Piecing

Sometimes I get a terrific craving for piecing. It's probably the part of quilting that I love the best.

It's especially satisfying to go through the scraps and freely compose something as I go along.


I think piecing satisfies a lot of psychological needs: the urge to create, to transform the mundane into something beautiful, or at least useful. It can satisfy the desire to follow impulses and to see how one decision can impact the outcome of a project.


Piecing satisfies the desire to create unity from fragmentation, to put things together, to make a whole from elements that are small, mismatched or insignificant. To piece is to experience control.


Sometimes piecing creates order, and other times it seems to celebrate chaos. I think I like celebrating chaos the best, perhaps because it gives me a break from my regimented life.


I find free-form piecing satisfying because it lets me see how far I can bend the rules, and when I need to insert orderly elements where the eye can rest.


This little quilt is asymmetrical, but it is also perfectly square. As I was making it I thought about a quote I recently read from Cezanne: "We live in a rainbow of chaos."

Chaos Rainbow (34"x34")

Here are some close-ups of the free-form quilting.

I like the impact of the piece as a whole, but also the little surprise images in the piecing

Deal of the Week

This is what I found at the thrift store this week. It was marked $2.00, but it was half-off day, so I got it for a dollar. I've always wanted one of these overnight cases, and of course getting it for a dollar added to the thrill. I love round things, and these always remind me of something Audrey Hepburn would carry to Europe in the movies, or maybe something Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie in That Girl would carry to visit her parents in Brewster.

The inside is in perfect shape, no tears and no ruinous stains. I decided to use this case for my knitting WIPs.

First, there's the sock I made. I've only got about an inch done of the mate, but once in awhile I put on the single sock and admire how cozy it is.


Then there's the collar of the Vogue Sweater I'm knitting with Catherine and Susan. We're chronicling our progress on our blog.

On top I put my February Lady Sweater, which is very popular on Ravelry. I'm doing mine in two-tones, though I haven't decided if the sleeves will be green or teal.

The needles and other paraphernalia fit nicely in the pocket, and it looks great standing next to my chair in the living room. It's an improvement over the overflowing basket, which I've reorganized so that it's less of an eyesore.

I don't think Audrey nor Ann carried knitting in their round overnight cases. Poor things didn't know what they were missing.

Hand Work

I've had the chance to do some work on "Rejoice, Mother." I think the fabric collage is one of the strongest part of this piece, so most of the embellishment I'm doing right now is embroidery over the existing prints.


I've embroidered over vines and some parts of the flowers, outlined the virgin's image in metallic thread, and I've beaded the large flowers and the background to hold the layers together and add sparkle.

I've done some simple lazy daisy stitches and beading on the silk panel from Allie that's incorporated into the composition. I'm in the process of outlining the word "rejoice" in the panel and I'll probably go back and satin stitch over the letters.

Both Susan and Jane Ann had recent posts about dresses, so I thought I show this little dress that I've hung up over my sewing machine as a decoration.


I made it for my daughter for her second birthday. It has snaps in the back instead of buttons, because I had not yet learned to make buttonholes, but it was the first of many dresses I've make for her over the years.


The pattern on the collar was embroidered from an Aunt Martha transfer. I loved this dress, though Allie only wore it for about 10 minutes that day. Her first act as a willful two-year-old was to decide that she didn't like it.

I ended up sewing a lot for both my kids in those years. I worked part time and was finishing my dissertation, but I would stay up late or get up early and make little shorts, pants and dresses for them, and I also sewed for myself. At one point, I had made most of my own clothes. Because we lived in Southern California at the time, it was pretty simple to do since I wore cotton almost exclusively.

I remember once I ran across the garage sale of a guy who had a factory that made the cotton pants ("jams") that were popular among surfers at the time. I came away with yards and yards of fabric and for years after the kids and I wore a lot of the bright colored faux South Pacific prints. We were the SoCal version of that scene in The Sound of Music when Maria the governess makes play clothes for all the kids out of the curtains.

I started quilting because of all the scraps that accumulated from these projects. My first quilts are like swatch collections of the clothes we wore when my kids were little.  The lime green Tiki masks bring up especially fond memories.

The Days of the Dead

For years we have put up a Day of the Dead altar at my house. Remembering is a critical act for individuals and communities, and so for a few days a year we construct this monument to our past.

