Sisters Sewing Weekend

While most weekends are good simply because they are weekends, last weekend was something really special. Paul drove me to Menasha, Wisconsin on Friday morning (approx 85 miles from here) to meet my sisters. Jane and family were visiting from California and we sisters had cooked up a great plan. Jane's husband and sons went up to Rhinelander with our brother Jon's family while she stayed behind to join Jeannine and me in a great sewing weekend. Jeannine and Jane drove up from Racine and we all gathered at the Primitive Gatherings Quilt Shop in Menasha (on Racine St, coincidentally).

What a lovely place. All three of us sew, but have slightly different interests. I am almost exclusively a quilter. Jeannine does not enjoy quilting but does almost every other type of sewing you can imagine from garment sewing to draperies; she especially enjoys the handwork of wool applique. Jane also loves all things sewing. With her training as an interior designer, she has a practiced eye for beautiful fabrics and designs. And Primitive Gatherings offered something for us all. Naturally, we showed our appreciation by buying a few things.


After a nice lunch in Menasha accompanied by some good old sisterly hilarity, we headed toward Jeannine's home in Racine. But first we stopped at this great place on Watertown Plank Road. (It was supposed to be my job to document our weekend, but I was too busy touching all the beautiful fabrics to remember to ask permission to take pictures.) Jeannine was right. This is a great store. Once again, a few things were purchased by all.
Then to Racine where we began working in earnest to complete two projects that Jane could take home with her. Jane and I worked on cutting the fat quarters she purchased in Menasha into five inch squares so they could be incorporated into a quilt made from the charm pack she also bought. We all worked on making silk yo-yo's for a purse Jane wanted. She had purchased the book and fabrics back home in California and really wanted to make this project. I've made yo-yo's before. Quite of few of them actually. But I had never made silk extra large yo-yo's with beaded centers. And I didn't make all that many this time. My fair share, I think, but not one more than that. At any rate, in no short order, we had Jeannine's otherwise lovely dining room looking like this. (By the way, that is French Lemonade from Aldi's in the glasses --not G&T -- and it is delicious!)
On Saturday morning we made a quick run to Sew N Save in Racine -- another great store -- to find backing for Jane's little quilt. Luck was on our side as we found a piece in the sale section that was absolutely perfect.

During all this production, there were breaks aplenty to peruse our little stack of inspiration nearby. It's probably no surprise that we sisters share the same enthusiasm for gathering ideas for future projects. (Yes, I am showing off some of Jeannine's fine work here. Not just the wool pillow folks, she also upholstered the sofa!)
By Sunday afternoon, the silk purse was well underway. Jeannine worked to complete that before Jane and Roger and boys left for home on Wednesday. I know it was beautiful because all the pieces for it were, and because our mom called to tell me it was absolutely gorgeous!
Paul came to Racine to pick me up at brother Greg's house where we were treated to a great Sunday afternoon picnic and the chance to meet little Gracie. Love at first sight for one and all.

Here are Jane and Jeannine with the finished quilt. (Yes, I did cut myself out of the photo. Bad hair and closed eyes and it is my blog.)


Jane was so pleased with her quilt. It was such fun for her from shopping to pairing squares to helping with the binding. She is her most relaxed and satisfied self with fabric and needle. We all signed a label for the back of the quilt as a reminder of our weekend together.

Jeannine and I are so grateful for our time together. We thank Roger and the boys for allowing us to have our little sister all to ourselves for three days of their week-long visit. And we will keep praying that Alzheimers' hold on Jane will slow down enough to allow us another wonderful Sisters Sewing Weekend.

Handwork

If you do handwork of any sort, you know very well that the value of the work is not usually monetary; the value is the work -- the creation of something with your own hands.

For some of the hardest days of my life, I let knitting keep my hands and mind occupied. I started this vest for Alyssa while staying in her apartment when Evan was recovering from his first stem cell transplant. That was two and half years ago. For some reason I just couldn't get going on it again. Even during the second transplant -- the successful one -- I just couldn't return to this. In the last couple of weeks, however, I realized that the successful transplant was nearly two years ago. Evan is doing just fine. It's time to finish the sweater.
The knitting was finished nearly to the neckline in front. The rest of the front went very quickly. At 5:30 this morning I put the stitches for the back on my needles and counted and counted and counted and realized that I had made the wrong size right from the start. After a quick and unsuccessful mental review of every female I know who might possibly be a perfect fit for the vest, reality quickly settled in.

Here's the sweater now. All set to be made all over again using the same pattern (from Fitted Knits by Stephanie Japel) in the right size.
If I start again tonight, it will be finished in plenty of time for Alyssa to spend some good fall days in it. Maybe she'll even wear it on the second anniversary of her brother's successful stem cell transplant.

Slipping away

Summer is slipping away ...

First, there was the 4th of July ... never complete without a float carrying beautiful girls

And of course the annual squirt gun battle

And fireworks.
Oh, that's right, I opted for this instead of the noise and crowds.

Then there was my day of vacation on the 5th of July.

