True Confessions

As the weekend approached, I realized I was experiencing some "Olympic Fatigue". i.e. as much as I was enjoying watching the various competitions, my enthusiasm was beginning to wane (confession one). How many more short track speed skating heats do I have to watch until the final A & B races? Aren't the bobsledders done yet? I couldn't even bring myself to watch the figure skating gala yet, recording it for when I'm not tired of watching these same athletes strut their stuff. I was beginning to look forward to the start of motorcycle roadracing season at the end of the month. I hadn't caught on to the fact that the weekend would see the wrapping up of the Olympics AND the start of Superbike racing until Thursday when an e-mail alert arrived in my mailbox. Maybe it's a good thing the two overlapped, giving me the fresh excitement of a different kind of sports watching to get me through the last of the old.

At the same time, I'd been tracking an order from Denmark (!) that came quickly enough to New York, but sat for days before showing up in San Fransisco where it also sat for a bit (weather?). An order that originally was projected to arrive by February 13 blew past that date, not being delivered into my mail locker until last Thursday. I was amused at how on pins and needles I was about getting it, excited when the key to the package locker showed up in my box (along with delivery confirmation e-mail), then highly frustrated when I couldn't get the key to work. A note to the postperson produced the package at my door the next day . . . at last! And what was in that package?

3 yarn "cakes" plus a sweet treat

Yarn! I'm not supposed to be buying more yarn until I use up what I have on hand, or at least put a big dent in the stash. But as is often the case, I was lured into the purchase partly because of a sale (confession two). It all started with my downloading of free patterns that I hoped to pair up with that yarn on hand.

I'm discovering, though, that many of the new patterns aren't designed for use with the worsted weight yarn that was popular back when I was learning to knit. But they are beautiful so I download them anyway, and in the case of this pattern called Autumn Waves, I thought it possible to substitute my worsted wool for the cotton/acrylic blend called for. And of course, since I'd downloaded this pattern from the yarn company's site (Hobbii). I started getting e-mails from them. I'd look at what they were offering (always enticing) but blanch at the prices, and eventually question ordering from them at all when I discovered they were based in Denmark. Then came the sale e-mail with the yarn for this sweater 40% off. Ok fine, I'll give them a try. And I was able to use Thank You Points from my credit card to bring the price down even more. Sold!

And at least for now, I am not disappointed. This cotton yarn is so soft, unlike the 100 percent cotton yarn I knitted into sweaters years ago. Must be that addition of acrylic which should also give it more stability than that cotton I used that produced a sweater that was not only heavy but stretched under that weight. I still marvel at my excitement waiting for this yarn to arrive. It's not like it's something I will start right away. In fact, there are at least three smaller projects ahead of it on the knitting priority list once the current socks are done. Which, by the way, are progressing in spite of all the sports watching. Sock one is at the heel turning point, and I've switched to sock two to bring it up to the same point.

My conclusion: I'm insufferable when it comes to these things! But I can't deny how they excite me. 😊

Filing, Shredding, Organizing

Yes, I'm still wrapped up in watching the Olympics, but looking around, I see so many things I've set to one side, each that would take a few minutes, 15 minutes, certainly no more than 30 minutes to tend to, or could easily be broken up into small chunks of time. Take shredding. I'm determined to get my taxes done much sooner than I did last year so have started the collecting of papers for 2025 and shredding of unneeded documentation for the oldest tax file I keep. In the process, I came across more shreddable, or at least tossable, papers from as long ago as 2022 as I filed away the most current insurance policies information. Yes, I am quite bad at putting things in piles for later or keeping things longer than necessary. But I am making great progress, by working on these in short stints before landing in front of the computer.

The studio always needs tidying too, another task sometimes best done in short shifts. I spent several stints sorting and putting away everything from the Collage Breakthrough class, including storing the various square size templates in the back of the sketchbook I used. I do intend to work more collages in that book. Once that part of the table was clear, it revealed a corner of the table where fabric from that major dyeing project of last fall still sat (why I hadn't moved it the few feet from table to stash cubes is a mystery) and that I hadn't put all away from working on the Joy banner (which btw still needs threads buried). Pattern pieces, fabric left out to make a label and small fabric scraps to glue to a documentation file were scattered here and there. So out came the most recent documentation binder. Oh dear. In another pile of "must file one day", I found the pattern I developed and made notes on for the last baby quilt I made. Hmmm, when was that? Ahh, two years ago. But I only found a few small pieces of the pink fabrics that were used in it on the table (so far - piles exist). I may have a little trouble fully documenting this one but at least I can print off pictures and note who I made it for. I still have some catching up of adding some things to my gratitude book and putting back in its place a big stack of Christmas fabrics, but I am getting closer to being able to get out one of several quilting projects that are niggling at me to get going on.

