A Rainy Day on Facebook

It started when my son, Caleb, posted this on Facebook:

He says: 5K in the rain. Feeling good. (Notice the sewing machine in the background? MIL loves to see evidence of sewing.)

Later, Nathan (our oldest), posted:

He says: Not to be outdone by brother Caleb S. Ferrier, I did my own 4 miles in the rain. I'm damp. Really damp. But I put up a 31.49 on four miles. Not too shabby.

Next we hear from the youngest, David:

He says (with some editing due to repeated use of his favorite swear word): Not to be outdone by my brothers Nate Ferrier and Caleb S. Ferrier I went for my own (expletives deleted)...my lungs! My @#$% LUUUUNGS ::wheeeeeeeze:: ::cough cough::  That's it. I'm quitting smoking. Today.

And then we hear from Jacob:

He says: Not to be shown up by my three brothers, Caleb S. Ferrier, Nate Ferrier, and David Ferrier, I went out for a run, but unfortunately, it is not raining in Baltimore.

When Kent and I saw these posts we just had to play along.

Kent says: Not to be shown up by my sons I drove 5 hours in the rain for a two hour meeting. (He sprayed himself with the hose to reach the desired degree of dampness.)

Finally, from me:

I say: This is what comes of letting you guys play in the rain. And this is me, standing in the rain to take the picture of your dad. I do love you all so!

A day in Pompeii

Long ago, when my hair was still red, Heather Purcell  (Mother Superior) and I went to Pompeii. It was part of an invitational trip to Switzerland, to see the Bernina factory.

It was Heather's idea, actually, to visit another place in Europe, since we were going there anyway, and neither of us had ever been. That's a little like saying, I need to go to Vermont, let's visit Florida along the way. But I was game, so after some conversation, we decided to fly to Rome a week before the Bernina event, so we would be over our jet lag and have our clocks reset. We were going at the end of November and we didn't want to end up in weather too wintery . It turned out to be one of the warmest winters Europe had enjoyed in many decades.

At first we had ourselves a fun competition, seeing which of us could take more arty pictures of textures. I have close to a zillion, and they are all as facinating as these two.

We had a terrific tour guide, an older Italian gentleman. (It turns out that there is a huge difference in Native Italian speaking English, and Native English Speaking.) As we were introduced to Pompeii's daily life it became clear that if it hadn't be wiped out by a volcano, Somebody owed an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah. My, my, these folks were lusty!

The businesses seemed to come down to two basic sorts: brothels and doctors to cure what the men picked up in the brothels. They didn't seem to care much for treating the women, therefore assuring the doctors a steady stream of patients.

The guide explained that there were three levels of doctors. The first treated the fellows', um, ah, privates, with topical creams and powders.

When that didn't work, they went to Doctor Level Two for more invasive therapy. I shudder to think of what that must have meant all those years ago. But men are awfully proud of their, um, ah, privates, so they are willing to do pretty much anything to keep it operational.

Yeah, you're seeing what you think you are seeing. This is one of the least risque of the many murals. These guys used phallic symbols as directional arrows on their walls and pavement.

They went to the final level of doctor when there was nothing left to do but chop the thing off. Our guide then suggested, in his thick Italian accent, "You know, like America's Lorena Bobbitt" and everyone giggled.

I was standing in the back of the crowd, where the tall people always end up. I can never resist an opportunity to make folks laugh, so I said, "Do you know what they call Lorena Bobbitt in Russia?"

Everyone turned around and looked at me. (I wasn't expecting that, I don't much like being the center of attention.)

"They call her Lorena Kutachunkoff." The group roared! I've now made people laugh on two continents! For the remainder of the tour, the guide would occasionally sidle up to me and ask, "how you say?" and I would repeat Kutachunkoff. "Ah, yes".

This happened several times before then end of the tour. Finally a fellow with a New York City accent spoke up. He said, "Hey buddy, if you're going to steal her material, the least you can do is refund her the cost of the tour!"

