Da day in Dubuque

A visit to my aunt this weekend fell through and because Paul and I had planned to take Friday off, we decided to give ourselves a day away. (I realize there seem to some incongruities here...I whine about how much we work and then I blog about my days off, but trust me: Pictures of my laptop and phone and comments about serial commas and deadlines are not blog-worthy).

At any rate, we decided to take a day trip yesterday to Dubuque. I've lived in Iowa for more than 20 years now and still there are many in-state places I've never been. It was a pretty low-key day—partly cloudy, windy, the fields still dull—and Dubuque seemed a subdued place, as well. But it was a nice day away: we drove up through Mt. Vernon where we stopped for omelets, toast, potatoes, coffee, and the New York Times—that was a treat! Along the way we enjoyed the sights: the barn above, the house at left, with its matching miniature house out front, and St. Mary's church on the hill outside of Peosta and across the road from the New Melleray Abbey, which is run by Trappist monks who support themselves by farming and making caskets.

In Dubuque enjoyed the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and the small but sweet Cotton Cabin Quilt Shop (the front room was traditional, the back room had a nice selection of contemporary fabrics), and the sign outside this bar. Sadly, it was just too early to stop in and see Paul's Big Game Trophies in Paul's Tavern (or Paul's Tap, depending on whether you believe the sign out front or the parking sign.)

The Power of Play

That's the title of a book being discussed on our local NPR station this week. It's a theory I've always subscribed to for children: as a mom, I made sure my kids weren't overbooked with activities so that they could play without rules; as a teacher, I believed that goofing off and recess made learning possible; and as a child life specialist working with hospitalized kids, I championed the importance of play for kids living with IVs, wheelchairs, and hospital food.

If I believe in play so strongly for kids, why is it so hard for me to let loose and play? I think of this particularly in relation to sewing. I'm darned good at accomplishing tasks: thanks to my drive to completion, I don't tend to have a lot of UFOs. When I started sewing I couldn't understand how someone could accumulate a stash, because I fully intended only to buy fabric for one project at at time and to complete that project before buying fabric for the next. (I seem to have gotten over THAT silly concept.)

So perhaps there's hope that I can learn to just relax and see what happens. There's a place for patterns and buying just the right amount of fabric for that pattern. And then there's a place for messing about, for finding out where mistakes will lead you. (The Liberated House blocks were a good start.) There's also a place for finding out that particular technique doesn't appeal or a detail distracts from, rather than adds to, a design. I remind myself that sometimes it's perfectly fine to make a block that doesn't turn into an entire quilt and to occasionally let things languish.

And most of the time I'm not striving to create high art anyway, just a baby quilt that will soon be covered with drool and puke (as Anne R. likes to say). So I "made up" this very simple pattern with the Mary Englebreit Basket of Flowers Jelly Roll and Layer Cake at I got at Market in Houston. Not exactly complex, but I'm still proud I went pattern-less.

Nudity is overrated...

My doll has clothes, finally, although still no face. Many years ago I made another doll and for a number of reasons never attached the head. Perhaps this is the answer to concerns about myriad doll eyes following me around the room—no faces, no heads, no problem!

Doll clothes are definitely challenging...I'm not going to get too close to the collar, so you can't see the bits that didn't get sewn securely under the topstitching.

I also found this great embroidered towel at an antique sale yesterday. It was pouring rain and so we spent an hour or so perusing the annual Kiwanis antique sale. Didn't buy much—three jars with ground glass stoppers and the towel, for a total of $6.50. A pretty cheap way to spend a couple of hours.

The Button Lady

Writing about Fiberarts and the memories of clothing reminded me of one of my all-time favorite writing opportunities. In 1995 I was in grad school and working as an intern at The Goldfinch, a wonderful and sadly now defunct history magazine for children published by the Iowa State Historical Society. Although the publication had a tiny budget it managed to win national awards and I loved doing the research for the articles. While working on a piece about collections, I was introduced to this photo of Mamie Thimmes, a woman from Mechanicsville, Iowa, who had quite the penchant for buttons.

