Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving rituals seem different now -- at least, for me --than they were in my childhood.  Back then, as I recall, this holiday was almost -- but not quite -- as "big" as Christmas.  There were special decorations in the church, and special hymns and anthems (I was in the children's choir -- very amateur, and mostly female...).  

There was a big dinner in the dining room with all the good dishes, glassware and silverware: a turkey with all the trimmings, and gravy, and mashed potatoes and carrots and maybe creamed onions and dinner rolls and butter and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and apple pie with cheese or ice cream...and extra guests, like our Grammie and Uncle Rex with Aunt Ena, and our cousin Georgina (aka 'Nina').

After I married and had a family, we had a slightly scaled-down version of this meal, but there were still decorations in the church (always given away to the food bank or families in need) and special music (again, by the nineties, I was often singing on a music team that Sunday).   Grammie, Uncle and Aunt were all long gone, and Nina and my parents lived miles and miles away in other provinces.  Sometimes my sister would come -- but she also had her own friends with whom she marked the holiday.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving for my and my family is not forgotten, but has definitely taken a back seat to Christmas, all things considered.  

My sister and I have celebrated together from time to time, but not this year, as she has to be in Calgary for work and will be marking the day with friends.  My kids are on their own; we've not celebrated Thanksgiving together in years. 

 Church?  Well, yes -- "pre-COVID"  there was a grand celebration, with harvest produce and flowers (later given away to those in need) and favourite music.  After the service, the Anglican Church Women of the parish put on a turkey dinner, and parishioners contributed salads, rolls and desserts.  There was much fellowship and much left over to share. 

This year, as last, we've been unable to worship in person. Parishioners with overflowing gardens have undoubtedly shared them with family, friends and foodbanks.  There was a lovely pre-recorded service with special prayers and the familiar Thanksgiving hymns that those of us of a certain age know and love.  I'll be having a friend join me this afternoon for some knitting time, and a larger dinner than I usually create (I'll be sending her home with some!)  A bumbleberry crumble is in the oven as I type...

Over time I've added other "rituals" to this time of year.  Although some are weather-dependent, I do my best to honour them -- in part because I'm blessed to have the resources with which to carry them out, and in part because they involve preparations for winter that must be done anyway.

In the past few weeks I've been preparing the yard and garden for winter.  I still have my spring bulbs to plant -- croci, narcissus and tulips this year -- taking special pains with the process because in the last couple of years, my tulips in particular have not fared well.  I've enriched the bed in which they'll be planted, will be placing them in deeper holes, and adding bone/blood meal to the soil for nutrients and to repel deer.  They'll go in the ground tomorrow -- the tulips, under my south window and the croci and narcissus out on the "East Lawn" because deer are less likely to go after them (or so the literature says...)

Another ritual I've undertaken since I'm on my own and now live in rural Alberta where wintry roads can be icy and aren't always ploughed in a timely fashion: car prep!  

Around Thanksgiving, this means scheduling winter maintenance and the semi-annual "tire swap", which refers to exchanging my "not really all season tires" with winter (i.e. snow) tires.  That happens later this week, prefaced by my personal 'around Thanksgiving' ritual: changing out the 'spring/summer' floor mats for 'autumn/winter' ones, and giving the inside of my car a good cleaning.  Yesterday I must have done well, because Miss Pookie went inside for close inspection and definitely approved!

And let's not forget progess being made on preparing for gift-giving...

I finished my Kye toque in honour of Canadian Wool Month, and will be sending it away before too long.  The CloseKnit yarn, from Topsy Farms in Ontario, is rather "crisp" -- even after a rinse with hair conditioner -- but is quite comfortable as a head covering.  Here it is, being blocked on my favourite hat-blocker: an upturned 1 kg jar that used to hold peanut butter!

