Happy Thanksgiving!

I DO have squirrels racing about in the trees behind my place but none have shown up at my back door looking like this! If they did, I'd surely toss them some nuts. Are you ready for turkey day tomorrow? I did my shopping on Friday for the things I generally fix for my little feast and was thinking to skip the turkey again this year, opting instead for ham which my store always puts on sale. To my surprise, I stumbled upon an in-store special of smaller turkeys for 99 cents a pound! I snagged one of a little over 8 pounds which is perfect for me - I do love my turkey leftovers.

However, on Monday it occurred to me that, while I'd picked up some black olives that were on sale to be used in something later, I'd totally forgotten to pick up green olives, something I definitely like with my turkey. I seldom buy groceries at the Walmart that is within walking distance, but it made no sense to get out the car and drive to my usual grocery store for a single item. Besides, it was a nice day and the slightly longer walk would do me good. I was totally caught off guard to see this beautiful mural in the entryway I don't usually use.

Say what you will about Walmart (and I often do say negative things), this sounds like a wonderful program they support and this mural does indeed encapsulate the best of our immediate area.

We've had an exceptionally mild November, with all but 3 days so far clocking in above normal temps. But the air has felt nippier lately with a freeze surely soon to come, and I'd been enjoying the begonias in particular still blooming on my back deck. They were doing so well that I decided I needed to dig them up and put them in pots that I could bring inside. I have a bench under a window in my dining area where I hope they will do well. I don't remember the name of the larger plant but it is still bearing purple flowers so it came inside as well. You can see in the background that the geraniums are still blooming too but that tub is too big and heavy to move inside, even if I had room for it, and I've not had luck in the past wintering over geraniums inside. I just replace them each year.

Two more begonias ended up in my office upstairs. That copper pot had two begonias in it that were doing well last fall so got brought inside. They were doing ok until a few weeks ago when one of them just up and died. So I dug it out and replaced it with one from this year. The other one was in a small pot on the deck so was easy to bring inside. Yeah, I kind of went overboard on the begonias this year. Anyway, it's nice to have these blooms inside to enjoy and I hope they survive to go back out on the deck next spring. And I may have rescued them from winter just in time. We got our first bit of snow overnight - about an inch which is quickly melting off the lawns.

Knitting continues as does work on the 2024 Be Well zentangle series, which must have heard my disparaging remarks about the tangles so far. Because suddenly, here are four days in a row of some of my favorite tangles - what a joy to work on them.

Enjoy the holidays, be they full of family gatherings or restfully quiet. 

Back To Zentangling

Not much creative to report this week. I did start working through the zentangle Be Well series from 2024 again, and still not finding a lot of enjoyment in it. Then why are you doing it, you well may ask? Because I'm that way about something I start, be it a book or a class or whatever, soldiering on in the hopes that things will get better, that I will still get something out of it. And when I look back at what I've already done, even as recently as what I did yesterday, these triangular zentangles always look better than I remembered them. I'm still substituting colored pencil for the gel pens they keep using, going my own way when I can. Bothered that I still find I don't have a very steady hand for drawing some of the lines. Getting old, shaky at times . . .

Oddly enough, my sighing of last week over the issue with the eyelet cardigan turned to enthusiasm. Once I'd studied the pattern and the sleeves as they sit on the body of the sweater, I could see it was not me who made the mistake and could see how to reknit one sleeve properly. My excitement to get going on it, balling up another skein of yarn and casting on, definitely surprised me. But I got to thinking about my resolution word of the year - resist less - and could see I was resisting which would get me nowhere, not solve the problem. Once I stopped resisting, it was full steam ahead. Feeling good to be knitting away. Now to also get going on something in the studio, ideas aplenty.

It's Together . . .

Not as enamored with mine as I was with the shop sample

I was planning on this blog post to be a triumphant "I'm Done!" in regards to the eyelet cardigan sweater. Instead, I'm a bit irritated with a few things which I think I may have to fix, even though with errors I made along the way, I kept saying this was just for me to wear around the house so no big deal. But what I'm finding overall seem big deals that I will not be able to live with. Things that even blocking, which it desperately needs, won't fix. Where did I go wrong?

