Summer Solace

 In a few days, the Northern Hemisphere will mark it's year's longest day, and the Southern, it's shortest.  Another year, another solstice.  

Thus far, I've been enjoying the lengthening days -- especially the early morning light, because, being a "lark" by nature, mornings are my best time.  By 6 p.m. I'm ready to pack in the day, most days -- even if it's still light here till after 10 p.m.

The challenge to enjoy a Summer of Slow and Quiet continues, but I think I might be making a bit of progress in the "quiet" aspect of that objective, being up early with coffee, while most of the hamlet around me is still sleeping -- ahhhhhhh.....

The garden is burgeoning with beauty, and most of the seedlings are now in the ground. 

Irises along my east wall

"Brown Pot" with baccopa and pansies

Looking south at the long "west bed"
-- full of lilies (yet to bloom), daisies
and lupins

Cherry tomato seedlings now 'grounded'
with the hollyhock to supervise...

The dandelions have died back on the East Lawn, and white clover -- aka Dutch clover -- is appearing.  This is good news, because it means that the soil is gradually improving and being improved by what's growing on it, not sown by me but by Mother Nature.  I'm not aiming for a lawn-full (any more than I want a lawn full of dandelions!); rather, I want to end up with a lovely mix of plants and grass that has colour and texture.  

I've been spending some time clearing long grass round my assorted trees -- in part to remove suckers (the lilac, willows, honeysuckle and Mountain Ash all produce them!), in part to give me space for transplanting some of those lupins and daisies (!) and in part to show off what I want to keep growing there, such as the Northern Bedstraw around the base of the Mountain Ash:

Northern Bedstraw 
-- the white flowering plant in the foreground

I have to keep the grass looking "kempt" or the County will come down on me.  Its officers are of the "golf green" fan club, and are affronted by anything that looks the least "unkempt".  😉

In the process of "kempting" the area, I've discovered there are dandelions, and then there are dandelions!!  I've been removing ones that I find growing where I don't want them, many of which I describe as "Big Ugly" because of their huge leaf-span and tendency to appear in clusters.  You have to try to get all you can of the root, because any wee bit left in the ground will produce a new one before you can say "Summer Soltice"!  That said, some of these roots are not only thick but long, and I've gone down at least 6" to try to capture them all.  Rarely do I succeed, but I did get this one yesterday.  It must have been 12" from tip to tip!

Now that's a dandelion!

All of this, of course, is an attempt to create Outdoor Studio II -- aka Outdoor Studio East -- another part of my property in which I can sit and stitch or read or nap, however the spirit and/or the muse moves!  

Right now it's best used in the early part of the morning -- before 11 a.m. -- as the sun moves around behind the trees and up into the sky over head.  (Once the sun moves farther west, there's no shade and it can become quite uncomfortable.) 

Pookie and I tested it out a few days ago, as I worked on some hand-stitching accents to finish off "Praire On My Mind"...

Miss Pookie surveys her 'cat-dom'

Truth be told, there's been precious little else done on the quilting front of late.  Last week I did manage to get 'Frolic!' bound, washed and mailed off to its new home (it should arrive today or early next week)...

Frolic's finish photo
Pattern: Bonnie Hunter - Mystery 2019

There's been, instead, some reading, some spinning, some hand-stitch and, of course, always knitting -- especially more socks for wee ones!

This pair is for Baby-to-Be-Soon
(due in August) -- cousin of Emme
who's getting these socks.

These are for baby Theo

This one will become two -- a pair for Theo's
big sister, Olivia.

One of our church's younger parishioners has just become a new mum, and has agreed to "2 or 3 pair" of socks for her little fellow, so once Olivia's are off the needles, there'll be new ones shaping up for Nicklaus!

Caring for the yard and garden, taking up my stitching/spinning/the knitting...solace, 'soul-ace' at the solstice.  May you enjoy the same, wherever these days find you.  