Looking out back

In the meantime, we got some snow! This has been such a warm winter for us, only a couple of other snowfalls amounting to no more than nine or so inches total. This one was a good 4 or 5 inches followed the next night by an additional inch. While the east coast is getting slammed, our Pacific Northwest mountain snowpacks that recharge the aquifers and lakes that supplies our water desperately need this and more. 

From my front door

It probably won't stick around long on the ground down at my lower elevation; the weather report is for another warming trend with rain in the upcoming week, but I am enjoying its beauty while it lasts. 

Are You Getting Anything Done?

Besides Superbowl Sunday and the Olympics, I haven't gotten much done creatively. Every once in awhile I've stepped into the studio for a few minutes and arranged leftover magazine pieces from the Collage Breakthrough Bonus class. But even with my new-found set of rules and eye for value over image, this one has been a bit of a struggle. Primarily, I did not have a good range of values and textures to choose from. And today I had to give up on a piece that I really wanted to include but just wasn't working. Oh yeah, I've done that pretty much all my quilting life, that trying to make something work just because I liked it so much. Old habits die hard! Setting that one piece aside allowed me to move forward, and my main goal became to strike an overall balance of the dark pieces throughout the collage. That big one at the bottom was the first piece I laid down and it felt like it anchored the piece. But as I drew things to a close, I realized I needed to have more dark at the top and in a few other places. Not a masterpiece, but I'm relatively happy with this arrangement, and will also happily dispensed with the few pieces of magazine left, and clear off the table. I feel an itch to go back to a fabric project (as my resolution of "realign" alluded to), either piecing some split nine patch blocks for a wall quilt long on my mind or finally quilting a smaller Stack n Whack quilt top that would look good thrown over the big trunk in my living room.

I've made some progress on my knee-high socks. I'm a few inches away from turning the heel on this first one. When I get to that point, I'll go back to the second sock that I paused after completing the toe and start the ribbing to the heel. But with Olympic competition having my eyes glued to the tv while I watch the sliding and figure skating, it might be awhile before I can make the switch!

Finishing Up The Collage Class

I've just finished the bonus class included in the free Collage Breakthrough series taught by Catherine Rains. Essentially, it was a repeat of lesson 4 but using magazine pages rather than scrapbook papers and your own papers made with a variety of methods using paint. For me it was a lesson in not being drawn to images on the page, which is the way I usually decide to add a paper to the bin, but to the blocks of colors in it. A well chosen ad, perhaps even large enough to spread across facing pages, would already have colors that work well together, and include a variety of values and textures. Printed on heavier paper would be a bonus as magazine pages can be quite thin which would complicate the gluing process. I pulled several pages from articles in our local Sandpoint magazine (couldn't find ads that met the bill) and decided on this one, because it seems to have the most variety of values with both quiet and patterned places. 

Again, we were to randomly cut a variety of rectangular pieces or other shapes from the page to be sorted into values and then quiet or patterned. I realized I could quickly do this using this Fiskar cutter. True confession, there weren't enough pieces for me to feel it necessary to do the sorting, just spread them out on the table somewhat grouped. This particular page was a challenge in terms of delineating values as there really wasn't really light areas and some of the dark areas were very close to some pieces I deemed medium. But as I worked through placements, I could tell I was getting better at it, but had to constantly remind myself about the suggestion (rule) to group not only different values next to each other but place two patterned and a quiet together or two quiet with a pattern.

I liked leaving the spacing between pieces on this one with the different spacers, both narrow and blocky, across pieces. I also liked that some of the randomly cut pieces showed discernible parts of the mammoths. It didn't make any sense to me to just think of the pieces as swatches of color. This collage tells a bit of a story I think. One downside of working with magazine pages though is the glare from the overhead light, which is why this picture of the final product is taken on the slant. I had to keep looking from the side as I worked to see what the piece I was placing looked like.

So that's that, or so I thought. My intention was to whisk the leftover pieces of magazine into the trash and clear the table of all this collage stuff. I turned the page so I could glue in the bonus class directions and the picture of Kat's demo piece only to have that facing blank page and the few mammoth pieces calling out to be used to make one more. I think I want to dispense with the boundary of a square and do my collaging to fill the entire page. I laid a few pieces out and yes, it's just like quilting and you can never quit working with the scraps!

I do think these exercises in paper have really helped improve my eye for thinking value first, which is something I've always struggled with in my quilting. Too enticed by the pretty fabric. The work with the magazine pages in particular pointed out to me how quickly I fell into old habits of not even thinking about it. I think I also learned a lot about working with and arranging odd shapes. That lesson with the floating triads was my favorite and I'm planning on doing it some more using fabric scraps in this sketchbook. I do think I can use that knowledge now when designing art quilts. It's another place where I've struggled; I'm thinking of a particular piece I've never been able to resolve that I may be able to now. So, very happy to say this was not a waste of my time.