Or where did the pattern go wrong? I'd noticed along the way small discrepancies in repeat numbers and other instructions that I just did work arounds to make things fit. And the join at the back of the front panel extensions just doesn't look good. But there's something seriously wrong with the sleeves. I should have noticed when I had them side by side blocking them. Unlike the back where the eyelet sections are the same width on either side of the center panel, they should be mirror images of each other with one section being narrower than the other section. It was when pinning the sleeves on for joining that I noted that the one side's center panel was extending farther past the shoulder seam than the other, by a lot. I studied the pattern a bit and am pretty sure I did not make a mistake. But oh well, I'll sew them on anyway.

Now that I've fiddled with getting it on a hangar and taking pics, I don't think I can let that one go. After much thought, I think I will knit another sleeve, one that will be correct. Lord knows, I have plenty of leftover yarn to do that! I need to fix the seaming on one side as well. My whip stitch did not reach far enough to catch this row of knit stitches now showing on the front. This will be an easy fix as I don't think I need to take out the original whip stitches. But still, what a pain to have all this to do when I thought I was done and ready to dive into another pair of socks. I may just set it aside for a bit.

So when I ran across this meme, I had to laugh. Since I've gotten back into knitting these last 3 or 4 years, I'd say most of these apply to me. Most can apply to quilting as well!

Tamaracks behind the townhouse duplexes on my street

On a happier note,  we've had some sunny weather and a burst of gold from tamaracks, cottonwoods and aspen. They do have to fight against fronts coming through with some wind and rain, but they are doing their best to hang on and brighten my days.

My unit is on the right - I can view these from my livingroom and deck

 

This tall cottonwood is along one of my walking routes and stunning when the sun hits it. I'll be sad when these all succumb to the inevitable.

Wrapping up #INKtober

Here's the final page of sketches for #INKtober 2025. As the days left dwindled, I started dithering over which pieces of jewelry still left would be added. Because of family tradition, I had to include at least one piece of Black Hills Gold jewelry; both mom and dad lived at least part of their lives in that area of South Dakota. I'd had the ring sketched at lower center on my desk for a long time, wondering if it should be added. I know nothing about when mom got it but assumed it was a recent piece and so different from anything else she owned. It's very heavy and I'm sure that big pearl is real along with the small diamond. Surely there's a maker's mark . . .

. . . and indeed, I found one: Strell. Down the rabbit hole of internet research I went and found this out about the company:

The “Strell” hallmark is short for Strellman’s.  This company was founded in 1948 by Richard Strellman – the name quickly became synonymous with dramatic jewelry.  Originating in Oregon, this American company has become world famous for their original lighthouse lens cut. The name Lighthouse Lens Cut comes from the fresnel lens which is primarily used in lighthouses.  The gems are faceted similar to a lighthouse lens that directs the beam of light out to sea.  These fascinating stones reflect light in the exact same way.  It is unlike any other cut. 

That tiny diamond surely does shimmer which makes me wonder if it is that Lighthouse Lens cut. But my ring does not have a big gem but rather a big pearl so I started looking at images of Strell rings. Now I started seeing ones with opals and accent diamonds, jogging my memory about an opal ring of mom's. Off I went in search of it, checked for a mark and discovered that it is indeed a Strell ring too. So of course, I had to include both of them as my last two entries.

I found both rings difficult to sketch in spite of their relative simplicity. Here's a side view showing just how big that pearl is and the distinctive leaf design encompassing the beautiful large opal on the other.

From some of the prices I saw on line for both new and vintage Strell rings, I'm guessing dad laid down some substantial bucks for the pearl one. Mom's hands were bigger than mine and could pull off larger rings like the the onyx and diamond ring (from a previous page) and this pearl one but it really overwhelms my hand. 

And although I have my own opal ring with some history tying it to the area I grew up in, a single small oval stone set in a simple narrow band perfect for my smaller fingers, I have worn mom's quite a bit, although the ring size forces me to wear it on that middle finger. It does not have the weight of the other Strell ring but I'm guessing it's still worth some money, not that I'd be selling it.

