and gone and at this moment is somewhere in the air between here and Washington, D.C. As always, it was a delight having her home. No lack of action--she managed to squeeze in three days work at an area Gap store, see a good percentage of her friends in a hundred mile radius, and get all caught up with the family too. Oh, and do her laundry.

Last night, all of us, Will included, journeyed down to meet Rose and Jeff, along with two of their three daughters, for a pizza at The Silo, which has been one of our favorite places for Chicago-style pizza since WE were in college. Getting us all together in one place, at one time, in Chicago-area Friday night rush hour traffic, was a logistical project, but the traffic gods smiled and it worked out perfectly. It had been so long since we'd all been together that we brought birthday gifts for all three of the girls, and they brought a birthday gift for me.

Caroline's Booga Bag is also off to its second start, bigger and better than the first start. I think the size changes will work out well. I also think this is a great project for her--not a huge commitment of time and skill, and will fit in well with her studies, which must take first priority of course. I'm hoping she'll get hooked on knitting and want to venture farther into it all. But you need some successes to build on. I think she'll be able to figure out the I-Cord on her own with no problem.

Next time, quilting content of a very distressing sort.

Booga Booga Booga

Knitting content!

OK. Caroline cast on the Booga Bag last night and it's teeny. As you start up the sides, it's only 100 stitches. I have serious misgivings about the size of this thing once it's felted. The sample bag we saw at Lakeside Fibers was a nice size. It was also made from Noro Kureyon.

66 2/3% of my felting experience has been with Cascade 220 and both times it felted up into a nice dense fabric and shrunk a good deal. Perhaps the Kureyon shrinks less?

I emailed the Booga Bag designer today and was very pleased to have a response back within half an hour. She says that yes, the bag was designed with Kureyon in mind and we might want to do it bigger in the Cascade.

So I did a bit of research, going back over the patterns I had made, checking the stitch counts and checking the size of the finished product. I think it needs to be about 35-40% bigger than it is here. Maybe 135 stitches or 140 instead of the 100 there are now.

I want Caroline to have a good experience with this. Her colors are dynamite--two nice nerve-jangly greens. The pattern is cool. What's not to love?

A Day in Madison

Wednesday we did a field trip to Madison, always a good idea for a day's activity. The U of Wisconsin is Caroline's alma mater and she was amazed and a bit nostalgic to see the growth and change. But it's good to see that even with high-rise condos sprouting and continual new building on campus, that Madison still Madison. There are still gypsy-clad Tarot readers and street musicians on State Street, lots of folks with blue hair, politics in the air, and interesting people-watching opportunities like no other place else I know.

We picked up my cousin Jane at the Law Library and strolled the Wednesday Farmers' Market. Wish I'd thought to bring a bigger tote--such an abundance of fabulous things. We did buy honey, beeswax candles, and cheese bread. Lunch was at Tutto Pasta, now in an additional location near the Square. Many good meals there over the years.

After lunch, we walked Jane back to the Library, strolled State Street, and then headed to Lakeside Fibers, for the Real Business of the day. Back in the late winter, I had bought some gorgeous pink yarn to make the Forbes Forest scarf in Pam Allen's Scarf Style. Recently I realized how misguided my thinking had been. The Forbes Forest is supposed to be evocative of forest-y things. Of course I had to correct the situation by buying more yarn. Green yarn. I found what I needed easily. And Caroline , who doesn't get into as many yarn shops as she should, was very enamored of the felted bags. She's just starting out as a knitter and decided she needs to make the Booga Bag. So we stocked up on materials and she's good to go.


The one issue is her lack of free access to a washing machine, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Summer in The Gwon

No fiber content whatsoever. Just an illustration, or three, of life around here in Mukwonago (or The Gwon, as the kids call it) in the summer. Our cranes are here in the back yard most of every day, and this year it's mom, dad, and a young one. So interesting to watch, and they seem to have very little fear of humans. But they should love us--after all, we ARE the ones dishing out the limitless amounts of cracked corn.
Meanwhile, out the front door, we're also feeding a family of chipmunks. They manage to go through a good amount of corn also. Boris watches dispassionately and Boris's presence doesn't seem to faze the chipmunk very much either.

Finally, Boris and I. This picture was needed for a Librarians and Their Pets thing at the library, so here it is, for your amusement.

Rainbow Bright

We've hit the wall of high summer. The mercury sits in the mid to high 90s and is likely to remain there for the forseeable future. I'm not complaining, just saying. Hot weather is fine with me. So much better than the alternative, which is February.

