Seams February

Our monthly Seams group got together last night and it was sooooo good to be among my quilty friends for the first time since early December.


Things at home are finally settled enough for me to take an evening out. Hallelujah! It's been a long, hard winter for everyone else too but we're all beginning to see a dim light at the end of the tunnel. That's something to celebrate.


And our own Bonnie is officially the new president of the United States Women's Curling Association. Yay!


I love to show what my cohorts are up to because they're talented and they get so darn much accomplished. Way more than me.

Pieces of Time by Lori Smith. Wool appliqué in progress, being made by Sue:


I'm not the only one working on little blocks lately. Also by Sue:


Little Prairie Pines by Judy Hasheider. Diane will give this a dynamite appliquéd border.

Also by Diane:


And this too:


AND this, a gift to Bonnie, Madam Prez:



The always amazing Renee, finally quilting a BOM:


Renee's Valentine Quilt. Pink and Brown and Renee--no surprises here.


And Renee is ready for Christmas, with a stocking trimmed with some hard-fought crochet. And Renee won the battle.


This is Casey's entry in a Milwaukee Art Quilters' challenge. It needs to be done and quilted by next Monday. Will she make it?


And we all gave a thumb's up to this new batting, a cotton/bamboo mix.

I came home SO fired up. And what would I like to be doing this morning? Quilting, of course. And what will I actually be doing? Of course--slogging off to the library for a ten+ hour day.

Sigh.

Reading About Quilting

OK now, this is really a day late and a dollar short, but you have to understand I'm not getting out too often this winter.

Saturday was sunny and gorgeous and I dropped Lucy off at the beauty shop and headed up to Brookfield and Elm Grove with some fabric shopping to do. Stopped in at Barnes and Noble and what did my eyes behold but copies of Quiltmania for sale. Unbelieveable.

And it was the Christmas issue, still on the newsstand. But joy of joys, it was also the Wisconsin issue, featuring a quilt by our retreat guru Judy Hasheider


and one by Lisa Bonjean of the wonderful Primitive Gatherings in Menasha, WI.


It's probably not the latest issue, but I sure was glad to find a copy of this particular edition.

So rather than actually quilting, I spent the evening reading about quilting.

Suppose I should bite the bullet and just subscribe, but subscribing has some of the same feeling as sending orders to Amazon.jp. Kind of scary.

I have no good before picture of Lucy. Take it from me that she was one overgrown, knotted, dreadlocked, frowzy little Westie. Here is the after picture. Not entirely sure this is even the same dog!

The groomer did shake her finger at me and say we MUST do better with the brushing. She had no choice but to take her down pretty short. But that's OK. She won't be in any dog shows any time soon.

And We're Off!

Another journey begins. I got started quilting the Black and White tonight. Not much real headway--I spent part of the evening on the phone and part watching the best lunar eclipse I've seen in years. I guess our crystal clear frigid air is good for something.

Supposed to be -12 F tonight. Sweet merciful &%$#.

I toyed with using an assortment of bright colored rayon threads for the quilting but got concerned about extra distraction on this small-scale piece and so decided to go with YLI clear thread, top and bottom. The quilting will show; not the thread.



I was asked about my setup for quilting. I'm sewing on a Bernina 1530, using a Schmetz 70 needle. The Bernina bobbin case offers an option for running the thread through an extra small hole which slightly tightens the tension. Very cool feature. I always thread the bobbin case this way for machine quilting.

Then I drop the feed dogs and set off. And the Atlas garden gloves are great for gripping the quilt as you go.


Hoping to complete the quilting this weekend.

Recent reading:

I finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I was expecting soppy spirituality but her brisk writing style saved it IMHO. Good armchair travelogue. Italy, India, Indonesia. I'd pick any of them Right Now.

I also just finished Clapton by Eric Clapton. I always figured he'd have an interesting tale to tell. But dysfunction on top of dysfunction on top of bad behavior on top of raging immaturity, well into mid-life... Oy. People often say it's a miracle he survived his own excesses. I'd also add that it's a miracle those excesses didn't enrage someone enough to just strangle him. Maybe it was all the drugs...

Now I've started One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Yet another journey. Am I crazy? Will I make it through?

Racing Through the Weekend

I feel a bit like we're rejoining civilization. We went out for dinner Friday night which was great except that the handicapped parking spaces were filled with ten-foot piles of snow. Isn't that illegal? Mr. Kathie had to navigate some rough and icy terrain between car and restaurant but he came through like a champ.

Our social life has been pretty much DOA during the last couple months. But yesterday two couples, great friends of ours, came to spend the day with us. I made chili and some decadent brownies. Rose and Jeff brought Mexican cheese dip, Jo and Don brought homemade goat cheese canapes. It was one super lunch, and very fun to see everyone. Rose, Jo, and I go back to freshman year in college--LOTS of history in our collective past.

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Freezing rain came down in sheets most of the day today, making it a day fit for nothing but quilting. I finished the borders for the black and white top.

Got them attached, ripped all the piecing paper off the back, and have the quilt pinned and ready for quilting. See? I am capable of making some progress on occasion.