After the photo ran in The Goldfinch, I pitched a piece to Fiberarts and it ran in the Jan. 1996. This was in the early days of Martha Stewart, when she was introducing the glue gun to the masses (anyone remember those Martha Stewart parody magazines, Is Martha Stewart Living? One photo spread featured her in S&M-style attire, glue gun at the ready in a holster around her waist). I mention this because now Martha's all about sewing, but in those days she was into adhesives...hence the lead to my piece, which I'll reproduce below.

But first my favorite part of this story. Mamie Thimmes' daughter was still living and had Mamie's button outfit. It turns out Mamie had sewn buttons to much more than the items in the photo. Here's a picture of Deloris with an American flag Mamie created.

Visiting Deloris in the home she'd shared with Mamie was such a treat, although a bit surreal. Deloris was a very quiet woman, unused to talking with strangers. Getting her to say much at all about her mom was nearly impossible—I got a lot of my information from archived newspaper clippings.

But Deloris was quite willing to show me the button creations, and they were the most amazing things: the buttons were of every shape, size, and material imaginable. They depicted the Eiffel Tower, a floral wreath worn around the necks of winning horses at the Kentucky Derby, and pieces of fruit. The outfit weighed a ton and the corduroy onto which it was stitched was starting to tear from the weight. I tried contacting Deloris after our meeting to encourage her to donate it to the State Historical Society, but I'm afraid it was probably sold at auction and dismantled by button collectors...

Here's the copy I wrote that accompanied Mamie's photo:

If that high priestess of homeyness, Martha Stewart, provided instructions for this outfit, a glue gun would be first on the list of required materials. But in 1955 when Mamie Thimmes whipped up a simple wide-waled gold corduroy shift and began meticulously arranging her button collection on it, she attached them in the tried and true way—by hand, with a needle and off-white thread.

"It was just something she enjoyed doing," says Thimmes' daughter, Deloris, who traveled the United States with her mother in search of of old and unusual buttons. After the shift, Thimmes went on to create a button-covered hat, a shawl, shoes, an antique parasol, a fan, earrings, a bracelet, and a stuffed dog-on-wheels. She estimated that over 40,000 buttons adorn the ensemble. Thimmes modeled her weighty creation for select gatherings in her hometown of Mechanicsville, Iowa.

This fascination with buttons began when Thimmes cut one from her daughter's baby shoe in 1908 and continued until she died in 1981 at the age of 92. In between she worked in a meat-packing plant and taught Sunday school for over 50 years. But there was always time for buttons. Methodically, on winter evenings, she stitched them to pillow shams, wall hangings, a wastebasket, and an American flag. Forty years later, they are still holding strong.

I feel better about my doll...

While perusing Fiberarts magazine yesterday, a piece about and by artist Jon Coffelt caught my eye. Coffelt makes small clothes out of cast-off, regular-sized clothing. He makes them for a variety of reasons: his first piece was made when his partner got an ink stain on the pocket of a favorite shirt and he wanted to preserve it for him. He cut the pieces down, re-stitched them by hand, and presented his partner with the small shirt. It was the first of more than 350 pieces of small clothing Coffelt has since constructed. His intention is to reproduce the design and stitching details of the original pieces.

There is something so moving about this work. For many of us, fabric memories run deep. I can still find a scrap of a dress my mother sewed for me (or I for my daughers or even for myself—my 8th grade shift sewn of blue kettlecloth) and it evokes such strong feelings. The details—pintucks, French cuffs, ruffled hems—are often part of those memories as well. Coffelt worked as a clothing designer, so he's especially attuned to the nuances of clothing construction. His small clothing pieces serve many functions: to honor a loved one, to assuage grief, to store a memory. In Fiberarts he shares the process and story of recreating a blouse that belonged to a beloved grandmother. Click on his website to see a group of these pieces.

I tried to contact Coffelt to ask permission to use the image from his site but the e-mail bounced back. (The photo above is from the Fiberarts site and photo credit goes to Shawn Boley.)

The magazine says it's spring...it must be true!

Pay no attention to the icy sidewalks, the mounds of dirty snow piled along the driveway, the forecast for solid precipitation: the Spring 2009 issue of Quilts and More is hitting the newsstand. Although I've written for magazines for years I've always been a little mystified about why magazines put out their December issues in October. I'm sure it has to do with advertising and getting readers excited about the upcoming seasons and thinking about the perfect thing they'll need to buy or make.

