Aarrgghh, yet another space heater that I like to use in
some of the cold little corners of my sewing rooms has bitten the dust. The pellet stove is working, but the heat isn’t
reaching this spot at the far end of my cutting table.
Tabby just came begging for
the soft food he gets because of his lack of teeth, and now I’m safeguarding
him from the other two in-house vultures, Teensy and Kitty. Kitty, nearly
blind, comes marching along, following her nose, and blunders right into
Tabby. She’ll just bulldoze him out of the way and take over the dish, if
I don’t move her back a ways. Once I do,
she reluctantly sits and waits (usually) until I move her forward again and
allow her to clean up what Tabby left behind. Teensy’s a polite gentleman
(if he thinks I’m watching), and waits until told he can move in.
And now my stomach is
growling, and it occurs to me that I forgot to eat breakfast. So I shall
eat, wash another load of clothes, finish this letter, and get back to the
sewing machine. I wonder if anybody ever reads all my drivel?
I wish I
had as much energy as I had 20-30 years ago.
I remember days when I’d stand at the kitchen table cutting Easter
clothes for all the children – 15, 16,
17 hours at a time (with breaks for meals, feeding the baby, reading a story to
the kids)... There are three services on
Easter... the children needed new clothes anyway... so I often made each of
them three sets of clothes. I’d have all
sorts of fun pulling my fabric from the closet... putting together pieces that
coordinated... finding patterns in all the right sizes... I didn’t follow patterns closely, but needed
to at least have a starting point, with bodices, for instance. I enjoyed that, but ... making quilts and
small projects for gifts is a whole lot more relaxing.
A friend
was remarking on some one-way prints she’d used for a quilt. Ah, those directional prints! They’ve foiled me more than once. I made a western shirt for Nathanael when he
was about 4. The fabric was printed with
vehicles – and when I was done, the vehicles were upside down. I had barely enough fabric to eke out another
shirt – right side up, this time. Then,
just for the fun of it, I gave him both.
Hannah said that some days
he would announce, “I feel like an upside-down day!” – because he wanted to
wear the shirt with the upside-down vehicles.
“Fact is,” she said, “he likes that one better, because when he looks down at it, the vehicles are right
side up, to him!”
And then there was Larry’s
Fourth-of-July shirt, with a small flag print on the left front, a coordinating
large flag print on the right, and contrasting fabrics on the sleeves, yokes,
and plackets.
The small flag print wound
up upside down.
I didn’t even notice –Caleb
spotted it just as we were heading out the door to our church picnic.
Later that day, Larry got
the following email from Bobby:
Subject:
RE: Larry’s shirt
To whom it may
concern: According to international
standards of flag-flying etiquette, the American flag, when flown upside-down
(that is, with the stars in the bottom left-hand corner) is universally
recognized as a symbol of distress. To
prevent all and sundry from rushing up and attempting to render first aid or
other assistance, I recommend that Larry stand on his head whenever he wears
that shirt in future.
We have a funny son-in-law.
We used to have a big
Siberian husky. She adored the snow. She’d run pell-mell through it
with her nose in it, making like a snowplow. Scuffed up her poor nosey
enough times that finally there was a permanent pink spot on the tip.
We got a harness for her,
and hitched her to the children’s sled. Oohhh, she loved that! Up
would go her big plume of a tail, her ears would stand at attention, and when
we’d give the command, “Go!” she’d prance off with pomp, mouth open in a big
doggy laugh.
Once or twice, she brought us
her harness in the heat of summer, dropped it at our feet, backed up, and ‘grinned’
at us, wagging slowly, coaxing...
Larry once hooked her
harness to the children’s big farm wagon, and let Aleutia pull that.
We tried to keep her going slow enough that the wagon wouldn’t tip over if she
rounded a corner too sharply. Fortunately, the time or two it happened,
the kiddos dumped into the soft grass, laughing... Aleutia would hurry
back to them, dragging the tipped wagon with no undue exertion, and sniff
around to make sure ‘her’ kids were okay, then wag happily when we’d right the
wagon and they’d climb back in.
What a dog.
