The first one I tried will finish out at 5 1/2 inches. I cobbled together a pattern from several sources.
Remember I am making multiples of four so my fellow members in the “parts department” group will each get one and I will have one. And remember that the idea of creating a “parts department” comes from Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran–and they have several books illustrating and giving ideas. One is COLLABORATIVE QUILTING.
The 1/4-inch seam on the basket bottoms was “iffy.” I realized I had to sew higher up with a larger triangle and then trim to fix that. That seam needs to come right at the basket point. But I ran out of this cream fabric, so…
If I find more of it in my travels, I’ll fix the bottom of the affected blocks.
Here’s why it is a good idea to trial out a few blocks so you see what the issues are.
Next I moved on to a 3 1/2 inch block from Bonnie Hunter. She did a WHOLE QUILT of these babies, “Lucy’s Baskets,” in a leader/ender project in MORE ADVENTURES WITH LEADERS AND ENDERS. I am in AWE as the handles are HAND SEWN.
The mustard fabric is one of the Japanese fabrics I am growing to love.
The blue and yellow fabrics are Japanese.
Fellow J&E Riggin passenger Jean West gave me the green fabric–which she got at Fiddlehead’s in Belfast when we stopped there.
The white fabric on the handle was embossed and proved to be a bit thick for these handles. Another lesson learned.
The green fabric is Japanese.
Perhaps we’ll wind up using these tiny baskets in a foursome. Look at the secondary pattern in the middle.
Or, not. They can be combined with fabric blocks as well, so that each one shines on its own. It might be nice to put a surrounding frame on each one too.
Summer corn is “in.” Tender and sweet. I had an ear every day last week.
Then, I made a soup with it, using 6 ears.
I started with a great bone broth–recipe is elsewhere on the blog. I had so many bones saved the kitchen refrigerator freezer was getting too full. I got two batches of bone broth from the bones. I cook each batch in the crock pot for 24 hours. It’s good to have bone broths frozen so you can make a quick soup if the right ingredients appear in your kitchen, so making two batches is a great idea. One for now; one for the freezer.
I defrosted a sack of about six frozen tomatoes. I drain off the water that emerges twice, then take off the skins and what is left is this lovely tomato puree–bright and sunny as last summer. (I’m making room for THIS year’s extra tomatoes.) I usually start the defrosting a day or so early and just store the puree.
I sliced the corn kernels from the cobs and put the cobs into the bone broth for 30 minutes or so of slow cooking. The cobs infused the broth with a lot of added corn sweetness. When I’m ready to pour liquid into my soup, I remove the cobs.
I sautéed fresh onions from Hope’s Edge, my CSA. I added sea salt and carrots. I added some raw chicken cut into bite-sized pieces. When this mixture has begun to “color,” I threw in herbs from the garden: thyme, tarragon, parsley, garlic scape puree I made and froze, etc. Then poured in the broth and added the corn, some beet greens, and some chard. I use what I have in the kitchen–which is a lot this time of year.
Once started, this soup is quick and easy to make.
The final thing: into each served bowl I swirl some fresh, raw cream. Pepper on the top is nice, too.
This soup has a lovely sweet and bright taste from the corn and the tomatoes.
She was born two days before my own birthday, March 15, 2002.
She was a gift to me from me.
I went alone to get her and brought her home in my lap covered with a towel since Rat Terriers are burrowers and some feel safer being under covers.
She was so tiny at eight weeks–hardly bigger than my two fists. She imprinted on me and followed my feet like a baby chick or hen follows its mother.
Here’s an early picture of her that I have always loved–taken by John Enright on the back porch of our Falls Church, Virginia, home.
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For 14 1/2 years she was my shadow. Where I was, she was. There was a bed for her in every place where I spent any amount of time. When I left her, she hunkered down to wait for me to come home. And just a few days ago, she brought me a toy and wanted to play.
But health crashes can come suddenly. And hers started Friday night, after eating a good supper.
