What a Day

I fell in love with a piece of art made from recycled materials in the Pueblo Chieftain this morning. A
Pueblo Community College student art show was to be on display on the Pueblo campus today. Due to other commitments I couldn't see it in person but I really like the photo. I might decide to do something similar to display on the wall of the garage/shop that faces my kitchen and dining room windows.

It was such a lovely tawney, blue sky day that I decided to drive to the High Country Quilts shop in Colorado Springs to see if I could get a free motion foot for my Bernette 75. (The Bernina shop recently merged with this quilt shop, which is my favorite in the Springs.) Learning to do free motion quilting was one of my goals for this year and it's already mid November and I haven't, but the July 12 x 12 piece is demanding free motion quilting to reach it's potential, so... It turned out that they didn't have one in stock but they are ordering one for me, so it will still be a while before I can post my July quilt.

While there I discovered something I wish I had found several months ago. I have been using hexagons in the 12 x 12s this year and just finished cutting out 81 small hexagons for the November 12 x 12. I had one plastic 5 inch hexagon template from which I have extrapolated various sizes of templates from thin template plastic, but these do not work with a rotary cutter. Fabric hexagons take a lot of time to cut with scissors and are not very uniform, which makes it difficult to fit them together well.
I bought a Mercury Hexagon Template which can be used to rotary cut hexagons, from strips of fabric, up to 8 1/2 inches. How much simpler and more precise than my old method! I knew there had to be a better way. Why couldn't I think of this? I am so pleased because I was just wishing I had an 8 inch template for a series of larger quilts that I am planning for next year.

This ruler can also be used for making diamonds, 60 degree triangles, and trapezoids (half- hexagons).

I also ordered a book on making locker hooked rugs from quilt remnants, a locker hook tool, rug canvas and string. These rugs and mats have the primitive farm house look I love and I'll tell you more about it when the book gets here and I can experiment with it. I'm so happy that these hooks are large enough that I can do this with my arthritic hands and it is something I can do while watching TV in the evenings with Joe. I've been wanting some new rugs, and have lots of scraps and remnants. It is dangerous to go to a quilt shop or show!

To top off the day, I got a cell phone call from daughter Kat, with the "1812 Overture" playing loudly in the background. This is one of my favorites, and she wanted to tell me that my 18 year old grandson, Ben, had burned a CD of several pieces of classical music and was playing it. It hasn't been long since he was teasing me about the "boring" classical music station that I listen to. He thought they sounded like the guy who does the Visine ad on TV. I told him that young people like noise and excitement while old people crave peace and serenity. Of course, now that I think about it, the "1812 Overture" isn't either peaceful or serene, is it? But it is not peaceful in a different manner than hard metal music (music?).

Driving home in the twilight over the foothills of the Pikes Peak Massif, I got a fantastic view of the Arkansas River Valley backed by the Wet Mountains with the Sangre de Christo range looming in the back on the skyline. It made me think of "the Wall Around the World" from the Darkover series by Marian Zimmer Bradley that I've read many times in the past 35 years.

Mr. C's Restaurant, in Penrose 6 miles down the road from us, where we had our wedding dinner 23 years ago, is closing tomorrow after 30 years in business. It's time for Frank to retire and do some traveling in Europe with his wife. Joe has worked on nearly every piece of equipment in the place for the last 20 years, so Joe and I had dinner there tonight to give Frank our best wishes. I asked the waitress if I could buy our cute cactus margarita glasses as a souvenir and when Frank heard about it he came out and gave them to us so we could remember him when we have a drink from time to time. We will sure miss Frank and his Matadors (a fried burrito type Mexican dish smothered in green chili).

It was a good day! And I even got a yard of bright colored frog fabric.

Girls Day Out

Before my surprise hospital trip, Kat and I had planned that she would spend this week with me and we had several day trips to places of interest, like Old Bent's Fort; Amache, where a Japanese internment camp was located during WWII; the Sand Creek Massacre site; and Bishop's Castle, in the Wet Mountains, south of us.

Our plans were edited due to my lack of energy, but on Thursday we managed to have a great day out.

First we headed south through the lovely Wet Mountains, which were so green with multitudes of multi-colored wild flowers, to Bishop's Castle. Mr. Bishop has been personally handbuilding this fairy tale fantastical castle, and feuding with numerous local, state, and federal agencies, from native rock from his property, hauling the large stones up the walls with a primitive block and tackle method. In addition to unbelievable towers, he has a dragon's head smoke stack sticking out of the top of the castle, where the smoke from the fire puffs out in the winter. The castle is adorned with much airy metalwork trim, since the Bishop family have have long owned a metalwork business in Pueblo. As we have watched him build it higher and higher through the years, I've hoped he was as good an engineer as he is a designer. It has become an important tourist attraction in the area and he funds it entirely from free will offerings and a gift shop where he sells photos of his castle as well as all kinds of appropriate style items made by local craftspeople. Several years ago I bought the Celtic cross I wear at the giftshop. I've taken the grandchildren to see the castle several times when they were visiting, but this was Kat's first visit and she was properly awed by it.

We then traveled on south to San Isabel Lake, where we sat at a wet picnic table (on my Audubon throw as it had just stopped raining) and ate our picnic lunch, while watching squirrels, chipmunks and blue Stellar Jays looking something to eat. I was able to get a couple of photos of a small ground squirrel but the gorgeous Stellar Jays refused to cooperate and pose. As we were getting back into the car a deer walked across the road right in front of us and stopped to stare for a moment, but I couldn't get my camera out and operating fast enough to take her photo. As a photographer, I make a good fisherman, always talking about the one that got away.

