Heels Turned

The zippered pouch with Hmong applique holds crochet needles and knitting accessories

I must admit I've lost enthusiasm for the split nine-patch project since failing to find that piece of batik I planned to use for a moon. And I still needed to clear space on the worktable in order to go ahead with finishing the Stack n Whack top. So my mind has been occupied instead on knitting: projects in the queue and the project on my needles. I hunkered down over the instructions for turning the heel, knowing I would have to concentrate to get it right this time, and I can report that I think I managed better, not seeing any holes that will need closing up later. Yeah!!!! Now I'm moving up the leg, first with some rounds in pattern to establish it and then changing the stockinette stitches to ribbing to match the ribbing on the instep. I honestly don't know how some knitters knock out socks so fast; these will take even longer than my last pair as I am making them kneehighs. But I really like working on both socks in the pair at the same time, alternating between them as I move through different sections.

I use cardstock for the covers, using a photo from her website

Clearing a space on the table meant catching up some things I wanted to add to my gratitude journal and gathering up printouts from some of Angela Walters' machine quilting series. Sometimes I think I like organizing more than I like actually making things; I'd found a stack of these printouts buried on the floor with a panel I'd bought in order to practice stitches from her "Fillers" series. Well, they won't do me any good there, and I'd thought that as I collected more and more printouts from her series, I should "bind" them using the Arc Notebook System as I had with my Handmade Books printouts. As much as I enjoy binding books, I have yet to run across one that will do what this system does. It works a bit like a spiral binding except that you can add and remove pages at will. It requires a special punch which I decided to invest in plus the plastic discs that hold the pages, and I have not regretted that purchase. Now that I have these organized and at my fingertips, it would not be a bad idea to get that panel out and layer it up. It would make a great warm-up piece; just doing one small section before starting a session on the Stack n Whack quilt.

I don't know about you, but I am having a terrible time adjust to the time change. That, and all the disturbing news bombarding us on a daily basis here in the states is enough to make me want to hide away with my knitting and quilting and reading or just curl up on the couch. Snuggled under a quilt, eyes shut, has always made me feel safe - the ultimate escape, But it's not the only thing, which is why I was gladdened to run across what I share with you below. Hang in there, fellow "hobbyists" and artists! We have a built-in safety feature. 💖

  

WHERE IS IT????

I am frustrated. The socks were calling to me once I got both to the heel-turning part so I've been spending extra time on them since I remember having trouble with it on the first socks I knit with this pattern. It's going better but really demands my attention. It's in two parts knit a little differently from each other, the first part being pretty easy and straight forward. The second part not so much and I was ready for a break. It occurred to me that I should dig out that circle of batik I'll be using as a moon with the split nine-patch blocks so that the fabrics surrounding it are right. I thought I'd run across it not that long ago, and started with the top bin on a stack of three in the closet. It's actually made for storing Christmas wreaths but because of its large squarish size, I bought it to store the Baltimore Album blocks I'd made. Nope, not there, but instead I was faced with some of my earliest forays into sun printing, surface design and art quilting. Talk about leftovers! So many bits and pieces to not toss, so many ideas especially for working with leaves. And a substantial amount of that Roberta Horton plaid - I have no idea why I stored it here.

On to the next bin. It had a note on top telling me what projects were in it. Things I'd forgotten about, like a small top made from feedsack reproduction prints and drunkard's path blocks, and not one but three mariner compass blocks. I was planning on looking for the yellow and black one to finish up as a wallhanging for my step-great niece who is a bit of a world traveler and happened to snag an Irishman when she was in New Zealand. They recently got married and I hadn't done anything about a wedding gift yet, thought this would be perfect. But those other two - I recognize most of the fabric from the shop I taught at in Wisconsin so they must have been samples for a class. I knew I had one Mystery Quilt set of directions with fabric set aside in one of the bins and I found it here, along with two others - really??? Other projects too in there. I have no need to find anything new to work on - I have plenty in these bins.

Things I was dabbling in shortly after arriving in Idaho 2006

The third bin is a truly big and deep one, and I knew some of what was in there, but wasn't expecting this on the top along with pieces of hand-dyed fabric. I must have had a plan for setting the hand-dyes aside but I'm not sure what. I do know what I'd planned to do with the sharply angled triangles and why I set it aside. I think I'm more experienced now and could work with these with success now. To be honest, it's almost depressing to see here and in the other bins these early attempts and ideas that I've abandoned, a little because of out of sight, out of mind.

But still no batik circle of fabric. However, the next layer included something else I was planning on finding to work on. In fact, as I was considering what to choose for my return to more quilting, it was between this Stack n Whack top ready to quilt and the split nine-patch art quilt. It's made from leftovers of the St. Hilary's Star quilt for which I had far more fabric than I needed. I put it aside because I was dithering about adding a border of an African fabric that I'd picked up thinking it would go, but once home with it, I wasn't sure. It's been on my mind to finish it up for a very long time so I can drape it over the trunk in my livingroom. I think that border idea is long gone. May use that African fabric as a backing though. A ton of fabric and ideas lie between this top and the final layers of fabric.

