Quilt Finish: Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt

Grand Illusion, the mystery quilt from 2014, is now finished! I gave it a little airing after the last of the binding was stitched on. The piecing on this started after Thanksgiving of 2014 and finished sometime in 2016, and then the top waited around for three years to be quilted. I am trying to kick out some of my quilt backlog.

I love how vintage the colors make this look. It reminds me of the tile-work in the MAP South bathroom at college, built in the 1930's and more elegant than your typical college dormitory.

 My quilts have been getting steadily more scrappy every year.

It's 88" square, queen sized, backed with a wide backing I bought at Joann's, and has a label and everything. Binding took me a long while with all the going to camps the last month, but it is all done now. Maybe I can find a family member who needs a queen-sized quilt. I have a few too many.

I enjoy hanging out quilts for photography, but the clothesline isn't quite tall enough. Also, glad I did this before the weather abruptly changed over the weekend and it has gotten rather cool and wet.

Yay! for finishing things. The 2015 mystery, En Provence, is now on the frame.

 I didn't get far today, but I used up the remainder of the thread in the bobbin that was left from the previous quilt. My pattern will be squiggle-loop-flower, which I did on the Easy Street way back when.

So far I have two different kinds of flowers. But I didn't really have the energy to get into it very far today.

Spring Break Recap

Spring Break had a different feel to it this year. Steve kept working, Quarta went to Mexico on a work trip with Cedar Tree, and Emma stayed home with me. We did a few small things around the house, went swimming at the community center once and signed her up for her pass card to swim more for free, but were mostly pretty lazy. I did go to the Quiltfest Northwest, put on by the Clark County Quilters, held at the fairgrounds.

There is a Vancouver Tapestry, which is really long so it isn't displayed that often. I had never seen it before, but it depicts in beautiful wool-on-linen embroidery the history of Clark County.

This was probably my favorite of the quilts displayed, and I could imagine being able to make it myself. One of the themes was blue and white quilts.

This one went wild with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The work on this was stunning. It reminded me a little of my tree quilt, but the little flying geese circles in the middle border would be incredibly difficult.

 Another one with a strong Kaffe influence.

 There were several city and traffic-themed quilts, which I captured for my civil engineer husband. This one is "roundabout."

 the London metro

 abstract traffic control

and an actual intersection in Portland.

The show was very nicely organized and I enjoyed it a great deal. One of these years I should finish all my unquilted tops.

The three of us who were home went one day to the Oregon Historical Society museum. It depicts the history of the Northwest but mostly Oregon, from a woke intersectional perspective. So you learn about the history of the Northwest from the perspective of all the people who might have felt marginalized by their treatment at the time: early African-American settlers, gays, women, Native Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants. But the Whitman missionaries were, it is strongly implied, probably responsible for their own massacre because of their insensitivity, or something.

I finished the second sock of Grellow Love by Clare Devine. The first counted toward the Lots Of Socks knitalong for World Down Syndrome Day, but the second did not. It is a fun and easy pattern to knit and I will probably use this heel in other socks.

Likewise I finished the second sock of Flower Shock by Anna Friberg.  I discovered that the mystery green yarn is Hazel Knits; the contrasting color bands are all different segments of two colorways of Knit Picks Chroma fingering. They are very pretty socks, although I wonder how practical because of the Chroma, which is not going to be very hard wearing. And it was Anna, known as Yarnesty, who informed me I had won two free patterns from her collection as a prize in the knitalong! So I checked her patterns on Ravelry and chose the Fergus socks and the Bjorko shawl. I look forward to knitting them soon... and maybe going shopping for more yarn! I'm adding to my queue faster than I'm getting projects done, but I've always enjoyed having an extensive queue.

Quarta returned from Mexico with an injured knee which required a doctor visit today and will need an orthopedist check tomorrow. The kneecap briefly dislocated and then popped back in place, which she may just be more prone to because it happened once to her other knee. This time there is more swelling but we don't think any permanent damage. We'll see. Spring is really getting into gear and we have lots of pretty flowers, which I may share next time I blog.

A Little Bit of Handwork

I have been neglecting the blog of late, and here are some projects that really deserve to be seen.  First, some of my mother-in-law's quilts that I pinned for her over a month ago:

Pretty and sweet.

