Brain work

 I am exhausted with thinking.  I am on a personal time crunch to get Elizabeth's BA quilt under control and it's happening from dogged determination. But the Thinking Bed is covered in fabrics, bits of cut acrylic applique pieces, photos of the planned squares, fabric auditions, my felt book that holds each page in place with finished and unfinished square plans - it's all part of the process and it's ok, but I'm exhausted.  My brain is tired. 

The weather has been hot by September standards, thankfully it is NOT humid right now, but just plain hot.  So, the planning and cutting is taking place on the front porch table under an umbrella.  Now, some of you would say, "then move inside!"  But this IS September,  this IS Michigan and these warm temperatures aren't going to last so I am taking advantage of it, even if it means carting my supplies in and out of the house.  And keeping the ice water flowing. We will all be locked inside soon enough.

I am trying to get several of the squares prepped for retreat next week.  Each retreat I usually take just one thing to work on and really dig in.  Usually it's something that needs to be quilted but this time I'm taking this BA project.  I have five blocks prepped, fabrics chosen, applique pieces mostly cut, the photos folded in for guidance. I certainly won't finish five blocks but I can dream.  Wish me luck I get at least two done.

 I keep each block in this felt book Friend Marily made for me several years ago.  It's simple.  Inexpensive felt and netting so each project has a page to lay pieces on the felt but the netting lays over the top to hold everything in place.  Sew down the middle for a seam and voila! I use this thing CONSTANTLY.  

Now to sit with my threads and choose what I'm going to take.  I pack minimally when I go to retreat because I don't take a machine.  I take a basket or tote with my hand project and my light and a chair. Yes, we have been taking our own chairs because our old behinds can't tolerate sitting in a folding chair for 4 days.  

On Tuesdays I go to the elementary school the granddaughters went to and read to a class of first graders.  When the girls were there I followed them through to the grade they were in each year. But when they left I didn't want to stop.  Their first grade teacher didn't want me to stop either so each week I go in, read two books and get hugs from the littles.  I started yesterday with this new group.

For those of you who are grandmas and read to littles when they visit, I'll post what I've read each week.  Being first graders they want funny books, nothing TOO serious but I like to mix things up with thinkers once in awhile. I have hundreds of picture books here at home so can usually just choose from my shelves. 

Here's what I read yesterday:

Every first day of school can be apprehensive to the littles.  Whether it's kindergarten or any year.  New teacher, new classroom, different classmates, new classroom rules, new lessons.  But what does the actual school building think?  Especially this school because it's brand new and has no idea what's about to happen and whether it will like it. 

Coincidentally, yesterday was the first day for show and tell in the classroom I was in so this one was fun.  Sometimes something seems like a good idea but isn't.

 

To Glue or Not to Glue

 Do you glue?  I don't glue.  I don't use fusible anything, I don't iron on anything that binds or sticks one piece of fabric to another.  I know a lot of you, probably most of you glue. Or fuse. I don't like the way fused fabric feels and I don't like the idea of dried glue on my stuff. 

I pin.  It's not that I'm trying to make work for myself nor am I so stubborn I won't learn new techniques, if that were the case I'd be using old cereal boxes cut up into my applique shapes.  But I have a thing about glue on fabric. So I don't glue my applique pieces onto paper nor onto fabric to hold them in place.  Since I don't machine applique glueing isn't going to make much difference to me.  I can understand in the machine applique process that glueing the fabric means not stopping for pins.  It takes a lot of time to pin. This future wreath shape for Elizabeth's BA of course was being tried on for size and when I've decided it's right I'll take it all off and iron that fabric clean straight and then pin again.  But it's a gorgeous day outside and I can do it on the porch while enjoying the day.

Katie over at katiemaytoo quilts posts about books each week.  I like that.  I don't feel so alone out here in bookland.  Many of the books she has read I have, too.  Today she posted a book about Shakespeare and coincidentally, I am within an hour of finishing this one.

I don't read a lot of Jodi Picoult.  I did read a couple but moved on.  This one was offered to me as a review copy and I thought I'd give it a chance since it's about Shakespeare and the popular controversy over whether he really did write those plays.   Whether it's true or not, I kept thinking while reading that it puts us in mind of the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.  True or not it sure is a conversation.  

I listened to a podcast Jodi Picoult did with Charlie Gibson and his daughter Kate.  They have a great podcast called The Bookcase ( The Book Case Podcast - ABC Audio )  - if you listen to podcasts and if you read, give this a go.  I get into a lot of trouble with it.  I write down just about all of the titles as TBRs (To Be Read.)  Well, after listening to this podcast I remembered I had the book loaded on my iPad and started it.  It is truly thought provoking, and obviously controversial but given the facts in the podcast, hard to set aside as nonsense.  I advise you strongly to get in the mood and listen to the podcast before reading the book. It's like a pep rally.  