The Days of the Dead in Mexico were celebrated by indigenous people before the Spanish conquest. They dedicated a whole month to the event and believed that the division between the living and the dead was especially porous during this time. These beliefs and practices were merged with the Christian observation of All Soul's Day. In the present day, people construct offerings for the dead in their homes and in cemeteries in a profound celebration of nostalgia.

Allie put up this year's altar: she's a very nostalgic person and she's taking a Sociology course on death and dying, so the dead are very much on her mind these days. Over the years she and I have made spirit houses to commemorate very important people to us.
I made this spirit house for my maternal grandmother María. She was born in Mexico and had a very hard life, most of which was lived in extreme poverty. She never learned to read or write, but she had a dry wit, and would make jokes and play with words in ironic ways. Some of her jokes I would only "get" much later. In Spanish the word for leftovers is "sobras" and the word for nieces is "sobrinas." My grandmother always called leftovers "sobrinas," as in "let's have some nieces for lunch." For years I thought that "sobrinas" was the real word for leftovers.

I put clothes pins and twine in her spirit house because she seemed to be always doing laundry, and she always had perfectly starched tablecloths and curtains in her kitchen. She was religious and prayed the rosary daily, often with the telenovelas playing quietly on the TV.

The photo on top is one of me with my grandmother, and the one on the bottom is a photo of her and Allie. I put beans and cinnamon sticks on the bottom, because these were the smells of her house. My grandmother unfortunately died within three months of Allie's birth.
Her husband, my grandfather Luis, who was born in Urápan, Michoacán, Mexico in 1886, is on the other end of the altar. He died when my mother was 12, so I never knew him. He was apparently kind of a dandy. He had beautiful handwriting, and he liked to have his photo taken. He was a laborer and a musician, who my mother says played all string instruments until he lost a finger in a bar fight, and he loved the opera.
My cousin Madi died last year very suddenly. She was a teacher and community activist who was loved by her children and grandchildren. She was very interested in our family history.

Allie wants to make a spirit house for her dad's mother, who's in the unframed snapshot. Cecilia was a loving, smart, self-made business woman. who died too young from cancer. She had 8 children, and was the heart and soul of her family. Her mother, Micaela, to whom she was devoted, is in the framed photo in the back. This spirit house is for Arturo Islas, a teacher, and friend who I studied with in graduate school. Arturo died in the 1990s from complications of HIV/AIDS. He struggled for years to publish the novels that established him as an important writer: The Rain God, Migrant Souls, and La Becky and the King of Tears. He was also an accomplished poet.
At the top of his spirit house is a caption: "El pueblo que pierde su memoria pierde su destino," A people that loses its memory loses its destiny. This sentiment reminds me that nostalgia and memory are purposeful, that they help us to remember who we are in the present, and shape who we will be in the future.

Old Ladies with Heating Pads

This is Wee my old cat. She's 13 and celebrates her birthday with Alex, who was 5 when we got her. A couple of months ago she started limping, and after many dollars spent at the vet's, we found that she had torn ligaments in one of her back knees. The treatment for this ailment in cats is rest.

Wee hates rest. She loves going outside and though she's semi-retired, she has been an active and successful hunter. She's never met a rodent that she didn't want to have for breakfast, unlike the other three lazy cats that live here. Wee did get better after her rest cure, but a couple of weeks ago, she started limping again, so now she's back on house arrest and napping on the heating pad. I figure either it was the sudden cold snap that brought back her limp, or she re-injured herself by jumping or running.

Wee and I are very simpatico, because in the midst on my walking routine, I tripped on some uneven pavement and twisted my ankle. I went to the chiropractor, who adjusted my jammed up bones. I'm hoping to feel better soon, but in the meantime, I'm trying to walk a bit less until it all settles down. It's not fair when you get hurt by your healthy practices.
But sitting around with my foot up I finished knitting this vest for Allie. The pattern is from Knit Simple magazine's Fall 08 issue and it knit up pretty fast. The pattern called for chunky yarn, but I found some thin yarn in my stash that I doubled, and it worked perfectly. One strand was some curly Icelandic wool that I've had forever, and for the back and trim I combined it with a beige strand of wool. For the front and hood, I combined it with a thin blue wool. Allie's been wearing it, and it looks cute on her. It reminds me a bit of that fur vest Sonny Bono used to wear in the Sonny and Cher days. I've kept that association to myself.
I finished my Halloween quilt. I machine quilted the center on a diagonal and did simple quilting in the border. It's now on the dining room table, where one of the cats has decided that it makes a lovely mattress. I love the cheerfulness of these colors. Orange is one of my new favorite colors.