NOTE: Even as I link this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, she's reported that her family is still in emergency mode.  I hope and pray that she and her loved ones will find peace and comfort -- and pressure eased -- soon!

A Feast of First Fruits

Lammas Day, or "Loaf -mass" day is a holiday on the Christian liturgical calendar that's still observed in some countries north of the equator -- traditionally on August 1.  It marks the blessing of the 'First Fruits' of the harvest, particularly where wheat and other bread-making grains are grown.  "Lammas-tide", when the wheat harvest begins, is the name for the days between the Summer Solstice in June and the Autumn Equinox in September -- in other words, now.  

Traditionally, a loaf of bread, sometimes nested in a basket with flowers, is brought to church on that day to mark the blessing, and it is then often broken and used as the bread in the celebration of the Eucharist.

I don't eat as much bread as I used to, but when I do, I like to make it myself (I have a bread-maker because I've never been able to master the art of kneading) and I love it fresh and warm, or toasted, with a bit of butter and home-made jam.

In the last ten days or so, the rhubarb (several cups chopped and frozen; some baked into coffee cake, some stewed and eaten with yogourt) has been joined by a harvest of Saskatoon berries (12 cups in the freezer, 3 cups given to a neighbour, and an unmeasured amount eaten fresh), and this morning I just picked my third colander-full of raspberries, with more ripening on the canes.

My 'First Fruits' -- raspberries and rhubarb

I've enjoyed them fresh, in a bowl with a bit of milk and sugar, over yogourt or ice cream...and just now I've "jammed" four jars, each holding a cup or so of my favourite simple jam: berries, sugar and lemon juice.  Something tells me there's bread in my near future... 😉

The rest of my garden continues prolific as well.  Though the peonies have finished blooming, the hollyhock -- mine is white -- is just coming into its own, and there are wee pearls of cherry tomatoes starting on my seed-started plants.  

My daughter visited a couple of weeks ago; she has an app on her phone that identifies flora -- some of the time, at least! -- and found the name of this one for me.  It came with my house and there's this batch of it at the corner of the peony bed as well as a larger quantity of it competing for space now with my raspberries.  I've always found it very pretty, but it's a spreader, and has to be reigned in regularly!

"Cluster Bell Flower"

I have a long, curving flower bed on the southwest corner of my property.  Again, it came with the house, but over the almost dozen years I've been here, I've added to and subtracted from it regularly to make it mine.  The photo below is just a sampling of what's in that bed.

White yarrow, purple sage, deep pink shrub roses,
marigolds just under the rose bush,
 and orange agapanthus just beyond that.

Weather-wise it's been darned hot -- what I call "the cat days of summer".  Because my studio is hot much of the day right now, I've been dividing my time according to shade and breeze distribution.  I start out on my front stoop, in the shade of the north side of the house, and move to the back as the sun permits.

When there's just the right amount of shade from the trees above, and just the right hint of a breeze, Miss Pookie likes to sit near me on the bench in the Outdoor Studio.  Ah...to have a cat's life!  

I've been focused on hand-work.  The Toronto sampler is finished and now trimmed to size and pinned for hemming so I can attach the bellpull hardware.  Meanwhile, I've begun a cross-stitch entitled "Man Cave", for my neighbour John for Christmas.  John's not really the gardner in the family -- his wife is -- but he has a collection of sheds filled with all manner of supplies for car maintenance, home maintenance and garden maintenance.  One of these -- his newest -- is a mini-barn, a brilliant red (as it should be) with white trim.  I've been trying to persuade him to let me hang a barn quilt on the windowless wall that faces my side of the barn, but he's not been keen.  Perhaps he'll hang this inside, over his work bench.  Whaddya think?  😉

Designer: Peter Underhill
Source: Heritage Crafts

I have another piece to do up for his wife, Edna, of course, which I hope will suit their bedroom or living room.  It's "Spring in the Air" from Just Nan -- very feminine, very flowery, very pretty.  I've had it -- fully kitted up -- for several years, including the lovely silk threads (!), and am really looking forward to doing it up for her.