I thought I should show you the jewelry box I've been pulling my mother's jewelry out of. Isn't it incredible? It's a music box that as it plays, that tiny dancer twirls back and forth, up and down, one leg swinging freely..

My oldest brother who died when I was 5 or 6 years old picked it up in Tunisia when he was touring with the military. I'm not sure if I have the note he sent with it, but I do remember mom reading that he was giving it to his "two favorite girls", mom and me. So I always knew it was a shared gift and I've always kept a few piece of my jewelry in it. But here's a troubling thing: As I've gotten towards the end of my trek through old jewelry, I've remembered that I had an additional music box for jewelry, same size as this one but black with inlaid mother of pearl in an oriental design, and although I always kept the two of them stacked on each other in an armoire, I no long know where it is. It doesn't make sense that it would be in the remaining few unpacked boxes from the last move which are mostly china and crystal but I know of nowhere else to look.

So now I've rounded up all the various pens and pencils I used on these sketches, put the loose ones back where they belong, and can turn my sketching back to that Zentangle Be Well series. 

#INKtober Earrings & Knitting

Here's another page of #INKtober sketches from the 17th through the 23rd, this time of earrings belonging to my mom, with one exception. You'll have to read the story behind my delicate gold and diamond earrings. These are pretty much drawn actual size, and in checking for maker's marks, I did find one. Since following Antique Road Show and seeing so many instances of people thinking they had relatively worthless costume jewelry only to find it might have been made by Tiffany or some other big name, or at the very least, contain real gemstones upping their value, I've often checked my mother's jewelry just in case, but to no avail - no riches hiding in those jewelry boxes. As for the maker's mark I did find, it is for a costume jewelry company called Pakula which was started in the 1950's. I found out a little about the company's history including this description:

Without exception, all Pakula decorations demonstrated their impeccable quality and expressive design. Traditionally, the Pakula craftsmen used metal alloys of gold and silver tones, faux pearls and high quality rhinestones. Also, they used fashionable material at the time – colored enamel, which, in combination with the gold surface formed an unusually beautiful duet. 

Though high quality, vintage pieces I found on the internet are only selling for $25 to $50. Makes me wonder how much they cost when new. A few examples have similar design elements as mine.

Sleeves being lightly blocked

After doing much dragging of feet plus company interruptions, I hunkered down over the weekend and got the second sleeve of the eyelet cardigan sweater finished. I am so glad to have the knitting done as it has been hard on my hands - the combination of worsted wool yarn and pattern requiring knitting two stitches together over and over was more work than the pattern used in the lavender sweater. Will have to remember that when I choose a pattern for the denim blue worsted wool still waiting. 

So now that the knitting is done, I'm giving it a "light blocking" before joining the sleeves to the body and joining the sides, along with a small join at the back of the neckline, per instructions. Not a favorite job, but not particularly onerous. All looks a little questionable at this stage, but after joinings are done, it will get one more good block, probably with a soaking of that Olive Knits product per her instructions. One thing is puzzling me. You might remember that I ran short on yarn when knitting the lavender sweater which put me in a panic. Somehow calculations on how many skeins I'd need was off. I think I added an extra skein to my calculations for this sweater, and I have 3 untouched skeins left. I give up!

The two binders are full of loose photos with info on the back

I meant to share this picture in my last post when I mentioned my company poring over old pictures and photo albums. These are most of what I am the keeper of that we spent time looking at. I've digitized some, would like to digitize it all but that project has turned out to be much more time consuming than I anticipated. I have so many other interests that it is hard to find time for the scanning  and adding descriptions to the scans. A lot like the slides I'm part way through. I wanted to do the digitizing partly for my nieces and nephews but that nephew who visited wasn't waiting; I caught him snapping away with his phone whenever he saw a photo that interested him. Good for him!