She’d had a rocky 18 months or so–there had been a stroke that robbed her of a lot of her balance. But there was much happiness too. There were some tumors that were fatty, but the tumor on her back right leg was hard and growing. She was beginning to have trouble walking for any distance, and she got tired easily. There were a few incontinent episodes at night off and on. As she slept under the covers and curled into my chest and belly, I layered the bed with pads and towels and made sure she had actually peed before we went to sleep.
Friday night, as she slept next to me on the couch, I realized she was having another stroke of some sort. I got towels and held her next to me. (She hated being in someone’s lap unless she was in the car.) She calmed, and then she threw up all her dinner. We got through the uneasy night with a little sleep. Things went from bad to worse the next day, and by late-afternoon I knew she wouldn’t be coming out of this health crisis. So, she took her last ride. And, you know, it calmed her. She settled right into her bed next to me in the car–riding shotgun as she always did–and zoned out. All the rest is history now, but a history that is still all too vivid for me.
Here’s a picture of her taken a few years ago. She was a neat, clean, pretty little dog who did, however, shed a lot. She came to Maine with a very thin coat and proceeded to grow a really lush one.
As you can see, there is hardly any grey on her face. But I noticed yesterday that she had gone quite grey almost overnight.
And here’s a picture of her enjoying a bone in the middle of last winter with snow outside. Mostly, Reynold’s ears flopped over (which is ok breed-wise), but when you spoke to her, she really listened.
She went on her last ride as the clean little lady she always was, horrified about peeing her bed and still trying to get up to go outside, though she could barely walk or keep her balance or know where she was exactly.
We got “No No Penny” after our first winter here–we got her for Reynolds, who was lonely and not used to a Maine winter. And Reynolds loved Penny with unconditional love too. She loved, as well, that she no longer had to be the “head dog,” that Penny could take that role. And Penny did, and Reynolds felt protected and safe.
Here’s a picture of both of them a year or so after Penny, who is a year younger than Reynolds, came to us in 2005 or 2006. It’s one of my favorite pictures and was taken by John. Reynolds is on the right.
Reynolds could be a picky eater. She would march up to her food, look it over, and if it did not come up to scratch that day, she would look at me over her shoulder with a look that plainly said “Not this today, Louisa. This is not what I expected.”
When she wanted something, she would come and stare at you–giving you “the look”–until you got up and followed her. In that way, she “talked” for Penny. Sometimes it was that Penny wanted to go out. Sometimes it was that Penny now wanted to come in. Or, both of them wanted their dinner. Or, they were tired of me sewing. Or, they wanted to go for a ride in the car.
I spent hours on the floor of the sewing room Saturday, holding Reynolds inside her soft bed, in the curve of my body. It gave us both some comfort. Occasionally she would “purr” deep in her throat which she did when I petted her and held her close. Penny came to check on us and to smell Reynolds on a regular basis.
And I did a lot of thinking and talking to her and saying good-bye. You know, she came to me in a time of personal chaos and turmoil. And she brought with her unconditional love, a sense of play, and a sense of being connected to me by an invisible cord of love. She was not my dog baby. She was something between a little sister and a bestest girlfriend. She gave as much as she got. And she did not leave me until she knew that I could go on alone, taking with me the lessons of love that she taught me. She was, is, and always will be one of the best “loves of my life.”
Last night Penny came up on the couch and slept next to me. And when we went to bed, she, who never likes being under the covers for long, slept for as long as she could next to me, curled into me like Reynolds used to do. Penny has “shadowed” me all day. She is, like me, more than a bit lost today.
This morning, before garden chores (watering, watering, dead-heading, weeding), I read a little on the porch and had breakfast out there. The flowers in the container next to me seemed unusually bright, and I realized I had been looking at their little faces all summer, but had not slowed down to really appreciate their exquisite details fully.
And I grew fascinated with the stark line between the sunny hillside and the dense darkness of the summer woods.
Yet, the dark coolness beckons, too. And at some point, we all enter it.
Miss Reynolds Georgia, also known as “The Beauty Queen”: March 15, 2002 to August 6, 2014.
Some of us had to make a lot of quilts before winning a ribbon.
Not Megan Bruns of Coastal Quilters.
