Out with the Pink Already!

You know that expression that success is one part inspiration and nine parts perspiration? I think there's an analogy when it comes to design that goes something like this: perfect design only happens in your head. The rest is all trial and error.

So here's a picture of my awful prototype for the bling bags I'm making to be part of Mom's memorial celebration. The velvet ribbon catch is not quite straight. For some reason that now baffles me, I decided to use zigzag instead of straight stitch to sew up the top and sides. I think it looks messy.

The results, in my opinion, are ugh, ugh, ugh and ugh.

But that's an all right thing to happen when you're working out a prototype. I made two more last night and with one small, final adjustment, they'll be just what I want.

But then there's the matter of the lining fabric. No matter how hard I try to like this dull pink fabric, the more I don't. When I brought the prototype into the house to show my husband—my first and best critic—he remarked that "it looks like fabric that someone got dirty."

I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear him say that. I have an inborn instinct to use up or reuse whatever I can. The religion of recycling, if you will. But some fabrics just can't be saved. That damn pink is now in the waste basket and I feel so much better.

Global, Schmobal—Give Me Local!

I detest big-box stores. Walmart is, in my opinion, a mini-version of hell with its noise, its low quality, the blaring ads on monitors that dot the aisles, its glaring lights, its piles of junk on the sale tables. To me, everything in there is planned obsolescence on steroids.

And all its stock is purchased from around the globe making Wally World a prime example of the awfulness of globalization.

Same with K-Mart, Best Buy (known as Same Buy in this house because its prices are really no different than anyone else's), BJ's and any grocery store except the co-ops here in the Upper Valley.

Which brings me to these eggs and my visit to the hairdresser's last night.

Notice the beauty of these shelled wonders—not all brown, not all the same size and shape. These eggs came from real hens housed in a fenced area that keeps them safe from the fox and weasels that live around here. They strut and nest at will, eating good food, tended by my neighbors. I can see the hens when I pick up my eggs.

And when I crack them open, the yolks are firm and the most gorgeous shade of yellow you will ever see. They cook up nice. They have real flavor.

All for $2 a dozen, right up the road at the neighbors' house with the added benefit of a moment of chat when I pick them up. Local food, local producers, neighborhood connections.

Important stuff.

Here's another example. I drove over to Lebanon, NH yesterday for a much-needed visit with my hairdresser and friend, the scissors-wielding Rita. We're about the same age, similar life experiences, and have kept up this long running conversation about what's going on in our worlds for several years now.

Rita was coming around the back of my head and was listening to me talk about Mom's death. In walked her next client, a friend of mine from my quilt guild, a lovely warm woman named Karen. So what did we do?

Expand the conversation to include three people instead of two, of course. Rita finished with me, Karen and I switched chairs and while scissors were applied to Karen's locks, we continued our powerful conversation.

Local services, local folks, connections among people of good will.

Important stuff that requires an attention to the world you actually live in, not the one that the media and marketers and WalMart think you can't live without.

The Spirit of Bling

Getting back into my quilting studio proved difficult—OK, impossible—when I first returned to Vermont after my Mom died. But last night, two and a half weeks later, I felt ready to spend time in my personal fabric headquarters. So I finally got started on the bling bags I'm making for the jewelry we're gifting from Mom.

I'm healing and adjusting. I'm ready.

I chose to use this dusty pink solid fabric for the interior of most of the bags. I have enough to line 24 of 32 of them.

This pink fabric became a thorn in my designer's eye when I used it in the log cabin (alternative pattern) blocks in my book, Teach Yourself Visually Quilting from Wiley. The blocks were built of pink and purple fabrics (yep, I had Mom in mind when I did them) so this pink solid seemed like a good choice.

The blocks were cut and sewn then photographed. When I checked out the photos, I realized that this pink was the wrong choice. Its solid color and dullness (it's too gray) make it stick out among my other choices in the quilt. Now every time I look at those pages, all I see is that "damn pink."

But, of course, I created Mom's last quilt from blocks I had left from the book. She loved it, lots. So that "damn pink" now carries a great deal of sentimental meaning.

