Month: June 2017

Turkey Tracks: Bag Obsession–June 2017

Turkey Tracks:

Bag Obsession–June 2017

Here are two more bags made with the pet screen.  Yes, I am bag obsessed.  I’d like to make a few more that are 16 inches or so as those would store a 12-inch block project.

The little green bag is in my “traveling” kit and holds thread.  The big one is, right now, empty.  It may wind up being a gift.

I kind of feel like I’m living out of the cold frame these days in terms of food.  I’m so enjoying the fresh, fresh, fresh lettuce.  I’ve reseeded the cold frame and I noticed this morning that the seeds are sprouting.  BIT, the days are getting hotter too, which does not bode well for tender lettuce and greens.  The sprig on the left is a garlic that seeded itself into the cold frame.

I seeded this cold frame last fall and covered it–after replenishing the dirt and laying the worm castings on the top.  A raised bed is ONLY as good as the dirt inside it.  You can grow pretty things, but they will not have the nutrients you need.

Look at the blush on this particular lettuce variety.   So pretty.

I am quilting the Big Star quilt–made with selvages:

I quilted the selvage pieces on the long arm and pinned the charcoal pieces before taking the quilt off.

Now I’m using my Janome 8900 to quilt the charcoal pieces.  This machine is new, and I do love it.

A friend here fixed my sewing machine table so that I can pull it out and use the back leaf to support a quilt.

This quilt is NOT perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m learning the intricacies of the Janome 8900 (wide throat space) and enjoying being able to lay in a grid on a quilt.  I don’t have the skills to do that work on the long arm.  In any case, this quilt will be functional and fun.  You can READ it.

I color sorted my selvages and am now making rectangles–using a pattern by Amy Friend, “Circuitry” from her book INTENTIONAL PIECING, but I’m making the rectangles bigger.  I’ve done blue, aqua, red, and yellow and am working on purple.   Here are the yellows:

I’m not worried about lining up the selvages perfectly straight as selvages are kind of funky anyway.

I’m plotting which fabrics to use for my next bag project:  a fabric “thread catcher” bag for my “traveling” kit.  I actually sew rather a lot with friends, so my traveling bag is always packed and includes everything I will need.  I only have to grab it, my project, and my machine, and I’m good to go.

I hope you’re enjoying your summer!

 

Turkey Tracks: The Completed “Farmer’s Wife” Project

Turkey Tracks:  June 21, 2017

The Completed “Farmer’s Wife” Project

A group of us started Laurie Aaron Hird’s THE FARMER’S WIFE 1930 SAMPLER QUILT a little over a year ago.

We showed the completed quilts at our June Coastal Quilters (Maine) meeting.

Here they are–in the order in which they were shown, which was ad hoc.

Lynn Vermeulen used batiks–and devised the very successful and subtle setting of pale stripes.

Lovely quilting too.

This quilt is Paula Blanchard’s FIRST QUILT.  She chose to do a selection of the foundation pieced blocks and set them in the “zig zag” setting with black.  Gorgeous Paula!

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Becca Babb-Brott’s choice of modern fabrics is a whole new learning curve for me.   I love these fabrics.  Becca used a pale grey fabric from Dear Stella Designs for her background.  AND she was the instigator of this group project.

Becca had started an earlier version of Laurie Aaron Hird’s sampler quilts, so Becca put those blocks on the back of her quilt.

Linda Satkowski used the most interesting background fabric.  I loved it at first sight!  Her scrappy blocks are so much fun.  Note how she uses the background fabric in some of her blocks so that the outer edges disappear.

Here’s the background fabric up close.

And Linda’s choice of a scrappy outer border delighted us.

Margaret Elaine Jinno wanted her quilt to have a coastal/water/blues feel.  And it does.  She has had some issues with her hand, and has since had an operation on it, but was able to get her top completed for our showing.  Go Margaret Elaine!  I could also say that M-E is the most proficient seamstress I know.  She could knock out these blocks without turning a hair while I SWEATED over many of them.

You’ve seen my quilt, but here it is again.  I added strips to the side to make the top wider and set extra blocks (not used in the zig zag setting) on each side.  My background fabric is the teal version of Becca’s grey.  This fabric comes in LOTS of colors, and I like them all.

THIS PROJECT IS DONE.  (We’re now working on Tula Pink’s 100 city sampler blocks.)

Interesting Information: I Love Homeopathy

Interesting Information:  June 20, 2017

I Love Homeopathy

I didn’t know a thing about homeopathy until I moved to Maine in 2004.

I am a convert.  For sure.

It’s my first line of defense for body issues.