In keeping with Christmas-in-the-heat-of-summer, I've started a pair of socks for my nephew in a black-and-white marl from Patons.  I'm using the same pattern as I did a few months ago for another Xmas gift -- simple, mindless knitting which I do in the early morning over coffee, breakfast and the news, or while waiting at the train crossing.

Pattern: A Nice Ribbed Sock 
Designer: Glenna C.

 

I finally got back into the sewdio (indoors) early this morning (around 6 a.m.) because it was cool and breezy enough, and the sun had yet to climb very high.  I continued my work on "Star Crazy";  I've finished and attached one 8-block side border (the block is shown here), and have two of the next 8 finished.  

I've also assembled 27 little blocks in Bonnie Hunter's current Leader/Ender Challenge, which she calls "Easy Breezy".  This is the first of these challenges I've ever done, and I've only attempted it because I have such a stash of the right size squares and rectangles (all from scraps) to make a lot of 4" (finished) blocks.  These will go with my charm squares to make more tummy time quilts for the Stepping Stones program in Lacombe.  Turns out, though, that each 36" square blankie will need 81 (!) blocks -- 1/2 piece, 1/2 charm squares (and one odd one!)  Or maybe just 32 of them -- and borders!  No never mind, I'll make the blocks as I go; they're darned satisfying to do -- no templates, no half- or quarter-square triangles, no flying geese.  Just straight-up squares and rectangles (see this photo from Bonnie's instructions), bringing order to continued chaos.  😊

As for new work...I've been puttering with respect to the second piece about 'chaos' using the 'crumb-pilations' technique.  Early this morning I finally made a decision about quilting and how to mount it on the painted stretched canvas.   I'm aiming to start work on that part tomorrow a.m., if the morning is cool enough.  My daughter photographed And It's Only June: Reflections on  2020; I've now got the results in a Drop Box file, awaiting my review.

And so it goes.  August 5th brings another hair cut (hooray!!) -- it'll be seven weeks since my last one.  August 8th brings another of Joe Cunningham's online workshops -- this one, on how he uses just two colours to create a quilt -- and the 15th brings (I hope!) a road trip to a quilt shop, a mobile yarn shop, and perhaps an outdoor art show, with a gal pal.  

The 17th brings a day trip to Calgary for a dental check-up (delayed since May due to COVID).  Both Calgary and Edmonton have now mandated masks to be worn in indoor public places, like shopping malls, so I will go equipped.  My dentist's office is in a professional building connected to a large indoor mall, and it's not far from a strip mall with a Chapter's/Starbucks outlet -- my favourite books and coffee all in one place!  When I go to The Big City, a stop there is a must, and I won't mind in the least wearing a mask so I can enjoy it at my leisure before heading north again to my little piece of heaven on the rolling prairie.

Old barn at the home of my long-arm quilter
and her DH --
near the eastern shore of Buffalo Lake, Alberta

That wide sky continues to nourish my soul, which in turn "feed[s] my inner artist" -- which is Nina Marie's topic this week over at Off the Wall Friday.  I leave you with a wish for you to be nourished, inspired, encouraged, safe and well as the summer travels on through August to whatever waits in the fall.

Take care -- and come back soon!

After the Show Indoors and Out

In my last post, I was about to show my work at the 20th Annual Lacombe Art Show & Sale.  Here's how the booth looked just before the doors opened:

From the 'front' (as seen from the door)

From the 'back' (as seen going toward the door)

It was an interesting time.  I really enjoyed connecting with artists I've met over the years, and from seeing new work by new entrants.  The "Paint-off" Friday evening was fun; I was rooting for an oil painter who was worried about how well he'd do with acrylic paint in the contest -- and he nailed it with a beautiful still life of irises. He wasn't the fastest painter, but I liked his piece the best.  (Sorry; I didn't get photos!)

Can you sense there's a "but" coming?

