It’s snowing hard. The tension on my machine is off. The Great British Baking Show is on.
Warm colors are nice this time of year. This wonky log cabin will be a baby blanket. We called baby blankets, “baa-baa’s” in this house. How about in yours?
I used to go down to Pembroke to a fabric wholesaler to buy cotton and scissors. Not so, these eight-inch dressmaking shears. They came from Amazon.
Just so you know (re: my carbon footprint), Pembroke is probably a 40 minute drive.
I’d been sawing at cloth for nearly a year. Having sharp scissors in the house is as delightful as getting a decent haircut was last week!
PS. The light behind the quilt makes clear there is at least one seam that needs straightening. You know it’s crooked if I’m prepared to fix it!
I am piecing up the tiny scraps that come with making the log cabin squares. Not surprisingly, I prefer the teeny compositions. I am intrigued by their scale and the sense of possibilities. Each could stand alone or they could be combined into a cloth that hangs together. How to decide?!!
A big snow carries a hush… a quieting of the entire landscape. I don’t understand how or why, and I don’t care to know — it is so palpable and so delicious. For those of us lucky to have shelter and little employment outside the four walls of that shelter, a big storm creates sanctuary, too. Suddenly there is nowhere to go. Nothing to buy. No appointment worth the venture. Add to that — the maternal attention and collapse of routines that come with a new puppy and time really turns in on itself. I am made both smaller and larger by the circumstances. My mantra is: “for now”.
I understood why, working in the basement studio in the winter, standing on a heating pad, wearing Dickensian gloves, and a down vest, the iron’s heat proffered so much comfort. Well, it turns out, even upstairs in the glare of morning light, with a fire going and heat on, I love the feel of warm cloth.
This is square five. I have to tackle, earlier rather than later, what to do about my aversion to uniformity measuring. Three of the squares are roughly the same size. Two are a bit bigger, and by “a bit”, I mean enough to matter.
I am thinking of marking the top of the green bookcase in the living room to use as a template. Turns out it is exactly as wide as the three same-sized squares.
Which leads me to this. A couple of goals emerge as I piece: I want to avoid the use of rotary cutter and mat, and I would like to use fabrics already in my possession. The latter commitment may be difficult, because I am also going to be picky about keeping my blues and greens in the right value family.
Finn and I walked and made it back. It’s not so bad out. Growing up in Upstate New York, it was often this frigid. As kids we called it, “booger freezing weather”. Rarely happens around here. But don’t get me wrong – I am super grateful to have the luxury of spending the rest of the day inside, at home!
P.S. The above picture from Sketchbook Project efforts a couple years back, reminds me that I will NOT be participating again… it turns out that letting the booklet go at the end, even knowing that it is (sort of) circulating, is not satisfying.
And if I just keep going, as some of us fiber folks like to say, at some point there will be 48 or 64 or however many I will need.
Not a huge fan of jackets for dogs, especially for those canines bred to manage just fine in the Alps, but they are saying frost bite will be a risk after thirty minutes or less of exposure tomorrow, and Finn is very lean. So here he is, looking stylish in camo!
He did NOT fare well in his crate this morning for my much abbreviated run to Salem. Oh well. A little backsliding is not the same as failure!
It’s snowing hard. The tension on my machine is off. The Great British Baking Show is on.
I used to go down to Pembroke to a fabric wholesaler to buy cotton and scissors. Not so, these eight-inch dressmaking shears. They came from Amazon.
