Day In, Day Out

Yes, Gentle Readers -- I'm still here.  Still putting one foot in front of the other.  Still trying to stay informed without losing my mind.  Still trying to bring a bit of light into the world.

The Jury is out on how well I'm doing, but Today is a Good Day.  (Photo at left: my big pot of verbena, taken about a week ago. It sits on the stump of a former evergreen, cut down by the former owners of the property, and serves to keep the deer at bay, sort of.)

It would appear that I'm keeping up a monthly blog rather than twice monthly, and that's okay.  I find that even though I have this blog and belong to several crafty FB groups, as well as some on Ravelry, I am a poor 'sharer' of my work. It's begun to feel like having to account for what I'm doing, when I'd really rather be doing it rather than posting "progress" photos on line.  

Any of you feel that way sometimes?

Still, I know that some of you may be patiently waiting (or not!) for an update on my assorting makings, so let's catch up, eh?

Knitting:

I finished one sock -- count 'em -- one -- in June.  My hands were bugging me, so while I liked the pattern and the yarn, I set that pair aside for now.

One day this sock will have a mate!

That didn't stop me from casting on another pair for July! The Socks from Stash group on Ravelry had a challenge that filled the bill -- knit a pattern from a designer that is new to you -- so out of my queue, I plucked the "Fable (Fake  Cable) Socks", and from my stash, some Lang Yarns Jawoll Cotton (wool-cotton-nylon blend) and as of today, I'm at the toe of the first sock.

Have I take a photo?  Silly question! 🤣 Of course not!  I'd rather knit the sock than photograph it!  So...stay tuned.  

The sock progress was great the first few days, and then my hands began to bug me -- not because of knitting but because of other things I was doing with them, involving yard work and pruners -- so while I'd like to be working on the 2nd sock by now, well...it will happen when it happens.

The baby cardigan continues apace; I finished the body and am almost 1/2 finished the first sleeve -- but again, no photos. Sigh.

I did manage to finish the 'Bosquet Hat' and decided one was enough.  Perhaps another time, with a smoother yarn...but that's anyone's guess.  Still, I washed and blocked it and it is in my give-away box.

Following that, I cast on a scarf -- "The Simple Thing", which is an asymmetrical garter stitch scarf with a knit-in I-cord edging.  I'm rather enjoying it and would have made more progress had I not been so enamoured of my 'Fable' socks!

I'm using a rather funky self-striping yarn for this -- from stash, of course -- so it's creating a very different pattern as the one-sided increases continue.  No matter; it will keep someone warm!

Quilting:

I finished the Disappearing Four-Patch top and really like the results!

I've added it to my collection of tops (now consisting of 2 throw-sized and 1 crib/car seat sized) and am busy assembling another throw, which I'll show in a future blog post.  I've been in touch with a friend in Dauphin, Manitoba, because she has friends in a northern Manitoba guild, and there might be a need for donations once wildfire season there is over.

I made the July block for the BOM from A Quilting Life, and am happy with how it's using up my stash:

Here are the January-through-July blocks, laid out in a tentative setting:

And in recent days I've dug out a postage-stamp quilt that I sandwiched eons ago, and started to hand-quilt using perle cotton and big stitches.  I've got a drive to finish it, so there'll be a photo or two in an up-coming post.

Cross-stitch:

As my July includes Canada Day, I've made my focus piece the Canadian sampler I began a year ago: "Emeline Hotchkiss, Lacolle, 1846", reproduced by the American stitcher, Kathleen Littleton of Cross-stitch Antiques.  You may recall that I grew up near Lacolle, Quebec, Canada, which is where Emeline was from.  She died at age 14, about 3 years after she stitched this piece.

I've made great progress, and am moving into the second page (from left to right in the pattern, which is wider than it is tall);

Here's where I left off a year ago:

And here's where I was as of a week ago (I'm a bit farther on as of this writing.)

