Turkey Tracks: “Fine China” Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  February 12, 2012

“Fine China Quilt”

This quilt started out with a set of blue and white squares and rectangles.

Here’s the first block–made and placed tentatively on the design wall–four-square blocks alternated with rectangles:

 Here’s the finished quilt:

I alternated the placement of the rectangles on the second block–the first block has the four-patches to the outside; the second has the rectangles to the outside.  What results, still, are lines of light and dark blocks on diagonal lines up and down the quilt.  Since I have a lot of “medium” blues, the lines are not always as stark as if I were using starker darks and lights.

Here’s a close-up of the blocks, so you can see some of the beautiful feather and swirl quilting I did freehand on the long-arm:

John went with me down to Marge’s at Mainely Sewing to choose a backing.  He chose this paisley fabric, which we both thought was perfect, and I chose the binding fabric, which has a lot of visual interest:

This quilt went to Hannah Rheault Kreibich, first daughter of Willow Rheault Kreibich, who is the daughter of our neighbor Sarah Rheault, who is English.  The blue and white floral prints have always looked like English china to me.   But this name is a bit more complicated.  “Fine China” is what our grandsons thought they heard when their parents used real words to describe their younger sisters’ body parts.  Willow topped this story with a similar one from her family.  A son thought his mother had a “china.”  It all became very complicated when they went to a zoo and he saw a panda bear from “China.”  Too funny!  Thanks, Willow.

Turkey Tracks: Quilts, Quilts, Quilts: “Star Light, Star Bright”

Turkey Tracks:  February 12, 2012

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts:  “Star Light, Star Bright”

I’m still quilting like a madwoman.

And, having such a good time making creative use of 10 years of scrap fabric cut into useable pieces.

I sent off three quilts this week.

Here’s “Star Light, Star Bright”–a baby quilt made for a little boy–Meyer James Kelly–who will be born any minute now.  The bed gives you some size references.

 These blocks are in the “La, La Log Cabin” style, taught to Coastal Quilters by Rhea Butler of Alewives Quilting in Damariscotta, Maine.  For the centers, which are deliberately cut “wonky” so the block develops “wonky,” are a set of blocks from a Wynkin, Blikin, and Nod line of fabric that I used in another baby quilt.  I loved the blocks so much that I couldn’t bear to toss what was left.  I had to make two star blocks–I traced the star on a blue fabric, fused it to the star print, and blanket-stitched around it.

Here’s an upright view:

Here’s a close-up of one of the “Wynkin, Blinkin, and Nod ” blocks–there were different pictures in the blocks:

I quilted with a big meander pattern broken by stars–so it will be soft–and tried one of my curved templates in the border.

I love the orange binding with blue stars.  That fabric was a find.

The backing is plain–and I’ve been printing labels and hand sewing them on to the back of the quilt.  I like it that I can put in little sayings, poems, how the quilt emerged for me, and so forth–even pictures!  You can see both backing and the label in this pic:

So fun!  So happy!

Turkey Tracks: “Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway”

Turkey Tracks:  February 12, 2012

Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway

Friday night held a special treat for us, besides dinner with good friends:  Neil Berg’s “100 Years of Broadway,” a Bay Chamber winter concert.

WOW!

Neil Berg is a very successful composer/lyricist–“The Prince and the Pauper,” “The Twelve,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Time and Scrooge,” “Heidi,”  and on and on…   He oozes music and knowledge about the history of Broadway.  He puts together this show where he asks major Broadway stars to join him in singing and dancing many of the songs/dances that they, themselves, have sung “on broadway.”  Along the way, we all learned a little Broadway history and some “insider” tales.

Berg played the piano, and there was a drummer and an electric guitar player.  And boy could Berg play the piano!

This show started with Natalie Toro singing some of the major songs from “Evita,” in which she starred.  She also had major roles in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Les Miserables,” “Cats,” and “A Christmas Carol.”  Her gorgeous voice is laced with passion.

Rita Harvey is a major Broadway star, probably best known for five years as Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera.”  She’s married to Berg, and she has an astonishing soprano–clear and true.

Danny Zolli is probably best known for “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and he blew us out of the Camden Opera House with some of that music–but not before singing “Sherry,” from “Jersey Boys,” which made us all want to sing along and get up and dance.

Ted Louis Levy is a master tap dancer with a mellow voice and a soft-shoe pleasing manner onstage.  He made his Broadway debut in “Black & Blue.”

David Elder danced and sang “Singing in the Rain,” a la Fred Astaire style.  He’s been in “42nd Street, “Kiss Me Kate,” “Once Upon A Mattress,” “Damn Yankees,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Titanic,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Curtains.”

Were we ever spoiled or what???

One of the joys of living in a small town with a huge cultural component is that we get to see traveling shows like this one.  The Camden Opera House was sold out.

It’s Sunday now, and we’re still walking around humming bits of songs we heard Friday night.  And, we’ve checked our stash of Broadway CD’s to see what’s there.

The show ended–after three hours with an intermission– with “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.”  We think we’ll order some of the Broadway DVDs and have some fun on these cold winter nights.

