Finishing a UFO

One of two UFOs I want to finish soon. This b&w "drunkard's path" quilt is only half the size it was going to be because I just hated sewing the quarter circles. It will have as wide a border as the fabric I have will allow. It's going to be reversible to random red squares [see below]. I think it'll take the rest of the week and possible a little longer -- remembering the adage that everything takes longer than you think it's going to.
I've learned my lesson about quarter circles and will stick to things I enjoy more. My next UFO will include a lot of fancy cutting so it will take longer. And I'll be able to move on to a batik fabric quilt I've been thinking of since I purchased some lovely batik pieces at the New Jersey Manusco show I saw in March. I'm trying to find a balance for my time.

I find myself cooking and baking -- a throwback for me -- something I haven't done for years. So long, in fact, that I don't have the necessary things in stock,like butter and milk so I got stopped in my tracks today because I didn't have time to go to the grocery store -- I chose to take my walk in the opposite dirciton and go to the post office with Swap-bot packages. What a beautiful day it was until about 2:00 when it got cloudy and turned chllier. I am so happy to have an east-facing patio. The NYTims talked me into a full subscription -- at rock bottom prices -- so for some months, while the deal lasts, I will be very up on the news -- and it's a pleasure to read it sitting on my lounge chair in the sun. I'm going to lose my modesty very shortly and switch from long pants to shorts so I can get some tan on my legs. Ah -- a very nice life.

You Can Help

A quick note because I know many quilters show pictures of their much loved dogs and cats. I wish I had one [sort of] and I feel for all the ones that are in shelters or homeless. Here is a site you can go to, simply click the box that immediately pops up and help feed rescued animals.HERE You don't have to fill in your email or anything so you don't get spam. You just get counted as someone who cares.

A real sewing room

A dream come true -- a sewing room. By no means in perfect order so far but the space is there. Here's my machine which is in front of a window so I will now have good light to see true colors. And I'll have good light for photographs! Which will be the litmus test. Have I been printing lousy photos because of bad light or because I'm a bad photographer? We will see in the near future. As can be seen there is a work/design table and above it a blank wall that will get a large swath of flannel or fleece in white and become a design wall because the table really isn't big enough beyond wall size quilts.

There is a bed that doubles as a sofa. The room will become a guest room when I have a guest but much more of the time it will be a sewing room.

This closet closes nicely to hide the stash which so far is not very well sorted but at least has a place and can all be seen at once. The closet even has, to the right, several more cubic feet that are unseen in the photo that holds even more of my stash. It will get color sorted in the fullness of time. And I have a bookcase not seen here that holds both quilting books and my large accumulation of photographs from travels -- taken before the acquisition of digital camera and computer on which to keep them.

There's a radio and I'm delighted to have found that the Cape has its own classical music station which is really quite good -- good variety, ads clustered at the hour, announcers who can pronounce names and works correctly. I remember when that wasn't the case but now it's a happy addition to my sewing time. What more cold one want?

Three Dimensional Construction

This is the kind of of furniture that comes in a flat box with minimal instructions and a package of screws and washers. But it was a very good price and I like the design. I decided that if I can figure out a complex Carol Doak paper pieced star quilt pattern with 106 pieces per star, surely I could put the legs on a table and figure out the slightly more complex chairs. Okay, so I put together the first chair using the wrong end of the Allen wrench -- it worked, but it was harder than when I had corrected my mistake.

This is what I've done and the two on the floor are now together. The whole thing sits in it's private alcove with a new-to-me and "I did it all by myself" satisfied glow. The still unwilted flowers sit in the center -- somewhat cut back from their original state, true -- that my granddaughter gave me as a welcoming gift some ten days ago. Never, never derogate carnations. They're pretty and they last, especially with that magic powder florists dole out in little packages.

Satisfactions are setting in although I've been looking at gray skys this entire week. Tomorrow sun is promised and on through the weekend. How nice that would be. But meanwhile I've had the pleasure of watching one of the 3 or 4 Canadian geese who frequent the lawn to graze or something just gaze as if in profound meditation on the meaning of goose-ness. And then a little chipmunk dashed across my patio. Pleasures never known in the city.

New Home or an Old Quilt

I like to find good homes for my quilts, as people who read this know. Even old quilts that were in many ways mistakes may find an adopted caretaker. During my apartment sale I learned a simple thing: few people think of quilts as art for their walls. Most of the world simply hasn't been exposed to textile art. I can't call most of my quilts art anyway, but the largest number are wall quilts and the only ones that sold were the slightly larger ones that were suitable for a baby's bed or room.

