Month: February 2017

Turkey Tracks: A Sunday Walk

Turkey Tracks:  February 27, 2017

A Sunday Walk

Yesterday was warm.

In fact, we’ve been blessed with a warm and sunny spell these last few days.

No No Penny and I have been out walking–our “sap” is rising with the warmth–so I am not ready quite yet to let go of the winter hibernation I also love.  But, one reason I love living in Maine is that we have four solid and very different seasons to experience.  And, of course, in each season is a teaser for the one before and the one to come.

No No Penny and I checked on Saturday to see if we could get into one of our favorite walks.  Yes.  There was mud, but the paths were open.  And mud is no threat to an LLBean boot.

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No No Penny was deliriously happy to be outdoor and free on this beautiful day.  It is hard to believe that she is 14 sometime this year, but she has slowed down some.  Rat terriers are up for “play” no matter how old they get, for the most part.

I love this view from the first of our walk:

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The little retaining pond is still frozen, but water is rushing everywhere around us.

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Deer footprints abound in the soft soil.  This one is very light–probably a young doe or a newish baby.  There are deeper tracks near by from a heavier deer.

 

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The little creek is singing pretty loud:

And the vibrant green moss is glowing amidst the mud and vanishing snow.

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The big brush pile has gotten bigger.  It provides needed safety places for all kinds of animals over the winter.

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Someone built a lot of cairns in the woods last summer/fall.  They are still there.

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Out of the woods, the wind is sharp with brisk cold.  It is refreshing and tangy after closed in winter rooms.

Can you see the sun shining on the bay at the edge of the land and sky?

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And when we are “up top,” the bay is clearly visible.

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What a gift is the access I have to this walk.  What a gift this land, this place, this moment.

We go home exhilarated and happy and planning more walks while the weather holds and beyond, to the coming spring and summer and fall and, yes, the winter.

Turkey Tracks: Quilty Projects

Turkey Tracks:  February 24, 2017

Quilty Projects

I’ve been quilting The Farmer’s Wife Quilt off and on all week.

One more pass, and it will come off the long arm, ready for binding and a label.  Then pics to follow.  I love the backing for this quilt.

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The downstairs bedroom’s bed is still covered with projects in progress.  Yes the goal is to finish them up.

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The bulk is what’s on this bed is piles of fabrics for the Katja Marek EPP millifiore quilt.  Somehow, I need to see all of the fabrics as I go along.

Units from the 2016 Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, En Provence, are in a pile ready to be sewn together.

There’s fabric for a 12 1/2-inch foundation pieced block project in a pile there as the long arm table is presently busy.

Ditto the big Aeroplane bag I just made, from Sew Sweetness.

And parts of Jen Baker’s BIG STAR quilt, made from BIG half-square triangles, is on the pillows.  I’m going to use color-specific selvages.  I think they will work.

A pile of fabric with text is over there, for the Valse Brillante EPP quilt designed by Willlyene Hammerstein I’ve been putting together.

My goodness!!

That leaves out the Tula Pink 100 City blocks.  I need to do February’s blocks.  I’m using Cotton + Steel fabrics, and they are all in their own bin in the quilt room.  These blocks are fun to do and quick and easy.

I don’t know.  Maybe it will all get cleared out by…summer visitors.

Here’s where the Milli is now.  I’m working on the blue at the bottom–and the last piece will establish the whole left border.  This quilt is a wild child for sure.  I have no idea if I’ll like this quilt or…not.  It’s hard to pick out fabric for the rosettes.  I have a somewhat clear idea of the whole, but…  It’s still hard to tell exactly.  I need to use fabric from my stash as much as I can, so it’s hard to plan too far ahead.

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Here are the 12 1/2-inch blocks in progress.  They formed a pattern I’ve seen called “crossed kayacks.”

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This pattern is from this book by Lynne Goldsworthy–which has some really cool blocks.

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We are to have two rainy days now, so I’ll work away at some of these projects.

Turkey Tracks: Some Pretty Pictures

Turkey Tracks:  February 24, 2017

Some Pretty Pictures

A number of interesting pictures have come into my email recently.  This one is a picture of the environs around our Snow Bowl (our ski run), taken from a place called the Crow’s Nest.  (Thanks Marsha Smith.)  You can see the bay beyond the land.  And the very old mountain/hills that I love.  And the beauty I see in winter here.

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This amazing picture shows the valley in the cleft between two mountains filled with fog one morning recently–due to our warm temps hitting 3+ feet of snow.  This pic was on the Snow Bowl’s Facebook page, with a credit to Marisa Hanning.  Marsha Smith sent me this link as well.

