The Sweetness

This is the story of a family.  And a war. 

Mira Kane lives with her family in Brooklyn during World War II. Her father is the owner of a successful knitting company, women’s clothing is their specialty.  Mira is eighteen and wants to be a fashion designer. 

   

 Rosha Kaninsky is her cousin, living in Vilna, when the war gets ugly for Jews in Europe.  While being rounded up by the Germans, Rosha’s father – the brother of the  Mr. Kane in Brooklyn – dares to give his daughter to the village’s Polish Catholic candlemaker.    The Kane family is told the Kaninsky’s were all murdered in the roundup of their village.   Because of this Mira’s father draws the strings around his family in Brooklyn to protect (read: smother) his family from the world.   

Mira is frustrated that she is no longer allowed to go to school to learn fashion design, works for her father at the knitting company, doing the same.  Her life is forever altered as is her young cousin’s in Vilna.  Rosha is hidden and protected during the war by the candlemaker and is the only survivor of her family.  

This is the story of those that left and those that chose to stay behind.  The story of parallel lives and contrasts. The story of riding out the storm and surviving the best way they know how.  

What’s the “sweetness?”  As the Kaninsky family is being rounded up, oblivious of where they are going and what will happen to them, the grandmother takes only a jug of water and some lemons.  Little Rosha asks her why she is carrying just that and her grandmother tells her it is “something sour to remind me of the sweetness.”    And that is the last time Rosha sees or talks to her grandmother.

Ugly duckling

I had a little orphan chair knocking around the garage for years.  Don't remember where it came from but I do have a bad habit of buying chairs.  This one went into the garage sale a couple of weeks ago and no one wanted it, even though I was practically giving things away.

One night I was surfing through Pinterest and happened on the oil cloth pages and since I love the colors of oil cloth I decided to give this little chair a second chance.

Voila!

 Ugly

Not ugly!  I bet someone would buy it now!

 

 Big winds Sunday.  All day it blew hard and when that happens the surf pounds so loud you really have a hard time hearing someone standing right next to you talk.

 Look.  No beach. Lake Michigan is the highest it's been since 1998 and with these strong winds bringing in a cold front they pounded against the bluff and the beach is gone.  This summer was a summer of very little beach, but the lake is a living thing and it will go back down.  Till then, nowhere to put a blanket.  When these winds stop there will be a little space, though. 

When it turns cold or storms or blizzards I have to have a cookie. Haven't figured out why that is but it's been that way for years and years.  So yesterday it was pecan sandies.  Basically a shortbread recipe with lots and lots (and for me, put in more lots) of pecans.

Can't show you what I'm working on, it's a secret for Christmas.  I'm not as prolific as some because I like to applique by hand and hold my quilts to the same work ethic I do for books.  One at a time.  I work on one project till it's finished (pretty much - except for the actual quilting part of some) and read one book at a time.  I figure if I split the time between lots of projects or more than one book then nothing is getting done.  If I stay with the one then the time is put toward a finish.  I can hear all of you quilters belly laughing right now.  One project at a time!!???? Is she nuts????  No, and truly, when it comes to the quilting part, since I do that by hand, too, I need to give my underneath finger time to heal from being poked so I work for awhile then move onto an applique part. When the finger heals I go back to the quilting.  But there aren't  seventy-eleven partly pieced things happening.  That just makes me break out in a rash thinking about it.

Public Service Announcement

Ok, last night I was at bee and was working on a new project.  I had drawn grid marks on white fabric with the Frixion pen.  I thought it was a marvel that the lines disappeared with heat. Yay!  But then I was informed by my fellow quilters that this pen does indeed disappear with heat, but it REAPPEARS with cold!  What???  I was drawing on stark white fabric!  Black lines are going to come back??

I fretted all the way home (30 minute drive) and decided that I was going to scrap the project and do something else.  This is a gift, by the way.  Today I was with Friend Marilyn and Friend Jan B. and as the day wore on I decided to just do the same project on a new piece of fabric and a blue pen that washes away.  Couldn't get it off my mind.  On the way home from THAT outing (90 minute drive) I decided to test all possibilities first.

I came home and got out a scrap of the piece I was working on. 

This is the piece. I marked some lines, ironed it and they disappeared.  Then I put it in the freezer.  This is how much they reappeared.  About 50% strength.  Hmmm....

