small hands

Work In Progress Saturday



This is the Lost Ship quilt top. I like it, I'm well pleased with it, but it's too narrow at 9 blocks by 10 blocks. I need to make a strip of 10 more blocks so that it will be 10 by 10. I was surprised by how much thread the piecing took--3 spools of 300 yards of thread.



Work this month has been very hard. Very. I got upset yesterday afternoon, discouraged, burnt out and tearful, after finishing my last deposition of the week. Next week is going to be hard too. I don't know. I like being in the game, so to speak, but it takes it's toll after 15 years.

I need to work harder on balance.

I have to go to a wedding this afternoon and I don't want to.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

I picked this fruit off of trees in my backyard. The squirrels have been enjoying the pears, but there were a few left. The apple tree is loaded, thanks to a very wet winter/spring.

What did I make?



Why, Alicia's sour cream apple pie. Except mine is apple and pear pie.

I haven't had a chance to taste it yet.

Needless to say, it was a super-terrific weekend. I had the kids. My daughter had a 13-hour playdate on Saturday, so I got one on one time with my son. He had a birthday party to attend on Saturday afternoon. They've closed the local mega-toy store, so we stopped by Mr. Mopps, which we should have done all along. [Though I'm not going to flog myself for utilizing the MTS in the past, because I have to do what works for me within the time and space that I have to do things.] Buying the present on the way to the party--that's how I do things.

The party had a jumpy thing and 6/7 year old boys, so my son was happy. I got to go the library, pay my fines, and check out a ton of books for my son. Lately, his thing is Africa. He's obsessed. He started out asking me very pedestrian questions about Africa, to which I would start every single answer with "First of all, Africa is a continent, made up of 54 countries." One weekend, he spent the entire weekend going through this book, the paperback version of which (2095 pages) I had bought a few years ago. It is such an excellent resource!

He is particularly interested in Kenya and decorated his reading folder with the Kenyan flag. He also got some Swahili language tapes from his dad and listens and follows along with them. So I got him a bunch of books on Africa and last night I read him Mama Panya's Pancakes. He loved it. His eyes were shining when we finished because he knew Swahili, he knew where Kenya is located, there was a map in the book, there was a reference section on the animals. Everything he likes.

Sunday my son had a playdate with his very best buddy. That freed up four hours to hang out with my daughter, so we went fabric shopping (for her) and to Genova Deli for lunch. I had her solemnly swear that she will not ask me to go to Genova on a Sunday afternoon ever again.

After lunch, I worked on my Lost Ship quilt. I finished the last of the 90 blocks (hip hip hurray) and started to arrange them and sew them into strips of 9 blocks horizontally. It's going to be a busy quilt, but I really like how it's shaping up so far.



Sunday afternoon/evening is when it got hectic. My daughter had homework and we had to deal with her hair. My son wanted to play outside with me, so in exchange I made him help me whip up a batch of Myra's fluffy banana bread. It's delicious.

In the yard, I picked the apples and pears in between throwing around a football. Later, I made the pie and cooked dinner--chicken breasts from the Cooks' Book, pasta, haricot vert, and garlic bread. There's a moment of extreme tension when I'm trying to get all the food cooked and plated hot and on the table, and it was during this moment that my son decided to ask me one billion questions and my daughter's eyes stopped working and I had to find everything for her. I told them to stop talking to me and get out of the kitchen and the moment passed.

Dinner was quite delicious and I used a tiny bit of thyme in the chicken and it and the [smell of the] apple pie ushered me completely into Autumn.

After dinner, there was more laundry, printer issues, bath time and story time. I arranged a few more rows of blocks but had no time to sew them. I also never got to three big fat fashion magazines I got in the mail last week. Oh well.

My son has a field trip to the beach today and he is so excited. He located a pair of his binoculars just in time to take them along. I know he's going to have an excellent day.

ETA:

I get great questions:

have you made them [quilts] for a long time? or did you just start making them recently? the squares you pin together and then sew on the machine, yes?