This past weekend, this young woman WON a third first time out–at the Maine State quilt show: Pine Tree Quilters’ Guild:
Megan began this low-volume quilt with the hand-appliquéd colored circles you see here. Then she surrounded the circles with lots of low-volume blocks. See the “natural” circles at the lower left of the picture? And, of course, the fabric she found with circles included.
I’ve seen this quilt. It is yummy, yummy. Alewives Quilt Shop in Damariscotta Mills, Maine, did the modern quilting, and that’s yummy too.
Congratulations!!! Megan!!!
Can’t wait to see the quilt you are working on now finished–a very, very intricate English Paper Pieced millifiore quilt with tiny, tiny pieces. (You can see some of that quilt in earlier posts.) And, of course, hanging at Pine Tree next year.
The music, the music, the music! Geoff Kauffman, who has forgotten more about sailing music and maritime history than most will every know, beguiled us once more.
The laughter–big old belly laughs at times–the kind where you get tears in your eyes.
The beauty. The gorgeousness.
The food. Fresh, local, varied, tantalizing.
The visits with passengers I’ve sailed with many times now and the meeting of passengers new to the Riggin.
I’ve already signed up for next year’s “music” sail: July 24-29th. And if you want to come, sign up now as the roster is getting full.
I decided early on that I did not want to spend the week taking pictures and involving myself with much technology–beyond the book I had downloaded on to my ipod touch. After the election turmoil on tv, I just wanted a break away from everything. I just wanted to read, nap, sew, lie in the sun, enjoy the sailing, and laugh. But not to worry, one of my sailing companions was taking some pretty nice pictures, and she has promised to send me about 10 of her best, and I will post those when they come.
We boarded Sunday at 5 p.m. This year I took a picnic supper and read until the light faded. I was tired from all the organizing to leave the house for six days and an afternoon of heavy duty weeding, and it was so nice to just sit on the boat and rest. Above, on the dock landing, an osprey nest contained two babies–about half grown. Would they be there when we got back?
Monday morning was bustling as supplies for six days came aboard, including boxes of organic local veggies from my CSA, Hope’s Edge, delivered by Farmer Tom Griffin. Captain Annie Mahle served us a huge breakfast. Then we were off, sailing past the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse and through the Fox Island Thoroughfare. We had great wind and made it all the way to what we call “Wooden Boat Harbor,” off Brooklin, where the Wooden Boat School is. As soon as we anchored, our boat swimmers jumped into the water.
Tuesday night saw us anchoring at the mouth of Sommes Sound, up on Mt Desert Island (Acadia National Park) just off of Southwest Harbor. I have not been up here in years in the boat. But I had sleeping sickness and missed the trip up part of Sommes Sound (a natural fiord) and back.
Wednesday, after folks went ashore at Southwest Harbor, had us anchoring off of one of the “Dark Islands”–there are several “Dark” islands–and having a lobster bake. The water off the little white crescent beach was turquoise blue and crystal clear. I found a whole cluster of Golden Chanterelle mushrooms in the woods, and Annie cooked them up Thursday night. She took this picture.
Thursday we sailed through Eggemoggin Reach and under the bridge. In the afternoon late, on the way to Belfast, storms threatened, so we all donned our foul weather gear. That cured the problem, and dry, we sailed in to Belfast to anchor next to the Timberwind, moored dockside. The Timberwind is working as a day sailor out of Belfast. The crew joined us for dinner, and after we did get some rain (the tarp was up by then), a music festival happened on the Riggin with visiting singers from the Belfast area. It was a lively, fun time. Everyone sang. A lot.
Friday saw us enjoying a leisurely sail back down the coast toward Camden and a night in Pulpit Harbor, which I have never visited. Pulpit sits just across from Camden and Rockland on North Haven Island. It’s a beautiful little harbor. Of course, there were lots of swimmers, as there have been every day.
Saturday‘s boat held a lot of nostalgic and sad folks. We had had such a grand time. Annie made her famous sweet rolls for us and, later, served a grand brunch to send us on our way. And Geoff Kauffman did some last minute entertaining on the way back to Rockland.
