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Headway!

2012-01-16T08:20:00.009-06:00

After a fall devoted to baby, baby, baby, it feels really good to be getting back to normal programming: UFOs and other commitments. And this weekend, some headway was made.

I'm part of the Give a F*ck Challenge put together over at Completely Cauchy. Yes, I am! Chawne contacted me about this idea when I was in my most seething, tied-up-in-knots state in the late fall and it seemed like an idea tailor-made for me right then. I don't have an inordinately pottyish mouth, but there are times... And late fall of 2011 was definitely one of those times for me. I couldn't sign on fast enough.

The idea was to contribute a quilt block containing the F-word, pieced or appliqued. After auditioning fonts for some days (I have a wonderful Word document with pages and pages of gigantic renditions of the F-word in about 8 different fonts. Sometimes it does me good just to look at them...), I settled on the font Whimsy, and did a quick fused applique. The block goes in the mail today. Or tomorrow, seeing today's a federal holiday.

By the way, Chawne's blog offers endless inspiration for quilters, kniters, and crocheters. I'm not sure when, or if, this woman sleeps.

Profanity alert.... Look out below...

All righty! And with that cathartic commitment out of the way, I turned my eyes to my very oldest UFO, the one that has sat at the top of my Works in Progress forever--Strips that Sizzle. I had been really intrigued by the color studies and possibilities in Margaret J. Miller's 1997 book Strips that Sizzle, and had begun my own quilt in late 2005.

Here it is underway in a photo taken at a retreat in 2006:

And actually, it was well-underway at that point. After much fumbling and musing, this was pretty much the final layout, minus a few blocks. Those blocks were made, the top was assembled, and then it languished, folded on a shelf, until YESTERDAY.

Yesterday it was layered and pinned,

and quilting began.

I'm feeling immensely good about this.

Midwest Moonlight

2012-01-12T11:41:00.003-06:00

Presenting Midwest Moonlight...

This scarf was born from the ashes of a dead-on-arrival cabled scarf project. Dead-on-arrival--meaning I knew it was all a no-go from the time about one inch had been knit. And so it sat in the bottom of a knitting basket for several years. But the yarn, a merino in a rich olive green, was too pretty to end up unloved and forgotten.

In early 2011, I frogged what there was to frog and started in on this chunky lace pattern in the book Scarf Style by Pam Allen. I knit about six inches and then it too ended up in the bottom of a basket. But the approach of Christmas has a way of.....clarifying.....one's thinking. I finally got serious about the project, and decided it would make a perfect gift for my son's fiancee.

It was a fun knit. There's just enough knitting variety to keep it all interesting, even as it all goes on for what seems like miles. The various twists and turns in the knitting put some tilt in the design and it was fun to watch the see-sawing pattern emerge.

It visited Washington, DC with me in December, well into the home stretch by then..

It was easily finished before Christmas--a scary concept for me. A project completed on time with no last-minute terrors? Yes it was! When it was finished, all that remained was the blocking.

And once again, I was so, so glad I invested in those blocking wires. They are just invaluable for establishing nice straight lines. Highly recommended!

The details:

The pattern: Midwest Moonlight from Scarf Style by Pam Allen.

The yarn: Zara Filatura di Crosa, DK, 8 ply, 5 balls used.

Colorway: 1503.

The needles: 6 US.

Begun: January, 2011.

Completed: December, 2011.

And the recipient was very pleased, as is the knitter.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-04T08:32:00.002-06:00

Red and White

2012-01-01T10:40:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year!

And down to business--time to catch up with some recent projects that couldn't be shown right away when they were finished...

One of the Milwaukee Art Quilters' 2011 challenges was Red and White. Probably half the quilting groups in the world played with this idea, in the wake of Infinite Variety, the spectacular red and white quilt show at the American Folk Art Museum in New York last spring. In our challenge, the theme could be expressed in any way, leaving media and technique wide open. Here was an idea I could get excited about! The finished quilts were due at the group's November 2011 meeting.

I knew my quilt would be pieced, and as the finished quilt could have a perimeter of no more than 120 inches, it would be smallish, so I could do some fairly detailed piecing. I've long been a fan of this pattern,

but knew the pattern as it existed made blocks that were way bigger than I wanted.

So, using the pattern sketch as my jumping off point, I drafted several different sawtoothy blocks in Electric Quilt for paper piecing and set to work.

Paper piecing is no one's favorite thing, but as a means to an end it has its value. The end I was shooting for was crisp points, and there would have been no way to successfully negotiate piecing the long triangles otherwise.

And that's a lesson I learned the hard way, but that's another story.

So paper piecing it was, and it was fun using stripes and other red and white prints from the stash to chop things up visually.

Once the blocks were made, I played with layouts and configurations,

finally settling on a setup that pleased me. Paper pieced blocks assemble very nicely, but then comes the character-building penance of ripping all that paper off the back. And it was typing paper...

Once the papers were removed, the quilting was quick and dirty, with red rayon thread.

All done:

Details:

Name: Redrum

Made for: 2011 Milwaukee Art Quilters' Red and White Challenge

Dimensions: 24" X 36"

Made from: 100% cotton

Batting: 80/20 cotton/poly

Quilting thread: 30 weight rayon.

Out of the Past

2011-12-30T08:45:00.002-06:00

Something fairly amazing has happened. It turns out that the very first quilt I ever made is not dead and buried, as I had thought. The quilt, and all its polyester loveliness and durability, has moved on to its second generation of service. And--surprise, surprise--like most of us, it turned up on Facebook. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it...

Feast your eyes:

Baby Harriet is lovely even when she's chewing on her shoe, but the quilt...

The year was 1976, and a good friend was the first expectant mom in our whole crowd of college friends. Since it was the year of the Bicentennial, patriotic colors were on the menu. And I always did like gingham checks... This one hits the trifecta of 70s quilts. Repeat them with me:

Poly-cotton gingham--check,

Puffy polyester batting---check,

Tied with yarn---check.

The recipient of the Bicentennial quilt was the oldest of five, and the quilt endured plenty of dragging around in its first life. It's nothing short of amazing to see it survived. Madeline, the original owner, also survived this work of art and is now herself a mom, shown here reading to her own little ones on Christmas Eve.

Those early quilts are certainly growth experiences, and artistically I surely can do better now. But if a measure of quilty success is in numbers of happy kids cuddled down through the years, I guess this one was a success.

It's a satisfying way to round out the year. The wheel of life, and of fiber arts, keeps turning. Onward!

Christmas in Just a Few Words

2011-12-28T08:07:00.001-06:00

Low-key Christmas; sunny, no snow.
One kid home.

One kid on Skype.
Too much food.
A whole case of Cincinnati Chili spice mix!

iPad!

Reflecting.

Thankful for a great family.

Graced by a new family member.

Nostalgic for those no longer with us. Wish they all could be here too, to enjoy it all.

Is there any spinach dip left? It IS a serving of vegetables, isn't it?

My Month So Far...

2011-12-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

The last few weeks have been a blogless blur. And what better things do I have to do these days besides keeping up with the blog?

Well. First there was a long weekend deep-country quilting getaway with four good friends. Ostensibly we were working on our Spargo projects, and--ta da!--I did get my blocks assembled.

But then I moved on to other things.

This, above, is Nellie's Wedding Quilt, (the project calling for 1100+ tiny HSTs) which already is a long-term project. I now have nine blocks done, out of 36. Don't expect this one to be finished any time soon.

I got home from the retreat, and left the following morning for Washington DC, to meet my granddaughter. Sigh. Is she perfectly gorgeous? Why, yes. Yes, she is.

(Among all the electronic devices in this picture is my Christmas knitting project. More about that project in another post...)

My job in DC was to act as companion and co-pilot for first ventures out in public. C and her husband have a brand new car which C had not driven. We packed the baby up, and ventured out to the burbs, on that awful Beltway, in pouring rain. We also mastered the DC Metro with a stroller, did a couple lunches out,

and even visited a library lapsit storytime Huge successes, all.

When I got home, I was flabbergasted to discover it was mid-December for heaven's sake, and very little Christmas had happened at home. And was anyone surprised by this? No.

In the interest of sanity and serenity, we've dispensed with the tree and other trim this year. A couple big poinsettias were purchased and plopped in strategic spots and we're calling it good. I had a mind to switch out red candles for the usual neutral-colored ones. But last year I must have packed away the red candles with the holiday trim

Oh well. Next year, the house will be a freaking winter wonderland, I promise.

Just Call Me Grandma!

2011-11-25T21:18:00.002-06:00

Thanksgiving was full of extra meaning this year. My first grandchild, Cora Diane Hutton, arrived with the sunrise on Sunday, November 20.

Neither Mr. Kathie nor I have any siblings, so our own kids have no aunts and uncles and no first cousins. In a family this small, a new family member is huge and exciting news. Delighted, overjoyed, thrilled, excited! All is well and little Cora and her proud parents are settling in at home, getting to know each other, and becoming a family.

We've been overdosing on Skype; cannot get enough. Yes! I'll be traveling to visit very soon.

And it all takes me back to another Thanksgiving week in the late 1970s, when we were welcoming Cora's mom into our family.

Family history is important to all of us. Cora is a name that dates to the mid-19th century in my family; Diane honors little Cora's paternal grandma. The wheel turns, doors close, windows open, new life sustains us and propels us forward. Welcome Cora...

Tweedy

2011-11-17T23:10:00.004-06:00

OK--some project updating. Several projects lately have had baby, baby, baby written all over them. Here's one.

I have loved Jared Flood's Tweed Baby Blanket ever since it first appeared on the Brooklyn Tweed blog. It offered a nice big expanse of garter stitch knitting bordered with feather and fan lace. But most of all, I loved Jared's choice of non-baby colors and, as you can see, I didn't stray far from his color ideas as I made this one.

But hell's bells, it was a lot of knitting. I made the center square enough bigger to accommodate two more repeats of the feather and fan border, so I have no one to blame but myself for the ordeal of knitting that border, with its stitches crammed and jammed on the needle.

Also, that I-cord bind off was a new experience--knitting four stitches for every border stitch, and there were darn near 800 border stitches by the time the blanket was finished. But I was very happy with the detail of that border--kind of like quilt binding, and very flexible. I'll be using that technique again.

Jared's samples were heavily blocked, but who are we kidding here? A busy mom is not going to take the time to block this blanket when it's laundered. And with a high acrylic content, I'm not sure how well this would block at all. So it's as is, soft and cuddly. Very happy with it. And I hope Urban Hipster Baby likes it too.

Details:

Pattern: Tweed Baby Blanket by Jared Flood

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Encore Worsted Tweed, about 9 skeins in three different colorways.

Needles: 9 US

Begun: August 15, 2011

Completed: October 22, 2011

It's a week of changes as I ease into a new lifestyle. One thing I'd yearned to do for a long time was to get back to a regular yoga practice. Hope springs eternal for better flexibility and agility...and I'd love to tap into the spirituality and centering aspects of yoga. I really feel I could use that now. So I headed back to class this week, after about a six year absence. I'm starting back from absolute zero, but I'm starting.

And OMG--I am sore. But it's good sore.

New Day

2011-11-14T09:15:00.002-06:00

Hello friends. Sorry for my absence. It's been a busy and eventful fall, but my energies seemed to fall just short of sharing in this format. The truth is that I've been having a bit of a dark night of the soul. I've been grappling with big life-direction decisions, trying to gauge timing, and also to determine what I really want at this point in my life. But as it happened, good timing and thoughtful planning went out the window and events exploded in my face.

I have quit my job. I'd been quietly laying some groundwork for eventual retirement for some time now. But some events at work brought everything into focus, making it crystal clear that now was the time to act. With a heavy heart, I turned in my resignation in late October and worked my last day this past week.

Family and friends have been very supportive--they've long known the issues my co-workers and I dealt with daily. And state-mandated changes of a negative financial nature (Remember, this IS Wisconsin after all, and I was one of those parasitic public employees) were coming down the pike. Those changes were my main reason for contemplating an exit in the first place.

Putting one foot in front of the other during those last ten days was stressful and uncomfortable. I'm feeling a bit bruised, but excited and eager to move forward from a challenging situation. Now is my chance to spend time on the things and people that matter to me most. Excellent timing for that--a brand new family member should arrive in a matter of days. Whoo hoo!

Healing is at the top of the agenda right now. But the main thing is:

Done. And free. At last.

The Great Crack Pie Adventure

2011-09-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

News from the kitchen. Have you been hearing about Crack Pie, the sugar and butter-laden concoction of Chistina Tosi, pastry chef for the highly acclaimed Momofuku Milk Bar in New York? I've been hearing lots about it, including a couple podcast interviews. My curiosity was piqued and last weekend, I decided to give it a go.

The crust is made from an oatmeal cookie dough which you bake, then grind up, adding more butter and sugar, and form into piecrusts. And the filling is pure decadence--butter, egg yolks, sugar and more sugar, yielding two pies. OK, pies were assembled and looked great, using my best Williams Sonoma pie pans--first class all the way. The recipe said to bake the pies separately. OK. About 15 minutes into the first baking, I opened the oven door to find the pie filling dripping all over the oven floor--a hot mess indeed.

Did I mention the Williams Sonoma pie pans had PERFORATIONS??

Talk about a slap to the forehead.... I have baked quiches in these pans with no problems, but the buttery, sugary, eggy concoction in a crumb crust was too much for the pan. What an idiot I am for not foreseeing that. Had no choice but to turn off the oven, cool it, clean it, sandblasting out the burned on pie filling. As you can imagine, this whole oven cleaning process took the better part of Sunday afternoon. Then I had to try to figure what to do with pie #2.

