Maple Syrup Time

 It's maple syrup time in Michigan. When the days are what we consider warm but the nights still are cold the sap flows back up to feed the trees.  If a tree is particularly juicy it will seep out of the space where the branches meet the tree. Always in March but sometimes in late February.  

When our daughter moved into their house one spring they noticed squirrels laying on those branches and licking the dark spaces at the junctures.  

The next year she found a place that sold spigots and buckets and watched the squirrels. 

It tastes, straight from the tree, like water with a "what's that?" background.  I think you can taste the tree if you wait for it. The sap drips drip by drop into the bucket.  Somedays the bucket will be quite full, other days not so much.

Then you cook it down.  Those two pots in the background are used up and dead to the chore. The propane goes fast, the little stove wore out.  She's been doing this for years.  With the new open cook pot more will evaporate quicker.  You can see it's starting to change color as the sap boils down.  

It takes about forty gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup. This is the real thing, no additives, preservatives, sugars, nothing but cooked down sap.  And better eating you won't find! 

Finally, Finally

 This is finally a finish!!  I started the Liberty circles during Covid when Friend Barb and I decided to do a circle quilt "together."  Since then I believe she said she has done seven circle quilts.  

I did this one. O  N  E.  I got bored so easily appliqueing circle after circle after circle and I do believe if I wasn't using the Liberty of London fabric, I would have quit long ago.  But not wanting to waste a single thread, I kept going.  I am glad I did, it's very pretty.

Finally, finally it's done, I love it and it's already been claimed by my daughter. 

Will I do another one?  Seven?  No. No. No. 

Please notice the sun is shining.

Sunshine

 

This weekend the high school's musical production of Chicago: Teen Edition played.  Our Adelaide was Mary Sunshine, a very appropriate character for her to play because she IS sunshine.

The play was wonderful, by the way.  The talent in these kids is incredible.

We were all excited that our son and Ceci and Charlie came in for the performance.  They live two hours away and with three kids involved in everything, this was, according to Ceci, the only free day they have in two months.  We were excited they were here and gave that free day to Adelaide.

This is how we see the girls when they are together.  They are always forehead to forehead tucked into some corner catching up, sharing, and just excited to be together for however long that is.  

She loves the theater, the acting, the everything about it.  And proud daddy, too.

It was a fun, fun day to be sure.

Update!

 Comments are coming through my email again! Hooray! Thanks for the tips and patience, I don't know what I did but it worked!

Two Heads Are Better Than One

First of all, blogger comments are still not coming through.  I've pushed every button I can think of  with your tutorial ideas next to me on my phone.  Tomorrow I call for techie help.  Sheesh.

     But today, Friend Laurie and I put our two heads and four hands together to work out a project for this summer's museum day camp.  

     Sticking with the 250th birthday of the US we thought replicating Betsy Ross's flag might be a good activity for the kids.  For the past few months Laurie and I batted around ideas and soon discovered she and I were talking about two different activities - or two ways to approach the one activity.  We brainstormed and decided we needed to just get some supplies and actually have a work session to see how accessible our ideas are to 7-12 year old kids.

     Laurie did teacher research on the flag will give the kids instruction:  there are thirteen red and white stripes, red on top and bottom.  The thirteen stars were to be on a blue field.  All good.  Of course a star was added with each new state but in the beginning it was a thirteen star and stripe flag. 

So, we - well, rather SHE - measured size for stripes, the blue field and we big stitched the red felt onto a solid white piece of felt. 

Our concern all along the way was making this accessible to a seven year old with no needle skills,  I wanted finished edges, which meant big stitching the red onto the white. No seams.

We had stencils for the stars because in the beginning when flag designs were being presented the stars could be and were placed at random OR in "Betsy's" circle.  We want to give the kids the freedom to choose their own design.

We each did our own thing,  I added the blue field with a running stitch and used the circle star stencil

Laurie used a stamp for her stars and did a blanket stitch to hold the blue field.  I like that, she liked mine.  Go figure.

