What I'm listening to this weekend

I have a lot of things rolling around in my head right now that I want to write about and I’m not sure where to start so I decided to just pick something and go.

If you knew me as a young teenager, you would know that I was a fan of Rick Springfield. Yes… I know he can be seen as the epitome of the ‘80’s cliche, and yes… my original attraction was that of an 8th grade girl with a crush on a handsome Australian pop star/actor with catchy music that was easy and fun to sing along with. Most people are well aware of the early ‘80’s hits like “Jessie’s Girl”. But there is an album that came out in the later 80’s that had a different vibe. It came out after he had taken a bit of time off from recording. During that time he had gone through some significant changes in his personal life. “Rock of Life” was released in 1988 and didn’t do all that well on the charts, but for me it is far and away the album that has consistently spoken to me through all these years. I first heard these songs when I was 19 and yes they hit much different now that I’m in my 50’s than they did way back then, but there has been a constant resonance with this album for me. The subject matter is much deeper, introspective and contemplative than anything I knew from before. The songs touch on timeless questions that face all of us at some place or another in life. Universal themes like wanting something better for the future, but holding that in tension with our human nature to resist change. Subjects like the transition from youth to adulthood, crises of faith, seeking those answers for ourselves. Maybe finding them, maybe continually searching. Bringing to light the pretenses that we keep up to both hide and avoid our real problems. I think all of these things are timeless and are still relevant to the world we live in today. Lyrically and musically, to me, personally, this is his best album.

There are 3 or 4 of these songs that hit deep for me and I could talk about all of them, but for today I just want to focus on one of them. Below are the lyrics to a song called “World Start Turning”. You can click the link to hear the song. It’s just one example of the universality of themes addressed. In this it’s the disillusionment that America is a sort of “Promised Land”. The truth is that it isn’t and there are those for whom it may never hold all the promise that we are told it should. It’s a song about battling depression which so many people have to do on a daily basis. Rick speaks openly in interviews about depression being present in his life since he was a young teenager and how he really does try and hold himself to the promise he makes to himself in this song. That’s authenticity.

World Start Turning

I was born in the Southern Land
Yeah, a million miles from America
And whatever we wanted was just a matter of choosing
And I was raised in the Great White Way
Just like all those kids in America
And the T.V. taught us to win with no thought of losing (then I woke up)

This is the real world, the real town without pity
This is the real world, in the shadow of the city
This is the real wheel
You don't get too many spins
This is the real deal, not everybody wins

Just another soul lost in America
I was so frustrated and I got so lonely
It almost took a miracle to open my eyes

World Start Turning (turn into the wind)
World Start Turning (some things were never meant to be)
I've been standing on the beach
Crying to the raging sea
I was falling, falling
Heart start beating (turn into the wind)
Heart start beating (some things were never meant to be)
Made a promise to myself
I'll never get that low again

We were taught if man believes in
What he wants in America
It's only a matter of time, just a matter of seasons
But I walk through the houses of dreams that died
I see the ones still trapped there the ones that tried
But spent the rest of their lives wondering why
And searching for reasons (and they never wake up)

This is the real world, you've got to know just when to bend
Here in the world, precious little matters in the end
This is the real world, the real town without pity
This is the real world, in the shadow of the city

Just another soul lost in America
I was so frustrated and I got so lonely
It almost took a miracle to open up my eyes

World Start Turning (turn into the wind)
World Start Turning (some things were never meant to be)
I've been standing on the beach
Crying to the raging sea
I was falling, falling
Heart start beating (turn into the wind)
Heart start beating (some things were never meant to be)
Made a promise to myself
I'll never get that low again

You can't stop the world, can't' stop the world

Never could settle for where I was
Too many places I was trying to be
The times I succeeded and the times I failed
You know that no one will remember but me

World Start Turning, World Start Turning
I've been standing on the beach
Crying to the raging sea
I was falling, falling

Heart start beating (turn into the wind)
Heart start beating (some things were never meant to be)
Made a promise to myself
I'll never get that low again…

At any rate… I would encourage you to seek this album out on Spotify and give it a listen. It’s what I’m listening to and thinking about this weekend.

Where is A-440?

If you know me at all, you know that I really enjoy listening to Kate Shepherd’s “Creative Genius Podcast”. The most recent episode was an interview with Meredith Hite Estevez. Meredith is, among many things, a musician. She holds a doctorate in Oboe from Juilliard. During the interview they discuss how, in many settings, the study of classical music can kind of drain the joy and the love of music out of someone, especially in an elite environment such as Juilliard. Where it becomes about perfection and mastery and there are right and wrong ways of doing things. She acknowledges that a certain amount of mentorship and teaching are essential to learning the craft, but it can easily become a burden, too. A constant trying to meet expectations can lead you to a place where maybe you never wanted to be. Playing in an orchestra, when you want to play in a jazz ensemble. I think we all wind up there to a certain degree at times in our lives.

