Just-spring and Old Lace

This is Just-spring around here--from sunny 80 degrees F two days ago to mid-40s and blustery with chill-you-to-the-bone rain today. The best I can offer is last fall's leaves and mossy muck. But there is hope--flowers are poking up; we're on the upswing.

Borders are sewn on the wonky quilt and are looking much better. The backing fabric is seamed and ready to go. But the latest setback (and it seems that there always has to be a setback) is that I have no quilt batting the right size. This will entail a 40 mile round-trip drive to remedy. And that's not going to happen today as I have to represent the library at a business function tonight (and miss my monthly Seams group get-together too, I might add).

New books:

I finally received my copy of Lace Style by Pam Allen and Ann Budd.

(After putting in a pre-pub order from Amazon, I was not happy to see it in stores weeks and weeks before I received my copy.)

I have to say I was not as blown away by this book as I expected to be. Many of the projects are garments and I just don't care for many of them. I don't like shrugs at all, at least not for me, and I doubt I will ever make a knitted tank or camisole top or leg warmers. I don't immediately see several projects I want to make, as was the case with Scarf Style. This cover sweater is interesting, and after this past year's Christmas knitting, I think I have mastered the feather and fan. But would it look as good in real life? Not so sure.

BUT--sound the trumpets--Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby!!

I am in love. Ms. Sowerby has studied 19th century knitting manuals and has puzzled through the mire of arcane Victorian knitting directions (or lack of same), transcribing and adapting them, and presents a wealth of gorgeous and doable projects. Just the photos of her old knitting books made my heart beat faster.

And she uses the old words, like fichu. The idea of a young 21st century woman sauntering along wearing a fichu, is just too charming. Many, many scarves and shawls from the approachable to the way-beyond.

She even details how to make your knitting look old--a concept I just love, although it never would have occurred to me that I needed or wanted to make my knitting look old. At least it hadn't occurred to me yet. But I always have loved the look of quilts made to look old. Antique-looking knitting would be the next step.

It has been such a happy surprise to me that I have gotten into this kind of knitting. A few years ago, I would have never guessed...

OK. I'm writing this at work. This morning is Preschool Storytime and a gigantic pile of picture books is tottering in our Returns area, waiting to be checked in. I'd best get to it.

Too Much Wonk

I finally made it to the sewing machine on Sunday afternoon, sewed solid black (well, not totally solid: Moda marble black) borders on the Wonky Quilt, and then spent the rest of the afternoon ripping them off because they were wonky too--ripply and bad. Would they "quilt out"? I finally decided I couldn't live with that idea and got busy with the seam ripper.

Sigh. And so it goes.

The plan is to sew borders on and quilt the piece, and then figure out how to wonkify the borders, delaying the decision-making as long as possible. This is so like me.

I debated making the outer edges wavy. But that seems kind of un-intuitive when waves don't figure into any other part of the quilt. I like a little thematic referencing. I may end up making the piece trapezoid-shaped, with the borders wider at the bottom.

Or something.

I do like the black borders framing the body of the quilt. I just have to use my head and get them on so they aren't flapping all over the place. I know how to do this. I just have to do it. And why didn't I do it in the first place? That's the question.

Also this weekend, some killer bean soup.


And I finished this most enjoyable book:


This author nails it--the speech patterns, the attitudes, and the cultural richness of the Caribbean. My daughter spent two years in the U.S. Peace Corps, posted on a small Caribbean island. (Not bad at all, as Peace Corps postings go.) Caro lived in a real neighborhood. We visited her several times and soaked up a bit of feel for real Caribbean culture--the kind you don't find at Sandals.

Some of the characters in Small Island are Jamaican emigres in World War II-era London. Paul and Mary, Caroline's Lucian landlord and landlady, had spent 40 years in London and had been able to retire back to St. Lucia. Theirs were the faces I imagined as I read this book.

