Adventures in Crafting Continue

In addition to my Gujarati embroidery class, I took a one-night class in needle felting. I'd bought the book Little Felted Animals more than a year ago, although I had no idea how to needle felt. I simply couldn't resist the adorable critters in it. 

Codi taught the class, and she had several other books, as well. I made the bird that night from the book Sweet Needle Felts (I think). Codi complimented me on how firm he/she was and you could practically hear me puff up with pride. Really, it takes so little to make me pleased with myself. (A few nights later both girls and Paul and I were g-chatting and they were all talking about the truly important things they are dealing with at work: patients with diabetes, the best ways to handle new administrative duties, the death penalty. And I was showing off felt animals.)

The next morning, fresh from my conquest of felt birds, I got up and made the mouse from Little Felted Animals. I was on a roll.  I had this idea that I'd make an animal a week and then I'd really understand how to judge the proportions and I could take off and make my own.

The polar bear was next on the roster and it was then I realized that some creatures are definitely more challenging than others. For the longest time he looked a lot like a rat and building his haunches and shoulders out took some doing.

In the end, I think he could have had longer legs, but I do like his cartoon face. This past weekend I got a start on a Jack Russell terrier, in preparation for re-creating Pearl. That lone black spot should be easy to reproduce!

In searching the web I've discovered probably the most amazing needle felted animals—somehow they have the most expressive faces, yet they're smooth and simple. They're by Victor Dubrovsky, and you can find them here.

Crafting ADHD

Yes, I'm a quilter, but I can't just leave it at that. Years ago I was a spinner and weaver, I've always been a knitter, and I love to sew all kinds of things that don't qualify as quilts. I've covered a birdbath with broken pottery, used boxes and fabric to make doll furniture, and heck, was even an elementary school art teacher for awhile, so you know I've tried every craft in the book. That's why I understood when a woman I recently met told me she had "crafting ADHD."

A couple of weeks ago I finished a big project and as a treat to myself I decided to give in to my love of all crafts and signed up for two classes at Home Ec. The first was something called Gujarati embroidery. I was a big embroidery buff during my college years (a few samples from my blue chambray "work shirt" and a patch for jeans) and keep wanting to get back to it. So, although I had no idea what Gujarati embroidery was, I decided to give it a try.

The floppy-looking framework for the embroidery at left

Turns out that Gujarati is a region of India and this embroidery hails from there. Our teacher learned it as a young girl (in 1953!) from an Indian man who stayed with her family when they lived in Costa Rica. She was a great teacher and actually gave each of us in the class a sample of the technique stitched out step-by-step on muslin. Good thing, because I certainly had to refer back to it time and again.

The back of Gujarati embroidery

The really amazing thing about this is when you turn it over and look at the back, you realize that there are very few stitches showing. You create a framework and then you weave your thread in and out to create a design. We learned two types of embroidery—one in which the motif's center is filled with thread and one in which it is empty.

Most traditional Gujarati embroidery seems to be one color, but starting with two colors helped us see where we were going. It was a fairly tricky technique to learn, but once I got the basics I could move on to the more complicated patterns. I even made a Christmas ornament using the design as it reminded me of a snowflake...will wait to show that closer to the holidays.

Filled center embroidery at left, open center at right

And as often happens, the first week I learned Gujarati embroidery I went home and read the word "Gujarati" in the book I was reading...Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. I'd had the book on my shelf since March 2009 and finally read it. Recommended—a compelling read. And I'll tell you about my other class in the next post.

Top of the morning...

I've got mixed feelings about pre-cuts. Initially I thought they limited creativity, in the same way that I sometimes think lines of fabric do—everything seems to be thought out for you and there's not a lot of challenge. But I've found that they can be just the thing to kick-start some original thinking. A while back I made a quilt with pre-cuts and it sparked my creation of a quilt without a pattern. That might not seem like much to some of you whose brains think in blocks, but I was quite pleased with myself, as that's not how my head works.

This morning I got up and started thinking about an upcoming wedding. I wanted to give something personal, but to be honest I wasn't looking to create an heirloom. I knew earth colors would appeal to the bride-to-be, and I remembered a layer cake of Deb Strain Cherish Nature fabrics I'd picked up a year or two ago. The colors and images were perfect, and so I made a simple quilt of just squares.

It turned out to be a completely satisfying way to spend a few hours. Laying the fabrics out to distribute lights and darks took nearly as long as sewing them together. Just like last weekend, I was reminded how much I enjoy being in my sewing room, listening to great Saturday programming on NPR (Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, The Splendid Table...a total treat, one right after the other), watching Pearl look out the window, listening to the rain. This top and the one I made last weekend were both speedy, but both reminded me of the pleasures of sewing, inspiring me to think about making quilts of more complexity and challenge when I have the time.