If this show comes to a place near you, GO!

Turkey Tracks: Moving the Bees

Turkey Tracks:  February 9, 2012

Moving the Bees

Last Thanksgiving, we were in Charleston, SC, with our children.  Both of our sons and their families live within two blocks of each other, so we stay a chunk of time with each family.

My daughter-in-law, Tami, has been a backyard bee keeper for the past year.  And, by year’s end, she had harvested her first honey:

Tami’s hive was in a shady part of the yard, however, and had acquired a worrisome kind of little beetle that can harm the hive.  So, just after Thanksgiving, she and her bee mentor, with the help of her fellow beekeeper Kay, decided to move the hive to a sunnier spot in the yard.

Here’s Kelly, all ready for the move–see the hive alongside the back fence?

Here’s Kay and Tami with the children, starting the smoker:

The boys are ready for the next step of the move:

The bee mentor and his wife arrive, and here’s the whole crew, moving the bees.  Notice Kay’s daughter standing nearby without any protection.  Bees really are not aggressive unless you directly threaten the hive and/or its honey.  They are especially not aggressive if they’ve been smoked.

Here’s the new site–note the sun:

Here’s the hive in its sunny new site alongside Tami’s raised vegetable beds:

But, this picture isn’t the end of the story.

There are two other pieces.

First, all the bees that were out foraging came home to find no hive where they left it.  Hundreds of them swarmed around the spot where the hive had been.  By nightfall, they lit on the fence and on the ground below the fence.  Tami and I couldn’t bear it; our hearts were breaking.  We donned gloves and took a flashlight and scooped up as many as we could with sheets of newspaper and slid them into brown paper sacks.  We then put the sacks, open, next to the hive.  By morning, the bees were gone.  Rejoined, we hoped, with their hive.  We had “saved,” we hoped, hundreds of bees.

Second, Tami thought the bees were ok in their new spot.  There was a lot of activity at the hive.  Bees were coming and going.  But, when she returned from Christmas in Maine, something didn’t seem quite right.  She donned her gear and opened the hive–something one does not do much in the winter.

The hive was empty.  Not a bee in sight.  And all the honey was gone–though she had left two flats of honey for the bees to use over the winter.  The bee activity she had seen were robber bees from another hive, taking all the honey.

She does not know what happened.  Was the queen damaged in the move?  Did a nearby automatic water sprinkler wet the hive?  There was some mold on the bottom layers…???  Was it colony collapse disorder?  Or, had her bees, simply, departed.

She’s ordered more bees and a new hive, since the old one has to be destroyed in case there was a disease present.

She loves her bees, and this loss was huge.  For us, too, as we loved her honey.

Turkey Tracks: Making Greeting Cards

Turkey Tracks:  February 9, 2012

Making Greeting Cards

Greeting cards have become REALLY expensive.

For a long time now, I’ve been making my own.  I sew on some, I glue things on some, I stamp some, and so forth.

Perhaps one of the easiest is to put a photo into a card.  Swarthmore, for instance, sells 40 photo greeting cards and envelopes with deckle edges, for $20.  That’s 50 cents a card.  (They’re for 4 by 6-inch photos.)  You can order these photo cards online from lots of places.  The last batch I got had modified the slot for the photo so that it’s like a little envelope into which you slide your photo.  Mine have not needed any additional sticking (with the enclosed stickers) to hold them into place without sliding.

Lately, I’ve been using photos of pieces of my quilts.  Here’s what a recent batch looks like:

I write, in pencil, the name of the quilt on the right-hand corner of each card.

I like them a lot!

Turkey Tracks: Cheryl Wixson’s Homemade Ketchup

Turkey Tracks:  February 9, 2012

Cheryl Wixson’s Homemade Ketchup

In our Cheryl Wixson’s Kitchen CSA last month, we got some homemade ketchup:

I keep thinking about pouring some into a spoon and just eating it.  Seriously, this ketchup leaps into my mind on a regular basis.  I find myself thinking about what I can cook that I can put it on.

Next year, I’m definitely going to try to make some for our winter eating.  But, I doubt mine will ever be as good as this one is!

Eat your heart out Kelly Enright!

PS:  Cheryl just sent the list of goodies in our February box which I’ll pick up next Tuesday at the Belfast Coop.  I can hardly wait!

Turkey Tracks: Leftover Sock Yarn

Turkey Tracks:  February 7, 2012

Leftover Sock Yarn

Here’s what my leftover sock yarn pile looks like now:

I was shocked when I rummanged through the yarn bin and saw how much there was.

It’s the same problem as the leftover quilt fabrics.

Last week I bought two sock skeins:  navy and cream.   I’m going to use them to unify these yarns (cuff, heel, toe?) so I can make all the grandchildren socks for next winter.   You can see a pair for Kelly shaping up.  The blues will be easy I think.

I don’t know.  Maybe I need a soft green too?

Yikes!

Turkey Tracks: More Socks

Turkey Tracks:  February 7, 2012

More Socks

Yes, I’m still knitting socks.