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Here’s one of Judy Berk’s amazing photos.  Yummy.  Look at all those blues.  They aren’t done via a filter; the blues are just there, especially this time of year.

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My turkeys are getting bold this winter.

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And winter means amaryllis bulbs.  Rose Lowell gave me this one.  Isn’t it a beauty?

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Interesting Information: What are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water?

Interesting Information:  February 14, 2017

What Are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water?

I keep reading about “chemtrails.”

This article documents what is in them and shows patents supposedly for them, but it does not document WHO has authorized this practice–beyond the conspiracy theory of “global government.”  And it does not document fully who exactly is using chemtrails and when.  Did a whole line of US presidents approve this practice with nary an objection?  Did all those pilots never mention this program, this duty?  Seems hard to believe.

According to this article, here’s what’s in them, in part:

Chemtrails are geo-engineered aerosols that are loaded with toxic chemicals, including but not limited to: barium, strontium 90, aluminum, cadmium, zinc, viruses and “chaff.” Chaff looks like snow but it’s actually Mylar fibers (like in fiberglass) coated with aluminum, desiccated blood cells, plastic, and paper. Polymer chemist Dr. R. Michael Castle has studied atmospheric polymers for years, and he has identified microscopic polymers comprised of genetically-engineered fungal forms mutated with viruses, which are now part of the air we breathe.

Monsanto is said to be making the chemical mixture.

In the late 1960s Monsanto supported the secret Muad’ Dib Geoengineering Lab to develop “chemtrail” technology; their crown jewel program to protect earth from global warming via weather control. Sounds so humanitarian, right? Wrong!

 I don’t know…

Industry can be pretty powerful, especially when aligned with “national security.”  But this powerful for this long time?

I’m keeping an open mind, but I want better proof than I am finding here.

What do you think?

Source: What are Chemtrails and How Are They Harming Our Food and Water? | The Truth About Cancer

Turkey Tracks: February Quilty Update

Turkey Tracks:  February 14, 2017

February Quilty Update

I love winter because I have lots of uninterrupted time to sew.  Plus, I love snow.

I am ticking along with all the various projects and having fun seeing them come together.

Here’s Katja Marek’s EPP millifiore quilt in progress.  I have almost finished a large section at the bottom left  and will be adding it soon.  It’s in shades of blue.  And the addition of the blue will make the left edge complete.

Yes, this quilt is very funky, and I have no idea how it will look when it’s done, but…  I am having fun.

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You can see the piles of completed blocks of the Farmer’s Wife–each a column–above the millifiore.

That top was finished last night.

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I liked the zig-zag setting, but it requires cutting four of the blocks in half on the short rows!!!  I thought the quilt too long and skinny, so added two columns and used the five extra blocks I had on the upper left (2) and lower right (3).

I got a little OCD–ok, a lot OCD–about setting up blocks for one of Willyne Hammerstein’s quilts, “Valse Brilliante.”  Hammerstein is Austrian, and her colors are very European.  I’m doing my version in brights and neutrals, and each block will have some text fabric in it.  I got a bundle of “pearl bracelet” fabrics that are bright and colorful, so I ironed them all, and I can’t bear to put them away again until I’ve finished.  There are also some bright Japanese daisy prints I like–as you can see below.  It actually takes a while to set up one of these blocks, but now that I’ve used up all the red wonderclips, I’ve slowed down.  I try to sew EPP with matching thead as much as is possible.

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I have these fabrics left to cut and glue:

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Some of us here in Camden, Maine have formed the Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild, which is in addition to our venerable Coastal Quilters, which is a chapter in the Pine Tree Quilt Guild.

I am so drawn to the “modern” fabrics and the graphic nature of the modern quilts.  And, there is a strand that is modern/traditional, or some such title.   So, we are going to have even more quilty goodness.

We are going to do a “traveling” quilt and will turn in our initial pieces on March 2nd.  I have made this piece as my offering and look forward to seeing how it comes back to me.  I’m not thinking this piece will be a center medallion that gets developed.  And I will go back in with pearl cotton when the quilt is layered to embellish such as the exclamation point at the end of the “Love.”  The “blue moon” and the back side of the sliver moon were cut with one of those rotary circle cutters–which I learned from our workshop with Timna Tarr.

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My alphabet was modeled on the one I found in Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland’s OUT OF THE BOX WITH EASY BLOCKS.

