Scenes From This Week

We've had so much rain in the past week, including one particularly rainy day leading into the Memorial Day weekend. So much so that when I walked through the nearby park, there was standing water in places I only see it when the snow melts.

I tried to find out how much had fallen in the 24 hour period and one place said a little more than half an inch. It sure seemed like more as it pounded down all afternoon and late into the night. I canceled my walk that day!

One thing for sure, not much swinging is going to get done til it drains away.

I usually exit the park here and follow the path around the dog park back to the main street. When it's like this, I need to detour across the grass if it's not soggy.

I checked out the decorative plum trees to see if they were still blooming.

Oh yes - and every open bloom is so pretty.

The lilac bush is still blooming too, but along the fence around its yard, some roses are now blooming, putting forth so much scent.

And drawing this bee which was flitting so fast between blooms that I could barely catch him on camera. Just a few seconds after landing it was hurrying on to the next. Hard to see how it could be picking up any pollen at all at that speed.

As proof that nature always prevails, once home I notice this little viola blooming in the crack in the driveway. You might remember my surprise when last year I discover the pot by the front steps was suddenly full of these blooming away, me not knowing where they came from. This little guy must be from that pot which now may not have any in it this year. I've planted snapdragons in it after removing a layer of moss and digging up the soil to aerate it. But we shall see.

I also made a trip to the library this week and noticed that their outside water feature was up and running with flowers blooming around it. 

Doesn't really show in the picture but there IS water gently cascading from back to front, its sound one I crave. I've sat before it when I didn't have a sketchbook with me but would like to try sketching it sometime.

Knitting continues, ready to shape the neckline which takes only 6 rows. I put an inscription on the opening page of the second butterfly binding book and sent it off as a graduation present to the daughter of one of my late husband's students at his very first teaching job. Making me feel even older than I already do and reminding me of the special relationship we developed with his whole family. Haven't seen him in years but do the "keep in touch by Christmas card" thing with the arrival in the mail of the graduation announcement being proof it has been worth it. 

It rained overnight - of course it did :-)

Otherwise, having one of those not much time in the studio weeks, but finishing a riveting novel, watching interesting shows on TV and doing some extra holiday cooking including recreating my mom's potato salad. Memorial Day weekend probably would have meant dad taking us off camping and fishing, and that potato salad plus baked beans and hot dogs to roast over a fire would come along too. My husband and I only did the camping thing once (his favorite saying was "I consider Motel 6 roughing it"), trackside at a motorcycle race, tenting it with few supplies (everything had to fit on the motorcycle), but he did enjoy barbecuing, so among other things, I miss that on these holidays. However, there was racing to watch and that always makes me feel close to him. How did you spend the holiday weekend?

Hoping to get a bit more on track during the upcoming week, but you never know. Ran across this quotation and thought it rather sounds like me, how I've always been, why I somewhat flit from interesting thing to interesting thing a bit like that bee and recently find myself thinking that I have too many interests:

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney

A Different Way Of Working

Working around what's not put away from the last mixed media project

Making slow progress on the rails quilt. All those quarters are now pressed and arranged and I've begun sewing them into 12 inch blocks. I am getting there. Just short stints, but as they say, those moments when you do get something done add up quicker than if you do nothing at all. Yes, a pep talk, and here's another.

Ran out of room on the table, ironing board steps in

Austin Kleon has once again led me to an artist I am unfamiliar with but who has an interesting outlook on what comprises "success", Steve Albini. I may not recognize his name but he is well-known enough to be interviewed for The Chicago Sun Times. When he was asked, "Do you feel successful," this was his answer:

“To the extent that I could care about that, I would say yes,” he replied. “I’ve lived my whole life without having goals, and I think that’s very valuable, because then I never am in a state of anxiety or dissatisfaction. I never feel I haven’t achieved something. I never feel there is something yet to be accomplished."

Wow, I was not expecting that. No goal setting? When I think about it, setting goals has been something stressed throughout my life - through the examples of others, by my parents and teachers, by the business world when considering a career or even just jobs to pay the bills (a mini-goal in itself), by every bit of advice about being a successful artist . . . I can barely think of any facet of life where one is not pressed to set goals, and I've dutifully complied. But I also recognize experiencing what he says he doesn't sans goals, anxiety and dissatisfaction. And I've always had that aplenty, in exactly how he goes on to describe:

 "I feel like goals are quite counterproductive. They give you a target, and until the moment you reach that target, you are stressed and unsatisfied, and at the moment you reach that specific target you are aimless and have lost the lodestar of your existence."

I'm not sure I totally agree with goals being counterproductive. I've often felt they were quite helpful in moving me along. However, now I'm wondering if this is why I've been a bit happier since stepping away from art quilting and exhibiting and getting back to quilting for myself and others as well as dabbling in things that I have no plans of ever exhibiting or trying to sell. Oh, I still have frustrations and self-induced stress at times, and have often been told I'm too hard on myself but it definitely feels different now since I've given up setting so many goals for myself and try to just do what makes me feel good and happy, working on setting aside pressure from within and without. He continues:

"I’ve always tried to see everything as a process. I want to do things in a certain way that I can be proud of that is sustainable and is fair and equitable to everybody that I interact with. If I can do that, then that’s a success, and success means that I get to do it again tomorrow.”