Paul is over 70 and still could shinny up a coconut tree, cutlass in hand, to cut down coconuts for an impromptu backyard feast. Now there's an image I'll carry with me forever.

Anyway--very good book.

They're Back

Terrible picture quality--taken through a window screen and all--but this is a sign of spring to cheer about. Our sandhill cranes are back! The three of them were marching around the meadow in back one morning this past week.

We put out a bowl of cracked corn. Friday afternoon two of them returned. They found the corn and spent a good deal of time foraging for grubs around our trees, flapping their wings, digging in their feathers, and honking.

It's only a matter of time till they're beating their beaks raw on our windows once again.

To Sarona and Back

Boris is full of his usual contempt, but we'll see what sort of a tune he's singing in a couple weeks...

We took our trip Up North to Oak Tree Kennels (warning--there's music on their website) in Sarona, Wisconsin, this past weekend to visit the Westie puppy we'd only seen in pictures. I'm happy to say that she lives completely up to the promise we had seen in those photos and so, over Easter weekend, we'll trek back up to Sarona to pick her up and bring her home with us.

And her name is going to be Lucy. Not the best photo, but believe me, it was hard to keep her still. All but a few of my pictures are a white blur.

With the long car trip (five hours each way) there was plenty of time for silliness like this:

(note the snow)

and for lunch here--count 'em--thirty-three kinds of pie. It was my birthday--I had raspberry cream cheese pie.

And there was plenty of time for knitting.

This is three repeats into the new Kimono Shawl. Who knew lace shawls were like potato chips? I loved this one enough to do it all over again. Once again, I'm using Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift. This is color 153, Wild Violet. And the lanolin-y scent of this yarn is so clean and fresh. Ooh, I just love it.

And amazingly enough, I have one Trekking sock completed--all that's needed is the Kitchener stitch across the toes.

I've had enough doctor's visits and meetings this winter to get some good sock knitting time. So maybe these will be done before Halloween and all you naysayers will be put to shame. Ha HA!

This pair is an experiment in needle size. I have one pair of Trekking socks made on size 1 needles and these are size 2. I already think I know the answer--I like the size 1 outcome better. I guess I knew I would.

This weekend upcoming will be an at-home weekend and I hope I can at least make it to the sewing machine. The wonky quilt awaits as well as a couple new projects I'm eager to get moving. Details to come...

The Doggy Life

It's been four+ years since our wonderful little Westie Roscoe died and we've been gradually working to get to the point where we could look at a new little doggy face around here.

Gradual is the operative word. Finding a good pup takes time, and we've been waiting since last spring, conferring with breeders, looking at litters, and getting ready.

The puppy we think will be ours was born on January 30. Early indications are looking good and this weekend we'll be driving up to northern Wisconsin to meet her and to check her out in person. She won't be coming home with us quite yet. But in a few weeks...

This is my cue to ask AM I CRAZY??????

Maybe so, but I miss the doggy life. Here we go headlong back into it...

Quilting Topography

The small crumby quilt is completed, wiggly edges and all. Wiggly on purpose, finished with the Melody Johnson Escape Hatch Finish.


I should have added some hand-stitching to it but the least line of resistance won out and it's all machine-quilted.


Wobbly echoing--my favorite way to quilt. I like to think I can credit my dad for that.

My dad was a very committed outdoorsman and fisherman. There is a poem or small prayer about wanting to die with a fishing pole in hand and, well, he almost literally did exactly that. As hard as it was to lose him, we took some comfort in that. There are worse ways to pass one's last day on earth than on a fishing excursion in a verdant New York State Park on a beautiful day in May.

Anyway, he had a stash of U.S Geologic Survey maps delineating the wonderfully backwoodsy corner of Pennsylvania where we lived.


All the better to chart out his fishing and hunting forays. I still have all those maps. I always loved the sinuous lines of the topographic details. and fairly early on in my quilting career (hand quilting alert), I was trying out the idea of those lines in quilting.




