Quilting Like Crazy

I needed a relaxing hand-held project to use as a break in between stints of sitting at the quilting frame, something I could do without devoting too much thought or energy to it. To that end, I dragged out the bag of fabric scraps labelled "fragments" and the larger tub marked "littles" with the idea that it was a good time to use up those bits and pieces too good to throw away, but too small for anything but a scrap quilt. I can't bring myself to discard those oddly shaped snippets which still have some kind of character on them, like a cat face or a sheep, or a pretty floral. Sometimes the figure isn't quite complete...cat missing its feet or a butterfly with only one wing...good enough for a crazy quilt, but far from the "fussy cuts" I like to put in my geometric quilts. When the bag/bin approaches critical mass, I make a crazy quilt. Sometimes, I machine-stitch them, but in this case, I wanted a handwork project, so I'm appliqueing the pieces together. I haven't decided yet if I'll embroider the seams.

Washington State Fair 2026

Permit me a moment of personal pride here. The Washington State Fair (aka the "Puyallup Fair") is one of the ten largest fairs in the country. I entered five pieces this year, and brought home four ribbons: two first prizes for weaving, a second and a third for spinning. My fifth item (a pair of nålbinding slipper socks) didn't fit in any of their categories and wound up being put with embroidery by virtue of being made with a needle. Consequently, it wasn't really competing against similar items, and only received a "participation" ribbon. I am quite happy with this yield, particularly with respect to the plaid ruana. It was by far the most complicated tartan I have ever woven.

Quilting Ring Cycles

And so it begins! I finished pin-basting the top, backing and batting together yesterday, and today, I began quilting Ring Cycles. Each nine-patch will have a circle around it, the circles overlapping slightly in the white triangles and forming a scallop around the edge of the central hexagons. It is a very plain quilting job, plain to emphasize the illusion of large circles created by the coloured nine-patches when viewed from a step or two back. It should go quickly, and I hope to have it done in time to put it in at least one fair next autumn. One small problem did arise before I could get started. I searched every possible hiding place for my circle templates and couldn't find them anywhere. I had just reached the conclusion that I wasn't going to be able to start the project today when I had a brainstorm: use the inside round of an embroidery hoop! I had one which was exactly the size I needed. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.

Boletus Zelleri

According to my 1921 edition of Ernest Seton's "The Book of Woodcraft," Mark Twain was the first to offer this tidbit of wisdom regarding mushroom edibility: "Eat them. If you live they are good, if you die they are poisonous." A bit extreme to my way of thinking, but definitely conclusive. The modern version of his philosophy runs, "All mushrooms are edible...once." I have no idea how many wild mushrooms my mother fed me when I was a child, but in hindsight, I feel it's a miracle I'm alive today. As I learned more about mushrooms as an adult, I came to realize that she had badly misidentified some of the fungi she'd been collecting over the years, notably blue-capped Russulas which she called "Blewits." The blue-capped Russula has white gills and a white stipe. Blewits are completely blue. I cringe when I think of the "Oysters" (Pleurotus ostreatus) she dried behind her woodstove. Were any of them actually Angel-wings (Pleurocybella porrigens)? People have been known to live after eating Angel-wings, but they have been involved in several fatalities as well. It's easy to mistake the two. However, one bit of advice my mom instilled in me was that any Bolete with red pores or a red stipe should be considered dangerous. Likewise, if the flesh of a Bolete stains blue when broken, it should be avoided, since some people react badly to them. In the case of Boletus zelleri (above), field guides will tell you that it is reportedly edible, but with a reddish stipe and blue-bruising flesh, I'm not going to give it a try. My mom was right about one thing: better safe than sorry.

Dewey

The best guess so far is that this charming caterpillar is Spilosoma virginica (Virginian Tiger Moth), and I figured we wouldn't get more than a "best guess" based on a photograph which fails to show any specific field characteristics. The moth is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. He was minding his own business, so I minded mine, running through my daily tai chi "silk reeling" exercise on Big Bridge. With those guard hairs, I certainly wasn't going to interfere with him. That said, I had already found a better name for him than his dry scientific moniker. I mean, isn't it obvious to you that he should be called Dewey?

Forest Gold

With commercial pickers behind every tree, it's becoming harder and harder for a simple lover of wild mushrooms to harvest enough for "a bowl of soup and a fry-up" (as I like to term the amount I try to gather every fall). I set out before noon, and before I'd gone half a mile up a trail which has served me well the last several years, I was saying, "It's still too green. I'm too early by a week or two." At the same time, I was having an internal argument, with one voice saying, "Turn around, go home," and another saying, "When have I ever been one to turn around on a hike?" For me, that's almost unthinkable, but there I was, thinking it. "I'm getting old," I reproached myself, forcing my feet forward. Just then, I spotted a button-sized chanterelle, one of only half a dozen mushrooms of any type I'd seen so far. I scanned the surrounding area and...what?! There, on a mound of moss, were half a dozen decent-sized chanterelles which someone had cut and left behind! From their condition, I guessed they'd been cut yesterday, and having been out in the cold night air, they were still fresh and succulent. I dug my perhaps-bag out of my pack and loaded them in. Then I spotted a couple more a little deeper into the grove. All thoughts of turning around disappeared. I had enough already for either a bowl of soup or a fry-up, but not both. I collected a few more before reaching my turn-around point (where, incidentally, I did my daily tai chi routine on the bridge in the company of a woolly caterpillar of some sort). I arranged my collection on a mossy log for the photo, and then on the way back, added another 6-7 which I could then spot by being in a different angle of the light. As it turned out, I had a very large bowl of soup and a whopping fry-up from this, my first (and possibly only) mushroom hunt of the year. Stripping the forest of its gold is not my way.

Return to Ring Cycles

It has taken me this long a) to decide how I wanted to finish the edges of the Ring Cycles quilt, and b) to push my principles aside because buying fabric meant having to shop at Cult Central (otherwise known as Hobby Lobby). The store gives me the creeps. The religious atmosphere is stifling, to say nothing of the air of intolerance the employees project as they "profile" me from my short hair and less-than-feminine mode of dress. But I was desperate. I will not buy fabric sight unseen, and since Ben Franklin announced closure of their Bonney Lake store, their selections have dwindled substantially. Likewise, the options at Michael's are limited. Thus, I found myself forced to go to Hobby Lobby, where I suppressed the urge to lace my conversations with profanity for reaction's sake as I requested a 5 1/2 yard cut of lavender cotton broadcloth. That was enough for a border and the backing.

Laying it out meant clearing the floor in the back bedroom, and even then, I couldn't spread out the full width/length. With Merry locked out, I first basted the quilt top to a piece of white muslin to keep the edges of the lavender border from showing through, and then I basted a second time to attach the border strips. I am now in the process of appliquéing the quilt top to the border by hand. It's going fairly quickly. I'll be spending the winter months quilting in the hopes of putting this one in at least one fair next autumn.