Pattern: Kye 'beanie' 
Source: Woolmark.com (free)
Yarn: CloseKnit 2-ply Double Knitting
Supplier: Topsy Farms

Once I finished that toque, I found my 'hat mojo' had been triggered, so I finally began the toque I'm making my son for Christmas (by request, instead of socks this year).  I'm using a decent acrylic yarn for easy care -- Cascade Yarns 'Anthem' -- in black (main colour) and red (motif), to make the "Ribbed Toque" from Sylvia Olsen's pattern, Two Toques, published in her book 'Knitting Stories...'  I've chosen to knit the motif as a 'stand-alone' in the black background, as my son wanted only a 'touch' of red.  Knitter's privilege! 😉

Both pair of baby socks were finished and mailed to their new home this week...and the yarn on the far left of this photo has been cast on for the Socks from Stash October Challenge, as it was the hands-down (feet-down?) winner of the Yarn Poll:

And I've been quilting -- working away on that Rail Fence commission.  The top is now finished:

And pin-basted -- taking a good hour on my hands and knees on my bedroom floor!

It's now quilted and trimmed, ready for me to cut and apply the binding. (No photo yet.)  It's a blustery, windy day, so perhaps before my company comes later this afternoon, I'll get a start on that.

As far as art goes...no new work under contstruction, but I did take the plunge this week and sent in my application for Lacombe's "Under $100 Art Market: 2021 Edition".  It's due to be held in late November.  Last year it was switched online at the last moment, and I was thrilled to sell 4 pieces before it went 'live' -- and one piece after it was over!  I'm steeling myself for another postponement -- or switch to online again -- and have taken new pieces of the work I plan to submit (only 4 so far this year):

Abandoned: Alaska - 5" x 7" in a floater frame

Between the Woods and Frozen Lake - 5" x 7"
in a *deep* floater frame that can hang or stand alone

December Dusk - 5" x 7"
in a *deep* floater frame that can hang or stand alone

Canoes on Cranna - 5" x 7" in a floater frame
("Cranna" refers to Cranna Lake in Lacombe, AB,
one of my favourite places, with a walking trail around it.)

Well, Gentle Readers, it's time for me to clean up and get ready for my guest...but not before linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  This week she's slow stitching -- another tradition for which I am thankful.   Thanks to Nina Marie for enabling the sharing of these posts, and thanks to all of you for reading!

May those of you celebrating Thanksgiving this month have a wonderful holiday.  Till next time...adieu!

Down the Rabbit Hole with Joe...

 

I spent a good part of last Saturday with Joe.  Joe Cunningham, quilt artist, that is.  Those of you who follow my ramblings likely know how much I enjoy his work and his teaching.  I own his Craftsy class -- which I can access once more because the new owners got their act together! -- and I've watched his appearances on The Quilt Show several times.  Since May, when he began to teach workshops online monthly, I've participated in nearly every one.  On Monday afternoon, when he did a live-online "chat" with Patricia Belyea of Okan Arts, I watched that too.  And as it was recorded, I watched it again yesterday afternoon as I was hand-stitching the binding on my daughter's Turning 40 quilt.

Yep.  I think he's great: funny, inspiring, interesting and with a quirky turn of mind that I find fascinating.  I don't understand how he thinks or sees the world, which he interprets in his art, but I remain intrigued -- so I've gone down the rabbit hole to try and find out more.

Which End is Up?
(C) 2020

In each workshop, Joe has us make at least one item, or sample.  Sometimes they're even useful!  😉  In September I managed to make a couple such items: a small top that will become a 'tummy time' blanket, and a cushion cover.  In August, I what I think is my favourite piece thus far -- and I've just spliced a couple of batting pieces so I can quilt it.  

On Saturday, the purpose of the workshop was to explore the work of an artist -- not necessarily in the textile medium -- and, drawing inspiration from that work, to make something using similar principles.  In this case, the artist was painter Stuart Davis.  Joe showed several examples of his work in a book, and landed on one -- entitled Cliche -- that we were to use for the workshop.  I confess, I preferred some of the other examples, but a class is a class...

So off we went!  

I'd picked two contrasting pieces of yardage from my "inheritance": a piece of deep navy and another of white.  Both have starry motifs printed on them in metallic gold.  I had no idea what I'd use them for, so they were perfect for playing in the workshop.  😊

The idea was to cut one fabric into 1 1/2" strips, and the other into random "chunks", much like we'd done in the very first workshop in May.  Then we were to reassemble the strips and chunks with one caveat: you couldn't have two strips or two chunks butting up against each other.  That lead to all sorts of adventures with angles and inset seams (or not).  Not being partial to fussing, I chose the 'slice it off' method for dealing with those!  

