Handmade gifts...

Back online! I didn't realize how much I use the computer until I didn't have it for a few days. But things are fixed up now. There was a sign on the computer store wall that said, "To err is human... to really foul things up requires a computer." That says it all in my book.

Wish I could say I made this handmade Mama Kitty and her kitten, but I actually found it in a craft shop while we were in Maine. Thought she was just adorable and loved her style. We decided to give her to our daughter Joanna. Joanna's old yellow cat died last spring, and her co-workers found a sweet stray which they encouraged her to adopt. She did so, naming her new pet Jasper. A few short weeks later, Jasper gave birth to five kittens! As my husband Jack sometimes points out, "No good deed goes unpunished." Happily she's found homes for four of the kittens, she'll keep one, Jasper is getting a new name, and both cats will be neutered soon.

Here's a beautiful handmade bag that just arrived from my quilting friend Joanne. It's perfect... size, color, roominess, fabric, everything. The strap is just the right width and length. It may be the most comfortable one I've had, and it will be a go-to bag.

And after donating a pile of fabric at the quilt guild recently, quilting friend Penny made this thank-you gift. This little sofa is a tissue box cover. Cute! I didn't even remember having this fabric. But it's back home now in a dandy new form!

Quilters are such generous people! I'm feeling very grateful.

And while I was taking these photos, I decided to allow this stuffed bunny to recline on the sofa. I've had it for years, and just never seem ready to part with it. I showed the bunny to my employer some years back. She commented, "No wonder you were drawn to this bunny. If you were a rabbit, this would be you." I wasn't sure how to take that thought, but since I like the bunny and her personality (her good looks aside), I took it that this would be me in the best possible way! What say you? It's good to be back.

Blogging at the Speed of... Molasses.

We had a power outage the other day and when I turned the computer back on, it could harldy get out of its own way! Just terribly, awfully s--l--o--w. It's going to sick bay tomorrow. I have some things to share with you, but will have to wait until...?? I time out and lose things before getting things uploaded. Hopefully there will be a remedy very soon, and my fingers are crossed that this post will be uploaded successfully.

Meanwhile, thanks so very much to those who follow this blog and keep up with the various projects. I really appreciate it, and treasure your comments when you have time to make them. And thanks for you patience while problems get resolved. Enjoy the final weeks of summer, and I'll be back soon. Best from Nancy

Beauty as Well as Bread...

We spent most of last week visiting the Coast of Maine, staying at Goose Rocks Beach near Kennebunkport. What a refreshing time! The weather was perfect, the air so fresh, and the views spectacular. Two mornings we drove to Ogunquit to walk the mile-long Marginal Way. The view above is of Ogunquit River and the Atlantic taken from the foot path.

There are overlook benches and markers along the Marginal Way, and I was taken by the above placque with this quote from naturalist and preservationist John Muir. "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." How true! And this is certainly one place that checks all the boxes on that list.

At the end of the Marginal Way is the small fishing and shopping area known as Perkins Cove. Here's the view from the footbridge that crosses the waterway. Passersby sometimes have to raise and lower the bridge for a boat to travel through. Jack was called on to render this service on our visit. He's done it in the past, too, and we like to entertain ourselves with fake newspaper headlines like "Tourist Causes Traffic Jam for Perkins Cove Boaters" or "Florida Man Falls from Footbridge While Operating Lift". We are easily amused.

Our rental cottage had a picnic table in the backyard which overlooked this marsh, part of the Wildlife Refuge. We saw lots of bird activity, and welcomed the peacefulness, while we also enjoyed our lobster dinners.

One of our favorite places to eat is the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound which serves the best lobster rolls on the open-air deck.

And every night we drove into Kennebunkport to stroll around, shop, have some ice cream, and admire the beautiful flowers and inviting courtyard gardens.

One evening some rain fell, but we were rewarded with a rainbow at the end of the brief shower. Of course we visited the local quilt shop, Knight's Quilt Shop in the Cape Neddick area. That's the day we also visited the iconic Nubble Lighthouse near York Beach. We returned to Florida a day earlier than originally planned, but we packed a lot in the time we had. Lovely, lovely! And good to be home.

Just before our trip I listened to the recorded book titled "Maine", currently on some bestseller lists. I enjoyed the narrator's New England accent, the storyline of family dynamics, plus the mentions of the many landmarks we've become familiar with over the years of vacationing in the area.

Summer Reading List...

Summer is all about books and reading, right? I'm happily surrounded by books of all kinds this summer. First are these three wonderful "little books" from a recent swap on Creative Swaps site. Swap hostess Lenna Andrews, from the Gulf Coast of Florida, made the little denim and lace book at the upper left. She stamped the denim, which she left with a slight raw-edge for a nice frayed look, and stitched on lace trim and a ribbon closure. Inside are blank pages for me to journal on. These are sewn in and trimmed with paper tape. It's a sweet little book that measures just 4" square. Sentiments on the inside covers say "It is the smaller moments that create the most exquisite beauty" and "Create as though there are no critics." Good words to live by.

The pink fabric book at the upper right was made by Siri Hauge Opdal from Norway. It's soft and flexbile, and contains page after page of trims and embellishments. Clearly she put a lot of thought and workmanship into the pages... and she must have a very interesting stash of embellishments! Even the spine is trimmed with small heart-shaped buttons.