One of the things they talked about to try and get out of that rut is a “return to basics” sort of thought. Anyone who has studied music is familiar with practicing scales. Scales are fundamental practice. You never stop playing scales unless you stop playing music altogether. You use scales to engage that connection between the brain and the body. It moves the blood to the necessary areas of your body that allow you to make music. Your hands, your arms, your vocal folds, your diaphragm muscles, even your legs and feet if you are playing pedals on a piano, or an organ or a kick drum or high hat. Scales allow you to know which notes to play in different key signatures. Knowing your scales is essential for playing correctly what is written in the music in front of you, but knowing those scales also allows you to know where you can break the rules in music, too. Ask any songwriter or composer and they will tell you the same.

In the music world there are these fundamentals that everyone knows. Everyone is familiar with. Another of these is that orchestras tune to the note A-440. This note is a constant, it is always the same. 440 Hz has always been and will always be 440 Hz. In tuning your instrument, you have to make adjustments until you find A-440 to be in tune. You tighten or loosen a string or you move a piece on your instrument in or out, believe it or not, even drums have to be tuned by tightening or loosening the screws that hold the drum head in place. It’s the constant search for that one fundamental frequency that will always be the same. Even during the course of a performance you may still need to be constantly making adjustments because your instrument will warm up and cool down as you are blowing into it, or your strings may stretch or loosen as you play.

So, that got me thinking about it in a metaphorical sense. That question, “Where is A-440?” What are the things that are essential to ground you into your daily life and into your practice of being creative? What is fundamental? What does “running scales” look like to you? How can we apply this idea? I know that for me, one of the biggest things is having a predictable schedule. When I don’t have that predictability, it’s like I’m that kid that was jumping on the trampoline with the rest of the kids and fell down and everyone else kept jumping and the kid who fell is just bounced around like a rag doll and can’t get any footing to stand up again. This was especially true after the panic attack last fall. It was hard enough to just stand up, much less try to stand when the world around me was bouncing to and fro. It’s one of the main reasons I had to make the choice to leave. I just needed a stability that could no longer be found there and did not seem as if it would ever be that way again. Along the way, I am still looking for those other “A-440” fundamentals and maybe that will always be a question for me. But… just as a musician gets better at tuning their instrument with practice, I hope that finding “A-440” will become easier the more I practice looking for it.

What about you, what are your “A-440” things?

Sept 6

Today marks an anniversary that I’d rather not remember. A date where I feel like my entire life changed.

The last year has been… a challenge… to put it mildly….

So, let me fill you in a bit.

The last few years have been an overwhelming challenge to me and my faith tradition. I was raised as a conservative Christian. If you have have kept an eye on the state of things in the US, you know that the divide between liberalism and conservatism has come to the forefront of attention time and time again. I was once part of that conservative crowd. I no longer am. I have not walked away from my faith in God, but I have come to a place where I can no longer claim “evangelicalism” as a home. It has been devastating for me. I have lost more than just a church. More than just a “family”. My entire identity has been challenged. The church was all I knew. But… I was also raised to be kind, to care for others. I was told that “God is Love” and “Jesus loves everyone”. Unconditional love is key. The first and greatest commandment, to love God and your neighbor as yourself. It has become clear that the evangelical church in the US, by and large does not reflect those sentiments by its actions. Oh, there is definitely lip service toward that, but real action and sometimes inaction, well, they convey a deeper truth. Evangelicalism seems to have problems with anyone that doesn’t fit their “mold”. People of other faiths and other cultures, people who identify as something other than their “sex assigned at birth”, people whose sexual orientation is something other than heterosexual and even people like me who are just trying to figure out where they fit into the big picture. People who are just trying to live their lives in peace. People who have lost family and friends just for trying to be true to themselves and how they were created. Some have lost more than that. People who are genuine and honest and wonderful and beautiful. I know some of these people, I care deeply for them. How can I be a part of a group of people who shun people and even sometimes demonize them? Simply put, I can’t. If I am to be true to my conscience, I cannot be a part of the conservative church in America any longer. This has been absolutely gut wrenching for me. It has called into question everything I was raised with, everything I once thought I knew. I know that some of my Christian friends will probably read this and be appalled with me. I guess that’s the way it is and maybe this is where we part ways. I don’t know, but know that I do care about you. I think we can learn from each other, but we have to have open minds and open hearts to do so.

I know this is going to seem like a random linking of events, but hang with me. I promise, it really does all tie together.

In January of 2021 I had an MRI preformed. I was born with an abnormal aortic valve in my heart. It isn’t super serious, but it does need to be monitored. The MRI was just a routine procedure that my cardiologist ordered in order to get an accurate measurement of my valve and the ascending aorta. This particular abnormality often is accompanied by a slight aneurysm. This is the bigger issue that the Dr. wants to monitor. I went into the MRI thinking I wouldn’t be claustrophobic. I’d had an MRI once before and had not had any problems. We’ll… I could not have been more wrong. Maybe it was because I was wearing a mask because of Covid, maybe it was because I was positioned differently in the machine, maybe it was because they had this plate kind of thing over my chest, maybe it was a combination of all of the above. I don’t know. All I know is that I got super claustrophobic. I somehow managed to hold still and breathe my way through the procedure with my eyes shut, but that was a very long 20 minutes or so. I had the uncontrollable shakes when they finally took me out of the machine. Later after I got home, I was still picturing myself there and the claustrophobic feeling just kept coming back. After that, I started to develop a real fear of closed in places, low ceilings and even depictions of these scenarios on TV or in movies. Windowless rooms, basements, caves…. you get the idea.

