An apple a day ... or more

The sweet apples on our most prolific tree start falling in September and from that time on Morris is scarfing up at least a dozen apples a day.. He eats them seeds, core, stem and all... At about 60 calories an apple Morris is starting to resemble a pot-bellied pig... I took this photo just before the big snow when we had had strong winds and hundreds of apples came down... Of course the deer are there all day and they look fat and healthy also...

This is a huge tree just across from the house.. The apples are small and kind of mealy and since we have other much better apple trees for us, this one is for the wildlife... It sets thousands of apples and even though they have been falling for three months there are still a lot hanging on the tree.

I took this shot yesterday and if you could zoom in really close, here is what you would see...

The tree is full of quail eating the apples that are still hanging on the tree.. Not only the quail but the finches and other small birds dine "on tree" also... Before the winter weather set in I'd see both squirrels and chipmunks eating apples also... Even our chickens eat the ones fallen on the ground..

But the sweet apples are by far the favorite for all the critters and they consume every last one. Meanwhile there are numerous crab apple trees that are just as loaded with apples... But they are very sour and are not eaten until all else is gone... Not a bird in this tree now.... Wait until January though.

Making the most of my mess....

Since I had all the fabrics spread out everywhere for the suffragette quilt I decided to make the most of it... Besides the nine blocks for the quilt I made an extra block to use for the AAQ contest and also this little fan.

It is going to be an ornament for the Needlework Guild Christmas ornament exchange... Since every last member is a cross stitcher I felt obligated to do some VERY CQ... and what is more CQ than a Victorian fan...

Rather than cut out tiny fan pieces I drew the fan on muslin and did it "flip & stitch" working from the back and trimming as I went.... much easier... I plan to do the seams, embellish with beads, add SRE and lace...

I also ended up with a nice pile of "crumbs" of these fabrics and will do a Allie-style crumb piece later... Although I am in love with all these dark fabrics at the moments. I'm sure by the time I finish all these I will be ready for something pastel or bright and cheery... These colors suit my winter mood and only 27 days until the days start getting longer. All the mess is cleared away and DH can actually eat at the table again.. for a while anyway...

We will move Mom into assisted living tomorrow...in the midst of a snow storm... and spend the next week finishing up at her old place and getting her settled in the new...

The other doll and bags

This was the second doll... She's the same size, floppy, and has a hand painted face ...She also has some lovely petticoats and a stylish hat...all in her own colors... I am still amazed I did all that work on these dolls and forgot them...They have to have been in the trunk for 8-9 years.

This doll had beaded bloomers and beaded shoes... The comments are right I should give the girls the option... If they don't want them I will put them in a charity auction... which is a much better plan than sticking them back in the trunk until great grandchildren...which may be a long time coming..

Also in the trunk were 4 tapestry totes that I can really use right now...

Then after I rearranged all the furniture I didn't like it and as soon as DH got home he helped me move it all back where it was.... but I wouldn't have found the dolls otherwise... maybe I should deep clean more often.......................maybe not!!!

My surprise!!!

This morning I decided to rearrange my furniture which I only do about as often as I cut my hair...every 20 years or so... In the process I had to move a heavy antique trunk which I knew was full of rolls of really cool wallpaper (don't ask!) but when I opened it I also found 2 dolls... I vaguely remember making these dolls for my 2 oldest granddaughters when they were too old to play with dolls but I thought would like a "bed doll" I must have made them during some long ago summer and put them in the trunk until Christmas but forgot them..

They're very large.. about 2 1/2' tall, cloth and very rag-doll like with painted faces. Even if I must say so myself they are delightful but since the girls are in their twenties.....hardly appropriate anymore..


But check out these petticoats...#1 and #2

And the bloomers and stockings are to die for...

When I look at the dress I'm thinking these fabrics would make a great crazy quilt block...

Morris immediately fell in love with them so I just photographed them and put them back into the trunk and will save them for great-granddaughters I guess.

