A potpourri of project updates for July first

Here's a photo of my progress on the Brownies quilt whilst I was in New Jersey. Since I didn't make the deadline for the Thimbleberries challenge at Randy's, I've taken time to work on other things.



Last night I got the stripes all pieced for Finn's baby quilt and put the first thin border on.



I found backing flannel and a great polka dot fabric for the last border in New Jersey. My goal is to have this baby quilt sandwiched and pin based by the end of the day. Once it's quilted and off to baby Finn, I'll go back to the Brownies quilt.



This is the scarf I finally finished. No lie, I've been carrying this around for years. The yarn and the pattern came from Needleworks, a shop in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois that my friend Diane and I used to frequent. It's been two years and change since our last trip there and I bought it way before that!



I also finished quilting Mérida Remix in New Jersey so I'm sewing the binding on it this morning. Hand sewing the binding and quilting the baby quilt means lots of work to do on the screened porch.

My mom as needlewoman

Mom and I feeding the pigeons on the State House lawn, Columbus, Ohio, 1952.

My mom would laugh and brush off the thought that she was a needlewoman, but although she has never been a seamstress, she can knit and embroider up a storm. She patiently taught me to knit when I was in elementary school. My patience was not so great then and I never got the yarn tension worked out until I picked knitting up again in college. By that point, my mom was making knitted afghans for the entire state, it seemed. She was cranking them out at a great rate. It's a terrific rippled pattern that's super simple, but looks great. This is an afghan I knitted using baby yarn.

This is one I made for Dan.

My mom, like me is an anxious person and likes to keep busy. She never just sits and neither do I. We are either reading or doing some kind of needlework. Mom embroidered pillow cases and pillow tops and she actually cross stitched a quilt top when I was in college. To finish it, she found out that some women from my aunt's church got together to quilt, so she got Dad to make her a quilt frame and she invited those ladies over to quilt her bedspread. It was the first time I ever saw a group of women around a frame quilting. How I wish I'd thought to take a picture of that! I love cross stitch, too. This is a sampler that hangs in our bedroom.

Thanks for your patience, Mom.

Me, Mom, and Anna in Crawfordsville, Indiana in 2003.

"Putting it together"--My selvage quilt

One of the neatest blogs I've visited lately is called the Selvage blog. The highly creative work of Karen Griska really appeals both to my artistic and frugal sensibilities. She's inspired me to share a piece I did for my last one woman show in Crawfordsville called "Putting it together". It was named after one of my favorite Stephen Sondheim songs from "Sundays in the Park with George." It's about the creative process--"the art of making art" as Sondheim so brilliantly puts it.

I used to wind huge balls of selvage and finally decided to try knitting with it. You can see some of the printing in this detail.

I love the strong textural quality of this piece.

Today is our Multicultural Fair at school. Team India was very excited yesterday afternoon when we were setting up our booth. It should be an extremely fun filled day.