I didn't get the piece finished in the workshop time, but I pressed on, and worked on it again on Sunday, ending up with this:

Or maybe...this...

My design wall is 48" wide x 24" long, so you can see that this thing fills up a good bit of that space.  If you look closely, you'll see one tiny spot where the background (white) of one piece butts up against the background of another, but I don't care.  It is what it is.

And that's as far as I've got with it.  Working title?  Asteroid.  I know what I want to do to finish it, but I haven't come across the right fabric for a background to the shape.  I also know how I want to quilt it, but it'll have to wait till I find that fabric.  No matter; it was just another adventure down the rabbit hole with Joe!

I like these workshops because they've helped me loosen up a bit as an artist.  Someone who "sees" so differently, and is able to get his or her ideas across with humour and an easy-going style is someone whose teaching is hard to resist.

I find myself being more willing to experiment.  At the same time, I'm looking at my stash of materials differently, because I'm called on to play with them differently...and that has translated itself into new work.

I was particularly thrilled on Saturday when Joe and his colleague, Julie Silber, showed a quilt done decades ago by a quilter named Anna Williams.  Joe prefers to work with large chunks of fabric, and admitted that he tosses his tiny scraps but, Gentle Readers, I happen to love small bits, crumbs -- as you may well know.  Anna, apparently, loved crumbs too!

A couple of years ago I played with crumbs to create four "road-themed" pieces, the first of my "crumbpilations" series.

(L) Crossroads; (R) Take the Back Roads

(L) You Can't Get There From Here
(R) Never the Twain Shall Meet

Each of this quartet is 12" square, and is now mounted on stretched canvas and framed.  

Around that same time I made this piece for SAQA's Global Exhibit, "Season After Season"; entitled Incarnation to Resurrection: Reflections on the Colours of the Church Year, it's completely string-pieced from scraps:

That was a time of exploration, but in this chaotic COVID time, I've also found comfort in the practice of simply sewing together bits or strings of fabric, cutting and piecing and trimming -- and piecing some more.  That same comfort was what got me started quilting decades ago, when the stress of my husband's advancing illness was increasing, and two good friends who were quilting recommended it because, they opined, "knitting isn't enough".  (And they were right!)

This summer, I made two new art pieces from crumbs, and mounted them on large stretched canvases -- 12" W x 30" L.  (I have yet to pick them up from my framer.)

I've followed these with a couple of pieces that are going to be "soft" -- not on canvas, but hung with a sleeve and dowel.  

The working title of this one is "Chaos Can Be Colourful", measuring 24" W x 33" L.  I've yet to quilt it, but I expect I'll do it as I've done the others, with straight lines close together, and I expect I'll put a facing on it rather than a binding:

Another piece underway -- a glimpse of which I showed you a few days ago -- is on my design wall, blocks ready to be sewn together.  In the end it'll measure about 25" W x 20" L (before quilting):

Fence? What Fence? -- plus 2 random blocks...

Those two blocks on the right will end up somewhere else; I think the piece on the left is just the right size.  Again, it will likely be quilted with straight lines, faced, and provided with a hanging sleeve and dowel.

At the same time, I've been creating some crumb blocks that I expect will end up in a utilitarian quilt -- with sashing and borders; the stack of 8" square blocks numbers 17 right now, and there are more under construction:

In her interview/chat with Joe on Monday, Patricia Belyea noted that Joe once referred to himself as 'a quilt maker' but more recently, has begun to call himself an 'artist' or 'quilt artist'.  Thus ensued a conversation that really struck a chord with me.  

Just two days before, during the workshop, Joe and  his guest Julie Silber had had a similar bit of conversation about quilts and art.  Julie opined that "not all quilts are art; not all photographs are art -- and not all painting is art".  So...when a similar conversation happened in the Monday interview, I was excited.  Joe said his "aha" came when he realized that all of the quilts he'd made over the years were really "art projects".  That's when he also moved from copying the work of the quilters of yore that he admired, into creating quilts from his own unique and original ideas about art and the world around him.  He was particularly inspired by this quote from artist William T. Wiley:

I think art should be more and more amoral, a realm of exploration. Especially in school, if you could just get that idea across to people, it just means a whole threshold of getting into art, or the aesthetic experience, or awareness. Just give people a chance to go into it and really flesh out a lot of things and feel themselves in it. -- from Richardson, Brenda, "I Am My Own Enigma", published in Wizdum, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 1971, p. 10.

