The Fix

 I hand quilt.  How many times in 30 years have I cut a thread?  A million?  How many times have I 'slipped' and nicked the appliqued piece?  None, until day before yesterday.  Why couldn't the nick have happened before the whole quilt was layered and basted? 

After giving some thought to what I was going to do and even if I was going to send it out to be machine quilted, I started by outlining each petal.  Then...nick.  No excuses other than I was tired.  So. Stare at it for a day and think what would be involved to fix it.  It wasn't more than a couple of threads but you can't feed a washing machine a weak spot. (The quilting looks kind of clunky here but it isn't in person.)

A bee!  Bees love sunflowers as much as Adelaide does!  I like bees!  I have some fabric with nice bees on it!  Applique a bee over the nick!  It worked.

My reading days at school are over.  The teacher whose class I read to for years retired and rather than find another teacher, she said she wants to do what I did with her grandchildren's classrooms - follow them through as they progress through the building.  Good for her! It was a good ride but it was time to move on to something new.

Before covid my daughter had a program at the museum for tots.  Once a month young moms could bring the littles for a crafty morning. Daughter had in the back of her mind to reinstate that.  I had put the notion in her head of including an appropriate to history story to school groups that come.  We put the two different thoughts together and came up with reinstating the tots craft morning with a story or two.  I told her I'd run it.  

We will start in October.  October is pumpkin time (do you remember our conversations last fall about the difference between what you call a pumpkin and what we call a pumpkin?)  Since our craft morning will be in the very beginning of the month and the holidays are at the end of the month and these littles don't have a sense of time yet I decided to go with pumpkins but not Halloween. 

These are the books I chose and the craft.  Two books, one craft, coloring the pumpkin (which won't have staples) and making a stick puppet.  But you can't do the beloved rhyme Five Little Pumpkins without finger puppets so I made some and got a little carried away.  They are primitive, but so are pumpkins that are carved by a 3 year old.   We are reinstating a program that was stopped six years ago so till word gets out there may be one child or ten. Plenty of pumpkin finger puppets to hand out.

Once I get the flow of working with 2-4 year olds under my belt I will have a better idea of what crafty thing works. I am not even considering this will go smoothly. But all kids like a story and choosing which ones to read will be the hard part.  There are too many good ones and not enough time.

Ginger

 

This time of year absolutely everything is flavored pumpkin.  There isn't a choice, it's everywhere.  We had this discussion last year so I won't repeat myself here.

While I enjoy a piece of pumpkin bread or a muffin I don't love it enough to have it flavor everything in my life. I don't even like pumpkin pie.

What I do start thinking of this time of year is gingerbread.  Those deep, rich, sticky flavors of gingerbread are my thing.

Ginger is very hot - like peppery hot - and if you use a lot of it in something you can set your tongue to tingling. But I always say, "if you can't taste it, why eat it?"

I bought this book.  Luckily the people I know, know me well and gift me with gift cards to bookstores so I can shop and indulge myself when I see something I want.  Usually if I buy a cookbook I have to look at it in the store to make sure there's more than one or two things inside I'd be interested in. Then when I bring it home I read it carefully.  This book had lots of goodies. 

The first thing I made was this.  It's stem ginger and even though I made it, I still don't know what it is or how to use it but the house sure smells good.

The recipe was confusing only in the size to cut the ginger.  I ended up chopping it into small pieces while the sugar syrup was cooking down.  One of the recipes called for using two ginger balls but there was no talk of balls in the recipe.   I'm not worried.  I improvise more than I follow directions.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.  And yes, she has recipes in the book using it. 

And isn't this pretty?  Peaches are a luxury this year.  A late hard frost took all of the peach crop in our area so if you want them you have to search farther afield and pay dearly for them. Well, it isn't summer without a peach and I made this crisp to take to friends for a fun day.

