Fiber and Pulp

Time 2020-11-07 11:03:59

Web Name: Fiber and Pulp

WebSite: http://seminolelinda.typepad.com

ID:107807

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Fiber,and,Pulp,

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Isn t this incredible?? A Portuguese artist named Ana Martin does cross stitch murals on public street walls. So very cool, in my humble opinion. :) Click on the photos to go see more of her work. I just LOVE seeing needlework in this kind of unexpected venue! :)The weather was lovely and fall-ish today - mid60s in temperature, sunny, breezy with that wonderful crisp autumnal smell. :) I went out grocery shopping in the late afternoon and enjoyed the sunshine coming and going. My son and husband were both sleeping ... but we were getting desperately low on provender ... so I went alone. Truthfully, it was hard work for me. I usually ride an electric cart through the store (a big warehouse kind of place) because the concrete floors are so hard on my joints. Can t get much in the way of groceries in a basket cart, though, so I walked and pushed a regular cart. Took my time, found what we needed, and was exhausted by the time I got home. Phew! Luckily my husband was awake from his nap when I got back and could carry in and put away the stuff. :PI did manage to do some sewing tonight during the modern guild zoom sew-in ... still doing improv piecing with my Cherrywood hand dyed fabric scraps: I don t know how these bits will fit into my design ... but I sure had a fun time making them. :) The strips you see are about 3/4 wide, mostly.I also got a good start on my new hand applique project, Falling Leaves. Here s my first block (wool applique): This is the leaf and flower of an Eastern Redbud tree. I d like to put the name on the block too but I have not decided how to do it (can t ink it which is what I would do on a flat cotton background block). Embroidery? Applique? Still pondering. Have started the second block - yellow locust.Have an appointment tomorrow to get my hair cut ... and a zoom meeting with Faithful Circle quilt guild (if I wake up in time). :)Linda I got an email notice today that my mail-in ballot had been counted ... so NOW I ve voted. :) So glad to have the opportunity to do so!Another gray chilly day today with me staying indoors the entire time. Wearing my brown velour sweater and keeping my feet as warm as possible. :) Got some reading done today (last Kitty book) and some cooking (plain quiche for dinner) and a little sewing.As usual, the Columbia Friends group Zoomed this afternoon for two hours and I sewed the whole time. Made some 5 squares - some four patches, most crumb pieced - and a bigger slab of crumbs with frame. Still accumulating things made with hand dyed fabric scraps ... no design in mind, yet. Next weekend the Baltimore Modern guild is holding a virtual retreat ... not sure yet what I will focus on sewing but I am hoping to find my Elizabeth Hartman leafy quilt to finish. Gotta get going on finishing moving into my sewing area at long last. Fingers crossed! I m also hunting for the William Morris reprints I stashed to make my daughter s sofa quilt. Hope to find those, too, so I can get cracking on that project. Cross my toes, too, I guess. LOL.Driving into Baltimore tomorrow afternoon to pick up retreat swag bags for the Columbia contingent of the modern group. Hope it s an uneventful SAFE journey.:) Linda This little squirrel used his bushy tail as an umbrella yesterday morning - he was foraging for dropped sunflower seeds beneath the bird feeder in my front yard during a heavy rainfall. I thought it was adorable how bushy his tail was! The weather has been wet and gray and chilly for two days ... followed by chilly sunshine most of today. At least I can enjoy the blue skies! :) Chilly is by recent standards - it is what I think of as sweater weather: mid50s or so. My favorite kind, truthfully - the air is fresh and clean. :)I ve mostly spent the last few days indoors (although I did go out today to pick up some fabric from Springwater Designs, my local quilt shop, and a prescription from Walgreens). I ve been reading and sewing again. I m reading my way through Carrie Vaughn s series of Kitty the werewolf stories at the moment and enjoying a very different world from my day to day humdrum. :) My sewing has been slightly on the exotic side for me, too - back at improvisational piecing using some beautiful hand dyed fabrics by Cherrywood - two scrap bundles I bought from a recent online sale.Here s what I ve made (and not shown yet). A fair