This one's intriguing, all in plaids.  You have to step back to see the overall pattern.  She's probably got both of these tied and finished by now!  My own quilting and sewing has not been progressing at all, but I remain hopeful that I'll be able to get back into it now that the school year has started up.  If I can just shake the first week exhaustion.

I have a finished project in knitting to share with the yarn-along.  I started this rug from T-shirt yarn in July or so, after I finished Daniel's Ipad cover.  My original thought was for him to be able to use it in college, but he ended up taking a braided rug that his grandmother made (the same one who made the above quilts).  I packed it along in the car when he and Steve left, and finished it while we were on vacation.  The t-shirts that provided the yarn were some of the boys' when they were small: the "Montana Bear Patrol" and the different striped ones that they got sick of wearing.  Tertia's Pooh dress is the pink, and there are a few other nostalgic memories in there.  I pretty much cleaned out all my t-shirt yarn for this, and it's quite heavy, although not quite as long as I had hoped.  Also on my travels I worked on the Mint Chocolate sweater sleeves, and made several dishcloths, not pictured.

Reading: I am starting Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich after reading some fairly lightweight books over the summer.  Also, encouraged by Daniel, I have an audiobook of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World out from the library, and am a little over halfway through it.  I'm not sure I'm sold on this epic many-book saga quite yet, but I'm a little more interested in it than I was at first.  I won't do a thorough book review this post though.  I hope to bring the travels up to date soon with the next installment(s) of our summer vacation.

Randomday

Tertia's braces are on and live after two long appointments this week; the first appointment put on the brackets and the wire on the bottom, and the second appointment fixed two bottom brackets that had come unglued and reinstalled the wire, then put the wire on the upper row.  Unfortunately there is one bracket on the uppers that fell off but that one tooth can wait for a month or so.  We are getting used to using the sonic-care system to clean the braces and Tertia is quietly and meekly asking if her favorite foods are soft enough.  ("Is spaghetti soft?") She gave up bacon this morning.  You can tell her mouth is sore but she doesn't complain much.  She is our first child to need braces so this is a learning experience for me as well.  The orthodontist says that she will never be able to create a perfect bite without invasive jaw surgery, so we are aiming for straight teeth over the next few years, followed by a couple years of wearing a retainer, and then a few implants when she's 18 to replace some of the several congenitally missing permanent teeth.  Did you know that if there's not permanent tooth underneath it, a baby tooth will grow long roots and do the job for many years?  It surprised me to learn that, but it's working to Tertia's advantage.

I finished the binding on Orca Bay yesterday evening while Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet was playing in the background.  (Required for Daniel's online humanities class).  I used this really nice tutorial for a two-color, all machine-sewn binding, and it came out great!  Pictures when I get a chance.  It's my first quilt finish in a long time.

Source: pineneedlequiltshop.blogspot.com via Katherine on Pinterest

I also started a new quilt project, inspired by this quilt I saw at Pine Needles Quilts in Lake Oswego a few years ago.  I have 2 yards of a nice barn-red fabric for the border blocks -- do you think that would be enough?  The pattern itself is a modified Ohio Star, and I've saved scraps from my previous Civil War projects to have plenty for the blocks.  Hmm. I may need to go fabric buying.  Because I also need a backing for my Farmer's Wife quilt, which I want to start quilting soon.  "Need" of course, is a relative term when it comes to fabric.  But I do need thread.  Time to schedule a trip to Fabric Depot.



"Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness."

— Ray Douglas Bradbury

Grandma's Quilts, and Stash report

Grandma brought over three more tops to be pinned yesterday.

Someone gave her the pieces from a Lone Star kit, and this is what she did with them instead.

This one is cheery and scrappy, all stripes and plaids.

And this one... well, it qualifies as "avant garde."  Very fun!

Nothing new on my own design wall, but Grandma has been busy enough for us both.

And here is exhibit A in why I am the worst mom ever, and why I cry through teacher inservices.  Tertia went out to wait for the bus, and I realized she still had blueberry-banana smoothie on her face, so I insisted on dragging her inside in a hurry to wash it.  Then she went out to the bus just in time... and I realized that she was wearing her Sunday shoes.  With hand-me-down cargo shorts from her big brothers, and yes, those are Little Mermaid socks.  It was too late to change into her sneakers with orthotically-correct inserts.  At least she got through the day better than I did.  Maybe I need Little Mermaid socks.
Stash Report:

Fabric:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards

Fabric used year to date: 40 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 18 yards
Net used for 2013: 22 yards

Knitting yarn:

Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 6000 yards.
Yarn added this week: 500 yards (teacher gift to be photographed later!)
Yarn added year to date: 3800 yards
Net used for 2013: 2200 yards

The Liebster Award!