I'm just loving my little Omron pedometer. I'm finding it adds to my incentive to keep going and going further, like taking the stairs and not the elevator, parking and walking, rather than moving the car to various points in one strip center. Not one day has come in under 10,000 steps since the pedometer arrived. I've added to my walking route and can realistically do 5.5 miles on days I have the time. Walking works off a depressingly small number of calories though--there's a readout for that on the pedometer too. But it's much better than not walking at all.

It's great to be sewing again. This weekend a small wall hanging has come together from the mistake blocks of the Strips That Sizzle project. Note that the main quilt is just a pile of blocks as yet. This is the second leftover-block quilt top made in the last month. That's an odd work pattern, isn't it? But I think it says something about my psychological state--less stress in playing with the extra blocks than in doing the tough work on the REAL quilts. No picture of this quilt yet.

I also finished the quilting on a small--10" X 18" quilt that came out of the Melody Johnson class I attended last January. Extra points for anyone who recognized the Melody Johnson-ness of this piece before seeing her name. According to the class plan, this was to be one-third of a larger piece with stylized swoopy leaves. Those leaves just weren't me. And truth to tell, I'm not sure that fusing is me. But I liked the lines on this piece and decided to finish it up as a tiny quilt. It's flat--just doesn't look that way in the photo.

I plan to embellish with a few little buttons to give it a touch of extra dimension. And then it will be a finished project.

Finally, thanks to Joni Miles, who has agreed to take over the administration of the Fiber Arts Bloggers. This nice general category seems to suit well for what I do, a bit of this and a bit of that.

This should be a fairly action-packed week coming up, but unfortunately may not include much quilting. My daughter Caroline, a law student living in Washington, D.C., is flying in this afternoon for a few days' visit. Things always move fast when Caroline's around, and she always has lots of ideas to keep me busy. Right now I need to head to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on dinner. All four of us will enjoy dinner together for the first time since last December. We're having a make-your-own enchilada bar with chipotle chicken, guacamole, two kinds of salsa and all the trimmings. Strawberry/blueberry shortcake for dessert.

From the ILL Desk

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is one of my main responsibilities at the library. You give me a book request, and no matter how lamebrained it is, and no matter how goofy I think you are, I will research it, find it, and order it for you. And I'm usually able to find what people want.

Today I got to be on the receiving end. It was an extraordinarily good ILL day for me.

A few weeks ago I saw a fabulous star quilt on a blog. It looked to be just what I've been thinking of--a challenging project for the collection of blues I've been saving for quite awhile. Or maybe for the collection of reds I've been saving. And wouldn't it also be very cool in blacks and whites and brights...

I would love to heap a little glory on the maker but after searching till my eyes crossed I just cannot find the blog or the post at this point. The maker credited a book by Laura Nownes simply called Star Quilts. Published in 1991 and long out of print, I ordered it through Interlibrary Loan and two weeks later, voila:

This book came from a Baton Rouge, Louisiana library to me in Wisconsin and the quilt is as wonderful as I thought it would be. Lots of stuff going on and ample opportunity to use fabric in a way to increase the action even more.I haven't done anything this straight and traditional in a good long while but I'm totally enthralled with this quilt! If the blogger who posted the photo of this quilt--spread on a table, I believe--reads this, please let me know so I can thank you. You have no idea how you've inspired me.

And what light years we've travelled in quilting since 1991! The book provides templates for all the pieces, with an equal weight of authority given to scissors cutting and rotary cutting methods. Times have changed, haven't they? I'm going to reproduce the quilt in Electric Quilt, probably alter the size, and rotary cut all the way.

My friend Renee, the Queen of Making Things as Complicated as Possible, would probably reduce this quilt, shown at 72" square, to 36". I probably won't go that far, but my wall quilt hangers are all 60" wide. I have a week-long retreat coming up in September and if I get things prepared and cut, I can just process-sew to my heart's content.

This ILL book came today too.

I was curious to see Denyse Schmidt Quilts after reading Denyse Schmidt's posts over at Whipup, seeing her creations in magazines, and visting her website. After looking at the book, I totally get it. I can see how widely her influence has spread among young sewers and crafters. It sure can be seen on lots of blogs! The cute blobby little "softies" dolls, the Log Cabins made of dissonant mid-century prints, the minimalist approach to design and color. Her modern-art take on color and design is fresh, new, and definitely non-traditional. I can see how young quilters, sick to death of their mothers' Debbie Mumm and Thimbleberries quilts, would embrace this look. But though I like some of what I see in her book, parts of it strike me as very simplistic. Long on sophisticated design, a bit short on solid technique and quilterliness. For the quilter interpreting some of the designs in the book, there would be an exceedingly fine line to tread between stunning visual success and somewhat less.