So, if by chance you end up in Pompeii, with a tour guide who tells you about Russian Lorena, would you let him know I'm still waiting for my check?



Playing with Pens

For my next project I broke out my Tsukineko inks and pens. I collected most of these while taking a class with Lura Schwarz Smith, one of the best teachers I've ever had. In truth, I had no idea what I was signing up for. If I had realized how much drawing we would do (I can't draw, only artists can draw!), I would have never chosen that class. But Lura was a delightful teacher, and I learned a lot.

The tools are very simple, a tiny bottle of ink (which goes a really long way), Fabrico markers (which have both a pen and brush nib), and Fantastix (pointed for drawing or bullet shaped for shading.) I love the fantastix. Just dip them into the ink, rub on a bit of waste cloth until you have the intensity you desire, and then color away. It feels a lot like using crayons, but not as streaky as crayons or pencils.

I did a couple of samples, trying to remember all the terrific stuff I learned from Lura.

On my blue sample, in addition to the pens and ink, I used an ink called Champagne Mist. Applied with a brush, it adds just the tiniest hint of sparkle. We all need a little sparkle, right?

Here it is in all its glory. I free handed the basic outline (it's what my friends call a Beth flower.) I tried to pay attention to what would be in shadow, and what would be highlighted. I have a thing for dotted centers, it sort of makes it look fluffy or textured.

Here's my second try. A little less streaky, especially in the leaves and buds.

I really like how this bud came out, and the curvy leaf. Exactly what I was going for! Have you ever played with art supplies? Did you like it?

Fun with pencils

Since the beginning of the year I have been playing with some new stuff, new to me anyway. I have some definite goals in mind for this stuff, but I had to start somewhere.

We were so poor growing up that we girls were only allowed one positive attribute each. I was the smart one. (The day I taped my first Simply Quilts episode I would have given anything to be the pretty one.) It seemed like grown ups were constantly taking the crayons out of my hands and substituting an abacus. (That's how old I am.) I did excell in the sciences and math, but always yearned to be an artist.

By the time I was an adult I was throroughly convinced that I had no artistic talent. I thought it was something magical that one was born with already built in. I now understand that with training and practice and passion, we can be what ever we want to be. Sure, each of us is born with strengths and weaknesses, but my life philosophy has always been anything worth doing is worth doing badly for as long as it takes to master it.

Before I could put these tools to task on my ideas I needed to figure out how they work. I started with these water color pencils from Derwent. They color on fabric very nicely, and then bloom like watercolors when water is painted on.

I loved how the colors brightened and deepened with the water, but I didn't like the wicking out around the design. After rooting around in my art supply stash (I thought that owning art supplies would make me an artist, which is just silly, but I sure am glad that I bought them on speculation!), I found matte fabric medium. It worked just like the water on the pencils, but no wicking! The colors blended beautifully without running all over the place. That's just what I wanted.

Now that I understand how the pencils work, I'm off to play with my second new-to-me tool. Wanna guess?



Camp Loopy Project Two

I don't know why I'm having so much fun with this challenge, but I am. I suppose it's a bit like taking part in a block of the month, but I've always been on the designing end of that process. It's not quite as exciting when you already know how it ends.

So, for challenge two we were to knit something in a color from our national flag. This rule was a little loosey goosey, red could be pink, for example.

Since I am currently in my shawl stage, I ordered pale blue lace weight yarn, in a wool and silk combination. (I love silk.)

Isn't it pretty? I started with the pattern Girasole because I love the center pattern. And for the knitters out there, for knitting lace, I'm loving the Dreamz needles from Knitter's Pride. The long, tapered points are perfect for making nupps (pronounced noop, it's a kind of bobble thing used in lace knitting), and the wooden needles are much kinder to my hands.

Midway through the pattern I switched over to EZ Anniversary Pi shawl, the "camping" one, for a lacier finish than the original pattern.