I wrapped the pie pan in foil, placed it inside another pie pan, and the second pie turned out beautifully. I brought it to work for a staff birthday party and Crack Pie received all kinds of acclaim.

Happy ending and lesson learned!!

Anyone else who gives Crack Pie a spin--it took nearly 20 minutes more baking time in my oven than specified in the recipe. Still not quite sure why the recipe says to bake the pies separately. But perhaps that's so morons like myself can salvage at least one pie. A lot of work, but delicious, sinful, and enjoyable down to the last crumbs.

First Block

2011-08-11T20:09:00.002-05:00

One block completed for Nellie's Wedding Quilt. That means THIRTY FIVE blocks are yet to be made. All those half-square triangles....

Don't look for this one to be finished anytime soon as other projects and deadlines are clamoring for attention. But it's underway.

Vacation

2011-07-28T21:30:00.003-05:00

It's me on the shores of Gitchee Gumee--Lake Superior. Perfect summer weather for a family vacation in the woods of Northern Wisconsin. Knitting is in hand. Back soon..

Dye Party!

2011-07-18T21:00:00.002-05:00

Pick the hottest day of the summer, throw in a bunch of friends and family, plenty of Procion dyes, and add in a pile of T-shirts and onesies and you have my Sunday--a tie-dye party of huge magnitude.

Am I crazy??

My daughter is visiting. She's expecting a baby in the fall, has a liking for ironic clothing on babies, and thought it would be fun to tie dye a pile of baby things. Could I pull it together? I had done some fabric dyeing 6 to 8 years ago and already had a bin of supplies on hand. I had several books, researched it online, and threw a big query out to the Milwaukee Art Quilters (who were very helpful).

So yesterday was the big day.

About 15 people came--all of whom were good sports and more than willing to get their hands dirty. We did some low immersion dyeing and some squirting-on-with squirt-bottles dyeing.Everyone was amazed with their artsiness, and some of these people pride themselves on not having an artsy bone in their bodies.

It's always my contention that anyone can do art but many of us had it (figuratively speaking) beaten out of us in our schooling. So I was happy to see them proven wrong.

Some results:

Some more results. Woo hoo-this will be one artful baby!

We even had a tie dye cake for dessert:

And some uninvited guests who didn't help AT ALL:

Out of the Depths

2011-07-15T21:00:00.001-05:00

I passed through a very heavy counted cross stitch phase about 25 years ago. I love schoolgirl samplers, and typefaces and letter forms of all kinds. I always thought there was a special charm in samplers. I had discovered The Scarlet Letter and made a bunch of their reproduction samplers--almost as good as owning the real thing, which probably is never going to happen.

Those samplers were my poolside and soccer game pastimes when my kids were grade schoolers.

We moved here in the early 90s, and brought along my elderly mother and her sister. I was pulled this way and that--kids still at home and my mother and aunt depending on me for care and transportation. And about that time, my quilting went into high gear, and the counted cross stitch was set aside.

Over the last couple years, I've watched some of my quilty gang working on stitchery. I've put the blinders on during our shopping trips; didn't need to get pulled back into yet another fiber-related pursuit, even though I love anything with text on it... I happened to mention to a friend that I had a partially completed Scarlet Letter piece. I brought it to one of our sewing get-togethers and was met with lots of "You really need to finish this!!"

Whatever burned me out on this piece is in the past and mellowed out by now. OK. That sucking sound you hear is me picking up linen, floss, embroidery hoop, and tapestry needles once again. Oh, and I seem to need a magnifier now to see the weave of the linen.... What's up with that??

Yeah, there has been WAY too much time and work invested in The Ideal Landscape for it to be abandoned. And so, after 18 years, I've picked this project up once again. Most of what remains is in that right hand border. Maybe it will be finished in THIS millennium!

Braids ALL DONE

2011-07-04T20:15:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone's Fourth of July was as beautiful as ours has been here. Sunny, just warm enough--the kind of day we dream about in February. My son and his fiancee were here for a cookout--brats, Chinese cabbage salad, corn on the cob, and carrot cake. Yum.

But enough emoting about summer. Ta da--check out my my braid quilt, all finished.

The process on this one was fun--some nice mindless piecing, and LOTS of it--but I'm very happy to show it completed. At last.

This quilt, in the form of two boxes of strips cut from the dregs of my scrap bins, attended several retreats and came along on many sewing evenings with friends. Block by block and row by row.... I love the concept of making something from nothing especially when the something turns out to look as happy as this project did. And is this frugal quilt-making behavior justification for further fabric purchases?

Why yes, yes it is.

This was begun with a photo on Bonnie Hunter's site as inspiration. While the quilt was underway, her book Adventures with Leaders and Enders was published, elaborating on the details. My Braid is organized just like hers was--darks and lights, with the pop of the red center squares. I thought her idea was perfection; no reason to meddle with that.

I dug deep into my scrap bin for this one and was absolutely indiscriminate in what I used--batiks and novelty fabrics are playing nicely with repros and modern prints here. It all works and results in a quilt that's fun to look at. At least it is for me. I used ant fabric that my daughter and I made hair scrunchies from back in the 80s, as well as the cartoon fabric I based my Serendipity quilt on....and some fabrics date back to my stint in the quilt shop in the mid-90s. Happy chaos.

The details:

Braid Quilt

Dimensions: approximately 96" X 105" (16 braids wide).

Fabrics: 100% cotton

Backed with: a length of 30s-ish fabric that would never work anywhere else...

Batting: Warm and natural

Quilted by: Marge West

Begun early 2010, completed June 2011.

Summer Knitting and Other Things

2011-07-02T20:45:00.001-05:00

Someone needs to slow things down; summer seems to hurtling by WAY too quickly. My June was completely taken up by an online Genealogy class, which, while it wasn't too demanding, did have a fair amount of reading required, as well as a final project. I worked up a brochure for genealogy researchers on resources in our little community, which was fun and satisfying. This is something we'll be able to use day to day, when we get questions from library patrons. Along the way, I got a guided tour of a gem of a little historical society, in Eagle, the village where I work.

And they have quilts... And did I have my camera with me? No, of course not.

This has been a week of saying goodbye to a much loved and valued library co-worker. She's landed a great job at a Milwaukee hospital, with FULL BENEFITS. I have to be happy for her, but I'm going to miss her so much. We took her out to dinner last night, and about cleared the restaurant with our raucous behavior. It was a group that ranged in age from an 80-year-old down to high school-aged kids. I just love that we're all friends.

OK, back to fiber arts. I can announce a knitting breakthrough. It's great to have a problem if you can then figure it out and then sail onward, as Elizabeth Zimmermann would probably have put it..

So I've amassed a huge amount of sock yarn over the last few years. Sock yarn always seems like a nice souvenir-y yarn shop purchase. Pretty soon, you are drowning in the stuff... I've also bought sock yarn, got home and realized it was 100% wool--not my best choice for knitting actual socks, as it might show wear faster. So that yarn has always ended up in the black hole of never-going-to-be-knit.

How to use this yarn? I've been hunting for small projects, actually worth knitting, using fingering weight yarn, that might help me blast through the sock yarn surplus.

I stumbled on the Karen shoulder shawl from Indiknits.

The cast-on is a bear--it's one of these operations where you start with about three stitches and pretty much beat them to death. If you've ever attempted one of these cast-ons, you'll know *exactly* what I'm talking about. After several false starts, I finally came up with an approximation of what the pattern described and I was off and running.

This particular shawl has a good run of stockinette stitch before the lace patterning begins. But once the lace starts, as with any triangular lace shawls, the knitter is working without a net--you can't effectively use markers to delineate a pattern repeat when you're increasing the stitch count all the time.

On my first triangular shawl, I stopped and counted stitches at every. single. half. row. I've lost patience with that sort of diligence and nowadays just launch off, sometimes to my own peril. And so it happened with the Karen shawl--the patterned knitting didn't seem to be hitting the right marks as I began the second pattern repeat. I knit and ripped three times and then just cast the whole thing aside. That was about two months ago.

It bothered me though, and twice more I picked up the project and couldn't puzzle out where I had made my fatal error.

A flash of insight--it became plain that the curse of a forgotten yarnover...or two...had caused the problem. Thank goodness I have learned how to fake a yarnover! Once again, I'm sailing along on this pretty little scarf/shawl.

Terror and Reprieve

2011-06-15T22:51:00.006-05:00

It's been a topsy-turvy week.

While I was still shaking from the June 6 car wreck, I got some REALLY upsetting news. Remember the house block, the sum total of many sleepless hours and a good deal of angst in May?

Because of the DeSoto quilt retreat, I knew I'd miss the hand-off of the house blocks at the June 6 Milwaukee Art Quilters meeting--and I sure did, as I spent a good part of that evening sitting in a bowling alley parking lot in Madison, in my bashed-in SUV, waiting for my son and husband to rescue me--so I had dropped the block, in a Priority Mail packet, in the mail June 2 before leaving for DeSoto. About June 8, I got an email from the house quilt organizer saying my block had not arrived.

Carumba. Now THAT is real terror. I started shaking all over again.

I sweat bullets for days and realized I had transposed a couple numbers in the recipient's address. I was hoping, hoping, that my precious packet wouldn't get ground up in the teeth of the U.S. Postal Service. And I was frantic at the thought of having to remake that block. I dug the patterns and diagrams out of the recycling bin, just in case. Despair...

Finally, good news--two days ago, the packet with the block found its way back to my own mailbox. And last night I drove into the city to rendezvous with the intended recipient. Very relieved and happy to have placed the block in her hands.

Yes! Over and done with, this time for sure. I hope...

Lessons learned:

Always confirm and re-confirm the address.
Always spring for Delivery Confirmation.

So with that crisis averted, it's back to happyland for me.

Tonight I spent pressing HSTs, prepping to begin block construction on Nellie's Wedding Quilt.

I need 1152 HSTs for the blocks of this quilt. By my count more than 1000 of these little soldiers are finished and ready to go. Almost there.

DeSoto and Its Aftermath

2011-06-08T07:30:00.006-05:00

My long weekend in DeSoto was fun and relaxing, with plenty of good food, wine, sewing, and retail therapy, all with great friends. The house where we stay, above, is comfy and filled with the necessary sewing accoutrements.

The surroundings, below, are sleepy but scenic. That's the Mississipi River in the not-too-far distance. It's the ever-changing but ever-constant perimeter to this little town.

Projects worked on: I had been looking at my kitted Nellie's Wedding Quilt all winter, and dug into this extreme piecing project--1152 one-inch half square triangles needed. Nothing much to show yet, but it's coming...

I had also brought a full bin of 1 1/2" scrap strips to start my own version of Weaving the Rails. Got 100 blocks made.

There were two more trips to the wonderful Olive Juice Quilts in Onalaska, Wisconsin. No doubt that shop enjoyed very good numbers for the weekend, thanks to us.

Monday morning, we all exchanged hugs and started back home. All was good until Madison, where I got involved in a chain-reaction pileup on the Madison Beltline at rush hour. The person behind me had been following way too closely. When I had to brake suddenly, he managed the evasive maneuver of heading down the shoulder, but took out most of the driver's side of my vehicle.

And I'm very grateful for NOT being rammed from behind at 60 mph...

Four cars in all were involved in the ensuing chain reaction pileup, and thank goodness, everyone walked away uninjured.

I think I'm glad I wasn't driving my Beetle and had opted to drive our brand-new SUV instead. I imagine it was much more stable in the crash. But oh, it was new just last fall and it hurts to see it all bashed in.

The man who hit me was cited, and he IS insured. But I don't think anyone ever really comes out whole on these incidents. And so we start down the road of battling insurance companies with a beautiful new SUV that will never be the same again...

Washington Weekend

2011-05-30T23:07:00.007-05:00

Just back from a whirlwind Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C., with my daughter C.

The trip out was a small nightmare. When I arrived at the airport, my 6 p.m. departure had been pushed back to nearly 11 p.m. The time kept getting nudged back and back, until the departure was listed as nearly 1 a.m. At this point, I figured the flight was a non-starter. Still can't believe I was first in line to reschedule. But when the flight info is gone from behind the podium, replaced by "Follow us on Facebook", you know your flight is not happening. Ended up going back home and returning to the airport the next afternoon. This time I made it to Washington, but totally wasted a precious vacation day.

I love Washington. It's such an human-scaled, accessible city, with tons and tons of intriguing shops and cafes, not even mentioning the museums, the arts scene, the monuments. But what I love most is the diversity--the passing parade of humanity of every possible ethnicity. It's an enviable richness for any city, and it's the future of America. So exciting.

Highlights (mostly food-oriented):

Sunday brunch at the Mansion on O Street--several row houses linked together in a warren of hallways, stairways, secret passages, hidden doorways, and crammed full with curios, books, and tschotschkes, all for sale.

It's an inn, it's a restaurant, it's an antique shop. And oh, the fancy food!

A visit to the Newseum (well worth the rather hefty admission fee). It included gripping narratives of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 that were thought-provoking and very immediate.
Lunch at Layla's in Old Town Alexandria. We ordered a bunch of appetizers and loved everything. Oh, Baba Ganoush, I love thee...

All too soon--back to earth and home. But I'm home for only two days and then off to a long weekend quilt retreat in DeSoto, WI. No airports, security screening, or interminable waits. Yay!

Hours and HOURS in airports and on planes gave me sock knitting time and one new sock is well underway. This isn't interesting fiber news, so I'll spare you yet another sock picture.

