Randomday with Catastrophe

 First the good news. Celtic Solstice has been finished for about two weeks, and is going to live with my brother in Virginia. I haven't been finishing quilt tops very fast for several years, and I would like to do better at supplying my family and friends with quilts. So this one's for Andy.

 She looks so innocent, Muffball does. But no!

This is the brain of the stitch regulator that was attached to my Megaquilter setup. I took the machine off the carriage so I could replace some worn carriage plastic tracks, as I blogged about after finishing Celtic Solstice. I was very optimistic that I could whip out those six quilt tops that need quilting. But I dawdled a bit with re-lifting the machine onto the refurbished carriage. And yesterday when I came home, I realized the entire carriage had been toppled over off the tracks, and the framework of the apparatus that goes around the heavy machine had fallen sideways onto the far end of the frame. This caused the wires leading into the red box to wrench out, and broke at least two of the black components on the circuitboard. It's a $500 piece of high-tech equipment that I can't possibly fix and can't really justify replacing right now. So now, instead of looking forward to zipping out lots of quilts, I'm going to have to try quilting with no real control of stitch length and speed. I used to do machine quilting on my little machine, not the frame, without a stitch regulator. But... grr. I can't even figure out how to dis-assemble the stitch regulator and replace it with the speed control switch that came with the frame, or whether that will even work. It unquestionably deflates my happiness in being able to solve the (relatively inexpensive) problem of wobbly tracks. Technology and I do not get along.

It was almost certainly the cat. Wish I could have been home to see her terrified reaction to jumping on the carriage... but only if I had hidden the stitch regulator first!

The Airing of Quilt Tops

The Megaquilter is disassembled, and I successfully put cut the track segments needed to replace the worn ones on the carriage.

They are now inserted into their grooves and the carriage is back on its tracks, which aren't worn enough to need replacement yet. But I haven't put the machine itself back on the carriage yet. It's still sitting on the round table in the family room where all the stuff gets put. I've stitched a bit with it to put it through its paces, and I think I'm almost ready to put it back on the carriage now and load another quilt.

I made this cute little thread-holder on July 4, in patriotic colors. It's replacing an old brown-paper lunch bag that was held on with masking tape. I love how it looks like a pair of suspenders!

This is how it will hang from the carriage assembly. It's very easy to snip threads and reach back and put them in there when I am having a marathon quilting session.

Also on July 4, I hung out the finished Celtic Solstice on the clothesline. Then I decided I needed to see all my quilt tops awaiting quilting. I definitely need a kick start on getting some tops finished.

I didn't have enough clothesline. These are the Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilts I haven't quilted yet. Left to right are Good Fortune (last year), On Ringo Lake (year before that), En Provence (year before that), and Grand Illusion (2 years before that).

 I tried the panorama feature, but it came out kind of weird. I HAVE finished four of the mystery quilts since I started doing them: Allietare (2015), Celtic Solstice (2013), Easy Street (2012) and Orca Bay (2011)

 I took a close-up of On Ringo Lake.

 I have two tops that are not Quiltville mysteries.

 The Tone it Down quilt was the APQ quiltalong a few years ago. It's enjoying another round of popularity on Instagram, but I've had this top finished for a few years. It's a Burgoyne Surrounded block, but in scrappy low-volume fabrics.

 And this is one I've been saving for maybe the longest... I call it Country Stars and it was inspired by a quilt I saw years ago in a Lake Oswego quilt shop.

Photobombing provided by Quarta.

So I need to get some backings ready and just dive in to quilt these.

Celtic Solstice - A Finish

Celtic Solstice was the 2013 Quiltville mystery; I finished piecing the top in 2014, almost exactly 5 years ago. I started machine quilting it in November of 2017 and just finished it last week.

I hung it out on the clothesline on the 4th of July. It really sparkles with those vibrant oranges, blues, greens and yellows. I totally need to spur myself onward with getting quilts quilted. More of that in another post.

Closeups of the wave quilting on the borders. The outer border fabric and the binding come from that epic estate sale I went to over 5 years ago.

I have a set of rubber stamps with designs from the Book of Kells... I decorated some plain fabric with them once and decided to use the fabric here. Celtic kitties...

and Celtic knot patterns.  The quilt measures about 78"x81" - better for a Full than a Queen size. I used navy thread for quilting and, aside from the wave pattern and some outline quilting in the borders, an overall squiggle/loop/star pattern that is my go-to, standard pattern for most quilts.

