coughing

"You can just go on YouTube. Everything you need to know will be there," murmured the clerk. "Or, you can come in for free, one-on-one lessons," she added, coughing into her elbow.

fat snakes

 We left the shaded path to step out onto the sun warmed bank overlooking the pond. Something was happening just beneath the surface of the water. There was a swirl and splash and another swirl. To our right, a sun warmed snake rippled away. There was another swirl and splash below: a hunter fattening up for the long winter. Do snakes get fat?

synchronized

Traffic slowed to a sputter and then pressed pause. Off to the right in a shade spangled yard, two squirrels sat like bookends. Only their tails moved, ruffled by the afternoon wind. Then in unison, with synchronized motion, they began sampling chestnuts.

wild winged

( black bird on bull rush card )

wild winged flute

a buzz and a blur

Hummingbirds are a buzz and a blur.

feelin' groovy

 Long, long ago, I pieced this patchwork. Then I folded it up and put it on a shelf. I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it. I wasn't sure about a backing fabric. I just wasn't sure.

A year or two later, I pulled the pieced top out of the cupboard and added a wide, dark brown border. It seemed like the right color. Many of the fabrics were etched in dark brown. But something didn't feel right. I wasn't sure what it was, but something just didn't work. 

Time did what time does and then, rather suddenly, a few weeks ago, I pulled the pieced top out of the cupboard and put it on my design wall, AKA the floor. Poor little patchwork. Maybe it wasn't the color of the border, but the width that was wrong. My husband, AKA a valuable second opinion, agreed. The brown border was 'completely overpowering.' Quick as a blink, before I could reconsider, I sliced off four and a half inches all round. The border was now the same width as the blocks making up the pattern. Blissful harmony. 

The beauty of slicing fabric from the border meant I also suddenly had fabric for a matching binding. Double happiness.

I wanted straight line quilting but I also wanted all the borders to look the same. Not little, bitty, short lines one direction and great, long, quilt length ones the other.  What to do. Hmmmm. Diagonal! That was the answer. It's pretty fun to quilt a square quilt on the diagonal. You start with the shortest line imaginable. And the lines get longer and longer and longer and longer and then shorter and shorter and shorter and presto, yahoo, you are done! 

I love this quilt. I love the colors(so 1960's) and the pattern(so mesmerizing) and the quilting(so modern) and the backing. (vintage Ikea) Long, long ago, my mother named it Pieces of Eight after pirate gold and that is an awesome name. Can a quilt have two names? No? Yes? Well, I am also thinking of this one as Feelin' Groovy.

once for all

"Have you seen the robin eggs yet?" my granddaughter asks. "No," I say, leaping from the lawn chair in anticipation.  Away we dash,  around the corner of the house and up the stairs to the deck. Bumping into each other, clutching arms, and holding our breath, we tip toe towards the far corner. 

A robin has faithfully nested year after year in our yard and this trek to the deck has become a yearly pilgrimage.  We have knelt, bowing slowly, our foreheads touching the dry dusty boards, eyes zooming in and out of focus, the nest a few inches below. 

This year my granddaughter became the guide (and the tech support). She asked for my phone and placed it over the space between the boards, screen side up and there were the eggs! Three dusky green eggs glowing in the golden grass of the nest. No bending or bowing. She even snapped a picture for posterity, suggesting this new view would be less stressful for the mother robin, a sort of once for all and all for once.

more than anything

More than anything else, as far as wishes go, she wished she could go blueberry picking. She wished she could get in her car and drive through the mountains to Blue River and take her pails out into the woods. She thought she might meet our Mom there. (I thought she might meet a bear there!)

Our mom grew up picking wild blueberries. So did we. We shared the patch with hosts of mosquitoes, and black flies and no-see-ums. No bears that I remember but my oldest sister remembers a friend of our mother crashing out of the woods with terror stamped on every feature. If making noise is the best defense against a bear attack, she was positively invincible. 

I'm sorry I didn't think of making this quilt the moment my sister mentioned our Mom and blueberries. Sometimes I need neon lights and a marching band to wake up and smell the coffee. But the moment a quilt appeared before my glazed eyes I rushed to my sewing cupboard. A few years ago, my sister had given me a quilters panel with bears on it. Hazah!!! Perfect! I phoned the nearest quilt shop to see if they had blueberry inspired fabric but Covid had closed their doors permanently. I phoned another store and another. No blueberry fabric was to be found. I trolled about online and finally found some but the shipping time was six weeks!! And that was just an estimate. 