I continue to chew on this thought.  Note: the word Wiley uses is not "immoral"; it's "amoral", which means 'not concerned with the morality of a thing' -- which in this context I interpret as "being completely objective", giving one the freedom to explore an idea or concept in an original way as one works it out in art, music, writing...etc.

My chaos pieces are just such an exploration, using the arrangement of shapes and colours of fabric in a way that attempts, for me, to bring order to the chaotic circumstances in which I find myself both in my small corner, and in the wider world around me.

I told you Joe had taken me down a rabbit hole!  😉  

What are you exploring in your work, as you make choices about colour and shape, quilting design, threads, embellishments and pattern?

I'll leave you with that question, and links to both WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network and to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

Whatever you're creating, whatever you're pondering, Gentle Readers, thanks for stopping by -- and may you stay safe and well!  😊

Making Progress

This week I've been making more fabric -- in the form of bed quilt tops.  Well...isn't that what we do when we cut up existing fabric, or piece scraps together?  Aren't we creating a new fabric?  😊

As an art quilter, I don't often make bed quilts, but the last year or two (or three!) I've had reason to make everything from comfort (lap) quilts to crib quilts to twin- and king-sized ones.  The latest crop of tops are twin-sized, and came about thus:

First, my daughter commissioned me to make one for the twin bed in her Air B&B single guest room, as the summer coverlet she had on it is wearing out.  (She has a double-bed room too, but its bedding is fine for now!)

Last summer we had a buying trip and got most of the fabric -- but as I was winging it on the calculations...well...let's just say I began it in earnest at the end of January and got only 1/2 the blocks needed out of the fabric on hand.  Blessedly, by my last post I was able to report that between us we found either exact matches or colour-ways that worked in beautifully, and that top is now ready to be quilted.

It was a not-so-easy Rail Fence.  Four rails (rather than the usual three) and "as random as possible, please, Mom."  (Hold that thought; I'm coming back to it in a moment.)

Nonetheless, I think it turned out well and hope she'll like it:

I call it "Random Rails" or "Fractured Fences" -- depending on my mood! 😉 With borders, it will measure 70" W x 94" long when bound.  It looks enormous on my own twin bed, in large part because I don't have the a deep box spring under my mattress, whereas she does.  Last weekend I procured a rich double-chocolate wide backing for it (now washed).  Yummy!

Second, my own beloved bed quilts are wearing.  Most of these were made by my quilty Aunt Alice, my father's sister, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, so you can imagine how old they are! 

I'm making four tops (which I also mentioned in my last post).  The first one to be finished was my "(Not So) Grand Illusion", a Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt from 2014 (!) which I finished in November in order to justify starting her 2017 Mystery, "On Ringo Lake" (ORL).   Lest you missed that post, here's a photo:

I just love this one, and this week I found the perfect wide backing for it!

The second one is the "Rectangle Quilt" (what an original name!) that I showed you -- under construction -- in my last post.  That top, too, is now finished!

A Quilt Without Borders, it will finish at a healthy 67" W x 78" long (or so) when bound.  And yes, I've found just the right wide backing for it too.  😊

Now, remember that thought I asked you to hold?  The fact that the Random Rails/Fractured Fences was ''not so easy"?  This is where I get back to this subject, and focus on the word "random".  As defined by the Oxford Living Dictionaries, 'random' means "Made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision" or, when it comes to statistics, "Governed by or involving equal chances for each item".

Well.  It might be a simple concept...but it's not easy!

Both the rectangle and the rails/fences quilt required a) combinations of light, medium and/or dark fabrics to create contrast and movement; b) specific placement of said combinations -- that is, so many blocks across and so many rows down; and c) an arrangement that in order to be pleasing, was...well...random.  And random arrangements of anything (I'm guessing) require a certain...um...conscious intentionality!  