I just have to figure out how to quilt it all, with all its fine detail. I'm almost afraid that my usual default quilting pattern may obscure detail of the piecing. Especially if I use colored thread. I'm not sure quilting by outlining the blocks would be any fun at all, but that's one option I'm considering.

I hope to jump into the quilting this week, but it may be several days before I can get a start.

That's frustrating.

Mail Call

Are you sick of snow pictures from me yet? Yes? Well, that's some indication of how sick I'm getting of having to take snow pictures. And still it continues; nearly 24 inches in the last week. I've been doing lots of shoveling. Surely that counts as WW activity points! At any rate, I'm down 3.8 this week, which strikes me as a fluky weight loss for one week. I'm prepared to see a zero loss next week.

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And now to the mail. I always was a huge penpal person, writing letters from the time I was in about third grade. With that kind of mindset, it's understandable that I just flipped out when I discovered Flickr. People from everywhere, posting their lives!

A couple years ago I struck up a Flickr friendship with Rita from Portugal, known on Flickr as Gayatri. She posted darling shots of her kids, her funky jewelry, her home life, and especially of her quilts. She has an original and interesting touch with her quilts and she and I commented back and forth on each other's projects.

A few months back she posted this shot which just absolutely blew me away (and it blew a lot of other people away, judging from the hundred+ comments posted on the photo so far...) I commented on how much I would love a pair of those tights like she's wearing in the picture.

She wrote me saying she was sending me a pair. !!! And the package arrived this week.

Now I have polka dot tights too! And you better believe I'm going to wear these a lot. This is probably a better color choice for me than red and black anyway. Thank you, thank you!

Rita included some other fun goodies--some notecards made from photos of her quilts and a portfolio of art giftwrap--flowers by Fauve painters. It's all terrific. And we had fun looking at all the pretty stamps too.

Black and White

For some months readers here have been kindly putting up with my whining about the small and extremely detailed black and white blocks I'm making for a designer friend. I was seriously bogged down and not enjoying the putziness AT ALL. I can't share too many details yet, but this project is for a publication. The designer supplied me with 40 block drawings; I could interpret in any way I wanted and make as many as I wanted.

I was figuring to make 25 blocks, but this past week found out that my blogless friend Renee, the Queen of Putzy Details, is also making a version of this project using just NINE blocks.

That did it--I have 16 blocks completed and I'm done.

Anyway, I'm happy, happy to say that as of about 15 minutes ago, the blocks are assembled into a top. I'm planning to add a pieced border, which will be very fiddly, but I'm liking what I see so far and folks, I am ROLLING.

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Speaking of rolling, it's been a roller coaster week chez Threadlines. Immediately after digging out from the big snowstorm, we had to have the same vehicle towed for the second time in two weeks, a fact that rankled Mr. Kathie no end, I can tell you that. Everything is repaired now, to last for the long haul WE HOPE.

And some good news: Mr. Kathie's cast came off Friday! I thought he was going to kiss the doctor when we were given the good news. He's graduated to a velcro boot and can cautiously begin to put weight on his foot. This was such extraordinary good news--we celebrated with a huge pizza last night. (And, yes, I enjoyed the pizza in moderation...)

By the way, I don't think I posted my WW progress for this week--down a total of 5.2.

Snowstorm

First of all, thanks very much for all the kind words after my bleak and whiny last post. No one can stay blue for long with such great friends in the blogging world and in the real world too. Thanks again.

We're just coming out from under a huge snowstorm which has been raging since last night. I think we got about 10 inches, but with the blowing and drifting it's hard to say--grass is showing in some places and hip-high drifts are in others.

Needless to say, this was a Snow Day for me.

Lucy and I trekked down to the mailbox this afternoon and it was like slogging through sand dunes.


It was hard to tell what was driveway and what wasn't. At one point Lucy just disappeared. She had fallen down into the culvert ditch at the end of the driveway--probably a 3.5 foot drop. It was completely hidden in the snow. Between Lucy's scrambling and my grabbing and pulling her, she got back up on terra firma in short order.

Then we came in and had to de-snowball Lucy.

We're still dealing with car issues. Our Blazer is going to have to be towed AGAIN. Won't start. This seems to be a completely new not-starting problem. Getting very tiresome and very expensive.

But I made good use of my snowbound day. An entire day's work yielded three more of the fiddly little black and white blocks.


I have nearly enough for my project. A day's sewing is excellent therapy for lifting my spirits.

Our plowing guy came at 9:30 tonight, bless his heart. Now I can get out. But I just discovered that our school district is closed again tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to stay home another day....

Living the Sadness

This year has started out with lots of bad news--a progression of deaths of acquaintances, extended family, friends' beloved pets. I know this is all part of life and that we have no choice but to live the sadness and keep going. But this winter seems particularly laden with emotional stumbling blocks. The unrelenting gray frigid weather and snow only add more somber atmosphere.

One of the members of my yoga class passed away very unexpectedly this past week. She was the 28 year old editor of the local newspaper, seemingly healthy, vital, and active. Our little town is pretty much reeling from this sad news. I had met her through her support of our library and attendance at most of our activities and events.

More lessons in cherishing the now, the people around us, and all our days, no matter how bleak and cold the weather.