Luckily, some of this is labeled as to what it is intended for. I'm remembering now about the full size quilt I wanted to make using my signature Idaho Beauty block and, what else, teal fabric for the stars, white for the background. I actually do not think I'm interested in making that anymore. I did know I had the beginnings of a "Simply Seminole" quilt in this bin, one where you make the strips, then sew them together quilt-as-you-go style, something else I taught and this was my second sample. I need many more Seminole-pieced strips to finish this up and again, not entirely sure I'm interested in doing that. I also knew that the background and backing fabric for another quilt I've been wanting to make for at least the last three Christmases, one with pinwheels of plaids and Christmas prints, should be in this bin, and there it was at the very bottom. And whew! I'd been looking for the pattern in my binder files to no avail which worried me, but no, I'd put it with this fabric. I still really want to make this one. 

So I am at a loss as to where that circle of batik is hiding. There is one more place I could check, which means unloading my cache of framed art quilts and framing materials which reside on top of a foot locker also filled with larger lengths of fabrics, some of which are batiks. It's such a job getting into that trunk, and now with the finds I have made, perhaps I should just get started on something else. Certainly wasn't a waste of time going through the bins where I found plenty of great project to choose from. Maybe I'll finish turning those heels first . . . 

New Project & Some Visitors

Lattice Overlay - Ohio circa 1925 - 74" x 78"

In 1995, I made my first of several treks to Paducah, KY for the American Quilt Society annual show. Big event covering many venues, one of which showcased antique quilts from the Hamilton collection. That is where I was mesmerized by the above quilt and its faint grid pattern superimposed over the dark angled lines. Whether it was intentional or the result of fading, I noted that it made the quilt look out of focus as you looked at it. At the time, I wasn't familiar with the block that created this effect but later learned it was a variation of the split nine-patch.

At some point, I worked up the block color scheme in my Electric Quilt software, and printed out some reference examples (top of photo) as well as doing a small drawing of two blocks with slightly different color schemes on the graph paper (lower right). Later, friend Judi came up with the two quilt patterns she hoped she could sell along with our hand-dyed fabric, and it too used this block pattern. I even taught some classes of how to make those quilts, making up sample blocks showing how they would look with traditional quilt fabric as well as batiks (the 4 blocks on the left). Patterns, class handouts, sample blocks and my previous printouts; these all went into a file for when I might eventually get around to reproducing that antique quilt.

I went through quite a faze of. making and teaching Mariner Compass blocks using Judy Mathieson's method. She included instructions for how to "set in" the round block into a bigger piece of fabric, eliminating piecing four sections of background fabric together. It requires cutting away a hole in the center which leaves you with a a very large circle of fabric to use on something else. Well, I had one of those in a darkish purple batik and I got the idea that it would make a lovely moon with a tree placed over it. And what if I took those batik sample blocks and made more for the background? Yes, I've been thinking about this for some time! This will be my realignment into piecing again.

After looking at everything in the file, I decided I needed to scan my original photo of the antique quilt and print it bigger so I could study all those subtle lighter colors that produced the grid. Stare and think and look at notes before I finally figured out what was different from the split nine-patch quilts I'd been making from Judi's pattern. If you look at those batik blocks, you will see that the center square is dark fabric. But as I studied this larger view of the antique quilt, I suddenly saw it - these blocks had light center squares which is how you get that grid effect. Talk about tunnel vision even though all my notes from before I made Judi's version were right there. Now everything else in the file made sense. And sorry, batik sample blocks, you will not be going into this  quilt!

As for my visitors, last week I spotted a duck pair swimming and feeding in the swales along my walk. Late February seems too early for them to appear; then again, it's been a very mild winter. I'm wondering if this is the same pair I saw last year. The female was gobbling away, head under the water, with the male seemingly standing guard like before, but this time he did more dipping of his own head to feed. I found the post where I talked about them and it is from March 5, mentioning a warming trend, so maybe they aren't here too early.

Then there are the deer. They usually amble through the bushes in the greenbelt behind my place, occasionally popping out to look around and perhaps browse. I've seen the mother and two young ones from last fall recently, looking good and healthy. So when I saw a couple of deer again last week, I thought it was the same ones. But my, these look a little bigger, stockier, and there were only two. Oh well, good and healthy. 

Slowly making their way, browsing on the new shoots of grass.

One ambled over to this scrubby pine by the corner of the house for a nibble.  

What a beauty. 

And it just kept coming, right up to my deck, and sniffed around. Sorry, nothing there, not even grass. But by now I was getting a good look - have never seen them get this close to the house - and could see how "bulky" this one was, like there was a real layer of fat under that fur.

As it turned to leave, I noticed the tail. Wait - I've been seeing white tail deer - that wide tail brown on top, white underneath, but this tail is totally different. These are NOT my usual deer visitors. A quick google gave me the answer. My visitors are Mule deer, which besides the different tail, are slightly larger with darker fur than white tail deer which explains what I was noting in their body bulk.. Welcome to the neighborhood.