This is the main piece laying on a dishtowel with the margin marks showing back up about 50%.  You can see from the grid marks just below the edge that they are darker than the margin marks.

Then I remembered one of the bumble bees saying that she used the pen on a darker piece of fabric, and the same thing happened but then she washed it and the lines turned white.   Hmmm...I'm using white.  So, I washed the pieces.  I just rubbed them under running water with my fingers.  No soap. Then I put them back into the freezer.

 You can see except for a couple of little dots on the strip they stayed out.

You can see on my main piece they also stayed out.

I don't have time tonight to redraw grid marks on the new fabric with the new pen so I have tonight to sleep on whether or not to start over anew.  But this little experiment is making me think I won't have to.

But let me tell you, I was very put out by the news this little pen is so tricky. Lots of angst going on. So I'm telling you, it's tricky.  And thank you, Barb, for letting me know this!  I would have gone on my merry way, ironed out the marks and sent it on and the recipient would have opened this gift and found black grid marks all over the place and I would have not known it because she would have been too polite to say anything and I would be mortified later when I found out that's what this pen does.  People said to just send along a note explaining.  I've never written a letter of apology and attached it to a gift.

Also, the lady at the second store said this pen was never intended for fabric, it's designed as an erasable ink pen but some quilter along the way discovered the heat treatment and applied it for quilting.  And not everyone in the shops knows what it does.  And, she said, it requires, like, freezer cold to reappear.  Yeah, but if your work is travelling in the belly of an airplane, it gets mighty cold.  

 ***************

Post Script...Epilogue...whatever you want to call "to be continued..."

I just looked again at the ironed, frozen, washed fabric with the grids.  Now that it's dry those marks still show. Faint, but they're there and wouldn't fool anybody, not on white fabric.  So, decision made.  Tomorrow I remark the new fabric with the blue washable pen and start over.  I have a couple of movies I can watch. It's supposed to rain all day. I can do this. If anyone has any quirky thoughts about the blue washables speak now or forever hold your 'piece!'

My opinion -  review of the Frixion pens?  Don't go there. Not for fabric anyway.

Dyeing for some blue

 Day three.  I realized what the weather is going to be the rest of the week and knew if I was going to try to darken yesterday's work I'd have to do it today.  I also realized I had the hard work behind me so the work table wasn't so cluttered.  The dye vat turned totally dark blue yesterday, which means it wouldn't dye.  It needs to be a yellow-green and after consulting my little book of instructions that meant just "sharpening" it with more powdered pee and a little more of the stock (in the canning jar.)  So the white bowl holds diluted powdered pee and the canning pot yesterday's left over dye pot.  I'm a pro now.  I poured some diluted powdered pee into the pot, and some stock, put the lid on and came back 15 minutes later to a yellow-green dye pot. 

 Dip the fabric in and get a teal color( blue and green makes teal.)  But you can see it changing right before your eyes.  Honestly, I pulled up a chair and just sat there and watched!  It's  magic. 

 Look at the difference between this after it's oxydized and the picture above in the teal color.  Magic.

This is dip number 8 for the navy and dip number 3 for the little piece of muslin from yesterday.

 Look at this luscious navy blue!  And the white piece is what it looked like yesterday!

The hard part is that you're not supposed to introduce oxygen into the pot.  I finally figured out to put the lid on the pot when I was going from one step to the other. But it also was contradictory because when the fabric or yarn is in the pot you are supposed to keep it gently stirred but not let any oxygen into the pot.  No bubbles so don't wring out the fabric. Don't let it drain back into the pot. It creates bubbles.  Don't put it in in a clump because bubbles will escape and get into the dye bath. Stir the fabric but not the vat ( What???). I know what I was doing wrong yesterday and tried to be gentle to the nth degree today. It's a touchy thing. Which makes it all the more magical.  How did they know thousands of years ago that this little green leaf will give off this gorgeous color but only if mixed with pee?

When I took my rubber gloves off I discovered I had a hole in the finger!   It's going to be blue for awhile.  I feel so authentic!

I know what you're thinking.  I can hear you.  "Why didn't she just get a box of RIT and in 15 minutes in the washing machine she'd be done?"

  Because.