For our 25th anniversary, a former neighbor stitched for us a very simple quilt. She made it extra long so that it would cover Paul (who is 6'5"). We still use it, nearly 10 years later, and love it. I wasn't a quilter at the time, but I was so touched by the the time and thought that went into it. There is a time and place for the quilt police, and for blue-ribbon quality quilts, but I'm a true believer in every kind of sewing and quilting, even if the outcome isn't something that will wind up in the quilt history books. The pleasures of making, and giving, and hopefully of receiving, are more than enough.

Pieceful Saturday

It's been a long time since I worked on a quilt top. But Saturday Sondra and I got together to sew matching quilts for our friend Anne (STOP READING RIGHT NOW, ANNE!) who is having twin boys in October. Sondra had a baby last October and it was the first time she'd done any sewing, as well. She has a fabulous studio space in the upstairs of her house, with a view of the fields beyond and back-to-back desks where we set up our machines, spread out our fabric, and sewed, chatted, and ate the wonderful caprese pizza (with homegrown tomatoes) and brownies she'd made.

We used Carolina Patchworks Mod Pod pattern, which turned out to be speedy and satisfying. We modified it slightly to make it more appropriately baby-sized. The center blocks are Andover fat quarters in truly adorable nautical designs—bubbles, starfish and squid, life rings, and schools of fish (Snorkel by Cosmo Cricket). Sondra's were in a green colorway and mine were blue, so we choose a Valori Wells print in green and blue to go with them. We each used the same orange for the second set of vertical "frames" (originally it was going to be red, but we decided to save the red for the binding) and are very happy with the outcome.

The weather was gorgeous, so the drive up was lovely—fields starting to turn golden, monarch butterflies flitting along the highway, blue skies with puffy, white clouds—and it was great to hang out with Sondra. Since I left work I haven't seen her much and we had lots to catch up on. It's always so funny when I stop and think that Sondra is just a wee bit older than my eldest daughter, because when we're together I never notice that age difference.

Sewing was fun, but at the end of the day her adorable daughter Emily came home and happily let me hold her. Such a sweet thing. I couldn't help crawling around on the floor with her a bit before I got back in my car and headed for home.

Sewing with friends is the best!

Punching the time clock...

My Etsy story about the Bily Clock Museum went up today. Going to Spillville to do research and shoot photos for the story ended up being just one stop on a 36-hour getaway. It's kind of amazing how much you can do in such a short, in Iowa, no less. (And no, I'm not getting any kickbacks from the Iowa Tourism Bureau. But as a former Californian, I do like to let people know that there is more to Iowa than corn and pigs.)

There are trips that you take where you're in a hurry to get somewhere—most of them, to be honest—and then there are those trips where you enjoy the journey and stop to see whatever might interest you along the way. Ironic to throw adherence to a schedule to the wind when we were going to a museum dedicated to timepieces...

Cedar Rock

We stopped first at Cedar Rock, the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Quasqueton (known as Quaskie to the natives). I loved it. A very peaceful and private location with a view of the Wapsipinicon River. Wright took perfect advantage of the site and the views. This house seemed much more livable to me than many of his I've seen.

We stayed the night in Decorah, a lovely Norwegian town, at the Hotel Winneshiek and had a great dinner out-of-doors at a place our friend Sonya told us about, McCaffrey's Dolce Vita.

Parade of Nations Clock

The next morning we headed for Spillville and the clocks. The museum is small and run on a shoestring, but well worth seeing. The clocks are truly are so varied and it's wonderful to hear the chimes and music boxes and see the figures animate.

Each docent has a slightly different spin on the Bily's story—one told me that they created the clocks for the pleasure of their disabled brother and that's why so many of them sat on the floor, so that he could enjoy them from his wheelchair. Another docent told me their love of their sister was their motivation.

Bily Brothers tools and carvings

Whatever the reason, they were so committed to their work. (These are some of their tools, many of which were handmade, that are displayed in the center of the clock room at the museum.)

Pioneer History Clock

Galileo: a detail on the Parade of Nations clock

I especially loved that they put so many hours into the research for their clocks: upstairs in the museum is a quirky collection of Bily memorabilia, including their books. They had quite a wide-ranging library for men whose education ended in the fifth grade, and they used those books and daily newspapers to research the background for their clocks.

Down the street from the museum, Spillville's Catholic church has an incredible graveyard—instead of headstones, the graves are marked by metal crosses. I'm assuming this is a Czech tradition. During the 1800s, most of Spillville's residents spoke Czech, which is part of why Dvorak chose to spend a summer there. The church itself has the pipe organ that Dvorak played when he lived there.