Company, Decorations, #INKtober Pins

Me and my motley crew

I survived the few days of family visit pretty well and had a better time than I'd anticipated. Maybe it was because I spent so much time gabbing with my brother's step-daughter while "the boys" immersed themselves in watching Dodgers baseball games. :-) We also spent an afternoon looking through the old family photos and albums that I am the keeper of. I took them all out to dinner on my brother's birthday, to my little town's famed steakhouse, The Hydra. It has been in business at the same location since 1975 and it did not disappoint. I was pleased that my brother thought their Filet Mignon was the best he'd ever had and that since it was his birthday, he got a huge slice of Mud Pie which we all got a taste of. In the above picture I'm sitting in between my step-niece and her husband, while we are bookended by my brother on the left and his son, on the right.

After they all left, I caught my next door neighbor girl and her mother out surveying the Halloween decorations they had put up. We sort of share that tree and I am always happy to see them putting up holiday decorations, something I just don't do. This year they put goblets in the hands of the skeletons. There's even a skeleton of a cat!

I skipped a few days of #INKtober sketching while company was here but quickly got caught up. This page is all about pins - a huge angel one and a variety of circle pins that were popular in the 1960's. Including a lot of storytelling and speculations.

Page Two of #INKtober Sketches

This so describes me and is pertinent right now as I do some panic cleaning in preparation for company, panic because I thought I had another week before they came so plenty of time to pace myself with the cleaning. Instead, on Thursday I stared at the calendar in disbelief. No this can't be. They are due on the 13th; how did I miss, as I wrote the date on each #INKtober sketch, that the 13th was just a few days away? Well, procrastination thwarted and I'm nearly ready!

I missed a few days of sketching because of this but I was able to catch up yesterday. Couldn't do these pieces of jewelry without adding some color with colored pencil Also couldn't resist including the heart-shaped box that the ring rests in. As always, click on the picture for a larger view.

That ring is one mom received for Christmas in 1951 - before I was born. I love it when I can find pictures from long ago of objects I still have. This is a scan of a slide, thus the poor quality, but you can clearly see the ring on her finger along with a compact and lipstick holder that were also Christmas gifts that year. I do remember those but no idea what happened to them. I suspect the fancy pajamas she's wearing were also Christmas gifts. It was sort of a thing every year to get mom new pajamas, and then me too when I got older. And after gift opening pics like this were also a thing with our family. How about yours? 

Well, off to complete my preparations for company . . . 

It's #INKtober!

I can't remember exactly why but I skipped INKtober last year. This year has been doing a good job of slipping away from me so I wasn't thinking about it even as October quickly approached. Then my goddaughter made a comment that she was looking forward to my INKtober sketches. Oh dear . . . and that was mid September in the midst of my big dyeing project. Would I be up for a daily sketch come October. Yeah, she sorta shamed me into it, at least thinking about it - lol. I've always done better keeping up all month if I have a theme and as soon as I settled on one, I got excited about INKtober again. Remember my year of shoes? Well, this is going to be my year of jewelry!

Here are the first six days. I'm starting with favorite pieces that belonged to my grandmother and going from there into pieces my mother wore and some of my own favorites. Click on the pic for a larger view. Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane. 

Wrapping Up The Dyeing

Gads, could it really be the first of October? Seeing this tree when I pulled into the library parking lot last week left no doubt about how far into the year we are. However, I found some solace in this quotation from an essay by Joy Williams on the truth-telling of fall: 

 

 

“Fall is. It always comes round, with its lovely patience. If in the beginning it’s restless, at the end it’s resigned, complete in its waiting, complete in the utter correctness of what it has to tell us. Which is that we’re transitory. We’re transient, we’re temporary, we’re all only sometime.”

 

Another nudge toward acceptance might be the colors of the final dye runs for my friends. The reds, oranges and golds are definitely of the season. I'm very pleased with how these turned out, although the golds could have been a little deeper towards an orange. I think it's an old dye to blame.