And as time has gone by, I am more and more wedded to this form of healing–having tried it for 13 years now.

What I like is that homeopathy works WITH the body, not against (cut, poison, burn) its healing modalities.

I can tell you that I used to get EXTREME reactions to poison ivy–such that it would run all over my body in huge, weeping sores that would take weeks and weeks to heal.  I no longer have poison ivy–yet am exposed to it all the time via the woods and an active rat terrier who runs through it on a regular basis.

I could go on.

At the end of May, I came down with shingles.  (Oh dear god!)  A week later my blisters were dry and healing.  I then had nerve and muscle pain and ITCHING, but my case has been nothing like what I have witnessed other people having.  My homeopath got me right on to one of the major shingles remedies, and that made all the difference.  Next, she moved to a number of other remedies.  And my energy person suggested vitamin E for the itching.  I found a very clean product on Joseph Mercola’s web site, and the itching is almost gone now.  (Most commercial vitamin E is made from soy, has a lot of ingredients I could not tolerate with my histamine intolerance issues, AND according to Mercola these products do not have balanced forms of vitamin E so can inhibit absorption of other nutrients.

Homeopathy is also well respected in much of Europe, as near as I can tell.  And is covered under many health care plans, as near as I can tell.  Coverage is probably is site specific though.  I don’t really know.

Anyway, here’s a good article if you are curious:

 

Homeopathy is here to stay. Despite relentless criticism from skeptics and fundamentalists, homeopathy has withstood the test of time.

Source: In Defense of Homeopathy | GreenMedInfo | Blog Entry

Turkey Tracks: A Completed Quilt Project

Turkey Tracks:  June 20, 2017

A Completed Quilt Project

Becca Babb Brott has worked for about two years on this HUGE Jen Kingwell quilt.  Becca combined THREE of Kingwell’s patterns into this king-size quilt–which she then quilted on my long arm.  One pattern is “Gypsy Wife,” but I don’t know the other two patterns.

There was drama with the long arm, of course.  I was using needles that were too light, and one broke, throwing off the machine’s timing.  It was way, way overdue for a check-up, so off it went to Sanborn Sewing Machine.  Those folks are beyond terrific.  The break occurred just before our Coastal Quilters’ retreat in Kennebunkport, so I was able to drop off the machine where the staff fixed it for me in a narrow window they had on Friday.

When you have to move a long-arm head, poles have to come down, which means a quilt has to be taken off said poles, etc.  When we got everything back, we were able to painlessly put everything back together, and off Becca went, sewing away.  Hmmm.  After a few tension adjustments however…

 

 

Here are some other pics, made when she showed it to Coastal Quilters’ members.

Turkey Tracks: Sewing Auto Pilot Fail

Turkey Tracks:  June 5, 2017

Sewing Auto Pilot Fail

Somebody’s Sewing Auto Pilot failed yesterday.

Oh well.  This bag is meant for the kitchen to collect recyclables for the dump.

At least the “Made in America” is right-side up!

These “glitter” blocks designed by Jen Kingwell (Quilt Lovely) are really, really, really hard.  I can’t believe Kingwell made a whole quilt from them.

Maybe they get easier as one goes along…

Today is overcast and misty.  Outside, there is a wall of intense green, all mixed up with tendrils of fog.  It is so beautiful.

I planted five tomato plants yesterday, so they are loving this gentle welcoming to the garden.

The lettuce I seeded into the cold frame–into the top dressing of worm castings–is bearing now.  I picked these leaves for lunch.

I’m enjoying using the three selvage edge placemats I’ve knitted–I paired them with bright napkins that really pick out color in the placemats.  Funky and fun–and a boon to my sometimes thrifty soul.

I have a fourth one about half made.  I knit, using a garter stitch, on big needles.  14s I think.  About 32-34 stitches cast on.  It’s a soothing exercise for when I don’t want to concentrate much on anything.

 

Turkey Tracks: Fifty Tula Pink’s

Turkey Tracks:  June 5, 2017

Fifty Tula Pink’s

I’m halfway there!!

Fifty Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Quilt Blocks finished–which covers me through June.

I am using almost all Cotton+Steel fabrics in each block.

I have NOT got a clue about what fabric to use to set these blocks.  Time will tell…  Maybe a khaki kind of color?

These blocks are fun to make–easy and all about the fabrics.

Turkey Tracks: Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild’s “Traveling Quilts”

Turkey Tracks:  June 5, 2017

Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild’s “Traveling Quilts”

This month’s meeting was our THIRD round with our traveling quilts.

We are so enjoying this project.