I took this picture of the Victory Chimes with what was left of my phone battery. The VC is on the Maine quarter (25 cents), and this straight-on shot of her is unusual. She docks on the same wharf as the Riggin, and she is HUGE.
Here’s Captain Annie as we near Rockland Harbor:
Here’s Geoff teaching us about Appalachian music fun with a little wooden dancer and a flute:
Here, I was able to pan the deck so you can see the size of this boat. The rear of the boat is straight ahead:
I did not knit this trip, but took two English Paper Piecing projects. The quilt-let centers, and the one-inch pentagons to make spheres that will be stuffed with smelly plants, like lavender and balsam.
These centers are ready for the next step in the quilt-let project.
Ready to be stuffed:
In progress:
The osprey babies were still in the nest:
And when I got home, Linda McKinney had left me a bouquet of flowers from my very lush (and now weedy) garden:
AND I AM OFF TO THE J&E RIGGIN windjammer later this afternoon for six days of doing nothing but what I absolutely want to do. Hot weather, Jon Finger’s quiet friendship, Annie’s fun conversations and fabulous food, being with their daughters Chloe and Ella, sights to see, a clean wind to feel, the swish of the boat flying through the water, books to read, a book downloaded from the Maine State Library system, sewing to enjoy, naps to take, former travelers to see again, and an abundance of laughter and fun.
Last night, this…
…turned into this…
…as I tried to use up my veggies from Hope’s Edge CSA last Tuesday.
I froze half for the night I come home.
I also processed some kale and washed some sweet peas in the shell to eat with my picnic supper aboard tonight. I weeded heavily this morning–HEAVILY–and treated myself to lunch out and a coffee from Zoots. So I want a lighter supper tonight.
I finished two more quilt-lets in the past week at night:
I made up a few more to do on the boat, but mostly I’ll work on the lavender sachets. I’m now thinking of green ones (balsam), rose ones (rose geranium or roses), and yellow ones (lemon verbena???).
Did you know that if you squeeze a lavender ball when it no longer smells that you will release renewed smell?
I wish I could bottle the smell of my garden and put it on this blog or Facebook.
The garden is now a mature garden, which means moving some things around each year and filling some “holes,” but mostly it just needs mulch, fertilizer some times, weeding, and watering.
The white Annabelles are just crazy this year.
After mowing in the cool of the late afternoon the other day, I took pics of them and then could not stop.
So here’s my garden in late July:
The far “hedge” is a mixture of raspberries (up front), Rugosa Roses, Bay, and wildflowers.
The veggie garden is struggling this year with the cool weather and more shade as the trees below have filled out even more.
I weeded the rock paths yesterday. Weeds LOVE rocks.
This garden needs weeding and some deadheading.
Work of the gold bug beetle. See an earlier post for a picture of one.
The design wall craziness is getting bigger–which means some projects are close to being finished.
I still have not quilted the blue/neutral quilt on the long arm.
Amy Friend’s design–“Tell Me A Story” quilt–is ready to have the block papers removed, the blocks sewn together, and the border attached.
You can find this pattern in Amy’s book INTENTIONAL PIECING.
The block count that four of us are making for a fall “improvisational” quilt that will include blocks from all of us is growing. Here are some of my recent blocks. We are each making four blocks of anything–one to keep and three to give away.
Here’s one of Becca Babb-Brott’s set of blocks. (She has an Etsy store, “Sew Me A Song.”) She made these when we sewed on Monday at her house.
I think I worked out a way to do a “half quilt-let” to fill the gaps top and bottom. You can see it on the upper row.
I’ll add a row to the left. I don’t mind the zig-zags left and right.
I don’t know. This project may be a wall-hanging. Or left narrow and used as a bed or table decoration??? Or, maybe an actual quilt. I’ll know when I’ve finished it.
I’m up to 40+ blocks out of 52. And, making them is addictive.
And it’s a good thing because I’m going on the windjammer J&E Riggin in a few days now for SIX DAYS. This trip is always a highlight of my summers in Maine.
So, here are July’s EIGHT blocks, and I’ve finished 46 now.
Katherine, made in honor of the cute t-shirt Megan Bruns made:
Louisa Enright's Blog 