That Unwanted Anniversary

F. Allen Barnes 1953 - 2000

As the anniversary of my husband's death loomed, I came to the realization that I have lived without him for as many years as we were married (we'd met and started dating only two years prior). Sigh. The day before he died was the Fourth of July and he was barbecuing up the traditional brats, showing his slight irritation at me and my camera, which of course makes me smile to this day. Traditional brats you may ask? Well yes, as we were living in Wisconsin at the time, and the all American hot dog just wouldn't do. I still fix brats every Fourth, although barbecuing is not my thing. This year I tried the Air Fryer and they turned out great.

Our 25th wedding anniversary was just a week later, and perhaps presciently, we'd done our celebrating early. I quickly chose to use the bracketing of those two events as a chance to go into seclusion, my own private retreat to reflect on our life together and consider how I might honor the support he always gave me by working on a special quilting project. I'm not doing much quilting at the moment but I'm sure he would be happy to see me take on any creative task that I've been neglecting for one reason or another. I started jotting down things I could do during this coming week and it is quite varied, mostly things that on their own would not fill up a week. So maybe a lot will get checked off my long want-to-do list. Or maybe I'll spend more time in quiet contemplation and walks down memory lane. However I end up spending my week of seclusion, I hope to maintain and even strengthen that connection I still have to that man who was the love of my life. 

Quotes & A Podcast

Here are a couple of tangles I liked from last week. I always enjoy the over and under designs that look woven and/or 3-dimentional. These have nothing to do with the quotation below but it is a sentiment I often shared with my quilting students because I had experienced it myself:

“If I had one thing to say to artists, it would be to be patient. And to be ignorant of what you think you know. If you don’t get the answer that you were expecting, maybe that’s a good thing. Knowing what you’re doing is overrated.” Pope.L.  

You may or may not have some extra time over the holiday weekend, but in case you do, here is a podcast talking about AI and art as well as other things about making art, some of which I had not considered before, all of which I agree with: https://hebfdn.org/echoes/the-echoes-podcast-austin-kleon/

There's also a transcript if you'd rather read the back and forth between the hosts and the guest. Here are a few excerpts:

Austin Kleon: "When we think about art, I mean, lot of people think about art as the finished work. It’s the thing up on the wall. That is the product. But then there’s the process of art. There’s everything that goes into the artist’s life."  As my zentangle says - it's the journey and I've always (mostly) enjoyed it. 

Austin Kleon: "These are people who really believe in the product of art, and they don’t understand the process of art. I mean, the entire world right now is run by people who don’t know anything about art. Pretty much every tech person has no idea what really goes into it. I don’t think there’s an art lover in the batch, really. They’re certainly not interested in terms of, well, won’t necessarily go there, but I think that’s what people really miss the point with AI work is that there’s no gift there. . . There’s no struggle. There’s no limitations, there’s no, it’s just, it’s all about product. Give me this thing."

Austin Kleon: "It’s like, oh, tension bad. Like, oh, man. I don’t wanna be tense. Like, oh, you gotta, like, loosen up. But I find that tension is this very important thing for creative work, is that in the way I describe it to people is like a guitar string. . . Guitar string is slung between two opposites, two poles. And if you don’t ratchet up the tension on a guitar string, if you would loosen the tension totally, it just buzzes and there’s no music, just makes noise. If you ratchet it too tight, it snaps. And so it is with our spirit. Our spirit needs just the right tension." Honestly, I so tire of other creatives telling me to loosen up. Nice to hear someone say tension is important, but I also take note of the broken string when tension is too high.

Austin Kleon:". . .one of the things I hate about this culture is that the minute you show any proficiency for anything, well, you know, oh, this fried chicken. Oh, you can fry chicken. You know what? What comes next? You could have a food trailer." Camille Hall-Ortega: "You could have it. Yeah. You should sell." Austin Kleon: "It’s the first thing we say. It’s the major compliment we give to talk about. You should take that thing that you love to do that I’m loving right now. You should ruin it by making it your job. That’s exactly what you should do. Right? And so make money. You know?"

Austin Kleon: "Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the first things I tell people is like, if you have turned your hobby into your job, which a lot of the people that I’ve talked to have, guess what? You gotta get a new hobby. And a lot of artists, you know, that some whatever they’re doing that they were loving, you know, and when you turn it into your job, you need something else that’s outside of the market. You need something that’s pure gift." Been there, done that, learned my lesson . . .

