Fruit Salad Quilt finished, Cone Nebula quilt quilted

I had a lot of self-inflicted problems with this quilt, but it is now done. It's about 44.5" wide, and I'm going to pitch it as a table topper for the quilt guild's silent auction at the show this summer. (The proceeds from the auction go to pay the bills for the show, and I have permission from the publisher to use the pattern for this purpose.)

I sort of stumbled over the orange peach and apple fabric a few weeks ago, and I think the fabric really set off the entire piece.

Now, I present to you some beauty shots of the gorgeous quilting that Lynne Bowbeer did on the Cone Nebula quilt. So, without narrative, here are some beauty shots. If you are local and want to get in touch with Lynne so that she can quilt your next quilt, send me a note, and I'll be happy to pass it on to her. (The only perk I get from this is a hug from her the next time I see her.)

Aren't those wonderful? When I show this quilt in the show this summer, I'm listing her as the co-creator. She found energy in the quilt and let it be seen. I am totally blown away by the work she did.

Finally, here is the requisite cute kitty shot. I don't know what was going on, but I noticed this grouping one evening and grabbed the camera. This was the least shaky shot. (We have Baby Boy, Big Guy, and the Princess.)

Cone Nebula - Leftovers 2

After a comment from Diana about tumbling blocks and knowing that I did not want to go in that direction (sorry, Diana!), I did some rearranging and worked with the half-square triangles that were also leftover. I will confess that I cut a few more out of leftover fabric because I didn't want this to get too scrappy. Anyway, here was the end of the day:

This will be the headboard for the bed on which the Cone Nebula quilt will reside. This may get bigger.

I wanted to mention three movies that I saw this week, two of which I recommend wholeheartedly. The first was The Way with Martin Sheen. It's about the ancient pilgrimage route through the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, and a handful of people who decide to walk it. This is a movie that could have devolved into sentimentality, stereotypes, and preaching. Instead, we get a movie full of well-rounded characters (people we meet for only a couple of scenes are richly characterized), gorgeous scenery, and a lot of important questions. Full disclosure: I saw this movie on a free pass, and at the end of the movie, Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, and the producer came out on stage and took questions. This was a totally cool evening, but Hubby and I fully intend to see the movie again in the theater. It is that good.

Next up is As it is in Heaven, a 2004 movie out of Sweden. I saw this subtitled movie on a rental from Netflix. It concerns a well-known conductor who falls ill and returns to his hometown, where he takes on directing a small choral group. Again, this is a richly drawn movie full of memorable characters trying to find their way to wholeness. When I finished watching the movie, I say, "Yeah, whatever." The next day, however, the various bits of the story started coming back, and I found myself drawn into the lives of the people and wanting to know more about them. In other words, this is a movie that got into my head. If you want to understand some of it, see the lyrics for the big song that the group sings.

The final movie I'm not sure I can recommend as unreservedly as I can the first two, but it's an interesting character study of a young man struggling with some big issues. The Ides of March concerns a political operative learning his trade. It asks a lot of interesting questions, and it answers them in uncomfortable ways. If you like political movies and movies that leave you feeling a bit unsettled, this would be worth seeing.

Now, to pivot again, I have been knitting. First off, Burning Embers is the first of the cowls I'm making for Christmas presents. The model is a bottle of cleaning liquid covered with an old shirt.

This knit up quickly, and I'm getting really good at reading charts. It's so much easier than worded directions.

When I finished this, I started Duet for my mother-in-law, who is dealing with cancer and losing her hair. I'll be running some ribbon through the top so that she can wear it as a hat.

This is also a well-written pattern with an easy-to-read chart.

Finally, the cute kitty shot is of the Guys, awakened from naps because of some crazy lady with a camera.

That's all for this week!