assortment of designs, eh? :) Not sure what it will all turn into and that s ok! I m enjoying playing with the colors and scraps. Got a bunch of new ones half finished on my sewing table ... maybe I ll share them tomorrow or the next day, when they get more real. :)When I went to Springwater today, I picked up a length of fabric I bought off their website to use for backing all those small charity quilts I ve been piecing. Also bought two treasures for myself. Their shipment of Tula Pink s new Linework prints was in the shop and I FINALLY got to buy some of the beautiful white-on-white birds flying print I ve been jonesing for several months. Not sure what project I will use it for but I am eager to think of one. :)I also picked up a charm pack (5 squares) of beautiful warm colored wools I hope to use for making a vintage leaf quilt (I found the pattern recently online). That one I will start pretty soon. :)On the whole, things are going along ok here Chez Schiffer. Life turns onward and we cope as we can.:) Linda If you click on that photo above, you can go read about actual scientific research on the relationship between color perception in humans and the local environment - if the sky is gray, most humans around the world want to look at yellow! :) For me, it s usually hot pink or tangerine orange ... whatever. :) Today is gray to the max (without rain falling) and I d like some sunshine. For once I m in the majority. LOL.What has been happening ... hmm. I spent most of the weekend sewing up more of my scrap blocks into Comfort quilt sized tops (roughly 40 x40 ). I ve run out of blocks and most of my scraps (there s always a few, like sourdough starter, to generate more:) ... and made FIVE tops. Pretty good haul for a person who doesn t keep much in the way of scraps. :) Now I have to go off and buy some fabric for backings. I was a bit of at a loss when I finished piecing the last scrappy top two days ago so I turned to my fairly new pile of Cherrywood Fabric scraps to play with color. One of my favorite things to do with fabric. I guess I haven t gotten tired of improv quilt making yet because that s what I turned to doing, again. You d think my aboriginal medallion project would have sufficed. :)I made two blocks, choosing the most unlikely colors to mix that I could figure (from my pile of CW scraps): Can you tell, looking at these two pictures, how I made them? If so, you are probably a quilter. :) I just worked with the size of strips I was given ... so not sure how big these blocks are - 10 ? 12 ? square. I will make a few more and see if I get bored. If so, I ll try something else I can chop and swap around. I think this one might work out to be some kind of puzzle layout. We ll see.I have to work on my WhiteElephantSwap mini soon - maybe I ll use the Cherrywood solids for that?Oh, and I have some of those Hope blocks to resew. Likely to be tomorrow s job.:) Linda The birds have been busily visiting my feeders all week. Tuesday I saw two new-this-season little guys when I was carrying out the recycling -- a black-capped chickadee (top) and a tufted titmouse (bottom). They re both flirty little birds that come here for the winter from points northward, I _think_. I know Autumn is definitely here, now. :) The weather had been alternating gray and misty skies with bright blue, sunny ones for the past several days. We had rain last weekend (cold and gray) but mostly sunny so far this week.I took a trip to the post office on Monday to stand in line and mail off my two Stash Bee blocks to Sashiko in Australia - that was expensive (by comparison with the ordinary things I mail:). Supposed to arrive in 10 to 14 days (major fingers crossed on that!) - I hope they get to her in a timely way. I finished sewing together the swap blocks for my two grandsons each to have a small Halloween quilt on Wednesday night during the Zoom Sip Sew. Here are some photos: Halloween can be scary for little guys (mine are almost-6 and 2.5 years old). I don t think either of these quilts will be frightening but who knows? The Candy Corn block is the one I made for the swap (one to each of the other block makers:). I don t remember which of the nine patches I made - as I recall, each swapper made one applique and one nine patch block.Today I drove over to Springwater Designs to get backings for these two quilts. Those are 12 blocks so the width of each top is less than the width of quilting fabric (42 or so). I bought two different designs but I don t think it matters which one goes with each top. My long arm lady (Daria Phair) should