A shawl isn't done until it's blocked. It's kind of like sewing the binding down, it's the last step before the big finish, but totally unglamourous.

 

I have just the space for blocking, right in front of the fireplace in the studio, although this shawl pretty much pushed the limits. The tools of choice for blocking are the lowly t-pin and yard stick. The challenge with blocking lace is getting enough stretch to open up the holes, but not to pull it so hard that the knitting is strained. I knit the shawl with larger than recommended needles so it would be extra lacy. Can't ever get enough lacy.

But this shawl, with its scalloped edge, required way, way more t-pins than I had. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to get her shawl finished.

I broke out the box of safety pins left over from the days when I pin basted my quilts. Kent opened them for me, and I gently pinned out those scallops for what seemed like hours on end. I'm so happy with how the shawl turned out. I'd never done a circle shawl before but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. I see more circular shawls in my future.

A mere trifle

It's been a while since I've had a baking disaster. Baking, pies, cakes, cookies, it's one of my favorite things to do. (Not great for losing weight though.) We've done a bit of entertaining this summer. Our third son, Caleb, graduated from Saginaw Valley State U, with a degree in history, in May. This milestone is especially sweet since Caleb has been challenged by dyslexia.

For one of our parties, I decided I'd make our favorite Dreamsickle Pound Cake, found in last year's Celebrate magazine. And then this happened:

I've never had a problem releasing a cake from this pan. Oh, the pain! The pain! I was so disgusted that I just left the mess sitting there for most of the afternoon, wondering how on earth I would recover from this fiasco. And then it came to me. I'll turn it into a trifle. Just chop up the whole lot of it, layer it with fresh fruit and whipped cream. The fruit makes it healthy, right?

In looking up trifle recipes, I noticed that many of them included lemon curd. After some more surfing the web, (honestly, how did we learn anything before the internet and YouTube?), I found a terrific recipe for orange curd.

In my usual bad blogger fashion, I forgot to take a picture of the assembled trifle (it was really quite pretty). But I did get a shot of it before it was entirely gone.

I think they liked it.



Summer Knitting

Knitting is what I do so I know I'm not working. Quilting has become my job, one that I love, but full of deadlines and other pressures. I get giggly about knitting. My commitment to limiting my yarn stash has devolved into storing the yarns in decorative baskets sorted into projects. I have the same passion to stash yarn that once fueled my fabric habit.

I wish we had something like Ravelry for the quilting world. It seems like all of our sites for meeting up are hosted by quilting personalities, not that there's anything wrong with that. But Ravelry is a free wheeling love-in for those who love yarn. Groups can form to share a common interest. Designers can post and sell their patterns. Each user can track projects, store pdfs in a personal library, catalogue a stash (no way I want to sum up what is in my stash).

The Loopy Ewe is one of my favorite online yarn shops, and this year they are once again running Camp Loopy. It's been a blast. We have a goal for each summer month, dictated by the number of yards of yarn knitted, using a pattern from a designer who is from a different country than our own, using the colors from our national flags, and so on.

I'm currently in my shawl phase. I love knitting lace shawls. The designs are complex enough to keep my attention. It's so gratifying to move from chart to chart and see the design come to life.

This is Jaali. I love this designer, her shawls are so very architectural.



It's light as a feather, just a wisp of warmth, knit with a yarn that is half wool and half silk. Love, love.

Secret Sewing

The last month has lumbered along, deliciously slow and happily, lacking in much excitement. A body can only take so much excitement, you know.

I'm right in the middle of my three month break from travel. Entire weeks have passed by without leaving home. I've been keeping busy, for sure, but in a most restful, leisurely pace. Most of what I've been doing quilting wise falls into the hated "can't show you yet" category. Currently I'm working on a quilt for Quilters Newsletter's Best Fat Quarter Quilts 2012 issue that will go on sale in December.