Three Tables

 

It took three tables pushed together to get this completely flat for basting.  Actually, that was a nice surprise.  In the past I put PH's puzzle table and the dining room table together but I really, really needed this quilt completely on a surface, no fiddling with "almost."  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the accent table next to the window.  I put it in place and it was exactly the right height, size and boy was I happy.

I really needed this taut, lined up, and still.  

I figured out by chance that I could cut just an inch or so off the sides of the back fabric and it would fit exactly the dotted fabric on the front for size.  So I measured and measured and waited a few days so I could look at it, circle in, wait for the attack. 

Finally, I cut the yellow over size for overhang on the edges.  And this is where it needed to work. I wanted to match corner seams on both front and back, run my fingers along the seams and pin to match. I pinned and pinned but didn't have enough safety pins because my stash of safety pins for basting are holding three other quilts in the que.

    Then I thread basted.   And it's ready.

The Back

 Next stage: the back.  Adelaide chose this beauty from my stash.  It's been hiding in there for years. I always loved it too much to cut into it so it works here for sure. And it gets to stay whole.

Problems. There isn't quite enough.  I don't have a designated sewing room/studio to lay out a quilt. I don't get down on my knees anymore...not if I want to get back up...so the floor as a working space doesn't work. If I lay it out on a bed it never lays flat enough to get a good measure if a good measure is what I need. When I was working I used the tables in the library. When I stitched with a small group in town I could arrive early and use those tables. So I commandeer the not-big-enough dining room table and PH puts his true Patient Husband hat on and doesn't complain.

The thing is, this back needs a border to extend the edges to fit. This is where the panic sets in. This is why I buy way more than I will need. I know me and I know I will fudge this somehow so I need extra in house.  I need to cut enough so the borders are even all around but if you look closely the sides don't need as much as the ends.

So it sits. Waiting. Someday I'll be brave and get the thing cut. Maybe this weekend.

Those of you who have a whole room with actual room to do your stuff?  Lucky you!

Fibers

 

Yesterday Friend Laurie and I made our annual pilgrimage to FiberFest.  FiberFest is the most tactile experience!  It's held at a fairground so the exhibition buildings are where the vendors set up and classes take place.  I've never taken a class, I go to run my hands through the yarns and fleece and sometimes we go to the animal pens and get blatted and bleated at. 

This time we were both tired from a busy, busy week and Laurie was preparing for another busy week coming up but we didn't want to let the weekend go by without at least trying.  I had one thing I wanted to look for - usually I have one thing I want to look for, it gives the sauntering through hot exhibition buildings a purpose.  Every year I'm looking for something different.

This year it was a nalbinding needle, maybe a book, but hopefully maybe talking to a vendor and seeing it done.  Nalbinding is ancient.  Older than knitting and crochet. There are discovered pieces dating back to 6,500 BCE. Some pieces attributed to both Denmark and Judea.  It's a single needle and a looping technique and you use short lengths of yarn, not single long lengths like in knitting or crochet.           

 Of course I want to try it. 

I did my research, looked up the possibility someone would have nalbinding supplies because if FiberFest didn't have it then who would?  I am a "show me, don't tell me" learner. I have to see it done then can do it myself. I didn't want to learn from pictures in a book, I need to SEE someone doing it, ask questions.  

 In the program online I found a booth, wrote the number down.  We headed for that first.   The woman at the booth said they don't have them, never did, and the people who make up the maps and brochures and lists never get it right.  Sigh. We moved on, headed for a booth I felt sure would have the needles and yes, they did.  This booth rarely disappoints.  But while they had the needles, I had only to choose which pretty felt nicest, they didn't know how to use the needles except to make fishing nets.  The woman suggested YouTube.  I don't know why I never think of YouTube first, always last.   I bought the needle, have yarn at home and checked YouTube and yes, indeed, when I'm ready to listen and learn there are options. 