Ironic twist, isn't it?

But that doesn't mean I have to use the stuff unaltered. Nope, in the spirit of bling, I bought some stamp pads with pigment, not ink. I also selected some fabric-paint pens, one full of glittery purple stuff that's now my new favorite crafty item. Then I rummaged among my small selection of stamps from Christmas cards past and found an M (originally for Merry but now for Marcia) and a star.

About two hours later, that "damn pink" had morphed into "that damn pink with bling added." A marked (oh, you will please pardon the pun) difference.

A Stand on the Sand—A Back Story

I sat down to scan photos of my Mom last night. My brother Dave, the family videographer, will use them to put together a DVD of Mom-ness that will be part of our memorial celebration of her life.

A scan of this picture made the cut.

In our family, to my Mom, to all the folks who cared for her in the nursing home, this photograph is simply referred to as "the picture." Taken in 1974, it features yours truly (as the oldest, I'm at the end of the line) all the way up to Dave in the front, the youngest Hakala, who was ten at the time this was taken.

The occasion was our parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Its taking was prompted by Mom's reply to our "so what do you want for your anniversary" questions. All she wanted, she said, was a picture of her kids.

At this point in time, we all lived on the Cape. Since this was the pre-digital camera age, we needed someone with a large format 35 mm to do this. It took a while but I found out that one of my co-workers had all sorts of cameras so we were good to go.

Now it was difficult to get anything past Mom so it took my oldest brother Don (standing in front of me) and I some finagling to gather up the younger sibs (Heidi, Paul and Dave, the three youngest, weren't driving back then) and coordinate with Jim, Pete and Mark to get to Sandy Neck Beach in Sandwich at the right time while praying for good weather.

We spent a few hours posing while my co-worker snapped away with cameras large and small. We were thrilled, figuring we'd have a lot of pix to choose from.

But none of the large format photos survived for reasons I think had a lot to do with the photographer. This one, taken by the smaller 35mm, turned out to be the best.

My Mom and Dad treasured this picture for more than 35 years. The original, a 9 x 12, will travel to the memorial celebration, and then get shared among us siblings. We're planning to each take a turn with it, exchanging it on or about Christmas every year.

When Mom and Dad moved into the nursing home, this photo took up prime real estate on the wall of their room. Mom used it as a way to introduce anyone who'd listen to her kids, and we all got used to being asked "which one are you?"

And they're we're caught in time, our thumbs out as we stand on the sand.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I'm not completely certain but I think that yesterday concluded our kayaking adventures for 2010.

Next weekend, we're going to move my office and quilt studio into the downstairs area of our home. I'll have more space and will be far more willing to sew in the evenings. And my new desk space will be surrounded by windows. I've long figured I'm more than half plant because I crave light whenever I sit down to write.

And our son is going to take over the office space in the garage. It's really nice. I've been out here cranking away for fifteen years now, and I know he'll love it.

And then we have to redo the roof (a task all of us dread but it must be done before winter) and then it's to the Cape for my Mom's memorial celebration.

By the time we can take off for fun again, we'll be lacing up our boots, and seeking new trails to explore.

Lessons on a River Well Traveled

We set out for quite a different trip this morning. Our intended destination was North Hartland Lake, a place we've been before but never during foliage. But when we got there, the gate to the access road was shut and locked.

"Wilder," my husband said.

We turned north on Route 5 and ended up in Kilowatt Park in the village of Wilder on the Connecticut River.

The park is nice, the put-in convenient and we were off in no time at all.

I have to admit the joy of the journey got squelched at the start by this totally wacko duck hunter. Imagine if you will either Monty Python or Jerry Lewis taking off in a boat to hunt ducks. We know there was a boat there somewhere because you could hear its engine's chainsaw whine (and so could the ducks) but you couldn't tell what kind of a boat it was. The hunter—and I'm going to assume it was a male—had covered the whole thing in dried weeds to make a moving duck blind.