Things are looking up!

Things are looking up and DH may get to come home after all..... I am happy to report I am not drifted in... The weather report has been upgraded from -12 degrees to -7 degrees for tonight and the "Blizzard Warning" is now just a "Hazardous Weather" warning.. I did have a crisis of sorts with the outlet in the pump house last night but was able to string enough electrical cords together from the garage to keep the heater going and this morning I found a new breaker in the barn... A friend came today to stitch and drove her 4-wheel drive in and out a few times so I have a good track for getting out tomorrow.

I laughed at Cathy's L comment today... I also had plenty of years when I was teaching and working that I hated dealing with the snow (especially living in Alaska)... Being retired is the "very best." I always said I wanted to be a hermit also but what I really want is being able to never leave home and have wonderful friends come to visit me... which is pretty much what I have.... How lucky for me...

DH will be on his way soon from Italy and it looks like he will be arriving between storms....only cold...He has to fly into Seattle to get a plane to Spokane and this morning the FAA Status Advisory for Seattle was: Due to SNOW-ICE, ...... arriving flights are delayed an average of 3 hours and 52 minutes. I will check it again in the morning... Good thing I love him...anyone else would have to sit at the airport until spring...

I love snow days!

Today was my first full day at home for weeks.. And I expect I'll be here for some time now as the "Blizzard Warning" is flashing on the weather site... This morning I shoveled snow off porches and deck, gathered up all the candles, filled the entry way with fire wood, got all animals extra feed.. Then after getting in and dry I remembered I didn't plug in the extra heater in the pump house so I'll have to venture out again...

But even with the odd hours I have managed to finish piecing all the suffragette blocks. I wish I had a "design wall" to pin them up but I am happy with the fabric so confident they will be fine... I'm starting with one corner block and the center block to work on simultaneously. Tomorrow I will dye some lace and ribbon and begin gathering embellishments..

DH has been out of town for a week and it has been so nice leaving my mess spread out all over the table... I would dearly love to have a sewing room and if I am just wishing I might as well wish to have Allie's sewing room....But now that the blocks are pieced I can clean up as he is coming home Wednesday..

I use one of my precious hospital bedside tables for ironing by throwing a towel over it and the great thing is that it is square.. If I am at the machine a lot I can lower the ironing table to the height of my sewing table and press and sew as I go. The sewing table is an antique (1920s) typing table and the perfect mate for my old featherweight which I use all the time.... Again it is all on wheels and I can just whisk it away into the storage room (behind the white door)..

I'm crossing my fingers that I won't be snowed in when I wake up but being a realist I'm deciding who I can call to pick up DH and bring him to the end of our road so he can walk in the 1/2 mile..... I love snow but it's the "drifting" that's a problem...

My dearly beloved tree......

Last spring I photographed this old Gravenstein apple tree in full bloom... We had cut back most of the branches over the years to reduce the weight of the apples... Every year we were sure would be the last and this year was... As it happens I had an old neighbor who could date when it was planted as he had planted several of them at the same time.. When we moved here in 1980 there was a hole in the side of the tree and you could reach all the way up into the tree as the heart wood was decaying.... Birds, squirrels and chipmunks all used the cavity in the tree .. The blooms perfumed the garden and the apples fed us and the deer year after year after year..

But if you stood on the other side of the tree you can see why it was a miracle it continued to bloom year after year and produced hundreds of apples. For about 4' all that was left of the trunk was the outer shell and yet that was enough to nourish the tree.. We propped it up with fence rails long ago but this spring it was listing so badly I was sure it would go down before it set apples...

But as usual it set a stellar crop of apples and late summer it went down fully loaded.. The deer were there the first night and since they actually prefer the leaves to the apples they proceeded to "deleaf" the branches leaving the apples exposed.. Of course after the leaf appetizer they ate the apples. They started on the lowest branches but later stood on their hind legs to get all of them.