The ABCs of Me

I saw this meme on Flying Pigs Knits, and (plagiarism alert!) I'm also hopping on the bandwagon. Follow the links back, and you'll see that a lot of folks have been playing this game:

A. Age: Old enough to have voted in eight presidential and nine gubernatorial elections.
B. Bed size: I'd rather talk about the summer quilt made from kitty blocks that I made and received in the only block swap in which I've successfully participated. Every month for a year, I'd make 12 blocks, send 10, get 10 different ones in the mail. So much fun!
C. Chore that you hate: Cleaning floors - dusting, sweeping, mopping, waxing - all of it.
D. Dogs: Grew up with them but would prefer to not be around them
E. Essential start to your day: Print. If I'm not reading within five minutes of getting up, it's probably because I'm ill.
F. Favorite colour: Pink in any shade
G. Gold or silver: My hair was golden when I was a girl, and now it's mostly silver
H. Height: An inch shorter than when I graduated from high school. Truly appalling
I. Instruments you play: The iPod - I love listening to podcasts
J. Job title: Financial Specialist Associate. I solve other people's problems.
K. Kids: Wanted them very much but there were these barriers called dating and marriage - both happened late, so I've enjoyed watching nieces and nephews and kids from my various circles grow up
L. Live: So that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. (William Saroyan)
M. Mother’s name: Doris
N. Nicknames: Liz
O. Overnight hospital stays: Never (knock wood!)
P. Pet peeve: People saying "myself" when they mean "me." Come on people, if you are the actor, it's "I"; the acted-upon, "me"; both actor and acted-upon, "myself". Got it? Good. Never screw it up again!
Q. Quote from a movie: Adopted during my first year out of college when funds were very low, and I was barely scraping by: "I will never be hungry again!" (Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind")
R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: One brother (dead), his ex-wife (adopted as a sister since his death), two younger sisters by blood
T. Time you wake up: 4:30a most days
U. Underwear: My business, not yours
V. Vegetable you hate: Brussels sprouts
W. What makes you run late: Thinking of one last thing that needs to be done before I go....
X. X-Rays you’ve had: teeth, knees, chest. I've had a couple of MRIs
Y. Yummy food that you make: Brownies - lots of varieties
Z. Zoo animal: Penguins. The summer of 1973, when the Watergate hearings were going on, we came down from the north country to the Detroit area to visit relatives. My mother's brothers and their families took us to the Detroit Zoo. In the penguinarium, my mother and her brothers proceeded to name the penguins after the various figures in the controversy, and they drew a bit of a crowd. It was truly hilarious watching them riff off each other. I've been fond of penguins ever since.

Before I go, I do have to show you that the Big Guy knows how to totally relax.

Actual Artistic Content!!

I have had a special project in the back of my brain for several years, and it's been delayed by various other projects - you know, quilts for SAFE House, baby shower gifts, quilts for raffles, etc. etc. etc. Well, last month at the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild meeting, our speaker was Judy Coates-Perez, and there was part of her talk that broke a logjam in my brain. So, this past weekend, I pulled out these:

In case you don't recognize this, this is a sanitary napkin cover - one of the local grocery stores has a house brand napkin covered with a nonwoven cloth-like covering. I saved a bunch of these covers last summer for this project. I also saved some used dryer sheets. This weekend, I worked up a variety of shades of brown fabric paint and painted a bunch of these.

Then, I pulled out some glass blocks that I retrieved from a lab that was shutting down at my workplace a few years back (most of these were wrapped in paper - the ones that weren't got washed first) - I like to scavenge, in case you can't tell.

Then, I did a variety of dabbing, dribbling, brushing, swirling, etc. on the blocks and on the fabrics with gold fabric paint, gesso, resist, and water.

I got a variety of effects.









I'll have more about this in another post.

In other news, I had a birthday recently, and Hubby Dearest bought me a spinning wheel! We got it from Heavenly Handspinning, and I have been studiously working at learning to control the wheel and get consistent results. Next week, I hope to put fiber I really care about on to the wheel. I am SO excited. This is something I've wanted to learn for at least 20 years, ever since I saw a wheel in the home of a fellow Habitat for Humanity volunteer. Unfortunately, it was not a close enough acquaintance for me to pursue my curiosity at the time. Here are some beauty shots:

Two notes: the chair is from my mother's old sewing machine - I've been using it as a shelf in the sewing room, but it's just the right height for this purpose and looks nice in the living room. We moved an easy chair from that space (Hubby now has that chair in his study), so we needed a cat lounge. I wrapped a crocheted blanket in an old sheet and put it next to the chair for the Big Guy. Instead, the Big Guy moved downstairs to his favorite chair, and Baby Boy has chosen the new lounge as his new space.

Speaking of Baby Boy, here is the ritual cat picture - Baby Boy on Tuffet.

