August flights of fancy

 

  Hello friends,

I'm almost 4 weeks in to life without legal work, and I can see that this is going to take some adjusting. All good, I might add. I have worked from home for many years, so I am used to powering up my laptop first thing in the morning, working for much of each weekday, and carrying the constant knowledge that there  is always more to do. My daily life has involved balancing work-at-home and home-keeping chores (laundry! Housecleaning! cooking! shopping!) and the sudden absence of work leaves a very pleasant, large gap in each day. More important than the freeing of time is the freeing of mental energy. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted. And I am amazed at the prospect of having a whole day -- or two! or three!-- to work on a project. 

So far, the biggest problem is remembering what day it is. Such a lovely, vacation-like problem to have! I will confess that I have been acting like a squirrel in a field of acorns. So many options of fun things to do! So many tasks that I've had on my list for "when I have time. I've been darting between starting some, and then remembering that there is no rush, and I actually can sit and read a magazine or even nap in the middle of the afternoon. And then something else occurs to me that I want to do, or try, or read about.

There are all good things, you understand. And I expect that I will settle down into some sort of normal pace. I think I do need to focus on finishing one thing before I start another ... but to be honest, the love of starting new projects has been an issue (ahem) for all of my life. 

So what have I been doing? 

Well, I finished that quilt up there, which I am calling "By the Sea." There was a bit of delay while it was in progress because my long arm machine needed servicing, but I finished quickly once it was all fixed.

 

One of the things on my to-do list is to get reacquainted with the machine embroidery abilities of my main sewing machine. It has a lot of fancy embroidery features and aside from a few small projects, I've never become conversant in using them. So, I've signed up for an online machine embroidery class (in the "everything you need to know" vein) and my first project will be a quilt label for this quilt. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that I tried a new binding technique on this, which involved doing everything by machine with the help of some washable Elmer's glue. You can see Camille Roskelly demonstrate the technique here. It worked well and made for a speedy and neat binding. I will use it again.

My friend's recent visit caused me to finally unpack the boxes that had been sitting in the guest room. I used fabric to pad a lot of moving boxes, so of course the unpacking meant ironing and putting away still more fabric. That, in turn, has led me to spent a lot of time down in the "workshop" room that is attached to the house and which I am using as an extra storage space and workroom. And look what I did: 

 I made a rolling batting holder! This idea came straight from some genius in a longarm quilting group. I found an inexpensive office chair at a thrift store, disconnected the rolling base from the chair, and now have the perfect upright holder for my roll of batting. I'm quite pleased. 

Sorting fabric reminded me that I have a lot of batik fabric from my art quilting days when I used them because I loved the painterly effect they create. Folding and sorting those batiks led me to start another project. I've had an Accuquilt die for the "Crossed Canoe" block, and I spent a happy afternoon cutting blue and green batiks. 

 

 

That cutting process turned into these blocks this week --  and later today I plan on finishing assembling the blocks into a top. It's a kind of odd size - 45x63 -- in order to suit the requirements for donation to a local oncology unit that provides comfort quilts to chemo patients. I'm hoping that someone will be soothed by these peaceful, watery colors.

 I really wanted a batik back for this but didn't have any large pieces -- so while out running errands one afternoon I did some further exploring and found the "Quilter's Workshop" in Oak Harbor. I was told by the proprietor was Whidbey Island's only remaining fabric shop. They had a bit of everything, and I found a suitable blue/turquoise batik for a backing. So that was a fun discovery. 

Ok, friends, I'm off to have a quick lunch before doing some sewing -- and maybe some reading outside on the deck later on. So many fun possibilities!

 

 

Emancipated!

Well, kids, it's all open water from here. I officially did my last work as an attorney on July 31, and as of August 1 I am retired. I knew I would feel relieved,  but I had no idea of the weight I would immediately feel lifted. 

 And the Emancipation Period has started off with great fun. My college friend Moe (whom you may remember from her helping me move from California to Washington) came up for a visit, and we ferried over to Port Townsend to visit some other college friends. We celebrated my "graduation" (as one friend kept calling it), took long walks, ate mexican food, and binge-watched Ted Lasso which one had never seen. Such fun, and I kept realizing that I didn't have the worry about work lingering in the background. When one is used to carrying a load, however tidy, it does feel good to put it down.

Moe and I returned home and yesterday headed off to Deception Pass State Park at the north end of Whidbey Island. It is truly one of the most beautiful places you could ever see. 

