The thing is ...

I have developed a work-like obsession about "my needlework." There's always one more thing to do, one more thing to try, and so little time. I work from sun up 'til sun down, and my mind is in a nearly constant altered state as I see see things begin to take shape. I'm fascinated by the process.


Hugs III and I together at last
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.


Last week, I was delighted to finish Hugs III, and I was pleased with the overall effect. I'm thinking of yet another doll (and another Bishop dress), but it will be a while before I allow my scissors to begin snipping to shape the fabric. I want to get a few other things completed first.

I've been really pleased these last several weeks, though, to get some unfinished objects out of my sewing boxes and drawers. I finished another pair of pillowcases like the first pair (same pattern, very similar process and colors), dug out some old embroidery test sew-outs from maybe as many as 6 years ago, tossed away some old scraps that were too small to use for anything - ever, pieced together at least 80 9-1/2" blocks for the Martha Circle quilts from scraps (Carol's and mine) plus cut another 80 solid blocks from complementary patterned fabric, tried a little machine smocking (I didn't think it would stretch like hand smocking, but it does), and started gathering a piece of muslin to attempt Shibori (a Japanese version of dying cloth) which I'll make into a sundress if it turns out anything like I think it will.



Smocking sampler
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I have a renewed interest in smocking, too, as a result of finally finishing the Bishop for Hugs III, so I started a sampler. I messed up the fabric when I was pleating it, so I'm seriously considering cutting it off before I get to the messed-up pleating area and using it as a panel in one of the bags I make for Lydia Circle.

As I work on things like this, I have two thoughts: The good thought - I can test and test and test and then incorporate the pieces into other objects (that's good because it reduces or eliminates waste)... and The bad thought - I doubt that many of today's young women are interested in hand-made things like this because they probably don't know about them yet. Interest in these types of things generally doesn't happen when one is a young adult - there are too many competing urgencies, like getting or keeping a job, feeding yourself and your family, figuring out how to get established as an adult, etc ... Oh, how I remember. But as long as I'm not wasting my learning experiences (I can use them in useful objects), I don't feel as bad.

So, as I began - the thing is, days and days go by, and I don't think about blogging. I DO think about reading the blogs of others to find out how to do something, but to sit down and write in my own blog? Nah - I could smock another row, make another block, read another description in a book ...

So little time, and it's good!

Our version of Down on the Farm, plus knitting and other needlework

Lauren is so good to make sure I get my physical exercise. It's the only way I'm going to continue to be able to walk. Twice a week, he walks with me up the hill on the dirt road around the county dump and back - about 45 minutes; and he tries to find manual labor for me to do over at our church, Mt. Olive. In the last few weeks, he's given me the courage to learn to drive the tractor and to use the riding lawn mower. But I don't just sit and drive these things around all the time. Today, for example, I dug up a pile of dirt and shoveled it into the wagon behind the tractor, and then I drove to the back of the church lot, shoveled the dirt out of the wagon, and filled up a low place. Lauren trimmed vines and branches, and I loaded those into the wagon, too, and then took them back to the dumpster and tossed them in. We were over there for about 1-1/2 hours - a nice workout.

Hooray for Lauren! After 42 years together, plus our dating time before that, after all the ups and downs, happy times and sad times, struggles and smooth sailing, we've come to a good place. We are thankful that we have both lived long enough to get to this part of our marriage and lives together. Not all our friends were as fortunate. I am thankful that he takes care to do physical workouts with me, ones that aren't boring!, several times a week.

Baby cap and sweater for Lydia project
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Although I've made some headway on my big quilting projects, I'm in another interlude where I'm finishing up my Lydia project knitting (I had two sweaters in progress), and I had a big urge to get those crayon tests incorporated into bags. I have about 11 bags now almost finished, and six more to get to the same stage - and I hope to finish them all by this weekend, and then I'll take photos.

I posted pictures of both sweaters on flickr, but the one I linked to, above, is my favorite. This is Bernat's Satin yarn, and it's so soft and nice. This is the third one I made with a slip stitch pattern and the fourth sweater I've made using Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop bottom up formula. Probably the only reason I made this sweater is because I made that little cap out of this yarn when I was with Donna and I was playing with things you can do with a slip stitch, and I liked it so much that I knew it needed something to go with it.