In addition to clocks, the Bily Brothers carved two "models" which were each about four feet by two feet carvings of churches. One of them was the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa, which is 40 miles away from Spillville. Because the brothers never traveled farther than 35 miles from home, they carved it from the image on a postcard! The other model was "The Smallest Church in the World," and on our way home we passed a sign for it and couldn't resist turning off to visit. The church and the clocks were such interesting examples of what (quirky) people with a passion choose to do with their time and/or money.

Interior of Smallest Church: Note the star-painted ceiling.

Retiring minds want to know...

Quite awhile since my last post. I mentioned there'd been some changes in my household, and it's true. I was able to take early retirement from my University job of nearly 13 years to pursue freelance full time.

It was with much trepidation that I made the decision, but was extraordinarily pleased that the week before my retirement I got a wonderful assignnment that has kept me busy ever since. Just turned the last bit of it in yesterday and I'm taking a breather. Freelancing is a feast or famine business for sure, and although I've been doing it part time for five-plus years, there was always the constancy of my "day job." Now achieving balance will be the challenge. I have trouble with permitting myself to play on a day when I don't have an imminent deadline—good for my editors, not always so good for me.

My just-completed job found me writing weekends and until 10:30 p.m. many nights. Watching out for that kind of creep is critical, as is remembering some of the things I hoped to accomplish by retiring, such as making our lives more sane and having time for more creative work. Still, I sure do like to write, especially about creative people.

These photos? Just before my retirement I went to an estate sale with my neighbor Maeve. There I found "My Quilting Box" filled with hand-stitched stars. There is a sticker on the bottom from JC Penney that says it cost 29 cents, but I'm thinking that may have been stuck on later. Inside the box were a few pieces of stray fabric and a section of a newsletter called The Workbasket with a Double Wedding Ring quilt template, instructions for a crocheted Grandmother's Medallion coverlet, and tips that include "Rub a bit of furniture wax on a soft cloth and pass it lightly over the writing on the package you must take in the rain to mail. Address will not blur." and "If your sewing machine doesn't have a light, just hook the electric bed lamp over the arm of the sewing machine, and you'll never be in the dark."

The newsletter also included this tiny ad for 2 pounds of quilt pieces for $1.00 from Petelle's, 1610 S. Third, Maywood, IL. TWO POUNDS of hand-stitched stars for one dollar! Imagine what the poor women were paid who stitched them for the Petelle's.

I'm going to share this information with a new quilt historian friend and see whether she can help me learn about this—she told me that quilting kits are nothing new. I'm amazed!!!! And although I will never create the set-in seams necessary to include these stars in a quilt, I simply couldn't let it go. I think I paid about three or four dollars. Well worth it, just to sort through the fabrics in the stars.

Anyone out there have any information about this box?

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Lots of life changes in our house. But one constant remains...I have unfinished quilts in my sewing room. So, in an effort to "start my new life" (more on this later), I'm trying to finish a few of them. This one was created long ago of some Heather Bailey fabrics and an Ingrid Barlow pattern. All it needed was quilting.

I send most of my quilts to a machine quilter far more skilled than I, but figure that (as my friend Anne R. says) a baby quilt will be covered with pee and poop and spit-up and if it's not perfect, no baby is going to complain. So I attempt to hone my machine quilting skills on these. Part of my problem is that I'm not very confident and so I go for what's easy. In this case, easy seemed to be stitching-in-the-ditch around the blocks and sashing. But once I'd done that, I realized I had long unstitched sections in which the batting would inevitably shift (given that the pee and poop and spit-up would require the quilt be washed frequently). So I needed a bit more.

Filling each block with a big cheery flower and its spiral center was something I could handle and I'm pleased with the results. The simple shape didn't take hours and hours and worked well with the fabrics. But I'm still left with the block that surrounds the central square. Again, I want something that's not too labor intensive, but that will still work with the playfulness of a baby quilt. I'd love any suggestions you might have!

(And here's proof that Pearl really does love to roll around on fabric. This was her immediate response when I put the quilt on the floor to shoot photos.

Update on the changes: Rebecca and her roommate made it to NY (including navigating the New Jersey Turnpike, which Rebecca likened to the Seventh Circle of Hell) and eventually into their apt. It was not easy—the apt. wasn't ready and much tough NY talk had to ensue before the landlord made it so, but they're now ensconced in Brooklyn. And she got a job! With benefits! We are all very pleased. But I know I'm going to miss her so much. She always came for Sunday dinners and already I've thought about how empty the table will be tomorrow night.

There is another constant in my life, in addition to unfinished quilts, and that would be Paul (at left, in NY's Battery Park with a Mister Softee). Today is our (gulp) 34th anniversary! Yes, were were incredibly young when we got married, and no, life hasn't always been perfect. (As my friend Joe likes to say, "Been married 34 years—28 of the best years of my life.") But I'm so happy we're together, that we've got two wonderful daughters, and that we still make one another laugh so much. Love you, sweetie.