Because
there is a lining behind the ribbon embroidered pieces, and because I used two
layers of batting in both the front and the back, and because the binding of
the top is sewn into the binding of the back on each side, there are places
where my machine was sewing through 20 layers of fabric/bat-ting as I was
putting on the binding (I used a decorative feather stitch). But it never
missed a beat; it went smoothly along like a well-seasoned trouper. Now
that’s some machine.
The
scissors holder is for Hannah; her birthday is the 28th.
I did the
ribbon embroidery on a second case Wednesday, making several different flowers
just for the fun of it. On Pinterest,
there are photos of some of the most beautiful ribbon embroidery... there are scenery photos done with silk ribbon...
bouquets that absolutely look real...
This is the first time I’ve done ribbon embroidery (started with Emma’s
bag), and it certainly is fun to do.
The supplies I used were minimal, but I spent
a good 20 hours on that thing, partly because I’m just learning to do ribbon
embroidery.
In order to start, I laid
in supplies of four sizes of silk ribbon (that stuff is pricey) – I get all
white, then use silk ink on it after the flowers are made. The ribbon was
$43.36. The silk ink is Letraset ProMarkers – a set of 24, for (eeeeeek)
$62.96. I bought a bunch of glass beads... probably spent almost $50
(!). Chenille and beading needles, $5. Mini hair straightener (to ‘iron’
the ribbon), $10.92. Pricey little
craftwork hobby! – but these supplies will make many, many gifts.
I like doing it. It turns out looking pretty, and makes a nice
gift. So, if I make enough things, all that money spent will be to good
purpose. If I’m buying a ready-made gift for one of the family, I’ll
spend $30-50 – sometimes up to $100, if I find something I just can’t resist,
and know they’ll like it. So, if you look at it that way, these supplies
will be worth the initial expenditure.
See the kaleidoscope block
in the center of the scissors holder? I
used the ‘stack ’n whack’ method to cut identical pieces from a stack of four
thicknesses of fabric. There are youtube
videos that explain stack ’n whack, and the resulting kaleidoscope blocks. I have a couple of books on the subject,
including one so detailed and intricate that it makes my eyeballs spin in their
sockets every time I open the cover.
Here’s one: Kaleidoscopes and Quilts Paperback, by Paula Nadelstern.
The lady has created some
phenomenal kaleidoscope quilts. Her
designs have been incorporated into all sorts of industrial products, including
the vast carpet in the Hilton Americas Hotel in Houston, Texas. Here’s her website: Paula
Nadelstern
That hotel carpet, by the
way, was fabricated and installed without her knowledge. Friends attending the Houston Quilt Market
and staying at the newly-finished hotel spotted it, recognized it, and let her
know. She sued. The defendants responded that because Paula
had used third-party fabric purchased from fabric stores, and the fabrics were
protected by copyright by their manufacturers, her “derivative works” were not
eligible for copyright in her book.
Further, the defendants claimed that Nadelstern herself committed fraud
by applying for a copyright for the book by “intentionally failing to disclose”
to the U. S. Copyright Office that the quilts contained third-party
fabrics.
How do ya like that?!
They did amend that response,
and tried to shift all responsibility to the interior design firm that
commissioned the carpet.
Until I find out the
results of the trial that was scheduled for June 11, 2007, we must all gather
up our respective stashes and hide them in padlocked boxes to avoid the risk of
getting sued for fraud. For heaven’s sake, don’t cut and sew with any of it!!!
Go buy a loom! You’ll have to
weave yer fabric yerselves.
Hmmm...
Okay, I think we can all go
on sewing with ‘third-party fabrics.’
The scare is over.
Wednesday afternoon, it finally made it up to 18° (wind chill at
1°). Heat wave, heat wave!
I meant to be doing the ribbon embroidery for the second scissors holder...
but the rickety cardboard holder that my embroidery/chenille/beading needles
came in was causing an aggravation, sooo...
I started making myself a needlebook.
Of course, I can’t just make a simple
one, oh noooo. I have dozens of tiny
squares left over from the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt, so . . . I decided a mini
Irish Chain block would fit the bill for the front cover.
Upon
learning what I was doing late that afternoon, a friend wrote, “Anyone ever
tell you, you are an overachiever?”
I replied:
Ha! That is, ...
ahem.
At the moment, I’m more of
an ‘over-smeller.’
Because...