We had to stop for lunch.  We always stop at the barbecue booth because these guys know how to do it.  I usually get their baked beans because they do them like I do, all gussied up, not just dumped out of a can and warmed up.  Well, this time we both opted for what they called "cow pie."  A way too generous serving of macaroni and cheese topped with barbecue.  Not one darned thing healthy about it but it sure was good! 

While we were eating in this covered area we saw this yurt.  Unfortunately, while we were eating the woman who made it took a break and we missed talking to her.  But here are some photos.

It really was incredible.  This felted wool was VERY thick and held on with woolen cords. You can see to the left where one sheet of felt was overlap seamed and held with the cord.

But the inside! While the yurt is portable, it's not easy or quick.  Just gorgeous.

Along with the nalbinding needle I did get a birthday gift for Adelaide and yet another tote bag.  It's huge. If you knit, crochet, spin, weave, dye, felt or make baskets, FiberFest is irresistible. 

Well, She Was Right

 She knew what she wanted, she took images from three different ideas, combined them and here we are.

I have to say, the border makes it.  I really wasn't sure at first but I used all of the colors in the flowers and the leaves - and then some - and just finished attaching the border.  I sent her a photo and she said it's perfect.  

Now to figure out how to quilt it.  I'll do it by hand instead of sending it out.  I'm a fan of cross-hatch quilting because I think it looks clean and keeps the spacing the same throughout.  Till I get the batting and figure out a back it's folded and waits.  She did choose a backing out of my stash but it won't be enough so will have to be pieced. 

Nap. 

Sunflower Journey

 After being gone for a couple of weeks and not stitching at all the week before we left, it took a little talking to myself to get back in the groove.  But get into the groove I must because there is still so much to be done.

I had made a pile of border pieces using all of the yellows in the sunflowers and many of the smaller pieces of greens that I had that were in the stems and leaves.  

The weather was rainy a couple of days this week so I had permission (from the weather) to start connecting and here we are.  Now I'm a little nervous but I will endure and it will fit and Adelaide approves. 

Understanding

One of the places PH and I revisited on our trip to Virginia was Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson was a strange man.  He is mostly known by most people as the author of our Declaration of Independence and yes, he did do that but it was just a task of a few days.  

In reality, he was an observer and thus an inventor, a statesman, a farmer at heart and in order to have the life he lived, he was a slave owner.  

People don't like to think of that.  After all, he did say "all men are created equal" and pontificated that owning slaves was completely and totally wrong.  Yet he had oh, so many slaves of his own.  

For a couple hundred years that part was glossed over.  Even though his slaves dug by the shovelful the top off the mountain his home sits on.  If you are there you can see it clearly.  His slaves built this house, you can see hand prints in some bricks.  They tended his gardens, cooked his food, gave birth to some of his children. Only in the past few years have the interpreters started to mention the slaves.

and while Mr. Jefferson lived like this

His slaves lived like this.  And oh, my, this is all cleaned up for company.  The floor is still dirt. The archaeologists believe these 'nicer' cabins housed the Hemings family.  They are closer to the house and larger and Sally was 'special' to Mr. Jefferson.

Colonial Williamsburg has people who they call the Nation Builders, the early residents who were all part of the movement for independence from Britain are interpreted by these people.  George Washington (young and old) Martha Washington, Patrick Henry (young and old), Lafayette, Rochambeau, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson (young and old), Mrs. Vobe, and a few I can't think of at this moment.  We loved their programs and went to all of them. 

This is the man who assumes the identity of Thomas Jefferson after he retired to Monticello (he started out at Colonial Williamsburg for many, years but ten years ago went to Monticello and left the younger TJ at CW.  This man has been Jefferson for over 30 years.  The Nation Builders give a talk and then take questions.  They know absolutely everything about the person they portray, the times they lived in and  you can't trip them up. Many have tried.  We've watched it happen. 