Also, since it's a new month, the UFO challenge random number is #1, and for me that breaks down to my long-neglected "classics" tote bag, and spinning the light green with silver glimmer fiber that I bought at Sock Summit. Both of those are theoretically possible, but I haven't worked on either so far.

Randomday and Family

It's once again Randomday. So since I have figured out how to upload videos (actually, download from cloud, then upload onto blog), here is a random bird that crashed into my bathroom window several days ago, then started squawking about it with a few other friends. I think it was a woodpecker. Hairy or Downy? Any guesses?

This is a potato plant in bloom. I was surprised that I had never seen what their flower looked like before.

Raspberries are in season, or will be for a few more days, and blueberries are starting.

 Quarta is the Washington State winner for the Trig-Star contest, a trigonometry test that is sponsored by the surveyors' association! Really proud of her outstanding math skills, which she definitely gets from her father!

Tertia and I are going to a wedding this afternoon. A good friend and classmate of Daniel's, who is also back in town to be in the wedding party. So we had a family dinner last Sunday. Peter is just back from his annual training, too. It's great to have them all around the table at once!

I've been working on an Ancestry.com family tree for myself ever since I got the test for a Christmas present from Steve. He got his from a birthday present from me, and his mother started it off by getting herself one. She is still looking for her elusive grandfather, Henry M. Brown, born around 1850 in Maine, and died in Florida 1932. He is a mystery man. But my family is pretty easy to trace. For 4-6 generations before me, they were in Ohio on my mother's side and Indiana on my father's side. Early settlers in the Ohio River Valley. Steve's mom did most of the research for it back in the 90's, and I have her notebook. My mom and grandmothers contributed to some notes and charts. But of course when you add the DNA element and computer research, you can find out a lot more. So now I find myself mildly obsessed with one particularly interesting branch of the family that goes all the way back to the Norman conquest. I've joined WikiTree and will probably spend way too much time trying to connect myself to the gateway ancestors listed there. Hey, it keeps me off the streets and away from the knitting thought police.

On the Fourth I found myself wondering, if 50 million American kids lit a billion sparklers all at once, could it be seen from space? We did our small part.

To Ian and Ashley: may your marriage be blessed with faith, love, family and friendship.

Randomday

Randomday is the day the blog eats leftovers.

Daniel is home from Virginia for a friend's wedding! We met him at the airport Thursday evening and took him out for a late (very, for him) dinner at Deschutes Brewery Public House. Excellent burgers and elk-burgers, and you should totally go extra for the garlic fries. It was his birthday so they gave us a little plate of birthday cake/ beer flavored cake-pops.

Daniel is off at a bachelor party beach weekend, and Peter is home from annual training with the National Guard in Yakima! Here's some of what he was up to. Driving a Stryker sounds very cool, but sleep deprivation and only one shower a week, not so much.

I have the Megaquilter taken off the carriage and am going to cut the half-length rails that were included with the Grace Frame set-up many years ago, to fit them onto the carriage length. I found this blog post from 7 years ago about my fears with that, but I think it will be okay. I did it once before. The hardest part was getting Steve to lift it off the carriage for me. I need to dust and clean all the parts that haven't been given any TLC for awhile, and then reassemble it. But first, I'm going to attach the walking foot and try stitching on the binding of Celtic Solstice with the machine alone set up on a regular table. That should give me a good idea if it needs professional servicing.

We have a branch down from the plum tree in our back yard. It tends to prune itself when the weight of the fruit is too much for it. But the fruit that is ripe right now is strawberries and raspberries. The raspberries are especially delicious this year. We have red and golden varieties. I harvested all the fava beans which Steve grew as a cover crop. It is so laborious to prep them, and you really need to do it when they are young... but if you do, they are delicious. 

We have a hummingbird feeder that is right outside our front window and is quite fun. It had steady customers all winter and now there's still one who comes by a few times a day.

Below is the video I took of the tiny bunny we saw on our walk earlier this week. It was one of about 11, and it was too small to be afraid of us. We walked around the entire wetlands loop and he was still there when we came back. (This is also a test to see if I can figure out how to upload videos.)

If this video works, I have another of a suspected woodpecker in our backyard that I can share another time.

In other news, we have successfully gotten both Tertia and Quarta hooked on Monk reruns after watching the first few episodes ourselves. Amazing how many shows we missed out on during the 2000's when they were little. Steve has been watching through the original Star Trek series with Quarta, who is quite persnickety about the lack of good visual effects and generally male chauvinist worldview. They are in 3rd season and so there is some pretty regrettable stuff! But even the Next Gen. looks hokey by today's standards. Okay, I'm feeling old.

