Unholy Mess, Tamed. Sort Of...

June Seams get-together last night.

At The Glen, Judy L. had asked me about Mile-a-Minute technique.

(Now there's an oxymoron...)

She was unsure just how to start. So we decided to bring scrap bins tonight and I was to do a little berzerko lesson on making these blocks. The written explanations may seem dense, but about a minute and a half worth of hands-on is all the tutorial needed.

Our Kara is a new quilter (so new she doesn't have many scraps) and was looking in on the Mile-a-minute-ing. We dug out some of the leftovers of the Mumbo Gumbos so she could give it a try too.

Kara was clearly underwhelmed.

Well OK. So it's not rocket science. And it's not great art or great quiltmaking. It's just a production-sewing way to burn through some scraps lickety split.

And I was digging in one of my scrap bins, I was amazed at the contents--some sizable hunks of decent fabric from yesteryear. I need to take a leaf from Bonnie Hunter and organize. She is absolutely my new idol.

It was a half hour's drive home from Seams. Then began the second half of the evening. I was so psyched--I dug through that bin till 1:00 a.m. and cut enough strips for a good-sized Log Cabin.



But what a wealth of other stuff too--tons of baggies of leftovers and false starts. There was a whole set of Bullseye Blocks in brights that I have no recollection of making.




There were sets of half-square triangles and hunks of pieced borders. Two bags, now combined, of multicolored batik strings. Scraps of everything from Tweetie Pie fabrics to Smithsonian repros, and everything in between. Green Bay Packer logo prints, anyone? Now here would be an orphan project challenge--trying to pull together something cohesive from all this...stuff.

Tonight I plan to dig to the bottom of this bin to see what other goodies await. When that's done, there is a second equally large bin. This should keep me busy for some time.

A Couple Quilts and a Bombshell

I'm really delayed getting pictures of the retreat projects up. Computer issues continue. I'll be getting a new computer, but for the time being I'm making do.

I'm also deficient at replying to comments. Please be patient with me.

Here is the completed Serendipity top! All ready to pin and quilt... Please note the pink triangles in the border, which required MATH to figure out and execute. The math wasn't really too difficult, but I'm not going to officially admit that. I'm going to be like the woman in that ad a few years back who used to sprinkle flour all over her face and clothes, just to make the family think she'd worked So Hard.

I'm pretty pleased and am contemplating another Serendipity.

Honky Tonk is done, but with a problem. It's not square enough. So the illusion in this picture is not an illusion.

I trimmed the borders so as to tilt the central portion of the quilt. Theoretically, it should have worked out to be just about square, but it's not. And now it's all bound. It's not uneven enough to look interesting. It's just uneven enough that it looks, well....uneven.

It's bothering me. Arrgh.

I think that the unsquareness of it is interfering with the effect of the tilting. I will whack off a bit and get it more to square. It won't be perfect but I don't care about absolute perfect. I just don't want to assault the eye.

Sound the trumpets! Personal news of the BIG variety: Daughter Caroline and her longtime beau Eric are now officially engaged.


They met in St. Lucia when she was a Peace Corps volunteer and he was working as an economic advisor to the government of St. Lucia.

We could not be more pleased!

No date is set yet--first we have to situate them in the same country. There are some immigration issues to be worked through as Eric is not a U.S. citizen and they hope to live in Washington, D.C. We have Plan A and Plan B. (Plan B is the scarier of the two as it involves a wedding in the VERY near future...)

More details will come as I learn them myself.

Back Home

Snapshots of summer in central Wisconsin; these places are near our retreat lodge.

Downtown Lodi, Wisconsin

Crossing the Wisconsin River on board the Merrimac Ferry, which is part of the Wisconsin highway system.

I'm back from a terrific four days at The Glen. It was a busy, productive time with a dozen and a half of my good quilty friends--lots of laughs and great food, lots of chocolate, a bit of wine, a few field trips, lots of walking on country roads, and above all LOTS of sewing time. Some pictures are here.

But arggh. I came home to what appears to be massive computer problems. There was a hint of trouble before the trip, and I determined to do a thorough backup once I was home. But things deteriorated very quickly. Right now I have documents and pictures backed up, but music and email is not secured. I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing right now.

And I'm back to work, dealing with the annual cataclysm known as Summer Reading Program.

Tons of kids. And their mothers.

Wednesday was the first of several events called Lunch Bunch--hot dogs and chips for 150 or so, followed by a fun musical performance.



It's a lot of craziness, but this is what summer is all about. And we'll be looking at these sunny pictures nostalgically come next January.

This week our public access computers have been busy with young Russian and Kazakh workers temporarily in the area. All I know about Kazakhstan could fit in a thimble but I would love to have told the Kazakh guys how much I enjoyed the Textile Museum's exhibit on Kazakh tent bands. Their English seemed shaky, but far more solid than my Kazakh and Russian. Too bad that language barriers exist. It sure makes communication and understanding difficult.

I got a great deal done at The Glen retreat. Honky Tonk is finished except for sleeve and label and the Feathered Star is at the hand-stitching-the-binding stage. Details and pictures to come...

Prepping and Packing

OK! Busy organizing and doing prep--quilt prep and food prep--for the annual Glen retreat which starts TONIGHT.

I love it when the weekend starts in the middle of the week.

