2006 Schedule

February 3-6 Wisconsin Quilters Inc.
February 9-11 Beach Cities San Juan Capistrano CA
February 12-15 Friendship Quilters of San Diego
March 2-5 New Jersey Quilt Fest by Mancuso
March 6-8 PAQA retreat!
March 10 Milwaukee WI lecture
March 16 Plainfield IL lecture
April 9-15 Hudson River Valley Art Quilt NY Workshops
April 27-28 Wustum Museum of Art Racine WI:Releasing the Creative Block and Tiny Art Quilts. To register contact srobinnitsch@ramart.org
May 1-2 Columbia MO pending contract
May 4-7 Denver Co new Mancuso show
May 9-12 Tucson AZ Quilters Guild
June 13-14 O’Fallon IL
July 21-22 Frederick-Talbott Inn Retreat-Workshop
The rates for the students will be $50.00 per night 2 to a room, plus 9% tax.2 nights =$109.00 including tax. Add a $3.00 service charge. Total $111.00, per student. Plus $120 for the workshop. $231.00 for the 2 ½ days. We will have the place to ourselves if I get as few as 12 students. I think that is doable. WE will have a refrigerator, microwave and stove in the workshop room and plenty of air conditioning. Last time we brought food, wine and munchies and went out to dinner and had lunch delivered and it was great. The rooms are so nice I immediately wanted to remodel my own bedroom. No swimming pool however, so no one needs to see me in my trunks.
August 17 NSQG IL
September Scotland and Ireland
October 5-9 Yellowknife NWT Canada
November 10-12 Schaumberg IL new Mancuso Show

Packing to Go

Don't they look pretty? Eight pieces each of 22 colorways. Some are Colors With NO Names.

I have been getting my act together in a big way today. Washing and Ironing fabrics, readying patterns, mailing out stuff to you and packing my bags to go to California tomorrow.

I am going to visit the Folsom Quilt Guild ( no Johnny Cash jokes please) and I have been dyeing stuff for them and for the other site. This will be one whirlwind trip. I am flying in Tuesday, giving a lecture that night, and doing the Releasing the Creative Block workshop on Wednesday and flying home on Thursday. I won't be there long enough to get used to the time change, so I apologize in advance for being sleepy on Wednesday.

My former Pard' Laura is also going to California tomorrow but her guild visit is in Southern California and I hope the electricity is back on when she arrives.

All the class supplies are packed and I have only to decide what quilts to bring, and what to wear. I will do that later. I like to pack my clothes at the last minute, usually the morning before I leave.

OK, I will be honest... what is really on my mind is "What will I knit??" I know I will have at a minimum, 12 hours of airport/flying/waiting time. I need to amuse myself somehow. When one has as much yarn as I have accumulated, there should be no shortage of choices.

Far too many.

Last night I undid a scarf made with Funny Eyelash and Dune. This is my month of frogging previous projects. Will I make something this trip with that yarn? Nope.

This afternoon I 'happened' to come across a 50%-off sale (oh oh) and only bought two new circular needles (#11, 36" and #10 1/2, 29" Baleen II's), and um, some white Lion Brand Jiffy Acrylic, which was not on sale, proof that I am no yarn snob. I found this scarf that I want to try out before I make it with good yarn. Geesh, I didn't mean that, I meant that I wanted white, soft washable semi-bulky yarn with lots of yardage for little pesos. That it is. 135 yards for $1.86. I mean, I could leave it on the plane and not even be upset.

So instead of worrying about what I will wear tomorrow or cooking dinner (he ate a pizza for breakfast at 3:45 this afternoon!) I will be casting on for a winter scarf.

Mind you, it is 91 degrees currently in my home town. I am just getting a head start on the inevitable.

Acceptance!

WE are celebrating at the Johnson household today because the Social Security Administration has declared Dave worthy of disability pay! We were told to expect a long hard struggle, with two or three rejections and then court appearances and long waits for the hoped for acceptance.

But NO! He put in the paper work in June and did all the necessary jumping through hoops, seeing that paperwork was sent in by doctors etc. And Vavoom! Yesterday we got an envelope from SS and as he was looking for his glasses he remarked, “It’s probably my rejection letter”. I laffed and said that I loved his positive attitude.

