forty days

It is that time of year again. The days are getting noticeably longer, clocks get set forward an hour, dizzying displays of everything concievable in a nauseating array of pastel colors screaming at you everytime you walk in the grocery store for some milk, yes it's... LENT!

Being protestant, I generally don't mark the passing of Lent with much thought, though I do realize the forty days leading up to Easter are symbolic of Jesus' time in the wilderness when He was being tested by Satan. An Anglican friend was visiting a few weeks ago and commented on the fact that we were having a worship arts festival at the beginning of Lent. The atmosphere in the sanctuary was highly charged, the singing shaking long idle dust from the rafters. Aparently, Anglicans don't say Allelujah during Lent. It's not a time for praising God [that comes Easter Sunday]. Forty days out of the year, that leaves 325 days... but I digress.

My point is until recently, I didn't pay much attention to the whole Lent thing. That is until art suddenly got involved. Years ago when my mother was single and my grandmother still alive and not crippled by arthritis, they stumbled on pysanke. My family is not Ukranian. Or Russian, for that matter, or any of the other ethnicities from whom pysanke came from. We're Welsh and Scottish and Sicilian [my mother and I are]. My mother was an art education major, and learned pysanke from a fellow student's mother, who was Ukranian. A few years later, my brother and I were born and she quit doing eggs because we'd get into the dye and smash the egg shells. When I was in college, mom pulled out her materials, ordered some new dye and taught me how to decorate eggs. And I'm not talking about hardboiled eggs and food coloring.

This year we tracked down some farm eggs, which had harder shells and are generally prettier than any brown, free range or organic egg you could find at a grocer. 7 dozen eggs later, we left the farm with duck eggs, Easter eggs [a lerger than jumbo size with a pale bluish color], Banty eggs, and button quail eggs [a dark speckled mocha color, no bigger than the end of your pinky - and too cute for words]. We lost a dozen, which had been stored on our back porch when the temperature plunged to the low teens one night. Ukranian eggs can be decorated raw, but traditionally, they have two holes pierced through the shell - one at both of the elipse ends - and the contents of the egg are blown out either mechanically with a tinsy bellows or by one's own breath. We will not be blowing out the quail eggs, of which there are a dozen, and we lost a dozen to the frost, so there's five dozen eggs that need to be blown out. What do we do with all the egg? You guess is as good as mine, but I saw a custard recipe that called for a dozen eggs, so that might be a good place to start.

funk

I have this quilt I've been working on for time immemorial. It's the first one I ever attempted, and I'm down to quilting the last 4 corners. The agony! What to put there?!

This should not be as hard as it is. Ugh.

stormy seas

This past weekend when I was with my grandparents, I had quilts out that I had been working on. I'm sure I mentioned this in the last post, but at present I'm having a major ADD moment.

I need to remeasure it, but I think the Ocean Waves finished out at 108"x115"... somewhere in that neighborhood. (what was I ever thinking?!) I need to put a back on this sucker, but I kind of don't have any money to invest in fabric right now, as it stands, I'm going to have to take out a loan from the bank of mom to get binding for the three baby blankets (I might have enough flannel from a previous project to cover the back of the cherry blossom.) Initially I thought it might be really nice to try to get some extra wide fabric, but I'm having a hard time finding anything I like. I'm thinking that cotton or wool batting might be nice to try. It took me two summers to piece that sucker together, it spent this summer out of mind hanging out in a suitcase while I digested other things. A few days ago I went on a mad search for it, thinking I had lost it, and truthfully, wondering if my parents had read my mind and sent it off to be quilted for me. Not so much with the last part, but now that I've had it out, I've been easing back into the murky green waters of this project. I'm going to quilt the triangle sashes in a wave pattern, and put mariner's compasses in the squares. I'm still not sure what to do about the outside sashing, but that comes last anyway, so I'm sure I'll have something figured out by the time I get that far. And as much as I didn't want to quilt the whole thing by myself, I'm thinking that's my only option. It isn't going to get done any other way. I have to finish the other projects at hand first, but it needs to be next in the queue.

hearts and gizzards

spent the weekend with my grandparents and parents at the Crook Farm Country Fair. We had excellent weather, thank God. I was gifted with a bag full of fabric to add to my stash, which included two half completed quilts. One is a double irish chain in mauvy pinks, the other is a hand pieced hearts and gizzards with a white packground and a wide variety of pre 1970's calicos. Some look to be from the 1930/40's. There's five rows of completed blocks that, when stitched together, will be in the neighborhood of 45" wide. I think the pattern says the quilt should be 70"x90"... 98"... I was never very good with numbers.

The weaving shop was set up for the weekend, and the Bradford area spinners and weavers were set up. I think the name of their guild is Enchanted Mountain. I wasn't there last year, but aparently the Bradford area quilters had been set up and they decided not to this year, my best guess is for reasons of foul weather last year. At least the weavers had a permanent structure around them, the quilters were probably in a tent on the lawn.

Today is the first day of class. This time next year I won't be here.



I hope.

Why it's Gabriel, Gabriel sayin!

wow it's been a while...

I got hired at the costume shop as assistant for the spring semester of 2008. It was awesome. Then (even better!) I got a summer internship at Kent State University with Porthouse Theatre in the costume shop. It was their 40th season, they presented Anything Goes, Alice... (and origional adaptation of both "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass") and The Music Man, a personal all time favorite. Delight of delights, I actually got to stay for the production of Music Man because the director needed band members, and I play tuba!

I learned a lot this summer. A plethora of new sewing skills. I had such a wonderful experience at Porthouse. The people were fantastic. There were two women in the shop from Cleveland Playhouse that were fonts of information (and patience, God bless Clare and Estelle). I wasn't sure initially whether or not I would even want to come back, but as the summer progressed, I started praying that they would hire me back. I used both my comp tickets for Anything Goes and went back three more times as an usher to see it again... and again. I loved watching everything come together. Okay... maybe not loved. This small part of me was dying that I wasn't up there singing. I was kicking myself that I hadn't auditioned after all, but let's face it, I'm pretty rusty in the dance department. I was much happier as an active participant in making the whole product come together, which I was so blessed to able to do at the end of the summer. Am I "good enough" for an MFA acting program? We'll see.

So when I get some things together... which means I have to find my camera again... I'll upload photos of some of the projects I worked on. My favorite costume, and by far the most intensive, was a red and black trumpet specifically for the song "Blow Gabriel" from Anything Goes. I also found this awesome King Arthur fabric that has Stone Henge on it, and I made matching baby quilts for a set of twins in the family. Just finished a red sashed blanket for a little girl due in December. Gotta find the camera and take some pictures. Also have to abandon the 'puter, there's a caller here I'm being rude to.

new developments

Costume and Make-up was canceled on Wednesday and one small voice beneath the cheering cried out "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" I love costume and make-up. My new favorite past time is hanging out in the costume shop.

The mesh bag is done. It's a little wonky, not gonna lie. The blue quilt is still on the hoop. I reupholstered a footstool and slip covered it last weekend.

I found these long lost patterns in the garage and repurposed an old choir dress for a new life:

getting into the swing of things

I started this semester with a quilt on the hoop and a knit mesh bag on the needles, and an as yet mystery project for Costume and Make-up. Let's see if they get done before the semester does.