Political Tuesdays: In Detention - No Yarn for You!

(Elementary school bus song, to the tune of Frere Jacques)

Marijuana, marijuana

LSD, LSD,

Mr. Murray makes it.

All the teachers take it.

Why can't we? Why can't we?

This piece of absolute ridiculous drivel has stayed alive in my brain for 40-some years, thanks to my phenomenal auditory memory that is both a gift and a curse. I never sang it, I was subjected to it in the echo chamber of Bus 19. Mr. Murray, the kindest and most tolerant of elementary school principals, to my knowledge never required the students who composed or sang it to serve detention, or perhaps he remained blissfully unaware of their disrespect. It was pretty rare for students to go to the principal's office; the girl who punched me in 4th grade did, but I always felt vaguely guilty about reporting her -- the unwritten culture code of the 70's in Northwest Ohio seemed to be that you just had to learn to be tough. I wasn't tough. I mostly liked school and wanted to please my teachers. I was always careful to follow the rules and was only really moved to anger when something seemed terribly unfair. Maybe this was why my parents moved me to Christian schools starting in 6th grade, for which I am forever grateful. 

Though I went to a small Christian college, the prevailing culture code in the late 80's was libertarian and quite tolerant of rebellion and dissent of all kinds, particularly in the English Literature faculty. I had two profs who were aging hippies, who specialized in saying edgy and suggestive things that would be guaranteed to make 18-year-old girls uncomfortable... what they call "triggering" today. One was Dr. Donnelly. One of the first things I ever learned about him was that he had a daughter who was in a lesbian motorcycle gang. I did not know what to make of him, but I owe a great deal of my writing ability to his classes.

Really, I was a good, shy, very mild-mannered person all through my schooling, and I was terrified of falling afoul of the Powers that Be by breaking any rule, so I had to really push myself to take risks.

Fast-forward to age 51, and I am now serving out my very first detention.

The knitting social network Ravelry has enacted a policy of zero toleration of support for Donald Trump. Ravelry's new policy, announced with no forewarning whatsoever Sunday, states "We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support for the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy."

I reject that premise categorically. Political affiliation is far too complex an issue to boil down to such a childish standard. Calling anyone who supports the legally elected President of the U.S a white supremacist is deeply hateful and antithetical to the fundamental American value of fair play and free speech. 

I am no white supremacist. The suggestion that I am is a hateful slur. Nor am I a Trump supporter. You may, if you are inclined do some actual reading, trace my thoughts on the matter through several posts from 2016:

What I saw at the hostile takeover, Vote your conscience and other radical notions, The year we became tribal, Trump book reports, Nov. 9

Since the election I have been slightly reconciled to the fact that the political process is largely out of my hands, that Trump has not been the complete disaster he was predicted to be, and against all expectations I have even been pleased with his stance on the pro-life issue, which is the non-negotiable one for me. And it is my duty as a Christian and a citizen to support him in the sense that it is a sin and a crime to agitate for the violent overthrow of a legitimate head of state, and it is just plain bad manners and self-destructive to constantly be engaging in negative speech about anyone. 

I posted only once after Sunday's announcement, in the "Inclusive for all..." thread in the heretofore very quiet Conservative Knitters group. Conservative groups on Ravelry are quiet because there has been a purge at least once before, after the election of 2008. My post, objecting to the one-sided application of a policy restricting free speech, was deleted along with a large batch of other posts in one thread a few hours later, and I was notified that my account was "restricted" for thirty days for violating TOS or community standards. That means I can read forums, but at the bottom of every page "you are restricted from posting in this thread" appears and I can't even vote with the "disagree" or "agree" buttons. I can still access my queue, add patterns to it, and I can still buy and download patterns if I am so inclined. So all the essential features of Ravelry are still there... as long as I behave myself according to the standards of whoever decided to restrict me in the first place. I am not materially injured, but I am spitting mad. What worse insult is there to a writer than to delete her words and slander her with the "white supremacist" label with no ability to defend herself? 

But what did I say to deserve this? My best at reconstructing my post, since it was deleted without my consent, and in a sweep that indicated no one was really reading carefully - This will make an interesting SCOTUS case. (probably this was the trigger, if anything, but I don't see how it's outside of the TOS) I don't see how they can be inclusive by being exclusive. It's exactly the kind of thing that will help T* in 2020... not that I'm supporting that or anything! I may also have asked a hypothetical about whether Ravelry is a place of public accommodation... because any legal case would probably turn on it. And what I didn't say then, but wish I had, was "It's like algebra. Whatever you do to one side of the equals sign, you must do to the other side of the equals sign, or they aren't equal." 

