Looking Backward

Awhile back, Kathie (the other Kathie :-)) posted about her newest historical quilt book, The Hands That Made Them: the Quilts of Adams County, Pennsylvania.

This piqued my interest right away, as I have family ties to that area. My mother's father was born in Adams County, PA in 1874 and grew up outside Gettysburg, in a tiny town called Fairfield.

When you have family from near Gettysburg, PA, the Civil War and its battles are not simply dry textbook facts. I had ancestors living there experiencing the battle of Gettysburg and all its attending terrors. It's always seemed very real to me.

My Adams County grandfather died young and very tragically nearly 100 years ago. One of the few concrete things of him that remains is his autograph book, which he received on his 14th birthday.



Most of the autographs in the book are from the 1880s. None of the quilters in the book appear in the autograph album, but people in their families do.

One of these days I need to get the autograph album pages scanned and sent off to a historical society in that area...

ANYWAY. I obtained the Adams County book through Interlibrary Loan.


It's fabulous, so full antique quilt-y goodness and inspiration. I just hate the thought of returning it (and that due date is coming up real soon), but plan to photocopy several quilts to file away for future reference. Like many of these historic quilt books (which seem to disappear from print almost as soon as they hit bookstores), this one has ideas and inspiration to last a lifetime for those of us interested in antique quilts.

It's all the more inspiring because the names of many of the makers are familiar to me, like old neighbors.



If anyone has a copy of that book to sell, I'm definitely interested...

One Ugly Pair of Socks

Welcome to the shadowy realm of the ugly sock. This is a place where a lonely knitter toils away, becoming more and more disgruntled and angry, realizing she's spending precious days working on a pair of socks that look like they were designed for slogging through trenches or for prison garb. She is a disciplined knitter though, and keeps knitting away despite it all...

This is where the Catholic school training shows, for better or for worse. LOL



Everything started out right with these socks--the yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in a colorway called Baltic Sea. The subtle colors really excited me--I thought this would be one great pair of socks. The yarn was bought at The Sow's Ear in Verona, Wisconsin, on a road trip with several good buddies. Good memories from that day.

The sock is the Garter Rib, from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. Easy, easy. But it was apparent as soon as I was a few rows into the top ribbing that there would be color pooling. A better knitter would have ripped the socks apart and experimented till a non-pooling pattern was found. But I am not that better knitter. I just kept plugging along.

The second sock was no better. The colors pooled in a different but equally unattractive way.
Argh.


This is the second pair of socks I've made from Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn. Both pairs had bad color pooling issues. When I was working on portions of the sock where there weren't 72 stitches, the colors distributed nicely, giving a hint of what these socks could have looked like.



So here is the question: why would a company like Lorna's Laces manufacture a sock yarn that has consistent color pooling problems when making a standard 72 stitch sock? This would seem like a basic of product design to me. This is sock yarn, people! It should be designed so that it makes nice socks. Depending on needle size, no frills socks like these are made with what--60 to 80 or so stitches?? Why would the color pool right in the middle of that range?

Questions, questions, and no answers. But the bottom line for me is that I'm done with Lorna's Laces sock yarn.

The Stars Align #1

After a summer of white charmeuse and virtually no quilting, the timing was excellent when I ran into a friend at an almost LQS and she mentioned, "Oh by the way, there's this Civil War block exchange and we signed you up for it." I had only a few weeks to get cracking on 16 three inch blocks but was highly motivated to make antique-looking stars, and to make them small. No question, I was IN.

Our first exchange was this past Saturday, at Liz's house. Did I mention this is a book club too? We talked about a book (Pillars of the Earth),


we enjoyed breakfast scones and fresh fruit,


Liz demo'd a handy-dandy ruler that looks to simplify these tiny star blocks,





we had show and tell,




and we exchanged blocks.



Can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

Lighthouses and Small Work

Just back from a very fun but non-sewing weekend in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, with my college gang. The weather could have been better but we muddled through with wine--there are Chardonnay and Merlot factions in the group--lots of dining out, shopping, and lots of laughing and chatter. There were three family weddings in the group this fall, so there were A LOT of wedding pictures passed around.

Old friends--truly the best thing in life.


The house where we stayed was decorated with WAY too many lighthouses--cookie jars, dishes, glassware, hot pads, lamps, chair cushions, tables, paintings. An array of lighthouses was displayed on a shelving unit, which ITSELF was shaped like a lighthouse. There even was a lighthouse tapestry jacket and lighthouse tapestry wheeled shopping cart hanging in a closet of the house. All of this......decor......and nary a lighthouse anywhere on Geneva Lake itself.

A puzzlement for sure.


I took mindless knitting along and got a fair amount accomplished on a truly unattractive pair of socks. More on these when they're done. Urk.

Hoping to finish these up soon and then on to something more inspiring.

:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

This week, a new project. A couple weeks ago, I ran into some friends at a quilt shop and was informed that I had been signed onto a Book Club/Block Exchange that will meet every other month for, uh, eternity. Each meeting will see an exchange of sets of THREE INCH star blocks in repro fabrics. Oh yes, and while everyone else had been working on these since September, I had about three weeks.

So here's the first set.


These were fun to make, although if this exchange goes on as long as some are hinting it might, these blocks may get REAL old. We'll see. This block exchange is with the INSANE people, who like things small.

Words, Words, Words

The Four Letter Words quilt is finally finished.

This was part of Lazy Gal Tonya's LOVE exchange last year. Tonya made and sent out sets of pieced blocks spelling the word LOVE and participants were to get busy with them.






This top was pieced by the end of '08, as ordered. But then it sat and mellowed for awhile as life got in the way and controlled the steering wheel for awhile.

Not wanting the LOVE part of the quilt to get too schmoopie, (Apologies for posting that link again but I CANNOT HELP MYSELF) my thinking had been to make a quilt full of four letter words. Probably best not to use the bad ones, although that would have been fun... So it became a quilt of positive four letter words.

For backgrounds, there was the stash of wordy and letter-y fabrics. Fun!


And a free-pieced border, using scraps from the letters.


It was quilted with the usual meandering , echo-y scribble, using varying bright colors of rayon repeating the bright colors in the pieced words. I could never hit on one single color to use. The binding is more word-y fabric, directional enough that it takes on an interesting look on the bias.


This quilt grew like some organic thing, with no system and very little measuring. In the end there was a decision to be made about squaring it off or not squaring it off. It stayed crooked. Happily though, the top edge ended up sized so it will fit on a wall quilt hanger I have.



So now it can go into the regular rotation of the changing quilt display in this house.

Ta Da! A finished object...

Temporary Workstation

OK, so this is how it is in the trenches--making time for that quilt you so desperately want to finish when your real life just won't cooperate with your preferred way to spend time.

I spent most of this past week at the Wisconsin Library Association annual conference. It was held in Appleton, Wisconsin, only about two hours away from home. One of my co-workers was scheduled to participate in a conference panel, so she and I planned to travel and bunk together. But on the afternoon of our planned departure, she was sitting at Urgent Care with one of her kids--and it was difficult to figure out which of them was the more ill, both feverish and out of sorts.

So suddenly, I was traveling solo. And it hit me--now that there was no roommate who might be annoyed by a sewing machine clacking into the wee hours, I COULD SEW. I packed up the Featherweight, a project box, and off I headed to Appleton.

I set up a workstation in my hotel room, complete with 'piece of %$#&' hotel-issue iron and ironing board (the ironing board listed badly but by wedging it under the lip of the desk, it made for an OK setup). I hunkered down with my piecing, every spare doggone minute.


The hotel housekeeping staff thought I was a riot.

Happy to report, the conference was a big success. The sessions and workshops were professionally informative and interesting. I got to hear and meet cartoonist Lynda Barry and oh my, what a creative force of nature she is...

But the best thing of all, I finished the Double Ninepatch top. And yes, the orange setting pieces stayed.


I dropped this top and its backing off at my longarm quilter's house today. Yippee!

At Home....Briefly

Back from a laughter-filled and very productive weekend in De Soto, Wisconsin. Above, a shot of crossing the Mississippi near Lansing, Iowa. On a sunny, blue-sky day, it's a scenic delight. But I recall another trip across this bridge, in sleet and snow, that had more of a panicked element to it...

Our home away from home, as always, was A Place to Sew, which is now TWO houses, both high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and the hills of Iowa beyond.


Our house, The Cottage, has lovely comfy areas for gathering, sewing, eating, and handwork. This sitting room overlooks a gorgeous view of the river and the town.


Sue busy sewing:


Sewing? I got A LOT accomplished and will be talking about that soon.

I managed to spread some economic stimulation around, shopping in no less than SIX different quilt shops in the course of the weekend. Each shop different, each specializing in a different look or aspect of quilting. We must be flexible, mustn't we??

Here, the wonderful Yellow Bird Art, in Lansing, Iowa.


A Top Ten shop a couple years back, it's well worth a stop if you're anywhere in the vicinity.





One chilly afternoon, we drove to Viroqua, Wisconsin to check out the Amish Market.


Three families had set up a display of handmade basketry, quilts, preserves, produce, and more. The baskets were beautiful and well-made, at a great price. I bought an oval sewing basket with tray.



The maker told me she has 12 children.

Viroqua itself looks worthy of a days' exploration. It had the look of ex-hippie, with intriguing shops and galleries, organic food, and interesting looking residents. We'll probably spend more time in Viroqua next time.

So there it is--a great getaway, and much needed. I feel like I'm fully recovered from the wedding and its stresses, and fully re-integrated in the world where I belong.

But first, another trip. I'll be leaving Tuesday afternoon for the annual Wisconsin Library Association Conference in Appleton. Back Friday. And yes, I'll be hitting at least one quilt shop. My car can't travel that route with out aiming itself here.