♫ ♪ All on a ♫ ♪ Wednesday Night ♫ ♪ (to the tune of Miss
Fitzsimmons)
I’m
downstairs sewing. I’m ready for church. Victoria’s upstairs
getting ready. Larry just got home from work. He’s supposedly
warming up something to eat, including some mashed potatoes Victoria made
earlier.
Suddenly,
the house reeks. I mean, there are steam marks rising from
it, just like in the funnies. My sewing
room stinks. My quilting room stinks. The whole world
stinks! And what does it stink of??
Apple cider vinegar, that’s what.
I
gallop up the stairs to see what has happened, thinking Larry must’ve spilt
that big jug Victoria got for cleaning.
No,
he didn’t spill it.
He
poured it, on purpose, into a skillet in which he is cooking a chicken
breast fillet!!!!!!!!!!
What
on earth.
I
try to convince him that he should quickly pour it out, rinse off the
fillet, and start over. No, he doesn’t want to. He wants to find
out what it’s going to taste like.
I
cough and splutter, “You can’t smell what it’s going to taste
like??!!”
He
laughs. He laughs! How could anyone laugh, over a
stench like that?!
I
escape back to my sewing room – but it’s no escape. The place reeks.
It reeks!!!!!!!
Oh,
what shall I do with him???
And
what if we go to church, smelling like this?!! I smelled good, just 15 minutes
ago!!!!
I doggedly keep trying to
sew...
Another friend wrote, “I’d
make him eat every last bit of it.”
“Haha! I’ll do that,” I replied, and signed my
name,
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn,
wielding a rotary cutter and a big ladle
,,,>^..^<,,,
But, when I went back
upstairs, I discovered ... he’d eaten it! He said it wasn’t as bad as it
smelled. But... I’ll betcha he won’t do it again.
Victoria came downstairs
and went through great descriptions and pantomimes and dramatics explaining how
the odor awoke her from her nap (while her father laughed). I should’ve videotaped
all that.
I thought that, when I got
to church, if I noticed any unsavory aromas, I could sniff, look stealthily
around, and whisper urgently, “What is that smell?!”
We had visiting
missionaries to the Yucatan Peninsula visiting for a week – a man, his wife,
and seven children, Bro. Bert Craft and family. What a lovely family they
are. We’ve discovered a few connections
we didn’t know we had – such as, he got his six-door pickup from the same Christian
man in Oklahoma from whom Larry got some of the parts and pieces with which he
made our six-door pickup, about 15 years ago. And then we
discovered that a nice Christian family in Indiana, the Williams, to whom we
delivered a large van that Larry had rebuilt – was Mrs. Craft’s parents!!
Small world.
Bro. Craft laughingly
remarked, “If I stay here any longer, I’m liable to discover I’m kin with someone here!”
He preached at each of our
services last Sunday. Wednesday night the family sang together while Mrs.
Craft played the piano. Their six-door pickup has been causing them
troubles; it had many, many miles on it. So our church found a Suburban
for them. Before they accepted it, they made
sure it didn’t look like anything one of the Mexican drug cartels might use. After seeing pictures of it, they drove their
pickup all the way here (with a breakdown on the way) for their first visit and
to get the Suburban. Some friends of
ours will sell the pickup for them and send them the money. Thursday, they headed home with the Suburban. They have a long and somewhat dangerous
journey back home. We had a short prayer
meeting at church Wednesday night, and, among other things, prayed for their
safe travels home.
That day, Larry put fenders
on the Craft’s cargo trailer so it wouldn’t throw up rocks and possibly break
out a rear window in the Suburban. In the area where they live, there are
no parts houses for hundreds of miles – and one is not assured honest service
when one gets there. In the areas where they live, they’ve been
assaulted... yelled at... had liquid thrown on them (while the assaulters told
them it was gasoline, and threatened to light them on fire)... But every
now and then, people turn to the Lord – and that makes it all worthwhile. They continue doing their best to help those around them. Eleven years
ago, they had a four-month-old baby girl who died (SIDS, I think). She
was a beautiful, chubby, happy baby... it was a sad time for them.
Victoria stayed late at the church Sunday night and Wednesday
night, visiting with the Craft girls.
