The GoldenTime of Spring

The forsythia in the header are outside my bedroom window and the nameless shrub besides it, (not in this picture) has beautiful furled green buds that will be leaves the minute the gray clouds lift and the sun returns. The picture here is of the evergreens an the big, leafless oak that is my view from here at the work desk -- it is an eastward view but certain evenings the setting sun sends a magnificent reflection of red and mauve into the eastern sky. I am always amazed to watch a sunset while looking in the opposite direction.

But as for "golden time" -- yes, even in the gray days as we've been having, I enjoy drives along Rte. 6A, the old deer trail/Indian path/stagecoach track along the northern side of Cape Cod, still two lane. There are a few commercial areas, a lot of white churches (at least three set on hills to look down in a paternal way at the surrounding homes.  The trees along 6A are as big as they get on Cape Cod, being as old as they get -- they don't get all that tall, since we have sandy, not very nutritious soil, but they get old and venerable and some are so close beside 6A that I have the illusion when driving along at night or on a rainy afternoon that they could step out  right in front of me, especially on the many curves on this road on which virtually no passing areas exist. 

I love to drive it anyway. Right now every home, however old or new, however big or small (and it is a wonderful, deeply satisfying mix of all those sorts) seems to have their forysthia, singly or in hedges or sprawling untrimmed shrubs. Most homes have clumps or rows of daffodils and narcissus, too.  A couple of days ago some of the flowering fruit trees had turned white, the few magnolias are opening.  Such a beautiful time of year even when there's rain spitting at me (and a minute's worth of hail the other day).  Lawns are greening and homeowners are raking, digging, trimming.  The gardeners were in my yard the last couple of days and did a good job.  Now where IS the sun? 

Poets Quilt Done at Last

Woman poets are marginalized, have been marginalized, if we are to believe modern researchers, since people ignored Shakespeare's sister. (Well, THAT was a tough act to compete with.)  If one looks through anthologies of poetry, especially modern poetry, the preponderance of poets are men.  Many, many women have been writing poetry ever since Sapho in Greece but, as in so many other arts, they are almost ignored. Women poets have won Nobel prizes (Wislawa Szymborska is a favorite and is in the panel that's mostly orange) and been names US Poet Laureates. Yet I heard a man who was supposedly teaching poetry say, "there are no great women poets."  I was taking a class from that man.  I left the class ... and told him how I felt about his attitude.

Because I read many women poets and love their work, I decided to make a quilt using selvages -- the "margins" of our quilting fabrics which many quilters cut off and discard. So I have  given twelve poets I especially admire large panels in the center of the quilt and I have put quotes by more than twenty other poets around the border.  I finished the quilt today and hung it over my piano which will be it's regular home.  Above is the whole thing -- you can't read any part of it in the photo and below is a detail showing three poets, Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop.  It's still National Poetry Month and I'm still giving poems to many, many friends.

Already Four

Finn, with a new haircut and his ice cream birthday cake and favorite cousin, Moses.  Finn is a lucky boy with a batch of cousins, only one is a little older (the ladylike Mercedes who'll start kindergarten next fall). There are, I think, seven in all and all were at his birthday party at Friendly's restaurant, along with the full compliment of aunts and uncles and all four grandparents and one old "Grand", i.e., me.  No, it was not total chaos, they were somewhat loud but all  fairly well behaved.

Finn's little sister, Stella, was festive a with a balloon theme head band made by crafty mommy, Cory who sells many styles of headbands on her Etsy shop.

It's hard to believe there were no, grandchildren when I moved to Cape Cod five years ago and now there are three.  Middle brother, Cole, had a second birthday just three months ago.

Thank you, Karen

This darling pin cushion and the two jeweled "pinsies" were made by Karen Griska, the publisher of The Selvage Blog (see sidebar), one of my favorite blogs.  She is a wonderful quilter but also makes the pinsies and pin cushions, all in a wonderful varieties and now and then she gives some away to her blog followers.  I was lucky enough to win this one. Since I use a lot of red, it couldn't be more perfect.  Thank you, Karen.