He headed downstream toward Wilder Dam while we turned north toward the Montshire Museum, shaking our heads in bewilderment when "Blam! Blam!" Every bird for miles had already taken to the skies at the sound of the engine but there he was, tearing up the skies.

Things settled down as he moved out of earshot.

The mighty Connecticut is lake-like at this point in its travels from near the Canadian border to the place were it empties into the Atlantic. It's wide enough that a head wind made paddling a bit tougher (upper body strengthening, right?) as we wandered up to the Montshire Museum in Norwich and Blood Brook lagoon.

This part of the town of Norwich used to be a thriving village known as Lewiston before Interstate 91 flattened it back in the early 1970s. The lagoon is a nice spot reached by paddling under a railroad underpass. Jay remarked that the underpass was better constructed than the not-very-old Ledyard Bridge that connects Norwich to Hanover, New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. The stones are hewn to fit perfectly with one another, a sculptural testament to a time when architecture was built to last.

Milfoil—a foul weed from Asia that is choking waterways all over New England—is an evident concern here, and there were floating islands of algae. You'd better believe our boats will be washed down with bleach before we put them in anywhere else.

I kept imagining what it looked like when the log drives came down the Connecticut from 1875 to 1915, and the people who built and worked in the mills that used the water to turn stone wheels to power saws or grind grain.

The Connecticut was once considered the best landscaped sewer in the Northeast and the fact that we could paddle it today is a testament to the importance of legislation such as the clean water act. There are always lessons to be learned on the water.

Random Thoughts for a Friday

Somedays, the brain just trails off and random thoughts sprout like mushrooms after rain. (Speaking of rain, we sure could use some down here! I've never seen our river this low.)

Since it's Friday and too warm for the end of September (in my opinion), I thought I'd wander among my synapses to see what I find.

• When was the last time you saw anyone walking without a cell phone plugged into their ear?

• If people complain so much about TV commercials, why don't they hit the off button and find something else to do?

• I make it a policy to never eat anything with a list of ingredients that I can't pronounce.

• Where would all the politicians go if we stopped paying attention to them?

• How much money do you suppose Purdue Pharma makes on the illegal sales of Oxycontin? More than they ever lose in lawsuits, I'll bet.

• What's the difference between a falling-down barn and a picturesque element in a bucolic landscape?

• Why does hair turn gray? Why not purple or peach or turquoise?

• Did you ever notice how the pattern of veins in a leaf resembles the pattern of veins in the human body, the cracking patterns in drying mud and the pattern of river systems with their tributaries?

• Does anyone really believe "your call is important to us"?

• Did you know that apple trees do not grow true from their seeds? For example, if you planted a seed from a Cortland, you would not get a tree that bore Cortland apples. In order to replicate a particular apple tree, you have to use grafts from a similar tree.

The Power of Friendship

My friends keep warning me to expect emotional roller coasters in the days ahead. But, of course, we all think that is what happens to others. We're strong. We can handle this.

But then the roller coaster unexpectedly heads downhill, and we're not in control.

Last night I ran into a woman that we've known since we moved to this part of Vermont. She taught with my husband and had our son in class.

She told me her husband, her best friend and closest companion, died on September 11.

We shared, we consoled, we sympathized. And then we both withdrew into our own pain, now with an additional edge given by sharing each other's. And yet with gratitude for the mutual acknowledgment of our shared grief.

When I got home, I nearly adhered myself to my husband as we sat on the couch together.

Earlier today, I had lunch with one of my dearest friends. She's had plenty of troubles of her own—health, getting laid off, a pending divorce—and yet she reached out to me again and again when I was away with Mom.

And today she gave me the gift of her listening. And my roller coaster ride was gentled by her touch.

Waste Not, Want Not

I've been quilting and creating sewn objects for quite a while. Before I delved into quilting, the intricate designs of these beauties intimidated me. Some of the more complex patterns can still feel that way but now I know I can figure out just about any pattern given enough time. And if I can't, I belong to a guild full of women who are always willing to share their experience.

Anyhow, this quilt top is the first one I ever made. You'll notice it's just a top, not a full quilt even after all these years. Why? I don't like the blocks.

