Keeping occupied in difficult times

I don't think it matters what your political persuasion is, at the moment these are difficult times for most of us.  The covid-19 pandemic is still bubbling away around the world with its health and economic consequences, the death of George Floyd has also, quite rightly, hit the headlines bringing the actions and attitudes of US police forces to the fore, and with the US presidential election just 5 months away there is no escape from politics on the news and in social media.  All these things, and more, mean that our attention is drawn in many directions at once making it hard to settle to normal day-to-day activities, I know I am still finding it hard to get projects finished, particularly the larger ones. 

For me, my garden is my daily solace right now and I am happy to go out into it each day, see how each new plant has settled in and the progress it is making.  I have tomatoes and peppers starting to bloom, the aubergines (eggplants), melons and cucumbers all seem to be putting on plenty of new growth and the basil seeds that I planted rather late have germinated and will soon be outside in the warm weather.  There are also flowers making colourful splashes from their pots, attracting the bees and other pollinators to my patch and those of my neighbours.

The clement weather and easing of restrictions in Centre County PA has enabled us to have one or two friends over at a time for outdoor dining and conversation, a very welcome change from the quiet months at the start of our lockdown.  This spurred me to complete a (very simple) project - a new tablecloth for our camping table.  The fabric came from fabric.com and was on sale so I purchased sufficient to make some outdoor cushions too.  I think this is a great improvement, don't you?

I made some progress on another quilt for Toys for Tots - this time a crib sized one (there will be two once I am done with them).  I started with these two fabrics and with some careful cutting and a quick hunt in my stash, where I found an Egyptian style wheat ear fabric, made this:

Something that did make me smile this week was hearing that I had won a giveaway from the One Monthly Goal challenge on Elm Street Quilts and yesterday I was delighted to receive my prize from Paper Pieces - 1200 1" hexagons for English paper piecing!  I have been happily wasting time looking at ideas to use them in due course. 

Before I can even think of starting a long term handwork project I must get some other projects of the WIP/UFO list, so for June's One Monthly Goal I shall aim to get all these blocks (from my Feb 2020 OMG...) set on point to form the centre of their quilt.  I am hoping that this will be the spur I need to get this project moving forwards again after it has been derailed by my lack of inspiration and concentration over the last few months.

I shall leave you with a few more pictures of my early June garden, including the radishes which have lots of leaves but no root swelling yet.

Hello Spring, Goodbye Spring!

Spring in the UK is eagerly awaited and lasts for several weeks, in central PA Spring is just as welcome, but if you blink you have missed it!  On 9th May this year we awoke to snow on the ground, our last frost was the night of 13th/14th May, two days later we hit 82F/28C and this last week we have had warm to hot sunny days which means that digging out the air conditioning units is on the jobs list for the week.

I have to confess that over the last week or so I have not even turned on my sewing machine, that spring weather has had me out in the garden!  Some annuals needed to be replaced as they did not like the frost and snow, and that is my own fault as I know that the local rule of thumb is not to plant such things out until Memorial Day.  I took the chance and lost.  However every cloud has a silver lining and needing to replace those plants meant more trips to Lowe's and finding bargains on the plant clearance racks; over a couple of trips I found gerbera daisies, alyssum, lobelia, lavenders in three different shades and two dwarf buddleias with prices ranging from $1 to $5.  After a good watering all have been planted out.

My succulents and my amaryllis have also gone outside for the summer, with our aloe getting its annual repotting and removal of its offshoot babies. I introduce Audrey III and her daughters to you!

When we moved here in 2014 there was a small, rather weedy looking aloe on top of the refrigerator, a bit of care, repotting and an annual summer break being ignored in the garden has done wonders and, to be quite honest, I don't know where she will fit when it is time to bring her back inside in the autumn!

We also grow fruit and veg each summer, mostly in our outdoor hydroponics system but also some in raised beds and containers.  This year I am trying radishes in containers so I can easily ensure that they get sufficient water.

 My sourdough adventures have also continued with rye bread and crumpets made from the "discarded" starter. 
 