I found a method that worked first with the Rectangle Quilt and then with Rails/Fences --first, lay the blocks out on my "horizontal design wall" (my bed or my guest bed, whichever showed them off best); next, get the first two rows to work well, and sew the first row in pairs of blocks; then...move 'em around, interject different pairs, do whatever is needed to make everything play nicely together.  

Repeat till the entire arrangement is appealing, and still "random" in nature.  In all of my  attempts at designing "traditional" quilts, I've determined that they are at least as challenging (if not more so) as designing an art quilt.  The methods may be different, but the brain strain is on a par!

Of the four tops I've planned, only these three are finished.  The fourth requires borders...so it's worthy only of a mention here.  It will appear in a later post!

As for designing...

I've picked up "Storm Brewing" from the framer...I love it!

Storm Brewing Over the Lowlands
Fabric and water colour on stretched canvas
12" W x 12" L

The Call for Entry to the Annual Camrose Art Walk is now open, and my colleague Mary and I will be submitting our applications shortly for our Scotland-inspired collaborative exhibit.  Each of us is aiming for eight or nine pieces.  So far, I have five (including "Storm Brewing..."), but one is a tiny canvas and unless I make more that size, won't be included.

And as I now know that I will once again have a booth at the 19th Annual Lacombe Art Show & Sale, I am busy with pieces for that.  The "Crumbpilations" pieces are all in for framing, one mini is in the planning stages, and I finished this one this morning:

Fog Warning! (C) 2018
Commercial cotton fabrics, wool roving, tulle;
thread painting, machine quilting, fused applique.
5" x 7", matted to 8" x 10"

It's a statement about driving to work -- about 8:15 a.m. -- in the Mists of March in these parts.  The other day the fog was so dense that while I knew there was a tanker truck in front of me, I often couldn't see it at all, and was praying he wouldn't have to brake unexpectedly!

Here's a close-up:

Thanks to Elizabeth Barton's Master Class, which I attended throughout 2015, I learned a bit about getting that perspective in place.  In a 'mini' it's tough because everything is smaller and fore-shortened, but there you have it!

Well, Gentle Readers, that's all the news that's fit to print for this go 'round.  I'm going to link this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday, and bid you adieu. 

This week she published a quote about the Art of Science and the Science of Art...and looking at my projects, I can certainly ascertain a link between the two!

Happy St. Patrick's Day for all the Irish -- and all the I-Wannabee-Irish!  Happy International Quilting Day for all of you who quilt!  

Happy rest-of the-weekend to everyone else!  😉

Back at It

It seems that blogging has become a 'Sunday-kinda-thing' for me lately.  ;-)

I've been home from Scotland just over two weeks now and finally -- for the most part -- I seem to be 'back to normal' (what 'normal' is for me, that is).  The jogging has been a challenge -- sluggish and slow -- but I persist!  The weather's been pretty good this past week, so I've pushed myself to go out and plod along.  There are a few 'Scottish pounds' that have to be removed!

I must admit I took it slowly and started back in the Sewdio with a commission I wanted to finish by Thanksgiving (Oct. 8-9 here) so I could save shipping costs.  My sweet sister has a dear friend (I know her too) who's becoming a Young Great-Grandma in November, so sis commissioned me to make a crib quilt in a rail fence -- in a selection of blue fabric because, apparently, the baby is to be a boy.

Here is the top when I finished it just before my trip:

Here it is just after my return -- sandwiched and ready to quilt:

And here it is, finished -- full front and back, followed by detail shots:

I really lucked out with the backing, which I also used for the binding, because I found it at Wild Flower Creations, the LQS in Lacombe -- on the 50% off table!  And doesn't it echo the Rail Fence motif perfectly -- in 4 shades of blue, no less!

Primed for the Next Step

Once I had the quilt finished -- using my trusty back-up machine, a Pfaff 1222E -- I was ready to move outside my Comfort Zone...to meet a deadline.  I picked up my Husqvarna Lily 555 from the "spa" (Red Deer Sewing Centre), put her back into her sewing table and moved forward...

This past year I joined the Alberta Society of Artists as an 'Associate Member'.  I have no idea how many textile artists there are in this fine organization, beyond two SAQA colleagues -- Barbara J. West and Ilse Anysas-Salkauskas, both of whom have BFA degrees and are Juried Members of both the ASA and SAQA -- but I figured it would be an interesting group to join.