In the case of Quilts and More, the spring issue is so welcome right now: there's a chance of snow tonight and the cover and so many of the fabrics and projects evoke sunshine and growing things. There are at least three quilts in this issue that I'd like to make.

I interviewed Lisa Shepard Stewart for the issue. Like most of us, she's smitten by fabric. In particular, she loves African fabric and has written three books of projects that use all kinds of handmade fabrics from Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Mali. And not only does she quilt—she made her own wedding dress! I think that's about the bravest (and maybe craziest) thing a person could do: the stakes seem so high it would be easy to feel intimidated. But Lisa didn't strike me as someone who would be easily cowed. Heck, she told me she'd recently made a dress to wear to a friend's party the night before the party. Lisa has a challenge going on her web site to create something using this fabric. Check out the rules at Cultured Expressions.

I recently had the fun of "meeting" Monica, the designer of the sweet little mushroom needle case on page 26 in this issue. I've enjoyed her blog for some time and she's designed lots of great things for Quilts and More (including my all-time favorite bag, Pick a Pocket, in the Fall 2008 issue) and I e-mailed her recently to say hello and ask if I can add her blog, Happy Zombie, to my "roll call" of blogs—hope to get that started next week. In addition to being an obviously fun person (who admitted she's a 12-year-old in a slightly older body) she was very generous with blogging info and even added me to her blog roll call—makes me feel like my blog is growing up—Much obliged, Monica!

Spring is (briefly) in the air!

It was in the 50s today and sunny. I walked home from work, splashing in puddles and slowly removing layers of clothing. By the time I got home, scarf, hat, coat, and gloves were gone and I walked Pearl around the block without a jacket. People were riding bikes, walking dogs and babies, smiling at one another.

No butterflies out yet, but this is one I embroidered during college. I worked as a counselor at Camp Northland for Girls on Lake Burntside near Ely, MN (where I'd also been a camper) and it was during the height of the '70s embroidery craze (it was on a par with macrame mania). I've saved this work shirt all these years: alas, my also-embroidered overalls have disappeared.

Is my face red?

Does anyone else struggle with the "legitimacy" of sewing and quilting? It may be that I'm of an age when it was considered "women's work" and therefore not valued. Actually, I'm of an age when, for awhile, crafting was considered cool (as in hippies making macramé plant hangers and patchwork granny skirts: this image is from thankyouforyoursubmission.com, originally from a 1972 book, Macramé Accessories: Patterns and Ideas for Knotting by Dona Z. Meilach). But soon after that phase came the 80s, when women en masse had their first real opportunities to don dark suits and sneakers and, briefcase in hand, march to the office every day. At that point, we knew that other women had struggled to make it possible to work in the "real" world and that we should be taking advantage of the opportunities to climb the work-world ladder. And spending time on the "womanly arts" was deemed unimportant, if not downright anti-feminist.

While I didn't follow that path exactly, I have spent the past 12 years in the working world, and much of it in an upward mode. That's changed in the last couple of years as I've discovered my true passion and pleasure—writing about textiles, textile artists, quilters, designers—and I've had the chance to do that writing, at least part time. But there's still a little corner of me that struggles with the fact that if I tell someone at a cocktail party that I write for quilt magazines I can almost see their eyes glaze over and then search the room for someone who spends their days saving lives, designing wind turbines, or juggling vast quantities of money.


All of this is to say that I somehow feel especially sheepish about a class I just took (and thoroughly enjoyed) at Home Ec. It was doll making, which might seem about as anti-feminist an activity as they come. The doll on the left above is one I've had since childhood. The doll on the right is as far as I've gotten making Louise, a pattern from Hillary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls. She has this incredibly sensible system for delivering her patterns. After I paid online, she sent me a pdf with the complete pattern, which I then could print. So clever, and it's a great pattern, to boot.

I don't have a baby (like the other women in the class) or a grandchild. I just seem to have a fondness for handmade, cloth dolls. The few I've saved from childhood all fit that description. Perhaps this is a life-long textile mania coming full circle. (I've made Paul promise to stop me if I show any signs of becoming one of those spooky adults with dolls propped on shelves and dressers in my bedroom.)