She’s a bit shy, especially in a group of people; but she decided just
to launch right in and be friendly, saying, “I hate feeling like an awkward
little noodle...” And now she’s glad she
did.
Thursday afternoon, I
finished the needlecase. The tiny
squares are a bit crooked, since I didn’t use the gridded pellon. (But we won’t tell anybody. And I’m keeping it, so I needn’t manufacture
any excuses.)
The small squares are ½” finished. The book when closed measures 6” x 6 ½”.
I put the other scissors
case in the embroidery hoop and starting on the ribbon embroidery. I’m using my new embroidery hoop, handmade in
Germany, and rubbed to a soft patina.
Very much nicer than the rough glued plywood thing I’ve used before.
Ruth Craft, who is 17, sent
Victoria a picture of their family at the Parrows’ home in Oklahoma. Bro. Parrow, who had a heart attack about
three weeks ago, is not doing very well, though he was able to go home that
afternoon.
Friday, I worked on Norma’s
scissors holder, and finished it late that night. Or early Saturday morning, depending on your
point of view.
Here’s a picture Victoria took of Teensy. He hopped up on loveseat, pumped and kneaded
his paws on the fleece blanket (he loves fleece) – and then fell asleep with
his back to the room (though you can tell from the angle of his ears that she
woke him up). She posted the shot on her
Instagram account, entitling it #unsociable and #timeout. hee hee
Victoria
had a graduation/birthday shindig at Andrew and Hester’s that night, inviting a
number of relatives and classmates. She ordered
two elaborate cakes from her cousin Rachel, who’s the same age as Lydia. Rachel’s cakes aren’t merely beautiful;
they’re scrumptious. The cake with the tiers of ruffles is
chocolate with ganache, and the other is orange coconut carrot cake with
toasted pecan and cream cheese filling.
I’d
never heard of ‘ganache’, so I looked it up.
Here’s what I found:
Ganache
(ɡəˈnɑːʃ, or gä-ˈnäsh) is a glaze, icing, sauce, or filling for pastries
made from chocolate and cream. Ganache
is normally made by heating cream, then pouring it over chopped chocolate of
any kind. The mixture is stirred or
blended until smooth, with extracts added if desired. Butter is traditionally added to give the
ganache a shiny appearance and smooth texture.
I particularly liked the glorified carrot cake. I am not usually very fond of cake, but if
you’re going to throw all those oranges,
coconuts, and carrots together, and then add a bunch of toasted pecans and
cream cheese, why, I’m a-gonna like it, that I am, I am!
I played
Scrabble with Joanna; she’s 12. Fun
times.
When we got home again, I
went back to working on the scissors case, enjoying the use of my new
needlecase. In the mail that day, I got
the mini hair straightener for the silk ribbon.
Its handles have a print of deep red roses, and it came with a little
black zippered case I didn’t know I was going to get.
The three nesting baskets
came, too, and the folded-star hotpads fit perfectly in the middle-sized basket.
Here’s the
second scissors case:
Amy called Saturday afternoon and asked if Larry could
come – because they had a grass fire near their house! It started near their burn barrel; evidently the
door blew open. The rural fire
department was on the way, but it would take them some time to get there (16
minutes, as it turned out). Teddy was
spraying the fire, connecting a series of hoses and drawing water from his
underground thermal system, which has a lot of pressure – but the fire was too
big for him to cope with. It was going
along the fence line, and there are houses and a campground nearby.
It takes a little over a minute to drive to their house
from ours, so Larry got there quickly.
He used the tractor to break apart a couple of the hay bales so they
could spray them down, and he used a shovel to put out smaller fires that were
starting up at the perimeter of the larger one.
The rural fire department arrived then and put out the fire. Good thing the wind was blowing away from the
house! The fire blackened quite a swath
of their land and burned a couple of big round hay bales. But we are glad that’s all it did, and no one
is the worse for wear.
Meanwhile, I made a biscornu
pincushion and a needlekeep to match the scissor cases.