To remind, each of us is able to say if we want additions connected or not, what colors we like/dislike, and so forth.

Here’s is Becca Babb-Brott’s addition to Vicki Fletcher’s quilt:  “Cherish What Is” and linking up completed parts into a whole.

Here’s Tori Manzi’s additions to Gus Bruns quilt–gorgeous and fun ROUND log cabin blocks.

Nancy Wright and Gus Bruns added to Margaret Elaine Jinno’s “village.”

Joanne Moore added to Tori Manzi’s quilt–the scattered flying red geese.

Vicki Fletcher added to Nancy Wright’s quilt.

Look at the “Singer” fabric Vicki found.  Love these bright funky squares.

Lynn Vermeulen added the spectacular circle of houses to Linda Satkowski’s quilt.

Wow!  Just wow!

Margaret Elaine Jinno is still working on my quilt AND had an operation on her hand this week.  The five coffee cups represent my sons and DILs.  Get well ME, so you can SEW again.

Linda Satkowski added the left and top portions to Joann Moore’s quilt.  Love the top frame and the red circles.  Both additions are so graphic and compelling.

I added to the first four of Becca’s words–using fabrics and themes she likes.  I needed an intervention to STOP ME as I was having so much fun.

I found this little lady in one of Becca’s quilts and took a surprise picture when she wasn’t looking.

So that’s where this funky lady came from.

Here’s my label–an idea copied from Amanda Jean Nyberg’s Sunday Morning Quilts.  I’ve fallen in love with this book and with Nyberg’s No Scrap Left Behind, which was just released.  Making the triangle was a fun project.

 

Warning to Joann Moore:  I’ve just had to make myself STOP working on your quilt!!!

(We are missing one quilt this month–it will get moved along nevertheless, so pics next time.  And we are skipping June, so the next pics will be in July.)

Turkey Tracks: “Bits and Pieces” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  June 3, 2017

“Bits and Pieces” Quilt

“I really like that quilt,” said my friend on a visit to Alewives Fabrics in Damariscotta Mills, Maine, nearly a year ago now.  My friend is a MASTER knitter, and her expression of interest in the “Bits and Pieces” quilt was the first time I’ve ever heard her admire a quilt.

This quilt design comes from Midcoast Cottage Design, a local Maine company, and I’ve since seen it made in different color combos.  But my friend saw the quilt as it is on the pattern cover–made with Carolyn Friendlander’s “Doe” fabric collection.  Well!  “Doe” was now getting hard to find, so other friends and I scurried to round up the components.

 

I LOVE this quilt!  And it was such a pleasure to work on.

I used one of the neutrals from Friedlander’s NEW collections for the off-white background–something about “cattle” and “shadows.”  I adore this fabric, actually!

…and have it in a number of different colorways.

The backing is also from this year’s Friedlander collections.  It blends perfectly with the front and the thread I used I think.

Try this quilt!  You’ll like it!  Good stash buster…

Interesting Information: “What a year with a single tree reveals about climate change – The Boston Globe”

Interesting Information:  June 3, 2017

Plants and Climate Change

SIL Maryann Enright brought me the article below on her last visit.

I do hope you read it–especially as this week Trump announced he is withdrawing the USA from the Paris Accords and is presently refusing to clarify whether or not he still believes climate change is a “hoax.”

Plants hold the keys to some really important information about how Earth functions–or should function if we would stop destroying that which we do not yet understand.

I started reading about the incredible sophistication of plants with herbalist Stephen Buhner’s books.  I was blown away by what I was reading–how smart plants are, how they use chemicals to communicate, how they manage their environments, and so on.  There is an entry from 2013 here on the blog about Stephen Buhner’s information/books.  You can use the search button on the right sidebar to get to it if the link below does not work.  This work is scientific, of the Nobel Prize winning kind.

Meanwhile, take a look at Lynda V. Mapes article from The Boston Globe Magazine (April 30, 2017).   She recounts an interesting study, made among other ongoing interesting studies.

 

Source: What a year with a single tree reveals about climate change – The Boston Globe

https://louisaenright.com/?s=Stephen+Buhner

Interesting Information: Belief Systems and “You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you – The Oatmeal”

Interesting Information:  June 3, 2018

Belief Systems and

“You’re Not Going To Believe What I’m About To Tell You”

A friend sent me this little comic book exploration of belief systems and how we physically react when our own belief systems are challenged.

It’s fascinating.  And, well done I think.  Well worth a view and some afterthought.  Especially since our belief systems operate in incredibly powerful ways in our lives–and not always for the better.

Enjoy!

Source: You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you – The Oatmeal