This TJ has had to answer many slave questions lately and he claims it boils down to Virginia law at the time. He claims the slaves COULDN'T be freed because under Virginia law they were property, just like your dishes and pillows, and as such had to be inventoried and accounted for to the state and none of these people had the money to pay the state for the value of their slaves.  In essence TJ died deep in debt.  Washington had no money.  And besides, Washington's slaves didn't belong to him, they belonged to Martha. 

When we try to reason with a 20th century mind we have to remember when talking to these people they are interpreting the 18th century and what was legal then.  Moral is a whole other matter.

I am trying to learn.  I'll never understand but I'm trying to learn.  When we go into a gift shop I go straight past the mugs and t-shirts for the bookshelves.  
 

Travel Stitching

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We're Back!

 We've been gone for two whole weeks but now we're home and so glad to be here.  I love travelling and seeing new places and trying new things and learning what I can learn but oh, I do love being home.  PH always says "three days out and you're ready to go home" and he's right. I like home.  My people are here, my books are here, my stuff is where I put it.  

This was a good trip - again, we took our grand daughter to Williamsburg, Virginia.  Well, actually, she was closer to Yorktown on a peninsula, digging in dirt, which is what archaeologists do.  PH and I stayed in Williamsburg and enjoyed Colonial Williamsburg again this year.  

There is so much to see and do and learn and even though we were there for two weeks last summer we hardly did the same things this year.

I took a lot of pictures but my photos are usually a little weird.  Not many buildings - just two, actually. This year I focused on taking photos from the outside of a window in.  I like how they turned out. 

We won't bother you or bore you with miles of scrolling, but I will do a few now and then.  

This is the master tailor for Colonial Williamsburg (CW).  As all the trades people, he actually makes the clothes the people wear.  He also made a replica of the coat George Washington wore at his inauguration.  Don't we all look for good light to sew by? 

His tools

                    

The milliner makes dresses, etc. for the women of the village.  She saw me and smiled.

Sobering

 On Wednesday, July 8 at 6 pm museums across America held a reading of the Declaration of Independence. All at the same time on the same day, large or small.  And our museum was part of the event.

Our museum has new travelling sign boards displaying what happened historically nationally after we declared our independence.  The national events were on the top row and Lowell's history in perspective on the bottom rows. 

This sign board explains why there is a Lowell.  We had here, in this area, in the confluence of the Flat and Grand Rivers the largest concentration of ermine in Michigan at the time.  When you see a royal wearing a robe with those black spots?  Those are ermine hides, the black tipped tail was what the royals wanted and likely came from here.  

That cabin in the photo?  It's the only drawing that exists of the first fur trade cabin in the area.  

            A replica was built a few years ago near the best guess spot where the original once stood.  

Our daughter stood on the porch of the museum, originally a home built in 1873, and explained to the gathering about the combined meeting all across the country and specifically Michigan, for the reading of the Declaration.

We had a respectable group come to hear.  It was church quiet. 

And the Declaration was read. 

I must say here, being political for just a moment, that this was the first time I've ever heard the entire Declaration read or read it myself.  We all grow up knowing what it meant but how many of us actually read it word for word?  We grow up thinking the document was the end of our affiliation with England but it was only the start.  I used to tell the kids at school,  "No, no, no. The Declaration was a letter we sent to King George saying, DECLARING we're done being your colony. George replied, "Um, I don't think so." Then there were eight years of war to prove our point and then the work began to actually DO what we wanted.  And we had to work hard for that.   

I sat there listening and was aghast at the similarities to today, the accusations against King George III, the reasons for our turning away from his rule, the call to do so, the obligation to do so.  I kept nudging PH as point by point was read of his 'crimes' against us.  

Remember the term historically used to describe King George?  The Madness of King George?  Well, here we are.  

Peas 'n' Berries

 

It's that time of year - it seems everything comes ripe at the same time.  Strawberries are done but blueberries, cherries, black and red raspberries, are leading the way now.  Corn is very tall so will be early.