{This definition is from
Wikipedia: A biscornu (bee-ss-corn-uh)
is a small, 8-sided, stuffed ornamental pincushion, usually made out of Aida
cloth or linen. Embroidery or cross-stitch is used to decorate the top
and bottom of the cushion. A button is typically secured in the center of
the cushion to give a small depression on the top. Beads, tassels, and other objects can decorate
the biscornu. They are typically able to fit in the palm of your hand. The name is derived from the French adjective,
biscornu, meaning skewed, quirky, or irregular.}
That evening I dug around
and found a funnel in the far reaches of a kitchen drawer, then announced, “Okay,
everybody cross your fingers, toes, and eyes for me – I’m ready to pour (or attempt to pour) ground walnut shells
into a biscornu pincushion. I have a funnel... it might work swimmingly –
or I might create the biggest mess any sewing room of mine has ever known since
the beginning of time.”
Half an hour later... “Yaaaay! It woiked, it woiked, it
woiked.”
I am here to tell you that
crushed walnut shells is the
filling for pincushions (unless your recipient is allergic to tree nuts, maybe).
This little pincushion has a very nice weight to it... the pins slide in
easily... and when you pull one out, you don’t wind up lifting the entire
cushion. Crackerjack!
I stitched it shut, pleased
as punch. A button on each side, and it
was done. I still had enough oomph to
sew a needle cushion, so that’s just what I did.
The thing grew, every time
I wasn’t looking at it! I didn’t mean to make it quite so big; I’ll
make the next one smaller. For one thing, it used up too much emery sand
– and that stuff was a bit pricey!
I’ve started the other
pincushion, and will make a second needlekeep, too, but the next one will be
smaller.
I got both the crushed walnut shells and the emery
sand from an Amazon store called Nakpunar
Arts, Crafts, and Sewing Store. It
was a good price, comparatively. It might
be cheaper to get the crushed walnut shells from a pet store (it’s used for
litter for small caged animals), but the stuff from Nakpunar is guaranteed to
be clean, and I don’t imagine pet stores worry as much about it, if it’s just
for litter. The shells are crushed to a
fine powder, very nice, with a good weight for a pincushion. I don’t like a pincushion that won’t stay put
when I’m putting pins into it or pulling pins out of it.
I suppose it could cause an
allergic reaction to those who are allergic to nuts, though. I enclosed mine in lightweight Pellon, and there’s
a layer of muslin under the quilting cotton – three layers of fabric, and the
Pellon is not porous. So it would
probably depend on exactly how allergic a person is.
We had a crystal blue sky
yesterday, but the temperature only got up to about 12°, and the wind chill was
-3°. Larry stayed home from church all day; he just can’t shake the nasty
cold he’s had for a couple of weeks. Loren has a cold, too, but he’s
getting better. Lura
Kay was also sick and stayed home all day because of a bad cold. There were 79 people
missing from church in the morning. That’s very unusual; normally there
are only 10-20 missing. We have ... ummm... I think... 383 people.
A lot of those who were at church were recovering from colds... so the singing
wasn’t quite up to par. We generally lift the roof! This time, we
barely stirred the light fixtures.
At 9:00 p.m., it was 7°,
and the wind chill was -7°. But Embarrass, Minnesota, was at -13°, with a
wind chill of -32°. Meanwhile, Kotzebue, Alaska, which is north of
Fairbanks, was right at 35°. How ’bout that. Three hours later, the temperature had fallen to 0°, and
the windchill was -12°.
Larry came home for lunch a little while ago. He made himself eggs and a grilled cheese
sandwich and a couple of corndogs – he must’ve been hungry! He’s gone back to work now, and Victoria has
gone to renew her driver’s license – she turns 18 tomorrow.
Now to give this weekly one last read-through before
sending/posting/printing. I got momentarily stalled out looking at a
video clip of people hiking on The World’s End cliff in Sri Lanka, where a man
on his honeymoon fell off the 4,000-foot cliff – but came to rest against trees
and bushes just 150 feet down. The
authorities who rescued him in a 3 ½-hour operation said that any others who
had ever fallen off that cliff had been killed.
One of the videos I tried
to watch kept stalling out. I thought it
was our Internet causing the trouble, until I noticed that the play indicator
was continuing to move, and the seconds were continuing to count. I looked down in the comment area to see if
others were having the same problem, and found this comment:
“I applaud your ability to upload a video
using nothing but a toaster and an old potato. Great job!”
haha
Here are Maria, Hester, and their cousin Olivia in
Hester’s living room.
Now, time to get bizzy!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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