It has been a depressing montage of groupthink and echo chambers in the knitting world, as one after another, people in the knitting and yarn industry announce their support of Ravelry "against hate." Ravelry has "othered" me. Where do I go to get my reputation back? 

"Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice and rage... They would shut down your free speech, use the power of the law to punish their opponents..." I would mock this campaign speech by President Trump as overblown rhetoric, but now I'm not so sure. 

I understand that in managing a big platform like Ravelry, there are provocative and downright offensive projects and posts that need to be moderated. That is not the issue here, and I have to wonder if the unilateral actions taken in the last two days were really thought through in advance. Open invitation to Casey, owner of Ravelry: give me my voice and equality back, and I will have a civil discussion with you in the forum of your choice. I am always civil and usually pretty patient. I have four children and taught middle school for 16 years. I also helped build and promote Ravelry in the early days and would like to be able to enjoy and promote it many years from now.

Raveler since October 5, 2007

Raveler #19244

I do not stand with Ravelry if it means suppression of the free expression of any of its members.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson

The Joy of Finishing

So, I have progress in both knitting and quilting to report this week. Of all the things I have blogged about, the knitting and quilting have always been constants, and since I am still struggling with blogging regularly, it is easiest for me to push myself to blog when I have progress or even a finish to report. So, I started a new, impulsive summer knitting project this week. It is Gemini, from Knitty summer 2012 issue, and I am trying it with some reclaimed cotton yarn from an unraveled thrift store sweater. But my conscience nagged me as I knit, because Mint Chocolate was lacking only the buttonhole band and some buttons, and it had been started 5 1/2 years ago.

Also, full disclosure on my abundance of UFOs -- on the right is On Your Toes, a Green Mountain Spinnery pattern I started about 8 years ago (?) with some handspun Shetland wool. And on the right is Rosalind, also long in hibernation. Rosalind doesn't need too much more, On Your Toes needs quite a bit.

Well, I stayed up late and banged out that buttonhole band. It was just a little math, and looking up how to do one-row buttonholes. The next morning I sewed on all the buttons, which were salvaged from my favorite red Nordic sweater I bought at Goodwill, after it wore out at the sleeves many years ago.

 I even practiced my selfie-taking skills a bit. They are better than they used to be. Mint Chocolate, finished at last.

So after I blocked it, I also washed three other of my colorwork cardigans in the Kookaburra woolwash. And then I ordered some more Kookaburra because it's been too long and basically all my woolens need washing. Amazon delivered it the NEXT DAY, which is kind of insane but impressive.

So last week I blogged about returning to the Megaquilter to work on Celtic Solstice, which had been basically waiting 1/3 done since the end of 2017. This was the 2013 mystery quilt. I got to the bottom border and had to refresh my memory about how the quilting goes. It was a good thing I had taken a picture over a year ago of the border quilting, which is a wave pattern.

That was this morning when I finished the bottom border.

 And the right side. Then I took it off the frame and remounted it so one side was ready to have the border quilted. When I took my training lesson on the Megaquilter, the lady said to do this with borders. You can just let the weight of the quilt hang over the front rail to keep a basic tension on the area to be quilted.

 How it looked from the side before quilting...

and from the front of the machine. I tucked the extra quilt under and up again over the batting rail to keep it out of the way while still holding tension. If necessary I put a heavy notebook in the middle, in the "pocket" formed by the folded quilt. Believe it or not, this helps!

So I have finished quilting Celtic Solstice. I am still having some trouble with the machine, but I think it is because the hard rubber rails on the carriage have abraded in certain spots, and maybe also because it needs me to use different thread. I can tell it's the rails by visual examination, and because the bumpiness I feel in quilting happens when I am quilting north-westerly or north-easterly. I think I can fix the rails on the carriage, cutting down the short rails that I have never used from the original set-up. I will need to disassemble the set-up and take the machine off separately from the stitch-regulator to do that, and I can maybe sew on the binding while I have it off to test whether the machine itself needs a tuneup. This is a lot of tech talk to say, I need to hold myself accountable to actually do that! It's a bit scary for me. But I am on a bit of a high from having actually finished a project, and maybe I can channel that. I have so many more tops to machine quilt!

So in summary, I have finished two long-standing UFOs in June so far. They are just NOT the ones chosen randomly from my list.