The bottom line is daughter loved the way they turned out, we proved to ourselves we can get this through the kids' project and give them choices in how to design their own.  Our next step is to give this project kitted to three kids in the age range and time them in completing the task. 

Check this off the list! 

 

Blogger Bugs Again

 For some reason Blogger decided once again to fix something that wasn't broken so your comments are not coming through to my email.  If you know how to fix this, please let me know, otherwise I'll start pushing buttons on my own and who knows what will happen?  In the meantime, I apologize if I don't respond to your kind remarks. 

Hugs. We need them.

Theo of Golden

I'm not much of one for reviewing adult books here.  I like the connection kids' books give me but I can and often get lost in explaining the meaning of adult books.   Especially when they are completely out of my comfort zone.  

I avoided this one because of a preconceived notion it was too sweet. Something along the Mitch Albom genre.  I like thick, meaty, original fiction.  Someone tell me a story.  Escape.

But friends handed this to me last week hoping I'd like it and one of them said her brother said it was the best thing he'd read in a year.   I had just that evening before finished the book I was reading so timing was right.

Well.  Do you do Lent?  I once knew a priest who read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown for his Lenten reading. That's a book that stares you in the face.

If you haven't read Theo of Golden this is a simple synopsis.  A man mysteriously travels to the town of Golden in a southern state and notices in a coffee shop that a local artist  sketches, draws, creating people's portraits - their faces - and they hang on the wall of the coffee shop.  Theo decides to purchase each painting and give them to the subjects as a gift. And listen to their story.  

This simple act transforms people.  They feel seen.  A complete stranger is telling them of their worth, something none of them thought they had. He remains mysterious, offers just the one name, refuses publicity or thanks.  Just take the portrait and feel seen.

Immediately upon reading those first few pages I thought of a Michigan artist who has a studio and gallery in Saugatuck, Michigan.  His name is James Brandess and on the wall of his shop/gallery/studio he has lined the walls with the residents of Saugatuck.  The portraits are small, maybe 5 x 7?  4 x 6? In the winter quiet he paints these people and sometimes their dogs and hangs them on the surrounding walls.  They belong to James.  I'm quite sure while he is painting there are stories being told.  So, in a small way I connected with the book.

In this horrid time of ridiculously dangerous people (I refuse to call them leaders) beating their chests, playing at war, the anxiety in my brain is trying so hard to take over.  As friends march and protest I do not.  I feel it a complete waste of time - who is listening?  Who cares? The more we do the meaner and worse he gets.  I am hiding under a rock, every morning asking PH "Well? are we still here?  Is the world?"  I truly don't know how much more we/I can take.  

Then this little book was put in my hands and after thinking of James Brandess's studio I started thinking Lent.  Someone put a small, tiny, spark of light in my hand.  Hope.  Someone has to have some. Will this change anything?  No. Nothing will tame the dragons, I truly believe that, but I can hope. 
 

Projects

The Thinking Bed is empty. (By the way, that white quilt is keeping the sun off the tops of the other quilts that are piled onto the bed that is next to a window.)

Once the museum classes ended last week I went into hyper drive with the free days and got things moved to the next level.  When working with the kids, which is fun and interesting always, I am standing for four hours and talking for four hours and come home exhausted so not much energy for anything else.

Liberty circles have a binding sewn on but not down, quilting has begun on the green and blue scrappy and I'm doing big stitch quilting so it's going fast, several smaller pieces have been layered, the blue snowballs are layered.

And here they all sit, all piles off the bed and waiting but are at least at THIS stage

This is the emergency insurance two yard piece of fabric I bought last week.  I cut the tissue circles bigger than the end product will be but wanted Adelaide's idea on placement.  By text we moved them around a bit and I told her that it will probably have a framing border to widen it a bit.  But she is happy with this - leaving room for stems and leaves.  Sunflowers have long stems!   

With the Thinking Bed now empty of nagging little projects, getting them to the point of picking one up and quilting it, I will now focus on the flowers.  My plan is to get at least one flower done for a trial - remember, my concern is holding the fabric in my hand without having to cut it up, and then take it to retreat in April.  Might even get the stems and leaves ready.