There will be 17 of us and this is--the sixth year? The seventh year? Getting to be a tradition. Glen Valley Lodge is located in the Wisconsin Dells region, near Baraboo.

Projects making the trip:


1. Serendipity--all that's needed is its border and I'm just about positive I know what I want to do. At any rate, there will be 16 other opinions available to me should I need them.



2. Honky Tonk--the quilting is D-O-N-E. The finished shape of the quilt needs to be determined. I'm debating trimming the borders (not yet sewn on in the above picture) so that the inner part of the quilt is tilted. Not cast in stone. See that part about the 16 other opinions above.

3. Feathered Star--a UFO which predates digital photography and which has been languishing on a shelf for 5 or 6 years. The quilting is started. It's time to move this baby into the finished column.

4. Crossed Kayaks--hope to get the border pieced and attached.

5. Delectable Mountains/Kansas Troubles--reds and whites all cut and ready for production sewing.



6. The Kimono Shawl--sadly neglected these past few weeks.

7. Chicken Salad with Red Grapes and Pecans--my contribution to Thursday lunch.

Back Sunday night...

Glove-ing It

I always admire out-of-the-box thinkers who can repurpose an item into a whole new context.

When we were at the Jones Mansion a few weeks ago, there was an outstanding garden center nearby. A couple of the group visited and came back with more than just bedding plants, herbs, and glow-in-the-dark gazing balls.

Garden gloves. Purple ones.

My friend Diane waved them in the air. "Quilting!" was all she needed to say. By the time the weekend was over, we had stampeded the place and had cleaned out their stock of the gloves. The garden center staff was totally confused as to exactly why we wanted their gloves, but seemed happy enough to sell them to us.

Today I finally gave the gloves a test in the real world of my sewing studio and I give them high marks. They fit snugly and my hands retain enough dexterity to thread a needle.




The one caveat--they aren't cotton. My sewing area is in my basement and is always cool, but some quilters could find hands getting hot and sweaty.

All in all, I like.

I'm still prepping for next week's retreat. This is going to be a productive trip. I have border pieces all cut and ready for this one:


Someday I need to learn how to take a decent picture, don't I? Looks like it was taken with a fisheye lens!

This is Crossed Kayaks, made last fall at Wildcat, and folded up on a shelf ever since. I was pretty pleased with the look of this one and it's time to get on with it. I have a recipient in mind... The border will be a blue and brown checkerboard.

Working Through

I'm on my own this week-Mr. Kathie is on a business trip--and I'm trying to cram some fiber productivity into the meager spaces between work and walking Lucy, feeding Lucy, cleaning up after Lucy, etc., etc.


Honky Tonk is just about half quilted and I'm liking what I see. The mixed colors of thread are as much a product of "the good thread store is 35 miles away and gas is $3.50 a gallon" as arising from any particular artistic inspiration. But it seems to be working.

I'm also making lists in prep for next week's Glen retreat. Two big retreats in a month's time--how crazy is that? The Glen is a bigger group, but many of the same folks from May's Jones Mansion trip will be there. One week from now I'll be there.

With so many UFOs laying about, what's tops on my retreat agenda? A completely new project, of course. Last night I started cutting pieces for a long-planned fairly traditional red and white quilt.


In planning what pattern to use, I had been thumbing through books and saved pictures of favorites in my files. The way to go became obvious--I had saved a photo of a Nancy Martin Kansas Troubles and had also marked a Delectable Mountains quilt in an old Roberta Horton book. Virtually the same quilt. So that's what I'm aiming for. Hoping to make a dent in the red stash.

Visiting the Beauty Parlor

Our big event this weekend was Lucy's first visit to the groomer, the intrepid Ruth Ann. Lucy has been gifted with lots of hair and Ruth Ann blanched visibly when she saw her. It must be quite a challenge to give a haircut to a bouncy, wiggly, and nervous puppy.

But what a great job! Lucy really looks like a Westie now. Before:

And after:



Life with Lucy is still fairly intense but we're making progress. She's spending more time outside her corral and has been behaving herself pretty well. There have been a few skirmishes with Boris, the passive aggressive cat. But otherwise things are going pretty well.

Not a lot of sewing happened this weekend. The jungle that is our yard couldn't be ignored any longer and I was weeding--even having to pull small trees out of areas I managed to ignore last year--and dividing hostas and transplanting them. And I'm by no means done. It's kind of off-putting. We have more than four acres here and ANYTHING we do looks like only a drop in the bucket.

Handwork and Potential Projects

Kasia stitches on a mandala

Our Seams get-together Wednesday night was not so much showy show and tell as catching up on family news--some good news and some sobering--and travels. No sewing machines appeared; everyone had handwork of varying kinds. I brought along the Kimono Shawl and finished up repeat number fifteen. Ten to go...

My Milwaukee Art Quilter buddies Casey and Kasia had just returned from the SAQA conference and Quilt National in Ohio and had books, souvenirs, and ideas to share. Best of all, they brought me a present--a bundle of FQs for a challenge with them.



Blacks and whites! But I won't be using these on the six inch block project. The prints are too large in scale. This will be a challenge among the three of us. What to do? This will keep me thinking for a while...

In other news, my daughter's BF was a winner in a contest at Lifehacker for coolest workspace.
And in still other news, want to REALLY annoy everyone? I can get you a ringtone made from this.