We See What We Need To See

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable"  Mary Oliver

Paul and I walk around the pond almost every morning.  The weather has been much colder as of late and the water is starting to freeze....in a very loving kind of way. Do you see what we saw?

Sometimes we see what we want need to see.  

Happy To You!

Life is good with this man....and today we celebrated Paul's 63rd birthday.  And the good news is that I feel like some of our best days are yet to come.  

And lucky for him....there was one piece of Thanksgiving apple pie left for our little celebration.

As we say in our house...Happy To You!  🎈🎉

The boys made t-shirts for one of his birthdays with all their nicknames.

Sam Bam, Beans O Papa, and Beans O Rama

1978....meeting my parents for the first time over Thanksgiving break....and we celebrated his birthday.  

Just before we got married my mom told me that she wasn't going to worry about us. She really loved Paul and knew he would treat me well.  She was right.

Positive Influence

"I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women." Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

Margie got some pretty special 90th birthday cards....but the one that struck me the most was from Mary Ann, one of her 2nd grade students back in 1951. 

Mary Ann wrote a nice letter thanking Margie for inspiring her to become a teacher and continues to be grateful for Margie's influence....even after 70 years.  Knowing Margie like I do....I'm not surprised.  She's been a teacher her whole life in one way or another.

My guess is that Mary Ann has had her own chance to be a positive influence on others....and just taking the time to write that letter is inspiring me.

Margaret Gunderson's second grade class at Elsie Elementary School, 

Elsie Nebraska....she was 19 years old at the time.

Margie's teaching contract....at $183.33 a month.

First Dusting

We had our first dusting of snow last night....a clear reminder of the change in seasons.  While Paul and I were on our morning walk I was on the lookout for interesting places where the snow had landed. 

This gourd caught my eye because it seemed to perfectly illustrate the transition from fall to winter. I needed to take a closer look.

It was beautiful up close...the gourd was such a deep textured orange and still very much in its prime. And the dusting of snow was just lovely.

But what I didn't notice from a distance was right nearby. It's there in the first photo....but I didn't see it at the time. A kindred soul is also fond of heart rocks. Another reminder that when something catches your eye you should take a closer look because something else may surprise you.

A little further up the street was this frosty kale....and when I looked closely I was fascinated with all the layers and depth.

The cark crevices fascinated me.

I had a little fun with some photo editing. 

Sometimes we see what we want to see.

I do love the first dusting of snow.

Slow Finishing

I generally have several projects going at the same time...flipping back and forth leaving many of them partly done for months...or years.  I like the variety....but it's nice to finish something once in a while.

I settled in last evening for several hours of slow stitching....or maybe I should say....slow finishing. 

This post is about my process....so if the details make your head spin....move on and enjoy your day.  

Once I got my mug rug the size to hold a small plate...I was ready for backing and binding. This is what the back looked like once I took out all the paper pieces.

I didn't want to machine stitch on a binding and lose some of the border squares in the seam allowance. But I did want a binding because I like how it frames a quilt....I had to think this through.

If I do another one I will leave the edges of the squares along the outside unfolded so I can machine sew on a binding. 

To solve the issue on this one I cut a piece of stiff batting a little bit bigger than the quilt to create a border that the binding would wrap around.

I auditioned several fabrics for the border...and liked this black and white stripe the best.  It seemed to give it a little whimsy and was a nice contrast to all the colors.

I pressed one edge of the binding and hand stitched it onto the quilt with little whip stitches just like I attached the squares. I mitered the corners as I stitched.  Then I basted it on the batting and fabric backing.

I liked the addition of the black and white...so decided to hand quilt it by stitching in the ditch along each seam with black thread.  I couldn't rock my needle because the batting was too stiff...so it was up then down for each stitch....true slow stitching. I'm not all that great at hand quilting....but it worked out OK.

My binding was a little wide...but I just went with it and folded and stitched it to the back.

My apple with cinnamon snack was the test drive this afternoon. 

And this evening with a cup of tea....I officially got "below the fold" and can flip my paper over for the below the fold 1/2 of the puzzle.  

I will do a few things differently the next time around...but this tiny first English paper pieced project is finished and I enjoyed every slow stitching minute.

Gayle, a blog reader and quitler, contacted me a few days ago to cheer me on.  She's made two twin size English paper pieced quilts and has enough hexagon squares done for 1 or 2 more.  One can dream!

Word Play

 "What if today we were grateful for everything!"  Charlie Brown

The Thanksgiving season would not have been complete without a little word play with my husband....I've written about this before.

I arranged my little Winnie the Pooh "Give Thanks" blocks in order on the window sill....

...and Paul rearranged them. Every time....all month long.

I'm grateful for his playfulness.

And I'm grateful for the spectacular Thanksgiving weather....all day long.

Yes....today I'm grateful for everything....including this awesome $5 necklace I bought at a consignment store in Denver. It seemed perfect for the Thanksgiving celebration. And I told Alyson and Liz I was going to wear it gardening.