Abbey Echoes II - SOLD!
to a good friend at the Art Show & Sale

Yes...there's a "but".  There was a great flow of people through the show on both days -- despite a nasty spring snow storm Saturday morning that made travelling to the show a white-knuckle experience.  There was a lot of interest in my work -- and I sold one large piece (to a friend who'd been eyeing it since December at the "Shamrock and Thistle" exhibit) that more than covered my show fee.  There were more men interested in the work than I'd hitherto experienced.

But other than that...I sold only four pieces: two minis, and two small framed pieces -- and one of each of these went to other artists in exchange for pieces of their work.

And I had more "silly" comments about blankets and 'grandma used to do that sort of thing' than I've had since 2016.

Well...God willing there will be next year!  As Featured Artist for 2020, I'll have more booth space, an honourarium, a chance to speak bout my work...and other Good Things.  So...

Onward and upward!

Since the show, I've been busy in the yard and garden, cleaning up after the winter (yes, it eventually stopped snowing last weekend!), and planning out some improvements for this year.
One of those was extending the narrow bed on the east side of my garage, so I could plant lettuce and still find it when the rhubarb goes full tilt!

See that bit at the front of the photo?  The green clump is the burgeoning rhubarb.  The bed used to end just in front of the plant, but has now been extended to the end of the garage.  No more trying to wield the lawn mower into a narrow corner!  And yes...there will be lettuce and mixed greens growing at the very front of the bed.  (Lest you wonder...the land at the right side -- about 18" or so to the right of the bed -- isn't mine.  It's the empty lot next door, which is for sale.  I'd buy it but I can't afford it!)

I've managed this week to open the Outdoor Studio for a bit, and outfitted my not-so-comfy new bench with an old (but unused) quilt wrapped around some old bed pillows.  I tried it out last evening and it's not too bad for sitting...

I found the quilt when, in the course of sorting and sifting after the show, I opened my blanket box for the first time in years.  I'd forgotten I had this one.  It's about a twin size, hand quilted, and made by my late Aunt Alice some time in the eighties -- mostly poly-cotton, I think.  It's in pristine condition, and is stored away in the bench when not in use.  The fun thing about the quilt is the Prairie Point border all around -- except at the top edge.  I recognized many of the miscellaneous fabrics used in that border, because they were scraps I'd given my aunt to use, left over from the garment sewing I was doing in those years when my kids were small:

See the centre triangle?  It's a bit of wool fabric,
that clearly felted a bit in the wash!

This sweet and colourful memory was celebrated by three new faces in the flower bed that's just under the window of my "messy room" on the south side of the house:

 The yard work continues!  Some years ago a wee spruce seedling cropped up in the rock garden in the front of the house.  It had planted itself about a foot from the blue spruce -- my son's Grade IV transplant from Calgary, now almost 25 years old.  And there it stayed until last week, when it moved next door.  My neighbour had removed several old and rotting willows that had grown in a line between our properties, and was replacing them with young evergreen saplings.  My little green one was just right for a spot at the front near the street -- so I let him take it.  I was able to replace it with another sapling that had planted itself (with 2 others) in a large, unused flower pot near my shed.  So here's the new tot in the rock garden, in the shadow if Big Blue Brother Spruce:

He's got some growing to do!

I'll fill in that black patch with a bit more flox or other perennial ground cover, later this week. A trip to the local nursery is in order!  On the list: manure/loam/soil mix (bags), a few annuals for my pots, and the aforementioned ground cover.

In the evenings and early mornings my hands have been busy with MORE knitting finishing.  I finally got the two panels for the Mosaic Wrap done, and am now beavering away on the end borders, of which there are two.  The two panels will be sewn together to make a long wrap, and then finished off with borders on the other two edges.  The challenge of mosaic knitting is that you knit and knit and knit and knit and don't seem to make much progress -- and then, bingo!  Done!