I've finished the little "summer" piece that I mentioned in my last post, too.  I've decided to fully finish it as a needle book, a gift for Claire, the young woman at Ellis Nature Sanctuary who, because she was a new stitcher -- embroidery -- and the Sanctuary's gift shop is carrying embroidery kits re: the birds they see and protect locally -- to invite stitchers/spinners/knitters to a weekly "Fibers* and Firs" gathering, every Tuesday evening this summer. 

All I have to do is press it, attach the charms from the kit, and put it together into a needle book.  Photos next time, I promise!

*She knows that this is NOT how Canadians spell "fibres" but the posters were done and dusted before she noticed that the US spell-check had..um...inserted itself.  Apologies to my Canadian compatriots and readers.

Even though I'm still working on "Emeline", I decided that having finished one 'summer' piece, I needed to pick up one that I'd left languishing, and that one is a section of a Black Bird Design I've started from the reprinted book, A Heart Remembers.  There is a piece in there that is technically meant to be five pieces, each on a different fabric and stitched together like a patch-work.  One of those pieces includes a very large house; I decided to leave out that one.  I also decided to stitch the remaining four on a single piece of fabric.  To date, I'd done the first two patterns, and now I am on the fourth (or, for me, the third): "My Day Complete".  

*My progress as I neared the end of the second pattern is shown HERE, from June of last year.

Having worked mostly on 40-count linen for the last year or so, doing this on 28-count with 2 strands of floss over 2 of linen, is a distinctly different experience!  No photo at the moment, but perhaps next month.

Rug Hooking:

I'm still doing some, but it is very much an indoor activity as I now work on my large Cheticamp frame.  When I hook, I do so on rainy days (we've had quite a few this July, which is a novelty here), and for hours at a time.

I finished the 'evergreen abstract' on which I was working in my last post:

Abstracted Trees - 8" x 8"

And I created a landscape from my imagination and experience, a bit more primitive than my usual:

"Old Red Barn with Daisies" - 8" x 8"

I have room for one more long piece or a couple of smaller pieces on this particular burlap before it's used up, and I have an idea (and photo inspiration) for one of each size...still contemplating.  I then need to check what fabric I have left and whether or not it will fit on the large frame or have to be done on my made-over embroidery frame.  Time will tell!

Spinning:

I spin much less than I do the other things, because my favourite place to spin is outside. This summer I've managed a bit, as our weather has been cooler (so far) -- but it's also been wetter, which isn't exactly ideal for outdoor spinning! 

In my last post I showed you what I'd managed to finish before the end of June.  Not long after, I tackled the remaining sections of the Falkland wool braid (hand-painted) that I began last year. These sections were a) yellow-turning to peach; and b) light grey fading to darker grey.

I've now spun each section into singles and selecting contrasting rovings for new singles, with which to ply them together:

First, the grey singles, which will be plied with singles to be spun from a deep orange-gold Shetland:

Next, the yellow-to-peach singles, to be plied with singles from a deep teal roving which, alas, has no label -- a mystery fibre!

As of a couple of days ago, the teal is now fully spun into singles -- but not enough to use up all of the yellow/peach.  This means that further plying adventures lie ahead! 😉

I'm truly thankful for the "Two Ewes Fiber* Adventures" podcast and group on Ravelry, for their encouragement!

*They're American; that's how they spell it. I just live with it. They're nice people, and as a Canadian, all I can do is nod and smile.

What's left? Only to show you what is burgeoning in my Zone 3-ish garden:

Raised Bed #1 - Beans and Leaf Lettuce
with hovering scallions

Zuchinni, a cherry tomato 'tree', 
raspberries and self-seeding dill

Hanging pot: geranium and lobelia
off my back stoop

Blue pot with geranium 
and lobelia

The came-with-this-house
Immovable White Planter
with geraniums and lobelia

All are fodder for hooked pieces, albeit impressionistic -- so stay tuned for them to appear again (and maybe again). While I'm trying to be careful with purchasing new supplies, this week I received two purples from Deanne Fitzpatrick Studios, the better to recreate those lobelia purples:

(L) Briggs & Little 2-ply; (R) River
Stream bulky.