I'm also grateful that Margie was able to join us!  It was a relaxing and enJOYable day.

And then we rested. (as seen on a walk)

Colorful Squares and Circles

"She forgot about time and remembered to fill her days with everything she loved best." Brian Andreas

By the time many of you read this it will be Thanksgiving....and I wish you a delightful and joyful day....however you celebrate. Margie will join us for turkey and the fixings....interesting conversation....and a competitive game of dominoes.

I'm in love with the puzzle on my table....colorful marbles are one of my favorite things. 

And I'm auditioning the size of my little mug rug slow stitching project.  I want it big enough for a small plate....so another row or two should do it.  

All these colorful squares and circles makes me smile.

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way...things I had no words for."  Georgia O'Keeffe

Leaf Prints

Just as I sat down to work on my post this evening I got a text from David....a friend from Wisconsin.  While he was at work he happened to look down and saw these four leaf prints in the pavement.  Were they intentionally placed....or did they just land there during paving?  It doesn't matter....either way they're awesome.

And I don't know what I love more....the fact that he saw them and appreciated them....or the fact that he took the time to share them with me!

Thanks David...I smiled all evening. 

And I just happened to work with a leaf print today.  I mounted one of my papercuts onto a gelli print background and turned it into a card.  

Some days joy looks like leaves.

Slow Stitching

Slow stitching is an ancient practice....but the term is relatively new. To slow stitch is to take time to mindfully create something by hand with a just needle and thread...or other tools of the trade. "It focuses on intention and the joy brought from creating...not so much the final result of the piece itself."

I have always enjoyed the mindfully mindless task of hand stitching.....of any kind. And I'm quite fond of this new term... so I'm going to incorporate slow stitching into my life on a regular basis...in a variety of ways. There are dozens of things in my head.

My new English paper piecing project is a perfect segue....and will be filling in the nooks and crannies of my days. And the colorful little pieces on the arm of my chair are just an added bonus.

https://slowstitching.com/

It's Official

As we say in our household..."happy to you!"

Margie's 90th has been officially and joyfully celebrated....there couldn't be anyone more amazing....or deserving! 

My son Sam was able to join us in person....and the rest of the family joined via Zoom from Denver Colorado, New Gloucester ME, Jamaica Plain MA, and London England.

It was a good day!  Happy to you Margie!

English Paper Piecing

I've always been intrigued with postage stamp quilts made from tiny stamp size fabric scraps...especially the ones that are made by hand rather than a machine.

Shirley, a friend from Lexington exhibited a postage stamp quilt in a show that I posted about here: 

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2018/10/glueing-and-waiting.html

I've always wanted to give it a try.

I've been re-inspired by Sarah Cooper's English paper piecing as a way to make a postage stamp quilt. Everytime I see a post about it on her Instagram Page....I say to myself...."I'm going to give that a try"......but never have.  Just recently I saw another post from Sarah....and at about 9:00 pm I decided it was time to finally give it a try. Not my best time of day for creating....but I needed to seize my enthusiasm.  This is Sarah's quilt in progress and it can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWdvy54rb6s/

English paper piecing is a technique where you wrap and baste fabric around a paper template then hand stitch the pieces together.  It's become quite popular with hexagon quilting.  I found this image and instructions here: https://www.allpeoplequilt.com/how-to-quilt/piecing/how-to-english-paper-piecing?

I grabbed a few swatches of blue fabrics and some punched paper squares and just winged it based on what little I knew.  Immediately I could tell this was something I was going to enjoy.

I'll share a bit about my process in a minute....but what I love about this technique is how much easier it is to work with small pieces...and how perfectly (or nearly so) you can match the corners. I could NEVER do that with machine stitching.

In the light of day....I was compelled to use more vibrant colors....so pulled more fabric swatches and put together a little box ready to go.  

It seemed almost decadent....but I took a little time this afternoon.....watched TV and thoroughly enjoyed myself hand sewing more little squares.

The fabric squares are roughly cut bigger than my 1 inch paper squares....which I just punched out of scrap paper.  Last night I was making more stitches than needed...today I learned that just a few were needed to hold the fabric around the paper square. Once the squares are sewn together the basting gets pulled out and the paper removed.

This was the lineup on the arm of my chair in the early afternoon light.  It just makes me happy.

And now I'll share the back of the blue chunk  from last night.  I have only taken out the basting stitches and removed the paper on the middle two squares....they are the only ones that are completely enclosed with stitches.

And this is where I landed this afternoon with the colors...just starting to sew some squares together. I would love to think I could make a full size quilt this way....Shirley's had 6,715 pieces....and that's a little daunting! For now I'm going to think small and maybe make these into a mug rug/coaster. This paper piecing hand work will be the perfect project to take on the road and when I'm having tea with my stitching buddies....or in the evenings watching TV.  What was I waiting for?