I don't know what I was thinking when I designed this pattern. It's fantastically easy and fun to sew. But for some reason I decided to cut squares and draw the diagonal lines instead of just cutting them into triangles.

I hate drawing lines! But I think a lot of quilters perceive it as an easier technique than sewing triangles. That must have been what I had in mind when deciding on the method of construction. Drawing diagonal lines to follow adds time to the process, and, I believe, much less accurate than stitching a bias edge, especially when I'm drawing the lines.

I probably hate drawing lines because I'm not good at it. I'm constantly missing the corners, which broke my litttle perfectionist's heart. Since I'm most likely not the only one who draws skewed lines, here's how I solved the problem. (You long-time-line-drawers are surely sputtering now, but perhaps there are a few newbies out there who could benefit. It could happen.)

Working wrong side up, start by positioning the pencil directly in the nearest corner. Slide the ruler up to it, which compensates for the width of the pencil's lead.

Keeping the ruler tight against the pencil, gently rotate the ruler to position it in the opposite corner, making sure to offset it just enough to account for the width of the pencil lead.

For marking lines that will become cutting lines just a regular old pencil works great for me. It shows up on everything except the darkest fabrics. For those I use a mechanical white chalk pencil made by Bohin. Many chalk markers use wax to bind the chalk into leads. When pressed with a hot iron the wax can melt, binding the chalk to the fabric, giving us the dreaded permanent pencil line. The Bohin leads have no wax, and so far, I've never had them stick around past their usefulness.

A new class offering

For the last few years I have assiduously avoided designing new classes. I'm sure it's the control freak in me. Teaching the same class over and over makes it super easy to pace the class, tweak the pattern, and generally all around offer a well organized class.

I've recently realized that a static class offering may be preventing some of the requests for return visits from going through. Plus, the wash away sheets have opened so many fun doors for applique that I just can't stop myself from experimenting.

This week I've been working on the samples for a new bobbin work/hand embroidery embellishment class. After designing a project that is small enough to allow us to get lots done in class, but includes enough features to cover the topic, it was time to get to work.



We're finally having summer here, so I pressed the applique templates to the fabric, grabbed my iced tea and headed out to the screen porch for a little quality time with my scissors and The Winds of War on my iPod.

Here's where I tell you something you already know. Pouring your iced tea on your ready-to-baste applique is counterproductive. Sometimes my capacity for denial is legend.

Me: Quick, let's dry it with the iron, it will be okay. Shoulder Devil: It will set the stain.

Me: I'll let it air dry and then wash the project once it's done. Shoulder Devil: Yeah, right. Like you'll ever actually wash the project.

Me: Not all tea stains, it'll be okay, really! Shoulder Devil: That would be why those primitive folks use tea to distress their fabrics.

Me: Crap. I'm going to go knit. Shoulder Devil: That's what I've been telling you all along.

Of course it stained. So, after some medicinal knitting and a good night's sleep, I dove back in and started over.

In no time at all the parts were all glue basted for the hand embroidery sample.

 



And then the parts were ready for the bobbin worked sample. It really doesn't take much time at all once you stop fussing about it. In fact, I find the glue basting to be most relaxing.

Here's a close up of the bobbin worked petals. I've used pearl cotton in the bobbin, a yellow thread in the needle. With the feed dogs up, I've lengthened the stitch just a smidge and embellished each petal before the flowers were glued and then stitched together.

Here are the blue flowers, minus the tea stains and plus hand embroidery. The little quilts finish at just fourteen inches, just the right size for a workshop project.



And here's the bobbin worked sample. I'll be adding this workshop to my website soon.

The "F" Word

A month or so ago our guild brought a member of the Chicago School of Fusing to speak and teach, Frieda Anderson. A lovely lady, she makes happy quilts from her own hand dyed fabric. Beautiful, bright clear colors, my favorite kind. I signed up for her class.