Even though I like purple, I've almost nothing in my stash -- a ball of fingering (sock yarn)...and that's it.  So...now I have something to hook with!

And then, of course, there are berries. I'm starting to enjoy my raspberries, and have bought more jars and sugar for jam.  And yesterday morning found me at the local Saskatoon farm, picking this 4 litre ice-cream pail full...for muffins, bumbleberry crumble, bumbleberry pie...and maybe another picking to freeze...

If you've never eaten a Saskatoon, or picked them, or heard of them...I'm going to leave you with this little tune recorded by an old friend of mine (and my late hubby). I've lost touch with him, but I have a CD he made and gave to us years ago, signing the cover.  I love every song on it, but this one -- well, it's particular to the Canadian prairie. I tried to find a recording of my friend Tom singing it, without luck. Sigh. The best I can do is show you the lyrics -- HERE.  There's a fellow named Tim Hus who's sung it, but he doesn't have the right voice or presentation and sang it too fast. I'll spare you his interpretation of Tom's fine ditty.

Someday, if we meet up in person, I'll plug in my CD player and share it with you.

And so it goes. 

It's time for me to wind this up (or down!) and have some dinner. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I hope to be home, quietly quilting (or knitting or spinning or hooking or stitching).

As usual I'll leave you with a link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday. This week she's sharing about an exhibit she saw and appreciated.  It's been a while since I've done that too; there aren't many in these parts -- so I can enjoy them vicariously through people like Nina-Marie.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend!  A bientot!

Why Make?

This is question that never really leaves my mind.  Why make?  Why make art?  Why make anything at all?

Because the artist cannot help herself.  The artist must make art.  And in the same way, the maker of anything -- assuming the maker is a living being, that is -- must make that thing, those things.

Deanne Fitzpatrick makes hooked rugs for the floor and the wall, but that's simply her method, her medium.  In reality, she writes in her Sunday Letters (and says on her podcasts), she is making comfort, peace, thoughtful expression -- and beauty.

Judy Martin makes hand-stitched, hand quilted pieces for the wall and elsewhere.  But again, that's simply her method, her medium.  In reality, she writes in her blogs, she is making comfort, peace, thoughtful expression -- and beauty.

Why do I make?

I make pieces with textiles: cotton and/or linen fabrics (and sometimes polyester or a bit of silk); with threads: cotton or silk (and sometimes polyester or a bit of wool); and with yarn: 99.99% of the time, wool.  Sometimes I make pictures, sometimes abstractions, and sometimes I use OPI (Other People's Instructions).  But these are simply my methods, my media.  In reality, I too am making comfort, peace, thoughtful expression -- and beauty.

As Judy wrote in her recent Journal post, as a whole, since the 1800s, people -- at least in our Western culture filled with reason and commerce and conspicuous consumption -- have divided the creation of something -- the making of things -- into whether what is produced can considered 'useful' and 'practical' -- or not.  And if its not seen as utilitarian, then it's less highly valued. She wrote, that when we make "usefulness" the most important criterion for making something, those of us who produce art simply for art's sake, begin to doubt our worth. 

I don't know any artist who hasn't had those same doubts.  I know I have -- especially when I stopped producing art for sale.  Yes, I have art for sale -- in independent shows I choose to enter, and in the collections at Andrea Hatch's Curiosity Art and Framing gallery in Red Deer, Alberta.

But I never started to make art for money.  It piles up in my small house, and so I put it on show and out for sale because...why not?  If it doesn't sell, it doesn't sell.  It's still  out there for the viewing and the enjoyment of others -- and for that, for the deep support Andrea's given me for almost 20 years now -- I am grateful.

