Spinning straw into gold

Just because I'm not blogging, doesn't mean I'm not busy. But it might very well mean that I'm not busy with the handwork I like most. Last weekend we went on a little trip to watch my niece Sarah perform in her school play. It was an excellent performance; Sarah seems a natural on the stage. But the 3-hour trip, although planned for weeks, caught me unprepared knitting-wise. I was simply at a loss for some good car knitting. There are uncompleted projects aplenty, but nothing that could be easily packed and ready to go with little or no attention to pattern details. By the time the return 3-hour trip was completed, I was really gnawing for some undemanding handwork. (I hesitate to use the term "mindless work" because I find it demeaning. But traveling work cannot be demanding, or it interferes with the scenery and pauses for conversation and Garrison Keillor and the like.) Lucky for me, I had a quilt to bind when we got home.
Remember the gold quilt that gave me problems a few weeks ago? Well, I bit the bullet, put it all together, and took it to be quilted. Yolanda, the longarm (not her ... the machine) quilter I rely on, listened and questioned and listened some more when I explained how I envisioned the quilting. In the end, I decided it was wiser to acquiesce to her vast experience and left the quilting to her judgment. She did a marvelous job. She always does. The quilting emphasizes the diamonds created by the seam lines in the monochrome quilt, just as I requested. Much to my surprise, stars appeared on the finished quilt top. I explained that I didn't want those to appear prominent; rather, since they were unintentional, I wanted them to remain as little surprise discoveries among the diamonds.
I bound the quilt in a red and metallic gold plaid, which acts as an outline of the golds against the wall. I am pleased with the results, even though I question whether the red should have more of a cherry red. But I can't obsess over everything or nothing would ever get done. One of my favorite quotes -- I will put it in embroidery some day -- is "To be creative you must lose the fear of being wrong." That's what I need to remember when getting caught up in the right or wrong of a quilt or knitting or whatever else. What is important is that I enjoyed making the project -- whatever it is. And I did enjoy this tremendously.
Evan helped me hang the quilt tonight. Insufficient light and skill did not stop me from taking this picture. The quilt is, in my opinion, a soft background for the spinning wheel. As Evan said, "it's nice the way everything blends together." Admittedly, my goal was not to have everything blend together. But seeing my golden diamonds as the backdrop for the spinning wheel makes me smile. The 72-inch square softens the wall behind the spinning wheel whose only real use is to be dusted, but I've always loved it and making this quilted stage for it brought back memories of pretending I was the captain of some ancient vessel sailing across the seas, or the famous miller who could spin straw into gold, or the inventor of the world's next greatest ferris wheel, or even the original owner who actually knew how to spin wool into yarn. All that imagining carried me through many Saturday dusting mornings. The imaginings of a monochrome quilt whose pattern is determined by seam line rather than color carried me through many hours at the sewing machine. Seeing both the source and the results of all that imagining together in my living room gives me great pleasure indeed.

A new adventure

Last summer, Alyssa found two Danish Modern chairs on Craig's List. They would be called Danish Modern by anyone over 50. They are now called mid-century modern. I guess that's what over 50 means. At any rate, I traveled to Minneapolis for a weekend of fabric shopping sometime in July, I think. We found the perfect fabric for the chairs and her apartment. It was a bit pricier that what we had envisioned, but it was that ever-elusive perfect fabric, so Alyssa ordered and we planned to upholster new cushions in the fall. Other things happened, but the chairs didn't. Until this past weekend.

In the meantime, Ned did a beautiful refinishing job on the chairs. We started with cushions cut and marked and ready to cover. After wrapping the cushions in batting and making muslin covers for them -- well, not muslin but light colored calico that I just happened to have on hand because I bought it for the backing of the yellow and white quilt promised for Alyssa's college graduation when she was living in a co-op in Madison in a little room with a little bed and that's long past and now the quilt has to be bigger and lucky for me she keeps going to school so continues to have more graduations, but swears the PhD is it, so I'd better get cracking on that quilt -- we were ready to cut into the upholstery fabric. Talk about nerve-wracking.

But we did it and we did it well. And we did it while making a turkey on the grill for Karl's birthday dinner and having Kit and Violet arrive and making roasted sweet potatoes and beet and carrot slaw and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, There was only one really stupid goof and it was mine, so while I did some painstaking ripping, Alyssa kept the cooking going and we did what we had never done before: Put on a delicious turkey birthday dinner for Karl's 24th birthday and upholster two chair cushions. We all gobbled up the dinner too quickly to get a good picture of that, but here is the chair against an artistic backdrop of quilts draped over the rolls of batting and upholstery fabric and webbing etc., piled against the living room furniture. We both feel as if we can handle one more chair. Alyssa, in fact, took all supplies home with her to either get the cushions cut and wrapped before returning in a couple of weeks or maybe even completing them entirely on her own.

As for me, I am very happy that the upholstery job on my find of a lifetime chair will be done by a professional. And, I am happy to report that I found the fabric for it over the weekend, too. It's a great little red print with just enough green and gold in it to tie it in with the other living room furniture. I think it will be a beauty and hope it's the last piece of upholstery I have to deal with for quite some time. Although it's fun to find new things and try new things and feel the sense of accomplishment of doing something new and doing it well, when all is said and done, I'd rather be quilting ...