My next baby sweater will be a hoodie. I found a basic top down (the hood first) pattern, and the only seam, I think, that's required is sewing two edges together to make the top of the hood. I like working on circulars, and I like having a garment that doesn't have side, shoulder, and sleeve seams. The pattern is free from Knitting Pure and Simple at http://www.knittingpureandsimple.com/babycardi.html. The pattern is at the bottom of the page (requires scrolling down) and is in pdf form. I'll make it plain, the way it is, before I begin to experiment with it. One of the big advantages of this pattern, in addition to the fact that it meets my "no seams" criteria, is that it uses ties instead of buttons. It has no gender! That's a definite advantage when you're knitting for those you don't know and will never meet!



Hugs I
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I've had some success working off my UFOs (unfinished objects) and so I'm stretching my luck. I picked up a doll, much like the one in the picture above, that I started during my first retirement - maybe sometime in 2001 or 2002, and I'm going to finish it. The one I'm working on has maroon hair, and I just about have all the hair in place. I have a little blue smocked dress UFO that I'll need to finish, too. I'm hoping that effort will get me back into smocking. I really enjoyed that when I was doing it. I made smocked dresses for several of my friends little girls, from new born to age 4, and I even made one for Donna.

Bread's baking, and it's just about time to take it from the oven. Ymmm. It smells good! Tonight, I'm hoping to have some success with Steve's pizza recipie - dough ripened in the refrigerator over night and pesto for the sauce. We'll see. When he and I made it together in Pagosa, it was one of the best pizzas I've ever tasted!

Silence - Micah died

Micah Bezy died two weeks ago. The world feels empty, somehow, without him. His mother, Margaret, is a close friend of mine. We see each other only in spurts, but when we do, we immediately recognize that there's something special between us.

Margaret and I used to sit in our cars and talk while our boys were in confirmation class together. I don't remember exactly if that's how we became friends, because at the same time this was going on, I took Margaret and Pierre on as tax clients and I did their returns for a number of years. Maybe that's how we became closer friends. MA and PA was the label on my tax files. Pierre is gone, too. He died a few years before Den did, if I remember correctly. Den died 11 years ago this year.

Micah was or would have been 40 this year. After high school, he went on to a technical college and then went on to work. He was a good worker and respected by his employer. Micah's last day at work was Tuesday, June 24, I believe. He apparently went home that evening, perhaps had his supper, sat down in his easy chair, and died. His heart probably failed him. A couple of years ago, he had some work done on one of his heart valves, totally unexpectedly. The valve must have failed him. When he didn't show up for work over the next few days and he didn't answer his phone, his employer called law enforcement to check on him, and they found him dead. His employer called Margaret and told her.

Micah was an honorable man, full of integrity. He was a practicing Lutheran all his life. He was thoughtful and serious about his faith, enjoyed good music, and pondered the things of the world. I remember when I was an organist at church, he always recognized the music when I played some of the old classics which weren't part of the mainstream of Lutheran church music. Micah was quiet, seemingly shy, but never unaware of things around him.

His mother hears the silence now. The silence is so deep that even the movement of air seems to be noisy. God is close to her now, providing a glorious euphoria even in her deep grief. Micah will be part of her in a new way now, for the rest of her life. She will carry him with her, now, forever.

In the meantime, life is for the living, and life is to be lived. That's our faith. Margaret is walking on, a step at a time, sharing the goodness that is hers to share with those around her. Those who are in her presence will learn much, if they listen, because she hears God in a new way. In the depths of her pain, there is a strange, unexplainable peace. God has her attention.

Quilting, bag making, coloring on fabric

I can't believe I haven't made any notes in my blog for two weeks. I've posted a few flickr pictures, but I didn't take the time to jot down what I was doing or the results of my experiments with color on fabric.

Actually, in my mind, I've written many blogs the past two weeks, but they never made it to Blogger. Micah Bezy died two weeks ago, and much of my awake and sleeping hours have been filled with thoughts about Micah and his mother, my friend Margaret.