It's been a while since I surrendered my position as a Co-Rep with SAQA, and I was ready to do a tiny bit of volunteering, so I offered to participate in a fund-raiser: "100@100" -- where 100 artists volunteer to produce a piece of work on a 10" square wood panel, to be sold for funds to support the organization.

You may recall that I picked up my panel from President Mail Doktor just before I prepared to leave for Scotland.

Thank goodness for the trip, but...when I got back, I had to think about it.  Get back to the idea of trying to do something with an 'artist's panel' or 'artist's board'.

My dear provender of mats and frames, Andrea Hatch at Cabinet of Curiosities in Stettler, got me a large piece of 'board' which I cut in two (badly, because I don't really have the right equipment), and upon which I began to play.

I knew I needed to prepare the wood with gesso so that it would be sealed, and not damage the fabric I planned to apply to it...so I painted one coat on an almost 10"-square section of the board.  I was inspired in part by the work of the wonderful Louise O'Hara from Northumberland, UK, whose work I first discovered in a tiny shop at the ferry dock at Malaig, Scotland.  I bought a card with this image:

By the Fireside - (C) Louise O'hara

She does work with textiles and paint on board and canvas...which thrilled me to the core...and so I persisted.

On the bus -- near Inverness

Inspirational photo (above -- the second one I'd tried) in hand, I tried painting with acrylics on the sample board I'd prepared...and failed miserably.  It was stiff and stylized and not at all what I wanted.

I did some more internet research and found I should prepare 'board' by applying at least three (3) coats of Gesso, sanding with fine paper in between each application.  So I did -- both on the sample board and on the board Mali had given me for the final piece.

I still wasn't all that thrilled.  Then it dawned on me: I've always felt more comfortable with watery acrylic on canvas -- or with water colour altogether.  Perhaps I could try water colour on 'board'?  What did I have to lose?  In the immortal words of my first art quilt teacher, Anna Hergert: "It's just a sample."

So...I sampled:

Water colour on board (sample)

Whoa!  It worked!

Now, you need to bear in mind that the 'sky/mountains' is only the background.  I also had to fill up the foreground.  And that...that was being done as needle-felting.  The base was a piece of wool felt I bought from a vendor -- Quilter's Quarters of Longridge -- at the Scottish Quilt Competition, on the outskirts of Edinburgh.  I bought 3 pieces all told, for 7.50 GBP (about $12.75 CAD).  I got three shades of earthy greens, which work just right for this work.

And in the end, after auditioning and auditioning and adding wool roving bought at Fibre Week (Olds, June 2017) and fleece self-dyed over the last couple of summer, in jars in the sun...and using my embellisher...

This is what I got:

Oh! Those Highland Hills!

Detail (1)

Detail (2)

It will go into the mail in the next few days, once I get a box that can fit it.  I hope it brings in a good price for the ASA fund raiser.

As a sort of  'palate cleanser' after this...I painted a wee canvas (more on that later) and finished another that hadn't had its foreground done.  This time, instead of needle felting, I went with quilting:

Fifty Shades of Green (C) 2-17

I'll have this one put in a 'floater' frame like the others of its kind...and keep going.

Now you're pretty well caught up with the work...so I will leave you linkin up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and wish you a wonderful week!

Utilitarian

It's been well over a month since my sewdio work focused on art.  Not that it's been far from my brain; it hasn't.  I still have ideas swirling around in there, but my hands have wanted no part of those.

While this is on the design wall...

(L) - tree rubbings - under construction
(R) - Wall (c) - July 2017

These are ready to go under the needle...

3" blocks waiting
to become 1/2-square triangles

And these have already been assembled...

7" square, 1/2-square triangles

They're going to come together with a stack of waiting rectangles, like this...