I'd been holding back some earlier runs that had been rinsed but not put through a Synthropal wash because I knew I'd have more fabric in similar colors that could be washed with them. Here are the greens, sort of lime greens in the middle (struggling with camera to get every color right) but nothing that was very teal green even though I tried some overdyeing. On the bottom is the "teal green" that in no way is green. At the very top is a half yard dyed with some leftover purple and fuchsia dyes I think (I sort of lost track of the combinations I tried using up leftover dye solutions). That fuchsia makes it almost neon!

In the same way that my friend kept repeating "lime green" she also repeated "folded fabric". So I did two fat quarters folded different ways and put them in the "teal green" dye solution. The lighter portions do look like they are trying to lean towards a teal.

With the "precision" dyeing finished, I had fun playing with leftover dye solutions and came away with some stunners I may have a hard time giving up. This is the technique of stuffing a fat quarter into a tall narrow jar like an olive jar, covering with soda ash solution, pouring a little dye solution in and letting that set for about ten minutes while the solution starts settling to the bottom. Then pour a little more soda ash solution and another dye solution color on top and let sit overnight or up to 24 hours. 

Trying to get a closeup of the subtle texturing in the white part. 

Here's another one, the sort of thing we literally dye for.

And still with plenty of dye solution to play with, I dyed up three linen napkins that go with a linen tablecloth used at my grandparents' golden wedding anniversary reception. I've seen the pictures of its otherwise uninteresting yellow as it peeks through the lace tablecloth thrown over it. Not something I ever thought I would use but it came with a cedar chest full of other family treasures after they died and I've hung onto it out of pure sentimentality for over 50 years. But with the newfound skill of dyeing, I've often thought about cutting it up and overdyeing it, and now I know it can be done with excellent results. The upper two were done in bags, the lower one pinched in the middle to create folds falling down before putting in a glass jar.

I still have some dye solution left, and being raised in a "waste not want not" household, I feel I should do a few more one of a kind pieces rather than toss it. On the other hand, my dye powder supply overfloweth, and I have company coming in about two weeks which will require that flurry of housework in preparation. Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead . . .

If In Need Of Encouragment

Blue Heron by Ellen Anne Eddy

I just read a wonderful post by quilt artist Ellen Anne Eddy and thought some of you might enjoy it too. Not to mention that it features many of her beautiful and quite different quilts. She certainly has a style all her own. Words of wisdom about tackling tasks (where are my big girl panties?) You can read it here.

I can relate a bit. That dye session for my friend looming before me was intimidating. As Ellen says of her own intimidating task, "So it sat in the corner. And I became afraid of it. I made a myth of it." I too had to reach a point where I had to find my big girl panties. And I'm having to do it again because I am not done and have ventured now into experimenting with greens and oranges, some with recipes, some without, some with dye powders that may have lost their potency. I am more comfortable when I can depend on the results. Case in point: my friend asked for teal which I assumed she meant teal green (some refer to a teal blue but not me) and I have a perfect recipe for that. Yet look at the fabric soaking in the bin pictured above. Does anything about that look green to you? I honestly don't know what happened.

She also keeps emphasizing she want some lime green. No problem. Again I have a recipe for what we named Key Lime and I mixed two leftover dyes that gave me exactly that. Then I started doubting myself. What if my idea of lime green isn't hers? When I googled lime green, these popped up, just as I suspected, more than one idea of what it is. At least my dye trial is in the ballpark.

I went back to the recipe to try again, doing two different amounts of dye solution with a fat quarter in each bag, and waiting a bit before adding another fat quarter in each bag (the dye solution activates once it hits the soda ash solution and gradually weakens over the first 30 minutes or so meaning fabric added later will come out lighter or perhaps really different). Pretty happy with the way this looks so far - gotta be her idea of lime green in there somewhere! However, I may overdye one of the darker fat quarters with a little blue to see if I can get something like teal green. May also take one of the fat quarters that was supposed to be teal green and overdye it with some yellow. Nothing to lose. 