But then, I like busy-ness and I like a lot of quilting. My work will never ever be described as minimalistic. That said, I definitely see some ideas in this book that I'd like to file away for future reference.

Happy weekend!

From the Land of Chalk Drawings

Greetings!

This has been a week of many children at the library. Yesterday we held what will probably end up being The Big Event of the summer--a picnic (whose activities included the chalk drawings seen above) followed by a visit from the Creepy Crawly Zoo Guy. The Zoo consisted of a very energetic young man in a pith helmet and a number of cases of large and impressive live insects which he talked about and then let the kids come up and handle freely. Nearly 150 kids! He prepped the kids well on the careful handling of insects and on what not to do--as in don't put the millipede down your sister's neck. The kids behaved beautifully and it was all a big success.

The lovely Maria, our Children's Services Person, the Goddess of Summer Reading, deserves a medal. Or a week on a beach somewhere. And she should get to choose.

I spent this evening playing with scraps and mistake blocks. This is all before ever beginning the quilt that's to be made with the "good" blocks. There seems to be a pattern of this developing--this is the second leftovers quilt I've worked on in a month. Mistakes, of course, are relative in quilting--these blocks were cut incorrectly for the main project but that's irrelevant in this set. And so often a mistake is a "design opportunity". We're making lemonade here, folks! Stay tuned to see how this develops.

I was watching CNN as I worked tonight. So much sadness in the world as wars expand and ordinary people in many countries aren't safe in their homes. May all the madness end soon.

This and That, with Cookies

I spotted this at Ben Franklin when I was on my second kunin felt buying trip Sunday morning. I'm pretty fussy about which books I buy but there are three wildly divergent kinds of quilt books I like. I can't resist well-written technique books, like this one. I always learn something new and it beefs up my quilting technical reference library. And doesn't that sound pompous?

On the emotional level, I always get caught up with the quilting history books, especially the ones published by the various states. My interest in history and antique needlework is what led me to quilting in the first place. Even if I don't make all that many traditional quilts anymore, the romance of the historical quilting books draws me in every time. I tear up just thinking about "A Piece of Ellen's Dress" from Linda Otto Lipsett's Remember Me: Women and Their Friendship Quilts. Wisconsin connections in that one...

And in the last few years, I've been buying art quilt books. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Nancy Crow book! These art quilt books don't have a lot of technique and explanatory stuff, nor do they draw you in on the heart level. But they do pack a wallop and they often keep me awake at night.

And with all of these types of books, you have to strike while the iron is hot--they tend to go out of print fast. So I don't allow myself to begrudge $25 for a book. I'm worth it.

Insane busy at work. The summer reading program careens on, with many, many more kids than last year. The mushrooming growth of the exurbs is obviously not a myth. Piles and piles of picture books, dinosaur books, sports books, Star Wars books. Tomorrow is a picnic event at the library, which is why I spent a good deal of my evening slaving over a hot stove rather than sewing.

I made cookies for tomorrow. Look at my cool recipe leaflet from the early 60s.

This little book lives inside my beloved Betty Crocker cookbook (which is literally falling apart). Not sure how I came to acquire the leaflet but something tells me it was from my mother. It has all kinds of great peanut butter recipes in it--cakes, breads, candies, pies, and the cookies I made tonight--peanut butter oatmeal.

And if the kids at the library picnic tomorrow don't like them, that's OK. All the more for us to share in the workroom. Ha!

Last night I didn't make it into the sewing room, but did make it to the couch to finish repeat seventeen of the Kimono Shawl, while catching up with season two of the Sopranos. And speaking of thugs, Boris may approve or else he may be reproaching me for not having been done with the damn thing four months ago already.

Playing on Sunday

A fairly productive weekend. I found myself at Ben Franklin Saturday buying several yards of nasty polyester kunin felt. (Back in my retail display days I got thoroughly spoiled by endless bolts of 60 inch-wide 100% wool felt. I'll admit it: I am an unrepentent wool snob.)

But the poly felt has one advantage over the wool felt. It will melt.