Off to pack for the retreat!

The House from Heck

2011-05-24T22:50:00.004-05:00

OK, it's done.

Mr. Kathie was Up North last weekend, giving me time to hunker down with the dreaded slice-of-house block. The thinking and planning was done; it was time to swing into action.

I'm reasonably pleased with the block. This kind of extreme detail work is just not my cup of tea. I've gained a new respect for one art quilter friend who has done numerous award-winning cityscape quilts, with incredible detail.

With projects like this, you have two choices--photo-realism or artistic license. This block is only one of 24, and they'll be assembled together and need to work together. And the worst part is that I was working alone here, isolated from everyone else participating. No clue how my effort will fit in OR measure up.

I traced an overlay from lightweight pattern material, so I could check placement of the elements. That helped a lot. And I taped an exact-size blowup to a window to trace the various elements. (Windows--the poor man's light box...) A lot of squinting at relative color value and looking through the wrong end of my dad's old hunting binoculars helped too.

The turquoise line visible is washout marker--an approximation of the final seam line.

At any rate,it's done; one of a kind. You won't be seeing many more projects like this coming from me, I guarantee!

2011-05-19T07:41:00.000-05:00

Hello, hello.

Here's a project I've been procrastinating about since last fall. Now we're up against the deadline and I'm torn between obsession and despair.

The Milwaukee Art Quilters meet in a business space of a small publishing company owned by the daughter of one of the members. We've been meeting there for years and decided to make a group quilt as a thank you to the business owner. It's to be a slice-and-dice photo quilt. We have a photo of the owner's house, and it's been sliced into sections. We're all making sections of the house, which will be joined into a fragmented but hopefully still recognizable whole.

Photo-realism/landscape are not my preferred quilt genres, but here I am, struggling with clapboard siding, gingerbread-y Victorian spindles and molding. The vegetation part of the block is pretty much completed,

but the rest... 12 inches square but oh, the dithering about order and method of construction, materials, fabric choices.

Ugh, ugh. Just give me a pile of half-square triangles to make and let me go into my happy space.

Two Pairs of Socks!

2011-04-27T19:47:00.005-05:00

I've never made any secret of the fact that my sock-knitting pace is glacial, so be amazed with me that I've finished two pairs of socks in the last two weeks. I hate to admit just how long all these socks have been underway. It’s been awhile.

I cast on the first pair last spring at a quilt retreat, when my friend R. told me she’d teach me to knit socks on two circular needles.

So $40 later, all set up with two pairs of new Addi circulars, I was on my way, taking baby steps. I remember asking R. about some point of technique and was told, “You’ll figure it out”. Truth be told, she had never actually made socks on two circulars herself.

WHAT????

Socks on circulars was an....adventure. At one point, I was on a plane and discovered I had no idea what to do with the circular needles once the heel was turned. I had to contact my “teacher”, who had no clue either. She contacted our LYS, who emailed me the directions.

(Big shoutout to Jenny at Knitch…)

Another friend accidentally took these socks-in-progress home with her from a retreat in the fall and I was without them for a couple months. In the interim I started another pair, using my new favorite yarn, Crazy Zauberball.

(I just love to say it. Crazy ZOW-BER-BALLLLLLL…)

When I got the Addi socks back, I had decided that socks on double circular needles are not for me. I can always tell when a project is going the wrong way when I think up excuses NOT to work on it. So the Addi socks sat for awhile while the Crazy Zauberball ones progressed.

Once the Zauberball socks were done, I turned back to the Addi ones, transferred them back to double point needles and …ahhhh.

I guess I am just a double-point-needles-socks person.

The contrast between the two yarns is like night and day. I have two more balls of Crazy Zauberball waiting in the wings, but I can tell you I will NEVER knit another sock with Happy Feet yarn. Actually, the Happy Feet yarn might have knit up better with #2 needles. Anyone have any better experiences with Happy Feet? (I still have trouble distinguishing subtleties in yarns.)

And so we learn.

Hoping I can figure out something else to do with those pricey size 1 Addi Turbos. And of course before I figured out that I didn’t like the double circulars, I had spent $40 on two size 2 circulars too.

Someone, please slap me.

Socks #1
Pattern: Alternating 2 X 2 Rib—Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Happy Feet by Plymouth, color 17
Needles: US #1 circulars AND double points (changed horses in mid-stream)

Socks #2
Pattern : Garter Rib—Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Crazy Zauberball, Color 1702
Needles US #1 double points

Antiquing

2011-04-10T15:33:00.007-05:00

It was a very good Saturday.

Met up with Kay M., an old friend from college whom I see all too seldom, and we trekked to Columbus, Wisconsin, home of the largest antique mall in the state. I swear it's waaaay bigger than it was the last time we were there. We actually got lost and had to ask directions to get out of the place, lugging our finds down the maze-like aisles of the store.

And wonder of wonders--when we got to the checkout, it was 20%-off day! Yay.

Lunch was decadent by my usual standards--egg rolls, pork fried rice, and General Tso's Chicken. We looked over each other's photos of big events: a wedding (my family) and grandchildren (Kay's). I will say here that one of the happy results of so many new Chinese-Americans is that there is great Chinese food to be had even in tiny towns like Columbus, WI.

But the Columbus Antique Mall is not a place to find early stuff. I was hoping to find brown, black, or purple transferware, and the pickings were slim indeed. It's just not a 19th century kind of place.

There was Purinton Apple at every turn, which was hard to pass by. Until I buy another cupboard, which is highly unlikely, my Purinton storage space is filled to the brim. I contented myself with one interesting little pitcher.

And there was Fiesta, and Russell Wright (which I've really come to love), and Jewel Tea Autumn leaf (I actually have BOXES of Autumn Leaf in my basement--my mother-in-law collected it but I have nowhere to put it). Yup, I'm CRAZY about dishes and china but have at long last learned that you can't buy it all.

Always have my eye open for vintage fiber-y stuff, and I was rewarded here. Bought this bag, filled with hand-crocheted trims, for $12.

When I got home, I discovered they are beautiful edgings for pillowcases, sewn together and ready to go, enough for half a dozen pillows.

Cute mint-condition tea towels--these will be a present for somebody,

and a feedsack.

And here comes the reverse buyer's remorse: there were three of these feedsacks. Why in heaven's name did I just not buy them all? Duh! May be heading back to Columbus sooner than I think...

Finally, here was the (to me anyway) jaw-dropper: this tablecloth is identical to one my mother owned which did regular duty on our kitchen table when I was a small child.

Back then, I was what they liked to call "a poor eater" (imagine that...) and occasionally was told to sit until I had eaten that incinerated porkchop or those leaden mashed potatoes. I got REAL familiar with this tablecloth on those occasions.

In such ways we figure out much about how we'll raise our own children. Time has passed; and thanks to some lessons I learned at that kitchen table, we learned to roll more gracefully with the few food issues that came up with our own kids. I can be objective about this tablecloth now and welcome it back into my life.

But life is always full of little ironies that smack you down--I did have one kid who was absolutely crazy about mashed potatoes.

The Calendar

2011-04-06T18:28:00.008-05:00

This wonderful blog post by writer Austin Kleon has been circulating on Facebook, with tips on creativity, getting ON what you need to do, and making it all happen for yourself. All the tips and catchphrases are great, but what really intrigued me was the author’s calendar.

Is that not great? He explains that he had a book to write, and had to keep to a schedule in order to make his deadline. So he got himself a Moleskine, drew a whole bunch of little boxes for the days, and lived in those little boxes for the next six months.

I like the graphic-ness of it. You can chalk up your accomplishments, but you can also look back and say, “There’s my life,” and see how those days are piling up.

I’m thinking that my braid quilt is kind of like this Moleskine calendar. I had started it as a retreat project last year—mindless sewing that would gradually, gradually add up to Something.

And I’ve continued making those braids at home when there was time, and on my bi-weekly sewing nights with friends. Fabric chunk after fabric chunk, seam after seam, day after day.

Things are adding up—half of the quilt is in one piece. Three seams remain and the top will be together.

One day follows another and pretty soon a year or twenty or forty or so years have gone by. And what have we to show for it? As quilters, we generally have quite a lot, and in a hundred years, our descendants will be able to touch what we touched, and be warmed by the work of our hands. Yes, yes, a nice warm and fuzzy thought…

But, one note of warning to my descendants: if any of my quilts are ever used to wrap up spare tires, I promise to come down (or up!), haunt your house, bend spoons, toss sugarbowls, and make your life thoroughly miserable.

And don't think I won't do it.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-30T22:03:00.002-05:00

Red Wing

2011-03-27T16:28:00.005-05:00

Here's a quilt story that Lucy the Westie and Boris the cat insisted on helping to tell. What is it about pets and quilts? A quilt is like a pet magnet, isn't it?

The whole issue of copyright has been discussed again and again, sometimes to the point (to my mind) of ridiculousness (I buy a pattern and am only allowed to make something from it ONCE?? Beg to differ…) I usually avoid the issue by not buying patterns, and not making quilts from patterns. Most of my work is my own. I see things that inspire me, I decide I want to use a particular block, and then I draft my quilt myself.

I do a lot of futzing in Electric Quilt. (And you know how that goes… Sometimes the virtual quilt is enough; I realize I don’t NEED to make that particular quilt, and the project never goes any further…) When I see quilts that I want to make, I usually change things around pretty significantly.

Usually.

Back in February, I was at Primitive Gatherings in Menasha, WI, with several friends. I saw a quilt on display there that really spoke to me. The block was kind of like a Churn Dash, but with squares instead of corner triangles.

They were selling it kitted, but I didn't have a spare $150 on me. I made a mental note of the quilt, came home, thought about it, and thought about it some more.

I drafted it the block in Electric Quilt and decided it would be the perfect quick piecing project for an upcoming retreat. I stopped on the way to the retreat and bought 4 yards of cheddar fabric for alternate blocks, and got the WHOLE thing cut and put together during the retreat. Nothing like coming home with an entire pieced quilt top—the thought of that quilt made the entire icy-road-five-hour drive home bearable.

But I was having some guilt pangs. I had made the quilt EXACTLY like the one I’d seen at Primitive Gatherings. It was someone else’s design. And that someone else had marketed a pattern for this quilt. Had I undercut that process? Like I said, some quilt copyright issues seem like a stretch to me. But this seemed pretty clear cut. I was in this designer’s debt.

As luck would have it, one of my friends was suffering from reverse buyer’s remorse—upset about something she HADN’T bought on our February trip to Primitive Gatherings. So we made another trek to Menasha in early March. (It’s a two hour drive each way, but SO worth it, even in the snow, and even with the price of gas today. Yeah, we're all crazy, aren't we?)

It was my chance to buy a copy of the pattern; and give credit where credit is due—to the designer and to the shop. My conscience feels better. It’s a wonderful quilt.

This is a really simple quilt but it pleases me soooo much. Love the 19^th century look, right down to the backing.

The details:

My name for the quilt: Red Wing
The pattern: Lydia by Bonnie Blue Quilts
Finished size: 74 X 88"
Fabrics: 100% cotton
The batting: Warm and Natural
Long-arm quilting by the amazing Marge West
Begun February 16, 2011
Completed March 24, 2011

Gray Days

2011-03-12T21:39:00.004-06:00

Those of us in Wisconsin have been pretty much in a perpetual state of open-mouthed dumfoundedness the last few weeks, as our governor has plowed into his first term with one sweeping action after another, all in the name of budget-balancing. I've been saddened by the unpleasantness of the whole process--there have been some very tough days for those of us who had been proud of Wisconsin as a bastion of progressive ideals and cooperative ways of getting business done.

The saddest things of all have been the attempts to pit one group of citizens against other groups. I'm a public employee--a very low-paid one--and it's been sad and painful to watch public workers such as myself painted with a very broad brush as thieves and parasites.

I've been quiet, not wanting to post extended political rants here, but too dispirited to post much of anything else.

But life goes on. Sewing and knitting has been happening.

A scarf has been knit. Pictures to come.

There was a retreat in mid-February that yielded a whole quilt top that's all quilted and currently being bound--pictures to come soon. And work is ongoing on the Braid Quilt. What a pile of chaos!

I'm currently assembling strips, which has to be the absolute definition of tedious sewing.

I was concerned with handling all that bias. But it isn't causing much of a problem. I'm pressing and starching each strip. And heaven help me--I know no other way to sew than to at least make an attempt at matching all those seams.

Slow going.

It's coming, but slowly.

Book Club and Star Dreaming

2011-02-14T15:52:00.006-06:00

The Book Club/Tiny Block Swap is still going strong. Read a book, make 16 tiny stars, discuss, swap, repeat two months later. This time we met at Renee's. She was eager to show off her brand new kitchen, and we were all eager to ooh and ahh.

We also got a tour of her sewing space. Love her fabric storage system.

Renee also has a stack of bins, nearly from floor to ceiling, with various quilts planned, kitted, and ready to sew. Grab and go. That's organization.

We're about at the midway point of the block swap, so each of us now has nearly 100 3 inch star blocks.

Has anyone else been mocking up quilts in Electric Quilt or on paper to figure out the best way to use them? I sure have!

This is the quilt that inspired the swap in the first place. Here is another possibility. And here's more inspiration:

No clue who made that quilt above--it's just a pic sent to me by a friend. But variable stars would work very well with such a setting, don't you think?

It will be about a year until we're done making blocks, so there's plenty of time to make the very best choice. And I'm open for suggestions...