The rye bread was dense and flavourful and the crumpets were a great use of the excess starter that would otherwise be thrown away, thanks to King Arthur Flour for the recipe.

Manchester tribute wall hanging

Since I last wrote I have been distracted from sewing by the garden.  Due to frosts I had to replace my busy lizzies (impatiens) and marigolds that really, really did not like the 27°F (-3°C) nights we had last week. Last Saturday we woke up to snow on the ground and intermittent flakes throughout the day.  However good things do come to those who wait and spring has arrived for its brief annual appearance, the trees are burgeoning with green leaves, I have seen my first ruby throated hummingbird of the year and the sun feels warm!

Today I went to our local nursery and picked up all the plants for our outdoor hydroponics system.  We will be growing tomatoes of various sizes, peppers (sweet and hot), aubergines (eggplants), basil, cucumbers and trying for melons.  I have also stocked the flower pots with annuals to give us some colour in our shady treed garden, I move the pots around so that each gets its turn in the sunny spots.  The veg garden will get cauliflowers, onions, radishes, carrots and parsnips as well as a variety of herbs.



My "Sunflowers for Manchester" wall-hanging is finished and in place on the wall over our dining table.  As I did the quilting I left 22 petals unquilted to represent the 22 innocent lives taken the night of 22nd May 2017 at the Manchester Arena.

In the kitchen I have been making bread of various sorts - my usual part white/part wholemeal (wholewheat) rolls, an attempt to get hot dog rolls of the correct size and shape and, last but not least, my first try at sourdough bread after being gifted some starter by my elder son's girlfriend.  I baked the sourdough in my tagine and it came out looking excellent!

Small goals, small victories

Here we are over a week into May 2020, still dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, and Centre County PA moves into the "yellow phase" on Friday 8th May - this eases our local "stay at home" restrictions a little as we move towards either a return to "normal" or a new "normal".  Personally I think that until a vaccine is available that is proven to be both effective and safe we will not return to the "normal" we had prior to this worldwide disease.  As I read about the high infections I am thankful to live in "Happy Valley" slap bang in the middle of rural Pennsylvania yet with the healthcare resources of a large population centre.  Although Penn State University can be the behemoth we love to hate, just now the economic prosperity it brings to State College and the surrounding area is really acting in our favour as we weather the storm with relatively few diagnosed cases and fewer deaths.

Psychologically it is nevertheless a challenging time and I, like many others, am finding deep concentration hard to come by so I have been working on smaller projects that give me a sense of almost instant gratification.  This week I have finished four doll quilts for our local Toys for Tots charity that will be donated to families in need this December.

The layouts were simple squares with straight line quilting and the backing for each is soft snuggly flannel.

The bindings are completely machine sewn, first to the back and then folded to the front. I cut the bindings at 2.5" and sewed at 1/4" from the edge on the back which led to a 1/2" fold over on the front - this also makes the corners much easier to get nice and tidy.

Finishing these means I have completed my One Monthly Goal for May.  Now I can get on with a few more things for the rest of the month before setting my June OMG.

Next up for completion is my sunflower wall hanging that I started as a response to the Manchester Arena Bombing of 22nd May 2017.  I am somewhat ashamed that it has taken me 3 years to move it back to the top of the work list, but I would like to be able to display it, fully quilted, bound and labelled by the 22nd of May this year.  Photos of this are way back here in July 2017.

On Wednesday this week my elder son came back from the UK after completing his time at university there.  As his mum I imposed on him to bring me back important things like UK tea and new ironing board covers for my ex-pat ironing board.  Today my board has had an upgrade from this:

to this:

So much better! No more wrinkly ironing board cover :)

Masks, staying at home and the arrival of Spring!

Last time I was preparing a blog posting it was in the run up to FLoF! and immediately after that the whole world got a lot smaller, very fast.  FLoF! was nearly cancelled but did go ahead but since then life has been very different indeed.  Thanks to Penn State deciding early on to postpone and move classes online after Spring Break we in Centre County PA have been very, very lucky  to be touched only lightly by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Not that it hasn't impacted us, it has, but we have largely been spared tragic outcomes.