Fast forward to June of 2022. My niece, Allison, passed away after her long battle with Friedreich’s Ataxia. She passed on June 14. Her passing, even though we all knew it was an eventuality, was difficult for everyone who knew and loved her. I was no exception to that.

Finally, we come to Sept. 6, 2022.

It was your average night. I was just trying to go to sleep, like every night. I sleep with a CPAP machine. Every once in a while since the MRI episode I would wake up a little panicky and claustrophobic with my CPAP mask. The remedy was just to take the mask off, get up, go to the bathroom or get a drink of water or something and go back to bed. Not a big deal, just the need to refocus. I had one of those instances that night. That night, the getting up and going back to bed did not work like usual. I decided to get up and go downstairs to the living room and read for a little bit to try and change my thought pattern a bit. I read until I felt a bit sleepy, so I went back to bed. Once in bed, my brain was right back into the claustrophobia again. Then out of nowhere, my brain thought “I wonder if this is what it feels like to die. Was it like this for Alli? Oh God, I hope not. Oh God, I’m going to die someday, will it feel like this?”. And that was it. I had to get up again. Long story short, I didn’t sleep at all that night. I tried to watch TV to see if that would put me to sleep. I tried the recliner in the living room, I tried the couch… nothing. You know that feeling of falling you sometimes have when you start to go to sleep? Every time I would feel that, it was like I thought I was going to die, like I was going to suffocate, like I was falling into some sort of deep dark bottomless pit. Needless to say, I would jerk back awake every time I felt that. It was as if someone or something had uncapped a geyser of all of my deepest and darkest fears that just came rushing out all at once and would not be contained. Fears about death and hell and my own mortality. Questions about God and all that I had been through up to that point in my faith journey. I could hardly even close my eyes without my brain feeling like it was some sort of deep, dark cavern where I was lost without a map, or a lamp or anything to keep me from falling into some unknown abyss. I finally managed a few hours of sleep the next day, but when it came bedtime the next night I found myself in a full blown panic attack. Jason wound up taking me to the ER at about 9 PM. We were there until 2 am. I had to wear a mask that whole time, which, claustrophobia and all, was a nightmare in and of itself. They sent me home with some medication for sleep and medication for anxiety.

The road over the last year has been a slow, sometimes frightening, arduous road back toward healing and some semblance of myself. Re-learning how to sleep. Being ok with the lights off in the bedroom as I go to sleep. Struggling with weird thoughts, sensations and emotions when watching TV. Anything to do with the distant past, or the distant future, or closed spaces, or extremely vast open spaces all gave me anxious feelings. I normally love historical documentaries and archaeology shows, but well… those were too “deathy”. I still feel the anxiety in my chest nearly every day. It’s like i’m hyper-aware of my heartbeat. With therapy and medication, and self reflection I’ve come a long way. But, I realize that I also have a very long way to go.

I’m telling you all this so that the change in focus here will be easier to understand. To be true to my desire to be more transparent and authentic. Life is much too short to live it wearing masks, hiding our truths and trying to fit into molds that don’t fit. This is my truth and whether I want it to be my truth or not, it is. I’m taking the mask off and throwing it down. I want to live where I can just be me, with my flaws, my insecurities and my anxieties along with my talents and my goals and ambitions, my big, crazy ideas and the little silly ones as well.

That’s the goal from now on.

Why did I change the blog name?

If you have kept up even in the slightest with this incoherent, messy, sporadic blog, you will have noticed a change in the name a while back. I felt the need for a change in focus, even several months ago, or a year or whenever it was I changed it. I wanted to be more real and more honest about things and I felt that calling it “Tangled Threads” was more fitting to that.

Messy. Life is just messy. And sometimes we have to untangle things. Some things are impossible to untangle. Sometimes we still try, even though it’s impossible. But even in the trying of the impossible, we learn. We grow. We change.

Authenticity

Authenticity. It’s sort of a buzzword these days, but what does it really mean?

Webster’s says :

1a: worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact

b: conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features

c: made or done the same way as an original

2: not false or imitation, real, actual

3: true to one's own personality, spirit, or character

I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept for a while now.

Social media is such a weird world. We tend to only show the best of ourselves. But that’s not real… well, maybe it is… but only in part. We hide the messy stuff, we try and fit a mold for SEO or what we think people want from us or to sell a product or any one of a dozen other reasons. How much of our lives do we keep hidden out of fear, or pride or lack of confidence or… or… or…? How authentic are we, really? How much do we needlessly shame ourselves? Because in reality, don’t we all have those things, the things that are not perfect? The things that others have too, but we don't talk about? How much support from those like us do we miss out on? How much do we miss out on real connection with others when we hold ourselves back? How many opportunities to help others do we bypass by allowing our own inauthenticity?

