Not sure about this. It’s 3m long.
Adventures at the Ironing Board
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Category Archives: finishing
Plaid door. Satin moon.
After two zoom calls and a dog walk, I had the day to myself, and also the house. I enjoyed going between the ironing board in the living room and the bins of cloth in the basement. Up and down the stairs. It felt like getting back to something I’d been missing and didn’t know how much.
The buttons on this one are coming off — too much like eyes. Whimsical is okay but not distracting.
Composed years ago, this little house quilt was languishing in a pile.
Cloth: plaid flannel — one of the boys’ pjs; wool challis from a scarf that belonged to my mother; luscious indigo strip dyed by me years ago. I can’t remember who wore the dark shirt behind the house, but I’m pretty sure that I bought the vintage hankie (roof) on eBay once upon a time.
Auditioning my barn on a stormy background. The foreground is stitched already, which is the only sewing I managed to accomplish in California.
I just inserted that thread crumb moon this morning. If I keep it, I’ll work some purple into the foreground.
Speaking of not getting much done, I am tired today and don’t even feel like walking the dog.
Yellow arrives out front. Such a cheerful color, yellow!
Back at it
The amount of psychic energy required to finish my manuscript and begin the querying process was substantial but also invisible. It really tanked my cloth and collage work. I kept thinking something was wrong, but nothing’s wrong.
Spring brings with it a rising energy. This year I plan to ride that wave with attention to finishing. Finish. Finish. Finish.
Oh, and I plan on starting things too. I’m seesawing between two possible topics for a new novel. Many pages already written. I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be contemporary. Enough with parlors and drays, small pox and reticules. You won’t hear a specific thing about it til it’s done this time (she said).
I’ve become a ridiculous puzzle hound. Jigsaw puzzles. Wordle AND quordle. Daily NYTimes crossword puzzle and Spelling Bee. Every day!
Enough. I’ll be spending a lot more time outdoors.
I’ll be binding quilts.
I’ll be reading.
Period
The last word changed and the last period input — the edits from my professional consultant are done. It happened on my birthday and it felt momentous and like a gift to myself.
Now I have to read through again to catch edits I missed in the first go-through. I may set up another computer screen to ease my eyes.
Also, I plan to read through the deleted chapters with a view to possibly capturing a phrase or a few paragraphs here and there. It’s not a tortuous process, meaning I’m prepared to let it all go. It’s more like sifting through sand and hoping to find a small gem, a little bit exciting.
I had a great birthday! All kinds of cards and phone calls and packages made it a special. I have great friends, good boys, and sweet in-laws. My husband went so overboard at Christmas, I let him off the hook for my bday and for Valentine’s too.
Sumac stealth
“Ugh, it’s hot. My app says it’s 97.”
“My app says it’s 94. Rain at 2:00.”
“Mine’s showing it holding off ‘til 4:00”
This conversation, nearly verbatim, happens to an embarrassing degree in our house. I’m not sure whether it speaks more to being married for more than thirty years or to being over-reliant on our devices.
It was really too hot to be poking around scrub land behind retail space in search of sumac, but there we were. Finn’s tags fell off somewhere along the way this week necessitating a trip to Pet Co. We left the dog home and brought along gloves, spade, and two empty containers.
My mother was famous for plant-grabbing. She’d drive up into the woods behind our house in Pittsfield as far as the road would go, and fill the trunk with small trees which eventually, of course, became big trees. My brother claims she got permission from the landowner. I’m not so sure.
I’d seen her pull over on Route 43 or Dalton Road and dig up what to any other eye might appear to be a weed, perhaps with a spoon that she happened to have in the glove box. A little savage. Let’s just say she was a resourceful opportunist with a very good eye. This being her birth week, I figured why not honor her with my own sly acquisitions?
Last weekend, we more legitimately came by a clethra and a yew. These are all for the fence line along the back edge of the property. I also had to buy and plant two flats of pachysandra which the workers stomped to extinction on my neighbor’s property. Part of the price of our new fence.
And speaking of that neighbor. The son has come home with his girlfriend to live and turns out, the girlfriend is interested in learning how to quilt. Would I want a student? I almost said no, but I’m already thinking what I’d bring to a casual show and tell for a first lesson. And if the main reason I don’t want to proceed is because I can’t think what to charge a recent college grad with no job, then is that really a reason?
I sent my neighbor away with a few books and gave her Jude’s blog’s name. Ruth McDowell’s too. The young woman is an engineer so it occurred to me that McDowell’s precise piecing method may appeal to her. That’s a place to start, answering the question: What are you drawn to?
Meanwhile, I finished this with a little help from my friends (speaking of Jude, also Maggie and Jenn) (mostly re: a disappearing head. I think I fixed it!)