And the following quotation describes another thing I've experienced over and over, getting downright testy at times. How about you? 

"Artists are people who are driven to make creative work. And when they don’t make it, their quality of life suffers. They suffer." 

Sure hope you aren't suffering, but having a great holiday weekend, and perhaps getting a little creative work in as well.

 

 

 

Be Well Tangling

That accordion sketchbook is working well for my zentangling, small enough to sit on my desk as a reminder to pause for a minute each day. My favorite so far is the one above,which just happens to be from the prompt "pause". Below are two more favorites from this week's Be Well tangling. 

I really liked this additional quotation for the prompt of "share". I believe in every word of it and it is a driving factor in my continuing to blog. 

 “One of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to share it. Even if there is no audience to receive it, we build the muscle of making something and putting it out into the world. Finishing our work is a good habit to develop. It boosts confidence. Despite our insecurities, the more times we can bring ourselves to release our work, the less weight insecurity has.” -Rick Rubin ​

Zentangle Break

3" x 3" accordion sketchbook

Back in May, the Zentangle people offered a 21 day "Be Well" series which I was interested in but didn't want to do at the time. I just recently took a look at the video from day one and saw that all the tangling would be done inside a leaf-like shape set on the diagonal. I've been doing a lot of my Zentangling in one of my commercial sketchbooks but didn't think it would work well for this. I also didn't want to use up the individual tiles I have on hand. I got to thinking that placing those leaf shapes in an accordion style book might be just the ticket and I thought I had something I could trace around to make those shapes uniform. Yeah, I'm a LOT about uniformity.

So I took a break from my house cleaning for company to make a simple and quick accordion book. Well, nothing I make is quick but at least it would be simple. I took a look at a couple of videos in my Handmade Book Club to refresh my memory about folding and joining strips together, and I was off. Quick calculations showed that cutting an 18 x 24 inch piece of mixed media paper would give me strips that would fold into 8 panels, and three strips joined would give me the number of panels I would need and a few extras. With the video instructions in mind, I just folded that big sheet in half, then folded the sides to the middle and used a blunt knife to tear along the fold lines. I'd only need three of the four strips.

As I started folding the strips, I momentarily puzzled over the fact that the panels were turning out to be rectangles instead of squares, the planned dimensions for my book being 3" x 3". Oh yeah, dividing the width of the big sheet of paper into fourths yielded strips 4-1/2 inches wide. Oops . . . I quickly trimmed off the excess 1-1/2 inches and continued folding. More scraps for another project. Does this sound like quilting yet? ;-)  The two small rectangles will be used to join the three strips. The bone folder run over the folds makes them crisp.

To make sure I joined the strips correctly - valleys and mountains in proper order - I paper clipped where I'd be adding the joining strips on the back. The rectangles are folded lengthwise and that fold positioned flush with the end of the adjoining strips. My bookclub directions showed this done using PVA glue but I wasn't keen to deal with the messiness of glue and was happy when I remembered that I had Scor-Tape on hand in a half inch width which was just what I needed. Accordion booklet almost done. 

I wanted to attach some kind of cover on the first and last panels for stability but didn't need anything particular thick or heavy. I decided to look through my various papers, settling on this mulberry paper one. Does the design remind you as it does me of trees? Again, I didn't want to fool with glue so cut 3 x 3 inch squares of Scor-Tape from a 6 inch square sheet. Scor-Tape is sort of a one and done tape meaning you have essentially one shot at getting your item positioned correctly before the adhesive makes it impossible to remove. Fortunately, the mulberry paper lined up without a hitch and along with the Scor-Tape, stiffens up the mixed media paper just enough to work as "covers". The bone folder comes in handy to burnish for a good adhering.

Now to draw the diagonal leaf shapes on the panels. There's the thing I thought would work well to draw around, some kind of end plug from packaging that begged me not to throw it away. Hopefully you can see now why I thought an accordion book would work well.

I penned the title on the first panel (and as an after thought added my initials chop after I'd taken the picture). Each day has a theme to meditate on (day one is Embrace not Erase) and a related quotation so I am adding those in the negative space around the leaf shape. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about this first zentangle and less excited with the way mine came out but at least I've started!

When filled, it can be displayed open to show off the undulating zentangle designs.