For years now, I've thought of fusing as the "F" word. (What were you thinking, hmm?) I cast my lot with the turned edge crowd and never looked back. But, I have to admit, I take classes to observe the teacher as much to learn a technique. I am always looking to improve my teaching skills. By watching other teachers teach, I can learn new strategies, and, sometimes, learn what not to do.

For the class, our guild chose Frieda's Trumpeting Spring project. Just about half the class chose the daffodils, I went for the tulips. Being constitutionally incapable of following instructions, it didn't take long for me to veer off path.

I've been experiments with subtle background accents behind my applique, so I tried it here as well. At this stage it's all fused and I'm about to start the hand embroidery.

I didn't do nearly as much as I'd planned because pulling a needle through all those layers of fabric and Wonder Under was anything but fun.

What I did fall in love with was the Madeira 30 weight rayon thread. Oh my! It was lovely! It looked thicker than 30 weight, but sewed out easily with a size 90/14 needle. The twist gives the thread incredible stitch definition. Frieda only had a few colors, but I bought my usual rainbow.

Isn't it gorgeous? I'll be looking to increase my stash of these fantastic threads.

The fusing part was fun. It was very easy to be spontaneous. The delphiniums and their tiny leaves were free cut from small squares of fused fabric. Frieda's hand dyed fabrics had wonderful gradations. It was fun to "shop" around each piece of fabric for just the right color and shade.

Here it is, a lousy picture of it all finished. Well, almost finished, with just the binding to turn.

Have I been converted? No way. As I was working on it, I was so tempted to break out the Wash Away Applique Sheets and do some free cutting and glue basting with the shapes. But I was a good girl and played by Frieda's rules. (Mostly, anyway.) It will hang in one of the boys' rooms turned guest room.

You know, the class cost me about fifty bucks, including the kit fee. Guild classes are such a great value. I enjoy sampling techniques that are new to me. You never know when you'll find your new favorite thing. Or, perhaps you'll learn you'll never want to try that again. Both lessons are valid.

She Lives!

Well, well. Look who's here. Despite rumors to the contrary, this blog and I are not dead. Merely resting, with eyes closed.

I finished up my spring schedule for travel teaching last Sunday, my last out of town booking until September. Wa hoo! I taught for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium, a statewide group that rotates locales around to be accessable to more members. The students were wonderful, the organizers were delightful. An excellent way to finish for the spring.

It's been five days now, and I think I've finally relaxed into my real life. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to know that I'll be sleeping in my own bed until the fall. I'll have this great, uninterupted expanse of time to explore new techniques (for the next, next book), and make a quilt for the next issue of Quilter's Newsletters special issue of fat quarter quilts (which will be out in December).

I'm glad to have cleaned up the studio before leaving for the Symposium. The fabric ended up going to a local charity which makes quilts for the homeless. My daughter-in-law's mother is in charge (which I didn't know when I first posted). I was happy to have the fabric going to a good home, especially serving local needy. Saginaw needs all the help it can get.

Along with tending my garden, I'm also looking forward to some knitting time. Knitting is what I do so I know I'm not working. When quilting became my job, I discovered that I needed to find a new hobby. I'm taking part in a summer challenge called Camp Loopy. Hosted by The Loopy Ewe, we'll have three projects to complete, one each of the summer months. Our first challenge was to knit a pattern by someone from a country different from our own.

This is Jaali, by Kitman Figueroa. It would have been easy, except that I kept miscounting my cast ons. I love knitting lace, and I particularly love knitting Kitman's patterns. They are very architectural. And the way we start at the bottom, casting on approximately two jillion stitches and then decreasing our way to the neck edge, makes the project move along quickly.

Even with the false starts, it took just about two weeks to finish. Knitting on travel days makes the airport hassle and waiting go by quickly. Our next project is to knit something that takes more than 800 yards of yarn. I'm going for Girasole. I do so love a challenge.

My garden in May

Our spring has been goofy. It's been super hot, into the ninties for crying out loud. And then almost within the same day, the temperature would drop to way below freezing. It has wrecked havok on my perenials, and has made me very skitterish about putting in any annuals.