I think now I am not worried about holding the fabric.  I remember I did it with Charlie's quilt so will make this work.  

I think that circle on the right needs to be moved down a bit. 

Sunflowers Part Two

 I'm getting good tips for the sunflowers.  One emailed and asked how big the flowers are.  At the widest point, after applique they would be about 15 inches across.  Thank goodness they ARE big and I'm not going to have to deal with itsy bitsy.

I don't use glue.  I don't fuse.  I know that's stubborn on my part refusing to use what's so commonly used.  I'm not judging anyone who does glue or fuse. I just personally don't like the idea.  I will baste the little buggers down very well to hold them in place and if a petal veers a little here or there, who's to know?  Has anyone actually ever gone out and measured the space between or around a real sunflower's petals?  I already warned Adelaide she will get what she wants but with MY interpretation. This isn't a photograph, it's a quilt.

Another email response was that I should be able to roll the extra fabric into my palm and hold it that way.  I'm going to measure and baste the circle size onto the dots and try that before I buy that plan. But she might be right.  I tried to remember how I handled Charlie's quilt and remembered I DID gather the extra into my palm to hold it.  If anything, the petals will be one piece of fabric and the stems and leaves another MAYBE being able to hide the seam under some of the leaves.  We'll see. 

There's a lot of measuring to be done, the only parts that are cut are the petals, nothing is final yet. The Thinking Bed will be put to use in placing the flowers because it's about a twin size. I went back to the store and broke my fast on purchasing fabric but I did buy more of the dots.  I have been kicked by THAT mule a few too many times.  I would rather have more than I need. The store still had what I wanted, I bought the last of it (2 yards) and now feel comfortable making a mistake or ending up with a pillow case for her if I have leftover.

Till then I will start prepping these after this week.  Until then, more classes at the museum. 

Sunflowers

 I had a few days off from the museum last week so spent some time organizing my brain around Adelaide's quilt.

She wants a navy polka dot background and I had collected a few yellow/orangey batiks for the sunflower petals.  

I enlarged the style of flowers she chose, labelled each flower and each petal. Then cut out each petal, again labelling everything well. She isn't going to notice the placement of each petal but I do want to remember how they fit together in the picture.  

After tracing them and cutting them out I thought I should get her opinion before proceeding.  Remember, she knows exactly what she wants and I don't want any disappointments at the end of this.

                                       I texted this photo to her and she replied, "Perfect."

                                     So now comes the part that is keeping me awake at night.  

This is an example of the arrangement she wants...not these flowers, not this pattern, not this background but this arrangement of flowers, a spray of three.  I do realize this is a copyrighted pattern and I am not using it, copying it or stealing it.  I'm just showing you an example of an arrangement of a spray of flowers she wants.

OK, that's done.  I needle turn applique by hand.  I don't used fusibles nor glue or machine applique ever.   My conundrum is how to do this without holding yardage in my hand and lap.  Right now I'm leaning toward cutting the background fabric into three large pieces that will accommodate the flowers individually and then putting them back together. But then there are the stems.  

I keep staring at this and thinking "ok, do it."  Or "ok, cut it so two flowers can be done and then a smaller piece."  Or "cut them into three large squares, applique the flowers, put them back together and then do the stems" which will be more straight line-ish stitching than the twisting and turning of the flowers. 

Usually I can fall asleep trying to solve a quilt problem and then a solution will come to me.  But this one keeps giving me options on how to handle it.  I am TERRIBLE with that adage "measure twice, cut once" because I can measure ten times, leave it for days, look at it, decide, cut and dang if it's wrong! 

Opinions? Options I don't see? Thoughts? Ideas?  

Winter

                                                          This is what winter looks like.

Every week I go to an elementary school and read to a class of first graders.  When I turned the corner down the corridor a couple of weeks ago I stopped and laughed and took this picture. 

Kids are required to wear boots, hats, mittens and snowpants.  This class just came in from recess - I think.   

There is no doubt why the lost and found is overflowing! 