Well, this is a pleasant surprise!  I was nominated by Jill at Crazy For Red for the Liebster Award.  Thank you, Jill! I’m really honored and excited, and hope the bloggers I nominate will feel the same way.

The Liebster award is given from bloggers to bloggers. To qualify, the blog must have less than 200 followers or be less than 6 months old. Once the award has been bestowed upon you, you may accept it and pass it along by writing a post with the following things:

1. List 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions posed by the nominator.
3. Choose 11 blogs to pass the award on to and link to them in your post.  You’ll need to notify them too, probably by a comment on their blog.
4. Create 11 questions for those 11 bloggers to answer.

 
My 11 random things:

1. I was once frisked by Dan Quayle’s Secret Service agents.  It doesn’t get much more random than that.
2. I was born in the Netherlands.
3. Both my parents were philosophy and history majors.  My mom was also an English major.  My dad has an earned doctorate in Theology.
4. I am a preacher’s kid and a blonde, and I’m on a lifelong quest to prove both of those stereotypes wrong.
5. I am a fourth-generation teacher (at least), following in my mom’s, her dad’s, and his mother’s footsteps.  Some stereotypes you just can’t fight against!
6. I have taught Latin to middle school students at a classical Christian school for 13 years now.
7. I have an irrational fear/dislike of talking on the phone.
8. I have a completely rational fear and dislike of snakes.
9. I am weirdly stubborn and tenacious.  Case in point: the Liebster award.  I thought I should trace it back to the great blogmother of all Liebster awards, but I kept hitting dead blogs and getting caught in infinite loops of YA teen paranormal romance book blogs.  I have discovered that the number and rules vary slightly: some people only nominate 5 blogs and don’t do random facts or questions. I’m not giving up, though.  The origins of the Liebster award meme are now my personal holy grail of blogging.
10. I am obsessive about some things.  Case in point: knitting.  I began knitting more than 10 years ago, and at first I said to myself, “it’s just the pregnancy hormones.  I’ll make a scarf or two and get it out of my system.”  Shortly after that I bought my spinning wheel and it has snowballed ever since.  My Ravelry queue has nearly 1500 items on it.  I don't think it's out of my system.
11. I aspire to be a polymath.  That means that I can’t stick to one subject, and my blog has what some might call multiple personality disorder.  I prefer to think of it as “eclectic.”  I aim to be the only blog in the universe that regularly posts on the subjects of knitting, quilting, spinning, book reviews, Down syndrome advocacy, politics, theology, history, classical education, grammar, literature, recipes, and Celtic folk music.

My 11 questions from my nominator:

1. Cat or Dog?  Definitely cat.  I have three.

2. What is your favorite TV show?  Probably Project Runway.

3. What color are the walls in your living room? “Butter”.  In fact, yellow is a theme in several rooms of the house.

4. What is the largest quilt you have made? I’ve made two king-sized quilts, one a Double Wedding Ring that was 104” square.  Here it is, a blast from 1998:

5. What are you listening to right now?  The dishwasher, and my 16-year-old son humming.

6. Do you use a mac or a pc?  A pc.  I am not wise in the ways of Apple.

7. How many states/countries have you lived in?  Let’s see: the Netherlands, 3 different houses in Ohio, Pennsylvania for college, 3 houses in Virginia, 2 houses in Colorado, and now Washington.  That’s 6 different regions and 11 different houses.

8. What is your favorite book?  Hard to pick, but my fallback is always The Lord of the Rings.

 

9. Who is the teacher who most influenced you and what did he/she teach?  Dr. Leon, my college French professor.  She made grammar fun, as I hope I do for my own students.

10. What is one thing you would stay up late to do?  Um, blog?  (It’s 11:18 as I type this).  I also stay up late to read a good book, sew or knit, or play a game or puzzle if it’s got my attention.  Basically, I like to stay up late because the house is quiet then, even if I pay for it the next day!