This musing was precipitated by a New Yorker cartoon about embarrassing hobbies. I can't find it online, but it's on page 27 of the Feb. 23 issue (which just arrived today and which is already old news on the New Yorker web site)!

Bound for babies

I finally finished binding the pink Sweetie Pie quilt and nearly have the thirties version finished, as well. I gave the pink one to Wendy on Saturday: she wound up being in a class with me in Home Ec on Thursday night and I knew I'd see her again yesterday when the class reconvened, so it was the perfect push to get it finished! Wendy has always been so wonderful to my daughter, Maggie, (they worked together at Prairie Lights) and I was so happy to be able to give her something for her daughter.

I got frustrated binding that quilt, however, because I kept having thread breakage—something I'd never encountered previously. Still not sure whether it was a flawed spool of thread...I use Aurifil for just about everything and love it and have never had a problem.

This does remind me of a couple more tools I find invaluable for binding quilts. Thread Heaven comes in a teeny, tiny blue cube and is a wax-like substance I use to coat the thread. It allows me to use long lengths without tangling. I also really like straw needles because they're flexible, making catching both the binding and quilt back easier. I've never been a thimble user, but I find the Nimble Thimble does the trick for me. (I couldn't find a photo of a hand model with raggedy cuticles and band aids covering the ironing burn, so I was forced to use the one below.) And everyone knows the trick of holding the binding on with hair clips as you stitch.

Finally, I keep all these binding supplies together, along with scissors and a needle threader, in an empty stationary box with a magnetic catch. That way I don't need to worry about gathering things: I can just grab the box from my sewing room when I'm ready for binding and head downstairs to the family room for conversation or TV. And the magnetic catch keeps everything from winding up on the floor when I invariably knock it off the coffee table.

Tool fool

My mom has always been a lover of gadgets. She worked for a time in a kitchen shop, and she had every kind of peeler, slicer, dicer, and trimmer known to chefs. It was great because she'd get the low-down on what really worked and then we'd sometimes get the good ones as gifts.

In the past few years she's given me a few sewing tools that she bought because she was sure she needed them. Unfortunately for her, she'd get home and already have one. Fortunately for me, I've been the beneficiary of her duplicate purchases. Most recently I got a Clover mini-iron. I used it for the first time this weekend, when I was making trees to go along with the Liberated Houses. It was really helpful to not have to jump up and down to get to my iron every time I finished a section.

There are two other tools I especially like. One is this wonderful stiletto given to me by Mel, Mary Lou, and Brenda. I have to admit when I was in Houston I thought these fancy stilettos were a bit over-the-top. I'd been using the tip of my seam ripper, which seemed to work just fine. And I kept telling myself I could always just get a plain, 'ol barbecue skewer if I needed to. But when I opened my box of Christmas goodies, one of the items was this wonderful stiletto and I have to say, that very lovely handle makes all the difference. It's so easy to hold (and so much easier to see than a plain 'ol barbecue skewer) and I never have to worry about accidentally poking a hole in something, like I do when I use my circa 1975 turquoise seam ripper.

Finally, a tool I've had since around 1990, when I took a doll-making class at New Pieces in Berkeley from Elinor Peace Bailey, is the Bow-whip. It's a really simple tool--just some tubing and skewers/sticks of three different sizes that you can use to turn tubes right side out after you sew them. Sondra was making aprons last year using that wonderful Vanilla House Four Corners apron pattern. I'd made a couple earlier and used the Bow Whip to turn the apron ties. (This is a shot of Rebecca in hers: it's on Christmas morning and she hasn't combed her hair and she'll kill me for using this...but she rarely reads Pearl the Squirrel, so I think I'm safe.)

Sondra liked the Bow Whip so much she bugged her local quilting shop, Pine Needles (a terrific shop, with lots and lots of fabric, in Cedar Rapids) and they found them. Lo and behold, nearly 20 years later, not only do they still make them (now called the Turn It All Bow Whip), but Elinor Peace Bailey endorses them right on the package!