A poem by poet Wilhelm Busch is the theme of Sabine Schneider's swap book. Sabine is from Germany. She used painted canvas fabric as the base, and added machine sewn transparencies, stamped images, glittered lettering, and hand sewn trims like a feather and button. There's even a pen nib sewn in, shown above, to go along with the literary theme. The book is tied closed with sheer rayon ribbon. Lovely!

We are heading to Maine for a few days of travel and lobster dining, so of course books are part of the trip. I've got my e-reader Nook loaded. Also I borrowed Diane Mott Davidson's latest mystery, Crunch Time, from the library. Her series of titles make enjoyable reading, plus they contain some interesting recipes. The main character, Goldy Schulz, is a Colorado caterer who just happens to stumble into all sorts of mysteries while she's cooking. Books are such great travel companions.

Waiting for me when I get home is this "Squash Book", above. I started it a long time ago, using a piece of hand-embroidered, mono-printed fabric for the cover. It's little (about 4" sqauare), but there is a lot of space to fill inside. I'm inching toward filling it, and hope to show you that one completed in August. I'll also provide a link to a tutorial I found for making one of these... they are great fun to put together! See you in August.

An Open Book...

At last! I have completed the Remains of the Day journal. The cover was shown in a previous post. I may be slow and plodding, but projects eventually do get done. After enrolling in the class offered by Mary Ann Moss, I made the cover and began saving and sorting all sorts of paper and images for use in this journal. Then it was time to compose pages, sewing bits and pieces in place in a pleasing way. Business cards, food photos, magazine covers, advertising brochures, patterned paper, envelopes, paper bags, fabric strips... all of it found its way into the journal.

There are two signatures (groups of pages) in this journal, and each one contains 8 folded pages for a total of 32 pages in the book. I even sewed enough pages to have a pretty good start on my next journal.

There is always more to a subject than first meets the eye, and I've enjoyed learning about book making. There's an entire vocabulary to master... words like "signature" and "spread" (the two pages you see when a book is open). Even the left and right pages of a spread have a term. In the photo below, the green heart is on the recto, or right-hand page, while the yellow arrow is on the verso, or left-hand page. I don't know if I'll remember the terms, but I hope to craft more handmade books, so they might just stick with me.

I've also borrowed several library books on the subject of handmade books. It's fascinating how many methods and styles there are, some of them quite simple to accomplish. "Making Handmade Books" by Alisa Golden is one title that has useful information and clear instructions.

The next questions to answer are: Will I be courageous enough to write in my journal? Will I have anything to say? Even if it remains blank, it's been great fun to create!

Pretty Blocks in a Row...

Here's another effort for our guild's Row Robin swap. There are 8 of us participating. Ordinarily the rows would not be shown until the completion date. However, it's safe to show this one now because the recipient is not online and won't see it. She chose a pretty, dusty lavender batik as her focus fabric, along with a tone-on-tone print for the background. And she's open to whatever block designs each quilter wants to dream up.

Well, that's all the permission I needed to sort through my batik scraps and come up with pretty bits for these four string-pieced Square-in-a-Square blocks. Such a delightful mess I made out of those scraps! Then I puzzled over the corner triangles, trying to remember the formula for cutting quarter-square triangles. What size, what to add... but at last it came to me... these are just half-square triangles, and the math for cutting them was easy. Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill. Problem solved.

I wanted to add some fusible applique to the row as well. Two Star Flower blocks from Cynthia Tomaszewski's "Aunties Garden" pattern seemed just the ticket. And I arranged the string-pieced blocks in both horizontal and vertical orientations when assembling the row.

These kinds projects are such fun to work on, and allow plenty of room to experiment with something small. No pressure. I'm not making a whole quilt... just a row. The rows measure 54" finished width. And we can create our choice of block sizes and combos within that requirement. Three rows down, and five to go. I look forward to our "big reveal", and seeing the quilts completed.

Whirligig Quilt...

This is another quilt I've been inching along toward completion. Now the binding is on, and it is done. The pattern makes use of width-of-fabric strips joined in pairs. They're 2 1/2" strips, so it's a good quilt for using a Jelly Roll or similar pre-cut fabric collections.

As you look at the quilt, you'll notice that the border blocks and the blocks in the inner rectangle are reverse images of each other (see side-by-side blocks in photo below). Using the strip-piecing method in the pattern results in both blocks being sewn at the same time. So it really feels like a "quick quilt." You can find the pattern in quilt shops, or on the Quilt-in-a-Day website.

Claudia from Quiltworks of Orange Springs quilted this project. I like the graceful, swirling leafy motif she used on it. You can see it more clearly in the photo below where I've placed blocks on the back side of the quilt to photograph them. It's a soft and feminine quilt. I'm not sure where this quilt will reside. It may become a charitable donation quilt, but I'm still thinking on it.

Below are some more of the leftovers. There are lots of 4-Patch units from trimming the strip sets. Of course I can hardly bear to throw anything away, so these will lurk in the closet until I dream up a project that will make use of them. They won't be lonely in the closet though. There are more leftovers in there to keep them company. The ones at right, below, are from a Drunkard's Path quilt top that is waiting for a border. What do you do with your leftovers?