We had a very nice respite from the cold this past week.  Yesterday I had a window in every room open for the fresh air and sunshine. Snow is gone, melted away.  Winter isn't through with us yet but we've seen the worst of it. 

Reality

You remember I said I don't take photos ( much) of buildings, but I couldn't resist this bookstore in Winchester.  

Amazingly, we didn't go inside.  For me, bookstores are worse than fabric stores are for you.  Definitely a rabbit hole.  

We should have gone in but we were with Brian and his daughter and SIL and truly, I would have held up the day. We didn't have much time and wanted to keep going. This was a hard pass.

Look at that little sign.  How true!  How needed! One of the things we discussed before this trip was whether or not we would admit to being Americans.  How's that for reality?  We know as soon as we open our mouth people will ask where we are from, it's obvious we aren't British.  We decided if anyone asked we would say we were Canadian. 

Well, first day someone asked if we were American.  I actually hesitated. A long hesitation. Stared at her. Sighed and said, "We aren't admitting to that (being American.)"  She smiled and said it was ok, they loved us.  I said, "uh...no you don't."  Then I assured her WE are NOT like THEM.  

Next day, another one.  By the third time I realized we were like Thomas, denying the third time.  

    As soon as people knew, though, it opened the door to them giving us their opinions and one actually, ACTUALLY asked if "he" was crazy.  "Yes," I said, "he is." 

This trip we didn't do the souvenir thing.  We are old.  We are purging what we have.  But I can't and don't resist books.  We stopped just a couple of times because I knew I'd buy and books are heavy to transport.  But these are the ones I did get.  The top two I brought from home to read on the trip.  If you haven't read Remarkably Bright Creatures, do. It took me a long time to decide to read it because I couldn't understand the premise of the octopus but the recommendation from Friend Laurie made me finally do it.  I read half on the way to London and finished it over Newfoundland on the way home.  There was NO time to read while we were there.  

Like I do when home, when I finish a book immediately after closing it I search out the next one. That was Tilt.  I'm not one for survival stories and this one is certainly How-Would-You-Survive-A-Disaster-Like-This and setting priorities and what IS a priority to you and how far could you extend yourself. We have certainly been racking up natural disasters lately so I thought this was worth the try.  We aren't inclined to earthquakes in Michigan.  This one was really, really good.  A lot of "oh,yeah, didn't think of that, I guess that would be a problem" moments because truly we just don't realize how good we have it when everything works.  And then it's gone.

 

Hampton Court

 When we travel I take photos of not normal things.  I take photos of things I want to remember but am not great on pictures of buildings.  I like the quirky things inside the buildings.  

On Wednesday of our trip we visited Hampton Court. Henry VIII's house. It's not a ruin, it's still a viable building used for events and films like Wolf Hall. As we walked we were well aware we were walking the same paths and on the same stones as Henry VIII and his retinue, beheaded wives, counselors, Elizabeth I.  This isn't the first castle we've ever visited but this one was daunting. 

Don't you sometimes wish you could give your guests a behavioral expectation when they walk in the door?  Especially those vagabonds, rascals or boys? Notice boys is in all capital letters.   It was interesting that there were a few signs of the times that specifically targeted boys. 

The Great Hall was organized for us to see that it was a place of meeting both for court but also feasts.

I thought this was a great idea for visitors.  Each place setting included an expectation of table manners of the time.  These are all true, documented expectations of guests.

Turns out things don't change much.  Must have been a boy.

This was the king's chocolate kitchen. Of course he had a chocolate kitchen.

Dare to Do

 Have you ever done something you swore you would never do?  Something you couldn't even imagine yourself doing?  No matter how hard you tried?  Ever?  I have.  And I'm putting more and more of those things on the list of dares accomplished.  

I now sit up when we drive across the Mackinac Bridge.

I went to the top of what was formerly called the Sears Building in Chicago...the one with the acrylic floor that extends out from the side of the building that you walk out onto and you are "floating" over the streets of Chicago and if you dare look down the people are the size of ants.  That one was hard.  PH wouldn't even go inside the building but waited for me on the sidewalk. That platform was so high up you couldn't see it from the street.  I told the worker in the gift shop that they should be selling clean under pants.

