Quilter's Quarantine

     Like the rest of the world, we are on hiatus from contact with people.  If you gave up people for Lent, well, it was a good year to do it.  Add to that my own CDC (Center for Disease Control) lock down because we were overseas less than two weeks ago,  it makes it very difficult to do Show and Tell with a friend. 
     I was asked by my daughter-in-law to make masks for her at work.  She works in a nursing home on the other side of the state.  I tell everyone I quilt, I don't sew.  I don't have a sewer's stash of stuff...elastic, bias tape, etc.  I have fabric.  Making face masks is a busy home industry right now and not only did I not have any elastic, no one else does, either.  I had two choices.  I could either take the elastic out of my underpants or get in the car and do a porch pickup from Friend Marilyn. She had some bits, one package of elastic and one package of bias tape.  So I got in the car.  The CDC said it was ok to go for a ride, we wouldn't be with people if we were in the car.
     Marilyn told me to bring my camera. She has been using her time to make string blocks and has been working hard on it.  While mine are a hodge podge of string colors and fabrics, she was making hers color coordinated.

      This is how she showed them to me when I approached her porch for the bag of tape and elastic!
I didn't realize she did this just to show me her work, I thought she was doing this as a decor  for her door!  When I got back to my car and called her to tell her I love this as door decor she set me straight but wouldn't it make a great "curtain?"  This is a keeper!
     And another way quilters conquer their quarantine.

Sigh....

Well, if we weren't all in the same boat paddling with the same paddle I'd be nuts by now.  And we are told it's only going to get worse.  In one sense we are very lucky - we aren't sick, our family and friends aren't sick, we have food, though I'm afraid to use it with the abandon I usually do - baking, experimenting, because I can't run to the store for more supplies.  Since PH and I have been back we have been strictly quarantined because we were overseas. We have one more week to go so I haven't been to the grocery store to see the empty shelves for myself.  Our daughter is keeping us up with supplies but as PH said this morning, there are things we just reach for without thinking.

I won't bore you with the details because, as I said, we are all in the same cage singing the same song and I'm a bit tired of not only the one note news but comparing tales of woe.  If there was a vaccine we'd all get it, but there isn't, so we have to stay away from each other so the cooties can't jump.

This is the last of my travelogue, because as with all travel pictures, you just had to be there.  This, though, I think any quilter would appreciate seeing.  These are floors in a medieval building attached to a medieval church.  I can't remember exactly if they were in some official's home attached to a church, I truly can't remember.  But these floors stopped me in my tracks.  These buildings were ancient and someone was thinking "quilt!" even back then.

Don't they just make you want to get your rotary cutter out?  As I looked at them I was thinking "quilt! quilt!"  but then I thought "too much piecing, not enough applique!"


    There's been a lot of talk online about using this forced confinement to get the spring cleaning done. I mean, if you don't do it now, you sure won't want to stay in and do it when we are released.  Me? I need sunshine and a little warmer temperatures (today we woke up to a couple of inches of snow)  so I can fling open the windows and hang the curtains on the clothesline.  So, I'll wait.  But I did decide it's also a time to take on the scraps.  I have two bins of scraps that haunt me.  I can't stand that they are there nagging me.  The other day I saw a post about crumb blocks.  I also had a stack of string blocks I'd been putting off.
     So, true to scraps, I made piles of sizes and sat down with them this whole week, promising PH each day that the mess in the dining room would be done today.  And then the next day.  And the next. There was a hole in the table with more scraps coming in off the bottom as I took off the top of the pile.

    Now, these, in the spirit of crumb/string, these are  made into 10.5 inch blocks, trimmed and will be attached. No rhyme or reason to choices and since my taste runs the gamut from primitive to bright, about the only colors you won't see are teal and just a touch of orange.  There are 26 of them.  They were going to be a quilt, but again, I got tired of them so the count stays at 26.  I'm going to connect them into two rows of 13 and they will be a table runner and I won't care what spills on it.  It will be bright, colorful and lively. Good enough.
    I spent a day and a half making string blocks on the diagonal and after 24 of them, got tired of it, added them to the pile I had and moved on.  Absolutely no rhyme or reason to color choice, I chose a strip based exclusively on size. I like the string blocks that are color coordinated and planned, and I like the ones that are truly a hodge podge.  Mine are those.  They are trimmed and put away, but at least now they just need to be attached and I think there might be enough to cover the house.
     After I got tired of the string blocks I took the rest of the pieces that measured 2.25 or 2.5 inches and made scrap bindings of a color.  Browns. Whites. Blues. Reds.  My cache of scrap binding is diminishing and this restocked the bank.  I love having a container of scrappy bindings ready for anything.  