As he read aloud that his first payments would begin in January and would be twice the amount we expected, a smile started forming on his face. We couldn’t believe our eyes!

The relief is palpable. This brings a tremendous peace to him and we are so very thankful. Woowoo!

 

 

 

Space and Time

While dyeing a new set of gradations for the other blog (thanks everyone, at the moment I am SOLD OUT!!) I am listening to a book on cd and the main character is a recent widow. She has to process her new state and figure out her new life. She sits and thinks and feels and dwells and doesn’t really have to do anything. In a state of mourning no one expects you to be anywhere, finish anything you start, plan something new or even be nice.

 

Is there a way to do this same thing without having the death of a loved one part? When you go on vacation, you feel great the first part of the week but then the dread of having to return to work screws up your good feelings. I would like to have that wonderful clone of myself do my work, (which I love, mind you) but I would like to just sit and daydream and wonder and imagine for a month or so and then have a new plan or be refreshed at the end. Y’know, choose your own end of the downtime.

 A nice cup of tea would be involved and a front porch swing too, and plenty of rain and big windows to watch it come down, and soft classical music on the stereo in the background. Soup and bread to eat, with a good red wine. No diet to stick to, that can return later.  Down comforter and down pillows in the bedroom and a cat that doesn’t pee on the bed would be nice too, but now I’ve gone too far.

 

I realized that the very thing I am wishing for is the thing Dave is doing right now. I can see that he needs to do this and I need to let him. There is no time limit on this downtime thing, it has to run its own course. I’ll leave him alone so he can do it.

 

 

 

 

On the Town!

Laura W just closed on a new townhome on South Michigan Avenue in the City! She drove Frieda and me downtown to see it before we all went over to her gala art opening at 333 N. Michigan Ave. Her show was held on the 25th floor, at the Tavern Club very posh indeed.

Laura poses in front of her apt. fireplace which is two sided and faces both the living room and the bedroom.

Today the carpet arrives and the sofa bed comes next week. Imagine Green.

The view from her 5th floor balcony. I am sure others could point out which important building is which, but not me...


The scaffolding is coming down before the snow flies, but here is another view of the new Soldier's Field where the Bears play, like I care about football.

OK now for the gala art opening. This is 3/4ths of the Wasilowski Family, Louise is in Costa Rica looking for that lost shaker of salt. First is Gus, who knows better, then Laura, the talent and then Steve who is the 'agent provocateur' of this exhibit. He asked the maitre d' if his wife could have a show in the club and got the nod. The rest is history, and you can see great shots of all the assembled work on Laura's site.

She never takes a bad picture.

O and there was food and plenty o'wine.

The waiters brought around hors d'oeuvres and we giggled and flirted and practiced our Spanish
and looked fabulous, while pretending to be famous and sophisticated. There were men in suits present. This is a very rare occurrence in my regular life.

It turns out that they behave better in suits.

Another shot of Chicago's Magnificent Mile and all the famous buildings thereon. Squint and you can see Lake Michigan at the end of the street.

Tommy, me and Rose at an after party stop, Zapatista. They are holding me up.



Tommy, Frieda and Rose, all looking very HOT!

I certainly had a wonderful time and the city was really lovely. I didn't have to drive, thanks to Laura, (I knitted, there and back) and then we took cabs and the train home so it was the very best way to be downtown.

Since Laura has the new townhome we are thinking of ways to use it as a pied a terre, and hoping to make several more city excursions part of our Girlfriends Gatherings.

Back at Work!!!

The two faces of our heroine. The first, the mug shot, is the dramatic depiction of my non-artmaking state. Just a blah worthless misery that pervades every corner of my world. The second is that inexplicable joyfullness that exudes from every pore and brings light to all within range of my aura.

O boy! I am working again! The patternworks are crankin' out the good stuff now. Determined to make new patterns of best loved former quilts was stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.

When one remakes a quilt one eliminated all the doodoo things one did in the original. Simplifying and emphasizing the parts so that the good stuff rises to the fore, making a better second than the first. Plus one has the previous work to use as a road map, thus eliminating the indecision, the panic state, the hesitation, the roadblocks etc.

Teeny lesson here for nouveau fusers: This picture shows the fused parts being aligned with the cartoon. This is not what you would be doing. Instead there would be a piece of Wonder-Under release paper under the fabric parts here. I just removed it so you could see where these pieces will fit into the larger design.