Here's some of what I've been making lately:

I took on Deanne Fitzpatrick's "10-minutes-a-day" rug hooking Challenge for 2024.  I started it in the last week of June, when the kit I ordered for it arrived -- and finished it July 1st!  It's 6" x 17", an odd size as far as mounting it on a canvas goes, so  I'm pondering ordering one of the frames her Studio makes for just this size.  Here's "Little Yellow Flowers", designed by Deanne using the kit, on burlap -- and placing the colours just the way I wanted:

Once that was done, I decided I wanted to play with hooking letters on a plain background, to make a cushion just for me.  I chose the words based on one of Deanne's Sunday Letters -- the essay entitled "Searching for Perfect":

"As we all come to terms with the new normal we have experienced with Covid, there is a bit of a reckoning.  We all realize that things are different now.  Still sometimes we are suddenly taken aback by it all.  We have all been shocked into those new normals around us.  Those sullen moments where you think that it is just so different, are not yours alone.  

I have those moments too.  And in them I turn to my rug hooking and my writing.  I turn to creativity and joy and love and prayer and I try to deepen my relationships with those things.  Because those things are still there.  They are unchanging in the midst of great change.  We need their constancy more than ever...Because making feels right and it brings me back to myself, the self that believes in hope and joy and wonder and love..."   -- Deanne Fitzpatrick, Sunday Letters, Deanne Fitzapatrick Rug Hooking Studio, Amherst, NS, Canada, (c) 2022 - p. 52 (emphasis mine)

I call this little piece, "What Lasts" -- and here is my progress as of yesterday:

 

 I'm learning a lot making this, and the process itself soothes my soul and eases my mind.

It's been very hot in these parts for over two weeks now, so spinning has taken a bit of a back seat.  I love to do it outside, and the early morning is the only time it's been cool enough -- but any sort of yard work I want to do has often claimed priority (useful, right? Sigh...)  Still, I managed to fill a bobbin with the purple-to-pink-to-peach section of the Falklands braid (roving) I won last year in the Two Ewes Summer Spin in:

It's the finest I've ever spun, I think.  My plan is to ply it with a single from black alpaca I still have from a large assortment I was given a year or more ago -- but first I have to spin that up...soon, I hope, now that most of the yardwork I needed to do is done.

On the knitting front, I traded knitting woolly things -- like the vest for my daughter and the pullover for me -- for something in cotton.  I've had the pattern for a summer tee top -- the Vincas tee, from Berocco -- for a long time, and the cotton yarn even longer.  at last the two paired up, and earlier this week I finished the back, and cast on the front!

Photo taken just before back was finished!
Pattern: Vincas
Designer: Berocco Design Team
Yarn: Estelle "Young Touch Cotton DK"

If I plug away, I might have it finished before fall! 😆

As for cross stitch, I declared July to be "Canada Month" and have been working on reproductions of samplers originally stitched by young Canadian girls.  The first one is "Julia Amelia Hounslow (1848)", which was reproduced by The Essamplaire, out of Red Deer, Alberta.  I bought it last year for a Canada Day start -- and after that, set it aside, but this year I finished it!

It's a wee thing, only about 6 1/2" x 7 1/2" on 25-count.  I stitched it on 36-count "Cream and Sugar" by Fiber on a Whim, so it's even smaller.  And I used DMC and a bit of Soie d'Alger from my stash:

I'll make it into a little pillow for my bowl.

Julia Amelia is believed to have stitched her sampler in or around Sweetsburg in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

My next sampler was reproduced by Kathleen Littleton of Cross-stitch Antiques, and was originally created by another Quebecer: Emeline Hotchkiss (1846).  She was from the area of Lacolle, Quebec, which is a community of about 1,000, and a major border crossing from Quebec to northern NY State.  I grew up near there, and my step-father worked at that crossing (and 2 others) as an officer for Canada Immigration back in the day (he retired in 1978 and with my mother moved west to the Okanagan of B.C.)  

This week I began that sampler, and was intrigued.  I wondered if some folks on FB -- in the public group, Chateauguay Valley Photos and Memories -- would know anything about a Hotchkiss family in Lacolle area over 100 years ago.  I posted an inquiry on the page, and wasn't disappointed!  In the comments, they sent me these treasures:

First, a newspaper item believed to be the death notice of a Mrs. Hotchkiss who very well could have been Emeline's mother:

Next, an Ancestry.com record that could show a connection to other relations, including those in the US.:

And finally, the piece de resistance -- a photo of dear Emeline's headstone.  She died at age fourteen...😢

I decided to try to contact Ms. Littleton, who reproduced the sampler, and she was delighted to have this additional information.  It's a special blessing, indeed, when something so serendipitous happens; this was a highlight of my week.