Kat asked how close we were to the town of Rye, since her oldest and closest high school friend, Klee, lived at Rye. Since we were just a few miles from Rye we drove there and found her husband's name in the local phone book and Kat called and got directions to her home. It turned out that her address was Rye but their place was about 25 miles east in the broken canyon and mesa land at the foot of the mountains where the old Hatchet Ranch had been divided into mini-ranches about 10 years ago. We drove on narrow, gravel roads that wound around and up and down over the ridges and only lost our way once. We managed to figure out where we went wrong and after retracing part of our drive we finally found the road Klee lived on. Because of the broken nature of the land, not to mention it's extremely rural location, the cell phone service kept going out, which made checking the directions problematic. Now we understood why her three daughters had done their schooling online. Klee's husband, Steve, is able to do most of his work at home by computer, also, and only has to travel to the office every couple of weeks to meet with his colleagues.

Klee is an amazingly talented woman who raises several breeds of sheep, angora goats, and angora rabbits for their wool and fur, which she cleans, dyes, spins and weaves into marvelous pieces as well as selling the wool and yarns. I had last seen Klee at a family barbeque in Fowler for Missouri Day a couple of years ago. As we visited she was spinning her own wool with a drop spindle. She also makes lovely small baskets from pine needles as well as making papers from fibers, such as sunflower stalks, and okra pods. She and the girls make masks and collages from the home made papers. The family also grows a lot of their food in their vegetable garden, sing professionally at places like The Royal Gorge and are heavily involved in all aspects of theatre, which they started years ago at the Nomad Theatre in Boulder.

Steve and Klee designed and built their spacious and airy home which is designed around a solarium for growing plants as well a providing passive solar heating and cooling. They still have to complete some of the final construction tasks; finishing laying the stone veneer on the fireplace (the flat stones are carried down from the ridge behind the house a few at a time), and installing the door and window trim, etc. The views from the windows are spectacular from Greenhorn Mountain on the Western skyline to sweeping views of stony ridges and grass covered hillsides dotted with sunflowers sloping to the house. I loved hearing the baaing of the sheep and the song of the Rocky Mountain Canary (donkey braying) as well as the whispering breezes.

For dinner, Klee and Steve fed us homemade bread, home grown lamb and onions grilled on skewers, and the best coleslaw I've ever had made from a fresh picked head of cabbage with red grapes (I don't think they grew the grapes, but if they think of it they will probably put in a vineyard.) We had such a great time talking, laughing, and admiring the girls' artwork that we stayed later than expected and Klee led us back to the I-25 in the dark and sent us on our way home through Pueblo (rather than the mountains in the dark) with hugs and waves. On the way to the highway we were surprised by a black cow suddenly showing up next to the car on the side of the road. According to Klee, the locals all know that you have to watch out for those black poppers that pop up when you don't expect it.

It was quite late when we got home and altogether it was a wonderful day!

By the way, I want to express my appreciation to all of you for your prayers and encouragement. When I discussed the results of the echo cardiogram with my family doctor we were surprised to find out that I do not have Congestive Heart Failure, the test showed that my heart is beating strongly and the medical staff is mistified by what caused my condition. I now have appointments with a Cardiologist and my Pulmonologist in August and September for more tests. My doctor wondered, along with me, if this could be related to the Sarcoid that affects my lungs. I researched online and found that when Sarcoid affects the heart it can mimic heart failure. So now I play the waiting game again. At least I can breathe and my feet and ankles are normal sized and don't hurt so bad any more. But I am so weak and tired and my brain is just not functioning well, I am so forgetful and confused.

I actually managed to do more work on my June 12 x 12 the other day. This is the base piece which had to be quilted before I add the photos. The first sewing I've been able to do in weeks. And I am playing with the idea of doing something with the fantastic imagery of the echo cardiogram for my July piece. I'm also hoping to do some experimenting with a piece based on a drawing of a fantasy tree by Brena, Klee's middle daughter. She was gracious to allow me to photograph her drawing and do a fabric interpretation of it. She only asked to be allowed to receive photos of the process of creating it. Thanks,Brena.

Pomegranates, Demeter & Persephone

Oh my dear friends, run, don't walk, to the nearest store where you can purchase the Jan./Feb. issue of "Cloth, Paper, Scissors". At the back of the magazine is an article, "Artist Dreaming Deep" by Loretta Benedetto Marvel. As well as a very thoughtful and poetic essay on creativity, it has a photo of the most luscious pomegranate creation in existence. Stitching, beading, quilting, it's all there.

I quote "As artists, we embrace both Demeter and Persephone. We are equal parts creativity and longing. We walk the tightrope of inspiration and seeking inspiration, possessing both the searcher and the searched, and perform a constant dance of shifting back and forth between the two. I winter I go both underground with Persephone and roam above earth looking for her." I hate to stop but you need to read it and see it for yourselves.

The pomegranates caught my eye because I love them. I long for my own pomegranate tree, since seeing the one in my Uncle Bernie's garden in Albuquerque. As seen in the photo, the flower buds look like mini pomegranates. Unfortunately, the winters here are too severe to have one in the garden. I have considered trying one in a large pot, that can be moved in the winter, but my house and sun porch just do not have the room. Right now it is stuffed with the giant Euphorbias and Aloe Vera that go in my desert garden in the summer. Pomegranates and Persian Pickles, ah such beauty! I compare my garden to the Persian walled gardens, that were so refreshing in the desert, an oasis to refresh the body, soul and eye.