A Different Be Well Series

I've been enjoying and admiring my Be Well zentagle accordion sketchbook, stretched out near where I spend too many hours of the day (next to the computer screen). Pondering if I should indeed add some variations (or redos) to the panels on the back. But then I realized I'd saved the e-mails from last year's Be Well series, never doing any of them. Aha! I'll put THEM on the back.

The Zentangle people opted to use their triangle tiles so I drew a triangle in each panel except for the first one where I penned in the series name, date, and my chop. Then I started working through the videos. All short. And each day only had a short saying meant to be encouraging I guess but which didn't seem to relate as far as I was concerned. So I didn't add any of them. And I immediately started messing up, making mistakes in each of the first three. Zentangle people insist there are no mistakes when tangling but trust me, they are wrong.

Fourth (rather than third) time's a charm? Apparently. This one went very well and I am pleased with it. May the rest go as well. And I soon figured out that each day will showcase a single tangle instead of more than one tangle as in this year's series. So I may go back and write in the name of the tangle on each panel. 

It's A Pillow!

At long last! I'm not sure why this project threw up one challenge after another, a project that was supposed to be "quick and easy" (a sure way to jinx myself). I thought surely this very old block would be happy to become something and be out in the light of day. Perhaps it was just as happy between the folds of fabrics in the darkness of a drawer. Regardless, out in the open it now is, and you see it in the chair in which it will reside. A very nice match. 

I was following directions saved from a quilting magazine and with penciled adjustment cutting dimensions for a 16" finish in the margins. Very faint as I've had this for quite awhile. I decided to ink over the pencil marks and must have read one number wrong because when it came time to add the quilted bound block to the pillow base, I suddenly realized the top to bottom measurement must not be right. Instead of being 16 plus seam allowance inches when folded in half, it was 17 plus seam allowance inches. How could that be? Was I accounting for the fullness of the pillow form with the extra inch? I mulled this over for several days, believe it or not, such is the brain fog I often have to deal with, before I shook myself and said, "That's not right - just trim off the excess and amend the notation in the margin." Yeah, stop pretending I meant to do that!

The one thing that did not catch me out, caused me no issues was making the pillow form. It only required about one third of the bag of fiberfill and is still quite puffy - and yet fit right into the adjusted 16 inch outer pillow case. What will I do with the remainder? More pillows? (I hardly need more. . .) Try my had at stuffed animals again? (Not feeling it . . .) Into the closet for now. Needless to say, I'm glad to have this project behind me, pleased with how it looks.

This Is A Sleeve?

Yes, this IS a sleeve, for my eyelet cardigan. Because of the way the shoulder extends down the arm, the length of the sleeve is quite short and straight across the top. One more to go and I can complete seaming the sweater to completion.

I also layered up the orphan block for the pillow and machine quilted it by stitching in the ditch which you can see from this back view. I studied the seams to see how I could quilt with the least amount of starting and stopping and was pleased to find that I only had to start in a new place three times. A little game I played that was pretty satisfying. 

It's been hot here so I'm usually inside until the sun goes down and it starts to cool, making for some very pleasant evening walks that include some star gazing although I have little idea of what I'm looking at. I do spend a little time on my east-facing deck late morning to do a little reading. Its shade and slight breezes are equally a pleasant way to enjoy the waning summer. How are things like in your part of the world? 

A Zentangle, An Idea & Something To Read

This is what I decided to do with that last panel of my Be Well Zentangle book. I'm not totally pleased with what I did down the center, did not come out exactly as I envisioned it in my head, but I've always like the Holliebaugh tangle which gives that over and under effect and filling the open spaces with small circles always appeals to me. The quotation is one from a book of quotations I started when following the now defunct Box of Crayons that posted what it called Great Works Quotations. It seemed quite appropriate as zentangling is meant to slow you down.

I have more than one purse or tote bag pattern bought over the years but never made - something always on my to-do list. Yet when a picture of this bag from Charlie's Aunt Vintage Inspired Sewing Patterns by Emma Brennan showed up on my Facebook feed, my immediate reaction was that this might be the perfect thing to show off that wildebeest pelt. Options might be to use the pelt where the wool plaid is shown in the picture - front and back - or just use it in that angled insert and a pocket on the back. And gee, that 2 inch wood button I just bought might work perfectly here too.