And now for something completely different. There are days when all the good in the universe comes raining down at once. These last two days have been just that. Old debts have been paid, cash flow has been restored, housekeeping is under control, and artwork is moving along swimmingly. AND THEN a real cherry on the sundae appears. I had to stop at the store for a few items and the store being very near the resale shop...I had to see if any wool sweaters may have appeared, even tho I have PUT AWAY ALL MY YARN.
No sweaters.
Well, just this one, which turns out to be the long awaited replacement for the disgustingly baggy faded black sweatshirt-cardigan that I wore for ten years. This lovely jacket is originally from Talbott's and is 100% merino wool, in PETITE!!! so the arms aren't four feet long and it has two, count 'em, two pockets. It buttons without grabass, and the shoulders have slim padding which promotes good posture, or at least the illusion of good posture. And last but not least it only cost $6!! I am in heaven. I will be the belle of the studio this winter when my studio gets rather chilly despite raging irons. I will wear this jewel to the store the post office and the gas station, all my usual haunts. I will pick it up to cast over my pjs to check the mail box and answer the door, I will not look like the slob I resembled whilst still under the spell of the aformentioned sweatshirt.
Sigh.

Ok so I got out a little yarn. I am making a shawl for the shoulders which feel a chill in dress-up clothes. I usually wear black or white for fancy occasions so this polyfluff will do the trick. It is from the Shape It! scarf pattern in this book.

Speaking of fancy occasions, Laura W is having a soiree in the City, Fiber Dye-It, an exhibit of her quilt artwork and the world is invited. Of course that means tomorrow's blog will have fotos of the glitteratti, and I will be writing the review for SAQA. I insisted. I am her long time fan and fellow faculty member of the Chicago School of Fusing. WE are so proud.

Hand Quilting through Fused Fabrics

A quote from my darlink Gabrielle's blog this morning:

My head is so full of ideas that I can't work fast enough to get them out. Yes, Mel dahling, I know if I fused they would all be done in a week.....but I don't even own a sliver of Wonder Under. Plus there is that pesky hand quilting part which I keep hanging on to like a dog with a bone.

Like the Divas that we are, we must communicate in a world wide forum.

ha! I say HA! to you m'dear Fabu Gabrielle. I oft times find meself in need of a bit o'handwork. Whilst tis true that the fused fabric has a tad more stability than the unfused surface, I find this works in my favor. I prefer to use threads that show and stitches that are visible, which accounts for the fact that no one ever asks me to teach a hand quilting class, but be that as it may, I still call this hand quilting. Or sometimes embroidery. Well...reckless embroidery, at least.

I destest that thing called a hoop and the fabric fused to the batting eliminates that need. And of course I am not considering my quilting to be solely the only quilting. It falls more into the decorative category, with the machine doing the real work. But I have gathered some examples here to dispute the concept that one cannot hand quilt through fused fabric.

As we all know I don't do anything that smacks of being hard, and I never would advocate anyone else to do such a thing if it were secretly difficult. Do give it a try. It couldn't hurt.

O...I forgot to add. The stitches only go through the top and the batting. After that is accomplished I add the backing fabric, thus hiding all the hand stitching and knots.

Mostly hand quilted, with a tad of machine work to finish it off.



detail

Both hand and machine used in concert

machine embroidery with hand embroidery on the background fabric


All hand quilted with machine stitching on the binding.

Hurray!

I am over the moon with my new printer, my new regime and my newly finished quilt, woowoo!

For my new pattern cover I shot really high resolution digital pictures of Fucshias and arranged them two to a page with the pattern title and the pattern blurb and printed them out on HP Bright White Paper on my new printer.

The cover set up used to be quite a big deal. First there would be the photo shoot with print film and then the developing and then the fitting the picture to the pattern layout and then taking them to the copy place and having them color copied. Lots of time and more expense each time I visited the shop.

But today I did it all on my little laptop with my little printer by my side and the results look every bit as good as the others that went from print film to color copies. You can even see the stitching! La dee dah, la DEE dah! Not on the blog you can't, but on the pattern cover you can.