Pattern: "Summer Citrus"
Designers: Christine Baker & Nellie Holmes
Upper Canada Quiltworks Publishing
from A Needle Pulling Thread
Spring 2009 edition

Yes, that's 2009.  That's how long that faded purple sticky note has book-marked that pattern...and pretty much how long I've had most of that fabric -- with a sewing-related theme -- just waiting to be put into use.  Recently at lunch, my friend C gave me two fat quarters of similar fabric -- in a completely different colour palate -- and I was spurred to add it to the stack and get going on (Heaven forfend!) a quilt pour moi.  Heaven also only knows how long it will take for me to get it quilted (it will likely be large enough that I don't want to do it myself)...but the top is far enough along now that it should be finished this fall.

However, I was in Utilitarian Mode long before I started to put this one together.  I finished the third quilt top (crib size) for the B.C. fire effort...

Lest you think, "I've seen this before!"...well, it's the same fabric I used for a throw-sized top.  Originally, the kit from which they came called for it to be all one quilt...but I thought it might be more useful in two smaller ones instead.

All three tops were boxed up and sent to Coleen in Peachland, B.C. on Wednesday.  Now there's a fire threatening nearby Kelowna...so I hope she is safe and gets the package in good order...so that she isn't interrupted in this good work for the thousands displaced earlier this summer.

Also mailed out: the wee "Oilers" toque and a pair of "wristlets" -- fingerless gloves -- for the up-coming 65th birthday of a friend from high school.

Pattern: "Queen Vicki's Wristlets"
Designer: River City Yarns, Edmonton, AB
Yarn: Peruvian Baby Cashmere from elann.com

Here's what they look like on my hands:

Left Wristlet

Right Wristlet

A knitting UFO was crossed off yesterday, too, when I finished a side-ways knit garter-stitch (knit every row) cardigan I began in 2012.  I dug it out in June, figuring it would be ideal to wear on my up-coming quilters' tour of Scotland in September.  I started where I'd left off...and soon went off the rails.  It's shaped with short rows, using 3 stitch markers...but which was Marker 1? 2? 3?  I thought I knew -- till I finished the back and found the neckline had become woefully misshapen.  Sigh.  I turned to Ravelry for help, and sure enough, there was a 'help group' for the pattern.  One gal in particular set me straight.  I frogged back to where I thought I'd begun to go astray, and started again.

Now it looks like this:

Pattern: "Corinne Cardigan"
Designer: Crystal Urb Junkins
Yarn: Patons "Venus"(Vintage)

Back
The apparent 'gathers'
smooth out when on the body.

Neckline detail.  See the short-row shaping?

The pattern calls for four buttons, smaller than shown, but I wanted to show off this one I bought years ago at my then-favourite LYS in Calgary, The Knitting Room.

Pretty Button!

I found out earlier this week that a friend from university days and her hubby became grandparents for the first time at the end of July...so now a wee pair of socks from some cotton-blend stash yarn is on the needles, and will likely go out later this week.  I started them last evening in the Outdoor Sewdio.  It got a bit cool, so I put on my new cardi.  Perfect!

So there you have it, Gentle Readers: several weeks spent satisfying a hankering to create beauty, but not the kind one puts on one's walls.  It seems to come from a combination of wanting to Use Stuff Up, to Keep Hands Busy, to Enter the Creative Zone without too much strain on the brain, and to Give Something to Others at a time when there is great chaos, anxiety and turmoil in the world.  

All I know is, these projects have kept my hands touching textiles, fulfilling a purpose, finding meaning, and creating calm -- at least, in my wee corner of the world.  They've soothed my soul even as the summer sped by, and enabled me to spend time reflecting on the year ahead -- but that's a subject for another post!

Today I'm off to meet Mali Doktor (Vargas) the young woman who is the current President of the Alberta Society of Artists...and who's going to give me a 'board' on which to create something for an ASA fund-raiser.  It's my first contribution to the organization since I became an Associate Member several months ago, and really the easiest and most practical way for me to 'volunteer' for a group that is based a good 2 1/2 hours' drive southeast of here.  I've never worked with 'board' before, though, so it'll also be a learning experience.  Who knows?  I might just find another avenue for my textile ideas!

Monday I expect to drive over to Stettler to get an estimate on some floater frames from Andrea at the Cabinet of Curiosities (she's the gal who cuts most of the mats for my minis)...

So you see?  Art's been happening, is happening, and will happen here in the sewdio for the foreseeable future (God willing!)

Linking this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday -- and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!