To begin at the beginning: I'm playing with elements to add to my Ephemera quilt and wanted to explore the idea of a gnarly tree branch. My friend Casey has done some very cool things with kunin felt and a heat gun and I've been reading about other artists' experiences with it in Cloth Paper Scissors.

But nothing I ever do is well-thought out and organized the first time. Hey, I'm an artist. What do you expect? Even in this era of nearly $3.25 a gallon for gas, I had to make two trips to the Oconomowoc Ben Franklin for felt, each round trip being about 40 miles.

So Sunday afternoon I played with my heat gun and learned a lot. The top photo shows the before shot, with plain felt. The bottom shot shows the burned and tortured final product. And I love the disclaimer on the heat gun: "This is not a hair dryer".

I auditioned the melted felt with the quilt and decided it was far too busy. It needs a simpler shape. But luckily I have two yards more of each of four different colorways of the kunin felt. I have plenty more to play with until the right effect is achieved.

My sewing buddies have been struck with the Mumbo Gumbo bug this spring and summer. Our monthly sewing group has been awash in these happy but berzerko quilts, and our recent Glen retreat saw at least four of them underway. Everyone tossed all their scraps in a heap and shared. It was great. Check out my friend Sue's more controlled color scheme in hers.

I was asked to contribute several Mumbo Gumbo blocks to a gift quilt and now I seem to be on the bandwagon too. At least partially. I'm not sure I want to make a whole quilt myself--it's fun for sure, but I have other things on my agenda right now. But these blocks look super, don't they? A whole quilt of this would be pretty neat. And as these quilts go, this is a TIGHT color scheme.

All activities Sunday night were brought (literally) to a crashing halt by a big storm that passed through. We only got caught by an edge of it, but still, as so often happens here and as no amount of complaining to the power company ever seems to change, our power went out for nearly two hours. And I guess we're lucky. As of this evening, there are still homes in the area without power.

I have learned to keep candles and oil lamps at hand and usually need them several times a year, sometimes for hours on end. It's hard to understand why an area of buried utilities loses power so often, and for so long.

Chaos Theory Quilting

I've been posting progress on my sober little Mile-a-Minute quilt, but it's not the first Mile-a-Minute I've made. I was intrigued with the technique when I first saw it outlined in an issue of American Quilter about five years ago and filed the idea away for future reference. It looked like a great way to use up scraps. Mile-a-Minute is nothing more than process-sewing--an assembly line method for producing Crazy-type blocks

A couple years ago, I was headed to a quilt retreat, and was in the mood for a project that would require no thinking. So I took along a big Rubbermaid bin of scraps and got busy. You see the end result above. My determination to make the entire quilt out of stash was my tragic flaw in this quilt. I realized the scrappy blocks would benefit from some unifying but the only fabric I had in sufficient quantity to use for sashing and borders was a busy blue batik, and I went with it.

It makes for a quilt that, while looking well-organized in theory, is really on the verge of being totally out of control. There's nowhere for the eye to rest and no real focal point either. I should have put a bit more thought into the sashing and borders. Let that be a lesson to me...

Still, it's a finished project and that's always something to celebrate. And I learn more about color and design with every quilt I make.

Last post, I was considering moving way out of my comfort zone and experimenting with Lutradur as a way to make a tree branch element to include in my Ephemera quilt, which has been in process for about four years now. No ready access to Lutradur around here so I went with something readily available--polyester kunin felt and a heat gun. I've been playing with the effects all day. This isn't quite ready for photogrpahy yet, but so far, so good.

Trust me to get the bright idea to fire up the heat gun in mid-July.

Of Leftovers and Lutradur

Here's the Leftovers Quilt top all finito. Now I don't claim this is rocket science, and I can guarantee that this one will never see the hallowed halls of Paducah, but it will be a nice quilt to curl up under for my daughter, as she watches her beloved Law and Order reruns. I'd like to think it has the slightest bit of edge to it.

Speaking of TV, I'm planning an evening of finishing up season three of Curb Your Enthusiasm under a nice fuzzy half-knit shawl. Also, I'm researching embellishment ideas for the Ephemera quilt. I saw something in the latest Cloth Paper Scissors that really piqued my interest... It's called Lutradur, and I'd love to hear from anyone who's had any experience with it.

Yesterday I hit 15,000 steps but today we're hovering in the neighborhood of 11,000. Still meeting the goal of 10,000, but somehow it seems a bit wimpy. I thought about walking again tonight but -eh- I didn't.