Oh, and peas.  Friday we went to the pea patch for a supply.  We get a bag like this for ourselves and one for our sin-in-law who eats them raw out of a bowl like peanuts, and we gave a bag to PH's brother.

People line up, cars line up, it's a very busy place and they run out every day. You have to be there early. No, we don't pick them ourselves, they have a machine to do it and shell them. 

I wish I liked peas.

This is a labor of love.  Picking black raspberries can be considered a chore if you didn't love the berries so much.  PH won't pass by a wild patch along the side of the road but lucky for us a friend has a huge yard, lots of it wild and in that wild are a bazillion black raspberries. You just have to go get them. We had good rain this spring and the heat we've been enduring is only ripening them quickly.

Even if it's brutally hot like we've had last week, he's out there picking along the side of the road.  And then Friend Don said, "they're ready!" 

                 

So we went.  If you do this you have to want them.  We crawl through the brambles, thick with scrub weeds and berry vines, spider webs and mosquitoes.  No pain, no gain.

                           There will be many more this week as these ripen and PH will be out there. 

I need enough for two pies in January and this morning we picked 3.6 pounds.  Plenty for the pies but there are so many more berries maybe a batch of jam will materialize, too. 

THIS is summer.

Here's a sample example of the border Adelaide chose for her quilt.  I've laid it out here as a preview. I'm using all of the yellow and green batiks so there's variety and the little bar in the middle is the dots. I like it! 

Busy Camp Day

 Before I begin with this post's subject I have to ask.  Ceci is thinking of her quilt because I told her to begin thinking while I'm working on Adelaide's.  While she was here over the weekend she talked about some of the things she would like.  Turns out while she is thinking of the images she is also certain in requesting some of the fabrics she had in her previous quilts, starting with the one I made when she was born.  I gulped.  

Her job will be to get pictures to me of the fabrics she wants and then I have to see if I can find them - I thought almost certainly they won't be in my stash anymore as scraps and if they are they will be just that...scraps.  I did find a few.  Can't believe it!

So.  My question to you is how do I search out fabrics that could be 15 years old?  I told her I'd do what I could but no promises and some might just have to be close but not the actual.  Any ideas?  Websites? 

Today was the Lowell Museum's day camp  for kids.  We had a good size group and we kept them very busy.  They chose what they wanted to do from a list of activities.

Friend Laurie and I brainstormed for months about ours.  We were going to sew a first flag of the colonies, mostly referred to at the Betsy Ross flag.  Over the months we thought of every twist and turn we could imagine.  Our ideas morphed and simplified and finally given we would have the kids for a little over an hour, came up with felt.  

We tested our idea on three kids we knew who were of the age.  We tweaked even more, taking away the concept of the kids placing the stripes with US placing the stripes and dotting a bit of glue on the ends so they stayed in place for the sewing.  Wrong.  Glue doesn't hold felt, it sinks in and forms a glob that dries like cement and no needle would go through no matter how hard I tried.  

I started over and basted the strips at the beginning and the end of each stripe and that worked.

Before

During

Our job was to tie knots and thread needles. The kids were really into the project and SO proud of themselves when they finished!

First group we had nine kids, second group we had six.  The second group was mostly boys and they did the best stitching!

I loved their concentration.  Definitely used the stitch and stab method.

One girl made me laugh with her sewing the tablecloth to her piece.  She lifted it up and up came the table covering.  I told her I did the same thing when I was putting the basting stitched in the beginning and end of the rows because the piece was laying flat and caught the bottom.

I didn't get to see all of the projects but this one was printing with invisible ink like the spies did.

We had a lesson in soldiering

And there was a project of plate painting.  

There was tin can punching (Paul Revere's lantern) and beading a flag and stamping and writing with a quill and string art and designing a boat that would float. I didn't get pictures of those activities because Laurie and I had our hands full with our group.  

Each summer the day camp is a lot of fun but this one was particularly so.