For Oden...

2011-02-09T19:27:00.000-06:00

At last--ta da!--here's a finished project. I've shown a couple hints of this one on Facebook, but was keeping it under wraps until it arrived at its destination on Vancouver Island, at the home of a very new little person named Oden.

The pattern is Winding Ways or Wheel of Mystery, one of my faves. I bought a template set for this pattern a few years back--knew it would see some use, and it has. It's fairly simple sewing, despite the curves. Not a pattern to be afraid of! Then you get the incredible bonus of secondary and tertiary patterns twinkling across the surface. This is what I call bang for the buck....one of my favorite things about quiltmaking.

Er...actually, I guess I have a lot of favorite things about quiltmaking.

I started with a box full of pieces leftover from another baby quilt in this pattern made several years back. (I have to admit I seldom measure and figure when I start a quilt, I just start cutting.) Anyway, that recipient is in KINDERGARTEN now, visits the library frequently, and has the best nose for M&Ms of just about any child I've ever met. A man after my own heart!

I added the orange for this quilt, and for all intents and purposes, cut up most of the remaining batik I had on hand. I love the gentle jolt the orange adds.

The quilting is just loopy meandering, done in a rainbow of different pastel-ish rayon threads. The backing fabric is a pastel green print, which really doesn't show too well in the photos.

I'm thinking this is a perfect quilt for this baby and for this mom too--she's a young woman who has traveled widely and who looks beyond the surface for life's meaning. May this be a talisman for them both. Best wishes for a long and interesting life for Mr. Oden.

Project details:

Pattern: Winding Ways or Wheel of Mystery, made from Marty Michell templates.

Block size: 8.5 inches.

Finished size of quilt: 51 inches square

Top fabrics: 100% cotton batiks

Backing: 100% cotton

Batting: Warm and Natural

Quilting top thread: 30 wt. rayon, in multiple colors

Quilting bobbin thread: 60 wt. cotton

More-o Noro

2011-02-06T20:46:00.004-06:00

The Superbowl is going on in another part of the house and I'm too nervous to watch it. There's a great deal of regional pride hanging on this game. Hiding out from the TV (while staying in earshot) has spurred me to get back to the blog, after a slight absence.

Sewing, knitting, and life have been going on here, along with some work-related issues that seem to have zapped some of my time, energy, and good humor. But enough about that. Here I am, hanging in, if not quite triumphant yet. As always, fiber is comfort and joy.

After I finished the big shawl (and I need to get some Finished Object pictures posted, don't I?)I've been dipping into the knitting stash, working on some smaller projects that may or may not become gifts at a later date.

After I made one striped Noro scarf that turned out very rainbow-y and zoomy, I bought yarn for a more subdued version of the same pattern. This is such a wonderful pattern--absolutely mindless knitting, and all the while you're producing fabric with wonderful color counterpoint. And it's changing and evolving all the time--that keeps you knitting to see what's next.

It's alternating colors in 2 rows of K1P1, with a little slip-stitch edge treatment that hides the yarns as they're carried up the side. It lays perfectly flat. Simple and elegant.

Very pleased with this scarf. Not ruling out making more of these!

And I have to say that my original zoomy-colored version of this scarf has grown on me. People comment on it when I wear it and that's always fun. But given the choice, I usually prefer subtlety to hitting people over the head. Although that restraint is tested from time to time.

Project details:

Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf, generic pattern, described here.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, colors 270 and 8; 2 balls of each.

Needle: Addi Turbo circular, size 7 US.

Whoo hoo--game over! I think my week just got off to a good start.

Done!

2011-01-02T13:00:00.002-06:00

The last stitches were completed on The Victoria, AKA the purple shawl of death, within the past week. Did you hear my primal scream??

This was an interminable project. It sat idle for months at a time, and at one point I wondered how I'd ever summon the fortitude to make it around the perimeter with that devilish border. The answer was to take a few cleansing breaths and get down to business. That happened this fall.

My window of opportunity for lace knitting (before I get tired and prone to stupid mistakes) is about one border repeat per evening. So slow and steady--as many evenings as I could, I knocked off one border. Enough evenings, and voila--a completed shawl. You know the Days of Our Lives line about sands through the hourglass? Well, here are the days of my life, all laid out in yarnovers and DOUBLE yarnovers of purple Kidsilk Haze.

Ends have been woven in, and all that remains is the blocking.

I get impatient with the blocking process. (The knitting is done and now this s..l..o..w process has to be done too? ) Don't we all want instant gratification? (Instant? I've been knitting on this thing since March of 2009!!) But of course it only makes sense to take the time to do it right. Blocking magically changes the character of the piece.

I first dunked the shawl in cold water; it's amazing how it soaked up the water. I let it soak for 15 minutes or so--wanted to make sure it was saturated.

A couple years ago, I invested in a set of blocking wires, which are worth every penny. Anyone thinking of knitting a shawl--bite the bullet; buy the blocking wires. I think these cost about $40 US.

The set has wires of two sizes. These are the shorter ones.

You can weave the wires along an edge and the edge will dry straight and true. Without the wires, pins are needed every half inch or more and the edge would still no doubt end up with wiggles. With the wires, only occasional pins are set to hold things square and straight.

This shawl's border has points. I stretched each point out and pinned it.

Here's the whole thing laid out on the floor on beach towels--hence the odd colors floating up from underneath. I sprayed the whole shawl with water when it was all pinned--just to make sure none of the points had begun to dry.

Now just to wait a couple days till it's all dry.

Finally, Finally

2010-12-23T21:00:00.004-06:00

At last it's here! My love of letters and letter forms has finally gotten me into print. Well yes, it's in someone else's book, but there's my name, and there's my Four Letter Words quilt in a genuine book, Word Play Quilts, by the fabulous UnRuly Quilter herself, Tonya Ricucci.

What a Christmas gift!

The genesis of my involvement with Tonya and her book was way back in mid-2008, when I took part in a letter-y challenge issued by Tonya on her blog. She sent sets of pieced LOVE blocks out to participants and we had to do something with them. My something became very big and out of control. I started piecing letters and words and could barely contain myself.

This quilt was also a great excuse to cut into those letter print fabrics I'd been ~~hoarding~~ collecting for years.

The result was Four Letter Words, which has appeared on this blog a number of times now, and was such fun to make, it just about poured out of me.

When Tonya began work on her book, she asked if my quilt could be a part of it, and so in January of 2010, I swallowed hard and mailed Four Letter Words off into the great beyond.

It was gone for 10 and a half months.

In the last year this quilt has been to places I've never been--to the Washington State offices of Martingale Publishing, and to this past fall's Houston Quilt market. And look--it's being held here by the gorgeous Tonya herself.

I've never set foot in Washington State or and my only acquaintance with Texas is several stressful hours at the Houston airport. Clearly this quilt has way more of a life than I do.

But Tonya's book! it's WONDERFUL!

I'm beyond delighted to have been a part of this project.

When I started my wordy quilt, I printed out all Tonya's tutorials that had been housed at the Quiltville site and set them up in a loose-leaf binder.

The binder can now be retired. The book includes all the great how-tos and tons of pictures of the applications of free-pieced lettering. Such a great technique--those of us who are not applique people now have an easy and fun way to add some wordy goodness to our quilts. Word Play Quilts will be a great reference for my next word quilt. And there will be a next one.

Such fun!

A Present Unmasked

2010-12-18T16:07:00.003-06:00

My main Christmas project gift has now been received by its designated recipients, so it's safe to blog about it: an Irish Chain Christmas tree skirt. Blogging about process is all well and good, but unfortunately, I couldn't share the process of this piece without spilling the beans!

You know how it is--anything for your kids. My own tree has been without a proper skirt for...oh, a decade or so. But when my daughter said she'd love a tree skirt, good ol' Mom swung into action. A heavy-duty country look wasn't what was wanted, so I used solid red and white to give the traditional Irish Chain a sharper edge for an urban apartment and its somewhat spare look.

Spare decor = not a single transferware plate hanging on a wall anywhere. And what's with that, anyway? What kind of a house is that? Not Mom's house, obviously. LOL

Anyway, I pieced the top in a fast weekend; it was a breeze to put together. This is the pattern I used.

The quilting took a few evenings--just a squiggly meander, done on my Bernina with red 40 wt. rayon.

I considered a red and white striped binding but didn't have enough of any of the ten or so red striped fabrics in my stash. So I stayed with the solids. The backing is a fun holiday print.

It seemed to need a closure of some kind, and I just happened to have one or two cute vintage-y red buttons on hand.

And other family members seem to approve.

So the tree skirt is happy now in its new home. But y'know--spare look or not, it would blend in very well with my houseful of antiques and more traditional furnishings. I may be making a couple more of these.

On the Fast Track

2010-11-30T21:10:00.000-06:00

I spent a good chunk of my weekend at a drop-in retreat at Olive and Me Retreat in Palmyra. I arrived Saturday morning with sewing supplies and a toothbrush, and never got home until 5 p.m. Sunday. Proprietor Nancy Jane was offering mini classes for the holidays or participants could just do their own thing. I did my own thing.

I'm working on a baby quilt for a brand new extended family member due around Christmas, using some leftovers from a similar piece I made several years ago. How can I make an entire new quilt, and not appear to deplete the leftovers? AT ALL? When anyone figures this enigma out, please let me know.

And an enigma it is, on more than one level. This is a Winding Ways or Wheel of Mystery, made from Marti Michell templates and an assortment of mostly lightish-value batiks. The gentle curves are fairly easy to piece. I love, love the visual ambiguity and complexity of this pattern and the secondary patterns that develop. All in all perfect for a young mom with deep roots in Eastern spirituality. I'm sure the baby-to-be will be a most interesting person too. We have to give him/her something intriguing to look at!

New Stuff

2010-11-26T07:49:00.001-06:00

Look at my funky new wool tote, designed and made by my endlessly creative friend Nancy Jane.

She's been making prototypes, hoping to place them in some area shops and I think she has a winner.

The bag itself is bright purple, with bright red tweedy slubs--suitably quirky. Once again I'm disappointed in my camera's color rendition...

All the embellishment is wool, save for the embroidered facial features and French-knot hair.

She needs a name! The name may just be Nancy Jane, in honor of the creator.

It's all finished off with a wild lining.

Love it!

I've also been buying books. Oh Amazon Prime, how I love you.

I find my best inspiration in the old-quilt books, and greatly regret not buying every one that I saw when I worked for that unnamed quilt shop back in the mid-90s. That's when the states were putting out quilt survey books in quantity. The sad fact is that so many of these books went out of print quickly, and opportunities were lost. But I grab them from Amazon as I can.

The North Carolina book has treasures such as these:

Sigh.

Unfortunately, the paper doesn't look good to me, and the image printing is not of super-good quality. However, I'll take what I can get in the inspiration department, poor printing aside.

The Quilt That Walked to Golden has some wonderful image of western quilts, plus a great story of nineteenth century U.S. western migration.

I had bought the first Material Obsession book and had been just a bit disappointed--just didn't see much in it that rocked my socks, as it were. But this new book is different, with more visual complexity that I can sink my teeth into, like this busy and dotty quilt.

I confess--I'm a "more-is-more" girl, and that's what draws me in, time after time. Simple and clean lines are all well and good, but that's not usually what I want to make.

Happy Black Friday to all--I'll be spending it behind my desk at the library, and I'm FINE with that. Are we all ready to dive into the holiday season? I have one major quilted gift underway and will share it here once the recipient has received it.

2010-11-10T07:45:00.000-06:00

After wallowing in the depths of inertia and self-doubt for months, I've embarked on a big push to finally, once and for all, finish The Victoria Shawl.

Good gracious, there has been (and continues to be) a lot of knitting in this monster.

I started this project in March of 2009, foolishly thinking I could get it finished to wear for my daughter's wedding that fall. At that time, we were looking at a Price Edward Island destination wedding, and a soft and fuzzy mohair shawl would have been the perfect thing. I knit full speed ahead and had the body of the shawl done by July of that year.

As time went on, the wedding became a Caribbean destination wedding, and the idea of a mohair shawl became just a bit incongruous. And then there was my daughter's wedding dress which effectively took over my life in the months leading up to the wedding. The shawl got shunted aside, and except for spending two weeks worth of evenings with it during last winter's Olympics, it's been languishing. I would look at that knitting basket and think dark and guilt-ridden thoughts, centering on how much money I had tied up in ALL THAT kidsilk haze yarn and how interminable it had all become. Sigh.

Something shifted in my thinking in the last few weeks and I've been working feverishly with the goal of completing at least one repeat an evening. I'm working on the knit-on border, which is full of yarnovers and DOUBLE yarnovers. It's impossible to work on in a social setting, so here I sit, in front of the TV, glowering at anyone who dares speak or interrupt while I'm counting the yarnovers and castoffs in each row of the border.

I'm nearing the end of the second long side of the shawl; the border is about 80% completed. The end is almost in sight.

2010-10-28T23:34:00.005-05:00

Here's the Rouenneries quilt completed and ready to go.

Like so many projects, it got bigger and bigger, kind of like Lucy and Ethel baking bread. It began with the purchase of a layercake pack of Moda French General Rouenneries fabric that I just couldn't resist. Originally, it was going to be a small throw... but it grew. I added some simple pieced blocks to break up the monotony of all the plain squares. Then it became bed-size. Then extra long, so it could accomodate a pillow tuck. With a border, it got even bigger.

All the straight lines and squares seemed to call for curves in the quilting. Marge West, my ace quilter, managed to roll this baby out in about half a week. Not sure how she does it; she is one speedy longarmer.

