Author: louisaenright

I am passionate about whole, nutrient-dense foods, developing local markets, and strengthening communities.

Interesting Information: Bathrooms and Toxic Exposure

Interesting Information:  February 12, 2019

Bathrooms and Toxic Exposure

Our skin is the largest “organ” in our bodies.

Our skin ABSORBS what gets put on it—straight into our bodies.

Much of what we are putting on our skin these days is extremely toxic.  We gleefully slather on toxic brews that we think smell good.  Only, unless one is using an essential oil, the smells are chemically composed.

We wear clothing we have doused in laundry products that are also toxic.  Be especially aware of the toxic nature of dryer cloths.  I only put then in my mailbox to deter hornets from nesting there.

We shampoo often with toxic brews—you can just rinse out your hair unless it is really greasy.  You don’t have to shampoo every day.

We soap ourselves off with soaps composed of fake chemical smells.  Also, over-soaping our bodies washes off the natural colonies that form and that protect us from invastion through our skin.  So, wash often, especially in warm weather, but don’t soap up unless you have really gotten into grease or actual dirt.  You won’t “smell.”  Water is corrosive in and of itself, and it can clean you off just fine.  In modern water systems, the water is heavily treated to keep it clean anyway, and your skin aborbs whatever is in that water.

Use a non-toxic deoderant. I love salt sticks which are readily available.  Baking soda and a bit of corn starch to make it less scratchy also  works.

Make-up, of course, is a real problem.  As are “moisturers.”  I use a good coconut oil laced with fun essential oils.

Here’s a post with more information:

http://adifferentkindofdoctor.blogspot.com/2019/01/5-ways-to-reduce-toxin-exposure-in.html#more

Turkey Tracks: A Modern Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  February 12, 2019

A Modern Quilt

Rebecca Hokkanen is one of our snow birds who winters in Florida.  She sent me this picture of a modern quilt, and I thought you all might like to see it as well.

Rebecca wrote “I attended an “Airing of the Quilts” in Venice. The quilts were all designed by members of the local modern quilt group.  This one brought you to my mind because of the use of the muted colors ( low value/low volume?).”

It’s a pretty quilt, don’t you think?  Cutting blocks with “sticks” is showing up more and more these days in modern quilts.

Thanks, Rebecca!

 

 

Turkey Tracks: A Yummy Lunch

Turkey Tracks:  February 10, 2019

A Yummy Lunch

It’s cold today up here in Maine, but clear.  A big storm is moving our way and will arrive Tuesday night.

I wanted something starch for lunch—after buying food and visiting the dog park.

Rice noodles started to drift through my head.

So…

Noodles, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, a yellow pepper, a head of bok choy—and I should have added some celery—chicken, ginger, herbs, and garlic.  I eat a lot of veggies at the two meals I eat in a day.  I almost always have an apple for “dessert,” but vary that with frozen/defrosted organic Maine wild blueberries and the strawberries and raspberries I froze from my garden.

And:

Next up:  a coffee in town with a friend.  And then some sewing.  My design wall is absolutely crazy, but I’m having fun.  More on sewing projects later.

The book is the 9th in the Poldark series by Winston Graham.  The tv series will end before the series gets to the children, and I was not quite ready to let go yet, so I started reading the rest of the novels.  I think there are…12?  I have to check on that.

 

Turkey Tracks: “Star Bright” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  February 10, 2019

Star Bright Quilt

I love this lap-size quilt!

The blocks are all Katja Marek’s from THE NEW HEXAGON and all made with Cotton+Steel fabrics.

The border and text print “stars” around the blocks are not C+S, but everything else is.

For some reason I bought TWO of the 52-block packages from Paper Pieces, so I did feel compelled to make this set.  I am so happy I did.

I added my own templates to “square off” the quilt top, rather than floating the blocks on a border.  I also wanted the print-text fabric “stars” to be present at the top and bottom of the quilt.

I used the same “mouse” print for the back, only in a dusty salmon, as I used in the squaring off around the quilt top.

