Beautiful light

Lo, many, many a year ago, when I was a high schooler who found a book or two in the local library about great artists I became interested in their miracles of perception and representation. But educating myself was difficult; there were very few books and no art museums to go to, and SOOO much to learn. Gradually I began to learn. I was about 20 when I first was able to spend an afternoon in the museum in Chicago. But even later when I had seen many of the great museums of Europe in a kind of whirlwind honeymoon/grand tour, I found I did not understand why artists seemed to make such a fuss about "light." Not just enough light but certain light. I couldn't see a difference.

Not until I went to Greece 15 or so years later did I realize you don't see light until you really SEE it. The light in Greece was different. I saw for the first time what happens when the sky reflects the blue of the sea. I was astonished. Ever since I've been looking at light. Here in NYC we have a very special and wonderful light in the autumn and winter which is especially beautiful about 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. I think the word for it is "lambent." It turns gray and beige stone facings on building various shapes of pink. The above photo is not a wonderful skyline -- it's just what was visible from the third floor of the Apple Store at 9th Ave. and 14th St. It IS that afternoon light and when I see it I am enchanted.



This is a different kind of ocean light. It is early morning on Cape Cod facing the ocean. The grand house, one of many along that stretch probably from the early 20th century when there were big families with lots of servants, faces a channel or inlet and then the spit of beach on which I was walking and behind me, not very far, is the ocean. It was a calm morning, the sun had a new, just risen feeling, the light seemed to have some of the crisp air's coolness but there was a clarity that was astonishing. I truly hope the people who live in those big old houses and the one who live in a batch of much newer McMansions appreciate that they not only own prime real estate but are treated every sunny day to light many an artist has come to Cape Cod to revel in.

And, not to do with this light in particular, but the day before when Rachel and I went to the Cape Cod Cinema in Dennis where she had not yet been, we discovered that the barrel ceiling had been painted with sun, moon, stars and many Greek gods by Rockwell Kent [and apprentices]. A landmark that the Town of Dennis surely appreciates and that all theatre goer can also appreciate for while waiting for the movie to start. What a nice discovery!

A bit about Thanksgiving part 2

Thanksgiving has always seemed the bleakest of holidays, a time when I don't like to travel, a time when being indoors with the smell of roasting turkey and the incredibly tempting sight of a pecan pie is about all that can redeem the feeling that all those wonderful, warm days are gone for many months, and the knowledge that the early darkness is going to become yet more and more oppressive for a month. I used to especially hate driving anywhere at Thanksgiving time when I lived upstate in New York because that week was the opening of deer hunting season and many cars would have a tawny body roped to the roof with a graceful head, and maybe a rack of antlers hanging sadly down over the rear window.
Both my bus rides to and from Cape Cod were under mostly sunny skies, which is a special pleasure this time of year, especially when traveling along the coast where the reflection of the ocean makes the light lambent and gently glow-y.

Also Rachel and I had a couple of very nice early morning walks with the dog. Once around a graceful little pond and then along a beach where the beach grass (above) was graceful under frost and the fallen oak leaves were outlined by Jack Frost with a thin line of ice. Even the wooden railing beside the wooden walkways had a coat of frost that actually looked furry -- a wonder of nature. So my usual feeling of heaviness at this holiday was well offset with these natural delights.

A bit about Thanksgiving part 1

I especially wanted to go visit Rachel on Cape Cod to see her growing family before they go their adult ways as they have already begun to do. A natural progress that she is pleased to see, as am I; it changes the family dynamic. Here are my two grandsons arranging crudites as hor d'ouvers for the Thanksgiving feast which was at the home of friends of Rachel's. The hostess is a woman who loves to cook and had cooked until she threw her back out but the food was abundant and traditional -- exactly what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. I had an opportunity to be a part of a typical American feast day -- which is something I mostly avoid. [Who NEEDS three or four ymmmy deserts after a well heaped plate of turkey, ham, yams, cranberry relish, dressing, four veggies, etc.

I like the feeling of joining in a centuries old celebration of harvest abundance, although I may have been the only one consciously thinking about that. It was a gathering with full spectrum of generations, from infants to teens to 40-ish to three grandmothers, of which I was the oldest. Women busily working in the kitchen, since the hostess was, by then, seriously in pain, men standing about or going out to play on the ATVs while teen boys played video games and teen girls disappeared into their own cliques, probably talking clothes and boys. I couldn't help thinking similar scees were playing out in millions of American homes from there on Capd Cod - sticking out into the Atantic to California, from Florida to Alaska.
Across the USA a few moms of pretty little girl children had dressed their children like little princesses. This is Sophia in what should become an heirloom dress, hand smocked by mother Allison [wife of my daughter's brother-in-law], who has made other equally beautiful garments for Sophia. A kind of hand work relatively few undertake -- very wonderful -- and completed only av a couple of hours earlier.

I know a great many crafts are being pursued by suburban [and some city] women but I think few are are as deserving of heirloom status as such a smocked baby dress. And pretty little Sophia elated her mother with her first unassisted steps across the living room floor, a toddling little miracle, which has happened to all of us -- but only once did any of us take those first determined steps ignoring audience, just finding the best way to get from one place to another.