be calling me soon for my opening. :) Well, Daria is one of the long arm artists I send quilts to ... there are a couple of others, too. :)When I was at Springwater, I found out that all their Halloween and Fall fabrics were on sale (lucky me!!) ... and I succumbed to a really cute kit they had made up using a Bunny Hill pattern for acorns: It s not often I get beguiled by an applique project ... but this one was just too adorable to pass by (imho:). The fabrics are a somewhat delicate array of prints from Moda, designed by Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill. I did not take any detailed photos of the fabrics, alas. More as I work on this pretty. :)Another obligation I ticked off my list this week was a fabric postcard project. The theme for the Baltimore Modern guild s Virtual Retreat next month is Travel (of course:). One pre-retreat activity I signed up to do was a fabric postcard exchange. Here s what I made (the recipient has not received it yet as I just mailed the goodie off today; I don t _think_ she reads my blog, though). The place my sendee traveled was to Norway. That was an easy choice to make as the Vikings (from all of Scandinavia) were world class travelers. :) They sailed down/up/along every coastline and river way in Europe and Western Asia ... and even sailed to the New World well before Columbus. My ship isn t as detailed as I would have liked to make .. but there are limits to a 4 x 6 layout. :) I hope she likes it!That s pretty much all of the sewing I ve done so far this week. NO! I almost forgot the Hope project blocks I made and gave back to Barbara already. I did not count them so I m not sure exactly how many there were. They were a dream to make, though. I should ask her if they are ok - she hasn t said. Done, sewed, picked up and gone. Waiting for the next phase. :)Hugh and I need to take a trip to the regular grocery store (we buy general stuff at BJs Warehouse but they only sell certain items; anything special we go to Wegman s to get). I had hoped we would do that today ... but I didn t wake up until noon and he went to bed at 11 a.m. soooo not much overlap of awake time between us right now. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.:) Linda Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny autumn day with blue skies ... today, not so much. :) Gray, gray and misty today. No rainbows (that I saw anyway:). If you click on this pretty rainbow photo, you can go read quotes about sunshine and rain. :)I ve been sewing blocks for the past two days ... with only three finished ones to show for my efforts (there is other sewing in progress:).First, I made a block for round four of the Faithful Circle Quilters round robin. The set I got to work on this round was fun and spoke to me instantly .. so it was easy to get my block made quickly. :) The beginning block was a 12 foundation pieced depiction of a woman s foot in lovely high heeled shoes pushing down hard on a sewing machine pedal (speed indicated by a Vroom, vroom! text applique:). The owner had included a nifty hot pink reads-as-solid fabric to be used in each block. I looked at that and the other two blocks made after it and chose to create a traditional pattern named Road to Rome with some applique embellishment: See the simple sewing machine icon? I went searching through Pintrest until I found a simple cross stitch design and translated it into fusible applique. I think it gets the idea across. :) Sadly, my dyslexia made it come out with the wrong right/left orientation for the image (well, from the you-are-sewing standpoint). Oh, well. :)I was pleased with the result and bundled the whole set of blocks, etc. back into the bag to return to the coordinator (sometime this weekend).Today during my zoom sew-in with my friends Barbara and Patty, I decided to make my Stash Bee blocks for this month. Our Bee Queen asked for a particular floral block (Quatrefoil) with bright, flower like colors so these are what I made: I have to press and package and mail them off now. :) Tick off those obligations!! :)Yesterday Hugh and I went grocery shopping (a major chore, all masked and careful). So I skipped making dinner last night ... but he talked me into making Chili tonight and we have extras (weekend lunches:). Yummy!I am happy about Zoom meetings - I attended a lecture last night, sponsored by the Portland Modern guild, by Joe Cunningham - wonderful, inspiring, warm, encouraging. I enjoy his approach to improv quilting a LOT. Made me want to go into my room and SEW (at midnight - lecture was on Pacific