     These are going to be made into strips so there will be a scrappy piano strip border for something in the future. You can see at the very top left a piece peeking out. Not trimmed yet. And this is the last of the pile.  I promised PH I would finish it today.  I'm tired of this, too.  I need to do something else with my time that doesn't involve the sewing machine.  I do hate that thing.   OH!  And I've run out of thread!  Yeah, I know!  So last night I went rummaging through the stash of bits, bobbins, odd colors,  and thought I'd just use whatever color on whatever spool because these blocks don't follow any rules, why should the thread? At this point I 'm not fussy about thread color. 
     This isn't for everyone and this was an exercise in changing my attitude about what to keep and what to toss out when I'm making a quilt.
     I spent too much time on this. It really reminded me of helping friends with their family estate sales.  Seeing what's left after someone dies and having to sort through their stuff and the insight into their lives as we see what was deemed important enough to save and tuck away.  Many times I've said I wouldn't do that to my kids, I don't want to overhear from heaven the comments they will be making about me on that subject.  Well, wouldn't I rather leave them finished quilts than tubs of scraps? I don't care if they end up using these scrappy things on the beach or at a picnic.  I don't care if someone spills red wine on it.  Or spaghetti sauce.  Or gravy.  Maybe they'll find bits in the scraps of quilts they already cuddle up with.  It's certainly been a trip down memory lane sorting them and making them into something new now.   If there are people who unravel sweaters from thrift shops to knit into something new to them, then I can make a few nonsensical scrappy things while I'm forced to stay home.

     On a brighter note, as part of the girls' outside exercise routine, they sometimes ride their bikes down and we either talk through the front door or this day, PH was outside putzing and burning sticks and twigs so they visited with him for a bit.  Stayed their distance but had the chance to visit. 
    This is driving everyone nuts.  But I feel most for the kids.  No school, no friend contact, no hugs from grands, and it's lonely for them.  We are told that things are going to change and tighten even further today.  Sigh.  So stay safe out there, everyone.  No sense in complaining, no one wants to hear it and everyone is just as tired of this as everyone else.

Sending air hugs and hope and keep in touch with your friends and family. We all need to hear someone else's voice.

Where to start?

Where to begin?  At the beginning, at the airport, studying a map of London.  When we left on March 8 none of this stuff was happening.  No virus cases reported in Michigan, only 50 in Great Britain. We had planned this trip for many months and unlike our usual way of planning, we made and paid for many advance reservations.  If we thought for a minute civilization was going to implode we wouldn't have gone.  We really are not fools.  Our plan was for 10 days, we managed most of them.

We didn't get to any of our itinerary in London  save for one because we saved London itself for the last three days of our time there and we are now home.   What we did do was wonderful and I am not even going to disrespect that good time by listing the things we didn't get to.

While I'm not into travelogue posts I do owe what we did do it's proper  respect because it was great.

 This little pub, and the emphasis is on the word little,

 has been in continual use since 1583.  It was Dickens' pub.  Francis Bacon lived two doors down.  It was frequented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and he wrote about the area it's in,Sir Walter Raleigh sailed from the river directly outside these doors.

 But we were on a mission because what mattered to Elizabeth was this staff.   One of the pub's owners now is Ian McKellen, the British actor who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies.  This is Gandalf's staff.  Elizabeth asked us to go on a pilgrimage to see this staff in her name.  She gave us a copy of one of her books and we were to bring it with us. 

Of course Sir Ian wasn't there on a Tuesday for lunch but the employees accommodated our request and touched her book to the staff.  I am quite sure Elizabeth will build an altar for the book.

 

The next day the three of us took the Eurostar train under the channel into Belgium to visit Bruges.  It was again a gray, cold, very windy day - that seemed to be the weather the whole time we were gone but not even a gray day could hide the beauty of Bruges.  It's gorgeous and now is in a tie for our top favorite beautiful places.  

This, though, this was an absolute thrilling thing to see.  Our hotel manager told us to take a walk at night to the windmills.  At night the walk alongside the windmills is lit up and he said it was beautiful.  Well, I've never seen anything like this.  Ever.  And I couldn't believe this photo.  I took the shot with my phone and when I looked at it I was stunned so I kept taking more and more and each one was a winner.  The windmills were huge, I was at the bottom of a hill.

I think there were 4 of them...maybe 5 but it started to drizzle and it was so very cold and windy and we had a long walk back to the hotel so we saw just these two.And besides that, we were tired.  I think that was one of the days we walked 13,000 steps.

I am so glad I have these beautiful photos because I talked about them for days.

We loved Bruges but had to leave on Friday.  The train stopped in Brussels where we spent half of Friday and then returned to London.

Saturday we went to a play with Brian, his daughters and son-in-law.  When we returned from dinner everything changed.  More on that later.

Are We There Yet?

Or maybe, " Kids!! Will you hurry up already???!!"

Or maybe, "Is it summer YET??"

Or maybe,  "I hate these long lines!"

The things you see when you go for a walk!

  

 Even Santa had too much Christmas.

How do you celebrate your birthday?

Do you celebrate your birthday any darned way you want to?  It IS your day so I suppose if it falls on a weekend and it's a bright, sunny, warm-for-March Michigan day then why not spend the day having pies thrown in your face? I mean, really, why not?

 We were strolling down to James Brandess' studio for PH's final sitting.  Turning the corner we were immediately and quite excitedly invited to throw a pie into a young woman's face.  