 I ate a roasted brussels sprout.

And in London last weekend on Robert Burns Night I ate haggis.  This one is almost on par with sitting up while driving over the Mackinac Bridge.  No, I think this is a category of its own.

All of it.  I ate all of it.  

If you know what's IN haggis you probably wouldn't eat it, either. Sometimes it's better not to read the ingredients label. But we had just arrived, were checking into the hotel and they were advertising their Burns Night dinner special.  And being in a sleep deprived travel weary jet lag fog I said, "I have to!"  So PH made reservations for that evening, Brian walked over (his building is across the street from the hotel) and we had dinner.  I ordered the four course Burns Night special and the second course was haggis. Each course had choices very Scottish but the second course was fixed. Haggis.  It tasted like the end piece of a meatloaf. It was quite good, actually. Brian and PH just kept drinking their wine and beer and shaking their heads and enjoying the fact they were NOT eating haggis. 

That list of Daring Things to Finally Do can now be wadded up and thrown away.  I've reached the top.

Liberty

Mecca.  That's what this is to a quilter.  This is the front door of Liberty of London. It was built in 1875 and that Tudor look is a standout in the neighborhood.  It's a huge place, walk down that street in front of you and it goes all the way to the next corner.  The store takes up a city block.  

This was the department I was interested in.  This is the fabric department, the fabric is iconic, the Tana Lawn feel is like running your hands through whipped cream.  They DO have 'quilting cotton' that has the more woven feel but this is beautiful.  And the prints are quite iconic.  There is variety but Liberty fabric has a 'look.'  

The floor above was featuring their Bridgerton line and to be honest I've never watched Bridgerton and wasn't interested in it so I stayed on this, their main floor for fabrics.

This isn't just for quilters, of course.  There are people out there who actually sew garments - who knew!  

I know I've been saying for months I'm done buying fabric unless it's a very special and specific project (like the kids' graduation quilts) but you don't go to London and not go to Liberty and you don't go to Liberty without buying fabric.  Not if you are a quilter, that is.  

This was my cutting table spot.  I know what I'm going to do with this and the Liberty I have at home, something very simple that lets the fabric be what it is.  And two pin cushions and a tote bag.  I'm a sucker for tote bags and this was one I wasn't going to leave behind.  Happy Birthday to me!!

No, the fabric is no less expensive there.  It's the same price as anywhere you might find it so I got some but not yardage. There might be enough here for two quilts.  We'll see!  

I can't tell you much about the rest of the store other than it is very expensive.  We walked in the door and there was a striking display of scarves that I went right to.  They were on sale for 50% off so hey, why not?  Well, at 50% off they were $225 pounds.  I ran my hand through them and took the elevator upstairs to the fabric.

Our Brian

 We just arrived home from a trip to London last night.  Over the next few days I'll elaborate a little on things but for now, the reason we went.  It's a long and special story.

In 1903 my grandpa was born here in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  When he was two years old his parents took his older brother with them when they returned to England, but left Grandpa here at a county poor farm.  They abandoned him, no sugar coating that. When he was 4 years old he was adopted and given a new name.  

When Grandpa was in his 30's he tried to find out what happened to his parents and find his brother.  He knew his birth name, his parents' names, his brother's name which is a lot of information especially before computers and the internet.

In the very early 1980's I tried to help him.  I wrote letters, made phone calls, asked any professional in the field: historians, judges, the British government, found people with his sir name who ripped pages from phone books in the London area with his sir name and mailed them to me.  When he came here for his yearly visit from California, I took him to county clerk offices, libraries near here.  We usually came up short but we did find out one thing.  I took each "no" answer as a backward "yes."  It told me, "don't look here, look somewhere else." And I'd ask more people more questions.  I even went to a psychic.

Eventually I found his brother's London birth certificate and obtained a copy.  I found his brother's school records from here in Michigan and obtained a copy.  Grandpa thought I'd found the Holy Grail.  But we couldn't find his family.