It took some quilting experience before I figured out why but now I know it's the fabric choices. They are too much alike—they're from my floral period, an initial stage that most quilters outgrow—and the size of the prints is the same.

The result, to my eye, is boring. Yeah the fabrics do a visual blend thing that's OK, I guess, but putting four of them together in the same quilt really makes me yawn.

Which brings me around to the "Waste Not, Want Not" section of this post. Back in early July, I made a small quilt (often referred to as a lap quilt) of log cabin blocks in pinks and purples for my Mom. Up until then, I never understood why anyone made lap quilts. They're too small for a bed and don't cover much when you lay down.

But then I watched what Mom did with hers. By July, she was quite weak, not rising from her bed at all. A large quilt would have been impossible for her to manipulate. But that lap quilt was just right. It lay lightly across her shoulders or over her legs. She could and did pull it up to her face, cuddling it as a child cuddles a banky. It kept her warm without weight when any sort of touch became more than she could bear.

She used that small quilt to the day she died. In fact, it's buried with her.

When I got home and started grounding myself, I spent time going through my UFO pile (that's Unfinished Objects for the uninitiated), making decisions about projects, reminding myself of where I left off before I went to the Cape. I realized I had a number of unfinished pieces that could be done up into lap quilts, including this one.

So tonight, my husband—he who will unsew for me while watching TV—will take this apart so that I can make four lap quilts to donate to a nursing home.

Waste not, want not.

Water Circles

Today is the last full day of summer. Only three weeks have passed since I drove to the Cape to be with Mom for the last time. The weather was full-on summer when I left—hot, humid—and I wore shorts with a light shirt.

Today, it's cool enough to warrant a long-sleeved shirt with a fleece vest, jeans and socks. I've cycled the clothes in my closet and bureau drawers from those I wear when it's warm to those I wear when it's cool. There's no going back now.

All of these changes are repeats from years past but they are not the same. As I renew my acquaintance with my fleece shirts and thicker socks, their appearance makes the interior of my closet seem filled with new again, for a short time at least. I'm cleaning up my gardens, just like I did last year. But this time, Mom's not where she was last year.

I've long held the notion that everything I need to know can be learned in a story told by Lady Nature. And Her most important lessons are contained in circles.

Our shoreline is roughly bounded by two hooks of rocky ledge that swing out into the river's current like two commas in a single sentence. In both cases, these quartz-and-shale fingers push the current out of its comfort zone, and the water circles in response.

As fall approaches and the water level drops to its lowest point of the year, the difference in temperature between the still-warmish water and the cooling air combine with the eddying impact of these rocky commas to form bubbles that coagulate into patches of foam. This foam collects in pockets such as the one pictured here, whirling round and round until is dissipates at the edges of the pool or spins off downstream.

This morning, watching the sudsy water slowly spin in place in the rising sun, I felt reassured. It's coming around again, different yet the same.

Morning Walk on the Next to Last Day of Summer

The Power of Bling

It's four weeks until the memorial celebration for my Mom, and you can feel the bustle in the atmosphere. My brother Pete is scurrying to get pictures of Mom and Dad enlarged for display. Mark is helping my sister plan the menu. Heidi has piles of scrapbooking materials and pictures all over her dining room table. My cousin from Virginia has unearthed three albums of old pictures of when Mom and her sister and brother were kids.

There's a cousin flying in from Alaska and a niece coming up from Houston. Mom's grinning, I know, because she's the center of attention for her family.

If Mom had written the song "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things," the list would have been very long indeed. The top of the list would include bracelets and necklaces, pins and scarves, pink finger polish and everything sparkly.

Once we moved everything out of my Mom's room at the nursing home, my sister and I gathered all her jewelry—her bling—together in order to figure out what to give to whom. We picked something out for every female in our family and for the women who tended her in the nursing home. Thirty seven bags later, we were done.

Now I'm making simple bags—bling bags—for our gifts. These fabric choices are the beginning of that. More pictures as they evolve.