Hi Susannah: I’ve quilted since college. In college, I did everything by hand. It was also the era before I discovered rotary cutting, so it involved copying a template, pinning it to the fabric, cutting and then marking the piece with tracing paper. It’s like walking versus flying in a plane in terms of speed.

I didn’t quilt at all in law school and didn’t take it up again until after my daughter was born in 1996. Then I got a sewing machine and discovered rotary cutting.

When I saw Denyse Schmidt on Martha Stewart Living, something clicked in me; the way she used the rotary cutter and the free style that she put together a quilt.

Still, I didn’t have time and energy to quilt until after my son was born in 2000 and I recovered from my pregnancy and his birth.

I would calculate that I started quilting in earnest in 2001/2002.

Here are the factors which got my quilting going:

After I got divorced and shared custody of my children, I had time away from them to fill;

When they were with me, they got to the age where could entertain themselves for periods of time;

I put a television in my study so that my son could watch television while I sewed;

Reading blogs and getting inspired by them;

Keeping a blog to document my progress and all the kind words of encouragement;

Being able to buy fabric online.

Yes, I pin the squares together and machine sew them. There was an article in the Washington Post this weekend singing the praises of $5,000-$8,000 sewing machines. Rubbish!! I can't justify to myself the expenditure of that kind of money on a sewing machine. I have a $100 Kenmore machine which does the job, though I guess I'll never win a competition. I can handle that.

* * *

Such longing in the responses to the backyard cottage pictures!! I wish each of you the space you crave.

I got the pictures from Ideas for Great Backyard Cottages by Cynthia Bix.

I'm in the middle of a Working Mother Triathlon. This morning I had an appearance in federal court, 80 miles from my house. I drank coffee and ate a sandwich (yes, coffee in the mix at mid-day because it's going to be a long day; tuna on whole wheat, quite tasty) in my car on the 85 mph drive back to my office, where I had a two and half hour criminal hearing in the afternoon. And tonight, I have Back to School Night. Have mercy.

Anyway, I also have a burning desire for a backyard cottage:





Aren't they cool?

Yesterday, I had a mediation. It went well--excellent mediator, nice people all around. I wish the room we sat in for four hours had not been so cold, but that is a minor matter. After the mediation, I went to lunch--fish tacos, black beans and rice, and then I stopped in an antique store. (I so rarely get a chance to go to them these days.)

I found this:



It's a quilt rack!







I love hanging up my quilts on it. It adds to the decor of my bedroom and it gets me in the mood for cold* nights.


*Relatively speaking as I live in the Bay Area.

Quilt Monday



I am so inspired by this quilt, because it's a masterpiece of quilting and there is so much white. I also love the use of plaid. It's from this book.



This second quilt is a Lost Ship block quilt that I love. I'm trying to figure out why it works so well, why it's so aesthetically pleasing (to me), whether there is a pattern of light, medium and dark blocks.

* * *

I love the Fall weather. Yesterday was hot and dry, which brings to mind the Oakland Hills fire, but which also feels good on my skin.

After Mass and grocery shopping, I swept in front of the house and watered my plants, then completed 20 more Lost Ship blocks.

It was a wonderfully restful weekend.

Work In Progress Saturday

This pile is 50 Lost Ship blocks; 40 more to go. Hey, I'm more than half way done; I'm cruising. This is the first Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy fabric I bought. I wasn't particularly turned on by it before. I like this grey and orange combination.

I thought that I would go to work today, to catch up. Then I realized that I deserve some down time and it's the only way my brain is going to work next week. This week was very hard.

So instead I sewed and watched two documentaries: this one and this one.

Of the former, I have to say it was not as good as her first concert documentary and her narcissism takes my breath away, but she's gotten a lot nicer and I like that her daughter has a unibrow (like me) and sibling rivalry.

Of the latter, it is a beautiful and profound movie. I wish W. had seen it before he unleashed the war on Iraq. Given his character, it probably wouldn't have made a difference, but it is an incredible film. It makes me want to visit Vietnam.