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 7

I went to the quilt guild meeting yesterday, with the first six sections of the Cone Nebula quilt in tow. I laid it out and showed it to a few people, including the person who had taught the kaleidoscope quilt class I took a few years ago. She was very gratified to see a student progress in this way, and she gave me some helpful suggestions. It was very funny that as I was laying out the quilt on the floor, someone came along and gasped, "Whose pattern is this?" I answered, "Umm, mine!" The questioner gave me a funny look and said, "It's just very complex looking." "Thank you!" I am SO not a kit person!

Anyway, here is the seventh section all sewn together.

In case you are wondering how this piece fits in with the rest of the sections, today's piece sits to the right of this piece:

and right below this piece:

I'm going to take a little break from this project. The next few weekends have stuff going on that may preclude serious sewing room time. Also, the speaker at the guild meeting yesterday showed a couple of pictures and said a couple of things that led me to an idea of how to pursue a project I've been noodling around in the back of my brain for about two years. I'll post some pictures as that unfolds.

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted pictures of cats, so this week, I have two. First, I provoked the Brat Cat and got this picture:

Ooohh!! Look at those scary claws!! (I LOVE her SO much!)

Second, here is the Princess on patrol in the front yard on a GORGEOUS spring day:

It's good to have a guard cat!

Thank you for the very kind comments after my most recent post. I think I was in a state of serious freak-out that morning. One of the things I have to keep telling myself is that numbers may be indicators, but, in the end, they're mere things, and they are not the be-all and end-all of life. My husband would totally snort if he read this as I have been obsessed with numbers like this:

Yeah. I wear a pedometer, and I have let it take over my life. I signed up for a first-quarter million-step challenge - that's an average of 11,111 steps per day. I have seriously been going out of my mind trying to meet this goal. I've been on a 10,000-step-per-day program for the last three years, and it's been good for me. I can go out and walk for five and six miles at a time without very much effort; what's doing me in is the focus on a significantly higher goal. As of this minute, I'm within 64,000 steps of the goal. In order to get this far, I've taken to spending a couple of hours a day on the weekends just walking vigorously around the neighborhood. That's fine and wonderful, but there are art projects I'm not doing, dust bunnies I'm not chasing, books I'm not reading. (Okay, this paragraph feels like something out of a support group meeting. "Hi, I'm Liz, and I'm a pedometer checker.") What I think is hilarious (in a sad sort of way) is that I have put on five or six pounds during this challenge! Must remember Liz' Rule Number Three: "Moderation in all things, including moderation." (from James Hilton's Lost Horizon)

In case you were wondering, Rule Number One is "In order to live fully, you must love people and use things, not love things and use people." (John Powell's Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?) Rule Number Two is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, read in a George F. Will column back in the 1980s) It's amazing how often really complicated-seeming problems become clarified when I stop and ask simple questions, "Which is the person? Which is the thing? Am I focusing on one aspect of the problem and ignoring other parts of it? Am I acting out of habit or in response to the actual situation? Am I getting overly concerned with this?" Usually, by the time I get to the last of those questions, I've come to a decision point. When I've not asked those questions, that's when things have gone very wrong.

Work in Progress Wednesday - #24

It's been a couple of weeks since I participated in the WIPW, so I'm hoping I'm still welcome to play along. Please be sure to check out the other great posts that can be found at Tami's blog.

Last Wednesday, we had four inches of snow. There are serious perks to living in my corner of southeastern Michigan, and one of them is the mild winters so that four inches of snow seems like a big deal. Anyway, I am the snow shoveler in the family, so I was not the blogger last week.

On Saturday, we had quilt guild, but I was staggering under the weight of a bout of depression so intense it was scary. It had been building up for several days and let loose with full fury during the night. I have spent 35 years with this disease and its flare-ups, and I know that the worst thing I can do when I'm under attack is to go along with it. So, I shoved myself out of bed and out of the house and off to a meeting where I had to be social and friendly and cheerful and not drag anyone else down. After the formal meeting, about 60 people gathered in a classroom and, in small groups, made quilt tops for the guild's charity. Here is the top my group produced:

The picture is a little blurry, but you can get the general idea. I spent most of the afternoon hiding behind a sewing machine mindlessly sewing strips together. It was a good therapy. I was with friends, and for most of the afternoon the conversation consisted of "Press seams open or to the sides?" "Do we want more yellow here or more blue?" Anyway, we were pleased with our final product.