The back needed to be pieced, and there just happened to be enough of the Layercake blocks left to make it work out nicely.

True confession though--the main background fabric was 6.5 yards long. I needed to cut it in half for the backing.

Well. It was late at night and I took up my scissors and cut it in half lengthwise rather than crosswise. So instead of two pieces of fabric 3.25 yards long, I had four 22" wide strips the full 6.5 yards long. Had to sew it all back together again AND THEN cut in in half the right way. What an idiot I am.... As they say, cut once, measure twice.

This quilt will be living in Florida. Our good friends from Chicago, Rose and Jeff, are becoming snowbirds and moving to south Florida for the winter, lucky stiffs. This quilt was their happy-new-life-adventure gift from me. I've been promised a bedroom will be decorated around it.

2010-10-06T21:12:00.004-05:00

So this is process...

I've been slogging along on a braid quilt--one of the great scrappy projects on the Quiltville site--since last spring. This is the project I schlep along on my "bowling nights", (this is what we lovingly call our biweekly sewing nights), taking baby steps toward a completed quilt.

I'm figuring to make 14 braid strips, although I probably have enough strips cut for 28 braids--I guess I don't do anything by halves.

Ten strips done as of tonight.

And don't hate me because I'm going on A FIVE DAY quilt retreat next week, but I am. Joy! I'm working to prep projects, and I'm hoping to get the last four braid strips completed at the retreat. Tonight I got all the rest of the red square strips assembled. Sub-sewing, as it were.

These scrappy projects are so satisfying.

2010-10-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

Here's my completed very scrappy Bricks and Steppingstones. The early morning light here really shows off the scrolly curlicue quilting done by the fabulous Creations by Marge in suburban Whitewater, Wisconsin

This is a Bonnie Hunter scrap pattern, and once again, thanks to Bonnie and her generosity in sharing a great treasure trove of patterns and ideas on her site. All completely free.

This quilt is entirely scrap from the depths of the Threadlines vaults. It's fun to look at the fabrics, remembering where and when they were bought. I just love how the scrap fabrics work out their own color story. It's not really chaotic at all, as long as the consistency of the black and white four patches amp down the busy-ness just a bit.

My first quilt memory is looking at a quilt on my parents' bed, and searching for all the different fabrics. That's fun for grownups too.

Bricks and Steppinstones came together easily over a long weekend, at a retreat last spring.

Very enjoyable sewing--it has my stamp of approval for simplicity and speed. (Have to show off the funky backing fabric once again.)

Wouldn't it also be gorgeous made with a real color scheme? And with the right fabric/color mix, it could even qualify for the Fresh Modern Quilts category...

2010-09-20T07:30:00.000-05:00

Sorry for my absence. Life goes on, with its busy-ness.

Somehow when I was busy with other things, summer has morphed into fall. No frost yet here but days and evenings are definitely cooler and trees are beginning to color. It's lovely, but transitory. Colder days are coming.

And transitions abound. Later this week, we'll be heading back to Upper Michigan to bury the matriarch of my husband's family, the indomitable Aunt Tyyne Maki, born in Finland, who passed away last week at the grand age of 95. So very glad we got to see her one last time in early August. Meanwhile, some of our closest friends, a couple we've known since college, have bailed on this northern climate for Florida. Our Thanksgiving table will be smaller this year.

Life, and quilting, go on.

Friday evening I drove out into the deep country to pick up a quilt from the wonderful Creations by Marge. She has worked her magic on my scrappy Bricks and Stepping Stones

and all that remains is the binding. I got the binding made and sewn on in a fit of enthusiasm on Friday night.

And extra credit points to anyone who's been quilting long enough to remember the binding fabric:

Isn't this backing fabric great?

What a nice antique-y look it has... Bonus--there is some of it left to ride again in another quilt.

Now, all that remains is hand-sewing the binding to the backing, and attaching the label. And intrepid longarm quilter Marge even throws in a label!

Blue

2010-08-16T07:30:00.004-05:00

Way last spring, a friend and I had penciled in a plan for a quilt shop road trip in mid-August. As the date came closer,we realized that our trip would be during the first annual warehouse sale at Primitive Gatherings in Menasha, Wisconsin, one of the best destination quilt shops in the state.

That's what I call synchronicity.

We headed north to Menasha on the last morning of the sale, but that was fine with both of us--what we had in mind were quilt backing fabrics. And shop owner Lisa Bonjean had sent out an email blast saying that fabric would be $2 a yard on Saturday. Wow!

Even in the last hours of the sale, we found plenty to love.

Between the two of us, we cleaned off nine bolts of fabric. I'm ready with backings for a couple year's worth of quilts.

OK, true confession time... Was it me who was whining a few weeks back about kitted quilts? Well, I got sucked into my first quilt kit. So yes, I'm eating crow.

But what a beauty...

The finished quilt was on display, looking much as it does in the photo here, and I simply could not resist those antique-y blues and shirtings. I also couldn't resist the price.

All in all, pretty darned pleasing.

But when I got home--the classic slap to the forehead. This quilt is going to require 864 one inch half-square triangles. What do I ALREADY HAVE left over from the strippy quilt I finished in the spring???

We all have our comfort zones and apparently tiny blue and white half- square triangles are mine.

You can all go ahead and snicker now.

2010-08-16T07:05:00.007-05:00

Greetings! It's been an eventful couple weeks. Some of that time was spent in the wilds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where four other people and I people enjoyed six days of concentrated family togetherness in a cottage with a five gallon hot water heater. That was an adventure we'll surely talk about for years...

We spent a day on Madeline Island in Lake Superior

and made sure to pig out on regional guilty pleasure foods such as (*shudder*) Deep Fried Cheese Curds.

Yum.

But I can say with great enthusiasm that I was very glad to get home.

I also had my kids under roof at home for some concentrated family time here too. That resulted in some throwback scenes like this:

Lucy slept through this madness as you can see.

And because the Legos are usually stored in the depths of a closet in my sewing room, my sewing room currently looks like this:

And yes, that is a Dude action figure laying to the rear, on my work table. Don't ask.

But the kids are gone now and life has gone back to quiet normal. It was a great visit with everyone, despite the five gallon hot water tank.

Now to get the sewing room re-organized and re-energized.

The Process Pledge

2010-07-29T13:32:00.003-05:00

Time spent on Google Reader always pays off. No, no, it's not wasting time. Not at all.

I was eating at my desk with one hand and web surfing with the other. I hopscotched through several quilt blogs, ending up at Rossie, founder of Fresh Modern Quilts at Flickr, finding a wonderful manifesto on process and purpose.

I have made a process pledge. The goal of the process pledge is to create a new sensibility in quilting blogs where we don’t just show finishes or occasionally confess about our moments of indecision, but chat openly and often about our works in progress, our inspirations, and our moments of decision. I know that many of us are already posting about our thinking on quilts and the processes involved from start to finish, let's do more! And let's post about quilts as we work on them. I want to see more half-done quilts, not just the finished thing with a journal entry about the process.

I have always shown a fair amount of process here, but sometimes have felt inadequate and frustrated, because what with a full-time job and all, I don't get things completed so fast. Process can be a long and drawn-out affair in my sewing room.

But that's OK. And really, 'finished' isn't the whole story of any quilt or other project. Sometimes we have to cover some miles to get there and that can be important and instructive. Process is good and I'm going to try to get more of it down here.

New Life

2010-07-28T19:54:00.005-05:00

We planted a baby oak tree today to replace the grandfather oak lost in the tornado. It won't grow huge in our lifetimes but it's an investment in the future and in our confidence that someday it will be massive and sheltering for some other family.

And as long as the tree guys were coming, they brought several more red maples for the back yard.

As with the oaks, it's going to take awhile, but even a little more fall color will make me happy and remind me of the flaming hillsides back home in northwest Pennsylvania. I don't care what New Englanders say about their home turf, the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania have the best fall color anywhere.

And so it goes...

Another new beginning of a quilt variety:

I think we've pretty well established that I'm an acolyte of Bonnie Hunter, and of her super ideas for dealing with scraps. And so, here is another scrap quilt underway. This one is her braid with cornerstones. There's lots of sewing yet to do in this quilt, but this will be one to peck away at on sewing evenings with friends and at quilt retreats. And maybe even on my own.

I really like these scrappy projects--they use up bits of fabric I've collected and they make me feel virtuous, making something from nothing. Well, about five drawers worth of nothing...

It's also just so much fun to see the strange bedfellows marching next to each other in the braids.

The dogs-behind-the-Chinese-restaurant fabric sits next to a bright basketweave, which is next to my all-time favorite Smithsonian repro (From the Rising Sun line--it came in four colors, you know, and I still have some of all four). Then there's one of those pesky fruit fabrics I'm STILL trying to get rid of, and then ...sliced green peppers. Who says they can't all play nicely together??

Even the lights make for some wacky combos.

I think I'm going to be pretty happy with this one, and I'll post my progress, no matter how slow it may be.

2010-07-19T07:22:00.005-05:00

I'm usually not a matchy-matchy person. I don't like the idea of someone else choosing my palette, so I'm not much for the idea of working with a single line of fabric in a single project.

It's good to have ideals and policies and to stick with them, but there's also a time to break your own rules. And I get to say when that time is for me.

When I first saw the French General Rouenneries line last fall, I was pretty much enthralled. Loved the look and loved the palette. I loved it all so much I couldn't wait for the yardage to hit the stores; I bought myself a layercake packet of samples from the line.

This is just so unlike me.

I ended up chopping the layercake into fourths.

I didn't want a quilt entirely made from plain squares, so I bought a bit of Rouenneries yardage, once it was available, for a subtle alternate block to throw in every here and there.

I found a complimentary brown for sashing and used one of the Rouenneries solids for cornerstones. The border is another of the Rouenneries fabrics--why be inconsistent now?

Voila--one Rouenneries quilt top, all ready for quilting. Not a groundbreaker as quilts go, but I think the tones and prints are just lovely.

Still, don't look for me to go the matchy-matchy route again anytime soon.

2010-07-15T08:30:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy and expensive summer. Our brush with the tornado brought with it a fair amount of uproar, none of which was covered under any insurance whatsoever. Of course, our expenses and inconvenience are NOTHING when compared to the folks around here who are out of their homes for months and months to come, and are just beginning to haggle with contractors and insurance companies, etc. But our own little uproar has kept us busy.

Mr. Kathie decided this was the time to invest in a shiny new chainsaw, and he has been pecking away at chopping up the big oak tree.

Lucky him--being retired, his work schedule is governed by when the weather is cool. Looks like we'll be well-supplied with firewood for this coming winter.

Next week, we'll have a few new trees planted--an oak to replace the big one we lost, and several red maples for the back yard. Meanwhile, the view of our front yard is much changed. Next to the spindly little mulberry tree in the foreground there used to be a huge oak. And may again be some day, albeit not in my lifetime.

Some friends and I have begun meeting to sew every other week and this is just about all the sewing I've done since the Mineral Point retreat in May. There is a quilt top nearly finished and I'll get it photographed once it's done.

One new accomplishment is knitting socks on two circular needles. Yay! A friend offered to teach me how to do this, but the teaching amounted to "cast on the stitches, split them between two circular needles, and you'll figure it out."

It wasn't quite as easy as that. I got totally confused about knitting the foot gusset in May, while visiting my daughter in Washington, D.C. After a frantic email exchange, the intrepid Jenny from Knitch sent elegantly concise instructions, and the rest of the sock was a piece of cake. I owe her a large quantity of chocolate.

This sock is also one of my first departures from the plain ribbed sock. I like ribbed socks; they FIT, and that's key. But they get a bit boring.

This is still a rib, and so has some stretch--it's K2P2 for several rows, then a row with a twist stitch, then several rows of P2K2.

After a couple repeats, I discarded the row counter and the sock became Mindless. This pattern is in my go-to sock book Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch, and I will definitely knit it again.

Sock #2 is already cast on and on its way.

Shaking It Up

2010-06-23T20:26:00.005-05:00

We've had a few days of extreme upheaval around here, and I mean that literally.

Monday night, the weather warnings were severe and the worst of it was bearing right down on my locality. Mr. Kathie, Lucy, and I thought it prudent to head for the basement. We followed all the proceedings on TV, sweating bullets about the brand new roof that had been on the house only since last week.

Once the storm sounded like it had abated somewhat, we ventured back upstairs to see what had happened.

The porch light was conveniently out of commission, but in the somewhat irregular glow of the lightning, it looked like one of our beautiful ancient oaks was gone. Could that possibly be true? Mr. Kathie didn't think so. I was sure I was seeing a very large stump where a tree should have been. He ventured down the driveway in a car, came back, and announced that not only was a big oak gone, at least four or five other trees on our property were down too.

And our mailbox was gone.

So bizarre.

In the morning light, the sight was just amazing--trees down everywhere, parts of garage doors in the street, insulation spread through everyone's yards. Most of the parts of houses had blown in from some fair distance away. How surreal to have our beautiful and lush June marred by such a thing.

But my neighborhood was fortunate--this was only a glancing blow of an F2 tornado. Very few houses had actual structural damage. The next town over, where I work, was hit hard by the tornado. At least 25 families lost their homes. Amazingly enough, no one was killed or seriously injured. The response from emergency crews has been outstanding and other volunteers have done a fabulous job. My library is in the municipal building and still has no power. I haven't worked since Monday, and may be off the rest of this week.