I will make two covers from one page

Too bad Blogger takes the resolution down so low. I want to see a clear and perfect picture everytime. Grrr. Anyway, now all I have to do is take the full size drawing to the printer and it is ready.

And tomorrow I can start on my next quilt. I have plans! And a structure to fulfill those plans.

I think this calls for Champagne!

The New Regime

I blew my stack at my poor husband yesterday. The darling man, thinking it is Labor Day, he thought we would do something holiday-like. Take a ride, visit someplace new, get out into the sunshine and see the world... Unbeknownst to him, I had just reached my limit of putting-everything-off-til-tomorrowness. I snarled:

Everyday is a holiday when you don't have a job!!

We are having a bit of an adjustment getting used to him being home all the time. I am not doing any real work. Or it is only happening in teeny increments. He is on new meds again and is getting used to those.

We had a talk. Nothing got resolved. We talked some more and I stomped away. This is NOT like me. Really. I have sniped at him twice in the last week. I apologized again and made a plan, at least for myself.

The New Regime:

Be dressed and off line and ready to work by 9am.

Work in the studio til noon and make the main meal (for the sake of my diet, another thing that has lost focus).

Kitchen cleaned up and back into the studio til 5PM.

Cocktail hour: Ginger Ale in a wine glass.

There will be schedule alterations for trips to the post office and grocery shopping. I will keep my papers off the sofa in the living room. I will do laundry on the same day every week and I will keep my dyeing confined to the dyeroom. I had been dyeing yarn in the microwave last week, with drips everywhere of course. (Magic Sponge to the rescue). I will try not to feel guilty about ignoring Dave during the day.

This sounds perfectly doable. I will no doubt have trouble with the guilt. I see him sitting there looking lonely and bored. Or he sits there watching something interesting on the TV and I want to know what...I have a door on my studio and it closes. I will take advantage of it.

So to institute this new regime, we did a good hour of furious housecleaning, with two vacuum cleaners going. I put away all my yarn. I mean I PUT AWAY ALL MY YARN. This has been my major vice/distraction in the studio and now it is out of the way and stacked neatly in the upstairs library. I had to unload another bookshelf to accomodate all the new dyed stuff. My Japanese quilt magazines have got to find a new home. I may be putting them on the other site.

The studio got organized and I gave over to quilting the Fucshias for two hours, very nearly finished by 5pm and then we popped into The Car for a spin. A blogger friend is house looking in my town and we had to check out the house she is considering. This was fun, since we disagreed about where it could be and then we had to drive from one end of the area to a street very close to us, before we found it. It turns out that even tho we have lived here almost 17 years, there are parts of our small town we have never seen. Way huge mansions have been built and lots of hidden townhouse villages that have just appeared.

Getting back to our house and having some ice cream on the deck was so quiet and perfect. We realized how great we have it here, now that we have figured out a plan for living.

I think my new mindset is just what the doctor ordered. A person needs to work and feel that sense of accomplishment. I will visit my accountant this morning and see Frieda and deliver her dyed yarn from last week. Then I will finish the quilting and take good photos and make that new pattern more than just a bunch of talk...

PS: My sister Brooke and her family are now in Singapore and she and my 10 year old niece Glory both have blogs!!! Glory's is called Want Want Jelly Bubble after a local drink.

Food Store Rivalry

I have been energized to think about interesting new foods because of Tommy’s gourmet blog and the arrival of a new food store in the next town, Joseph’s Marketplace. My husband is still sort of a Jewel Food Store employee (31+ years), but really we aren’t welded to that store and can take side trips to visit other markets.

Joseph’s is the kind of store that has a huge produce section full of color and variety. Dave and I like to do a walk through when a new store opens and check it out. This has been a long-standing ritual for us, even when we were dating. We worked together in the meat market until they found out we were in love, and then they transferred me. I was a meat wrapper, don’t laugh, and it was a disgustingly difficult job, freezing cold, and working with butchers, who prided themselves on being disgusting to women, and especially single girls like me. Obviously Dave was not like the other butchers.

On our second date, we did a walk through of the A&P and derided the messy out-of-code displays and felt really superior about our meat counter. Ah. Those were the days.

