Turkey Day and Miscellaneous Notes

November has been beautiful here--lots of sunny mornings for walking. But posting time has been scarce. Thanksgiving made for a frenzied few days. My kids were home, bringing happy chaos, cooking and baking, and adding so much to a wonderful family celebration.

Life=irony--after a childhood of practically being force-fed mashed potatoes, I can take them or leave them alone. But I seem to have given birth to a very enthusiastic queen of mashed potatoes:


Will's girlfriend K, dessert maker extraordinaire:


We were fourteen at Thanksgiving dinner--just about my favorite people in the whole world. It doesn't get much better than that.


I finished a book that I just loved, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.


I've read most of Kingsolver's books but this one is my favorite. The story is set in Mexico, with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in featured roles, in the period when they sheltered Leon Trotsky in their home. Later, the main character, a member of their household staff, moves back to the United States and is unwittingly caught up in McCarthy era politics.

There are lots of parallels to current events and the book raises many issues about the way history is cast by the popular press and fed to the populace. Barbara Kingsolver always gives me lots to think about.

There has been sewing and quilting happening but nothing is photographed and ready to show. There is even a finished bed-sized quilt. I know, I know--must get pictures taken so I can share it here. Other sewing has been scattershot--a couple gifts, some experiments--successful and not, and baby steps toward a couple other quilts. Pictures are coming...

Looking Backward

Awhile back, Kathie (the other Kathie :-)) posted about her newest historical quilt book, The Hands That Made Them: the Quilts of Adams County, Pennsylvania.

This piqued my interest right away, as I have family ties to that area. My mother's father was born in Adams County, PA in 1874 and grew up outside Gettysburg, in a tiny town called Fairfield.

When you have family from near Gettysburg, PA, the Civil War and its battles are not simply dry textbook facts. I had ancestors living there experiencing the battle of Gettysburg and all its attending terrors. It's always seemed very real to me.

My Adams County grandfather died young and very tragically nearly 100 years ago. One of the few concrete things of him that remains is his autograph book, which he received on his 14th birthday.



Most of the autographs in the book are from the 1880s. None of the quilters in the book appear in the autograph album, but people in their families do.

One of these days I need to get the autograph album pages scanned and sent off to a historical society in that area...

ANYWAY. I obtained the Adams County book through Interlibrary Loan.


It's fabulous, so full antique quilt-y goodness and inspiration. I just hate the thought of returning it (and that due date is coming up real soon), but plan to photocopy several quilts to file away for future reference. Like many of these historic quilt books (which seem to disappear from print almost as soon as they hit bookstores), this one has ideas and inspiration to last a lifetime for those of us interested in antique quilts.

It's all the more inspiring because the names of many of the makers are familiar to me, like old neighbors.



If anyone has a copy of that book to sell, I'm definitely interested...

One Ugly Pair of Socks

Welcome to the shadowy realm of the ugly sock. This is a place where a lonely knitter toils away, becoming more and more disgruntled and angry, realizing she's spending precious days working on a pair of socks that look like they were designed for slogging through trenches or for prison garb. She is a disciplined knitter though, and keeps knitting away despite it all...

This is where the Catholic school training shows, for better or for worse. LOL



Everything started out right with these socks--the yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in a colorway called Baltic Sea. The subtle colors really excited me--I thought this would be one great pair of socks. The yarn was bought at The Sow's Ear in Verona, Wisconsin, on a road trip with several good buddies. Good memories from that day.

The sock is the Garter Rib, from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. Easy, easy. But it was apparent as soon as I was a few rows into the top ribbing that there would be color pooling. A better knitter would have ripped the socks apart and experimented till a non-pooling pattern was found. But I am not that better knitter. I just kept plugging along.

The second sock was no better. The colors pooled in a different but equally unattractive way.
Argh.


This is the second pair of socks I've made from Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn. Both pairs had bad color pooling issues. When I was working on portions of the sock where there weren't 72 stitches, the colors distributed nicely, giving a hint of what these socks could have looked like.



So here is the question: why would a company like Lorna's Laces manufacture a sock yarn that has consistent color pooling problems when making a standard 72 stitch sock? This would seem like a basic of product design to me. This is sock yarn, people! It should be designed so that it makes nice socks. Depending on needle size, no frills socks like these are made with what--60 to 80 or so stitches?? Why would the color pool right in the middle of that range?

Questions, questions, and no answers. But the bottom line for me is that I'm done with Lorna's Laces sock yarn.

The Stars Align #1

After a summer of white charmeuse and virtually no quilting, the timing was excellent when I ran into a friend at an almost LQS and she mentioned, "Oh by the way, there's this Civil War block exchange and we signed you up for it." I had only a few weeks to get cracking on 16 three inch blocks but was highly motivated to make antique-looking stars, and to make them small. No question, I was IN.

Our first exchange was this past Saturday, at Liz's house. Did I mention this is a book club too? We talked about a book (Pillars of the Earth),


we enjoyed breakfast scones and fresh fruit,


Liz demo'd a handy-dandy ruler that looks to simplify these tiny star blocks,





we had show and tell,




and we exchanged blocks.



Can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

Lighthouses and Small Work

Just back from a very fun but non-sewing weekend in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, with my college gang. The weather could have been better but we muddled through with wine--there are Chardonnay and Merlot factions in the group--lots of dining out, shopping, and lots of laughing and chatter. There were three family weddings in the group this fall, so there were A LOT of wedding pictures passed around.

Old friends--truly the best thing in life.


The house where we stayed was decorated with WAY too many lighthouses--cookie jars, dishes, glassware, hot pads, lamps, chair cushions, tables, paintings. An array of lighthouses was displayed on a shelving unit, which ITSELF was shaped like a lighthouse. There even was a lighthouse tapestry jacket and lighthouse tapestry wheeled shopping cart hanging in a closet of the house. All of this......decor......and nary a lighthouse anywhere on Geneva Lake itself.

A puzzlement for sure.


I took mindless knitting along and got a fair amount accomplished on a truly unattractive pair of socks. More on these when they're done. Urk.

Hoping to finish these up soon and then on to something more inspiring.

:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

This week, a new project. A couple weeks ago, I ran into some friends at a quilt shop and was informed that I had been signed onto a Book Club/Block Exchange that will meet every other month for, uh, eternity. Each meeting will see an exchange of sets of THREE INCH star blocks in repro fabrics. Oh yes, and while everyone else had been working on these since September, I had about three weeks.

So here's the first set.


These were fun to make, although if this exchange goes on as long as some are hinting it might, these blocks may get REAL old. We'll see. This block exchange is with the INSANE people, who like things small.