I'll really miss this old tree with its tenacity for life... I have some branches I'm saving to make something with... what I'm not quite sure... and I want a piece of it buried with me... But tonight it's supposed to get to zero degrees and tomorrow night 12 below zero... and I still piecing on my suffragette quilt keeping toasty warm by an apple wood fire. The tree was eighty years old...give or take a year..

Editing Magic

I know I have mentioned this before but will add it again... I always talk about Photoshop and I do have an older version of photoshop but what I actually use all the time is called "Microsoft Image Composer" (MIC) It's like a kindergarten photoshop and hasn't been sold for years... I keep meaning to use my photoshop more so I get comfortable with it but it's easier and faster to use MIC because I am used to it........ But anything I do with MIC you can do better with photoshop....

Remember in my last post I felt I was going to have a problem with the face on this girl because it was in the shadow of the hat and if I intensified the color to print on fabric it would really too dark? I wanted the face lighter but not the rest of the photo lighter....Well I performed a little editing magic..

I made an extra copy of the photo and edited out just the face. I then lightened it and pasted it on over the original.... You can see what a difference it made when you see the two photos side by side.... When I edit my son's pictures from his fishing lodge I have to do this little trick a lot because the fisherman are often wearing a hat with a big brim and their face is in deep shadow... and of course when they catch "the big one" they want everyone to see their big grin clearly... LOL

Chunks into clumps inspired by Allie

Did the side blocks last night....too tired to do anymore... and of course Morris needed a lot of attention after I was gone all day. This is the most accurate photo so far as to the color palette of my patches... They're ALL very rich fabrics and very rich colors.. silks, taffeta, and brocades.

I've NEVER pieced a quilt in this fashion.. For years I've used a little pattern...the same pattern for everything or the 5-sided center patch method. But I always hated piecing and Allie loves piecing so I decided she knows something I don't know.... So I tried to follow what she did... I just cuts lots of chunks.. laid them out, played around with them and then started sewing them into clumps until I could cover the foundation square... ...all very loose... By the third block I got the hang of it...a little anyway and it is fun...And she did tell me that she did that post just for me.... (Well what she actually said is that she had me in mind when she did it....almost the same thing ..right?) Of course I changed my mind right off on my plan... Instead of working lighter colors into the outer blocks I've decided to work more dark back into the center... Don't you love a decisive mind???


With the magic of photoshop I can use snippets to see what where I'm going and even maybe the border... I do know I want to include the movement's colors....lavender, green and white.. I will do a sash or two on felt but mostly want to use those colors in little floral vignettes of violets, leaves and baby's breath repeated throughout the quilt.. Of course the colors are way too dark in this photo but I can use it as a guide of sorts.



This is one of the photos for the center block... I will make it sepia tone... What I REALLY love about this photo is the words and arrow "WAY OUT!"

And that hat is to die for..... I need to darken this photo to get a good print and since her face is already shaded, it would make her face too dark... I will have to do something clever about that problem...stay tuned....

Suffragette Quilt - the piecing begins

As I said before I want a color transition with this quilt with the lightest color in the center... So I separated my stash into light, medium and dark values...
Since there are nine blocks obviously the center one will be the lightest but the lighter values will spill over into the surrounding blocks in different parts of the outer blocks... Hopefully you can see this happen as I go along..

So I've started laying out chunks on the center block... fabric from the lightest value pile and adding just a few silks with light in them from the medium value pile... I have some fabulous silk ties to use in this quilt... ALL fabric in this quilt is from thrift store clothing..

A word about this quilt... I have been wanting to do a suffragette quilt for at least 10 years or more but every time I tried to bring it about it just didn't feel right... I had wanted to do a quilt honoring the most famous of the suffragettes here and in England.. but there are so many and including some meant leaving important women out...

