Going With My Heart's Desire

I'm getting there - down to adding a final border and then quilting the holiday banner. But I'm nearly out of bobbin thread and late posting this week so thought I'd pause to show you my progress. Above you see all the small and odd shaped pieces ready to go (strips for borders are pinned to the design wall), the small pieces of paper on each one labels so I know which piece is which when I start following directions to join everything. There were enough different pieces to use up every letter in the alphabet! You may note two things here: first, wasn't I contemplating ditching the pieced letters for appliqued ones? Yes, yes I was. And as I cut the final little piece and stood back, it dawned on me I'd just cut all the pieces for those letters, so I guess they were going to get pieced!

The other thing you may note is, in spite of encouragement from Jan in the comments on my last post to just go with the lighter sprigged fabric for the background, I instead used that warm tan, the fabric that I was first drawn to. Sometimes your first instinct is the right one, and believe it or not, when I did one final audition with sashing strips laid out on each fabric to form the size of the letter blocks and the pieces of a letter placed within, I was very surprised to find that the pattern in the lighter fabric fought for dominance over the dark green shifting it back while the darker fabric let the letter shine. It gave the whole thing a much warmer look, more my heart's desire, that rustic country or antique look that I am so drawn to. I've struggled a bit with my camera to capture it accurately but the picture at the top does a good job. 

I proceeded with piecing those letters, which I feared would be a pain, but they really were not. Everything matched up really well, and except that there were lots of short seams, they came out well. I added sashing on each side and sashing with cornerstones on the other sides, and when I spread it all open on my work table, it was instant joy! Honestly, I was filled with such happiness - loving the fabrics and how they worked together and loving how well this was going. This section now has a tan border and the checkerboard borders on three sides.

Next up would be fusing applique to the curved section that would be at the top of the "joy" section. The pattern called for a heart with "commas" on either side, but I'm not one much for hearts on my quilts (although there have been exceptions). When I looked at the picture of the Christmas quilt I'd made for my mil, I was reminded that it used bows and holly leaves appliques. I wondered if they were sized to fit in this new space, and got out the binder with its documentation file to see if I had saved templates. Yes I did, and yes they were the perfect size. Ah yes, these are the moments that justify to me my penchant for documenting and saving!

And here they are, fused in place and waiting for some stitching. Sylvia had encouraged me to use some glitzy thread around the letters, and I had indeed been thinking to do that. Two of the fabrics do have gold highlights on them, and a little gold thread holding down the edges of  the leaves and bow would be a perfect accent.

Ok, that wasn't so bad, once I stopped procrastinating . . . but I was heaving sighs of wishing I didn't have to tackle the next step - curved seams! Not one, not two, but three of them. You'd think I'd never sewn a curved seam in my life but in fact, I've sewn more than I can count and some so tight they should have been appliqued. Kind of a master at it in fact. I think I was sighing because to do these seams well, it takes a lot of pinning. But even that went fairly easily and soon they were all done. And once again, the finished look filled me with so much satisfaction and, yes, joy. And I think part of that joy is because of how well designed this pattern is, with good instructions and no errors to complicate things. I could just go on autopilot and get pleasing and precise results. That surely hasn't been the case with that knitted cardigan; the contrast couldn't be more obvious. 

I want to thank my "coaches" and "cheerleaders" who commented on my last post. Your insights and encouragement really do help me soldier on! Now. back to the studio to fill that bobbin and get the last border sewn on. :-) 

New Project

 

On the left you can just see a picture of the banner 17" x 32"

I must be daft . . .

It might have been the after effects of the turkey dinner, that full and contented feeling letting one's mind wander. And it was wandering as I sat on the sofa contemplating how I would decorate the livingroom this year for Christmas. I have a Christmas topper I throw over the big trunk, but as I did a mental inventory of quilts for the wall, I could think of nothing with a holiday theme to replace what now hangs in the space where I rotate my art quilts. For no reason I can fathom, the idea suddenly popped into my head that I could make something to hang there. I knew just the thing, a "JOY" quilt pattern I'd been saving for years - the pattern torn from a 1991 issue of Quiltworks magazine. Sure, I could probably finish it this week, if I put my mind to it. And my mind was definitely on board. By Sunday I'd found the pattern and dug out fabric - I have quite a bit of Christmas fabric I rarely find reasons to use - and started cutting strips. Monday I cut more strips and worked out how to copy an odd shape in the pattern. 

Yesterday it was sewing time, getting those strips sewn together and subcut into pieces for the checkerboard inner border. As long as I've been away from traditional piecing like this, I hadn't forgotten a few tricks of the trade. The strips were cut 1-1/2 inches wide and those subcuts would also be that wide, 53 of them. To keep from making errors lining up my ruler, I placed a stickie note on the underside along the 1-1/2 inch mark. Oh, that really helps to speed things up.

Forty of the subcuts then got sewn together to make checkerboard strips - twenty for each side. The remaining thirteen subcuts were sewn together to run across the bottom connecting the two sides. 

Then today, I ground to a halt. You see, the pattern called for muslin for the light areas and I definitely was not going to do that. Instead, I was seduced by the tan fabric on the left, rich and mottled and looking so good with the red and green fabrics I'd chosen. But as I looked at the picture in the pattern, I wondered if it was too dark rather than just rich and warm. I revisited the stack of Christmas fabrics and pulled the one on the right with its off-white background with its own sightly mottled surface and those sprigs with red berries. It's one that came from my mother-in-law when she gave up on quilting and sent everything she had to me. She'd wanted to make a Christmas wallhanging with that one, had a pattern from a book picked out but eventually lost interest. So I made it for her with the fabric she'd sent. It's closer to what the pattern calls for and I know that is clouding my judgment on which to pick. Once made up, will I be disappointed with the rich tan because it reads too dark, or disappointed in the lighter sprigged one because it reads too bright? My auditioning isn't getting me anywhere.

As if that weren't enough to put the skids on, the next step is actually making the letter blocks. I can get to cutting some of the pieces that are from the red fabric, but can go no further until I make that background fabric choice. But boy, is that going to be a lot of fuss, all those piece with angled ends. I do know a method to make it easier, but I'm not looking forward to it. Instead, in my weaker moments, I've been wondering about just cutting out the letters whole and fusing them to the squares of fabric. Well, I have to do something today . . . What do you think about all this? 

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 . . .