 

There are miles of hiking trails on both sides of the water, and one led us to a spot beneath the bridge. You can see Moe on the lower left, which shows the scale of this impressive structure.

 

 

We had lunch on the other side of the bridge, at a local institution called The Shrimp Shack. 

We highly recommend the popcorn shrimp.

From there, we roamed around the town of La Connor for a bit, which quilters know as the home of the Pacific Northwest Fiber Arts Museum. We did not have a lot of time, so skipped that in favor of a stroll through town and a bit of poking around in shops.

But our ultimate destination was back to Deception Pass for a boat tour, hosted by Deception Pass Tours. (I am well aware that taking a commercial tour in a state park is a very "retiree" thing to do -- but it was fantastic.) It was a perfect day for a boat outing, as it was unusually hot but clear and calm. 

Oh, the blue water and blue sky.

We saw a lot of wildlife, even from our distance. Harbor seals swimming along...

 Basking on the shore (look closely, they blend in with the rocks) ...

 

Even napping on a marker buoy. 

 

 We saw porpoises leaping, salmon jumping, and bald eagles perched in the pines just watching us go by.

Our tour guide pointed out an egg yolk jellyfish. I'd never heard of them, let alone seen one. 

It was perfect summer adventure. And on a random Wednesday!

I think I am going to have a hard time remembering what day it is. That might be a very pleasant problem to have. 

I hope your summer is going swimmingly, friends.

July Bits and Bobs

 

Hello, friends! I thought I'd pop in with a mid-July update. It has been a lovely summer here on Whidbey Island so far. A bit of rain in June, although less than last year, and gorgeous sunny, warm-but-not-too-hot days in July. (Sorry, California friends.) It's quite perfect, to my taste.

I can hardly believe it is the middle of July already. But July flying by is especially good news for me because I officially retire from practicing law as of July 31! I've practiced law since 1985 -- almost 40 years! Yikes! I have enjoyed it overall -- sometimes more, sometimes less. The variety, the intellectual problems to solve, the writing, have all been a good fit. I have been really fortunate to work with excellent lawyers and to have been trained as a young lawyer by ethical, smart people who valued courtesy and honesty. I've been able to create a flexible work situation that allowed me to do what I liked best and avoid the parts that did not suit. But it is time to stop. I'm just done.

Plus, I have SO many other things I want to do! I am not sure how I will celebrate, other than a whole lot of sewing and quilting and indulging in (gasp) daytime reading. I already have signed up for an online sketching workshop in September, some online lessons in machine embroidery so I can finally master the embroidery function on my machine, and a return to my usual Bishop's Ranch quilt retreat in October. I have a lot of exploring to do, both on and off the island. I am quite certain that I will not be bored.

Speaking of quilting, I was happily quilting away on a summery quilt when my longarm machine started shredding thread no matter how many adjustments I made. Turns out that the checkspring, a little wire hook in the thread path that contributes to keeping the tension even, had broken. The circled item below is the checkspring.

So, my Bernina dealer sent a technician over and within 45 minutes, it was all fixed, cleaned, oiled, and running perfectly. So now I can get back to this fun quilt, from a pattern called Lighthearted by Thimble Blossoms.

 

With my longarm ability interrupted, I had quite a piecing binge over the 4th of July weekend. I'd stumbled on a pattern that just looked like fireworks to me, so I spent the weekend getting this top together. (Side note: why do I cringe when quilters call a quilt top a "flimsy?" Am I the only one?)

It is from a quilt kit called "Holiday Americana Merry Making Quilt" from JK Quilts. I don't usually do kits, but this was half off at some point and was just so summer-festive that I could not resist. I'm looking forward to quilting it, and found some perfect fireworks fabric for the back.

Having finished that top, I have been sewing 2.5 inch strips to make a large, summery, scrappy Trip Around the World quilt. I love how fast and easy they are, and with light fabrics mixed in they look so fresh and light. They are so easy to make - great instructions here, from Bonnie Hunter, and here from Alli at Woodberry Way. I am following Alli's version, which uses whites in between printed strips, uses 21" strips, and makes a bigger block. No pictures yet as all I have is bundles of strips and a stack of blocks, but I'll be putting them up on the design wall soon. 

For cuteness purposes, here are Caroline's cats Kaya and Maybel. I had piled some things in the upstairs hallway before putting them away, and they quickly made themselves comfortable. As cats do.