Ellen again: "There’s no can’t like won’t, Sometimes we build myths about our work. “It’s so good.” “It’s no good.” “It will never lie flat” Almost all of that is irrelevant. I won’t know if it’s good for some while after I finish it. I need to stop the negativity and just step into the task". In between these dye sessions, I've had lunch with said friend, handing over with some trepidation the fabric done so far, and she loved it, said it was just what she was looking for. Whew! Exactly the encouragement I need to continue with this task. I am enjoying getting back into dyeing and trying a few experiments. Still fighting those intimidation demons (it's one thing to disappoint yourself, something entirely different to disappoint someone else) but spurred on by Ellen's words and the pleased expression on my friend's face..

Dyeing For A Friend

When a friend moved out of the area back in March, she wanted to give me all her dyeing supplies, including almost a full bolt of PFD fabric. I wanted to pay her for at least some of it, particularly all that fabric, but she'd have none of it. Instead, she asked that I dye some of it up for her, as the reason she was giving all that away was because her new home had no place for dyeing. Well, YES, I can do that, gladly! However, it wasn't until last week that I suddenly felt energized enough physically and excited enough mentally to finally tackle this task. It's been quite a while since I've dyed up some fabric so I knew I'd need to review the whole process, my notebook of recipes, and check my setup out in the garage. I initially felt a bit overwhelmed as when I asked what colors she might want, it was pretty much everything but blues. I also found the dye run worksheet from the last time I dyed and where I'd left off, i.e. what colors I had meant to dye up to flesh out my stash all that time ago. I needed to come up with a plan.

I started by inventorying my friends' individual dyes which I added to the inventory I'd made of my own dyes. Mine are oh so old now - the legacy of my late friend's and my dyed fabric business and a more recent friend's clearing of her art studio of supplies related to textiles. Even some more recent purchases I've made are getting on in years - 2017 looks like when I got them and dyed them up. Scanning through old posts, it looks like 2017 was the last year I did any dyeing except for some snow dyeing early in 2018 & 2019. Hmmm. Not like I don't have a pretty big stash of hand-dyes while my actual making of quilts, etc. has slowed a great deal which might be part of the reason dyeing has waned. At any rate, newer fresher more reliable results-giving dye powders are a welcome addition. I noted there were some I had not tried before, and those became my starting point.

I worked with half-yard pieces, using my standard 4-step gradation recipe on some and choosing select 2 steps for others. My friend indicated she didn't need a lot of lights, just mostly medium and dark values, so the 2 steps eliminated those lightest steps. I checked my old freezer bags for leaks but not very well apparently. I did six bags at a time and every time I had leakage. Guess I should just get new bags.

I got a pretty good rotation going, getting 6 bags of fabric dyeing to sit overnight each day, and while they were steeping, starting the processing of the previous day's bags of fabric. And oh look - the gloves that were fine the last time I used them to dye also now leak. Boy, soaking and rinsing takes so much time. By the end of the week and 24 half-yards of fabric later, I was totally worn out!

Results were mixed. These two were new to me and I absolutely love how the Mixing Red came out. The Jade Green not so much. Does that look like Jade to you? No, it is more aqua marine or turquoise and my friend had asked for greens not blues. 

I did 2 steps each of 3 different purple dyes: back to front they are Purple, Deep Purple and Grape. Ooo, I DO like how they came out. Hope this is not too much texturing for my friend but she did indicate she liked texture. 

These yellows were the last one I did and I'm not all that happy with the results. I think I was getting tired, a little sloppy with my measurements and not doing enough massaging of the bags. The one on top is a four step gradation from Golden Yellow dye and doesn't look anything like the swatches on my recipe. It lost all its yellow and the lighter steps may be destined for an overdye. The next one down is a four step gradation of the Lemon Yellow dye - the lightest steps may need overdying - and the last are two steps of Sun Yellow dye - a little hard to see in this picture but it's a slightly warmer yellow than the lemon yellow. 

So some successes and some disappointments - so goes hand-dyeing often. I still need to work out some greens for her - a teal green and a lime green from my recipes - and some orange and hope for the best. I've made quite the dent in her yard of fabric, will keep a fat quarter of some of these for myself and cut swatches of others for my records. But for now, I need to give my poor body a rest!