time scale:). Look him up and enjoy his work. I hope to take an online workshop with him later this year.Tomorrow I get to zoom with my Columbia Friends modern group ... and Sunday afternoon is the monthly Sew Tell meeting. I have the Hope quilt that Barbara and I are making to work on ... so I m set for fun.:) Linda The past two days have been drizzly and wet, chilly autumn rains. Not cold (yet) - mid 60s - and the rain occasionally heavy (mostly at night). Today there was sunshine for a couple of hours but it had clouded up again by nightfall. Typical fall weather here in eastern Maryland. I have been sewing and reading and cooking and sleeping way, way too much. More sighs. Sunday I did not wake up until 3:30 in the afternoon. I m not sure what time I went to sleep - I was in bed by 12:30 a.m. on Saturday night but my insomnia kept me awake for hours. My husband is a light sleeper so I just lay quietly and listen to my audiobook so I don t wake him up (he had to work on Monday morning).I was particularly annoyed with myself Sunday because of my oversleeping - I missed the Zoom meeting of my Baltimore modern quilt guild. We had a speaker I particularly wanted to hear that meeting - she was talking about her life as a scientist (marine biology) and a quilt maker. Missed out, darn my s.a.d. :PSo, instead I sewed. I ve been finding treasures as I clean (it is astonishing how much STUFF I have accumulated in our house over the past twenty years!). I did manage to finish putting together enough of my scrappy log cabin blocks to make a baby quilt sized top: I have many more blocks so I expect to make several of these baby sized tops. I expect to ask my long arm goddess to quilt them as I seem to be in piecing mode right now. I haven t finished setting up my new sewing area, yet, either - no space for spreading out to stitch/quilt as of yet.I still have items on my must do now list, including another block I owe for this month s Stash Bee. Also I signed up for the White Elephant swap on InstaGram ... we are supposed to make a small quilt that we ve had on our list for a while. Here s the design for what I want to make (I finally found it in my graphics folder; I adapted this from the design on a scrub shirt worn by one of my doctor s nurses several years ago): I am torn between using Kaffe Fassett bright prints to make this ... and bright colored wools. Am still pondering so I have this hanging on my design wall, nudging me as I work on other things. :)I found two treasures Sunday evening as I was looking for something else entirely that are tugging hard to be worked on. First was this folded excerpt from Quilts Down Under magazine, possibly now defunct; we used to carry this periodical from Australia in my shop. Apparently I pulled this out of an issue; it was wrapped around a bundle of 100 four inch squares of Japanese fabrics - old fashioned, probably vintage, prints. The kind I cherish. :) Just pulling the squares out and petting them, sorting them out and sewing them into pairs made me happy today. I don t know why I love these so much - some are yarn-dyes/woven, some are printed. I did take photos of a few sets after sewing: I decided to make four patches from these squares. I now have 50 two-sies /pairs which will yield 25 four patch blocks when I finish sewing them up (hopefully tomorrow). I will have to dig through my as-yet-hidden stash fabrics to find more Japanese prints to mix with them. I think making my own Japanese Four Patch will take a while. :)Another treasure I found at the same time was a set of Halloween themed blocks, apparently from an international swap in 2009. I think those will get made into one medium or maybe two small quilts for my grandsons. More about them when I get there.Buried along with those theme blocks were four lovely printed fabric rectangles I clearly ordered sometime ago. I could not wait with them and started in to make a small hanging for our front door. Here are the four vintage images: As you can see, I sewed those up quickly. Will share the whole little piece when I finish quilting it. The images themselves are only 3 x5 , so it s a small hanging.Hope the sun is out tomorrow - I m a sunny day walker. :) Linda The weather has been lovely and autumnal recently - sunshine, mid60s to 70s in temperature, pleasant. I went for a long-for-me walk on Wednesday and saw that the leaves are just beginning to color and fall in my neighborhood. Today it was gray and overcast and we are supposed to get rain for the next two days. I guess the trees and grass needs watering ... but I find