We're back!

 PH and I are home from our trip to the Upper Peninsula.  I've showed you the map from previous trips and explained a bit about what the trip is about, but a refresher, it's the one thing he still does after retirement.  It's kind of his retirement project and only lasts a week.  I go along to keep him company and feed him snacks in the car.  We drove 1,500 miles in the week.  That's a lot but we circle half of the Upper Peninsula and it's a beautiful drive so it works.  

I am not a good passenger.  I get bored.  But I discovered I CAN do some hand stitch work while riding.  This has come as a surprise because all of my life I have been carsick if I try to do anything but look straight ahead. So this is a pleasant surprise.  I can get some tedious things accomplished.  Like making hexies, or yo-yos or knitting or whatever.  This is my work station, a pillow on my lap and thread in the handle of the car door, pieces and parts on the console and bits in my little lap container. It's not ideal but I don't take big projects.

 Still can't read but we listen to audio books.  This trip it was Erik Larsen's Demon of Unrest, his new book, and it was very good.  The second was A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva.  I tend to download books PH might like. Both were good car books. 

Here are the ornaments I am making for the kids this year and worked on while riding.  I cut the scrap fabric, made the hexies then made the wreaths by sewing the hexies back to back,  but they aren't done.  I'm going to stitch between the hexies to create a little pocket and stuff just a bit of polyfil to give them a little pudgie look then stitch them shut.  The most work is done.

This snow gauge is always fun to see.  No, the snowfall total isn't how high the snow is on the ground, though is can be close to that.  There is meltage and fresh snowfalls.  Last year saw the least amount of snowfall in the history of measuring it.  That arrow shows I think about 134 inches.  The U.P was hurting last winter from no snow.  At Christmas you could still see grass poking through the little they had. It's quite devastating to their economy because it's just snowmobile heaven up there.  The snow brings people from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan to run the trails.  One account told PH that they could fill their motel every single night in the summer and not make what they do in winter.  

One of the things we do on the way home, on our last night there, is go pick the wild apples from the Garden Peninsula, a jut of land that juts out into the bay.  I don't know what varieties they are, I have an identifying app on my phone but the thing says the same variety for all of the apples, no matter how different they are so to me, it's not helpful.  I made an apple pie from them one year but usually I just cook them down for applesauce.  Because there are so many different varieties it's very, very good sauce! I just cook the apples, I don't season, spice or sugar them.

My trophy this year was this gin and tonic.  Isn't it beautiful?   On our second to last night we stopped at this beautiful little place right on the shore of Lake Superior in the little village of Eagle River.  You need to make a paid reservation early in the morning to get in but we were there at 3 in the afternoon and took the chance.  They had two seats at the bar and we took them.  We had a wonderful meal, but this was the star of my show.  The aromatics in this drink were rosemary, thyme, star anise,  a dried orange and lime, the marigold and violas and a slice of fresh lime.  Let me tell you, I held it with both hands and just smelled it.  I told the bar tender I didn't want to drink it, it was too pretty.  "Drink it!  I can make another one for you!"  I know they say you eat with your eyes first, then your nose and this sure proved that right.  Every sip was an experience.

So, we are home, I am revived and rejuvenated and started working on Elizabeth's BA again last night.  The square I'm doing now is giving me angst so I want to do an easy one next.  Plus plan and cut for taking this project to retreat in a couple of weeks. 

 

What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

Celebrate, go ahead. Grab a copy of the newest Flavia deLuce book, find a corner and settle in for a treat.

Flavia is a smart, savvy, independent thinking young girl (when we are introduced to her in the first book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, she is eleven years old. ) She is a child, she is a girl, she is smart, she is independent and Alan Bradley celebrates all of that. God bless him.

I celebrate her. As we read these stories we can only compare Flavia’s early 1950s childhood with the life our children lead now. We could read of Flavia’s adventures and think they just can’t be real, that children just don’t have this kind of life. Well, no, not anymore but I certainly had the freedom to hop on my bicycle and leave home and think for myself during the day. I didn’t solve murder mysteries, but I solved my own daily dilemas.

We devoured Nancy Drew books when we were young, when we were just barely older than Flavia’s 11 years. We knew we couldn’t do what she did, with her freedom in her sporty roadster, but we believed we could when we read those books. I can’t remember parents being ‘concerned’ that their child was reading a mystery book and discouraging us from doing so. Nancy was our ‘smart girl.’ She inspired us.