Panel 1

Panel 2

I resurrected the centre of a 'Hap' shawl (Shetland style shawl) begun years ago, which needed its borders.  The first of four sides of a wide border is finished, and the second well underway.  After the wide border, comes a lace edging.  In addition I've finished a small neck shawlette for the church charity tree, and am working on a lovely cowl in a yummy alpaca and silk blend.  Photos will follow eventually!

Today I'm off for an over-night trip to Calgary to see friends -- and my friendly dentist (annual check-up).  Once back -- more gardening!

Linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday...where this week she's finishing her book review posts about Strong Women based on a book by Amy Morin (which I've not read).  One of the things such women do is boldly reinvent themselves.  My son said to me a few months ago, "I've watched you reinvent yourself [since Dad died]..."  I hadn't really thought of my life that way, but it's true.  My life now is Artist, Colour Lover, Grower, Maker, Occasional Volunteer, Friend and Mom.

Happy Mother's Day to all who are mothers or mother-figures in the lives of those around you.  Have a great week!

Travelling with Pie

This weekend marks Thanksgiving in Canada, and I'm going up to Edmonton to spend it with my kids, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law and her family.  She and her mom are doing the turkey etc.; I'm bringing pie.

Therein lies the rub: logistics.  I was hoping to assemble two pies in my DD's kitchen, but she's in the midst of a Serious Kitchen Make-over and has no counters!

So.  I made one pie here -- Saskatoon (think 'wild blueberries' if you're not on the Canadian Prairies, Alaska, or the Western/North Central U.S.) -- and froze it.  All well and good.
BUT...the second pie has to be pumpkin (grin) because it's Thanksgiving!  Well.  I've never had experience freezing a pumpkin pie.  Indeed, it's not recommended.

So.  This morning I made the pastry.  I'll freeze it too, and thaw in time to make the pie on Sunday after church.  Bless C's mom, she has a turkey roaster, so The Bird will have its own personal roasting space and I can use the oven for the pie.

In preparation, I've assembled this Travelling Pie Kit:

Ingredients:
Trusty Old Cookbook
Packet of sugar and spices
Can of evaporated milk
Can of unseasoned pumpkin
Bottle of faux vanilla extract
Ball of (frozen) pastry

Tomorrow I'll pack up the Kit and the frozen Saskatoon pie in a box lined with paper and nestled with ice packs...and head out! (I don't own a cooler.  Tried to buy one at the hardware in town yesterday -- they don't make 'em wide enough front-to-back to accommodate a pie plate.)

I have a pit-stop on the way to my DD's home, where I'll be staying.  The stop: a 4-hour class in using InkTense (R) pencils, offered by Central Sewing (South store).  I've muddled along long enough with these -- and with my watercolour pencils -- to know I need some hands-on instruction, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Today?  The forecast is for a high of 20+ C, so it's the perfect day to do the Fall Cleaning of the Car Interior; to check the vents on my roof and 'goop' them if needed; and to maybe do a wee bit of fabric painting -- some skies for my new minis.  

As the 14-day trend is for reasonable temps and mainly sunshine, I'll leave clearing the garden for now.  I hate to put away the Outdoor Studio...especially when I can still stitch there in the sunshine, or use it for photos of finished objects, like this one, which went off in the mail Wednesday...

M's Comfort Shawl
Pattern: "Zilver" by Lisa Mutch
Yarn: Peruvian Pure Alpaca from elann.com (discontinued)

M's Comfort Shawl - close-up

Now...I'm linking this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and will join you there in a break in the action later today!

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers; I'm thankful to have you all (both Canadians and those who want to be) in my life!

Facing & Finishing

Confession: putting the finishing touches on a project is my least favourite part of the process.   This probably accounts for why I love to knit socks.  There are no seams to sew save the wee bit of grafting at the toe, and there are very few ends to sew in -- most of the time.

However, if one is going to donate pieces to benefit auctions, put pieces on show and/or offer them for sale, one has to finish them, and do so properly and well.