Our house is unscathed, including the brand new roof. We are so very fortunate. One of my co-workers will be out of her home for a month while structural repairs are completed.

It's apparent that the big oak had been pretty fragile.

It had been struck by lightning many years ago and had dead areas in its upper reaches, but it leafed out nicely every year, and we'd hoped against hope that it would go on forever.. It was pretty heartbreaking to see such a venerable tree bite the dust.

2010-06-16T21:30:00.001-05:00

Arrgh! Been missing in action here, but it's been busy in my corner of the real world.

Been doing a good deal of this:

...and I have the scratches and mosquito bites to prove it. A wonderful library patron gifted me with a carload of ferns dug from her garden and it took days to get them all placed. And I spent most of last weekend clearing out an area that, some years back, was optimistically planned to be a shade garden. Unfortunately, it's become an overgrown mess. What to do with it? Now that it's cleared out, we're seriously considering just scattering grass seed, allowing it to become yard, and being done with it. Serious lack of imagination, but time is always at a premium, and mowed grass would look way better than a weedy tangle.

Have to say that I'm the kind of gardener who gets a big shot of enthusiasm in May and June and then it goes away. I mean, I live in Wisconsin. Really, what's the use?? Sigh.

I've also been hanging out in Milwaukee, at some Asian grocery stores, which are always a welcome break from my sad little life in the burbs. A friend and I plan several ethnic grocery days per year. We visit a Thai/Lao one, a Filipino one, an Italian one, sometimes an Indian one. This time we finished with lunch at Phan's Garden, a great Vietnamese cafe. It was too summery to think of ordering the Pho. When we're there next in chilly weather, I will for sure be trying it.

What IS all this stuff? It's just so much fun to look.

But yes, there is a quilting segment to this roundabout post. Here's a completed top, straight from the archives of Quiltville.

This is Bricks and Stepping Stones, completed in one weekend in May. Friends, this is 100% scrap, setting me firmly on moral high ground. Look closely and feast your eyes on a panorama of fabrics from the last twenty years.

This top nicely cleared out a drawer of scraps. Feeling very self-righteous.

More Stars

2010-05-21T17:45:00.001-05:00

Sharing more quilts from the star block exchange reveal.

Again, these are the results of a 2009 group challenge, among those of us who usually attend this particular retreat at Jones Mansion, to do something with the Variable Star block. I found out last weekend that the quilt was supposed to "suit the personality of the maker" but I never knew that as I was making and RE-making my own quilt. Was my quilt *ME*? I guess maybe it was.

I have a sinking feeling that I don't have photos of all the quilts, but I have to go with what I have.

From my friend Renee, the lover of tiny blocks and tinier triangles:

That one deserves a closer look:

Aren't they all fun? Yay to my quilting peeps.

The reveal was at the Saturday afternoon tea, traditional at this retreat. This "tea" included the fancy cocktails for which one participant is justly famous--on this occasion Spiced Pear Bellinis and Lemon-Thyme Cocktails--as well as a table full of beautifully presented hors d'oeuvres, courtesy of Lori, the proprietor of Jones Mansion..

Most meals chez Threadlines are definitely not like this, but it's sure fun to enjoy a such a spread occasionally.

The Reveal

2010-05-19T20:17:00.004-05:00

At last.

I've been working on this quilt since last fall. I've shown the blocks and other bits and pieces, and I whined here when the quilt didn't develop the way I expected and went off in its own direction. But I didn't show the whole thing because it was part of a group challenge. Everyone else in the challenge had been pretty secretive about what they were doing. Me, my life is pretty much an open book.

The challenge had been issued at our Jones Mansion retreat last year--everyone was to do something with the Variable Star block, and have the quilt completed by this May's retreat. I loved it--a chance to work in a traditional vein, which is all I've wanted to do in the last year anyway.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this quilt.

I'm a sucker for the busy, putzy piecing--this is my favorite kind of quilt. I complained a lot about making those hundreds of half square triangles, but once they're done, I love the busy-ness they impart to the whole thing. And I still have about half of those HSTs left--watch for their appearance in another quilt before too long.

Discovering that the toile that was to be a major element of this quilt didn't work with it AT ALL was a setback, but once I found the brown stripe fabric, things jelled very nicely.

The border was not difficult, once I got the measurements worked out. I love my Electric Quilt--it figures such things for me, and I paper-pieced the border blocks it generated. Paper piecing IS a grind though. But one must keep one's eyes on the prize. :-)

The quilt worked out to be roughly 67 inches by 72 inches. It's an odd size--too small to be a bed quilt and too big for any of my wall quilt hangers. For now, it's slung over a balcony railing here, making me happy when I see it. But I think a bigger wall hanger is in my future.

I have lots more to show and that will come next time--other challenge quilts, retreat shots, and new projects.

2010-05-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

Lone Star weekend in Wisconsin!

Olive and Me Retreat in Palmyra, WI, held a mini retreat/class last weekend. There were five of us on board. The project, taught by Cheryl Gerbing of Waukesha, was a 72" Lone Star, supposedly doable in one weekend.

It was a congenial group, with lots of variety in stars being made.

I haven't shared here the amount of pre-class fabric dithering and waffling that went on in my head. Use your imagination... My friends were thoroughly sick of me. Should I try out the stack of Amy Butler and such-like prints I had bought at Yellow Bird? What about my African fabrics? Or should I go antique-y? The final decision involved three shopping trips to far-flung places in my state and quite a bit of money spent.

No, I never learn.

Antique-y won out. Christmas-y antique-y.

And after much dithering about the size star I wanted, I decided to go with the 72" version, which called for three inch cut strips. My thinking is that a bed-sized Christmas quilt would be fun. And of course, red, green, and gold are seen in lots of old quilts. This doesn't have to be just for the holidays.

As promised, the pieced diamonds for the star are finished, but not assembled into the star.

I'm liking.

I'm having a problem with the gigantic setting squares and triangles--it's very hard for me to leave 22 inches square of unpieced real estate on any quilt. This quilt would have four unpieced squares of that size as setting squares. Plus the setting triangles, which also look HUGE to me.

What to do? I'm considering my options right now. I'm liking the idea of New York Beauty blocks quite a bit and have been playing in EQ. I've also been consulting some of my quilt history books, looking for something that's authentic but not too much work.

Stay tuned...

2010-04-27T23:10:00.007-05:00

Welcome to the land of finished objects!

Well, they're small finished objects. And one of them is only a finished component of a bigger project. But I'm moving along, even if it's baby steps.

Another pair of socks is done. I've only been working on these since December.

Please don't ask me what this yarn is because I can't remember. I think I bought it at La Bella Vita in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, last spring. But I could be wrong. These are pretty plain--k2p2 ribbing throughout.

I like ribbed socks--they fit. The only pair of stockinette socks I've ever made did not fit, so I've never made that mistake again. And purple is like a neutral color for me. So I expect these to go into heavy rotation come fall.

And, another set of tiny star blocks is done. This will be for exchange #4 of 10 exchanges. Each exchange consists of eight each of two colorways--16 3.5" blocks each time. The blocks will finish to 3", and each of the swappers should end up with 160 tiny stars.

I guess I'm liking the Quilt in a Day Flying Geese Ruler better. It's getting easier. I only made one set of eight wrong here--just can't get it in my head which color will turn out to be the the star points and which will be the background. True confession: the rust was originally supposed to be the star points. Oh well....

Officially, the rust background has become "an artistic decision".

Finally, a sad story. A friend made a wild and wonderful Lone Star wall hanging with some great solids from the Gee's Bend Collection by Windham. The setting pieces and border were brilliant black and white prints--a wonderfully zoomy quilt. The fabrics WERE all pre-washed.

After the quilt was completed, she washed it again and this is the result:

An allover PINKNESS. The setting and border fabrics are now uniformly pink and black, and the red dye has dulled the color in the star.

Such a disappointment for the maker. So this is a "buyer beware" warning--these Gee's Bend fabrics appear to be loaded with extra dye. Washing with some sort of fixative might be a good idea. Or using some different fabric might be an even better idea. After seeing this, I don't think I'll be buying any of the Gee's Bend solids.

As for my friend, she is now RE-MAKING this quilt with the same black and white fabrics, but different solids.

2010-04-19T07:52:00.002-05:00

A mostly at-home weekend. Project #1: the strippy star quilt was completed and delivered to my longarm artiste, Marge West, so that she may work her magic on it. It's out of my sewing room for now!

Half of my blocks are made for the next round of the tiny star block exchange--eight down, eight to go.

I'm getting used to the Quilt in a Day Flying Geese ruler which I'm using for the star points. It's putzy, putzy, putzy, but yields perfect results. These tiny blocks need to be smack on the money.

I cut the corner pieces oversize, so I could trim the blocks evenly once they're finished.

There's a retreat coming up in a couple weeks and I want to be ready with some kitted-up mindless sewing that will work well with lively conversation and Merlot. So I went into a bit of a cutting frenzy this weekend. First of all, I have fabric cut and ready to go for a Bonnie Hunter Bricks and Stepping Stones.

And I'm in the midst of chopping up a drawerful of 2" strips for a scrappy braid quilt.

This requires a lot of cutting! I love Bonnie's variation with the red squares. So this is what I'm shooting for.

This does my mental attitude a lot of good--using up bits and pieces, wasting-not and wanting-not. I may not get both scrappy quilts done at the retreat, but it will be nice mindless sewing for the next few months. There are a couple more demanding projects on the horizon, but sometimes you just want to sew and not think about it too much.

I'm ready for that.

2010-04-14T23:19:00.003-05:00

A busy and highly motivated week of intensive sewing! I've been so enthused about this strippy quilt--I'd be thinking about it all day, eager to get to it in the evening.

The quilt top is all assembled, borders and all, after what seemed like MILES of foundation pieced sawtooth borders.

The results are worth the effort, but paper-piecing certainly is a mind-numbing process. And if the sewing itself isn't tedious enough, removing all the papers afterward is no fun at all.

One thing that helped was to fold down and score the paper on each seam line right after it was sewn. Ripping off those papers was tiresome, but they ripped quite cleanly and the task was done relatively quickly. Here's a peek of the completed top:

Things don't line up perfectly, so the quilt police would have a field day here. Let 'em! The small half square triangles are one inchers, but the sawtooth borders had to be oddly sized. In fact, the top and bottom borders are slightly different from the side borders. I am choosing not to be bothered by any of it. We will call it artistic license and leave it at that.

With luck, it will be off to Marge, the ace long-arm artiste this weekend.

2010-04-08T22:29:00.005-05:00

Been busy! My star blocks have been repurposed into a quilt that *I think* is stronger than the original quilt I had planned. And I have blocks left over for another project. What's not to love?

I've taken 28 of the 36 star blocks I made and have put them together into a smaller strippy. The striped fabric I found at Primitive Gatherings is working out great, and the main part of the quilt is assembled.

Not only do I have star blocks left over, I only used about half of the half-square triangles I had made and trimmed. It's like money in the bank!

Even though I had several fabrics that might have made good borders for this quilt, I've swallowed hard and am now knee deep in paper-piecing a sawtooth border. So far, so good, although the strip I made tonight is about one inch short. A bit of tweaking is needed and I can deal with that. But not tonight.

Paper-piecing is putzy and uses up a good deal of fabric--yes, I know. But I've had trouble in the past with long, skinny triangles. With paper-piecing they will turn out sharp and true. It's not fun. But it will get me there.

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

Sad family pet news this week.

Cosmo the cat, who was part of our household for several years while his mistress (our daughter) was serving in the United States Peace Corps, has passed away in his adopted hometown of Washington, DC.

Never one to back down from a challenge, real or imagined, Cosmo lived a life of intensity. While not exactly a party guy, he enjoyed his life, made no compromises, had his opinions, and imprinted his personality on us all. Sometimes literally.

He will be missed. RIP Cosmo.

2010-03-30T21:47:00.005-05:00

Decisions needed to be made, but you know the old saw, "when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping." As far as I'm concerned, those are words to live by.

A couple friends and I spent last Saturday road-tripping the quilt shop circuit around a quadrant of Wisconsin. We stopped at variety of shops, just the sort of itinerary to recharge batteries. First was Holly & Ivy in Ripon, primarily a wool and basket shop.

We decided we would make the trip in a heartbeat if Holly & Ivy offers a class on this basket.

Next was the wonderful Primitive Gatherings quilt shop in Menasha. Finally, we stopped at Yarns by Design in Neenah. A well-rounded shopping experience--hitting all our interests and scratching the itches that needed scratching.

For me, this was an *emergency* shopping trip. I was burning to come up with some solutions to the current quilting issues boxing me in the corner. And success--I found fabric to inspire new directions on my stalled strippy, and at least two other projects.

The answer for the strippy came in the form of an antique-y brown and blue striped fabric at Primitive Gatherings that did a much better job of picking up and uniting the colors on the block strips I had made.

I've also decided to make the strippy smaller. It will be a wall quilt. The toile is gone--that will be a different project. And I decided that as much as I like things made small, the endless lengths of tiny half-square triangles I've made are just too dinky for the quilt as it had been planned. I think the HSTs will look much better on a slightly smaller-scaled quilt.

One very astute commenter mentioned my original quilt plan as having some proportion issues. She was absolutely right. I'm hoping this new direction will solve some of those issues.

2010-03-25T22:50:00.003-05:00

When you've been making quilts as long as I have, you'd think I would have the elementary bugs worked out of quilt planning and construction. But no. I'm continually amazed at the mistakes I can make and the lessons yet to be learned.