We had a major snowstorm starting Monday night and ending Tuesday night–a blizzard.  There was a near complete “white out” and lots of high wind.  I have about 2 feet of MORE snow on the ground now.  As the storm abated, I made my way down the steep drive to my mailbox and retrieved the first Cotton+Steel fabric club package from Pink Castle fabrics.  Isn’t it pretty?

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I’m already thinking about making the next set of Tula Pink’s 100 City blocks.  Some of us are doing 8 blocks a month.  (You can see an earlier post on that challenge.)

I hope your winter is wonderful!

Enjoy it.  Slow down.  Hibernate.  Spring with all of its energy will be here in due course.

Interesting Information: The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care

Interesting Information:  February 4, 2017

The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care

 

This article is fascinating, whether or not if you own pets.  It’s all about consolidation in the veterinary business–and yes it is very much a business.

I would also point out that consolidation is also going on in mainstream medicine.  Businesses are buying up hospitals and private practices, so medicine is, often, now about making money, not about either people or science.

What results is a “one size fits all” practice that is not good for either humans or pets.

Here’s a quote from the article:

An annual postcard reminding you that your dog or cat is due for its shots—“it’s time for the tough love”—is the main way veterinarians get pets in the door each year. That’s why many animal doctors, at every kind of practice, have chosen to ignore guidelines from the AAHA, which since 2003 has recommended dogs not be given what are called the core vaccines—for distemper, parvovirus, and adenovirus—more often than every three years. Indeed, the guidelines say a single series of these shots is probably enough to provide a lifetime of immunity.

Dog vaccines are NOT scaled to a pet’s weight.

Here’s another quote:

A pet may receive dozens of shots in a lifetime, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, but surprisingly little research has been done to find out how safe they are, and there is wide disagreement among experts. A 2005 study by Purdue University using Banfield data from more than 1 million medical records found 38 adverse reactions for every 10,000 shots, a rate of about 0.4 percent. Schultz and a research partner, Jean Dodds, argue the numbers are much higher, more like 3 percent or 4 percent, with about 1 in 200 dogs experiencing life-threatening reactions such as anaphylactic shock. “Vaccines can kill,” Schultz says. “If you don’t need to vaccinate annually and you do, you’re taking unnecessary risks.”

One size does not fit all.  Not for pets, and not for people.

This article, however, is much more about consolidation.  Treatments, like pushing vaccines, are just examples of how industry is trying to get more money from each person or pet that walks through the door.

 

Source: The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care – Bloomberg

Turkey Tracks: Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Blocks

Turkey Tracks:  February 4, 2017

Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Blocks

Some Coastal Quilters have issued a new challenge for 2017 to members:  to make Tula Pink’s “City Sampler” from her book 100 Modern Blocks.

(We are sewing our Farmer’s Wife blocks into tops now.)

 

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Again, we will do about 9 blocks a month, ending in December.

These blocks are all about the fabric and, unlike the Farmer’s Wife blocks, are pretty easy.  Indeed, they are FUN!

I am going to use Cotton + Steel in all of my blocks, but will allow myself some digressions with other designers mixed in, like some of the Japanese fabrics I like, some Carolyn Friedlander, and some solids, including shot cotton.

Here my first 9 blocks:

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As with the Farmer’s Wife blocks, adding solids can work to sharpen other fabrics–which I did not do unfortunately.  The top left block needed some solids as the fabrics are too jumbled together.  What can be pretty when looking at big pieces of fabrics can…not be…when pieces are small.  You would think I would have learned that lesson after all the Farmer’s Wife blocks.  But, no…

The bottom right “jacks” block also needed more definition.  The aqua is too busy.

Having said that, as with the Farmer’s Wife blocks, they all look pretty when they get into a quilt top.

The main thing is to have some fun with each block and not to stress about perfection.  Some work better than others.

This collection came in the mail today, from Craftsy:  Cotton + Steel “basics.”  They should help with the basics problem.  If you haven’t discovered Craftsy fabrics yet, take a look.  Also, I like the Etsy store, Stash Builders for specific colorways, etc.  And, of course, I continue to love Becca Babb-Brott’s Etsy store, Sew Me A Song.

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I got my first low-volume monthly shipment from Pink Castle fabrics, and it was beautiful.  I treated myself some time around Christmas.  I have since changed this fabric club to Cotton + Steel, but I really loved the first low-volume shipment from them.  Hmmmm…  I continue to be enchanted with low-volume fabrics.

I hope readers are having a good quilty winter.  I know I am.