It might be a buzzword, and maybe it has been cheapened by that. Maybe it’s been cheapened by those who claim it, but fail to BE it? Maybe even I cheapen the word. It’s not that we do it intentionally in a lot of cases, but it happens none the less.

I have a desire to be different. I want to be truly authentic. For a very long time I have tried to try and fit some sort of mold. “I’m a pattern designer. I’m a seamstress, therefore I should be focused on only those things.” This is something I have struggled with for years. Possibly even decades. This is the mindset that I have had. Well, yes, I am those things, but I am also so much more. My creativity extends so far beyond those things. I don’t say that out of some sort of conceit. I’m simply stating a fact. But what also is fact is… I’m a mess. I fail. I have anxieties. I make bad decisions. I’m a terrible blogger. I get cranky. I get tired. I mess up. Just like everyone else.

My goal is to be more honest here on my site and in my blogging. It will no longer be focused on just one or two things. I do lots of stuff. That’s what real life is for me. Hopefully at least some of it will make it here in some way shape or form. But… it may be sporadic… because… well… like I said. I’m a terrible blogger… but if I weren’t I wouldn’t be me and that would be inauthentic.

A Little Sewing Room Tour

It occurred to me that I never really posted pictures of my new sewing room in it’s more finished state. I ordered a lot of the furniture from Ikea and it took a while for it all to come in, so the room sort of came together in pieces.

My desks are all Ikea Alex drawer units with Saljan kitchen counter tops for the desk surface. I love how much space I have in all of the drawers and I love how durable these tops are. For the desk in the corner, I used one Alex unit and two of the Adils table legs. I have three desks in total.

The star of the show is my glorious cutting table. I LOVE this thing! I used eight of the Trofast units as the base and the Saljan kitchen island top for the cutting surface. I’m primarily a scrap quilter and so I organized all of my scraps by color into separate bins. I also have bins for my pre-cut pieces, my cutting tools, my small mixed scraps, “string” scraps, WIPs, heat and bond, interfacing, laces and trims, and even zippers. I still have room to expand as well. It is so amazing to have all of this at my fingertips all the time. It’s easy to just grab what I need and easy to put things away as well.

I added shelves to the closet and one wall is double hung with hanging rods for hanging finished garment projects and fabric yardage. None of this was from Ikea, but it’s worth showing as part of the tour.

I also have a quilting design wall made out of foam insulation board and covered in quilt batting.

The most recent additions have been some artwork for the walls, giant wall decals and a fluffy pink bed for my ever present sewing buddy.
The water colors were done by Canadian watercolor artist Angela Fehr. You can watch her paint one of them here.
I designed the big wall decals myself from some of my own watercolor artwork and used a quote from a favorite author.

I still have a few things that I’d like to do in here. One of which is to add valances to the windows. But all of that will come in time. For now, I’m loving my new room and hope to spend many hours in here creating to my heart’s content.

A Little Update

I know it’s been a few weeks since I last posted here. Life has been busy. Big changes in some things in life have meant spending a lot of brain power learning new things and has left little for anything else. LOL

I did manage to up load some new designs to Spoonflower and get them tagged and ready to sell.

This first group is a bit of a divergence from normal for me and my typical style. But I think they are fun and they were fun to make as well. I call them Scribble Flowers because they remind me of something I might doodle on a piece of paper when bored. I think they’d be great for a kid’s room or even a teen.

The ones that I have had the most fun with making, however are these little prints.

These prints were inspired by my sweet little great niece, Everyn. Last spring her mother posted a little video of Evie encouraging a butterfly to fly away for the first time. Her sweet little heart just wanted to encourage that butterfly so much and she was so very sincere about it. It just melted my heart. She recently turned 4 years old and for her birthday, I made her a little dress from these fabrics.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The dress pattern is self drafted. Aren’t the little pockets fun? I squealed when I saw how cute they were, and hey, a gal’s gotta have pockets, right? I’m anxious to see her in it sometime.

In other news, our basement construction is done! Yay! I’ve got my sewing room up and working, however there is still a lot more that I plan to do with the room. All in good time. The first picture is a before picture.

And here is the room now!

As you can see there is still some work to be done. I will eventually put a larger cutting table in the room. Shelves and hanging rods still need to go up in the closet and another desk or two so that my machines can all be our and I can have room to sew with a friend. I plan to put a design wall on the wall to the right of the closet door opposite the window, as well. But it is so nice to be moved in and using the room. I’ve found that one of my favorite things is that the windows are at ground level. We have a population of squirrels in our backyard and the the two adjoining backyards on either side. These little guys seem oblivious to me being in the room and come right up to the window sometimes. They are fun to watch.

April Showers Collection

Hello friends!

I just wanted to share this collection with you. I created it quite a while back and I finally got it proofed at Spoonflower. It’s really a fun little collection for spring and I was really excited at how nicely it printed. Once again, my sewing room has been taken over by items from the basement as we are having finishing work done down there. It’s really hard to work on any new projects, but I hope to be able to make something from the samples at some point.

But for now, here it is. April Showers.