I have her fan pattern of which she's shown a number of iterations lately.  At the moment I'm champing at the bit because I have a pile of UFOs that I MUST work on -- although maybe not finish all of them -- before I can allow myself to try the pattern, one I really, really love because it's perfect for the way I like to quilt -- with scraps and without templates.

Spring! ... ??? where are the flowers?

This crow quilt, made a couple of Marches ago as part of the year's journal quilt project, depicts what I'm feeling as I wait very impatiently for the real coming of spring.  I added the rhododendrons in the header just to remind myself that they do burst out in May.  About six weeks from now .. long, long weeks when I will be up early as usually but will hear the crows announcing their daily plans from  trees nearby.  They are usually the first birds I hear, with their rhythmic caws that I'm sure are location signals to all their friends and neighbors.  The grass is still mostly brown but bits of green are showing -- the snow has melted into the earth, all we need is some more sunny days.  But, oh, where are the crocuses? Where are the daffodils?  I'm impatient as are most of my friends and neighbors after a hard winter (remnant piles of dirty snow remain but they're melting on the margins of parking lots.) 

After the crows comes the whining, complaining mewling of the gulls -- some nest on the flat roof of the building I live in.  I like to watch them glide and sweep but I don't like their voices.  While the crows aren't beautiful singers and merely purposeful fliers, they have an honesty about their town crier voices. Gulls sound like spoiled brats.  Soon, soon, I think, the little birds will be back, the ones that sing and flit.  And then the Canadian geese will return in their morning squadrons to spend an hour to three on the lawn. Like the crows, they have honest voices, theirs are like traffic police, "out of the way, we're landing!" They don't talk to each other while they're here, communication must be entirely in body language.

I welcome the morning guests, aural and visible.  I suppose those imperious, grand old men-like turkeys might march across the yard now and then and certainly the squirrels will be out and about scuttling in their nervous way.  Right now the sun is shining although rain is predicted. I'll take whatever the sky gives me but i WANT warmth and flowers.

OK, I Give Up

I usually struggle and rarely am truly successful when I make a quilt block with half-square triangles. The Bayberry Guild's BOM is this block.  I chose the colors with some care and I cut and sewed with some care.  But it is not exactly square. And I swear the directions for cuting were incorrect  so the blocks with the half square triangles were too large and the 12-1/2 block is very nearly 14 inches square. Also it's not qit was sewn and finally ironed -- ta da! do you see it?  Of course you do.  One block is turned the wrong way.  It was laid out correctly beside the sewing machine.  Such problems haunt me in such blocks. My mind wanders.

The truth of the matter is I do not do well with such blocks.  I do not always get my points correct and I always get one piece headed it the wrong direction.  I think it's a lovely design, and I love using up scraps. (Scraps are the year's theme for the guild.)  But I've got to take myself in hand and admit I just can't do it.  I get wonderful points and even blocks, exactly the right size when I do paper piecing.  And usually when I do blocks that do not have triangles.  Plenty of them exist and from here on I am going to eschew the frustration and abject embarrassment of making such stupid, entirely avoidable mistakes.  Except for me, with my mind that may also be planning a poem or watching the robins in the lawn or who knows what distraction, I cannot concentrate, as needs to happen, on getting ir right. Lesson learned.  I hope.

International Quilting Day

International Quilting Day, as I am reminded by the Selvage Blog (see side bar and click to see some incredible quilts).  Here are hints at what I'm working on and hope to finish this month.  The top quilt is a selvage quilt that is finished. The one I'll spend most of today on is the one mentioned in the previous post with poets and their work. It's coming along well and I'm eager to get to the sewing room.  (The only downside is that when I'm done, I must straighten up the piles of selvages on my sewing room floor!)

The embroidered and embellished medallion is one of what will 42 medallions that will be part of another art quilt that I am nearly done embroidering and embellishing -- I have four more to complete before I put the 5 inch squares together.  As can be seen, it's time consuming and no two will be at all alike.  This is a one-of-a-kind  project that I'll most certainly never attempt again although this has been very enjoyable to work on over nearly two years.

So, I shall celebrate National Quilting Day, indeed, by quilting.