The Cat and Other Tales
Oh, hello there.
I was looking at my calendar and realized I hadn’t posted in three weeks.
It’s not you, it’s me. I haven’t been online much lately. I made disparaging comments on Twitter about having to avoid BART demonstrators, but that’s about it. There are many things going on at work, for one thing. The semester started, and I work at a college, plus I’ve been studying exciting things like XML and XSLT and command line field mapping in my spare time instead of crafting. Oh, and going to museums. Those of you who fancy yourselves creative types might find this video I found via SFMOMA interesting. Pretty much a long winded version of Edison’s “1% inspiration, 99%perspiration” saying.
Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
Let’s catch up:
– Spent a weekend in Reno helping my brother move into his new house. I may have cried when he moved out of my house 2 weeks ago. My dog still looks for him (they were good buddies). He’s going on to do much more interesting things in graduate school, though – environmental planning and research. Now my husband and I only have each other to harass. And the cat.
– A certain demonic cat got into my new quilt and wrecked it. She must have had quite a time in there, and probably got poked by some pins. She pulled out 90% of the pins that are holding the quilt together, the fabrics were in total disarray, even the backing paper was wrinkled up. Miriam was not a happy camper, and did not speak to her cat for a while. It took many hours to put it back the way it was, and as I continue to work I still have problems with spacing. Tell me again why I have a cat?
– After Jeremy moved out, Jeff and I went on a serious cleaning binge, and also a getting-rid-of-stuff binge. We’re really getting minimalist at this point. I’ve also removed all my craft stuff from its storage and reorganized it, and gotten rid of things I didn’t want. We never really did put much effort into our spare/craft room after we moved in because Jeremy was living there, so now I’m attacking it with great enthusiasm. Also, the cat isn’t allowed in there anymore (she never really was).
– Streetcolor yarnbombed my local library 
. Sadly, I missed the event.
– I did my very first tie-dye project, pictures forthcoming. I also considered wrapping a few rubber bands around the cat’s fur and seeing how she looked when tie-dyed.
That’s about everything that’s currently safe for public consumption.
Back to XML.
Once there was a big, cold lake
Dear Readers:
I am sorry to have been away from you since early July.
I confess I have not done a lot of crafting. Instead I went away to
Lake Tahoe, where I attended a family reunion.
It is true. I really am related to all of these people.
Which is awesome for me, because they’re all really nice people.
And I think that I was fortunate to be able to go away and stay a few days in a really gorgeous place,
Where the weather was cool and sunny,
And there were hundreds of my favorite aspen trees to enjoy,
Where I could eat many more homemade chocolate chip cookies and Doritos than was wise (but I tried to hike it off),
And have a great many really awesome conversations with awesome people.
I even played some pool. Badly.
And got several sunburns.
But in the meantime you’ll just have to do with these pictures.
Because I have really no idea what quilt to work on next.
All I have is ideas and scraps of fabric scattered all over my work table.
And no real plan in mind.
Hopefully I’ll have something crafty to post soon.
Sometime this year.
But not TOO soon. It’s still kinda vacation, after all.
The Mom Quilt – Finished!
Dear Mom,
Your quilt is finished! When the rain lets up, I’ll roll it up in a plastic bag and put it in a tube with a dowel rod to hang it on and mail it to you. I feel terrible it’s more than a month since I promised it to you, but it’s not like I haven’t been late before. I consider it a family tradition! And I have been working on it very hard. I didn’t really expect it to take this long!
You might have to iron it a little with low heat when you get it, but it’s pretty indestructible at this point. One reasons I find quilting with silks like this so interesting is that it gives the impression of being a delicate sort of thing but as I’ve said before, silk is not really delicate. Most of the silk I’ve worked with is tough – I’ve broken sewing machine needles and when I embroider it forces me to use leather thimbles and needle grippy things or I dent my fingers. Plus the overall project, because it’s quilted so densely, is extremely sturdy. You’ll see. It’s a thick piece of work.
A few weeks ago when you wrote me, Mom, you said you didn’t see how I had enough patience to do this. Truth is that it doesn’t take me any patience. It might be weird, but I can’t sit still long enough to hand-hem a pair of pants, but I can spent 50 hours hand-quilting. It doesn’t feel like tedium, and I don’t get impatient. I love sitting down and putting stitches in this fabric. It’s fun. I even ripped out quilting I didn’t like in some places and started over. I’ve definitely found something that I love to do.
I’ll miss this quilt. I ended up liking it quite a bit, and the pictures just aren’t the same as seeing it in person. There is too much depth and texture to it to really get a good idea of what it’s like in a picture. But then again, I’ve been looking at this so long that I don’t see the picture for the details anymore. In a couple of weeks I”ll look at it again and see if I can see the flowers and leaves again. But I think I need some time away from it first.
Have fun with it when you get it!
Details:
Neutral oatmeal linen backing fabrics (2 layers), thin cotton batting, silk kimono fabrics from Ah! Kimono.
Needlepoint, Inc. silk floss and DMC floss (what’s that stuff made of?) for quilting.
Hand quilted/embroidered and machine and hand pieced. Hand bound.
Posts for this project:
Concave and Convex, Iris quilt: creating the quilt puzzle pt. 1, Iris quilt 2: fabric piecing technique, Iris quilt 3: putting it all together, The back speaks, The Mom Quilt – Finished!