Just imagine how cute this could be for a spring jacket or decor in a kid’s room. Throw pillows on your couch perhaps? You know… April Showers bring May Flowers, right?

Half Square Triangle Quilts Are One Of My Favorite Things

Remember those little half square triangles from a couple of weeks ago. Well, this is where I am with them at this point. I’m not exactly sure where this will wind up or how big it will be, but I think I at least have an idea. I’m loving the spectrum idea, I’m just not sure I have enough variety of fabrics to really pull it off.

It seems to have been good timing as the president of my quilt guild just issued a new challenge. A quilt with all half square triangles and nothing else. It will be interesting to see what others come up with as well. There are so many things you can do with them, it’s really limitless in its possibilities.

I’d love to see any HST quilts that you have made as well. Comment below and link to your pictures or post if you would be willing to share.

Baby Botanicals Collection Now at Spoonflower

I’m excited to share with you that my second collection of fabrics is now available at Spoonflower. Introducing the Baby Botanicals collection.

This collection of fresh fun prints would be so sweet in a nursery or in a child’s room. Maybe an Easter dress or a summer sundress? Bed linens or curtains would also be wonderful. Did you know that Spoonflower offers more than just fabric? You don’t even have to be a seamstress to take advantage of all of the unique designs that you can find there. Home decor items like curtains, bedding, and table linens are all available there in so many unique prints. Here are some examples of these prints on other items.

I just received my samples I had printed up and they look wonderful. I hope to make something with them soon and I’ll share that when I do. Until then, I hope you’ll go and check out these and all the other wonderful prints that are available.

Random Scraps

As a quilter, do you ever just get the hankering to just mindlessly piece scraps together and see where you wind up? I occasionally do, and so it was earlier this week. I saw something really pretty made from just light/dark half square triangles and solid squares and I got inspired to start sewing together a bunch of scraps.

I have this box of half square triangle pieces that were cut with my Accuquilt at some point in the past. I just sort of randomly cut pieces every now and then and throw them in here. It serves me well for when the mood hits me.

Not exactly sure where these little babies will take me, but I’m along for the ride. Quilting is sometimes that way, isn’t it?

It’s got me thinking. What is it about chain piecing that is so relaxing? Is it that you don’t have to think too hard about it? Is it a making order from chaos thing? Is it the fun of pairing two fabrics together that you might not normally pair and finding happy little surprises along the way? Is it that you can get a lot done in a short amount of time, but it doesn’t feel like work? What are your thoughts on it? I’d love to know. Until I hear from you, I’ll just blissfully keep piecing away.

Spoonflower: Pretty Peonies Collection

I blogged about this group a while back when I first ordered my samples. I’m happy to let you know that the Pretty Peonies Collection is now available for purchase in my Spoonflower shop. This was so much fun to create and they printed up beautifully. The prints are a little on the larger scale, so be aware of that if you decide to purchase any of them.

There are three color ways available, as well.

I also have a group of coordinating fabrics that are a really fun compliment to the peony fabrics.

Spoonflower Design Challenge: Hand Drawn Florals

As I have taken up an interest in surface pattern design lately, I have entered a few of Spoonflower’s weekly design challenges. It’s a good way to get my designs in front of lots of people with it only being one out of maybe 1000-1500 designs instead of tens of thousands and being lost in the shuffle. So far I’ve been falling into about the 800th place or so. Usually getting somewhere around 25-35 votes. My goal is to someday fall within the top half. It feels like maybe a doable goal.

The most recent one is a hand drawn florals theme. Right up my alley. So this is what I submitted for this week. Voting ends on Tuesday this week. If you feel inclined to go and vote for your favorites you can do so here. I really love the colors and the fresh soft look of this print. I’m hoping to make this one available for purchase soon. I’m waiting on the proof to be printed. Spoonflower is a little backed up right now.

Spoonflower offers a range of fabrics as well as home decor items. This is what this design would look like on a couple of throw pillows. You can see what it would look like on other items if you click on “View all Products” from the list to the left of the swatch picture at Spoonflower. You can click on the picture above and it will direct you to this design in my design library.

This year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

As I have done the past few years, I began working on Bonnie Hunter’s latest mystery quilt back in November. If you are unfamiliar with this, let me fill you in. Every year, Bonnie Hunter, who is an amazing quilt designer and teacher offers a mystery quilt pattern that releases on Black Friday and usually goes into January. What is a mystery quilt? A mystery quilt is made little by little as “clues” are released once a week. You have a week to complete each step and once all the pieces are made, then the big reveal at the end shows you how it all goes together. The mystery is that you won’t know what the full quilt pattern will be until the very end. That’s the fun of it. Bonnie does this out of the goodness of her heart and makes the pattern available for free during the time when the clues are being released. It’s a way for those who maybe struggle with the Holiday season to have something fun to look forward to and keep them occupied during what might be a lonely or difficult time for them. Thousands of quilters from all around the world join in every year and it is really fun to see the excitement and the posts of each clue on Bonnie’s Facebook page.