11. Did you play any sports in high school or college? If so, what?  I’m almost completely unathletic, but I do play a good game of ping-pong.

And now my 11 questions for my 11 nominees:

1. What do you like to blog about?
2. How did you get started blogging?
3. If you had a time machine, when and where would you go?  (You may assume for the sake of the question that no unfortunate paradoxes will be created by time travel if that makes you more comfortable!)
4. What is the next color that you would choose to paint a room or the exterior of your house?
5. Name a favorite fiction book.  Or two or three if you can’t pick.
6. Name a favorite nonfiction book.
7. What is your favorite genre of music or your favorite musician?
8. How many states/countries have you lived in?
9. A favorite teacher?
10. Favorite color?
11. Where would you like to go on vacation, if you could go anywhere?

My nominees are (drumroll, please):

Copperlight Wood
The Spinning Shepherd
Knittybutton
Hearthside
Blackberry Rambles
Life in Wotring Woods
Domestically Aware
The Elliott Homestead
Carpe Quiltem
Weekend Wisdom

Dee’s Doodles

Have fun, everyone! I don't mean this to be a high-pressure obligation, so no worries if you're unable to pass along the award.  Or if you take a couple of weeks to write the post, like me!

Post-Christmas Posting

1.a. Quarta and Tertia watching NORAD Santa tracker. b. Quarta and Tertia with stockings. c. Tertia's Jack's Chain quilt
2.a. group shot, waiting for stocking opening. b. Daniel and Secundus (with bow tie).
3.a. Quarta with purple quilt. b. Quarta with purple bathrobe. (She likes purple, can you tell?) c. Steve hurrying to finish Harry Potter 5, with girls.

Since it's a quilting blog I'll share those quilt finished shots in larger scale:

Jack's Chain

Anita's Arrowheads.  Both are on the girls' beds now.  I stayed up until 12:30 Christmas morning binding the purple one, and it still needs the label sewn on.

Menu for Christmas dinner was ham, Christian's potatoes, peas, spinach salad, applesauce, that corn/hominy dish that Secundus likes, and three kinds of pie for dessert: apple, mocha-pecan, and blueberry.  As you can see the house is not super-neat and clean, and our tree is not exactly symmetrical, but it works for us. 

Steve is planning a "date with Dad" for each of the kids.  Tertia and Quarta are doing theirs today: Tertia went bowling and to McDonald's for lunch, and Quarta will be seeing Ice Age IV and going to Pizza Hut for dinner.  The boys are playing computer games and I'm discovering new ways of wasting time.

The weirdest thing is that, now that both boys are home and they both have their driver's licenses, Steve and I are going on a getaway weekend sometime soon.  I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that one!  I'm still not quite ready for Secundus to go out driving by himself.  Here he is wearing Grandpa's old hat:

Aunt Carol sent a link for how to make this little frog (stuffed with rice) and Quarta was right on it. She has fun with the crafty stuff!

 Merry Christmas to all (be sure to take every one of those 12 days, now!) and enjoy family fun and good food!

WIP Wednesday - Secundus Intervention

While the boys were away dropping Daniel off at college, I decided to stage an intervention.  Secundus' room was a disaster area. This is all the stuff I raked out from under his bed.  I estimate at least 2 years of debris.  I pulled the bed out and thoroughly vacuumed underneath, combing the carpet first for candy wrappers and thumbtacks.

He has been "doing his own laundry" for a few years now, but for him that means piling stuff on the floor of his closet (his dresser was almost empty).  I assume anything on the floor is dirty unless told otherwise, so I just dumped it all into a couple of loads to make sure.  Oh, and when he talks me into buying new shoes, he never throws away the shoeboxes; there were at least 7 shoeboxes in his closet.  There were also 3 ripped up backpacks, still stuffed with notebooks and papers from school.  I recycled most of his papers.  Our recycling bin is too full for the rest this week -- seriously, more paper weight than I could carry in two loads!