Fortunately, desperation saved the day. I cast my net further afield and turned up a quilt shop in a nearby town, a shop I didn't even know existed. They had a smidge of blueberry fabric left but were closing in less than an hour. Was it a fools errand to lurch out of the house, just as every sensible person was hastening homeward? Gamely, my husband agreed to drive. He gripped the steering wheel and headed off, changing lanes and taking back alleys. I gripped the door handle and breathed shallowly. 

But we were triumphant. I spent the weekend slicing and dicing and piecing and pinning. When the new week dawned, I had a moment of clarity. I had tried every possible fabric combination and there was no other possible way forward except to have more blueberry fabric. Not much. Just a smidge really. Likely just the amount that had been LEFT ON THE BOLT by me!!! 

I drove back to the shop myself. Sadly, I had not paid attention during my husbands wild race to the store and it was as though I had never been there before. I completely lost my inner compass before I let my phone help.

Amazingly, they still had the snippet of blueberry fabric I had unwisely left behind. And it was reduced in price now because it was a scrap. I could have kissed it. I staggered out to my car with a giant roll of quilt bat and a teeny tiny wisp of fabric.

The backing is a bunch of black bears boldly browsing....... That fabric was from my sister too!! I'm telling you, this quilt was meant to be hers!

 I folded the finished quilt into a postal box and put my faith in Canada Post. They didn't let me down.

georgie

 

My granddaughters are two of Moriah Elizabeth's six million fans. They love to curl up and watch her brandish her paintbrush. She has created dozens of 'squishie' characters but Georgie, the pineapple duck is a legend in his own time. 

 

With stars in my eyes, I stitched up a little felt version of Georgie.

 

 

To impress my granddaughters. 

 

But alas, their hearts belong to Pickle. (the dinosaur) 

 

 

Fame has tarnished Georgie as fame often does.

something

 There's just something about babies isn't there?

around

 

He fell in love with the most beautiful of the trees, he made wreaths of leaves and strung them around his neck

-Tove Jansson

capital letters

Babies are big news. This quilt says, "It's a GIRL in capital letters."

april hello

for cards

Watercolor painted Easter chicks for cards

little

 She wanted a Kitten dressed in green with Mary Janes to match. And she mentioned she was 'desperate.'

Her sister wanted a Bunny with a white pom-pom tail, a bend in one ear and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Little felt friends.

trio

 A trio of bears.

packed her suitcase

 Sweet little Kitty Blue has packed her suitcase and headed over the Rocky Mountains to her new home.

now and soon

 

 Sisters!  I am making a cousin now and soon......friends!

(Inspired by Gingermelon's little creatures)

arms full

 Willow waits.

And waits.

 Far Away Friends wait too.

Being together will be arms full of happiness.

 

And the icing on a cake.

Happy Valentines Day

limited visibility

 

This very blurry picture is one of those "limited visibility" shots that the delete button usually takes care of.

Not in 1964 though, apparently. 

No, then you took aim, counted your money, mailed away the film and waited. 

And waited. 

You expected a few limited visibility shots. 

I don't remember this picture being taken. 

I don't remember...oh wait....a flicker.

I sort of remember those dogs.

I think at least one of them belonged to my friend Evelyn, who is the little girl on the far right.

I'm the little girl on the far left hoisting a dog of my own. Such an armful. It may have been our own dog although I feel doubtful about that. 

See my little feet, so Mary Poppins? Kind of reminds me of my Gramma. Heels together, toes out.

The little boy beside me was my dearest friend. Literally the boy next door. 

My older sister, also happily clutching a dog is in the middle. 

It's Blue River so of course there is snow. 

Snow, dogs, friends and an obliging photographer. No wonder we are all smiling.

worth the effort

It is equally important to remember the bumps in the road as it is to remember the perspective gained from them and so I offer a disclaimer with this story. I offer it because 2021 is still fresh and new, like a field of snow with no footprints, while this woeful tale unfolded way back in well trampled 2020.  

The happy hum of voices changed and I could hear my granddaughters quibbling. Is there a sound that is sadder to the ear of a grandparent than the sound of their grandchildren quibbling? The Younger One began to cry and was soon recounting the Human Rights Violations of her older sister, not so much in that moment, but as a past pattern in her perspective. The Older One seemed determined to placate and negotiate but to no avail. The past and the present have a way of being viewed as a single force when the chips are down. Thank goodness the unkindness of yesterday is not written with indelible marker. It takes a bit of scrubbing sometimes but its worth the effort for the shine underneath.