Making Progress

So I'm moving along and getting myself psyched about this quilt. I have about two-thirds of the center star pieced. Since I have the bright diamonds for the center all done, and the diamonds with the bright and dark green more than half done -- but the half diamonds for the outer part are only a quarter done -- I decided to put a quarter section together. And here it is. Ta-da! [below]

I think I can begin to see the whole thing in my imagination. That will be the "900 pieces" of the title of the design I'm using. But I'm feeling so enthused right now, I think I will do a very narrow border in two of the brights and then piece the half-diamonds, as many as needed, for a serious border. That may bring the count to about 1200 pieces. Am I insane? Probably. However I really enjoy paper piecing and I'm just delighted that this quarter is lying flat and the diamonds meet neatly where they're supposed to. Why not go all out?

As can be seen a fair amount will be trimmed off, the plastic rulers are lying where the cutting will happen. All in all it's not a lot of fabric waste although it's probably a few hours of sewing. I suppose I could figure out how to do just what's needed but I think that would be more harrowing than just sewing it as the pattern suggests which is what I've done so far. It's still going to take a good bit of time to complete but will be done, I think by the new year -- at least pieced. Quilted? Well ... it will be simple in-the-ditch but that will take plenty of time too.

Winter is a-coming in

From upper 60s on Saturday, this week has descended into the 20s. People are bundling into down, tying scarves around their necks. pulling woolen caps down to their eyebrows and putting on gloves, some are wearing fashionable but somewhat ridiculous looking furry boots -- ridiculous because those boots are more appropriate to piles of snow and icy streets.

We've had extremely variable weather for the last two months so I'm hoping for more variability and a warming for next week so that Thanksgiving weekend will not be truly cold -- seasonably chilly is okay but I'm far from happy about the shock of rounding a street corner and being slapped hard by a very cold bluster of wind. I think November is the most difficult month for adjustments. After many pleasant days of autumn, suddenly the grayness, the cold are especially unwelcome. A sudden early snowstorm would be an easier adjustment. It would be pretty and the cold would almost be ;ersonalified. Well, I'm not actually wishing for snow, I'm wishing for 50 degree days and let it get cold at night but let's have sun during the day. Not that my wishes have any effect on anything.

Heaven knows with this ridiculous habit we have of changing our clock settings twice a year we are now in a season when darkness begins much too early in the evening. I remember at least 50 years ago listening to my Republican mother cursing Roosevelt for the insanity of day light saving time. We were the farmers those clock swings were supposed to help. She did not think so. I was usually on my father's Democrat side but I did pick up that dislike of time manipulation from her ... heaven knows there is much, much else I know I got from her too and the older I get the more obvious some of it becomes.

When I get home at 4:00 and find it's already getting dark, I tend to think of fixing an early dinner after reading the mail and not doing any quilting because my windows look out in to the darkness of early evening. If it were smmer I would be inspired to sit down and sew in the late light which would last untl after 7:00. Another reason to curse the swinging pendulum of day light swavings... But it does induce reading and I have been enjoying the books I'm digging into.

Small quilts

This is the 12x12 inch little quilt that I made yesterday for a woman who likes birds. I think she'll like it. It's from a book by the Australian quilter, Margaret Rolfe, and was a very early paper pieced series of animal designs. The directions for the paper piecing were not very clear and when I first used the book maybe 12 or 15 years ago I didn't know what I was doing and finally got frustrated and gave up. Now that I've done a lot of paper piecing this was relatively easy and turned out satisfyingly. I think the woman it was intended for will like it it.

Now here are three of my kennel quilts. They too are small. The largest, not shown was about 16x20. I have also not shown the one I liked best as it was mailed away last week and has been received and I'm told was a hit. It was somewhat like the orangy/African-ish pone. These were a pleasure to make, as was the cardinal.
I must now find the address to which to deliver these kennel quilts so the doggies can have them, and will be happy and tail-waggy and appealing to potential adopters. This has been a distraction that I have enjoyed even though I am in the midst of making a very time consuming large star quilt and have two others started -- make that three. Well, I will NOT get bored and that is a lovely thing in itself.

Just tops

At the members' flea market at the Empire Quilt Guild meeting last weekend, one of the older members, who is a very prolific quilter [and quite good] of mostly traditional quilts offered for sale over 20 tops she has made. They were all lovely and all well deserving of being finished and used. But she has found her pleasure in making the tops and goes from one to another. She also makes a lot of quilted tote bags.

I've been thinking about that. I'm not as old as she is but if I get into her habit in the near future I would probably have an accumulation like that in another ten years. For now I try to finish whatever I start -- sometimes it takes quite a while but I feel a guilty if I don't finish something. There's a tug of war going on with my Midwestern values and the [not entirely] nascent self-indulgence that not finishing quilt tops would represent to me.

I feel something like sinfulness [waste not, want not?] if I don't finish something I've started. That used to be true of books. I literally felt guilty about 20 years for not finishing Pollyanna Grows Up when I was ten or so. Finally I realized that it reflected a basic good sense and good taste and started being proud of not finishing it. Still, I rarely start a book and not finish -- only if I find the author very, very dull or his story, fiction or nonfiction, untrue or too superficial to waste my time reading.

I will keep on thinking about going from one finished quilt top to another -- at the moment I have four tops in the process of being made. I know I will finish two of them and think I'm likely to finish all four. Often, I've found, another person's example is the PING that rings through out old habits and taken-for-granted truisms to makes us realize our set ways of doing things just might not be any better than doing the exact opposite. At the least that's a good reason not to become a hermit and to be a bit introspective about things that catch our attention.