But finally, with nothing but good temperatures in the forecast, I started easing into the garden. We are not, NOT, going garden mad as we did last year, for the wedding. I don't even want to think about how much we spent last year.

Filling the planters with annuals starts with deciding on  a color scheme. I love geraniums, and they have some really gorgeous colors now-a-days. Good old cherry red geraniums are perfect for our old house, and I love them, so I will likely continue with the red/white/blue theme in the front.

In the back is a whole other story. The patio, pond and many planters are right off my studio sliding door. This is my happy place. For this year, I'm going with a white and pink palette. Actually, I've found it challenging to find truly pink flowers, so they are actually almost lavender.

I have this concrete urn thingie in my rose garden. A twelve inch plastic pot fits perfectly inside, making it easy to bring it in to over-winter.

In the past I've filled it with annuals, mounds of lobelia, and little bell petunias and trailing verbena, plus a couple of huge geraniums.

This year, in the spirit of cutting back, I decided to fill the urn with hardy English ivy. The little wire tower will add the height I wanted. It will be fun to train the vines to it. I used three different varieties of ivy, one edged in yellow, another edged in white, and two plain leafed. Half of each plant will be trained up the tower, the other half encouraged to drip over the edge.

To fill in the space, I added a little summer color. In keeping with my pinky-lavendar colorway, I've added in pink/lavendar and white super bells, which are lovely, trailing, minature petunias.

The urn is centered so that it lines up with the trellis and forms a lovely vignette coming into the back garden.

I like the idea of creating garden "rooms".  I also like the Japanese idea of making the path crooked to slow the journey. Often my garden dreams are way bigger than what I could ever keep up.

The pond is really coming along. I can't remember when what year we put it in, but it's at least six years old. The water plants are getting established, offering shade and hiding places for the fish. I think, this year I will need to break up the big clump of iris. But I'll wait until it's done blooming.

It's amazing how quickly the water lillies shoot out of the bottom of the pond. Here are my two first blooms. I'm hoping that the pink plant will bloom again this year too. Time will tell.

I love the moss growing on some of the rocks. This one is so happy that it's blooming. I've had to add more of the smallest rocks (which fill up the spaces between the larger rocks) to the edges of the pond, especially the edge touching the patio. A certain couple of grandchildren (cough Alex and Nicole cough) love to toss the little rocks into the pond. As long as they don't target the fish, I'm completely okay with it. Another bag of little stones costs just a few dollars, and the giggles of my grands are priceless.

Even more culling

This is my other stash of fat quarters. These are batiks (mostly arriving here by way of a batik "collection of the month" program). There are also a bunch of polka dots and such, which are my version of novelty prints.

As with the other shelf, it was too hard to find anything I liked in here. Many of these batiks are fairly old, going back almost twenty years, when batiks were rarely found in quilt shops. The older batiks all had a gray undertone, it was very hard to find pure color.

Now, isn't this better? The batiks are now rainbow ordered on the left side of the shelves (which are actually three DVD racks, hung together on the wall). Each color gets half a shelf.

To the right are my novelty prints, now separated by predominant color. The center rack holds the problem children. In the middle is a bunch of Stonehenge fabric Northcott sent me. I'm trying to decide if I should keep them together as a group, or deal them into the other shelf.

At the bottom are multicolor fabrics, both batik and commercially printed. I love these! Clearly I need more, and now I have the space for them. Wa hoo!

And here are the losers. One really big box and two smaller ones. I don't even want to guess how much fabric is here. There is even yardage in the larger box.

While I'm done with sorting through the fat quarters, I still have my shelves full of yardage to go through. I have three bookcases with a total of seven shelves between them holding my "more than a yard" fabrics. Some of the shelves are pretty well packed... but I'm done culling for now. Let's see what I bring home from North Carolina, it just might get me culling again.