Woodward Reservoir—A Paddler's Delight in Photos

We left early this morning with our boats and paddles, heading for Woodward Reservoir in Plymouth, Vermont. This delectable spot is an easy access on Route 100, about 3 minutes from that road's intersection with Route 4.

Located at the base of Killington, one of the tallest of the Green Mountains, this body of water has a large summer camp on its eastern side dedicated to conservation and farming. So we were advised to check it out after Labor Day.

Don't you just love the skunk cabbages at the top? They're located on the edge of a boggy island that's home to nesting loons in spring. The moss turns this deep red as well.

Perfect way to spend a beautiful Saturday morning.

Solidago—Goldenrods

I have been a goldenrod lover for a very long time. When I was younger, people with allergies that appeared in August usually blamed goldenrod for them. But these showy yellow-flowered plants have been much maligned. It seems the pollen from the sunny flowers of these plants is too large to drift through the air so that it can annoy our eyes and nose.

Nope, goldenrods have been thought guilty by association. It seems that their diminutive neighbors, the nondescript ragweeds, are the ones sowing all the sorrow.

I have looked and looked for the proper name for the goldenrod pictured at the top. I never saw it until we moved here. It's become my favorite, the one I call twirly goldenrod because of the way the flowerets cluster in bunches around the central stem.

The last picture is of a variety called early goldenrod because it blooms the first week of August. Its appearance signals the dying back of the chlorophyll in the leaves and another seasonal change is well underway.

Bookmarks

It's been a week today since I got home from the Cape, and it's the first day I feel that I'm back in my own head and body.

Over the years, I've become an adept at organization. I'm an inveterate list maker, a tool I use to think projects through or to gain perspective on a longterm goal. My first impulse, which I follow without fail after completing a large project, is to clean up the mess I've created.

For me, organizing and cleaning are grounding exercises, akin to handsewing or crocheting. They're all hands-on meditations.

For weeks, I've had two soundtracks running in my heart and head, one dedicated to my family and work, the other to my Mom. At times, one amped up to overpower the other but they've both been there for months. I've been distracted at the best of times, indecisive, uncertain, trying to balance the various parts of my life and finding it more and more difficult as the summer wore on. By August, my whole attention was focused on Mom. Nothing and no one mattered as much as she did, and I just had to hope that the people in my life understood that. With one exception, they did.

Now back home in my own space with my husband and son and dog and cat and woods and river and house and all the other details of my personal life, I've been making lists, thinking, cleaning, organizing.

I have a collection of bookmarks, part of which you can see here, that consists of cards handmade by friends, pieces of my own drawings, mementos of other times and other places. I realized last night as I finally got to sit in my quilting studio for the first time in weeks that I've spent the last week putting the bookmarks of my life back in their places.

Jay just shakes his head when he catches me selecting just the right bookmark for whatever new text takes its place on the top of my reading pile. When you think about it, any old piece of paper would do if all you want is something to slide between two pages. But he recognizes that each of these pieces is attached to a memory, marking a point or recalling a person in my life. They are signposts on my personal journey.

Putting them in their rightful places among the pages of my life knits my past and present together so that I can feel my feet solidly on the ground as I stride off into my tomorrows.

Blue Volunteer

I spent some time yesterday catching up on my personal 60s project and realized I am waaaayyyyy behind on the plants part of this. So far, I've only listed 18 botanicals which means I have 42 to do.

It also means we have some green left over for the winter months, a fact which can be cockle warming indeed.

This upright addition to the long skinny garden that separates the road from my yard showed up about five years ago and is spreading nicely, thank you very much.

It's common name is blue cardinal flower and its Latin nom de plume is Lobelia siphilitica.

When fully in bloom, it stands approximately knee-high with this rich indigo hue. I know there's a red version of this because I've seen it in gardens around Lake Memphremagog up in Canada when we visited my favorite aunt, Fluff, and her husband Bill.

Great plant. No staking needed, which is key in my book.

Accessorize

My sister-in-law Sandi called this morning to see how I was faring. Actually, Sandi's my ex-sister-in-law but we adopted her early on in her relationship with my brother Pete so she's remained a member of our family in spite of their divorce.