 Now, let's get this straight right here.  I don't do things like this.  To myself or anyone else.  But the young lady was adamant that I be the first.  Just my luck to be there at that moment, I guess.
She was dressed in a bathing cap, heavy duty goggles, a rain poncho and washable clothes.  It was her birthday that day and the ONLY way she wanted to celebrate her day was to have pies thrown in her face with the throwers donating to one of two local charities.  I tried to get PH to do it.  He agreed to hold my camera and sweater but wasn't going to to the deed.   Really, this was hard for me but the recipient of the whipping cream pies was having so much fun with this I just had to go with her wishes.  As James Brandess later said, "How often do you get a chance like that?"

So.  I did it. 

  After I did the toss, the crowd came forward. The collection jar filled as the afternoon went on. A little while later I stepped out of the studio to check on her.  The throwers had begun to draw faces on the bottom of the paper plates so that when the pie was pushed against her face, the smiley face drawn on the bottom was showing. Children, adults, lots of laughter, mimosas and good feeling, music and birthday wishes on a street corner.

 Now THIS is how people OUR age celebrate their birthdays.  Friends Richard and Marilyn were sharing birthdays just two days apart and we met them after PH's sitting for dinner.  When we get together we can't talk fast enough about everything.  Sometimes we even have to tell each other "time out, it's my turn" or something like that.  Rousing talks about everything so thank goodness we are all on the same page.  This day we were placing our bets on who was going to win Super Tuesday primaries and ultimately who was going to win the election in November.

We ate our pies.

In Five Years

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

     When Dannie Kohan is interviewed for a job in the most prestigious law firm in New York, the one she planned since she was a child to work at and is asked the proverbial question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” she knew exactly how to answer. Now, Dannie is one organized young lady. She’s a corporate lawyer, living with her successful hedge fund boyfriend, she’s young, smart and driven. She is also ruled by numbers. There is a number she counts to when she wakes up but before she opens her eyes, she knows how many minutes she will use getting herself ready in the morning, walk to the subway, to work, what age she will marry, how long the engagement will be. So, this question doesn’t throw her. She knows who she will be married to, where she will be living and which partner track she will be on, at this firm, mind you. Dannie is on control of her life.

       So when Dannie falls asleep in her bed and wakes up in the morning and finds herself five years in the future but next to a strange man in a strange apartment, wearing a ring that David didn’t give to her and not knowing how she got there, well, it was disconcerting. She stayed in the future for all of an hour but it was an hour she couldn’t forget and spent the next five years looking for.

In those five years Dannie becomes engaged to her David. David, who is everything any woman would want but darned if she can commit to the wedding. She’s busy, you know? So is David. And there’s that five year date looming closer and closer.

      And there’s best friend Bella, who is so opposite Dannie, but good for her in that way. Bella never had anything from her parents her entire life but money. There was enough of that to allow Bella to live the world with boy and man friends Dannie couldn’t keep track of. But Bella kept Dannie grounded and surprisingly one day announces she is moving back to New York and settling down as a gallery owner and where Dannie can’t find time for much else, she does have time for Bella. When one of them inhaled, the other exhaled.

      And then, with that five year date getting closer Dannie meets him.

      This is a story you can race through in one sitting or savor. You can ask yourself the same question and give serious thought to your answer. You can ask a friend and spend a morning over sweets and tea discussing your answers. But I’m quite sure you won’t fall asleep in your bed at night and wake up in the morning five years later in someone else’s. Or maybe?

The Unveiling

We returned yesterday to James Brandess' studio for PH's final sitting for his portrait.  James is an artist we have admired since we saw his work well over twenty years ago. One day, eighteen years ago, doing the most daring thing we could imagine, we asked him, hat in hand, if he would consider painting the doors of our armoire.  We knew we were crazy to ask and even more, when he came to the house to see what we wanted painted and look over the setting, we were giddy surprised when he took the doors and drawers with him.  Now, 18 years later we no longer live in that house but  the armoire is something we wake up to every day, in its new home in a sunny room.  I remember when we were going to move from the area I went in to see him and tell him we were leaving.  "Are you taking the armoire with you?" he asked.  I told him it goes where we go, we treasure it.

One day last fall we were visiting his studio with friends and I was really paying attention to the portraits hung around the whole building of residents of Saugatuck, sometimes even their dogs.  I got the same crazy idea we had when we asked him to paint a piece of furniture.  I thought this could be a good way to wrap up PH's big year.  He had a big birthday, he retired and this could be a nice way to commemorate his big-year-Christmas.  He would certainly never forget it. Something once-in-a-lifetime.  Something from an artist he loves.  I knew it was something he would never guess, something one of a kind, something he would L  O  V  E. 

So. For two Sunday afternoons, tools in hand, James recreated PH as he sees him. 

James' style is very textural.  Much of these strokes are made with a knife, the paint is thick, peaked, wavy and that gives his work a depth that you just want to get your nose up to to examine but as with any painting, you have to step back.

Here he is!  The great unveiling. Finished!  PH immortalized! Several times James said he really likes this one.  PH was over the top happy.

The portrait is in drying mode for four weeks while it dries enough for framing, then we can bring it home.
    We love it!  Thank you James!