In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

The original albeit augmented quilt laid out as I affixed the back, the first part of the Kawandi process! Notable tears and rips are visible, why this quilt required a complete overhaul. This is heavy on pictures as I want to illustrate my Kawandi process. Because once I decided how to upcycle Dorothy's quilt, I got right to work as visiting summer beloveds allowed, hehehe. The outer perimeter is attached! I had to be careful NOT to stitch the quilt to the bed, hahaha. I write that due to the fact I started refurbishing this quilt in early May, then it lay dormant for nearly all of June and part of July. When I returned from keeping an eye on the grandsons on this sixth of this month, I dedicated most of my sewing hours to this effort, although the project feels more drawn out than those few months suggest. Rounds accumulate to the point I could sew in the living room, always a pleasure! Especially fun is watching the changing nature of the quilt, although I was slightly aggrieved...

27 January 2018; two patches already applied by machine. Yet the interior remains untouched, albeit compromised. Amid reading aloud Straight to the Heart: The Hawk Book Three , I did a little photographic research to discuss my latest quilt finish. To my surprise, I found I've had this quilt, pictured above in January of 2018, since the previous summer. That's eight years, my goodness! Where has the time gone? The quilt was already in need of repair when I received it. Yet to cloak the gorgeous stitching took time for me to admit. (Future Me was probably rolling her eyes, fully aware of what awaited this quilt, lol!) Yet this post isn't about time's fickleness, lol. It's about a beautiful English paper-pieced quilt made by a woman named Dorothy, her last name starting with S, inked on the back of the quilt in two places. She deserved such recognition because this diamond star pattern is GORGEOUS. Well, it was gorgeous. Now it remains as one snippet of what has beco...

Most of these scraps were added previously. Under the pink and purple flower is all that remains of the original English paper pieced quilt (white and black stripes and green floral prints). A couple of days ago I bought the necessary groceries for green bean and sausage soup. I was going to fix it yesterday, but better tasks emerged, and I put it off until today. Which was the perfect day because we started out with lots of marine layer unlike yesterday which was sunny from the get-go. Yes it's August, but in Humboldt County, most days are good to have soup. Most days are also good for a heavy-ish lap quilt. Well, many days are right for such a cozy. Last night, with a window behind me open, was the perfect temperature to hand-stitch, and hand-sew I did until I was too tired to stitch further. I really wanted to finish the quilt last night. It simply didn't happen. The yellow-headed pin marks my stopping place. This quilt has been taking up sofa space for...months. Not sure ho...

Little Camilla in the run from a couple days ago. We went away for a brief sojourn, returning home on what's turned into a warm summer's day. Is it late summer already? It's the twentieth of August, and it feels like summer only began. The chickens are eight weeks old yesterday. They seemed happy to see me this morning, also thrilled to be let into their run, lol. After a day spent shopping for groceries and getting resettled at home, I'm sitting down this evening with the usual thrills; handsewing, baseball, then a visit to the coop to collect the feeder and see if the chickens feel like leaping onto my right forearm. Sometimes life is that simple, sometimes. Sometimes driving to the San Francisco Bay Area so my husband can have successful skin cancer treatment intrudes. That's what happened yesterday. But twenty-some hours later we're home and he's feeling okay, and the chickens have little or no memory of being in their coop for a day. A neighbor checked ...

  Roost in the coop. Heads-up: This is about my belief in Christ, America's further descent into authoritarianism, and how those notions weave in and out of my gray matter. Oh, and a little about chickens, quilts, and books. It's Saturday morning. Foggy. Gray. Warm for Humboldt County (Sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit). I wanted to write about the QIP (quilt in progress) in my Go Bag, as I'm prepping said quilt for further Round the World installments. But I also wanted to share the great roost my husband built a couple of days ago for the chickens, although they aren't super keen on it, yet. Only Owl gives it nod, again this morning hopping onto it, then reaching the second rung, then jumping to the floor. One of these days all the chicks will be perched on it, and not that far in the future. Go Bag quilt: Small. Pretty. Peaceful. Necessary. My heart this morning is torn; Washington D.C. is becoming a different city than what I visited a few years ago, what with the admini...

  Nadia Barnevelder in the mood to pose. All photos courtesy of my husband. As if I'm on the cusp of eighty instead of sixty, ahem.... Well, that's how I felt a few days ago when I considered this post. I've achieved some good sleep in the interim, but I am NOT the woman I was three decades past. This is in regard to spending ten days with my grandsons, finding my energy levels depleted in a weird way that I chalk up to being close to sixty in the general realm. That actually happens next spring, but oh my goodness I felt every one of my fifty-nine years after saying See you later to those adorable grandkids, their mum, and her mother-in-law. Now that I've been home a full week, I am indeed rested and somewhat relaxed in the grand scheme. The previous post notwithstanding or how Washington D.C. is being enveloped in an evil attempt at a dystopian but all too realistic dictatorial takeover, I am not exhausted or feeling extremely aged. The chickens help; I've spent ...