But that's another story. This story is about color.

Being a quilter, color reigns on the top of my favorite-things list so I'm pretty aware of my likes and dislikes. I adore greens and blues and coppery browns, deep reds, yellows and oranges. When in a quilt shop, I have to mentally grab my shirt front and propel myself to the neutrals just so I have something in the stash cupboard for contrast.

My Mom's favorite color was pink followed closely by purple. Sandi related how her whole closet is devoted to black and white with some gray thrown in for contrast.

Now, I'll wear pink sometimes in a shirt or a sweater. I have one pink summer dress which I've worn once. I like it as an accessory but the pink pile in my stash cabinet is minimal. I once made a baby blanket with pink and had a very difficult time designing it. It's just a color I resist using.

But I've been making a point of wearing something of Mom's each day since I got home or doing something I think she'd get a kick out of. That's how these shoes got pink shoelaces.

Jay bought these Rockport Walkers for me several years ago. The tops have worn well but the soles are dry and can get slippery. They are now my gardening shoes and one of the laces broke just before I left for the Cape. I retied it but, of course, it became much shorter than the other so one shoe flopped around on my foot. Annoying.

I'm still trying to catch up with work and family stuff and yesterday became an errand day, including a trip to a shoe store for laces. I spotted these hot pink numbers and snatched them up.

By the time I pack up the garden shed for the winter, they will be something less than the pink they are now. But I have to admit that when I laced up these shoes, I laughed out loud because I knew Mom got a kick out of them.

Absolutely the Only Reason to Own a Crockpot

Kitchenware manufacturers—like pharmaceutical companies—have a vested interest in making us believe that we need what they are selling. Like designer cold remedies, kitchen gadget companies gin up the urge to buy by convincing us that all will go well with the food we prepare if we just purchase one of their gadgets.

Remember when everyone had a wok? How about upscale mixers for bread dough or cake pans you would use only once, maybe, in a lifetime?

Personally, I think the same can be said about crockpots. It always fascinated me how instructions for cooking in these items were accompanied by preparation instructions that used every other pan in the house, and in the end, the carrots retained their crunchiness while the potatoes lost their desire to be anything more than paste.

But at this time of year—apple season—I wouldn't trade my crockpot for a new blender, even if it worked the way the marketers claim. Why? Because crockpots make the best applesauce you've ever had.

The recipe is very simple. Wash the apples then quarter them, removing stems and seeds. Cut the quarters in half again so you have eight pieces from each fruit.

Fill the crockpot to the top. Sprinkle about a teaspoon or so of cinnamon on top of the fruit, add a quarter cup of water, put the lid on and turn the pot to high.

In approximately 2 to 3 hours, the fruit will look puffy. Stir it down to make sure it's all soft. Turn off the pot and let the mixture cool.

Run the sauce through a food mill to take out the skins and you will have the smoothest, most sumptuous applesauce ever.

And nope, I never put sugar in my sauce. Why would you?

The Eight of Hearts

I love to hand sew but my recent excursions into this part of the thread and needle world have been limited to finishing bindings on a machine-stitched quilt.

But earlier this years, I promised myself to take the time to perfect my appliqué skills (or at least improve them).

When my vigil for my Mom started in earnest at the beginning of August, I decided it was time. So I set myself up with an appliqué project, sewing hearts.

The choice of hearts makes sense from a practice standpoint because the shape has curves, an outward pointing tip and and inward pointing top. I figured if I stuck with hearts, I'd keep my hands and mind occupied (somewhat) while spending a lot of time with Mom.

The number eight has showed up a lot with my Mom—eight children, eight grandchildren, eight years that we got to spend with just her since my Dad died, eight months of this year that she spent helping us learn how to accept the reality of not having her here with us.

Even though I did not plan it, I ended up making eight hearts. My sewing improved. Some parts of them were stitched while tears stung my eyes. There are a couple I don't even remember making.

But there are eight. Of course, if you turn the numeral eight on its side, it transforms into the symbol for infinity.

Eight hearts.