Productivity

The only thing better than having aTuesday off is to have had Monday off also. Mr. Kathie had the nice long weekend; I had only today but I made the most of it. After all, summer is short; one has to grab the gusto. And the berry shortcake.

I did my long, long walk today, nearly five miles. (On the way I saw my ambitious neighbor who walked a marathon last year. Now there is Dedication and Purpose.) Anyway, I'm poised at the brink of 15,000 steps on the day. I wish the WOMAN Challenge lasted longer than just through this week. I like being able to log steps online and I like the dopey little congratulatory messages. Makes me feel like an athlete. And what a joke THAT is.

Output today (and I do have some...): this funky little mini piece:

I have a quilting friend, whom I see all too seldom as her job has taken her into the wildest regions of Up North, about five hours Up North from here. She made it to our Glen retreat, and as always, kept us laughing. The weekend's running joke was her alleged cowboy boyfriend, and gittin' the little dogies along, bellying up to the chuck wagon, twirlin' the lasso, and every other lame Western cliche you can imagine. So this little cowboy vignette is for her. The Little Buckaroo is me, cap pistol and all.

I've also finished the central portion of the Leftovers Quilt, using the scraps from the Ephemera piece. Good grief--this one is closer to completion than Ephemera. It's easy to make quilts that you don't have to think about.

And finally, I had time to play a bit with Ephemera. I had hoped to get collage elements in place but art doesn't move that quickly. At least not for me. I fused some of the photos and miscellany to manila tags. I plan to embellish them and use them in the quilt.

All in all, not bad, especially for a notorious slacker like me. NOW it's time to kick back, watch that Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD, and knit.

The Fourth

I never thought I would make a Fourth of July quilt. I'm not a real flag-waving type and have always avoided the red-white-blue color combo for that reason. But several years ago, our long-running Wisconsin Quilters listserv did a flag block swap. At that year's Glen retreat, someone (I think it was Maaaaary) was working on hers and devised a border for the quilt that just made the whole thing sing.

I decided I wanted in. So I proposed a second swap to the list. Response was good but then 9/11 happened and response got a whole lot better. I think we eventually had about 30 swappers. I was happy to run the swap--I got to be the boss, laid down fabric-quality and workmanship rules, and everyone followed them pretty well.

This is my end-product and it pleases me a lot. Sorry for the angled photo but the flag is currently hanging in an upstairs landing area of my house and a head-on view would have called for balancing on top of railings above my entry hall. More risk than I care to take for a blog photo!

This is the only quilt I've ever made that inspired any opinions from my DH. He felt strongly about the outer border--that the red sawteeth should lie on the outside. I think he was absolutely right.

This Fourth of July, I'm grateful to be living in a country where dissent, free thought, and civil discourse can happen. And for godssake, let those Rainbow Family people have their gathering out West in peace!

Vintage Dreaming

I had a couple errands and returns and so did a quick drive up to Brookfield this morning. But rats! I had misplaced my JoAnn's coupon, so no 40% savings for me. I would like to have stocked up on printable fabric sheets but at the regular price of $25 for 10 sheets, I'll wait till I do have a coupon. I guess I'll survive till then.

So I consoled myself with a trip through Harry W. Schwartz, our area's wonderful independent bookstore, and came out with these two very cool books. Of course I love vintage anything, and I'm amassing a fair stash of vintage fabrics. These books have some great ideas for using them and also are full of diverting eye candy, as in pictures of stylish homes of other people.

I have a couple projects in mind--I have some great pieces of barkcloth and other vintage fabrics and I'm just dying to do something with them. This one above has provenance--I remember curtains in my grandmother's house made out of this nice nubbly barkcloth. It's been laundered, so it's mellow and broken in.

This is also from my grandmother's stash, but I don't recall this ever have been actually made into something. I love the mellow salmon color.

This is a vintage piece I actually paid money for at an antique shop in Milwaukee. I love the scribbly lines around the floral motifs. It just gives me all kinds of ideas for stitch embellishment.

And finally, I can't speak of my grandmother's house without a fond thought in her direction. She was widowed young and raised five children alone. She was a most talented seamstress and had to use those skills, along with every one of her quick wits, in an era with no Social Security and no multi-million dollar wrongful death lawsuits. She spent many years toiling in a casket factory, sewing fine fabrics into casket linings. I can't imagine a much more depressing occupation. I'm sure she would much rather have been home quilting.

I can relate.

I think she's crocheting here. I just love that I have a photo of her doing needlework.