Finally, you might enjoy a post by Kelly Rae Roberts titled The Gift of Aging As an Artist. It made me feel so much better about about how my artistic life has changed as I've aged. She speaks from the viewpoint of someone who makes a living with her art, which is something I never have, but still, I find myself nodding along as I read through this.

Turns out, aging as an artist is such a gift. I can feel myself letting go of the chase for relevance and instead tuning into resonance. 

What do you think? Are you aging gracefully or still feeling the need to push and be out there?

Now THIS Is Something Different

The gal who cuts my hair is a long time serious hunter and she can't talk about her hunts with all customers. But having been brought up in a hunting family, I actually enjoy hearing her stories, especially since she is an ethical hunter and nothing she kills goes to waste. Her husband is a taxidermist to boot (talk about a marriage made in heaven!) so many of her best he has mounted for her. The highlight of her hunting career was a safari trip to Africa a few years ago. The company she chose for her trip has what I think you would call a reserve; not a fenced in place where they are raising the animals for the hunt but more managing the area wildlife as it comes and goes off their private land. The meat from game taken is given to local villages and they do all the preparations for the "trophy" parts to return with the hunters. One animal she successfully hunted was a blue wildebeest, also known as a gnu, a native to Africa related to antelope, cattle and goats. Hers looked close to the size of a small cow or big elk, and after mounting, there was quite a bit of hide left over which she offered to me, thinking about how "crafty" I am. I've never worked with anything like this but sensing a challenge I couldn't refuse, I accepted. The hide is quite thick as leather goes and the hair surprisingly soft. I may just admire it for awhile while I'm pondering how to use it. Any ideas?

I had a doctor appointment down in the almost big city last week, and there's a Michaels craft store there which I hoped might have the kind of buttons I'd like for that orphan block pillow. I think the lack of the right buttons in my stash is partly responsible for my not getting on with the project. They didn't have a great selection but you don't need a lot of options if what you do see is just what you were looking for. Not sure what these are made of, possibly wood but could also be nut shell (made in Thailand) and struck me as a bit pricey ($5 a card but I had a 20% off coupon), but I decided worth it to be happy with the final look of the pillow. As for the larger single button, well, it was all alone, nothing else like it, and it spoke to me. It might be perfect for a book closure, who know? I just couldn't leave it there. 20% off! 

Knitting and Zentangle Progress

I am more than a little excited about the eyelet sweater getting to this stage. It may look a little strange but what you are seeing is both front panels now done and joined to the back at the shoulder seams. The seed stitch side of the panels will fold back as I've tried to show. I have to admit that it was a long slog knitting 24 inches of the front panels so a sigh of relief when the second one was ready for the 3 needle cast off that joins front to back. Three more inches knit on the remaining stitches that form a tab that will be sewn around the back of the neckline and joined to the matching tab on the other side; this will turn down and help those front edges of the panels to turn back on themselves. For now, the stitches await on a stitch holder, although I'm not sure why the pattern leaves this step to last. For now, it's on to knitting the sleeves which, because of the drop shoulder requiring a shorter sleeve, may finish fairly quickly (maybe!).

I must admit that after getting the second panel to the joining stage, I took a little break for a few days, then got out the previously joined pieces, laying them out on the coffee table and reviewing in my head how that 3 needle cast off was done. But for 3 days I found I could not face that step of casting off. It's not hard but a bit fiddly and easy to drop stitches, so I kept putting it off, knowing I couldn't do this while watching tv but needing to give it my full attention. On the fourth day, in the morning before I got on with my day, I said enough is enough and picked up my needles. Shortly after I ran across the above internet meme. Oh yes, that describes me especially well, so often the case with things I put off, although this thing was not put off for that long and did take a bit more than 12 minutes. 

I've finished the Be Well Zentangles. I'm happy that early on I decided that whenever color would or could be added, I used the same color of colored pencil. The Zentangle people have really gotten into using colored pastel pencils which are easy to smudge from dark to light like a graphite pencil but I've nothing like that among my many art supplies. I'm just fine with how my use of color worked.