Of course, I got home and was weepy much of the evening. I finished reading The Great Stink. This is a novel about a soldier home from the Crimean War. He is battling PTSD (not a term known in the 1850s) and is an engineer on the London sewer project. Let's just say that this book may have been a contributing factor to my depression. It's well written, pretty gross in places (you can almost see and smell the contents of the sewers - 'nuf said!), and the characters are interesting. If you want a view of Victorian London that doesn't involve high society, this is a good book for that.

Here are some actual works in progress:

This is the Every Way Wrap in full and closeup. It's not very far along, but I'm in the cabling area, and I LOVE doing cables. I use the technique that doesn't use a separate needle. (Basically, if you have a four-stitch cable, you slip all four stitches off the left needle onto the right needle; then, if you have to hold the first two stitches in front, you put the left needle across the front, pick up the first two slipped stitches; then, you slide all four stitches off the right needle, pick up the two "live" stitches with the right needle, and slip them back on to the left needle. At that point, you have crossed the stitches and can then knit them in the correct order.) It's awkward as anything the first few times you do it, but then you realize that you will never again drop a cable needle or have to go scrambling for it in the bag.

December in the sewing room was present-making time, and the room had to be cleaned after the holidays:

So, I spent the first non-holiday Sunday of the year cleaning, and then this past Sunday, I was able to work on the Cone Nebula quilt. It seems that no matter how much fabric I cut, I always have to spend a considerable amount of time cutting more fabric because I don't have the right ones cut. So, this was as far as I got this weekend (yes, the table wasn't big enough, and I had to bring the ironing board over):

I love how, in the lower picture, there is that splash of bright blue off to the left. When I bought that fabric, I bought it as a dark; however, when held up against really dark fabrics, it's bright. Color value is all relative!

I have two three cute cat pictures, and then I'll sign off. First up, the Big Guy just looked SO cute here:

Then, the Princess has her favorite fellow treating her right:

Finally, the Brat Cat is on her favorite perch - mainly because it's mobile!

(I love how she's looking at the phone to see what's so interesting!)

Have a good week, everyone!

Happy New Year - Work in Progress

Back last February I posted on my friend's blog some goals for 2010.  I thought it would be fun to revisit those and see how close I came.

1. read at least two serious books a month - I call this accomplished. I read a lot of really good books this year and not just silly books.
2. finish the sweater for me and make a sweater for my sister - I finished my sweater, but my sister and I have not yet reached closure on what I'm going to make for her. She wants a knitted blanket, and I'd rather make her a quilt if I'm going to go large and flat.
3. finish my scrap clearing project and get at least three quilts out of it - I got one large quilt, one wallhanging, and a pillow... hmmm
4. Make the two or three charity quilts that are sitting in the sewing room glaring balefully at me - done
5. Be a gracious volunteer chair for the guild's show and then not volunteer for the next time - I so enjoyed being the volunteer chair for the show this year that I've already volunteered for next time.
6. Finish the quilted wall hanging in time for the show - done
7. Think really hard about making one or two quilts for the raffle at the hospital - The large scrap quilt will be for the next fundraiser at the hospital - done
8. Get good at spinning with the spindle - err, nope, not even close, but I am getting better at it. Last week, I realized that I'm still spinning very thick yarn, but it is getting more even.
9. Lose 15 pounds - ha! I haven't even gone near the scale since the summer.
10. Stop being so goal oriented - Yeah, right!

Before I get to the goals for 2011, some pictures of kitty cats! First off, the Brat Cat LOVES the new footstool (and matching seat cushion):

Since Hubby hasn't yet gotten around to using this as a footstool, I have moved it over next to his chair, and the cats have figured out that when they are on the stool, they are at the perfect height for Daddy-style cuddling. At least three of them have taken advantage of that; of course the Brat thinks its hers, and she's made her displeasure known...