Our younger son made the trek back from university in Socorro, New Mexico leaving there on Friday 20th March and getting home in the early hours of Tuesday 24th March after an epic trip in his 1997 Land Rover Discovery.  His spring break was extended to 3 weeks followed by all classes and finals handled via the internet.

Our elder son is supposed to be graduating from Swansea University in the UK this summer, but the graduation ceremonies have been cancelled, the classes have gone online, the campus is closed and he has been a lonely bunny in his empty student house working on his final year project and dissertation, again his last exam will be online.  He spent two weeks in quarantine after a friend exhibited C-19 symptoms, but the friend recovered in due course and our son stayed well.  He flies home this week and I will be a much happier parent once he is back here.

As with many quilters and sewers the main creative thing I have been doing is making masks - for healthcare workers, friends and family.  The last handful are in an envelope ready to head off towards the West coast tomorrow.  At the moment my tally is 108, but I am sure it will still continue to creep up in the coming weeks.

My creative concentration is all over the place at the moment, but I have managed to sandwich some doll quilts for our local Toys for Tots group and my One Monthly Goal for May is to get them quilted and bound - here they are all held together with safety pins.

Weatherwise April brought us a final dollop of white stuff falling from the sky, followed by cold rainy weather, but the couple of weeks have been much improved and spring has arrived in central PA for its fleeting annual visit before the heat and humidity of summer hits us.  I have played hooky from my sewing in order to get out in the sunshine, tidy up in the garden and get some spring and summer colourful plants ready to give me and passers-by visual pleasure.  Who would think these photos were taken on consecutive days?

Dyeing for FLoF!

Note: this posting was started early March 2020, but not completed until May 2020 so it may be a little temporally challenged!

As well as working on my cowl to wear at FLoF I have also been dyeing yarn for my booth.  This will be the first time I have tried selling my own "Hand Dyed in Happy Valley" sock yarn.  So far I am only doing sock yarn because you don't need to match dyelots for a pair of socks in the same way you would for a larger project.

Mostly I am dyeing in my slow cookers with gel icing colours but use the microwave method for my confetti yarns.  The first time I did confetti yarn I used cake sprinkles which gave really good colour but the combination of heat, moisture and the cornstarch in the sprinkles led to a long drawn out washing process to get all the little goopy lumps off from the yarn.  This time I am trying sanding sugar.  I went out and bought all the colours that my local Michaels had in sachets, mixed them all together and then sprinkled them onto my acid soaked yarn and put in the microwave.  In hindsight I don't think I should have added in the red sugar as it gave the whole skein a pinky halo, which is not unattractive but not what I was after.  Next time I blend up a mix I shall skip the red.  However this did wash out much better than the goopy bits of sprinkles.

When I use the slow cooker I either put the whole skein in the acid bath and then add the colour into  different zones to get a more subtle colour mixing or I loop my acid soaked skein into 2 or more empty jelly jars stood in a couple of inches of cold water. pour the diluted dyes into the jars and then turn the slow cooker onto high and leave the whole thing for several hours.

The nice thing about using the food dyes is you can play happily without worrying about any toxic effects of the dyes, though I do recommend using gloves or you will end up with odd coloured skin and nails for a few days!

Anyway let me introduce you to Tequila Sunrise, Cheeky Vimto, Parakeet and Strawberry Tutti Frutti who made their debut at FLoF!

FLoF was probably the last fibre festival before lockdown, squeezing in under the radar on March 14th 2020. It was touch and go whether it would happen, but it did, the footfall was much, much reduced (Penn State students should have been coming back from Spring Break that weekend but were told to stay home as classes went online only) and the mood was very pensive. However the vendors commented that they covered their costs and those that did attend enjoyed it.

I didn't quite finish knitting my cowl in time, but it is done now and I am waiting for a good day to block it.

Winter isn't done with us yet and FLoF!