It was only when I decided NOT to use the most famous and focus on the nameless women who marched and stood up for their cause that I found my direction for this quilt.. I have looked at literally hundreds of photos and it was not the size of the photo nor the quality of the photo that determined my choices.... it was the women in the photos who touched my heart... And it seems so appropriate that it should be a crazy quilt...

Country Cottage Buttons

I did get eight cottages loaded on Esty tonight... They are all hand painted and each is one-of-a-kind.. The bird buttons are 1" and the cottages are 1 1/2". I like doing the cottages and will play around with different styles when I have time... I was having a devil of a time with the reflection and followed Janet's suggestion and just scanned these.. I think they'd be cute on garden blocks... Have a look... http://www.etsy.com/shop/olderrose?view_type=gallery It's always a shock to see them enlarged... like looking at your pores under a microscope.

Now a question... is anyone into making cigar box purses or collecting wooden cigar boxes...? I have a couple nice ones that my son sent down from the lodge.. Wealthy customers bring their own expensive cigars... If anyone is interested I will send pictures... I am going to photograph the interesting graphics on the boxes for future use...

Barn Stuff & Thanks for even more Edmar help

I've decided to add a whole new category to my esty shop -- barn stuff... I have a couple bins of old needlework like this... I had planned to used this as a centerpiece for a wall hanging and border it with CQ.... but I just have to let go of some of my inspirations as I can't live long enough to do them all... I have all but abandoned esty since I'm gone all the time for the next few weeks... I did get some cottage buttons painted but struggling with the photography... As much as I love the mother-of-pearl, it is a reflective nightmare... I need to take several hours and experiment with lights and settings... hours not available right now....

And on to Edmar........

Both Pat Winter and Melisa B suggested doing the steam thing which I will do when I start another skein..... "Take the tag off a skein of Edmar thread and hold the two ends around your fingers then hold over a steaming teapot while gently tugging them and moving from end to end. The threads will be as straight as a poker and you can put them in a bag and pull one thread at a time with no tangles."

Bobbi Pohl was right on with her suggestion: "Your trouble with the French knots may be because the Edmar threads are Z twist instead of the the standard S twist. It means you should work the knots in reverse of your usual practice, so they don't try to untwist in the process. I bet that's hard to do." She was right as all the unraveling disappeared when I reversed direction working the french knot... And right again when she suggested hard to do... It took me about an hour before I was comfortable with it.... like eating with my left hand...

And Margaret sent the greatest news: "I have one of those plastic EdMar storage things, and it came with a custom "hook-a-ma-jig" to pull the threads into place. If you want it -- and the threads -- I will be HAPPY to mail it to you! I love the colors of EdMar, but haven't ever enjoyed trying to use it. Not my cuppa tea. Let me know if you want the whole thing." And I am jumping at the offer and will soon have my very own "hook-a-ma-jig".... (and I bet that sends spell check into orbit...)

Thanks everyone...blog friends are great!

Thanks and a flower for a follower.......

Thanks for all the Edmar thread information...Since I probably have a lifetime supply now I need all the help I can get....I am going to the Edmar site and read everything... I was doing french knots with it last night and it was a tangled mess.. There must be a trick for that too!

I wish I could say I did this pillow on the left but it was actually done by a marvelous stitcher and good friend, Cathy Kizerian for an online needlework challenge... The red flower just left of center is made from some of the poofy blouse material I gave her... For a close up of the flower and more pillow details go to website. I just love this piece and especially the squirrel near the bottom with the tail of real fur....

For me the print on the upper left was the focal fabric and set the tone for the colors for the entire piece... Notice that she appliqued leaves from that fabric to put among her flowers...great touch... The black just below the flowers really anchors the composition and echos the strong print upper left....and check out that great web! The piece is definitely worth a really close look as it is filled with exciting elements.......

Off I go leaving poor Morris behind for yet another day....... As I use the poofy material I will post about it... My spell checker says "poofy" is not a real word but I think it is perfect for that fabric....