This year’s mystery was called “Grassy Creek”. I went completely rogue with the colors this year. She mentioned in the directions which of the colors from her palette would be the most dominant color. I knew I wanted a different color to be my dominant color, so I chose what I wanted and went from there. I turned Bonnie’s palette to a black and white photo and then chose my colors based on the amount of yardage that was listed and the tonal value that that particular color had. In the end, it allowed me to use much more of what I already had in my stash and colors that spoke more to me and who I am as a quilter. I just love bright clear colors. I’m so thrilled with how my top turned out. I made a smaller number of units than Bonnie’s original plan. I just did not need, nor did I want to make, a quilt that large. Mine is plenty big enough for my needs.

I’m pretty sure Aeris loves it, too.

Where do I even start?

It has been such a long time since I wrote anything here. Life has been a bit crazy, just to say the least. With Covid only adding to the craziness. Working full time through all of this in a role where I face the public every day has been a challenge. I had a lot of fear in the beginning. At this point I’ve just become used to it. Hopefully I’ll be eligible for a vaccine later this spring. Wearing masks all day has become routine.

In the mean time here’s a portion of what’s been happening with me.

Last summer we began looking for a contractor to finish our basement. After 16 years in our house, we decided it was time to take the plunge and just do it. We spent a good deal of time cleaning out all of the junk in our basement and preparing it to be ready if and/or when we hired a contractor. We had a couple of contractors look at it. One of the bids came in at like twice our budget, so that was a bit disheartening. The second person that came and looked at the job never got back to us at all. We finally got another referral for someone we had never heard of. When he came and looked at the project, we liked him right away. His bid came in just a little bit over our budget, but enough that it was manageable. We signed the contract back around Thanksgiving and work began the first week of January. We are just a little bit past midway in the project at this point and things have gone really pretty smoothly. They just finished mudding, taping and texturing the walls this week. Painting will begin on Monday. We are adding a 3/4 bath, a third “bedroom” which Jason will use for an office. He gets to move out of the lower part of the basement, the area referred to as “The Hovel”. The other end of the basement will be a new sewing area for me (YAY!) and a decent sized storage closet. Sam, our contractor, has been wonderful to work with. If you are needing work done and you are in the St. Cloud area, I highly recommend him. I’ll post before and after pictures once it is all complete in a few weeks.

In the creative realm, I have spent the last year working on my watercolor skills. I added a page on my site where you can order prints if you wish. I’ll try and keep adding them as I do more paintings and have time to scan them.

I also dove into the world of surface pattern design. I plan on expanding this content on my site, but for now I have a link to my new Spoonflower shop. I plan to expand what I have available for sale there as I upload designs and have it in the budget to order proofs. In order to offer them for sale, they must be proofed first. If you see something you like in the public designs that is not for sale, contact me and I will see what I can do about getting it proofed and making it available to you. This does take a bit of time, but if you have time to wait on it, then we can make it happen.

I also began work on the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. I went completely rogue with the color scheme this year and I’m loving the results. More on that in another post.

I just thought I would write a bit of a catch up post as I plan to try and write more regularly. We will see how that goes. I always start with good intentions but I’m not always the best with follow through in my writing.

White Girl in a Split and Fragile World

I have so many thoughts tumbling around in my brain right now that i’m not sure where to start, so I’m just going to start typing and see if I can make any sense of them.

This first half of 2020 has been nothing short of the strangest year I have ever lived through, providing I make it to the end of the year. Wildfires in Australia, a Pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In the state that I now call home. A death, that I hope will bring pivotal change to these “United States” as we know them and the greater world.

But…. I am white. There is no denying my white Americanness. I am fair skinned, freckled and green eyed. I can trace my dad’s family line on this continent to colonial times and even further back to England. My parents were Southerners. My dad was from Arkansas and my mom was raised in Tennessee. I grew up in the north.

My ancestors fought in the Revolution. They owned slaves. They fought for the Confederacy. These are facts that I cannot change. I wish that they were not, but they are. I cringe every time I see a Black person who carries the same surname that was my maiden name because I know the likely reason that it is that way. It makes me feel ashamed. I cannot change it, it is how it is.

I was in elementary school in the 1970’s. The public school that I attended was an intentionally desegregated school. The Black kids were bussed from the south side of town to the north side of town for school. Most of the kids from the north side of town were not only white, but also from wealthier families, so the disparity was stark in many ways. I found myself sort of somewhere in the middle. Definitely white, but not as wealthy as most of my school mates, so I didn’t really fit. Of the few friends that I had, some were not caucasian. One of whom was Cassandra, the tough, but sweet Black girl from the south end. She stood up for me when I was bullied by other kids. i was so thankful for her.

I’m outraged at the subjugation that Black people have suffered, The injustice that they have encountered and the racism and prejudice they have endured. The outrage extends to the marginalization of all non-white people as well. But my outrage leaves me feeling like a hypocrite because of my ancestral past. Like I was somehow a part of the problem in the first place, and maybe I am. Maybe I have been by not talking about it. Maybe I have been by being more passive than I should have been. Maybe its not enough to treat people as fairly as I can in my own daily life.