I needed Dave to see this Joseph’s store and get his opinion, ‘cause I was already determined to start shopping there, if only for the smell of fresh from the factory tortillas, and the famous Reduced for Quick Sale rack in the produce section. When we were kids my mother would head directly to that rack and check out the bruised and dented fruit and veggies and get big bargains. This is a residual deep seated urge that I had stifled for all these years. Our Jewel does not do reduced for quick sale.

The store as a whole caters to the ethnic customer. Ha! This is so funny because the town it is in is so whitebread that ethnics need to be bussed in. The large local Mexican population usually shops at small neighborhood tiendas, but lots of Mexicans are now working at this store, so that may change. I am happy because I can practice my Spanish. There is also a section of Polish and Russian foods, plus Asian foodstuffs, especially Indian. It is all so exotic. I even saw Danish, Greek and Polish butter. And real Italian Gelato. The bakery is very dangerous with freshly made Italian specialties like cannolis and tiramisu. I must stay back 100 feet.

I found a big tray of a dozen overripe tomatoes on the reduced for quick sale rack ($1.00!) and we bought a large chunk of parmeggiano reggiano, and then I grabbed a huge butterflied skirt steak and proceed to the checkout.

At home I cut away the bad spots and took out all the seeds and cores and put the tomatoes in a big pot with three huge slivered garlic cloves and a handful of my homegrown basil. The aroma was ever so seductive. I ground up a tablespoon of fennel seed, and added a handful of oregano and a pinch of red pepper flakes to kick it up a notch.
After a few hours of simmering I transferred it all to the food processor, cause Dave hates tomatoes, but loves tomato sauce, as long as there are no signs of tomato lumps within.The skirt steak was rubbed liberally with olive oil and several screws of black pepper and tossed onto the very hot grill. I had to stand nearby as the steak is so thin that it would overcook in a wink.

When it was done, I ladled on the sauce, and covered it with shredded mozzarella and the parmagianno and slid it under the broiler to brown. Not exactly veal parmigianna, but much more flavorful. A salad with bib and romaine, sliced ripe peaches, and almonds and the meal was complete. O alright, some wine too.When we finished, we hopped into The Car and went to check out Caputo's Fruit Market.

Not so good.

Q&A on Dyeing

Dear Melody,
I'm fascinated by your frogging and dyeing! Would you mind to explain a little more in detail how you use the microwave with procion? I have just started the adventure of fabric dyeing and would love to try some yarn as well.

Signed,
Anon Blogger

Dear Anon,
I use procion dyes for cotton and silk fabric and yarn. Procion MX is a fiber reactive dye that works with cellulosic or protein fibers. The catalyst is sodium carbonate and that is the fixer that makes the dye permanent. See the Lazy Dyer for more info.
When I dyed the silk/cotton yarn I wanted to hurry up the process so I mixed the dye with water and a tad of sodium carbonate and dunked the yarn into the dye solution, in a Gladware container. Since the molecules of the dye need to react with the fiber I know that they will bounce around faster if I heated them up a bit in the microwave. Since I had been using acid dyes with wool and vinegar, I watched how the dye was taken up into the wool more quickly as the liquid was heated in the microwave, and I guessed it would react similarly with the silk cotton yarn. It pretty much did.
I can't tell you how much dye, water, yarn weight or sodium carbonate I used, or how long I zapped the yarn, because I wasn't paying attention, and writing these things down.

So much of dyeing is experimenting and experience. There are tons of books out there on the subject, and even in my own library. I read them a long time ago and it must be in the brain somewhere. But really, in all these things, it pays to just play and see what happens.

Gratefulness

My attitude has changed and I am thinking about how grateful I am to be dry, clean, well fed and well rested. I have lived on the Gulf Coast, Biloxi MS, way back in 1970, just after Camille destroyed so much of the coastline there. I know things do eventually get back to normal and some folks never return and are happy in their new circumstances. So the outlook does improve with time and there is hope. One of my commentors said, God's still in control, even when we don't see it. There you go.

In the meantime, Friday, some of the girlfriends had a dyeing day and the results were yummamente.

For the sake of busy work and to run my fingers through it all, I decided to wind the yarn I/we dyed into cakes. But first, a little before and after. Here is a shot of some yarn unwound from a Goodwill sweater. The label said 70%silk 30%cotton.

before

after

I noticed that my yarn stash was primarily full intensity colors and needed a bit of pastels to balance it all out. And this yarn is definitely not winter weight, so spring/summer lights were appropriate. I dyed this stuff at home with procion colors, but used the microwave to speed things up. It all works just fine. There is absolutely no bounce to this yarn and it will be very different knitting it into anything. The aqua and green cakes in the foreground are wool.