I love having 27 shades of red....or blue or brown

As I'm going through this time caring for my mom while we wait for an assisted living unit to be available, I do get a lot of stitching done while driving her places and waiting for her at the nursing home, doctors, etc. But sometimes it's not long enough time to get needlework out, or nor the right space or I'm too tired or stressed... So I went searching about the house for something mindless I can keep in the car and whip out for even a short time...

I found the perfect thing.... this is several month's of DMC thread acquired at thrift store.. Obviously thread left over from needlework kits.. But I love it as there are a lot of "off" shades of color that are perfect for doing long and short embroidery of animals such as birds and bunnies... or flowers such as roses, daffodils, etc. There nothing like mixing several shades of a color to give depth.

I have been sleeping at home so I can get my animals cared for before I leave.... Off for the day now and do not expect to be home until late tonight... Morris misses me terribly....Should have her settled by the first week in December if all goes well with her manfriend.

A couple whatsits!!!

This plastic thingy was obviously designed expressly for Edmar threads... By accident I am now owner of four of these full of Edmar threads... ( and you all know how I feel about Edmar threads)

But this holder is kinda cool as the threads are relaxed and straightened and easy to remove with out getting tangled.. Do any of you use these...? Does this thingy have a name? Where do you get them? AND is there a special tool or trick for inserting the skeins of threads? Judging from the feel of the plastic I believe these are rather old and they did come from an estate sale..

I really liked that it has a space for the # tabs for the different colors..

Now these are actually tops I found at a thrift store... I just can't imagine anyone wearing one...especially if you have any boobs.. But the red one I found a couple years ago and shared it with Cathy K. When cut into strips it makes the MOST marvelous flowers for CQ... The bottom two I found the other day and since they are the colors I'm using in my suffragette quilt, I thought that I would cut them up and see if I can do something extremely exciting... I just love the feel of them and they remind me of a "slinky toy" because they change shape continuously... Right off the bat I can see they would make marvelous ruching... Watch for them on my quilt!

Sucker for Scissors and Allie's block advice.

I love scissors and can hardly get out of a needlework shop without a pair....but for me the holes are just too small to be comfortable.... between farm work and arthritis my hands and knuckles are always sore and swollen... Somewhere I had read that the very best scissors for arthritic hands were the scissors made for tying flies because the holes were large enough for men's fingers... So today I stopped at a famous sporting goods store and bought a pair of Dr. Slick Tungsten Carbide Scissors (pictured in the center) and you can see the difference in the size of the finger holes.. They are extremely sharp and excellent quality and are sooooo comfortable... They had several blade sizes and styles but I chose these because the tension was adjustable..

I was curious about how Allie pieced out her blocks to get a 10" block and she was kind enough to send this reply: "As to the size of the blocks, there are 5 rows of 5 blocks each, so that is of course 25 blocks in all. I probably used foundation muslin that was 14" X 14" per block, pieced it out to 12" or so, trimmed them to 11" X 11", and then sewed them with a 1/2" seam allowance. Always it is good to piece way bigger than the finished block size to allow for wiggle room when trimming." That is pretty much what I do but since I tend to just work on single blocks, I will have to be a little more careful measuring for multiple blocks that need to be consistent.

I'm still determined to keep my quilt to nine 11" blocks... I had dozens of pictures in my suffragette file and have narrowed it down to 27 and still have to cut that down farther... it's close though.... Some I can use smaller and group 2 or 3 on a block.

Color Transition and Allie's Quilt

This is Allison Aller's amazing quilt that won second place in "embellished" quilts at the Houston Quilt Festival this week.. It is also on the cover of her new book coming out this spring. I followed along on Allie's blog as she made this quilt and shared it's construction step by step. Under "projects" in the side bar click on springCQ and you can see the 16 posts back to the very beginning of this quilt...


Even though Allison embraces all that is traditional about CQ, everything she does has exciting new elements... This quilt is just alive with 3D flowers and other motifs that are just fluid on this quilt... and the color transition is just exquisite... She's teaching a workshop on 3D flowers in the spring and I'm looking forward to it...