* * *

Jane: I label my quilts by printing information on the fabric sheets you can put in your printer, cutting it out and sewing one end of it into the binding.

I don't name them, but I think of them in terms of the block they're made out of: like the Ohio Star quilt, or the Blue Birdboxes quilt, or the Crow's Foot quilt.

A final word on why I quilt:

There are so many things about which we say "I wanted it to be perfect, but it wasn't." Quilting is like that for me, but the accomplishment of piecing something together, of using the materials that I bought for their intended purpose, of finishing something time consuming and complex, more than makes up for the absence of perfection.

And truly, what is perfect?

The other day I saw a wonderful picture on the Pink Chalk Studio blog, entitled Why I Quilt. It was in response to a question posed on this blog.

Which got me thinking.

I quilt because reading house p0rn for years and years, I've come across pictures like these:



I'm always struck by a picture of a stack of quilts; it seems like such a display of wealth.

I quilt because I want to provide my family with a stack of quilts.



I quilt to relax and working with my hands relaxes me.

I quilt to work with color.

I quilt because I love the feel of fabric.

I quilt because my children are not always with me and it makes me miss them less.

I quilt to make a wise use of my time.

I quilt because I love to be in my bed, warm and cozy, touching something I pieced and sewed.

I quilt because making a quilt is far, far cheaper than buying one.

[More later, work is waiting.]

The September 2006 issue of Marie Claire Idees is full of wonderful, lush colors. It and the cooler weather (64 degrees and overcast) have me in the mood for autumn.





I really need to learn applique.



I love that this jewelry is made from felt.

Gosh what a mess. How can I get anything done in all of this? Well, the mess is the product of getting something done.

This picture shows my favorite things: a work in progress, bright sunshine, beautiful fabric with rich colors. [I use the lint roll to pick out threads when I've had to cut and resew pieces.]

I did some piecing over the weekend and rested. I was supposed to go to my sister's house on Sunday, but I stayed in my pajamas and puttered around and did not go.

I remember an interview of Joyce Carol Oates where she described her state of creativity after she had completed a novel. She said she felt spent and usually would write fragments of poems on slips of paper until her energy returned.

I find that piecing a block that I've always admired, using fabric I've been wanting to use, helps get my creative juices going again. The block on the upper left is called Lost Ships in this book. It is similar to Lady in the Lake.

My digital camera is still not working properly, which definitely has an impact on my blogging. Last week, I went to an electronics store to buy a replacement, but found that I just didn't want to spend $400+ on anything they had. I went home and my camera was working fine. I was deeply relieved and pleased, but it has started to malfunction again. [I can't get the menu button to work, I can't zoom the lens in or out. It only takes pictures and they're a bit blurry.]

It's an interesting balance, work and quilting. Some mornings, like today, I got into a groove of piecing and was forced to interrupt it to go to work. Which means I was late for work. Luckily, my job is flexible, so I don't have to explain to anyone that I was late because I was caught up in sewing.

I've been tired this week, because of the demands of work and my kids' school, and I'm resisting adding afternoon caffeine in the mix to fight the fatigue. I am tempted, because I would (theoretically) be able to stay up late and sew (and clean and organize). But as much as I already grapple with insomnia, I am not inclined to drink more coffee.

So here's the deal: I'm super tired.

Not tired of blogging at all.

Just way overworked.

Work has eaten me alive. September is a crammed full of work and it's getting to me.

And my crafting inspiration has failed me. Not only don't I know what to do next, I get confused when I think about it. Though magazines can still spark a little bit of creativity in me (I love this entry hall, don't you? It's a scan from the latest issue of Cottage Living), a new shipment of fabric leaves me unmoved. This is not a good sign. I love fabric.

I am going to rest this weekend, though I also have to read a briefcase full of documents and hit the ground running Tuesday morning, clawing and biting, which I hate.

Bear with me.