A case in point--this "simple" strippy that I had hoped to have completed for a deadline in May. Wasn't I just saying the component pieces were all made, ready for assembly? This week, I pinned the pieces onto my design wall for the first time and had a heart-in-the-stomach experience. Colors are not working at all. And it's a BLUE QUILT. How can it be that colors are out of whack?

The whole point of this quilt is to feature this pheasant toile. But the lights in the strips of star blocks are very white, while the toile is set on a definite beige ground. When viewed together, the stars are glaringly white.

And the half square triangles I hope to incorporate are in the same whitish tones. End result--the toile looks dingy. The contrast is more apparent in real life than in the photo above. Believe me--the effect is not good and I know in my heart of hearts that it would be a mistake to proceed.

I took the whole mess with me tonight for a sewing date with friends and there was consensus: I have two quilts here. There is the quilt that will use the toile and there is the quilt that will use the strips of star blocks. But these component pieces don't belong together.

This is a setback. Some creative thinking is needed.

2010-03-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

Woo hoo! Another weekend of Spargo-ing with the Spargoettes and I have an announcement to make: my blocks are completed. And it only took a year!

The basic sewing was finished on the blocks on the last Spargo weekend. This weekend was spent on embellishments. Let me tell you, over the last two days I've threaded and unthreaded enough needles and I've sewn enough French knots to last a lifetime.

An unembellished block:

All dressed up and ready to party:

This Sue Spargo project is called Flowerbed. (Click on the link and scroll down about 2/3 of the page.) To bring readers up to date--this is a project stemming from a class and the unadvised purchase of very pricey kits by several friends and I. We formed a support group so as to GET BUSY on this project. One year in and everyone's doing very well.

The next step will be assembling the blocks and their sashing, and there will also be borders with applique and embellishments. We aren't out of the woods on this project yet, but there is movement.

2010-03-09T18:50:00.000-06:00

In a couple previous posts, I've mentioned working on a strippy quilt. This was inspired by a particularly evocative toile whose main feature is an undulating vine with large pheasants. I had originally seen this fabric, in brown, used in a kitted quilt at Country Sampler. A kind blog commenter clued me in that this fabric was available in other colorways.

Serendipity! I was able to score a load of it in blue. Things have taken shape slowly, but now the component parts are just about ready to go.

The toile parts of the quilt took some planning, and the better part of an evening was spent crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees. It was an aggravating fabric design, as many are. Across the width of the fabric, there are two repeats of the major design. But they are not centered on each half of the fabric width. In order to balance the toile design, a fair amount of fabric width has to be cut away. This KILLED ME, but was unavoidable.

And the undulating-vines-with-large-pheasants need to be cut offset in order to end up with a symmetrical layout. Now, I'm all for non-symmetry in some things, but this quilt needs to be well-ordered and symmetrical.

Woe to the quilter who only buys the exact measurement needed for the quilt length. The offset was at least one-third yard. The fact that I bought extra fabric is just pure dumb luck.

I've made Variable Stars, assembled them into strips, and I've made all those hundreds of half-square triangles. But due to losing fabric width in the toile strips, this quilt will not be as wide as originally planned. Luckily the stash produced an antique-y looking floral stripe that will add some needed width. A partial mockup :

Haven't quite decided yet where all the half-square triangles will go....

And if things STILL aren't wide enough, there may yet be a border to piece.

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In knitting news, I scored a nice quantity of Kimmet Croft hand-dyed lace-weight yarn from a friend who's decided to de-stash it. One knitter's de-stash is another knitter's new treasure to pet. Happy, happy.

Will my life be long enough to knit up all the lace I want to make? I intend to give it my best shot.

2010-02-21T22:29:00.002-06:00

I'm on my own this weekend. Mr. Kathie is in Florida, visiting an old friend. The two of them--both former ski jumpers--are no doubt amusing themselves discussing the Byzantine politics and issues of the sport...when they aren't emailing me to tell me how nice the weather is!

But I've managed to amuse myself too. All 700 half square triangles are trimmed and ready to be sewn into strips for my blue strippy quilt. That was an ugly job!

Most of these HSTs were made from trimmings from connector corners, and I knew some would be small. I had to discard a few that didn't measure quite 1.5". I think I still have enough because the quilt may end up a bit smaller than was originally planned.

A strippy makes for some interesting design issues....and not all the issues of this quilt are resolved yet.

But what the heck! I plan to take the plunge this week. Now that the component pieces for the strippy quilt are all ready, I can get down to business and start serious sewing. More to come on that.

I'm usually not one for making a quilt from just one line of fabric but I surely got all excited about Moda's French General Rouenneries! Last fall, before yardage was available, the overwhelming urge to pet this fabric came over me and I couldn't resist buying a layercake. I've since picked up a couple other coordinating fabrics and the idea for a small quilt began to take shape. Tonight I watched the Olympics from my cutting table and voila--my very own DIY kitted French General quilt ready to sew.

Simple, simple. This will be just sashed and cornerstoned squares. The colors look pretty terrible in this picture--the real colors are much more soft and lovely--not so nerve-jangly.

Took time out from all this industry to drive into Wauwatosa this afternoon to meet my son and his girlfriend for brunch. It had been weeks since I'd seen them. Good food, good talk.

And last but not least, Miss Lucy got a bath.

Westies must be made of that sham-wow material because they can soak up water like nothing else I know. After her bath, most of the house was soaking wet, and that includes me. She had to run and run and run and shake that water all over. She's a bit dried off here--this was the first I could get her to sit still long enough for a picture.

2010-02-18T20:00:00.000-06:00

Just finished reading The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan. This book was a big deal here at our library. Our director had chosen it as a pick of the month for the library reading group at Goodreads. She connected with the author, who was planning a Chicago visit, and graciously agreed to a Wisconsin side trip to speak at the library this past weekend.

And unfortunately I missed the whole thing, due to the DeSoto trip.

The novel's setting is Niagara Falls, ON in 1915 to the early 1920s--the years when the power companies were lobbying the Canadian and U.S. governments to allow the diversion of more and more water from the Falls for generating electricity. It's not much of a stretch to say that the Falls are the main character of the book, lovingly explored and described. I grew up not too far from Niagara Falls, have always loved the area, and really enjoyed this focus.

The plot itself was less involving and I had some questions about what seemed to be jarringly modern language used by the characters. Did people say "pitch" to mean "throw away" in 1915? Was something easy to do "a cinch" back then? If only my mother were still around--she would be able to answer these questions...

If you've been to the Falls, you'll remember the Niagara Scow, the rusted wreck stuck on the rocks above the Falls since 1918. Thanks to this book, I finally know how it happened! Still hoping to be at the Falls on the day the scow breaks loose and plunges over the edge...and that should happen someday.

I'm just starting Driftless, by David Rhodes, which seems appropriate since I just visited the Driftless area of Wisconsin, the area left untouched by glaciers. Looking forward to this book.

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In other news, the Olympic games hold sway chez Threadlines. We love it all. Yes, NBC coverage is dumbed down and vacuous, but we watch it anyway like the lemmings we are. To keep myself feeling like I'm accomplishing something, anything, I've dug out what has come to be known as The Purple Shawl of Death and am slowly knitting on the borders.

I haven't shown the progress on this piece for some time, so a refresher is in order. This is The Victoria, from Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby. The yarn is Rowan Kidsilk Haze, color Dewberry.

I'm good for about one white knuckle 18-row repeat per night. Then the window of mental alertness slams shut and it's time to just sit and stare at the TV. Working at this snail's pace, I still have several months of this project ahead of me. It's one honkin' big shawl!

2010-02-15T19:59:00.004-06:00

DeSoto was a blast--a long weekend full of productive work and inspiration. Beautiful weather, congenial friends.

I got a great deal accomplished. The blue strippy quilt is progressing in a hopeful way. Hopeful that it will be completed by May, that is. Above are 25 of the 700 half-square triangles I made this weekend. Tedious sewing, but made better when it's done amid good friends, good conversation, and a glass or two of Argentine Malbec, which is my big new wine crush.

The inspiration came in the form of two spectacular quilt tops brought by one friend. The maker is a longtime traditional and repro-only quilter who has, to say the least, broken free of those limits.

Here is an amazing Lone Star top:

and a detail of the same quilt.

Glorious, liberating color for sure:

And a detail. Fabulous.

Some of us worked on machine tasks. Here are Deb and Renee, hard at work on their next sets of tiny stars. And are mine even started? Of course not.

Mary brought handwork. Exquisite handwork...

So now I'm home, batteries recharged and raring to go. But we're Olympics watchers, glued to the tube until the Closing Ceremonies. Mr. Kathie, having been a competitive skier and ski jumper, has LOTS of opinions. This will probably be a knitting week for me as I watch the competition, and listen to those opinions.

2010-02-09T18:23:00.003-06:00

Woohoo--snow day today! This is a long and drawn out snowstorm--it began Monday night and is to continue through tonight, with the blowing and the drifting increasing. So the real concern, if the library is to be open Wednesday, may be getting out of a very drifted-in driveway in the morning. We'll see how that works out.

Uncertainty, your name is winter.

And, I'm OK with all this as long as the roads are clear by Thursday, as I'm headed to De Soto for a long weekend of quilting with friends. And I don't intend to be delayed by weather.

I made good use of today, making blocks for a new quilt. 26 blocks completed out of 36 needed.

I've actually been working on this one sporadically since last fall but this is its blog debut. It's going to be a strippy, with rows of Variable Stars setting off a particularly handsome blue toile.

This will be an antique-y quilt, with colors severely restricted to...blue. This is the all-blue quilt I've wanted to make for a long time.

I have a blog reader to thank for cueing me in to the fact that this toile was even available in blue--I had only seen it in brown. I can no longer remember who it was. But thanks.

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My last post provoked a good deal of dialogue, some in the comments and some as private emails. There are other quilt groups grappling with serious issues and there are other shops fighting for their existence. But I'm happy to say that I heard from young quilters saying, "We're here! We're quilting!" Of course you are! That's a huge mood brightener.

Quilt on...

2010-02-06T16:36:00.008-06:00

This has been a sad week for quilters in my area.

Monday morning began with the news that Yellow Bird Art, one of the most wonderful quilt shops anywhere, will be closing.

Yellow Bird Art has been the go-to shop when my friends and I have been retreat-ing in DeSoto, Wisconsin. It was located just a short hop over the state line, across the bridge in Lansing, Iowa. A destination shop for sure. Always full of an exciting mix of the traditional and the contemporary--hand-dyed wools, kimono silks, Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler fabrics, cutting edge garment patterns, unusual beads, buttons, and other findings--shoppers could find just the right raw materials to bring out the artist in anyone.

Yellow Bird was a Quilt Sampler Top Ten shop in 2007--so well-deserved. The staff was friendly and the owners always remembered us by name, even though we visited only a couple times per year. So inviting and well merchandised...well, I could go on and on.

It's very sad to see this exciting shop succumb to the pressures of our turgid economy.

The week ended with the news that WQI, our Wisconsin state quilt organization, will disband at the end of the year. WQI has been active for many years, offering seminars, classes and great opportunities for learning and growth. But membership has been declining as the big regional shows have come in, offering nationally-known teachers and huge vendors' areas.

Looking at attendance at quilt shows and classes, it's obvious that quilting is aging out just a bit. Those of us who got into quilting in our 20s and 30s, in the wake of the big quilting revival of the 70s and 80s are suddenly (suddenly??) getting older. And many of the next generation see quilting only as their mother's hobby.

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at a home dec blog featuring a home with a couple well-executed quilts in evidence. More than one blog commenter expressed the opinion that the rooms would be greatly improved if the quilts would be donated to the local animal shelter. OUCH!

Times change and various craft media move in and out of the spotlight. I've loved quilts since I was a kid, studying the mix of early 20th century fabrics in the old family Log Cabin and Monkey Wrench quilts on my parents' bed.

I believe I would have made quilts whether or not there was a "Quilting Revival"--it seems to be in my genes. I still love them like nothing else.

Please--support your local quilt shop AND your area guilds. Such precious resources...

2010-02-04T21:56:00.003-06:00

Busy week. There were a couple of evening commitments, the best of which was tonight's Open Knitting at Knitch of Delafield, Wisconsin, which, while not exactly a LYS for me, is reasonably close. A couple friends and I have vowed to hit the twice-a-month Open Knitting night as often as possible. It was really good to spend a companionable evening with knitters. I learned some things, and got lots of inspiration seeing what everyone else was doing.

I'm moving along mindlessly on these basic ribbed socks. Blistering speed, for me! These were begun in mid-December and, thanks to a couple tedious recent days spent on airplanes, I'm already nearly half done with sock number 2. This is a yummy variegated grape-y yarn. And the color is distributing MUCH BETTER than was the case with the last socks I made.

One thing that needs work is my perception of relative gauge of yarn. This stuff looked like fingering weight to me, and I cast on size 1 needles, like always. But the socks are working up to be quite dense. I think they might have been better with a needle sized up slightly. Live and learn.

But heavy and warm is good. Our library director likes to keep things chilly and my feet have been freezing at work.

2010-01-29T16:18:00.005-06:00

Goodness gracious--posts have been sparse lately. But things are happening; life goes on.

My most exciting recent event was a fast trip to Miami with my daughter to visit an old friend of hers (and mine). The girls were friends from 1st grade on, and have kept in touch despite numerous address changes, academic challenges, and other obstacles. I love them both so much and being all together for a weekend was the best possible gift.