Because I had just posted about color transition and using photoshop I have to share an amazing fact about this quilt. Allie was this far along with this quilt and hadn't decided what to put in the center... She entered this photo in photoshop on her computer and played around with ideas for the center... If I were to look at this quilt for the first time I would have thought she had the center planned first and planned the rest to echo the shape of the center...

I encourage you to go through the steps of this incredible quilt.. The posts cover it all from planning, piecing, embellishing and finishing...
Allie is so generous in sharing her talent...

When I asked Allie's permission to post about her quilt I also asked her about dimensions of the blocks as that is where I'm making decisions now on the suffragette quilt.. I'll share that information tomorrow...

Color transition & AAQ auction

This was to have been my entry in the Alliance for American Quilts contest. The theme was "From Old to New" I chose from the fan of my grandmother's day to the cell phone of my granddaughter's. All it needs is backing and a border... I really needed another week to finish and was so disappointed I didn't.. Especially now that I'm watching the quilts are being auctioned off on e-bay as a fundraiser....next year for sure. The theme for next year will be announced soon.. You should follow along with the auction.. there are several quilts I'll bid on in weeks three and four.

I really picked a too ambitious plan for the time I had and I often do that. I keep wanting to do sixteen squares for the suffragette quilt to use more photos but KNOW that I would get bogged down and struggle to finish... So nine squares is realistic and doable. The hard part will be narrowing the choice of photos...

But I did do a color transition on the block when I pieced it to emphasize from old to new.. I want to do something similar with the suffragette quilt but more black to sepia. This time I want the the lighter area to be in the center block of the quilt. As it happens a small thrift store is quite close to where mom's friend is a patient and when I dropped her off to visit him today I went over and found six or seven great fancy blouses to cut up.


Again I went to photoshop to play with the effect and visually "cut" small squares from the above image and moved them around to get the effect I wanted.. except my center will be more sepia than yellow....

Peacocks have landed

Well their bodies anyway... I finished filling in around the rocks and did surface stitching on the pond with some wonderful silk buttonhole twist that Susan Elliott sent me.

Then I decided to position peacocks before I did the foreground by the pond.. The bodies are done, appliqued to the block and stuffed slightly...

I want to start beading their tails and they will be beaded very similar to the fan by the silkie... BTW that fan is just pinned on as it needs a little repair after I rescued it from Morris... He was really pushing his luck with that maneuver.

At this point I'm starting to cut out paper to decide the size and shape of the tails.. It's going to be tough dragging beads around on my peripatetic route. You'll notice I hope, the lovely MOP button I found for the moon...

Thrift store haul

I did really well at the thrift stores today.. I scored on about 5 great silk ties and several silk blouses plus vintage style prints in fancy fabrics...(all with 99 cent tags) After I added some from my stash I am pretty happy with the selection of fabrics... I love blacks with texture so there are several of those. Then I wanted a great variety of prints...checks, dots, florals, geometrics, and stripes....almost all on a very small scale... I figured all these prints would be appropriate for women at the turn of the century...

The piece in the middle is not that bright rust as it appears... It has a much softer color palette and will be the focal fabric for the quilt.. It's a vintage twill taffeta and has lots of muted roses and paisleys... I've been saving it forever for just the right project and this is it... I need a few more pieces to round it out... especially some soft rust colors. I keep reminding myself it's going to take a lot of fabric to do nine 11" blocks..

DH is going to be gone 9 days beginning the Nov. 16... and I will do the blocks then.. I make an enormous mess doing blocks.. I use the dining table and a couple card tables and have fabric everywhere...

An assisted living unit has open up for my mother and her friend and would be ready to move them in by the middle of the month... This hinges on her friend recovering from his stroke which is not looking too promising at this point... In that case we will have to find a smaller place for her... so all is still up in the air.