Tedious work, but paper outlines do the trick!
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I finished quilting and putting the shams together for Donna's quilt, and now I'm machine quilting the quilt itself.

It's beyond me to leave well enough alone and do traditional regular quilting. I just don't think I have the skill for it, but I'm determined to try it on the quilt after next.

(The next quilt in line is Nathan's quilt - and I am going to use lots of threads and maybe an overall scheme (picture) on it, and then I'm going to machine quilt a top Donna made several years ago. It's the latter one where I'll buckle down, get my focus fine tuned, and do a traditional, regular, quilt pattern. I need to learn how to do that!)

I have 18 full-size blocks to do for Donna's Mammy's Flower Garden quilt, arranged in three rows of four and two rows of three. For the "four's," I'm going to put in an overall design that doesn't emphasize the four points of the block. I have four of those done. For the "three's," I'm creating patterns where I can put four identical objects in a block, each pointed to the corner (these quilt blocks are on point, so the corners are the focal points). In the picture, I'm putting four clusters of grapes in the block. At this stage, I'm slowly sewing around my paper template, and then I'll fill in the detail next. No two blocks will have the same quilting pattern.

I found a picture of the bunch of grapes on the Internet, and I've found a few things in coloring books. Some of the designs, I just make up by doodling until something comes out right. The shapes have to be simple enough that I can get a definite outline from them. If the design is too complicated, I pass on it. I think I could actually sew over tissue paper, but the risk is always that some of the stitches will loosen up too much when you remove the paper. I could probably overcome that somehow, but I haven't spent too much time thinking about it yet.

My free-motion sewing isn't really all that great, but when a block is finished, I like the total effect. With practice, it gets better, but I've come to the conclusion that practice will last the rest of my life.

When I was a child in elementary school, I used to beg off staying for church on Sunday, and I would come home and thread up Mom's sewing machine and sew. I would clean up before she came home so she wouldn't know because I wasn't supposed to use her machine unless she was there. Not only that, the saying was that if you sewed on Sunday, you had to rip out all the stitches before you died. Ah, I haven't thought about that for a long time!

Sewing fascinated me as a child, and at this stage of my life, it fascinates me again. I can't believe the hours I can spend at my machines, and I can't believe how fascinated I am by the things you can do. We never dreamed of anything like this when I was young. It was buy a pattern, cut out the fabric, and follow the directions - at least most of the time! Mom was creative, though, and she made a few things for me for which she had no pattern. My favorite was a lavender dotted Swiss dress which buttoned down the front, and it had tons and tons of small pleats in the skirt. She received so many compliments for that one, and she deserved them all.

My fascination:

Soft pastels on fabric - pre-wash
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I'm experimenting with coloring on fabric, which is fun. But I started free-motion embroidering the colored swatches along the way, and I stayed up several nights this past week turning the dial on my Sears machine, using another stitch, and sewing all over the piece I'd colored. This piece, using mostly (if not all) straight stitch, is my favorite, but I used zig zag, the hemming stitch (oh, I love that), and the few decorative stitches I have on this machine on other pieces I made. By putting the feed dogs down, the traction and movement is all mine, and I see the most fun stuff coming from those stitches. Just can't believe it.

The Crayola colors fade only a little when put in the washer. I tried oil pastels, but most of that washed out. I may try them again and put the color in heavier. A surprise was when I used soft pastels (in the picture above), which is essentially colored chalk. I rubbed the color in before I did the vinegar rinse, and I was surprised at how much color stayed when I washed the piece in the washer. I don't have a picture of the post-washer version yet. I'm putting all these pieces into the bags I'm making for the Lydia project, and I'll photo the final version when they're finished.

The last couple of days, I incorporated the colored swatches into the outside shells for bags - seven of them so far, and I stitched out about a dozen patriotic images (using my Bernina) from free designs I downloaded from Ann the Gran, and I'll incorporate them into bags when I turn to them again next week.

Today, I'm taking a break from bags so I can move on with Donna's quilt. I need to change projects every few days because my head gets buzzy and I don't see the project as clearly as I'd like.

There! I've caught up with noting where I am so I'll remember later. Back to sewing!