And purple is too! Michael took this picture when we walked to the Farmer's Market yesterday. I see a purple sweater in my future. Ouch, my ankle. I'll have to wrestle Wee for the heating pad.

Oh, to Be a Cat

Cats really know how to relax. In the hustle and bustle of my life, they remind me of the beauty of curling up for a nap. I wish sometimes that I were as relaxed as they are, but doing stuff is much more fun.I was inspired by Debra's closet cleaning to get a bit more organized. I'd been keeping a lot of my jewelry in a jumble in milk glass bowls in the bathroom, but the damp isn't good for metals. I saw this idea on the net for storing and displaying pins. Take an old embroidery hoop, stretch a piece of wool in it, trim, put your pins in it, and hang it on the wall. I put mine up in the closet, where I'll be able to see it when I get dressed.
Last week Michael and I picked blackberries. We've been corrected about calling these blackberries, apparently they're Himalayan black raspberries. They're a real treat and this is the season when they ripen. We picked a couple of gallon buckets of berries, and I brought them home, washed them, and then froze them on parchment paper-covered baking sheets. Once they're frozen you can store them in plastic bags. They make killer jams, pies, and cobblers.
I've taken some stray balls of yarn and started a hooded vest. I bought this curly oatmeal colored yarn a long time ago in my early knitting days, and I never found a use for it. I recently realized that I can combine it with other yarns in order to knit larger-gauge items.
We'll see how this comes out. It's pretty thick, so it may not be the most attractive thing I've every knitted.
Allie finished knitting a Harry Potter scarf, and Susan wanted to see a picture. It's knit in a big tube in stockinette stitch, and then you sew up the ends. It's huge, but she stuck with it, even knitting in the dark at the movies. This is a Gryffindor scarf, and I guess she hasn't had enough, because she cast on for a Slythrin scarf in green and silver. She got the pattern here.

We've been busy bees here, despite the good example of the cats.

Woolly Items

There's not much cotton fiber activity around here these days. I'm knitting when I get the chance, and my sewing room has been pretty clean for weeks. With my work schedule I don't get much chance to spend time in the sewing room and I don't have the energy for it either. I do want to quilt my Halloween quilt so I can put it out now that October's here.

Debra suggested tacking it with buttons instead of quilting, but since I want to use it for a table cover I've decided to quilt it. I've got a couple of quilts I've tacked with buttons, and I've discovered that when you use them on a table you lose flat surface space to put things like glasses or vases on. I've got second quilt pin basted, so when I switch on the sewing machine, that's what I'm going to do first.

But in the meantime, I do have a few finished woolly items: more fingerless mitts, and this hat for Allie.

Isn't she a great model? The pattern is from Crazy Aunt Purl's site. It's her Super-simple fast and easy chunky hand-knit beret knit with fat yarn on big needles. It makes up fast and it's very stylish.
I also made this bag up out of my imagination and some wool scraps. The buttons are 60s vintage: they've got a facsimile of a cave drawing on them.

The binding has an interesting story: A few years ago, I found at the thrift store a bag of wool bias strips, all double folded and wound on wood thread spools, . The person who make them was probably braiding wool rugs, and I could see (there were 8 or 10 big spools) they had cost someone a lot of effort, so I bought them not having a clue about what I would use them for. I've since discovered they're great for binding wool items like this bag.

Our Vogue Sweater knit-along is set to start on October 15, so anyone who wants to play along should give a holler. With all this wool I'm getting ready for winter.

Mother, Rejoice

I showed the beginnings of this new Madonna piece a few posts back. I've taken another holy card, made a transfer, and put the image on a vintage handkerchief. I've had a lot of questions about the transfers I use. They're the ones you buy in prepared sheets that you can run through your printer and then iron on to t-shirts. I get them at JoAnn's.
They're not marketed for their opacity, but they do allow you to see the prints of any fabric you use with them. They do have a plastic feel, so the fabric will no longer drape the way it did originally, but you can stitch through it, like I did with my St. Theresa piece.