Sad to say, these last two struck me as anti-climactic. I guess I was really getting into the over and under complicated looking designs, feeling like we were building from simple to more complicated with each day and these are not exactly that. I do have one extra panel which I've not decided how to use. I actually did not do the "Dream" one correctly, was hurrying along and drew lines into that bottom area with the dots before realizing they were starting another starfish-like thing in there, doing a "save" with the additions of the big blacked out dots. I could give that one another go or make up one of my own. We shall see. If you would like to see the list of all of the themes and quotations, you can find them here.

Pillows. Zentangles & a Quick Booklet

I was doing a scan of things stacked along one side of the garage and spotted this bag with the lace ruffle sticking out the top. What's in there? I move to this location in 2012, leaving some boxes unpacked in this area along with some other things I ran out of steam to deal with. I more or less know what's in them all and why I've not done anything about them in all this time but this bag did puzzle me, even when I realized there were pillows in there.

No immediate recognition nor memory of why they would have been relegated here and together. And then I remembered. I made these to use on a rocking chair I've always had in my bedroom. One for the seat, one for the back. The one for the seat which has hand quilting is the same block as in this exchange block quilt made prior to 2000 while I'm pretty sure the one for the back which has no quilting at all was made from leftover half-square triangle blocks or pieces trimmed off in the making of the block for the seat pillow. No wonder I was having a hard time remembering them! That exchange block quilt was always close by, either on a cedar chest in the bedroom or draped over the back of the rocking chair. In the new location, the cedar chest with quilt on top just fit in the new bedroom but there wasn't room for the rocking chair in either my bedroom or any place else - it has languished in the garage because I really don't want to get rid of it, always found it comfortable for knitting and other handwork. I'm forever a "some day maybe" sort of person. And that explains why these pillows had too been relegated to the garage. I think I'm going to have to do something about that.

In the meantime, the current pillow project is a bit stalled. When I went to Walmart to get a pillow form and maybe some buttons, they only had one size of pillow form and it wasn't the size I needed. Well, I've made pillow forms in the past so I guess I can do it again. And while I didn't score on any buttons, at least they had this fiber fill for stuffing a form. 

Speaking of buttons, it was driving me crazy trying to remember where the souvenir wood buttons might have disappeared to so I took another look in the drawer where I knew they should be. And I did find them in there, no longer along the side of the drawer but shimmied in between a stack of fabric. But there aren't enough, I didn't want to try mixing in other buttons and I think I'd rather save these for a cardigan sweater anyway. But it eases my mind to have put my finger on their whereabouts. I've cut the big rectangle of fabric for the pillow and can worry about the buttons later, so why can't I move on to the next step? Relatively easy enough to press in the folds along the sides of the pillow base.  Easy enough to cut a couple of squares of muslin, seam all around leaving an opening and stuff away. Should be easy enough to layer the block for a little quilting before attaching it to the pillow base.  Yet with each of the little road bumps I've encountered, I'm finding it more difficult to get with it to get this pillow made. That's the thing I've found about dealing with my auto-immune syndrome: the fatigue that often accompanies it can make even the smallest routine task feel like an insurmountable mountain. And that's sort of where I'm at right now. I know it will pass, and making this pillow right away is not important. 

Zentangling continues at a leisurely pace as it does NOT feel like an insurmountable mountain but something I can do sitting down and is relaxing as I follow instructions. Closer and closer to finishing the Be Well series.

Here's something I recently ran across that I found quick and easy and required absolutely no tools or supplies except a group of same size envelops. Karen Abend shared this method of making a pocket booklet in one of her e-letters and since I had a stack of these brown envelops sitting on my work table (and wasn't getting much else productive done it seemed), I decided to give it a try. The glue on the flap when moistened is what holds the flap in place when slipped inside the opening of another envelop.

It works remarkably well, and I'm probably going to add four or more envelops to mine. Karen tried different media to sketch on the right hand side envelop and says all worked well. I'm really not one for using pockets in my books and am not sure what I would stick in mine, but this might be fun to take on a trip to hold things like receipts, ticket stubs and other travel ephemeral while making a quick sketch of locations where they were collected. How might you use something like this?