I like this small 3 x 3 inch little book but accordions can be awkward to work in. I need to find a bit of decorative elastic I think to wrap vertically around it to hold this closed when I'm not working in it and to hold together the springy pages not in use when I'm trying to zentangle on a panel - it's already proven to be an issue. And wouldn't you know it, no sooner did I finish this up and readied myself to complete the remainder of the cleaning and straightening than I got word that my company has had to postpone their arrival. So a relaxing weekend I wasn't counting on in a mostly clean and picked up house!

 

 

A Mending Week

Arrow pointing to invisible thread loop of finger

I have company coming in a couple of weeks; it's prodding me to take care of some things I've been putting off, like making more repairs on the couch quilt. You might remember that a lot of the cotton bobbin threads had worn through leaving loops of the invisible thread my fingers kept catching on. These were mostly along the stitch in the ditch quilting and I decided to requilt all those lines, using a stronger polyester bobbin thread. I feared that the scallop quilting in the borders and setting triangles might also be at risk but was not up for requilting all those sections too. As I suspected, those areas started failing as well and I started tying yarn around the loops I ran into, dreading having to requilt those areas. I did realize one thing though as I noticed where these loops were popping up - almost all of them along the top border where strain would be put on the quilting as I'd pull the quilt up over me. Anyway, having a quilt with a lot of yarn ties decorating it would be embarrassing to have out for company to see, so this week my "creative" time has been working my way over these broken areas.

Right side of seaming

I finished the left front panel of the eyelet cardigan and discovered that the 3 needle cast off required was not only easy but a pretty nifty way to seam two pieces together.

Wrong side of seaming

The two sections are placed wrong sides together as you would any seaming, with those needles with "live" stitches held together. Then casting off proceeds as usual except for knitting together a stitch from each needle before moving the previous stitch on the right hand needle over this new stitch for a cast off. Makes for such a smooth seam on the wrong side as well as the right side. I'm about 4 inches up the right side panel and wishing this was going a little faster only because I have something else waiting in the wings that is for warmer weather like we've been having.

I realized that when I showed you the plantings of my deck garden, I didn't show you the plant I decided to put in the big pot out front. I was looking for something that would stick up higher than the pot rim and these flowers are doing just that.

Finally, I've been noting the progression of blooms along a stretch of my daily walk that includes a vacant house (where the lilac bush grows along with old fashioned roses and sweet peas) and an undeveloped lot next to it (just trees and brush). The roses from next door have spread into that area, and to my surprise, I spotted some honeysuckle as well. Seeing that honeysuckle brought to mind a specific image from my youth when dad liked to load up the camper and head over Thompson Pass into Montana to fish. We'd gotten over the pass and had pulled to the side of the road where mom spotted some syringa and honeysuckle just like these. I always marveled that mom knew all the names of the flowering plants and she always approached them like old friends.  

Quest Completed

I've been working on the orphan block tote bag in fits and starts, most sessions ending with "my head HURTS" from all the working out of dimensions and figuring out construction sequences. But it's all together now, my quest for a big bag for my knitting over. I said I wanted a big bag and it is BIG: 10 x 16 x 16 inches tall. 

The headaches were of my own making as I tried to be clever about hiding the seam allowances on the inside rather than just making a separate lining. My solution not only "encased" the seam allowance but eliminated additional seams on either side of the blocks. Not sure you can what's going on here but basically I pinned a piece of fabric on front and back of the blocks' sides and turned inside out after stitching - look ma, no exposed seam allowances.

 

The bag is so big because I decided on a two inch border all round the 12 inch blocks. I'd sewn a two inch strip to the bottom of each block before adding the side fabric that had an extra 2 inches on each end to form this border after pressing. I'd been mulling strap attachments when I noticed another bag of mine had straps that did not feed through a top seam of the bag but extended down the fronts. Aha! So I sewed a band along the top that when turned to the inside would provide that two inch border on the top of the blocks.

I'd considered some kind of stabilizer on this band but abandoned the idea since I'd not stabilized the sides, counting on the double layer of fabric to be enough. I turned under a seam allowance and pinned the turnover to the inside, attaching it with machine stitching in the ditch from the outside. The inside of the bag is on the left. I also ran some stitching along the folded edge to stabilize it.