I've used some vintage home dec samples around the central image, and you may recognize the "Rejoice" panel as the work of Allie Aller. This is a silk panel printed with one of her lovely floral motifs. She's planning to sell CDs of her alphabets made of flowers, so stay tuned to her site for details.
Above the central image I'm using the corner of another vintage hankie. I love the sentimentality of these textiles

I've pulled supplies for embellishment, but I think I'm going to approach this one with a light hand. That's what I always say, right?

If anyone is thinking of joining our sweater knit-along, (see previous post) we're planning to begin on October 15, so you have time to decide and gather supplies. Shoot me an email or leave a comment if you're thinking about it.

Knitting Along

I'm still knitting these fingerless mitts.  One of the many beauties of this pattern is that it knits up fast with small amounts of yarn. Now that I've made a few pairs, I'm modifying the pattern by changing the number of cable rows, the direction of the cables, and of course the colors.

These little mitts are great for reading or typing in the winter when you want warm hands, but need to use your fingers. One of these pairs is for a former student of mine who's just started law school at the U. of Michigan. She's a great young woman, who spent 2 years in Zimbabwe in the Peace Corps and who also taught in Atlanta for the Teach America program.
This pattern is perfect for partial skeins of worsted weight wool. When I'm lucky I find odd skeins of Germantown wool at the thrift store. It's no longer being made, but is wonderful to knit with. It's a sturdy yarn with great stitch definition. Of course the thrift store price is usually a bonus as well. I also knit with wool tapestry yarns I find at the thrift store: they come in 40 and 100-yard skeins, enough for a glove or two.
Susan of Plays With Needles and I are both going to knit this sweater, which is in the Fall 08 issue of Vogue Knitting (currently on the newsstands). If anyone wants to knit along, we're recruiting participants. The 40" size requires about 1700 yards of bulky weight yarn and it looks like a straightforward and stylish pattern. I'm hoping to use some stash yarn and some of my recently recycled yarn. If you'd like to knit along, leave me a comment.

House and Garden

My garden is at its height right now. The tomatoes are starting to ripen, and the sunflowers are taking on gargantuan proportions.
The squash hasn't done that well. A lot of it goes moldy on the vine before it gets very large. I think it may not be hot enough for a respectable crop.
But the Swiss chard is glorious. I think chard is the most beautiful vegetable there is because the stalks take on such outrageous colors. Here I picked a handful of pink and red chard, but the orange and yellow stalks are even more lovely.

One of the beauties of living on the coast is that you can make and enjoy soup year round. This recipe, which I cloned from 3 others, is one that has become a favorite. Maybe the weather is cooling down where you live and you're ready to make soup.

This recipe for Lentil Soup is very healthy and hearty and has no meat or meat broth.


Cut into chunks:
1 large onion
2 large carrots
2 celery ribs
In 2 tablespoons of olive oil, saute these veggies over high heat for 5-10 minutes with:
8 cloves of garlic, smashed
a handful of chopped parsley
a teaspoon of dried thyme
a teaspoon of dried marjoram
Add:
2 teaspoons of salt
2 bay leaves
2 quarts of cold water
28 oz. can of tomatoes and their juice, chopped
1 1/2 cups of dried lentils, rinsed and picked over
Bring the soup to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook covered for about 40 minutes, until the lentils are almost done. Then add:
1 1/2 cups of potato, peeled and chopped
2 cups of zucchini or other squash, cut into chunks
3 cups of chard, spinach, or other greens, washed, trimmed and chopped
2 teaspoons of cumin
a handful of chopped cilantro
Cook for another 20 minutes or so until the potatoes are done. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you have it, add a slug of white wine (3/4 cup). If your soup is too thick, feel free to add more water at any time.

While you wait for the soup, read a magazine at the kitchen table

...or stretch out in a sunny spot.
In no time it will be done.
You can adjust this recipe to meet your taste: eliminating ingredients you don't like and substituting others, or changing the quantities of different vegetables. This is an excellent soup for a crowd, as you could feed the neighborhood with it. It would probably be fine if you halved the recipe, but then you wouldn't have leftovers.

Serve it with a dark or crunchy bread and a glass of wine. Mmmmm.