So I am diligently stitching away on the border of her sampler.  Here's my progress as of last evening:

I'm working it on 40-count Vellum from Picture This Plus, using some called-for DMC and some alternates from my stash that are close to those called for -- ones that weren't available at the LNS/art/craft shop near me.

In addition to "Julia Amelia", I had another finish this month -- a Fully Finished object, that is!  "Cake Tier" became a flat mount applied to the cover of a spiral-bound recipe journal and was mailed off to my friend P. in Westmount (a city within the city of Montreal!) for a belated birthday gift.  My eternal gratitude to Helen D of floss-tube fame (aka East Coast Crafter), whose tutorial on flat mounts was instrumental in how good it looks!

Yes, there's a bit of quilting going on too -- early-ish in the day, when my south-facing studio is still fairly cool.  I'm working on a Very Special Quilt -- which my daughter has commissioned me to make -- a gift for some good friends of hers who have a special anniversary next year.  We chose the pattern and the fabric online (Hamel's Fabrics) almost 2 years ago, because it was the pattern and colours she felt would be most suitable.  

It's the Celtic Knots Quilt kitted through Halcyon Fabrics, using their lovely blues/aquas/cream fabrics (this link to Hamel's info on it is dated June 2022 -- I told you it was a couple of years old!)

It's one of the more complex patterns I've pieced, and of course it had to be 'up-sized' from 90" x 90" to 104" x 104" for a king-sized bed...!  (It's the notion that "Mom can do anything" kicking in again! LOL!)

Anyway, I washed all the fabric (as is my habit), ironed it and labelled it with the colour number as recommended.  This is turning out to be very important, as messing up the colour order would mess up the pattern.  Here's my stack of prepped fabric:

And an example of how I labelled each fabric in the line:

Next I cut the fabrics into strips, rectangles and squares.  The strips were used for strip sets, cross cut to make pairs of squares.  I then assembled 144 (count 'em!) units composed of rectangles and those strip-set units:

Each day for the last three now I've been assembling larger units -- 10 1/2" unfinished -- in groups of five, which will go together to make the final large blocks:

Block set #1

Block set #2

Block set #3

I still have a number of sets of five to assemble, and then some sets of four blocks.  After that...I'm assuming they'll all come together with sashing to make a beautiful whole.

That's all well and good -- but the units I've cut were only for 9 large blocks of 22" (finished) each -- and I need 16 to make the size of quilt desired. So...the process will begin again with the remaining fabric (yes, Hamel's Fabrics owner and staff figured out how much extra we had to buy!) to make the remaining 7 blocks.

Once that's done, there will be an inner border, a narrow 'zinger' and a wider outer border.

Onward!

The last bit of beauty being made around here has been in my garden, which continues to delight me, even as I dead-head dandelions and other spent blossoms, prune deadwood from shrubs and aging ornamental trees, and try to keep the young cats from digging in every bare patch of dirt where seeds were once sown!

Here's just a taste...

Just some of the peonies I brought inside.

This is the first blossom for my youngest peony!

Brown-eyed Susans watching every move
in the meadow!

Poppies competing with daisies under
the big twin willow

Sweet William in pink in the east bed

Nearby, Sweet William in white

And in the aged ornamental on the front lawn,
which I pruned mightily over 2 days, a belated
bouquet of blooms!

And so, my friends, I'll close this l-o-o-o-o-ng post for now, with my usual link to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  As I understand it, she has a new job and is working long hours -- meaning that while she might be solving problems creatively, she's definitely been in the "utilitarian" zone.  I hope she has some time to wind down and refocus for a bit...

Stay safe, Gentle Readers, in spite of extreme heat, flooding and/or tornados. May you find beauty every day.

A bientot!