these gray days weary. I have been working on cutting down my scrap pile here this weekend. Friday during my Zooms with Barbara and Patty I started cutting up the scraps that have collected in my scrap basket (a wicker laundry hamper from years ago) - and clearing up the accumulation of things in the basket at the same time. :) It often serves as the landing place in my sewing room because it sits right beside my machine and in front of my fat quarter drawers.I rather arbitrarily cut my scraps into 1.5 , 2 and 2.5 strips/squares. Anything smaller than a fat eighth goes into the scrap basket, usually. Since I ve started board-wrapping my fabrics I ve chosen to designate anything that won t wrap once around the board as a scrap ... I was surprised by how much had accumulated in the basket! I don t remember for sure how long it has been since I cleared the scraps - maybe during last winter? Possibly just before the shutdown started but that feels like ancient history as I think back. :PAnyway, I started clearing away and cutting on Friday. Today I had my Columbia Friends sew-in zoom in the afternoon and I continued sewing the order I had made with my scraps into log cabin or courthouse steps style blocks. I generally make 8 to 10 square blocks this way. I ve been making these for about six months and I m finally beginning to create enough to make a quilt top.Some time ago I decided to use my scraps to make charity quilts ... and right now I m debating whether to make smaller ones (40 square or so) to donate to the two child-oriented sites my modern guild supports (Comfort Cases and the reading advocacy center) ... or to make a larger (twin or full) sized bed quilt, possibly to donate to a great-niece or nephew. :) Since I really should quilt these myself (as opposed to spending the money to get them long armed), I will likely choose the smaller object option. :)I got my mug rug for the Baltimore Modern Guild swap in the mail ... made by Susan Brightman, I think it is very Fall:Just right for my cookie and seltzer. :) Very autumnal colors, too.I am sorting out my books and soon will start in on my patterns - I hope to cut my collection in half, roughly, so I will have room to house it all and might even refer to it from time to time. :) After I offer the librarians of my two guild s the books, I ll list them here so anyone who wants them can (pay the postage and) take them home. :)Going to rain all day tomorrow - can t go for a walk, so I intend to sew. Oh, and attend the monthly meeting of Baltimore Modern Guild via Zoom. We have a lecturer which I am looking forward to.:) Linda Did you know that Blue Jays are part of the corvid family? I did not until I found this graphic image - ravens, crows, jays and magpies. Just last week I read an interesting article in Science News - discussing the neurology of Crows. They are extremely intelligent birds and the article included ... ravens recognize themselves in the mirror and plan for the future. They are also able to put themselves in the position of others, recognize causalities and draw conclusions. Another article mentioned that Corvid and Ape brains reach similar conclusions but have a very different architecture - no one knows how or why they think alike.This is the time of year many birds are gathering and preparing to migrate to warmer climates for the winter season. I ve heard many crow families gathering in our neighborhood this week - I don t know if they migrate but I do know that young crows - this season s nestlings - stay with their parents and siblings for some time. I hope they are enjoying the beautiful early fall weather we are having as much as I am! Temperatures have been in the low to mid 70s and the skies are blue. Not many trees have begun to turn yet as we have not had much true cold. Some trees are day-length moderated in their fall color development so there are a few, here and there, edging into red or yellow. Most are still flourishing and green, though - likely the ones that are temperature moderated for leaf fall. :)Yesterday, Monday, I managed to get up and attend the monthly Grad Class meeting (via Zoom) for the second month in a row. YEAH me! It was lovely to talk and listen to the women of Mimi Dietrich s group. :) I spent some time later that afternoon on sewing - I am working on obligations still. I cut out (and today sewed together) four blocks for another bingo quilt project for the modern guild - these are meant for someone else who is constructing a quilt so I have to mail them off tomorrow. Sadly, one of the blocks I made did not meet