Frustrations

Last week's high turned into this week's reality. Not so high. After finding the perfect chair and the perfect fabric, I learned that the fabric had been discontinued. Crap. It was the perfect fabric for the room and the chair. Not only has it been discontinued. It was discontinued in 2007! Hello???? No one noticed this fabric has not been available for YEARS and it's still on the sample wall? "Well, several of the fabrics in this book are still available." Yes, the ugly ones are still available. But the perfect one? Not a chance.

That disappointment came on Tuesday. I left the shop with more books. Nothing. All too dull or too brown or too pink or too something. On Friday I left with more books. Zilch again. On Saturday I brought home more books and Paul and I agreed on two possibilities. Actually, he agreed on one and I agreed on one and the price will declare the winner since they don't put prices in the books and why would they when chances are that the price might change sometime in the next three years, not to mention the availability. Not good. My twenty-dollar St Vinnie's find is going to cost me that much in gas going back and forth to the upholsterer's shop, not to mention the Advil.

I know, I know. Of all the tragedies in the world, this is not one of them. But really, it is annoying. Even more annoying is the fact that Paul chose a pretty nice plaid and my biggest opposition to it is that it really conflicts with the plaid I bought for $10 to cover the seat on the other $20 chair I picked up last week. Yes, this whole chair adventure is turning into an epic melodrama of bargain injustice. If I had the time and inclination and budget, I'd just drive to a large metropolitan area and find other fabric to show the upholsterer that the perfect fabric is out there somewhere. And, it's not that I don't like the beautiful fabric I chose or Paul chose, it's just that I loved the perfect fabric we both chose together in a matter of minutes and now I feel forced to settle for second choice even it does turn out to be wonderful. It's just the frustration of it all...

On the bright side (and my habit of always trying to find the bright side is getting on my nerves at the moment as well) I did find two more cake servers this weekend. One is actually pretty decent and the other will be after I bead the handle. That's good. Not good enough to cushion the blow of finding perfection to be discontinued years before I knew it existed, but good.

Thrift store junkies

Friday was day of vacation for me. And what a great day it was. Enlisting my friend Karen in my search of great glass pieces for making pedestal cake stands was definitely a smart move. That girl knows her thrift stores. Karen is a Goodwill Junkie. It is not unusual to hear her say something like, "Look at my new shoes! Brand new (fill in an impressive brand name) for $3.00 at Goodwill. They are even in my size!" From shoes to clothing to home decorating, Karen finds amazing deals at Goodwill. And some junk. But mostly pretty good stuff. And like most people who are truly dedicated to a purpose, Karen spreads the word and creates converts...like me.

We started our day at the Stevens Point Goodwill where I found a beautiful little bowl (not glass and not on my list, but too cute to leave there) for 99-cents and a lovely silver plate cake server (definitely on my list). A good start. Karen offered a run down to St Vinnie's in Plover, but since I had already been there twice during the week a third time didn't seem necessary. It was off to Waupaca, which is always one of our favorite destinations. We usually do a spring and fall Waupaca trip. It is one of the few communities around that still has a thriving downtown scattered with great little gift shops and boutiques -- and a dynamite yarn shop. Our first stop was Goodwill where I hit the motherlode of good glass staff. Three plates and several pedestal possibilities were more than I had amassed at any one place so far in my search of glassware. The Goodwill and St Vinnie's in Marshfield last weekend were good, but this one was great. In addition to some interesting glass pieces, I found a black ceramic basket that will now live as our fruit bowl and a beautiful little blue glass vase.

Heady with the thrill of my finds, I waited impatiently while Karen found a really cute summer top and gloated over her obvious success at my conversion to Goodwill shopping. After a quilt shop stop that garnered the backing fabric for last week's adventure in patchwork, our next stop was the downtown thrift shop. Not much for glassware there, but I did find two blue Ball quart jars. Also on my list of acquisitions, this was another successful stop. We did our usual main street wanderings where we spotted a ceramic basket like the beautiful black one I just bought for $47! Mine was $6. We also spotted a funky-chic plant stand made entirely of cast off glass pieces and Karen finally had a clear vision of my goal in the great March glass hunt of 2010. Now she was as excited as I in the success of my finds. Naturally, we headed back to Goodwill. There was a lovely cake stand that I know wasn't there an hour or two earlier. Scooping that up brought downright giddiness at the success of our day. The back seat was piled with great glass finds and a few other treasures.

The drive home covered furniture. Explaining my long term search for a nice little side chair inspired me to head back to St Vinnie's where I had spotted a chair earlier in the week. I thought I'd check it out one more time. I did indeed check it out and managed to fit it in the backseat of my car and then drove directly to the upholsterer who declared it a very sound buy. Fabric sample books now took the chair's place in the car and I headed home with enough cash left to buy fish sticks for supper.

While supper was in the oven, I started washing my wares. Goodwill is very considerate in having price tags that float off easily after a few-minute soak. Some of the glassware, however, needed a little ammonia boost. The lovely little blue knobby vase, in particular, needed a longer soak to bring back its sheen. After giving it what I considered a reasonable amount of time, I lifted it from the water to see it's flared little neck glistening in the late day light. Lifting it entirely out of the water exposed the reason it was so darned cheap as the water arced out of the holes where three of those little blue knobs were supposed to be; my lovely little blue knobby vase will either make a nice little fountain or a great donation to Goodwill.