All of a sudden, a bunch of books I've had on hold at the library have come in, just in time for retired life. I am ready for some serious deck and/or beach reading! I'm most excited to read Marisa de los Santos' most recent novel, Watch Us Shine. 

This is the fourth in a series with a common thread of family members and friends, with each novel focusing on a different character. I was so excited that I decided to reread the first in the series, Love Walked In, which I loved just as much as the first time. And that caused me to race through books two and three, Belong to Me and I'll Be Your Blue Sky, again. Yes, just as good as before, too. So I'm ready for #4.

 

Local Rainier cherries have appeared at the farmer's market, so I've been buying a steady supply and we've been eating cherries every day. At yesterday's market I bought a flat of local raspberries, and they are just gorgeous. A burst of summer flavor, truly.

In other exciting news, I ordered a new couch for our family room. This was quite an accomplishment, as it has been quite a hunt for something NOT beige, brown or gray. I have loved my red leather couch (shown here in a staging photo from my Healdsburg house) but it is just too big and too dark for the new family room. Plus, I'm ready for a new look.

After a lot of hunting, I found a blue and white pinstriped couch, in a store where I could actually sit on it and feel it -- how do people buy a couch online? But it will not be here for something like 3 months, so I have time to address the other pieces in the room. The red couch, which I still adore, will move out to the workshop room so I can sit and relax while sorting through all of the stuff in storage there.

I actually have some work to finish today, so I will close this this picture of yesterday's late afternoon summer sky.

Maybe it's just me, but the skies seem unusually beautiful here.

July pleasures

Good morning, friends, and happy July 4th weekend to you! 

It is a gorgeous weekend here. Last year at this time, when I’d just moved to the island, I was warned that June would be solidly cool and rainy (which it was) and summer would begin on July 5th, as dramatically as if a summer switch were flipped on (which it did). This year, though, June was a mix of drizzly, overcast, and clear sunny days, so it has felt like summer was easing in earlier and more gradually. This holiday weekend has been ideal. I’ve been watching early morning kayakers and mid day water skiers on my little lake, and I’ve had perfect late afternoons on the deck with a book and a cold drink. This feels just the way summer should be.  I apologize to my friends in Sonoma County, who have been sweltering through a heat wave. 

This week has been about home stuff. My wanderings have been limited to a few trips off island for medical appointments (my hand/wrist fractures are healing nicely, thank you, and Miss C’s eyes have been checked and new glasses are on order), with a bit of furniture shopping thrown in. 

I decided that I have been dissatisfied with the family room because my Healdsburg furniture is just too big and too dark for the space.  After much online perusing, I came to a vision I wanted to have in the room and I’ve been excited about creating it. No, this photo is not the vision, but it has that comfortable airiness I’d like to achieve. (This is from the beautiful home of blogger Kari from Thistlewoodfarms.com.) But gosh, the furniture offerings in stores are so beige! And gray! I’ve found sofa and chair shapes I quite like, but the fabric offerings are so drab. Even with leather, the options are extremely limited. I’ve found upholstery options I like online, but I’m quite apprehensive about ordering a sofa or chairs sight unseen and, more importantly, “unsat.” Amazon, Home Depot and other inexpensive furniture options make me wonder about long term durability with daily use. 

I will digress to ask if any of you have had actual good experiences with a white or cream couch without having to do weekly slipcover washes. I’ve looked at Pottery Barn couches but I’m wary. We spend a lot of time in the family room so the furniture gets heavy use. We occasionally eat in front of the tv, and yes, I’ve been know to spill my coffee or red wine. The dogs are not on the furniture, but they have been known to rub against it, and I don’t like the thought of grimy streaks around the sides and edges of white furniture. Sigh. So I’m researching and poking around.

Meanwhile, I’ve made exciting progress in the sewing room. I’ve been struggling with my well-loved portable design wall which works great in some situations, but has been constantly in the way in my funny room. After a bit of research from quilters who have had happy results, I ordered felt tiles from Feltright.com. The tiles come in lots of colors and shapes and the site even has a design area where you can plan out your design and audition colors. I ordered a variation of their “Quilter’s Star” design in light gray and white. I wanted something neutral that would not compete with whatever pieces I had up, but that would also look good when it was empty. The tiles arrived on Friday, and on Saturday I went to work sticking them up. 

The trick is to start with a level block and work from there. And voila, finished wall! 