But a few of the larger ones did sell. This Dahlia one did and it's new home is an amazement to me. As often is the case, I saw the quilt in a magazine at least 15 years ago. I loved the mandala effect. I figured out how to sew it together. I thought one would make a bed quilt, but it was square and didn't work. So, in a burst of enthusiasm, I made a second using the same fabrics, not an identical twin, rather a fraternal twin. Once joined it was too long for a bed! Of course. I should have realized that and made half a Dahlia. So, I had this ungainly thing and after a while the colors lost their appeal. So it lived many years folded away never seeing the light of day.
It had surfaced late last year when someone wanted to buy a quilt. I photographed it, badly, as usual. But it wasn't the choice -- wise person. At my apartment sale a man said he wondered if it was possible to use a quilt as a rug. "If it's fairly sturdy and washable." I said. "Would it be insulting to you if I bought a quilt to use as a rug?" he asked. "No," I said honestly. And I pulled out the dahlia. "This one might be right." "I like the colors," he said. He explained that he lives in NYC [the building I was in] but has a home in Bogata, Columbia. The construction is basic, as is usually the case in Latin American houses. The floor is a polished concrete [not with bits of marble which would make it chic terrazzo], and perhaps that quilt would be good there. I agreed it might. He mulled for 24 hours and then came and bought it, along with a chair.

We had a lovely talk about the photography, ethnographic work he is doing in Columbia. He took a great many of my travel literature [not guide] books and a few others. We had a great conversation; I wished we had met sooner and I could have found out more about his interesting work. Meanwhile a quilt which languished long and lonely, has a new home and little did I ever imagine it would travel all the way to Bogata to finish out a useful life.

Some of the Good Things

Counting some of the good things I've experienced in my first week:
* SO much space of my own, including large closets, new carpeting throughout and newly painted walls.
* A view of sky and green grass. Never mind that the first three days of sun and almost summer heat has given way to gray and occasional drizzle. Such is weather many places.
* A view of Canadian geese gleaning on a big lawn that I don't have to take care of. Plus the occasional crow and various LBBs [little brown/black birds]
* Spring continues being a week later here. This is a town where people love having flowers in their lawns, where traffic triangles are planted with flowers. It's gorgeous.
* I am two blocks from my daughter who is kindly chauffeuring me about since I don't have a car at this point. Plus she has various family plans for us -- we had a movie night last week with a DVD after dinner.
* I can walk to the necessities -- groceries, deli, bank, town center, even the malls if I wish.
* My apartment complex has an exercise room with machines [not all in working order as I mentioned to manager immediately] plus sauna.
* There is also a comfortable library. The books aren't to my taste, but I don't need them. However as a confirmed magazine junkie it offers eye candy and light articles in mostly shelter and women's mags. Plus there's a big used book store on Main Street.
* There is a DVD library and a TV on which to play them -- since I am a confirmed TV-less oddball but do like movies, this is a fine plus.
* The laundry facility is just around the corner.
* I have a dishwasher and disposal -- two items of great rarity in NYC apartments.
* I have an east-facing patio that will be my breakfast space once I get a chair or two and the weather turns summery again.
* Cori, my granddaughter brought me welcoming flowers last week which have been slightly pruned back but still are beautiful and may last yet a week.
* Everyone I've met so far in the building has been warm and friendly. I may even give in and go to Tuesday night bingo -- well, maybe I'll wait for Wednesday morning coffee or Thursday evening sewing group.
* There is an astonishingly large quilt fabric shop a very short walk away -- this is a mixed blessing. Wonderful for selection, dangerous for pocketbook.

What a long list and I haven't mentioned the nearby beaches which are beautiful both on ocean side and bay side -- the Cape is no more than 6 miles wide at any place. And, of course seafood is plentiful.
* I'm sure I could go on and on. As they say in Brooklyn "What's not to love?"

Move Accomplished

Here are some facts: I spent most of a month packing. This included much sorting, taking to thrift shops and Goodwill and the local Montessori school for a spring street-fair-sale. I had a two day apartment sale and book give-away. I made enough money in that really not very successful sale to pay for the movers, but not the truck rental.

Three professional movers [really two plus one new guy who wasn't very enthusiastic] spend 5-1/2 hours loading a U-Haul. [Above you see the piano about to go onto the truck. Below a portion of my boxes stacked awaiting loading on the truck]. Rachel drove over five hours -- a beautiful day, traffic mostly not bad. With enthusiastic help from approximately six people the truck was unloaded in less than two hours, including quite an expert moving of the piano into the new apartment which, fortunately, is first floor with a patio just outside the living room]. And it has taken me a bit less than a week to unpack all those boxes and put stuff away. -- The kicker is I've had to make an MIA list -- items I know where moved but at present are missing in action because I don't know where I put them. They may surface one by one over the next few weeks. Amazing how odds and ends seek out hidden corners in which to play hookey or a while.
The move was less painful than I imagined many a wakeful night during that month of packing. I only relaxed once we were on the road and out of the NYC traffic. And then things flowed beautifully. This morning all the broken down boxes were taken to the local recycling center.

At present I sit in a living room with no sofa. It looks a bit like one's first post-college apartment, sparse and badly arranged. A sofa will help a lot, lamp shades are very necessary in the near future -- light is very, very important to me. The space is large and the closets are wonderful and not even entirely filled. I gave away so many books, I actually have some book shelves with travel mementos on them instead of books. There are many positives that I think I will enumerate in the next post as it's been a week and I have much yet to attend to and think about. Believe me, it feels good to have accomplished something that is this major. I know many
people are doing it every day for we are a moving society, but most of us don't do it very often after we reach life stage maturity, to coin an indefinite phrase.