After finishing the baby jacket, I swatched for and cast on the Every Way Wrap from Interweave Knits Fall of 2009. I started it last year around this time, but the yarn I was using was really wrong for the project - the stitches simply got lost in all of the color changes and the fuzziness of the yarn. So, I'm using a crisper yarn with simpler color changes (Malabrigo Rios in Teal, in case you are wondering), and I'm making it on Size 7 (4.5 mm) needles, which means my gauge is way off (21 stitches per 4 inches, instead of the 16 noted in the pattern). Because of the nature of the pattern, though, I feel comfortable just going up to the maximum number of cast-on stitches and winging it from there.

The next picture was taken just this morning when I was feeding the cats. The Princess Kitty gets a bit imperious when I'm not moving fast enough, but in this picture, she's just annoyed that I keep flashing the bright light in her face instead of putting her dish down.

And now, here are my goals for 2011:

1. Continue reading serious books - there is so much to learn!
2. Read up on and attend some meetings regarding the drain commission and its work.* 
3. Get good at spinning with the spindle, smoothing out the yarn and making it thinner.
4. Be a gracious volunteer coordinator for the guild's weekend of workshops at the end of July.
5. Do not volunteer to make soul-sucking quilts - if they hurt to make, maybe they shouldn't be made.
6. Finish the Cone Nebula quilt.
7. Play with screen printing and other techniques.
8. Finish the Every Way Wrap and make other fun-to-knit projects
9. Post here at least twice a week - Wednesdays and Saturdays

Of course, there are assumptions here that I'll continue to be a very good employee, continue to try to be a good wife, figure out the whole church thing (do I just keep drifting along because I cannot imagine not being part of that community?), and feed the cats twice a day while cleaning their boxes once a day. These are all things that don't need to be listed, right?

Do you have goals for the coming year? What are they? How do you know when you've accomplished them?

*We went to a funeral home last evening for the husband of a friend of ours. I had never met the man, but he was a landscape architect who was responsible for a lot of the public landscape in our area. After looking at his projects and talking to one of his colleagues for quite a while, I really want to learn more.

Work in Progress Wednesday - #9

First off, please check out Tami's blog to see everyone participating in this fun "Work in Progress Wednesday."

I finally got back to the project I am now calling "Trapezoid Strip Quilt." Basically, I got a packet from our guild's "Make a Quilt for SAFE House" kit program. The stars of my kit were these blocks:

I knew I didn't want to make more blocks, especially after I saw the really impressive hand piecing:

So, then, on one of my long walks (where I do my best thinking), I got the brilliant idea to split the blocks, so I did this with six of the blocks:

I enclosed the blocks with long skinny strips. Between these strips, I am going to create some long "brick" strips using these blue fabrics:

 I'll also add strips with this fabric:

This quilt is really making me think and plan and stretch - it is SO outside of my comfort zone in terms of colors, but I think I can make something to be proud of, and it will warm a little kid whose world has been torn apart by domestic violence, and that matters to me, too.

I'll be going on a quilting retreat October 15-17, and I'm planning to finish this quilt that weekend AND quilt and bind Peppermint Candy. Here it is, all pinned and showing the binding fabric:

I chose the backing fabric because it had some pink and green in it, and there was enough that I needed to make just one cut and make one seam. (I know, LAZY!!) I have decided it will also be a SAFE House quilt.

Next, I have been working away on Abby, but as you can see, the yarn I'm using is not appropriate for a "lacy" feel. I was fiddling with it the other day and realized that it would make a really warm and pretty hat, so I've started decreasing it with that end in mind. I'll have enough yarn left over for a warm and skinny scarf.

Finally, because none of you has ever seen a cat, I present pictures of three of mine. First up, the shyest, most skittery of the bunch - we had to take her to the vet for shots on Saturday, and it took two of us to trap her in the bedroom, where we had to upend the boxspring, and haul her out of the springs. Poor little thing. Here she is, shedding her white fur all over one of our black chairs:

Next up, there are times when it's really hard to climb the stairs around here!

He's fifteen-and-a-half, going deaf, and as cuddly as can be.

Finally, when I'm in the sewing room, I have a friend, the Brat Cat, who occasionally shows why we let her get away with all of her brattiness. Tell me you wouldn't let this face get away with everything.

I've put up a couple of pretty heavy posts the past week. I'll simply say that I was really influenced by a poster I saw in college with a quote attributed to Bob Dylan (please pardon the sexist language - it was a different time), "He who is not busy being born is busy dying." I've lived my adult life by that statement.