These tiles are smooth so pieces need to be pinned. But I did that before anyway, as I’d had too many times of finding a carefully laid out design in bits on the floor after the dogs had rushed by the portable wall.  Look, here it is in use already! 

And what is that work in progress, you ask? 

It is a kit quilt I bought a while ago on a big sale, because I love how the star blocks have a firework-ish look to them and it just looked so fun and festive. The pattern is called “Holiday Americana Merry Making,” designed by Jocelyn Ueng of It's Sew Emma, and it’s available as a kit here. Don’t let all the triangles daunt you. The blocks go together quickly with half square triangle units. Here is where I am as of this morning: 

Perfect 4th of July weekend sewing! 

Later today I expect to be out on the deck with the novel I’m reading, The City and the City by China Mieville. It is an unusual story about a murder that has been discovered in a place where two cities overlap and are, for political reasons, treated as invisible to each other. The novel has quite an interesting premise, and is billed as science fiction, fantasy, crime, and speculative fiction. Miss C actually told me about it after she’d listened to an online review, and I was sufficiently intrigued to borrow it from the library. If any of you have read it, I’d be interested in your thoughts. 

In case you are worrying about the baby bunnies in my yard, I am happy to report that my lawn has been fully mown and no baby bunnies (or parts thereof) were found along the way. I expect to see them scampering about one morning soon. 

 

My friend Kate

 Have you met my friend Kate? She lives on a farm in Northumberland in the UK, at The Last Homely House East of the Sea, with cats and hens and a very independent goose. 

Actually, I’ve not met her either, except through her YouTube videos and website and Instagram account. But, thanks to the strange intimacy of You Tube, I feel like I know her. I’ve been to her house, strolled in her garden, made custard and chocolate caramels with her, and decorated Easter eggs. She’s shown me how to card and spin wool, how to feed hens, how to prepare potatoes for planting, and how to clip a hen’s feathers so that she will not fly away. 

I have had Kate’s videos on while I’ve been sewing. She has kept me company with her quiet reflections about life on a farm in Northern England and her continuing curiosity about trying new things and making all sorts of things,  Jam. Pottery. Curtains. I love her willingness to just try something, and go her own way with it to see what happens. 

I am quite certain that she will welcome you into her circle, and that you will be charmed. You can visit here here. If you stop by, tell her I said hello.

Adventures at Cottontail Cottage

 

Feeling summery? That little quilt part was a collaged hat that I made long ago for one of those art quilt group projects where each person stated a subject and 2 colors and then everyone made something meeting those requirements.  I think this was “hat” and orange and yellow. Frankly the blocks were so varied in each set that I thought the resulting quilts (for those who assembled them) were pretty strange. But I did like this little block and the challenge was fun. Anyway, it says summer to me, so here you go. 

It's been another one of those odd months. No surprise, really, after losing my dad... so much emotion to process, so many tasks to handle, plus work and life and all. But summer is here on Whidbey Island, and I'm enjoying remembering summer - the early morning bell from the summer camp across the lake, the distant sound of children playing, the very long dusky summer evenings. 

I have made yet another discovery about life here on the island. I've written about the abundance of bunnies on the south end of the island, and there are quite a few that hop around my yard in the early morning. Well, between my several trips to California and his own travels, my lawn mower guy (“the Lawn Ranger”) and I were not able to connect and as a result my lawn has grown and grown and grown. It is now more a wildflower/grass prairie. Quite pretty in its own way. Here is Rosie roaming in the grass.

 

 

But a few days ago, Rosie came to me with something in her mouth. I thought it was a pinecone. No, it was a teeny baby bunny. ACK! Luckily Rosie is a gentle soul and retrievers have notoriously soft mouths -- so she didn't bite or maul it, and it was obviously alive but so newborn that its eyes weren't open yet. I carefully scooped it up and off I went to see if I could find the nest.

 

I did not take this picture and this is not my nest, but I post it here to show what one looks like.

It took a lot of hunting, but I finally found the spot I think it might have been -- there were some tufts of fur around a burrow sort of hole, so I placed the baby in there, bent some grass over it, and hoped for the best.

When I checked the next morning, there were no bunnies in sight and the burrow was empty. So I hoped that mama came and found her baby and took it to safety. 

Unfortunately, later that day, after I'd restricted the dogs to another area of the yard, Rosie came to me with that look in her eye.... which means something in her mouth. Yep, another baby. Also alive. I did not know where it came from but took it back to the original burrow, hoping, hoping.