Truckin'

If you're traveling east on I-80 in the next couple of days, give wide berth to this Budget van, piloted by two smart and funny young women. My daughter and her roommate are moving to Brooklyn—apartment secured, with a line on some jobs but nothing sure just yet. Please keep them in your thoughts. It's a big van, a long way (1,000.1 miles, exactly) and a big change for these Iowa girls.

Pearl the Squirrel has been a bit quiet of late. Between my daughter moving and a few other significant life changes (the profile under my photo at right provides a hint), things have been unsettled. And there may not be any new posts for the next week, or so. We're also about to head east, albeit in a plane, for the wedding of the son of a dear friend—we've been buddies since we bunked together at camp at the age of 13. The timing worked out perfectly—we'll hang around for a couple of days after the wedding and get to see the girls in their new Brooklyn digs.

Will miss you lots, sweetie. Travel safely.

Stick and Poke

Between the writing and the traveling, not a lot of sewing has happened. But I have been somewhat obsessed with punchneedle (or as my daughter calls it "stick and poke," which is apparently a reference to a homemade tattoo). I first heard of punchneedle back in 2006, when I wrote all 20 quilt shop profiles for the Best of Quilt Sampler.

Time and again during interviews, shop owners told me "Punchneedle is really big!" and I nodded my head and dutifully wrote it down. But I'd never tried punchneedle myself. To be honest, I didn't really know what it was.

This past spring when Codi and I went to Quilt Market in Minneapolis, we stopped at one of my all-time favorite shops, Eagle Creek Quilt Shop in Shakopee, Minnesota. I first visited the shop when I interviewed owners Becky and Lori for Best of Quilt Sampler and I was blown away. Eagle Creek is in an old train depot and they have done a fabulous job of taking advantage of the unusual space (the train still goes by once a day). The shop is bright and the fabrics are an eclectic mix—they have lovely wools and darker colors, but loads of lighter, crisper fabrics, too. The rooms are dotted with little surprises—intricate pin cushions made by a Minnesota craftswoman, hooked rugs, wonderful quilt samples, etc. It's also the first place I found shwe-shwe, a fabric from South Africa that I've grown to love (a story for another time). And in little nooks and crannies they have punchneedle samples in frames and stitched to boxes and pillows. To be honest, many of the patterns are a bit "countrified" for my taste, but adorable nonetheless.


So while we were there in May, I mentioned to Codi that I was intrigued and she said she'd teach me. I bought the materials (realizing that here was a whole new world of obsession...gorgeous, variegated threads, many hand-dyed) and later that night in my hotel room I was punching away. (This pattern is called Soft Perch by Threads that Bind.)

This past weekend I learned at another terrific shop (Heritage Designs in Amana) that I was punching too closely, which is why I'd run out of thread. So I bought some more and I'm still finishing the flowers, edges, and putting eyes on the critters. In my overzealous punching I made the bird a bit chunky—Paul claims he thought it was a fish. But it was a soothing, mindless thing to do and I may well do it again. The only problem I can see is that you really can't watch TV while you're punching...you can only listen to TV. One false move with that hypodermic-like needle and you'd have a hole in your thigh. Stick and poke, indeed.

Quilting for Charity

My quilt guild has a devoted group of charity quilters. They make quilts for cancer patients, for young, single moms, for the domestic violence project, and for stillborn babies. At each meeting they share the quilts that people contribute and I kid you not, there are often gasps from the onlookers when they see the quilts that people make to give to people they'll likely never know. Their generosity is astounding.

So it is with the two women in my Etsy post that went up today: Victoria Findlay Wolfe and Anna Maria Horner. Both have committed themselves to making quilts for people in need, and both have taken on projects on a grand scale. With the help of their blogs they're collecting quilts (Victoria) and blocks (Anna Maria) and producing finished quilts that will warm the lives of people they've never met.

I learned of Victoria's project when I stumbled upon her blog and Anna Maria told me about her quilt project when we chatted at Spring Quilt Market. It was a treat to be able to combine the two projects and a treat that Etsy was interested in sharing their projects with their wide readership. I'm always so happy when I can do some good with my writing (which is not to say I knowingly do bad...really). But so much of the writing I do isn't directly quantifiable...that is, I can never be sure it's helping make the world a better place. Being able to share the work of Victoria (one of her quilts is above) and Anna Maria (who made the video up top, celebrating the blocks she's received thus far), who definitely ARE doing just that, makes me feel great!

Someone on Victoria's blog commented that her project reminded them of the Mother Teresa quote: "We can do no great things, only small things with great love." While I might not classify these block and quilt gatherings as small things, I know from talking to both women that they are certainly being done with great love, providing tangible evidence to people in need that  they are not alone or forgotten.