I've always been a process person too, and wanting to be proud of what I do and the way I strive to support people, and I do think I've been fairly successful at that. But the way he wraps it all up definitely makes me smile and want more, that getting to do it again tomorrow. And the interviewer sums it up similarly after asking Steve about retiring (which he shares will be when his hearing goes): "Until then, he’ll do what he loves, every day. Which is the best definition of success I can imagine." Me too.

Back On Track

At least it feels like I'm back on track with the rails baby quilt. With my additional selections of pinks, I decided to ditch the idea of adding in some blue, particularly because those blues would clash with the more aqua blue of the backing. A small thing but I tend to be swayed by them. Here are all my strips cut and ready to sew into blocks. You'll note that there are more than 4 different pinks which means a few of the blocks will have different combinations of pinks.

Here's a sample block showing the basic arrangement of the smaller 4 strip quadrants. I dithered slightly about whether to press seams to one side or open, ending up pressing to one side and wondering if open would have been better. I don't intend on doing much stitching in the ditch so open might have been better. I have to say, this is going to be a very pretty girly pink quilt!

More tree blossoms along my walks are opening up. I thought they were late but in looking back at a May 10th blog post from last year, this is pretty much when spring sprung then. 

I'd periodically check what I think are flowering plum trees in the little park I sometimes pass through and they too bloomed this week.

The annual Lilac Festival Torchlight Parade in nearby Spokane WA is Saturday, and I thought to check the lilac bush by the abandoned house on one of my walking routes yesterday to see if the blooms had opened yet. Indeed, like nearly every year, they had, right on time. I cut a few for a bouquet and their scent fills the downstairs. My knitting is coming along too, ready for decreases to form the armholes, and echoing the color of the lilacs.

Speaking of walks, I ran across a great article expounding on the virtues of walking. A bit of preaching to the choir but it had many quotations I'd not run across before, including this one which to my long time readers will sound a lot like me:

". . .I’ll first note the Latin phrase solvitur ambulando meaning “it is solved by walking.” The phrase is attributed to both St. Augustine and the Greek philosopher, Diogenes. The sense of it, as I take it, is that when you are stuck on something, you should get up and take a walk. By the act of walking you somehow allow your mind to think more freely and creatively."

I like where the author takes all this, a response to our ever-hurrying world:

"As Watters observed in her essay, “Walking lets you read the world — and much like the slow, contemplative mental processes involved in reading a book, the pace with which one moves through the world while walking allows for a different, deliberative kind of seeing. You notice more. You think more.”

To walk, then, is to inhabit a fitting scale and speed. It is the scale and speed at which our bodies are able to find their fit in the world, and the world rewards us by spurring our thinking and disclosing itself to us. Perhaps this is the deeper fitness we should actually be after.

This principle of proportionality or fittingness is one that we do well to remember and insist upon to whatever degree we are able because almost everything about the human-built world, in its economic and technological dimensions, is bent on pushing us past a human scale and speed, which then denies us the opportunity to cultivate our competence and enjoy its rewards. We are, in turn, sold a series of tools and techniques that promise to help us operate faster and more efficiently so that we may keep up with the inhuman demands. Some will even say that the point is to eventually slough off the encumbering body so that we may keep up with the machines and find our fit within the artificial systems we have built. Only exhaustion and alienation lie down this path."

It's an interesting read - give it a go. And then take a walk and ponder what it says.

 

Decisions Were Made

 

On my next grocery run, I was pleased to see my store had expanded its selections of bedding plants. No hesitation now; I picked out three geraniums, more snapdragons, a couple of begonias (I've not had these before), a marigold and whatever that lovely lavender bloom is. Also picked up potting soil while at Walmart on a different day, so with the weatherman predicting weekend highs around 80, I'm prepared to set up my deck garden.

I thought by now I'd have strips cut and maybe even a few blocks sewn for the rails baby quilt to show but alas, the day set aside for that was spent dealing with a dying tv screen. It had been giving me warnings so I was not surprised when the screen suddenly went black that morning. Couldn't help but research what might be causing it and if I could fix it myself, but without buying parts and wielding a soldering iron, it wasn't going to happen. These screens are so inexpensive that replacing them is the better option. Mine was not "smart" and just like the phones, I don't really need a smart one, but of course, that's all that's available these days. I wryly scoffed at the instruction manual promising I'd be up and running in minutes. Took more than that to screw on the feet! Won't bore you with all the hoops I had to jump through to finally be able to watch my Directv and synchronize remotes, but the upside is I can now access my Paramount+ subscription through it and be able to watch those shows on a big screen relaxing on the couch rather than on my PC screen sitting in an office chair. I've always been a pretty independent woman, but I tell you, it's times like these I really miss my late husband! I would have handed it all off to him and had my studio time.