 

 

 

I've now put stakes around the bunny area and am keeping the dogs on leash in the yard at all times. Research tells me that babies become independent in about 3 weeks, so I will hope that by then the dogs can roam freely without finding any surprises. 

Big lesson learned? Keep the lawn mowed down SHORT at this time of year, so the bunnies will nest elsewhere. Incidentally, when I read up on bunny nests, one expert said that they often nest in yards of homes with big dogs -- because the mama knows it is safer and there are less likely to be more dangerous predators like cats and raccoons. Smart mommy bunny, eh?

I really do enjoy seeing the bunnies about and have thought that I'm living in a Cottontail Cottage, but the possibility of the dogs disrupting babies in their nest is not something I want to do every summer.

 

 

Meanwhile, there was this. In May, when I was on my way to California to see my dad, I stopped to get breakfast -- and I tripped and fell in a parking lot. I had what I now know is, in medical terms, a FOOSH -- "fall on out-stretched hands." My hands were scraped and definitely sore but I felt around and nothing felt seriously hurt, no sense of anything broken, so I cleaned myself off and continued on my way. Once I got to California, my sister and I were absorbed with my dad and his care, so I just took advil and did some icing from time to time. Well, fast-forward to two weeks later when, back home, my dr suggested xrays of both hands and wrists. Turns out I have a small fracture in one hand and a bone bruise and soft tissue injury in the other. I came away with a splint on one and instructions to wrap the other wrist when it was sore.

 

So - good news was nothing serious, no surgery needed, nothing displaced, etc. (Yes, friends, you are right, I broke my wrist LAST March in a similar FOOSH fall. But that was way worse.) This has mainly been inconvenient -- and I have learned that having something wrapped on BOTH hands makes me very very cranky. VERY CRANKY. I am at the tail end of healing, so that is good. But sheesh. I know that both falls (last year and this) were when I was seriously tired and distracted and stressed, and probably paying less attention to my feet than I should have been, but I'm still boosting my vitamin D and have a bone density test scheduled for next month. I don't want to do this any more. 

 

 The other good news is that with the left hand pretty functional, I was able to resume quilting on my longarm!

One more random thing making me happy. I was in a Barnes and Noble in California and came upon this insulated metal tumbler from Rifle Paper company. I love their pretty patterns so it came home with me. It keeps my morning coffee very hot so I can linger on the deck, and it makes me happy every day.

What’s making you happy these days? 

 

Time and Other Passings

     I am surprised to see how much time has passed since my last blog post, and yet I know that the past few months have slid by because of many challenges. During that time, I traveled back to Northern California several times to see my ailing dad, and spend time with him and my sister. I was able to be there with them when my dad passed away on May 16. What a difficult goodbye that was, and yet we knew that him being at home, pain-free, under the care of a an amazing hospice team, and with friends and family visiting, made the end of his life as good as it could have been. 

     My dad was a big presence in our lives. My sister and I attribute our love of all things creative to him, as he was a relentlessly energetic and creative “maker.” When other parents might have given their kids toys, my dad took us to the hobby store and let us pick out kits and discover new things to make. We learned that hands-on work ethic and the development of an artistic eye from him, to be sure. It is no accident that all three of us kids have made creativity a significant part of our adult lives. 

     My dad had a lifelong, obsessive love of cars. I teased him when I was in college that he never knew the names of my friends but could identify them instantly by their cars. Some years back, I found this photo of him from the early 1950’s, perched on his beloved 1949 Mercury. When he told me that he had to sell the car to pay the hospital bill after my sister was born, I knew I needed to make an art quilt about it. 

     Now we go forward, thinking of him and my mom and my brother somewhere together. If there is a heaven, I’m sure my dad is driving a Ferrari there. 

       So, I am recalculating once again, adjusting to the changed size of my family and knowing that my parents are, finally, free of the pain and frustrations that plagued their last years. I am working on getting caught up on work and home and the business that comes with day to day life. 

       It would be easier if I had two functional hands, but… oops. While driving to California a few weeks ago, I tripped in a parking lot and did one of those outstretched hand falls. When I got to California, I was immersed in events around my dad’s care and passing, so did not appreciate until I returned home that my left hand was, perhaps, more sore than it should have been. I learned that there is a small fracture that requires stabilizing by means of a rather cumbersome splint.  Ah, well.  

      This, too, shall pass.