my standards for good construction so I only had a 75% success rate. :)The mail has brought me more lovely Delectable Mountain blocks this week: OH, I almost forgot to record ... I took the vote-by-mail ballots for myself, my husband and my son to deposit in the vault box at the Board of Elections office yesterday while Hugh and I were running errands. I have tried to instill in both my children a reverence and respect for voting; I was extremely pleased that my son was eager to cast his. I trust my daughter will, too. One of my favorite blogs to read is Attic 24, written by Lucy who is a true colorist. Recently she posted a graphic image on her site that made me laugh: One of the women in Faithful Circle quilt guild, an art quilter, is very much of the same opinion - I thought of her instantly when I saw this. :) I cannot say I completely agree with the sentiment - I like beige, too. I am equal opportunity color lover. LOL! Tomorrow my friend Barbara and I will make a (zoom) beginning to our charity quilt project to support ovarian cancer research. Looking forward to it!I remember, about a year ago, thinking that I was not doing enough for charity ... I think I m getting a handle on that issue at last. :) Linda Do you enjoy swap activities? I do, usually. I ve been trying to take it easy on swaps this year - only doing what I am sure I can fulfill with timeliness. I did decide to sign up for the Modern Guild s online international swap again this year (didn t do it last year but did the year before:). I don t know if this will be a mini-quilt swap (last time there was a 20 square requirement) or something else. I always learn a lot and manage to do things I might not get to otherwise with swaps. :)Friday was my sewing together time with Barbara and Patty (via Zoom) and I spent most of it mounting my fat quarters on book boards. I finished mounting the contents of my working stash drawer that afternoon: Not sure how many fabric pieces this is (didn t count) ... and some of them are half yards and others are smaller than a fat quarter. I arbitrarily decided that any piece that would not wrap around the board at least once was a scrap (my scrap basket is on the floor right below this drawer so that was an easy toss:). I anticipate mounting more of my prints on boards ... and then we ll see how that works with taking the fabrics out to use and putting them away. Hmmm. So far, so good. :)Saturday afternoon was my Columbia Friends bee Zoom session. I sewed the borders onto my crazy shadows bingo quilt project ... and pieced/attached the last border to my aboriginal fabrics medallion top. Here are the photos my son helped me take on the back deck later in the afternoon (yes, both tops need to be pressed:) I asked my son, Hugh, if he could see the shadowing effect of my patchwork ... but he could not. He said he thought the blocks looked like little square-ish fish. :) I am pleased with how this worked out ... even though I had to carefully piece the last half of the last border side ... sadly the vendor did not have any more of that print or I d of bought more. :)Now I have added make backs and schedule long arming to both quilt projects. :)I made a heart (comfort) block to send to a sick guild buddy and learned something unpleasant but useful in the process. Here s the block, pre-nasty lesson: I machine appliqued (turned edge) my heart down and then washed the block. Then I signed it with the usual Pigma Micron pen and trimmed it down to 7 square. I decided that I needed to press it before packing it into an envelope and mailing it off. Because it was pretty wrinkled, I gave it a spritz with my favorite starch - Mary Ellen s Best Press - before ironing. Here is the result: Gasp, cough! Apparently Pigma pen ink is soluble in whatever MEBP has in it. Gag! Now I have to make another heart. Sigh. I ve signed blocks with a Pigma pen for years and never seen this before. Yet another quilt guild friend had hip surgery recently and I wanted to send her a card...so I got out one of my fabric postcards. I had to finish it (add a papercard backing and bind the thing). Here s the result: Can you see the ribbon around the edge? That is an almost transparent organdy ribbon my friend Barbara gave me (she gives me all her too good to trash little things:). Came in handy for this use! Tomorrow I have several things to send off in the mail ... and our votes to deliver to the drop box. Also maybe grocery shopping with Hugh. More adventures of the ordinary (and precious) kind. :) Linda

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