After a break in the sunny, warm, breezy Florida Keys last month we had to come back to central PA. Now don't get me wrong I love where we live now - trees, hills, valleys, countryside, lively college town, lots of locally grown produce throughout the year, so many great things, and all four seasons.  Usually I enjoy winter, even the cold snowy days and especially when the sun shines on the bright white snow, however that sort of weather has been in short supply this year and we have had lots of grey days, rainy days and precious few sunny days, in fact it was like being back in a UK winter - but this year they have had enough rain to float a battleship!

Just before we left for those southern latitudes my amaryllis sent up its flower spike and a few days after I got back it was in full, glorious bloom with 4 scarlet trumpet flowers atop the stem.

Spring can't come too soon now and the signs are there: my daffodils are sending up leaves and flower buds, the birds are starting to sing and milder days seem to have arrived some of the time.  I am looking forward to spring flowers, all the fresh shades of green as the trees burst into leaf and the glorious pinky-red-magenta colours of the redbuds as they come into bloom.

With that in mind I am still knitting a cold weather project: the Noro #9 cowl.  I am using Noro Silk Garden yarn for this that I bought at our wonderful local creative re-use store Scraps and Skeins.  S&S is the most wonderful place where you might not get what you went in for as the stock is always changing, but you will probably come out with something that whispered (or even shouted) "Buy me!"  That is how I ended up with 5 balls of Noro Silk Garden, all in different colourways, a couple not quite full yardage, but they asked to be bought and I obliged!

My aim is to have this finished not just be then end of the month for my One Monthly Goal, but in time to wear at FLoF #10 on Saturday 14th March. "FLoF? What is FLoF?" I hear you say, which is pretty much what I said when I first heard of it.  For the Love of Fiber (note that I can spell like an American when appropriate) is a one day fiber festival run by the Centre Knitters Guild (and yes that IS the correct spelling of centre here in Centre County PA).  As I upload this posting I have knitted 27 inches with 10 more to go by then end of the week!

February 2020 goal achieved!

On Friday 7th Feb I posted and linked my One Monthly Goal, today I achieved it.  All those flying geese are now firmly sewn into their blocks, ready for trimming and setting into the final layout.  At least one block has some of the background fabric 180 degrees out of phase, but in the end I left it like that.  If it had been 90 degrees out it would have been ripped out and resewn as that really would have grated on the eye.

Here are all 43 blocks sat on the yellow sashing and brown cornerstone/border fabrics.  The yellow colour is in the pattern of the cream "sky" parts of the flying geese, and it was that sky fabric that turned out to be uni-directional.  The border brown has red details in it to go with the red in the main blocks.

More trimming, cutting and sewing will happen after my next business trip.  Just for once I will not be changing time zones or crossing international borders for a site visit!

So nice to achieve the One Monthly Goal after a looong break!

2020 quilting again!

After a long hiatus I'm back, though I make no promises for this to be a regular or common occurrence.  In 2018 I travelled a lot with work which means no sewing machine and 2019 felt particularly fragmented with travel and personal stuff.

During this period I have been doing some quilting and knitting as well as dyeing both fabric and yarn - I'll probably write about those in future postings.  For quite some time my quilting mojo just up and left me, but during an enforced cleaning and voluntary reorganisation of my sewing area I seem to have found it again. Since then I have finished a baby quilt (always good for some instant gratification), made another 2 baby quilt tops and sandwiched them - a shout out to the Tuesday QBs where I was able to use big tables and extra hands made short work of the pinning, and I have also got my teeth back into a commissioned quilt.

Ah, yes, the commission, this has taught me a lot over the last year and a bit.
1) when possible work with colours that spark joy in you - if they don't they may sap your mojo
2) buy more of the fabrics than you think you need for the quilt - there may be extra items like pillow shams to consider
3) don't choose directional fabric when you are making hundreds of flying geese!

All that brings me to February's One Monthly Goal.  This month (which for various reasons means the next 7 days) I aim to turn these:

into another 20 of these:

which should be sufficient to complete the main panel of this quilt.  As you can see LOTS of flying geese!

I'll report in after the end of the month with my progress!