But why? Why have I been passive and not talking about these things? I think at least part of it comes down to fear. I have never been one to like confrontation of any sort. Confrontation leaves me feeling vulnerable and stupid. I’m afraid that I will say or do something dumb. I’m afraid that i cannot argue a point well. So I avoid, I don’t engage.

But…. it is time that I learn how to set those fears aside. It might take me a while, but know that i am trying. Its time to open myself to other voices to try and really hear them.

So forgive me if my white girl ignorance makes a grand appearance from time to time. I’m sure that it will. But it is time for me to pick up and try to make amends for what was done in the past. I’m not even sure what that looks like, but I know it must be done.

I have a debt to repay, so Cassandra… wherever you are these days. This is for you and yours, to try and chart a better path for everyone.

So, about that "catching up"...

Yeah, I’ve not been good about keeping up lately and I apologize for that. I realize that I’m nearly a year behind at this point, so I’m just going to kind of rapid fire to try and catch up.

Last June, i took up watercolor painting. When I was a kid I remember really enjoying drawing and playing with cray-pas. Anyone remember them? They were oil pastel crayons. I still have them 40 years later. I had been playing around with the Inktense Pencils that my Mother-In-Law gave me for Christmas last year and had posted a few of the doodles on Facebook. One of my friends suggested I join a watercolor group, so I did and the rest is history. I have found that I really enjoy the painting and even had a friend ask for a commissioned piece. I was nervous, but I did it! It turned out well and my friend was pleased with it, so it was a win for both of us.

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Sunflowers For Nathan

You can see more of my paintings on the “artwork” tab of my website.

I completed four more quilts in 2019 as well. Two were scrap quilts for my nieces Mady and Claire. These were made from scraps saved over 15 years of their childhoods. All remnants of things that I had made for them at some point. I sent these to them in Texas for Christmas.
Here are some pictures of Claire’s quilt.

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And here is Mady’s.

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My nephew, Andy married his lovely bride in the fall and I made this quilt for them as a wedding gift. I had to do a little snooping, but i learned that their favorite colors are purple, navy and gray. It was a step out for me as these are just not my normal color choices, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

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And the birth of my new great-nephew, Rylan, prompted this quick little baby quilt.

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My great-nephew, Ethan had a birthday and I created this fun little play mat for him. I designed the vector graphics in Inkscape and had it printed at Spoonflower. It has a drawstring around the edges so that when play time is done, you put the little cars in the center and draw up the drawstring and it’s easy to put away.

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And the year was rounded out by two little dresses for Evie and Quinn. Both made from the same pattern. Bristol by Little Lizard King. I love the way that both of them turned out. The blue one went to Quinn and the other one went to Evie.

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So, that’s a pretty good catch up. I will probably write another post about the quilt show that I participated in in September. But for now I’ll leave it at this.

More Updates... April and May

More updates, as promised. Let’s talk little girl dresses. I have a niece and a great niece who both turned two this May. They are only 20 days apart in age. A lot of times I will use the same pattern for both of them for Christmas and birthdays, only with modifications of fabric, or perhaps sleeve length or embellishments. This year, however, I went completely different.

For my great niece, Everyn, I chose to use one of my own patterns in a size 2T. I used the Estherlyn’s Jumper pattern. For the apron flap, I used a pair of my husband’s old jeans that he hasn’t worn in years because of rips in them. I left the raw edge unfinished so that it will fray in the wash. Then I found a lovely fat quarter in my stash that was given to me by my friend, Amanda, several years ago and another small piece leftover from another project. I appliquéd a cute little bird on the front with a button for the eye. It was sort of an exercise in challenging myself to use what I had on hand. I love how it turned out.

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For my little niece, Quinn, however, I went completely the opposite direction. Some of you may know that I have my roots in what is known as Heirloom sewing. Heirloom sewing incorporates high end fabrics and laces, a lot of hand embroidery and smocking and very old fashioned techniques. The dresses are very soft, classic, lacey and elegant. I have always admired them from afar. I’ve learned and used the techniques in other dresses, but I had never REALLY made what I would call an Heirloom dress with fine fabric and lots of lace. So… that’s what I set out to do. It was a challenge to myself to see if I could really do it. I bought some lovely soft organic cotton batiste. It was so soft and sheer and floaty that it was like sewing a cloud, LOL. However it pressed and sewed up beautifully. I used my own Clarissa pattern and modified it slightly to take the pleats out of the front. I hand embroidered a center panel with purple flowers and then set that in with insertion lace and entredeux. Instead of making a lining, the sleeves and skirt are set in with entredeux and the edges inside are rolled and whipped on my machine with a zigzag stitch. Click here to see that technique if you are interested in how that is done. The neck opening is also trimmed with entredeux and lace.

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I also embroidered an inset panel for the sleeves using the same technique and trimming the bottom of the sleeve with entredeux and edging lace.

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I also created what is known as a “fancy band” for the bottom of the skirt. This is created by edge joining two or more strips of lace with a zigzag stitch. I used lots of wash away stabilizer to keep them from getting eaten by my machine.