The surprise element, and the spur for all of this, is the new mattress he's getting on his bed when he gets back Friday.  For 13 years the boys have both slept on pretty low-quality bunk-bed mattresses, even after we separated the bunks and they started not liking being stuck with the springs.  So I went to Sleep Country USA Monday and ordered an upgrade.  If Daniel is reading this he has a reason to look forward to coming home for Christmas, too!  But Secundus is really hard on the furniture.  I mean, really hard!  His bunky board had only 2 intact slats out of seven... he had broken all the others.  And the mattresses were being delivered just a few hours after I bought them, so I didn't have time or a large enough car to go out and buy a plywood sheet cut to the right size for a bedboard - I still want to do this, but it will have to wait.  So I had to call up my limited carpentry skills, fetch the miter box, cut (and then recut) 5 lengths of scrap 1x2's or 1x3's.  I think it will do.  It's certainly better than before.  I poked my right thumb with a staple and hit my left thumb with the hammer in the process.  I would like someone else to be the handy one for awhile, please!

But look at that!  It still has that new mattress smell!  Of course, I'm going to have to convince Secundus not to use his pocketknife on it anymore.  Do you think he'll forgive me for cleaning his room?

I sorted his socks after the laundry was done.  Here are 28 pairs, which would be enough with what he has with him on his Great American Road Trip to wear for an entire month without doing laundry.  And I'm not counting the shoebox full of orphan socks that still need matches.

Since most of you are here for the quilts, I thought I'd take some closeups of the quilt on his bed.  I made it 8 years ago and it's called "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go Go Go" or something like that.  At the top is a spaceship...

The Man in the Yellow Hat is flying a helicopter to rescue Curious George...

Bob the Tomato is driving the school bus with Goldilocks and the Three Bears...

If you flip open the door you can see Larry the Cucumber...

I put our green van and Uncle Andy's pickup on there...

The Amazing Spider-man is perched on the ambulance to remind Secundus of the "Spider-man on the swingset" incident which took him to the ER for one of his many trips.

 

At the bottom a peaceful sailboat on a pond next to Pooh and Tigger playing...

A train runs across some rails, with Flash or Dash or some other superhero going faster than a locomotive.  That's a fire truck partially obscured above it.

I know this is an 8-year-old quilt, but I wanted to share it because it hasn't been shared before, and I sure haven't done any other quilting this past week!  Most of the designs came from either Block Magic/ Block Magic Too, or Tender Loving Covers.  He hasn't destroyed it, so maybe that means Secundus likes it a little bit too.

For the yarn-along, I am soaking Summer Flies prior to blocking it, and beside it is the World magazine from back in February that I have been working on trying to finish all week long.  Yes, it's been that kind of a week.  And school starts next week... yikes!

Well, it's been fun but I need to go back upstairs and finish cleaning.  It's been three full days and I'd love to get it all done before the guys get home.

Manic Monday

Daniel's first day of college classes was today.  Here's the cell phone picture Steve took on move-in day... wasn't that considerate of him?  He knows I like pictures of quilts for my blog.  Look how neatly the new bed is made with the new twin-extra-long sheets!  Shirt-Stripe Boxes is now in Pennsylvania.  Just a little over a week ago it was on his own bunk bed.

Daniel is loving college by all accounts, and Steve and Secundus are on their long way back home.  They drove from Grove City, PA to Hillsdale, MI today, and then on to Davenport, IA.  That's a lot of driving... Secundus is logging some serious hours.

The girls and I were at Family Camp in Wamic, OR last week.  We're all pretty much exhausted. 

Tertia and her best camp buddy, before and after the big splash.  They did this for hours.  I finished a shawl and started another one.  It was a good Family Camp; wish the boys could have come too.

Today was a manic day... laundry, and then some special shopping, then cleaning before the delivery of the special shopping items, more laundry, cajoling the girls to do their chores, killing fleas (I treated the cats more than a week ago, but the stragglers are die-hards).  I tried a new recipe for macaroni and cheese today, Quarta picked a few blackberries to go on our ice cream for dessert, we watched a bit of an older Pride and Prejudice miniseries on Netflix, we assembled a tabletop soccer/foosball game the boys never put together from at least two Christmases ago, I went out to Knit Night at Starbucks for about 15 minutes, and I still have to sort laundry.  I actually did more laundry today than usual because my extra cleaning was part of an intervention I'm staging in Secundus' room.  Pictures to follow.  Honestly, that boy needs some serious organizational help.  But the only way I'll ever be able to get in his room is when he's halfway across the country.

I can't believe I need to get the back-to-school planning done for the rest of us.  Where has the summer gone?