(The silk/cotton is just not springy like wool. It is like string. However, it will show textures, like cables and such much better because of that aspect. I will knit something without sleeves, as the stuff ends up stretching down to one’s knees. All the Goodwill cotton sweaters have arms that are four feet long. Funny.

I love the way the winder makes the yarn so neat in these little cakes. They stack. I love to stack. That contraption is not the winder, but is a swift. The winder is hidden on the left.

Two skeins of Kona Superwash Merino sock yarn. Frieda Green and a mess of Melody colors.

I dyed mohair and will try to figure out something to make in concert with this red-orange stuff.

It goes from light red-orange all the way down to really red. Hot-cha-cha.

Under the influence of Frieda, and so glad to be. It turns out that this green is the perfect foil for purples as well as tomato reds.

Aqua is my new fave color, and while these seem pretty turquoise-y, they were meant to be aqua, until I really get some. Then they can be as turquoise-y as they want. The lavender is pretty nice. Any lighter and it just looks gray. We are not a gray person.

Speaking of turquoise...my sheets are er, really turquoise.

This is the poncho I started from they yarn I dyed last week and blogged already. It is really intense and I thought very autumnal. I love the mitered diamond pattern (no surprise) and it was sailing along looking yummy, until I got to this point when I could try it on.
Disgusting. Awful. Yucky. NOT GONNA FINISH IT. It needs a border to make it longer, and believe me, it will not help the thing, not one bit. It is just not me. I will frog. (For you non-knitters, frogging means, rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.)

But first I will rip this lovely thing. I never wore it, though I tried. It was a mix of wonderful yarns and they will reappear again, in some other form, just not this thing.
It feels so satisfying to undo a mistake. I am grateful for this life lesson.

I can't blog today

The news is too depressing and it seems incongruent to be my cheery self for a few days.

OK, now that I have made the darn quilt I find the perfect picture of the darn flowers which really could have helped make it more realistic looking. Instead I had to make it up in my teeny little mind, after I killed the original plant.
Don't tell me to use this and make another one. You do it. I am on to other things, quiltwise. Sometimes I have no ideas and now I have tons and am dying to get my clone to do the bills and laundry so I can do all the creative things on my mind.

But wait! Yesterday, just as I was about to quilt the quilt, Laura calls and says we are having the proposed yarn dyeing day Friday at the Fine Line Art Center. We are renting the dyeroom and can make our messes somewhere else and dye together again. Actually this is my first time but Laura, Emily and Frieda did dye there before and I was a sick girl and couldn't attend.
Frieda dyed the yarn and I made these sox from it. It is Kona Superwash Merino and is so fabulous on the feet. Like Buttah.

This time I am prepared and have the new dyes from Pro Chem and the yarn ready to dye and share, but at the last minute decided to try two new resale shops in hopes of finding wonderful wool for pennies.

At the first store I got this huge man's pullover in 100% wool and used my 'senior' discount to acquire it for $2.83. I can't believe how cheap I am. You suspected this already. But I love love love a bargain. I have already unseamed it and will skein and wash it today.

At the second resale shop I found only one wool possibility and was about to check out when I noticed a rack of jeans that looked promising. I searched through them and found my favorite Ralph Laurens, in size 8! And Petite too! Gulp. I pulled out a pair of R.L. 10's too, and thought..."for my relaxed moments" (ha. I know I have those mornings-after when I must concede I have no hope of every getting my other jeans over the hump).
And then I found a pair of R.L. black capri pants/jeans that were brand new. I got all three, $4, $4.50, and $6, and the sweater too. It turns out that the sweater was not usable, the seams were serged a little too closely making it impossible to get anything out of it to wind. I lost $3 there.

Now you may ask yourself, more yarn? Didn't I mention that I have absolutely no more room for yarn anywhere in my house? Ayup. You are correct. But this is for my education, you understand. I must learn all there is to know about dyeing wool. And silk yarn, and linen and nylon while I'm at it. And you could be the recipient of the finished products someday... When is your birthday anyway?