So what have I decided about the rail quilt fabric? I gave up on the lavender, everything being just too dark or not working with the pink on the table. And then I gave up on that pink as well and shifted back to a slightly different stack of pink. I definitely was feeling that I had the above problem and wondering why nothing I was seeing felt right.

I decided to assess my blues and pulled batiks. Getting closer but still . . . I'm really struggling to feel like they work with the raindrops fabric, they are so "clear" while it has that nagging off-white background.

I was actually leaving the studio when it dawned on me there was one place I hadn't looked yet, and that was in the drawers holding my many fat quarters of reproduction fabrics from the "club" subscription I had for so many years. And there, in the top drawer, I think I found the answer to my problem. Not just blue fabrics but pink ones too, and some with children's themes to fit better with the Noah's Ark backing fabric I'll be using. Way more than I probably need but plenty to choose from. Maybe I can start having some real progress on this project.

I do some of my best problem solving and decision making when turning things over in my mind while going about the regular routines of my life. Over several days, I caught myself working through options on what to do with the lavender sweater I started and probably don't have enough yarn to finish. If no more yarn is to be had, I think I could easily turn it into a sweater vest, so I decided to just keep on knitting the back and see how much yarn it actually uses. In the meantime, I did go back to the store where I'd bought the yarn, and as I suspected, no more of it there. However, the owner said she'd just put in an order for more of these mill end skeins, but she had no control over what colors they sent. They won't arrive for awhile so I will knit away while I wait for her call telling me if I am lucky or not.

Looking For Spring

So there I was, standing with another woman outside the grocery store in the cold and damp, looking longingly at a small selection of bedding plants, a few showing blooms. So starved for color, we contemplated if it was too early to buy and plant flowers yet. There were snapdragons and pansies . . .

I was there for groceries and decided to think it over, going back the next day to pick up 4 pony packs: the pansies and the snapdragons, dianthus since the ones that have wintered over year after year are showing no sign of life, and one simply labeled "mixed". I set them on top of pots on the deck, not ready yet to do the transfer but wanting to enjoy that bit of color that I can see from the sofa. Wouldn't you know, that night we suddenly dipped below freezing, the next few nights as well, but on the deck, these new plants didn't seem to mind.

Trees are on the cusp of blooming, but not enough warmth for them to "burst" into bloom. The chokecherry tree outside my place is slowly unfurling its delicate flowers as are other trees close by. Besides the colder weather, there have been bursts of heavy rain and some sleet. Springlike but not how we tend to envision spring. Somehow seemed appropriate though to move ahead with the rails baby quilt and get all the various lengths of strips cut from the "rain drops" background fabric. My graph paper chart worked perfectly as reference, my figuring correct, assuring I got the border strips cut with the raindrops going the right directions. I've pinned them along with sashing strips to the design wall for safe keeping.

Here are the 96 strips to go into the rail blocks. Very handy that all the cutting for this quilt is 2 inch wide strips cut to various lengths. Easy on the brain. Even so, it has been long enough since I made my calculations and notes on printouts that refreshing my memory and being sure I was getting the numbers right took a little time.

And just when I thought I had the pink fabrics figured out, this happened. I moved them from the ironing board to the work table, placed a stack of strips over them and began to question if they really did work. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the layer of purple fabrics exposed in the wire cube storage rack and pulled them out. My camera struggles with purple so to adjust settings in Paint Shop Pro to show these fabrics as purple and not blue, it turned the pinks underneath a little orange so ignore that. Focus on the fact that I am now considering purple instead of pink (these pinks and purples do NOT go together) along with some blue, and wondering if I can sneak in a little of that print fabric, all that is left of a fabric that has shown up in the other quilts I've made for the baby's siblings. Decisions, decisions! I think I'll just have to cut a few strips of various fabrics to mock up a block, see how they really look with that background fabric. Sometimes you really can't tell how fabrics work together unless they are cut to size.

I've been finding solace in my knitting as I run into issues elsewhere, making good progress on the sweater and just about have the pattern memorized. But here I am, at the end of the first ball of yarn and only halfway to the armhole decreases. In theory, when I figured the total number of yards needed for this pattern, the 6 skeins I had was more than enough. Now it looks like I only have enough for the body of the sweater, no sleeves. I bought all that was on display and doubt they have gotten more in, although I will stop by and check. But if not. . . I do have 8 skeins of this yarn in a different color and could start over, but oh do I hate undoing what I've already done. A part of me wants to continue and be happy if it turns into a sweater vest. At least then I would know exactly how short I am on yarn. Another part of me says, who are you kidding? Find another pattern for this yarn. As the owner of the local yarn shop said, as I mulled over if I could get away with a single skein of yarn for a pair of knee high socks, how willing are you to play yarn chicken? On a project with this much investment of time, I shouldn't be willing at all. Oh please, be more yarn waiting for me when I go back to the shop where I bought it. Hope springs eternal . . .