I made some straps that would finish two inches wide to fit in that 2 inch border space on either side of the blocks, its raw edge ends to be caught in the bag bottom's seam. Again I'd wondered about using stabilizer inside the straps but was beyond being interested in fussing with that. (So ready to be done with this!)

I used the same narrow topstitching I'd used around the top of the bag to attach them and stabilize the parts becoming the handles.

Now on to the last step, the dreaded setting in of the bottom. I really did think long and hard about this step from the beginning, but because of my other design choices, I couldn't opt for an easier way. And my "clever" way of encasing raw edges of the seams was not going to work here. I also had to trim the pieces I'd already cut for the bottom, the dimensions arrived at when I'd thought I could extend it like I had the sides to form the bottom border of the blocks. I made a bit of a mess of the 90 degree turns needed to set in the bottom section but close enough for my needs.

With the bag essentially sewn together, my speculation about needing to add a really stiff stabilizer between the inner and outer bottom pieces was spot on. And the easiest way to hide the bottom seam allowance might be to wrap the inner fabric piece around the stabilizer. Here I've used a Roxanne marking pencil which I'd found out does not easily erase as advertised. This was a good place to use it up where it will never show, marking the quarter inch seam allowance for a guide to placing the stabilizer.

I cut some Stiff Stuff interfacing left over from the Eisenberg Fountain quilt. It hadn't worked as I had hoped on that quilt but it worked perfectly for this bag bottom. I applied Heat and Bond to the fabric (normally I don't use this fusible except when making books but I didn't have large enough pieces of either Steam a Seam or Wonder Under on hand), centered the Stiff Stuff within the lines and carefully turned the edges over the Stiff Stuff and fused. Turned it over to complete the fusing to the Stiff Stuff. There, a nice stiff insert for my bag.

Oh how I wished that I could continue fusing but I decided it would be much easier just to run some glue over the seam allowances and plop my stiffener into place. I had a box that was the right width but not quite as long as the bag bottom but better than nothing for having something solid to turn the bag inside out over. I had a narrow strip of the Heat and Bond that I decided to use to at least partially fuse the two bag bottoms together. Here it is with its protective paper removed before adding the stiffener bottom.

Still a bit tricky but not as tricky as fusing would have been, I worked my way around the seam allowance applying some Fabri-Tac old enough to refuse to squeeze out of the nozzle so applied with a glue spatula and pressing the stiffener in place. To my relief, it fit and held. Turning the bag right side out, I could now make that final fuse of the inside and outside bottoms.

I loaded up the yarns and knitted sections of the eyelet cardigan and the bag is more than big enough. In fact, it might hold all the yarn I have waiting to be knitted up.

Knitting projects lined up - need another bag?

It really could have used either some stabilizer or extra padding in the sides, band around the top and straps, but on the other hand, I like that it so easily flops closed to keep the dust out since most big knitting projects take a lot of time. I'm satisfied and rather pleased to have these old blocks out where I can see them. And I'm reconsidering what I said about not needing more pillows . . . 

 

Planting on Memorial Day

Today turned out to be the perfect day to transfer the plants I bought into various pots and planters on my deck. Yesterday was too hot and muggy (we got into the 80's!) with little gnatty-like bugs fluttering about. And when I stopped on my walk later in the day when it had cooled a little to tighten a shoelace, I was immediately attacked by several mosquitos even though I was in the sun. I remember well most years having to fight off mosquitos while getting plants into my pots so what a relief to find today about ten degrees cooler and windy. No mosquitos except briefly when the breeze died down momentarily.

I still need to pick up, sweep and arrange the smaller pots but I am so relieved to get this done. My usual geraniums are in the big tub while the other pots hold a mix of new flowers to try along with a few that have done well in the past, like begonias and pansies. I usually stay away from marigolds because I don't like the smell, but I needed something yellow and that was all my store had. The purple one is Verbena and smells heavenly. The tall bloomless plants are ones that wintered over - the name escapes me at the moment - and they look particularly healthy. 

I even transplanted the Easter lily I'd enjoyed in the house into a big pot and we'll see how it does. I planted one once along the foundation when I lived in a place with a more moderate winter and was so pleased that it survived the winter and bloomed the next year. Not sure I'll have that sort of luck here. Oh, and one daisy-like plant went into the pot out front next to the stairs to the front door. I think I'm going to pick up some nasturtium seeds to fill in around them. Cleanup can wait until tomorrow . . .