Many years later the internet had taken genealogy and simplified it.  And we who search must thank the Mormon church for sending their people out into the world to search for information and record it for the rest of us to use.   

One day maybe 15 years ago (give or take) I signed up for a two week trial of Ancestry.com. Grandpa's brother had a very distinctive middle name and if you found that, you found him.  And one day, I did.  I remember jumping up from the chair and my heart missing that beat.  There was someone out there searching, too, and our paths crossed. Finally.

That person was Brian.  

Brian's father was one of the brothers Grandpa didn't know about.  Grandpa thought he was looking for one brother.  Turned out, as time went on, there were more.  Brian is grandpa's nephew.  He figured out  we are half first cousins once removed.

Brian and I started sharing family information, sent pictures, I introduced him via email to Grandpa's son.  We shared the very extensive genealogy information he had uncovered. I found newspaper articles that confirmed family lore on his side.  He filled holes Grandpa only dreamed about.

Then one day, maybe about 8 years ago PH and I went to visit, to meet him. We immediately fell in love with Brian.  And like a bad penny we keep going back.  We immediately fell in love with him and simply want to spend time with him. 

I like to think Grandpa knows we found his family.  I'm sure of it.  We refer to him as "Our Brian" because, finally, he is.

Cold

 Really, I don't know what's worse, the heat you in Australia are dealing with or our temperatures and relentless snow.  This morning where I live the actual temperature is -18F.  That's 18 degrees BELOW zero. 

I leave you with this.  We will be busy the next several days so I won't be posting.  

We don't have penguins walking the street here but someone said it's colder here than the Antarctic so they would feel right at home.

Meijer is a grocery store.  This is just about right if we step out the door we better be ready for what's out there. 

PS, you know how I say I don't need any new hobbies?  I was sitting in the blue chair watching the birds jockey for position with the feed and I focused on the window screen and thought...."hmmm, a cross stitch grid! I could use the screen for cross stitch! "   Now, talk me out of it.

Monday

 You may have seen these photos.  If you live in the US, you have because they made national news, but if you don't live in the US, well, here's what our last few days have looked like. 

The COLD arctic air coming in from Canada over the not yet frozen Great Lakes produces this. This photo was from yesterday, Monday.  The air was arctic, the wind very strong, the snow light enough to blow around.

Even though the police, the snow plow drivers and tow truck drivers BEGGED people to either stay off the roads completely or just slow down, well, sometimes this happens.  

It took eight hours to clean this up.  The schools in the western half of Michigan were all closed so they bussed people from this mess to a nearby high school to get them out of their cars and warm, then tow truck drivers played a game of pick up sticks for eight hours untangling the mess.  In addition to the snow, it was/is brutally cold. Brutal. 

This isn't normal, this is not ABnormal. It happens more on roads in snow belts, areas where the snow just hits differently. It happens close to the lakeshore with high winds. It happens when you get high winds and snow so light it's like dust and causes white outs where you can't see past your windshield. And it happens when you insist on driving dry July road speeds.  People do. Luckily, in this, no one was killed.

We heeded the pleas and stayed home. No errand or even job is worth this. 

And More

 When we started acquiring our grands I was into making reading quilts for them.  I bought those cloth story book panels, cut them apart and put them back together sashed.  I made a lot of them when they were infants and toddlers.  

And of course, I bought some I didn't use because they outgrew the need. So here they sit. Another never. 

These WILL be donated but if any of you who live in the continental US or Canada want any of these for your grands, speak now and I will be very happy to mail them to you at my cost.  I'm sorry, Australia, but postage is nuts right now.  

These were a big hit with my grands starting when they were little and I made them as their baby/toddler quilts. I didn't do fussy because I wanted them to drag them around the house carrying their sippy cups with them.  I sashed them and quilted them.  

Now, I COULD make these into charity quilts with the fabric overload I've been whining about but I will NOT quilt them. My machine is not a fancy thing and I'd end up using the thing for dust rags if I tried.  So they would become yet another unfinished project.

I apologize for the color, really, white is white in real light.

I will wait until February 1 but after that they join the donated pile.