A relaxing day of seeing the sights on my way home with a stop in Elkhorn
at Sawdust and Stitches Quilt Shop

And a stop in Janesville at
Life's a Stitch Quilt Shoppe

Then there were the strawberries.
Lots of strawberries.

And some Georgia peachesAnd some excellent grilling.

And some finishing.

And now it seems I'm coming down with a bug.
How's your summer going?

The first annual Descendants of Leonard & Agnes Ruesch Family Picnic

Agnes and Leonard would have loved this:

Lots of good food contributed by everyone

Good company (of course!) and even some new friends
An opportunity to dig through an attic full of treasures

A baby shower for two moms and three babies
A brief sprinkle followed by a rainbowSome soccer for the cousins
(Check out those hats on the little guys! Grandma and Grandpa's hat collection was a big hit!)
Laughter around the campfire

And Sunday morning pancakes with Ruesch's Pure Wisconsin Maple Syrup before all was over
Yup. Grandma and Grandpa would have loved it.

Orange Fizz

The orange quilt is progressing nicely. Well, it was progressing nicely. In fact, all drunkard's path blocks for a cute little quilt were completed until my copy of Valori Wells's Radiant New York Beauties caught me eye and refused to let go. My orange quilt blocks are colorful and cheerful and all those good things, but they seem lack a certain pizazz. What they need is spark.

Valori's book bursts with spark. Unfortunately, although Radiant New York Beauties provides patterns for several sizes of blocks, it does not provide the 6" block needed. So, armed with inspiration and absolutely no experience in creating curved patterns, I decided to create my own. A draftsperson I am not. After a laborious attempt with impressive looking rulers and graph paper, my first few pieced arcs looked just as I hoped, but proved to be the wrong size. Duh. I added the side seam allowance twice. Good thing a practice run was made before any type of mass production took place. (If you look closely at this practice piece, you 'll notice that I also cut into the arc while trimming the piece, rendering it completely useless even if it were the right size. Perfection is not running rampant in this endeavor.)Today, new patterns are ready to go. "Drafting" might be an overstatement for my method of tracing combined with folding and connecting the dots to create patterns. No matter. They will work. A smattering of spiked arcs will add just the kick this quilt needs. The new working title is "Spiked Punch." Or, "An Undaunted Search for the Perfect Punch." Or something else.

Happy Anniversary to us

Last night was our book club anniversary celebration. Three years and counting of some good reading with some great friends. Once again, we exchanged our book-related anniversary gifts after rating our reads (14 books) for the year -- The Book Thief was ranked number 1 by each of us. Yes, that should be a clear message for you to read it. The fact that Mary's number 2 was my number 14, shows there are no guarantees we'll all share the same impression of our reading selections.

The gifts I gave reflected my two favorite books; The Book Thief and Little Bee. As it happened, the day we met at Stevens Point's Wooden Chair restaurant to discuss Little Bee, Mary ordered her usual tea. The honey she was served came in the cutest little honey pot.

It was so cute, in fact, that I ordered three of them as soon as I got home that day ... and an anniversary gift plan was hatched.

First, I made some hexagons and pretended in this blog post that there was no definite plan for them, which really is the case for the little pile of them still in the baggie. Next, I gathered up all of my "word" fabric and found a nice variety for the petals the Dresden Plate that was forming in my brain. The following Saturday's quick run to the Cotton Thimble in Wisconsin Rapids evened out the black on white fabrics with a musical print to honor Papa from The Book Thief, a bee print for the backing, and things were on their way.

I'm not sure I would approach this in the same sequence again, but after having the hexagons and petals assembled, the hexagon centers were hand appliqued to the plates; the Dresden plates in turn were hand appliqued to background. Of course, that could have been done by machine, but one of the rewards of this project was the reminder of how much I enjoy the look and feel of hand applique and these were just the right size to enjoy the process without becoming overwhelmed. After cutting away the excess background fabric to eliminate bulk, the Dresden plates were layered (right sides together) with the backing and batting and stitched together.

After turning right side out and pressing, the table mats were machine quilted. That's right. No binding. (I do placemats the same way and really like the less bulky finish for table use.)
Fun little projects that make me look forward to another year of books to inspire our next anniversary celebration gift exchange.

Orange you glad

For whatever reason visions of back-in-the day bridal/baby shower punch jumped into my head at the same time an overwhelming need to make an orange quilt rose to the surface. I'm sure I could find the punch recipe if I tried, but it should suffice to tell you that the pretty orange punch featured scoops of orange sherbet. The flashback to punch inspired a few trial drunkard's path blocks. They went together like a dream. Yes, there is an orange quilt on the near horizon.
Drunkard's Path is one of those blocks I've long avoided. Curved seams? Yes way! I'm using Fons & Porter's curved seam templates and really, these 6" squares go together very smoothly.

Interestingly enough, the description on the templates notes that they were featured in a Fons & Porter 2004 issue, and I know I ordered them right way, so perhaps this quilt isn't exactly a spur of the moment event after all. It's also not the quilt featured in that issue. The magazine is long gone. No matter. The pretty oranges are looking good and I'm having fun...and part of that fun comes from the working title of this quilt ... Punch Drunk.