Facing & Finishing - (Back) "Uphill to Mirror" (2014)
(Front) "Yellow Tree" (2015)

Next week I'm sending six of my "15 x 15" pieces to Ontario, where they'll be given to my colleague Chantal.  She will take them back to France and from there, to Maastricht, The Netherlands, for the Open European Quilt Championships competition and exhibition, which runs from October 29 through November 1, 2015.  Yes!  Our group is but one of several which have been accepted as a Guest Collection for the show!  Each of us is sending 6 to 8 pieces, so it will be a great collection of our work over the past three years.  

Then there's "Yellow Tree", my piece for the 2015 SAQA Benefit Auction, which has to be ready to go to Portland with me next week so I can deliver it to the curator of the Auction, Gale O-P.

Today I sewed down the facing and applied the sleeve to "Uphill to Mirror", the 15 x 15 piece, and started to sew down the facing on "Yellow Tree".  The sleeves for all of the 15 x 15 Group's pieces are 2" deep (finished) and mounted 1" from the top and 1" in from each side.  For each I include a tiny pleat (see photo at left) to facilitate hanging.

The sleeve for "Yellow Tree" will be similar, but made of the same fabric as the backing and facing.  I like to have them all match and blend in if possible, so they are rather...um...unobtrusive...and don't take away from the "main event", which is the front!

Speaking of finishing...I am closing in on the end of the Wedding Prayer Shawl too.   Turns out the women in our parish decided to hold a shower for our young bride...on Saturday (April 26)!
This is a good month before I'd planned to finish the shawl, and I'm not prepared to go to the Shower with a different gift...so I'm trying to finish early.  As of this writing, I'm at 23 1/2 of 25 pattern repeats...with 20 rows of garter stitch edging to follow, plus washing and blocking...!

It may or may not be 'on the needles' when presented to the bride-to-be...

At about 21 pattern repeats...

Lace detail
Pattern: "Kimono Shawl"
from
Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle

Blessedly I was able to do most of this handwork in the Outdoor Studio, which I opened this afternoon for the 2015 season!

Opening Day 2015 at my Outdoor Studio 

Being here makes facing and finishing so much more enjoyable -- don't you agree?

Linking this up to WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network.  What have you been working on lately?

In the Garden

Those of you who've been reading these posts for some time know that one of my favourite places in which to work is my garden.  Every spring I put up my "outdoor studio" and try to work there as much as possible. This means hand-work.  I suppose I could -- because there are plugs on the back of my house -- but I've never taken my sewing machine outdoors.  Instead, I prefer to sit on a bench under my trees and stitch.

I love to watch the changing flora and fauna over the months from spring to high summer.  In the past few days, the mornings have dawn clear, sunny -- and cooler, with a sharper edge to them than last week, or all through July.  Fall is fast approaching; the days are shorter and there is less and less time to work outside.  Each day is a treasure, and brings new beauty to behold and enjoy.

A few months ago, my friend M, who was moving, blessed me with a gift -- the embroidery frame and floor stand that had belonged to his late wife, K.  I never met her, but I have seen her work, and it's exquisite.  I was honoured to receive his gift but till yesterday, I hadn't even open the box in which it sat in my sewing studio.  

A pair of long-time friends are celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary in 2013, and even before M's gift, I'd determined to embroider a special sampler for them to mark the occasion.  Yesterday I decided it was time to make a start on the sampler, and the perfect frame was the floor-standing one, which I could use outside.  In the box I found all sorts of nuts and bolts and -- not surprisingly! -- no instructions.  I had to go by the picture drawn on the outside of the box, but I managed to get it together and functioning.  I need to use a higher seat than my bench to be able to stitch comfortably, but that's not a problem.  And one of the feet falls off when I carry the frame in and out of the house...but that's not a problem either.  I'll find a new bolt with which to attach it.  All that matters is that the frame has been set up, and during the last of these summer days I can stitch away at the sampler in my favourite place.

K's stand; new project