Some judges weren't as enamored of the idea as I was. When the quilt below was in a show, the judge's notes said that the quilting did not add positively to the quilt.



Harrumph. Whatever... That's quilt judging for you.

Anyway, this has become my very favorite way to quilt. No marking is needed, except maybe one line to get you started. Then you echo that line, and improvise, and add some wiggles, and off you go. Very fun.

Sigh. During the week, things do get bogged down here, creatively-speaking, but this is a day when I go into work later--we're co-hosting a reception tonight with the local historical society and I get to do a presentation on local history and genealogy resources at the library. So that's the bad news--I'll be tied up at work till 8 or so.

Time to run...

Amazon.co.jp Luuuv

After ordering once from Amazon.co.jp, it's way, WAY too easy to order again. They remember all about me, in English, and there is no heart-in-the-mouth kanji terror.

And get this: I ordered these two books from Amazon.co.jp on Wednesday evening, March 7. The books were delivered here in Wisconsin on the afternoon of Friday, March 9.

Little Crumbs

Never let it be said that I'm a wasteful person. What was it that my mother used to intone as I rolled my eyes? "Willful waste makes woeful want." Yeah. That was it. Just typing it makes me want to roll my eyes.

And more to the point (as there's not much likelihood of a woeful want of fabric around here) money talks--these Carol Bryer Fallert hand dyes cost too much for me to just pitch the odds and ends.

So---Crumbs! My new quilting word of the week. Here's a little crumb quilt put together from the un-discardable leftover bits of the wonky quilt. Kind of fun. Not totally finished yet, but it's my optimistic hope to do that this week.

Something needs to get finished.

By Sunday the weather (and more importantly, the driveway) was clear so I drove over to Madison to visit the wonderful Stitcher's Crossing. Some friends and I will be doing a Serendipity class in a couple weeks and I needed a large quantity of just the right focus fabric. Stitcher's is high on my list for ambiance, range of fabric and yarn offered, and above all, the graciousness and generosity of its staff. They were very nice about my having about a dozen bolts draped all over their classroom as I pondered my options for two hours.

I considered the gorgeously expansive Japanese prints and some large florals but I'm just not that flowery a person. Strange but true. Maybe I got dropped on my head when I was a baby?

I ended up with this very cartoony fabric--I think there will be lots of options for play with this print. The way the Serendipity works, the fact that this fabric has bunnies and butterflies and kittens could be camouflaged very neatly. I'll be talking more (ad nauseam, I'm sure) about this project as I get going on it.

Also bought some other stash fillers
and the border fabric (lower left) that's had me halted on the wonky quilt. Yes, it's getting a border. I think.

Turnabout

This weekend was supposed to have been spent laughing and knitting with half a dozen or so friends at a cottage in central Wisconsin. Been looking forward to it for weeks.

But reality hit Friday morning with viciously blowing snow. I was packed and ready to take off for the cottage from work, but when the schools closed (and in turn, the library) at 1 p.m., that was the clue that perhaps this was not the best day for a several-hour-long road trip to a place where I'd never been.

I chickened out.

So, I phoned in my regrets to my hostess, who was at that moment en route to the cottage. She protested that the freeway was 'totally fine'. Well, that's dandy but I would first have to actually GET TO the freeway, 15 miles north on country roads, and that was looking highly unlikely. I set out for my drive home from the library in a total whiteout.

My long driveway was hugely drifted (The weather experts say we got only an inch and a half total accumulation all day but when there are 40+ mph winds, that is an extremely deceptive statistic.) and despite determinedly gunning the Beetle with a positive set to my jaw and an I-will-not-be-defeated attitude, I got solidly stuck driving in.

So much for mind over matter.

After an hour of digging, I got the car free and deposited more or less at the top of the driveway. It was nice to be able to rescue myself. One less job for Mr. Kathie, who has a sizable snow blowing job ahead of himself once the winds die down.

So I'm home this weekend. Not the worst possible outcome.