I quilted the “diamonds” that are present on the front of the quilt on my domestic sewing machine, using a walking foot.  And added some stabilizing cross lines.  But I put the quilt on the long arm to make the quilt package.  That works really well I’m finding.  It is much easier to pin with no issues on the long arm.  I like the quilting in the border as well. It’s all very geometric, like the hexies and star points.

Well!!  How cute is this?

 

I have SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN, and I want each of them to have a hand-piecedquilt from me.  I have six done now, and am working on the 7th—a wedding ring riff called “36-Ring Circus.”  I just completed the fourth “ring” last night.    It will have 6 by 6 rows/rings.

This one is hard I think.  One needs to use a flat-back stitch with the curves…  But I’m getting faster now.  And I’ve glued a lot of the templates.

 

Turkey Tracks: Anna Graham’s Noodlehead Pillows

Turkey Tracks:  February 4, 2019

Anna Graham’s Noodlehead Pillows

Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild has two new ongoing projects:  “Bee Inspired” and “Noodlehead,” inspired by Anna Graham’s projects, some of which can be seen in her book HANDMADE STYLE.  More on “Bee Inspired” in future posts.  At our January meeting, some of us shared our Noodlehead projects.  We don’t demand that projects by totally Anna Graham’s, but, rather, be handmade.  In February, we will bring our first “Bee Inspired” blocks for the quilter chosen for this first month.  She will walk away with the block makings for a quilt.  You can see info on that project on our Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild Facebook page, which is now public.

I really needed some low-back pillows in my two deep living room chairs, so I used Graham’s book measurements and invisible zipper closure to make long, narrow pillows.  I didn’t quilt the fronts as the fabric didn’t really want to be quilted.  I made my own strip of flying geese.  Graham’s instructions included muslin linings for both front and back of the pillows—and the zipper means the casings can be taken off and washed easily if need be.

It is a lovely pattern, and I have ordered a set of 4 square pillow forms to replace tired pillows on the downstairs couch.

 

I put the geese trips on opposite sides of the pillows.

And here is Graham’s book, which is full of “handmade style.”

Turkey Tracks: Friends’ Projects

Turkey Tracks:  January 31, 2019

Friends’ Projects

Becca has finished her traveling quilt top:  “The More I wonder, the More I love,” from as I recall Becca saying, THE COLOR PURPLE.  WOW!  Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild is going to show our Traveling Quilts to Coastal Quilters in February.  The Traveling Quilts were a two-year project where eight women worked on each quilt, and each finished quilt is amazing and wonderful.  Our next group project is “Bee Inspired” and EVERYONE in the group is participating.  You can read about that project on the Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild Facebook page.  The first blocks will be coming in at the Mt. Battie February meeting.

Becca, here, is backed by her developing selvage spider web quilt and is quilting her “Long Time Gone” quilt—a Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild project last year—designed by Jen Kingwell.

Lynn Vermeulen is making this strip-pieced quilt from solids, from a Timna Tarr quilt with which she fell in love.  If you have not looked at Timna’s gallery online, it’s a treat.  I love her use of saturated COLOR.

Karen Martin is workin gon the rail fence riff in batiks.  Yummy.

Karen gave me this gorgeous little pouch, and Lynn game me a glass she ETCHED (oh my) with Sip and Sew.

Tori Manzi, as always, has so many inspiring projects.  The top right is a Modern Quilt Guild mini-quilt swap, which will be finished and sent off soon.  The recipient wanted hand-dyed pink fabrics.  The foundation-pieced color-wheel circles are going to be so interesting.  And the pear block is as well.

This quilt is a gift for someone who is fond of the tv show “The Who.”  (I think I have that right.)  There is no end to Tori’s creativity.

Such fun projects!

Turkey Tracks: Recent Projects

Turkey Tracks:  January 30, 2019

Recent Projects

Good morning!

We had snow in the night and now…rain.  It’s also very warm for Maine in late January.

Here are some pics on my current projects.

This EPP project is HARD!  There is a real learning curve involved here, but I’m getting faster now.  This is “36-Ring Circus,” designed by JoAnne Lewis and available at Paper Pieces.  I did NOT buy the whole templates offered, just the ring kit, which includes the center “pointy” temlplate—shown in red on the first ring.