Here’s a pair given to daughter-in-law Corinne at Thanksgiving.  Though she lives in Charleston, she travels to Philadelphia and to Maine in the winter.

I particularly like this yarn because it has little glitter bits woven into the yarn.  It seems so festive:

Here’s a pair started in Charleston over Thanksgiving and given to daughter-in-law Tamara when she came to Maine for Christmas this year.  This yarn was so yummy to work with–I recall it had something added–aloe?  lanolin?:

 And, here’s a pair I made for myself, using Cookie A’s pattern, “Lindsay.”  This one was a bit easier as it repeats consistently over 8 rows.  And, it had a short-row heel and toe, which was so fun to make.  My first time with a short-row.  The column that runs down the sock is only on the outside of each sock.  That’s the kind of detail about which Cookie A thinks.

Here’s what the pattern looks like when stretched out a bit:

These feel great on my feet.

Turkey Tracks: Valentine Roosts Outside

Turkey Tracks:  February 7, 2012

Valentine Roosts Outside

About two weeks ago, when I counted chicken heads in the coop prior to locking them up for the night, Valentine was missing.

Valentine is a Freedom Ranger meat chicken.  But FRs also lay gorgeous, big eggs.  When Valentine first started laying, almost all her eggs were double-yoked.  Rose raised her last spring/summer, and I reached into the pen one day and pulled up the first hen I could lay hands on to bring home for our coop.  Valentine.

Here’s a picture of her late last summer.  Her head, back of her comb, is covered with antiseptic cream since she had some altercation or other with one of the other hens or the rooster.  She’s was so BIG at this stage that she scared the rooster–whom she tried to follow everywhere.  She’s too heavy to fly up on the coop  perch to roost with the other chickens:

Anyway, that night two weeks ago, she wandered up out of the dark just as I realized she was missing.  I picked her up and put her into the coop for the night.

Last night, she was nowhere to be found when I went out to lock up the hens.  It’s important to lock that coop down tight.  On several mornings now, I’ve had racoon tracks all over the fresh snow on the egg box cover.

I took a flashlight and looked all over the yard, in the garage (did she go in and we didn’t see her?), and down the driveway.  I looked everywhere every space I could possible think of into which a fat chicken who can’t fly might tuck herself.  No luck.  I was encouraged that I had not seen feathers anywhere.  When a chicken gets attacked, there are always a lot of feathers.  But, the flock has been spending a lot of time up on the warm hillside, where the snow has melted and the leaves show.  Feathers might not show up in the dark on the leaves…

I told John, and he immediately grabbed a flashlight and went out to look.

No luck either.

This morning as I was fixing all the animals some food, I saw Valentine stroll down the back path.  When I went out, food bowl in hand, she came running to me like a young chicken–wings out and clucking.  I put it on the ground for her.  She was starved.  And vocal.  After she had eaten a bit, she started telling me some long tale, and she followed me around, still talking, the whole time I was outside fluffing up the coop, changing out the water, and making sure the grain bowl had grains in it.

I can’t imagine where she slept.  I hope she does not do it again.  But, she is a…Freedom Ranger.

Turkey Tracks: “Grandma’s Hands”

Turkey Tracks:  February 6, 2012

Grandma’s Hands

I’ve been wanting to hear a song I used to remember called “Grandma’s Hands.”

I was pretty sure that the singer was Lacy J. Dalton.   But, that wasn’t right.

Sunday morning I decided to tackle the pile of garlic on my kitchen counter–see my earlier post on brining garlic so you don’t lose it.  And, I was thinking about how I could find “Grandmas’s Hands.”  Alongside musing that it’s kind of cool that one harvests garlic in the fall so one has it to ward off winter colds and so forth.

In the 1980s, we all made a lot of music tapes for our own use and for gifts.  Some of my favorite music is on those old, dried-out tapes now–many songs were taken from records that we left behind when we moved to Maine since records were outdated technology.  It suddenly occurred to me that I might find “Grandma’s Hands” on one of the old tapes, so I left the garlic and, sure enough, I still had the tapes.  They were crammed behind the CDs in the lower drawer of our music center.

I haven’t listened to much music lately since I have trouble hearing it.  But, my new hearing aids are wonderful, so I found the tape with “Grandma’s Hands”–and a whole lot of other songs I love–plopped it in.  It’s scratchy and old, but it played.  And I have renewed interest in getting an ipod and downloading these favorite songs to it.  I’ll get advice from my children now and get about doing this new project.  I can stream the ipod into my hearing aids and will have fabulous clarity of sound.

Turns out Barbara Streisand sang “Grandma’s Hands” on my tape.  And some google searches discovered that the song was written by Bill Withers.  Both artists have their versions on utube, so you can hear it if you like quite easily.

And, here’s a picture of this Grandma’s Hands–at rest:

And, at work:

I am never so happy as when I am using my hands to do something–write, plant, weed, sew, knit, cook, paint.  My hands are such a huge part of my life.

PS:  The garlic pile produced–all together–four quarts of brined garlic and some leftovers to keep fresh for another week or so.