And now, we have Flavia. Dear smart, clever, independent, book loving, science infused Flavia. Flavia’s expertise is chemistry. The girl is a wonder, more at home in her uncle’s antiquated laboratory than anywhere else. The murders she solves are crimes of poison. And this new book is no exception.

Flavia is excited by this murder, so to speak, because the culprit is a poison mushroom. She has always wanted to solve a poison mushroom mystery and this one is particularly important because Mrs. Mullet, the long time family cook, is accused of killing Major Greyleigh, the local former hangman, who died after eating poisoned mushrooms for breakfast, a breakfast which Mrs. Mullet cooked for him. It’s not looking good for Mrs. Mullet. Flavia knows for certain Mrs. Mullet would never be capable of killing anyone but circumstantial evidence points directly to her. Flavia is off and running to clear the family cook’s name. Flavia’s mode of transportation isn’t a sportscar, it’s her bicycle, Gladys.

Flavia is used to working alone, for the most part. Dogger, a close confidant of her late father is now the adult in her life, but she is also now learning to deal with her cousin, Undine, who now lives with Flavia and her sisters. Flavia is used to her freedom and not used to having Undine pop up here and there but Undine is showing promise so is tolerated.

I celebrate Flavia for many reasons. The books are great fun, mysteries of a different genre. Flavia is a young girl. We need to be celebrating smart young girls in adult situations as role models for our young girls. We should be handing these books to every early teen girl we know urging parents to do the same. But the books are shelved in the adult sections of bookstores and libraries, there is no cross shelving where they might catch the eye of anyone looking for a good read starring smart girls. We all read Nancy Drew but who does now? We need to celebrate and encourage Flavia deLuce to our girls. We need to celebrate smart. And while you are at it, just plain enjoy her for yourself.

Chookshed Number Seven

 Pictureless! But I have so many to share!  We are traveling in the Upper Peninsula and I don’t know how to post a photo but did figure out how to get this far so…success!  

My Chookshed Challenge number seven is now irrelevant as I concentrate on the Baltimore Album for Elizabeth but does it count if I have seven blocks done? They are sitting home waiting for me to return. While we drive I am making the annual Christmas ornaments for the kids. Hexies. Easy to do while riding. But still can’t post a photo.

Chookshed Challenge Accountability

 It's mid-month accountability time for the Chookshed Challenge.  I surprised myself when I pulled out the blocks I'm doing for Elizabeth's graduation quilt and saw there are six.  I'm really having fun with it.  Luckily she didn't request really busy blocks and I'm enjoying looking for blocks that mean something to her life....so far.  She requested the predominant colors of red, green and yellow.

You've seen the Hamilton logo, and I think I caught it the third time.  What it needed was for the legs and arm to be thinner.  The red pineapple is for her choice to study Colonial history/archaeology. The laurel wreath was a request to remind her of Ancient Rome. The acorn/oak leaf is because she has an oak tree outside her bedroom window that has been dated to before the Civil War (1860s) and to which she is allergic ( !!! ) and makes her miserable in the spring.  The yellow cat is for her yellow cat, Hobbes. That one is still being worked on as I diddle with the leaves.  The yellow/red flower is because she asked for 'lots of flowers' and was the one I did after Hamilton.  

Not sure how many more than 20 blocks I will do because she wants sashing but at this rate I have many ideas, 6 more cut and waiting to be stitched and some that I haven't even gotten to...like 'lots of flowers.'   I'm thinking I'm going to have to hide some Easter eggs in some of the blocks because they might not get blocks of their own. 

I am feeling much better about this quilt after my initial panic upon seeing she wanted a Baltimore Album.  It is what I am working on almost exclusively but I just took a day last week to grab a bundle of scraps I was tired of looking at and on a nice porch day put my cranker sewing machine on this table on the front porch and started to put them into a VERY scrappy I-don't-care-what-happens-to-it topper for the kitchen table. I will just be glad the scraps are not in the bin anymore. 

So, as August slips by us very quickly and is going to give us exactly six unplanned days till the end, I am very glad we are retired and have time.  That was a joke. 

Chookshed Challenge 3

 Chookshed Challenge number 3 is to work on my Liberty of London circles.  I have a lot, a LOT done but still have some not done and a few more white backgrounds to cut and so they languish.  To be honest, Friend Barb and I were kind of working on this project together.  Of course hers is done and beautiful but I just plain got bored.  But, since this is August and there are couple of long drives coming up I think I'll take them along and see if I can applique in the car.

It would be SO nice to finish this one.

Otherwise, I continue with the Baltimore Album.