I am currently using Cotton+Steel fabrics for the centers and solids (pastels for the ring and darks for the ring centers and diamond shapes) for the rest.

 

Here’s the status of THE COLOR COLLECTIVES first project:  circles.  So far I’ve broken TWO of my machines with the invisible thread.  Probably, I did not release the needle tension enough.  I did release the foot pressure instead, which was clearly a mistake.  I don’t think anybody but ME is having these issues.  One machine is back—along with two spools of thread that the marvelous Marge Hallowell of Maine-ly Sewing donated to the cause and for me to experiment with and about which to get back to her.  I would love to make this quilt a bit bigger, to a lap size, but I may also use the second months’s block—a foundation pieced cross—to create a border.  I’m still movng around blocks on the design wall—which is kind of crazy as I need to fill in the holes first.  I could, also, use a matching thread for the circles if I have matching thread.  I do love these circles.

Recent intense weekend sewing produced this “Cool Sunday Morning Quilt” from SUNDAY MORNING QUILTS (Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison).  It’s all in blue/green/grey Cotton+Steel low volume fabrics.  And it’s meant to be a companion to the recently finished “warm” quilt below, also made from C+S warm low volume fabrics—using Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s herringbone method.

 

Of course I also have three or four other projects developing or simmering, especially when I get to “playing” with some ideas and fabrics.  More on those later.

Turkey Tracks: AC is So Funny

Turkey Tracks:  January 29, 2019

AC is So Funny

AC is 10 months old now and is getting increasingly vocal as he meshes more with his new home and me.  He is my shadow, outside and inside.  He is, actually, very bossy.

The dog park has been so good as the woods are filled with ice right now.  The dog park requires for me to have spikes on my boots, but that’s ok.  No slipping and sliding for me.

There is the most beautiful red fox in my woods.  AC and I have seen him several times now–including at 6 am this morning from my bedroom window.  I had to distract AC for a time as I know that if I put him out, he’d breech his boundaries and I’d find him in another county if I was lucky.  AC, I’m convinced, is part fox himself.

AC and fox

I’ve never had a dog before who was aware of the tv, much less watched it.  AC is very aware of images and sounds on the tv.  If he sees something he finds suspicious or dangerous he runs to the tv, growls and barks at the offending images, and when called, retreats to the couch next to me where he emits low growls to ward off the danger.

AC and the TV

 

 

 

Turkey Tracks: Karen Martin’s Rice Bowl Bag

Turkey Tracks:  January 21, 2019

Karen Martin’s Rice Bowl Bag

Becca Babb-Brott has found another fun project that some of us are making:  Kzstevens Rice Bowl Bag, or a modern komebukuro.

Pictures are on Instagram, and I put a link to Stevens Etsy shop below.  (#Kzstevens, #kzkomebukuro)

Here are two of Karen Martin’s bags—one open and one folded closed:

You can also use a thin leather or a cord of some sort for the pull-up strand—and maybe decorate the ends with a knot and some bigger beads???

They are adorable!  Thanks for making and sharing, Karen!

 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/kzstevens

kzstevens.com

 

Turkey Tracks: Linda Satkowski’s Recent Quilt Tops

Turkey Tracks:  January 18, 2019

Linda Satkowski’s Recent Quilt Tops

Well!!  Here is the SECOND improv quilt made from our “parts department” bin.  The pressure is on ME now as I have not even started mine.

To recap, Linda, Becca-Babb Brott, and I spent time two summers ago making blocks for each other, which we put into our “parts department” bins for a future improv quilt.  You can see Becca’s in an earlier post here.

Isn’t this a fun quilt?  Linda did a great job of putting these blocks together.  I am doubly daunted now.

Here’s LInda’s finished “Long Time Gone” quilt top, Jen KIngwell, designer.  Love her colors.  This quilt was a challenge for Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild last year.  You can see updates on what we are doing now on our Facebook page.

 

Here is Linda’s finished Traveling Quilt top.  Wow!!  As with mine, nine women have blocks in Linda’s quilt.  Her theme was “houses.”