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And finally here is the finished dress. I closed the back with antique mother of pearl buttons that came from this child’s great grandmother’s stash of buttons which I inherited a few years ago. It was so very sheer, that I also made a simple slip to go under it as well. The whole process was a bit of a challenge, but it was also a fun one, mostly… lol. This little dress was going to a little girl who was headed into a hot Texas summer, so I hope it was nice and light and cool for her to wear.

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I think that’s where I’ll wrap up for now. My creative juices took a bit of a radical turn in June, so that seems a good place to pick up next time.

So I Promised Some Updates

So I thought I’d approach this a couple of months at a time seeing as I have a lot of ground to cover and I don’t want these to be super long posts. LOL.

I think I left off with my Good Fortune quilt top back in January. That is done, but I don’t have it quilted yet. I want to have it done by a long arm quilter and that is pretty expensive, so I have not yet bitten the bullet and had it done.

In February, my mother-in-law, Burdette, organized an outing for all of us girls on the Lehn side of the family to go and paint bowls for a charity event called “Empty Bowls”. It’s a dinner that people pay to have a bowl of soup and they keep the bowl as a reminder that other’s bowls are empty. The proceeds all go to a local homeless shelter. We had a lot of fun. I painted mine with blue and yellow and put on it a quote from Maya Angelou that says “Let nothing dim the light that shines within.” Writing on the bowls with the little squeeze bottles of paint is a bit tricky, but I managed to make it work.

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At the end of February, I met my sister, Janet, and her daughter, Kayla, down in Clearwater, Florida for a little vacation. My sister both sells Dixie Belle Paint and refinishes furniture with the Dixie Belle Paint. She had a conference in Tampa. We met up after her conference was over to spend a few days of beach time and girl time together. I got my first tattoo on that trip. I had been considering one anyway and we had a rainy day, so my niece talked us into it. I got a sand dollar on my ankle, my sister got an otter on the top of her foot and my niece got a narwhal on her arm. They were done by Emily Elegado from Foolish Pride 2 Tattoo in Clearwater.

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We had a nice time catching up with each other. It had been a long time since the three of us were together.

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In March I finished up a quilt that I had been working on for my niece, Lexi. Her 18th birthday was in April so I gifted it to her for her special day. A long time ago when Lexi was probably preschool age, I got the idea to save scraps from all the things that I made for her and “someday” use them in a quilt. Well, “someday” finally arrived and i finished out the quilt for her birthday this year. There is a little bit of everything in this quilt and I hope that it sparks fun memories for her. I used purple on the back as that was one of her high school’s colors. Lexi loves to play basketball and was part of her varsity team this year that went to the state finals.

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That’s the highlights for those two months and that’s probably enough for now. I’ll be back later with more.

I'm SO excited about this!!!

Hello Everyone! I’m so sorry that I have fallen behind in posting here. It has been a much needed break, but I do want to back track and show you a few things that I have been working on over the last several months. That will be coming in future posts. But right now I have to show you what I am so excited about!!!

A couple of months ago I began painting with watercolors. It looked like fun so I went and bought some supplies and just jumped in feet first. That’s sort of how I do things craft-wise. I just jump in and test the waters and just see what happens. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it isn’t. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have been enjoying painting. Like, so much that I don’t even really want to sew these days. Maybe its the newness of it, maybe that will wear off with time. I don’t know. Right now I’m just going to roll with it.

I have also really wanted to design fabric for a long time. I took some video classes in surface design a few years ago and I have done a few things with repeating patterns with drawings that I did in Inkscape. However, I found drawing in Inkscape rather tedious and very time consuming and I just wasn’t really enjoying that part of the process, so I tabled the idea.

Enter watercolor….. One day I just painted a couple of practice sheets.

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I decided to scan them into my computer. Then I removed the backgrounds and loaded them into Inkscape just to see what I could come up with. I had so much fun with it that I sort of went nuts making stuff. The end result…. a whole line of fabrics.

So here it is! I uploaded those designs at Spoonflower and had them printed. I am SO excited! I am absolutely thrilled with how they turned out. Everything was exactly as I had envisioned!

Introducing the Pretty Peonies line of fabrics. I have not made them available for purchase yet at Spoonflower. I’m kind of looking for feedback from you all about that. If you would be interested in my making these available please comment or send me a message to let me know. If there is enough interest, I will make them available.

There are three color ways. Petal Pink, Luscious Lavender and Breezy Blue. There are also coordinates that I made that will mix and match with all of the color ways. The color ways will also work together with each other.

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The largest scale floral has my own hand painted peonies and lavender stems on a large polkadot background.

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The medium scale print has a solid background.

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There are also tossed lavender sprigs on solid backgrounds.

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And, these are the coordinates, four colors of larger polka dots and a striped fabric as well.

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Petal Pink

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Breezy Blue

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And Luscious Lavender

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And here are a couple of close ups of the prints.

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I would LOVE to hear your feedback on this and whether you would like to see this available for purchase through Spoonflower or if you have suggestions of other sites that you use for custom fabrics, I’d like to hear about them, too.

Now…. just to figure out what to sew….