I now have positive proof that those of us who live in Wisconsin are seriously insane. Miami was balmy, sunny, full of Latin atmosphere, and people in SHORTS and SANDALS. (In contrast, I'm sitting here right now in wool socks, one of the Landsend turtlenecks my daughter advises me to de-emphasize in my wardrobe, and the heaviest wool sweater I can find. Brrr!)

Our friends live right on the beach

and the sound of waves is the audio wallpaper of their lives. Not too shabby.

I got to revisit a quilt I made for Caroline's friend nearly a decade ago.

This was one quilt that got away from me before it was photographed, so I made sure to get a few shots of it.

The block was basically an elaborate Ninepatch sashed with rectangular Snowball blocks and with standard Ninepatches as corner blocks.

I'm not a pink person, but I liked the funky pinks in this quilt ten years ago, and I still like them. But hmm...what would I do differently now, ten years later? Make the blocks SMALLER, that's what.

It took me a good week to get back up to speed after the Miami trip--laundry, an empty pantry, houseguests, and Mr. Kathie's impending trip to a ski jumping tournament all have taken up precious sewing time.

With Mr. Kathie gone this weekend, I've embarked on an ambitious non-sewing project: I'm trying to organize one hundred years of family photos.

The recent pictures are fairly well organized. But I'm the repository of all the family photo archives. Until lately, they've been living in about six different places, all in chaos. This weekend, I'm determined to get photos sorted, labeled, and stored in a way that protects them and makes sense.

A BIG job.

Heading South

2010-01-14T21:28:00.003-06:00

My big Christmas gift was a long weekend in Florida. And that weekend is HERE. I'm flying from Wisconsin, my daughter is flying from DC, and we'll meet in Miami Friday night for a weekend visit with an old friend from our Cincinnati days. Even a couple days' respite from the grind of winter will be a treat.

Trying to get my mindset away from turtlenecks and woolly sweaters, and tune in more to this sort of thing:

At least my feet are ready for Florida.

And the rest of me is working hard on it.

Back soon.

January Wedding

2010-01-10T16:25:00.000-06:00

A friend's daughter was married on a snowy January night in a warm and elegant family-centered ceremony.

It was a bittersweet celebration as the groom's mother had passed away only last week. But doors close and new windows open, even in the chilliest season. We toasted life, love, and the happy bride and groom in front of a roaring fireplace and felt the chill melt away.

Congratulations to Josh and Michele.

2010-01-02T00:09:00.006-06:00

Christmas week has passed in a dizzy high-caloric whirl. This above, was my actual breakfast on December 26. Oink.

New Years celebrations and a family birthday have only added more buzz to my maxed-out sugar consumption. And there's no sign of the end of festivities. Dinner with friends in Chicago is planned for Saturday night, this coming week there will be two parties and a wedding, with a big trip coming up in two weeks. When are things supposed to slow down?

Clearly, challenging times call for strong measures and self-discipline. Ha.

So. Today I backed away from the cookie platter, swallowed hard, and descended into the morass that is my sewing room. After about half an hour of digging and semi-organizing, I was able to find the work table--major accomplishment. I NEED to get sewing. The deadline for the next mini star block exchange is looming. One week to go, and there are sixteen devilish little star blocks to make.

On friends' recommendation, I bought a set of Quilt in a Day Mini Geese Rulers to help with the construction of these little blocks.

I had been making the star points with connector corners, which is an inexact method at best. But these rulers...have any of you used them? And what do you think?

I can't complain about the results--they make perfect little star points, and would also produce slick little flying geese. But I'm not sure I'm having fun. I'm doing a lot of grunting as I do this grunt work.

Maybe I just need to get more comfortable with the process; then perhaps I can crank out the little units more efficiently, without feeling homicidal.

Opinions welcome...

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I've had a couple questions lately from commenters and have been unable to answer them as the commenters didn't have email enabled. When I get a "no-reply" comment, I always dig for an address. I visit the blog and profile of the writer. But if if there's no contact information, my hands are tied. Please, please check your settings and enable your email address.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T23:35:00.002-06:00

Hoping this holiday season is bringing peace and joy to all, no matter how it's celebrated.

Quilt Reading

2009-12-23T21:30:00.000-06:00

One regret from my brief career in a quilt shop was that I didn't purchase more quilt history books when I had the chance. Those state quilt books, most of which were put together by quilt search projects, are beautiful, chock full of inspiration, and unfortunately, usually in print only briefly. And also unfortunately, there aren't a lot of reasonably priced second chances--these don't seem to be the kind of quilt books that turn up at Half Price Books. I know, I've looked.

So I've been trying to pick up a few as I've had the chance and here's the latest addition to the bookshelf. ...In print and available at amazon.com BTW.

This book is a beauty. Lots of gorgeous early quilts with great depth of design and labor-intensiveness--many of these quiltmakers were obviously settled, comfortable, and had some means. They weren't struggling out on the prairie in a soddy or in a covered wagon and making just utility quilts. They were making heritage and were well aware of it.

The quilts in this book are just jaw-dropping, considering they were made without rotary cutters and strip piecing. I've done a couple Lone Stars in my life, but nothing like this.

And this--the combination of piecing and applique adds up to a good deal more than the sum of the parts.

Swoon...

Then after pages of staid quilting tradition, you turn the page to find this exuberance:

Pretty exciting stuff!

I'm anxious to get through the holidays and getting back to sewing quilts and not just reading about them.

The Sweet Tooth

2009-12-19T20:37:00.002-06:00

This is the week when so many of us are kitchen-centered. Lots of alchemy--candy and cookies are happening. It's such a delight--what butter and sugar can do. I've been making candies as I've had time in the last few days for gifting to friends and co-workers. I saw this recipe for Salted Pistachio Brittle and had to try it right away. I've loved pistachios since I was a kid and we'd buy bags of them on the way home from school and gobble them up, staining our fingers from the red-dyed shells.

This is a real dancing-on-the-edge recipe--the butter/sugar mixture has to be cooked almost to the point of burning and grabbed off the fire at the last possible minute.

The mixture turns a deep amber as it cooks. Then a fast dance--stir in the pistachios and spread it all on a baking sheet while it's still hot and spreadable.

Once the candy cools, it can be broken into pieces. I love the green of the pistachios next to the deep color of the candy. Very visually satisfying and yummy too.

Happy Spargo Days

2009-12-17T09:33:00.005-06:00

Winter has arrived, and with it the urge for cocooning and tending to handwork, especially WOOL handwork. In other words, where the heck is that Sue Spargo project I haven't touched since last summer??

Our Spargo group had its first meeting in a loooong time this past weekend. We stayed at Olive and Me Retreat in Palmyra, Wisconsin, just a quick hop from home for all of us. Olive and Me is owned by one member of our group, accomodating 6 to 8, perfect for our small band of sewists.

With Gingerbread Martinis, chardonnay, cookies, and carrot cake for imbibing, and various family events and drama to hash over, it's a wonder we got any work done at all, but we did. Progress is slow on this project, but joy of joys--I am now working on block 11 of 12! Some stitching is done, other parts are glued in place, awaiting stitching.

The blocks may be sewn, but there is still embellishment to do on most of them--beads, buttons, and extraneous embroidery. I'm sure I can while away another year before I even get around to assembling the blocks.

And then of course there will be the borders to applique... I don't think the Spargo group will be disbanding any time soon.

Snowy Morning

2009-12-09T10:32:00.003-06:00

This is the sight from my house this morning--more than eight inches (by my reckoning) of heavy, wet snow. Despite the fact that every school district within thirty miles is closed, our little library is open today.

So this must be dealt with:

And this is my commute!

The good news is the library will close at mid-afternoon so that everyone can get home before dark.

Happy winter...

Thinking Small

2009-12-08T21:05:00.007-06:00

Sitting here tonight as the first really big snowstorm of the year pounds my part of the country. Predictions are for up to a foot of snow, and then the big drifting winds will kick in. That's what generally causes the real trouble... But despite the disruption it brings, the snow surely has its own beauty; hope to get out tomorrow and take some pictures.

We all seem to need frequent reminders to take note of the little things in life, smelling the roses and all that. Maybe we need to be reminded to think small and make little things too--the joyful small hand-crafts that make everyday life a pleasure. Maybe the small object is a useful thing or maybe it's just a beautiful thing to look at. Either way--well worth the time.

I made this pincushion as my contribution to the gift exchange at our Seams group holiday bash, which was held last week.

It's based on a pattern called Floral Pincushion in the book You're Invited by Barb Adams and Alma Allen , but of course I had to change it a bit. Mainly, I made it bigger. Yes, the bright flower is a bit more Sue Spargo than Alma Allen,

but when did strictures of pattern or designer ever hold me back? I'm happy to say the recipient liked this small object. It was fun to make, took only an evening or two, and was a very satisfying small project made, I might add, totally from scraps on hand.

And lucky me, I came home from the party with this jewel-like sachet pillow, filled with fragrant lavender.

The maker certainly "loved every stitch".

And I love it too! It will find a home in a place where I'll pass it often and look and enjoy.

I need to make more things like this...

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A big thank you to all those who had such very nice things to say about my Double Ninepatch quilt. We all love a finished quilt, don't we? You've all made me feel like I was walking about eighteen inches off the ground today--the blogging community is pretty special. Thanks again.

The Double Ninepatch!

2009-12-06T22:28:00.002-06:00

It took me long enough, but at long last, the Double Ninepatch is completed. Yippee!

This quilt has been underway for nearly a year. It's attended several retreats, as well as the state library conference in October. It patiently languished all summer while I made the wedding dress and was a constant presence on my design wall.

Originally this was to have been a quilt of Subdued Color Scheme, but that orange just kind of crept in. Funny how that happens. It's just hard for me to work with a subdued palette.

And originally, this quilt was to have had an applique border. But once the blocks were made and laid out, the consensus among my quilting friends was that I ought to leave it borderless. So I did as I was told.

As a result, a considerable amount of the fabric that was to have been the borders is still just waiting to find a home somewhere. And it will, eventually.

Lessons learned on this quilt? That orange sashing got BRIGHT and took over. Suddenly the double ninepatch blocks turned into background for the sashing. There are always color lessons to be learned, aren't there?

Maybe I should have re-made the sashing in quieter colors. But I didn't. At that point I had a strong need to just get on with it. It's a whole different quilt now than what was first planned. The quilt showed the way...

Also, I liked the unbordered look. I'll be doing more like this.

By the way, disregard the swoosh of an alien paint color on the wall in one of these shots. Some decorating is going to begin in this bedroom and we've been testing colors. That color did not win.

Turkey Day and Miscellaneous Notes

2009-11-23T13:57:00.009-06:00

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

2009-11-17T19:40:00.002-06:00

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

2009-11-13T12:20:00.002-06:00

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

2009-11-08T11:10:00.005-06:00

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

2009-11-04T20:00:00.002-06:00

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.

Words, Words, Words

2009-10-29T09:30:00.001-05:00

The Four Letter Words quilt is finally finished.

This was part of Lazy Gal Tonya's LOVE exchange last year. Tonya made and sent out sets of pieced blocks spelling the word LOVE and participants were to get busy with them.

This top was pieced by the end of '08, as ordered. But then it sat and mellowed for awhile as life got in the way and controlled the steering wheel for awhile.

Not wanting the LOVE part of the quilt to get too schmoopie, (Apologies for posting that link again but I CANNOT HELP MYSELF) my thinking had been to make a quilt full of four letter words. Probably best not to use the bad ones, although that would have been fun... So it became a quilt of positive four letter words.

For backgrounds, there was the stash of wordy and letter-y fabrics. Fun!

And a free-pieced border, using scraps from the letters.

It was quilted with the usual meandering , echo-y scribble, using varying bright colors of rayon repeating the bright colors in the pieced words. I could never hit on one single color to use. The binding is more word-y fabric, directional enough that it takes on an interesting look on the bias.

This quilt grew like some organic thing, with no system and very little measuring. In the end there was a decision to be made about squaring it off or not squaring it off. It stayed crooked. Happily though, the top edge ended up sized so it will fit on a wall quilt hanger I have.

So now it can go into the regular rotation of the changing quilt display in this house.

Ta Da! A finished object...

Temporary Workstation

2009-10-25T14:50:00.001-05:00

OK, so this is how it is in the trenches--making time for that quilt you so desperately want to finish when your real life just won't cooperate with your preferred way to spend time.

I spent most of this past week at the Wisconsin Library Association annual conference. It was held in Appleton, Wisconsin, only about two hours away from home. One of my co-workers was scheduled to participate in a conference panel, so she and I planned to travel and bunk together. But on the afternoon of our planned departure, she was sitting at Urgent Care with one of her kids--and it was difficult to figure out which of them was the more ill, both feverish and out of sorts.

So suddenly, I was traveling solo. And it hit me--now that there was no roommate who might be annoyed by a sewing machine clacking into the wee hours, I COULD SEW. I packed up the Featherweight, a project box, and off I headed to Appleton.

I set up a workstation in my hotel room, complete with 'piece of %$#&' hotel-issue iron and ironing board (the ironing board listed badly but by wedging it under the lip of the desk, it made for an OK setup). I hunkered down with my piecing, every spare doggone minute.

The hotel housekeeping staff thought I was a riot.

Happy to report, the conference was a big success. The sessions and workshops were professionally informative and interesting. I got to hear and meet cartoonist Lynda Barry and oh my, what a creative force of nature she is...

But the best thing of all, I finished the Double Ninepatch top. And yes, the orange setting pieces stayed.

I dropped this top and its backing off at my longarm quilter's house today. Yippee!