Hardiest of the Hardies

Day 323: Over the years, my collection of hardy fuchsias has dwindled from seven to three. The survivors include two small-flowered varieties (Genii, pictured here on the left, and Riccartonii, which is not currently in flower) and surprisingly, a large-flowered type I expected to be one of the more delicate ones (Garden News, right). I may have accidentally removed Army Nurse during a fit of autumn weeding when its roots became so entangled in buttercups that I couldn't separate the good from the bad. In any event, these remaining plants give me great joy when they flower, and the hummingbirds concur. They are regular visitors to the pendent blossoms.

A Present From Mousie

Day 322: I am embarrassed to admit it, but today's society has rendered most of us paranoid to some extent, and that includes me. When a parcel arrived unexpectedly, purportedly from Amazon and with no gift card or receipt inside to accompany the item, I immediately suspected a "brushing" scam and reported it as such to Amazon. "Brushing" refers to being sent unsolicited merchandise and sometimes generating false reviews for a dealer under the name of the recipient, but in this case, it could also have applied to the purpose of the object. It bore the trademark "Equigroomer" and a stylized image of a horse, and it appeared to be a spin-off of a curry comb. It was a simple piece of engineering: a length of hacksaw blade embedded in 3D-printed plastic. Okay, so I tentatively brushed Merry with it and collected a sizeable amount of stray cat hair. Once it started to smell like him, he accepted it readily, and particularly enjoyed having it used on his cheeks and under his ears. I thought to myself, "As scams go, at least this one was useful!" And then I opened my email. There was a note from sister-of-the-heart Mousie with a link to a YouTube video showing a cat (a Russian Blue, even!) being groomed with the same tool. "Teddy loves this groomer," Mousie said (Teddy being her cat). I had no choice but to own up to having reported receipt of the item to Amazon, and I said, "Next time, WARN ME!" Mousie replied, "It was supposed to be a surprise." That's what society has done to me, folks. I used to love surprises. Now I'm suspicious of them. In any event, Merry is so taken with his present that he even let me curry his tummy!

The Correct Answer

Day 321: Solve for X: (S + F) (U + D) + A³ = X

where S equals stress, F equals fear, A equals anger, U equals a sense of uselessness and D equals dread.

The correct answer is pie, lemon meringue in this case, and there's a history there. My dad was diabetic. Normally, he stuck to carefully weighed portions of food and daily injections of insulin which were the treatments of the time, but he had one weakness: lemon meringue pie. Once every year, he would have my mother make one for him, in full knowledge that he'd eat a slice and "sleep" for the next 24 hours or so as a consequence. He knew he might not wake up from that "sleep," but took the risk anyway...just once a year, once, that's all. One slice of pie.

He wasn't faced with the same equation we have today, no. In fact, his diabetes could be directly attributed to his having tried to fight against the very things we see daily now on our streets. You see, he was starved in a prisoner-of-war camp for four years before finally being rescued. His diabetes was a result of the inhumane treatment he received there. I think he could be excused his annual piece of pie, given those facts.

I haven't reached the "pecan pie point" quite yet (the ultimate solution), and it's to my credit that I only ate one piece of this pie before bed. One slice, just one, and I had a rough night. Maybe I'll have the rest of it for lunch today.

Piecing

 

Day 320: While we're on the subject of quilting...yes, I have been talking about that a lot lately...I have five full motifs done and assembled out of 32 in Ring Cycles. The illusion of large rings is now beginning to emerge, the characteristic which makes this variation of Jack's Chain unique and different. The finished quilt will have nine staggered rows of five motifs against four, with some fill-in partial blocks to make the edges easier to bind. I have no real theme for the patchwork, although generally, each 9-patch contains two coordinating pairs and a loosely-allied center, e.g., a pair of greens, a pair of reds and a center which picks up one or both colours. "Generally" is the operative word. This is a scrappy quilt. I do not want it to look ordered or disciplined. There are a few singletons in the coloured squares. One not yet included is a realistic grey cat face. For those in the know, that will indicate that Merry helped with this quilt...his "signature," if you will. Like Madame Defarge with her knitting, I like to hide secret messages, stories and puns in my quilts, although these one-inch squares make that rather more difficult than with larger pieces.

Closet Archaeology

Day 319: I pride myself on not having the crafter's usual surfeit of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) other than those currently in progress. However, occasionally something will relocate itself to the back of the queue. There's usually a good reason. Perhaps I needed something which was out of stock or backordered, or maybe I couldn't find exactly the right colour, so I laid the project aside until I had all the necessities in hand. In the case of this quilt, I hadn't figured out how I wanted to finish it. Did I want to join the blocks with "streets and alleys?" If so, did I want to go with another orange, or try to match the yellow? Other quilts came and went...close to a dozen, if the truth be told...and twenty finished blocks of Dresden Plate moved from a quilting box to the trunk in the closet, "trunk-ated" until recently when I was looking for something else and came across them.

This quilt's history goes back a long ways. I started collecting orange fabrics for it over forty years ago. Orange has never been particularly popular with most people and therefore was hard to find other than at Hallowe'en. I wanted to steer clear of the spooky-themed prints (Hallowe'en is not my favourite holiday). Orange prints began surfacing in greater number during the 1990s, and a lot of these fabrics came from that period. Evenutally, I had enough to make my long-awaited orange/autumn quilt. I machine-pieced the "plates" and then appliqued them to brown squares, the usual method of construction for this design. And then...well, I went through some difficult times and the quilt was forgotten.

That said, I am now under a geas to put my UFOs to rest. That's not to say I won't be working on other projects simultaneously, but it's time to get some older ones out of the way. This morning, I sewed together four sets of five Dresden Plates before deciding I'd put in enough time at the sewing machine for one day. I'll zip the remaining seams together tomorrow and then I'll be faced with a new problem, i.e., where to find backing fabric without going to Cult Corner. One thing is certain: the quilting frame is going to get hard use this winter!

Hexagons 2.0

Day 318: Hexagons 2.0 is done! Entirely hand-stitched, it took just under 12 weeks to complete with a finished dimension of 56" x 61." There are 330 individual hexagons, and this time, I chose not to fill in the "stairstep" edges with partial hexes. Will I ever sew another one? This might not be quite the best time to ask me that, if you take my meaning. Although it was fun to bring together, two in a row was a bit much. That said, because it was a "quilt-as-you-go" project, it was gratifying when I sewed on the last hex and could say, "That's it! I'm done!" without having backing, batting and quilting still on the menu, and that, in my opinion, is the main selling point of this mode of construction. And before you ask, it has a destiny which I am not at liberty to discuss, determined before I ever put needle to the first piece of fabric. How many quilts have I made over the years? I've lost count. Most have been given as gifts, and if I can be forgiven a moment of vanity and pride, I'd like to think that at least one of them will become an heirloom to be handed down or passed along with its history. This one and its earlier counterpart, as well as Ring Cycles (currently in progress) speak of community and support because, as I was running short of print fabrics, I put out a call to my sewing friends for their scraps. Almost a dozen people contributed to the patchwork you see here today.

Short Stack

Day 317: Depending on who's serving and how big they are, a "short stack" of pancakes is generally two or three. In this case, my "short stack" is 13, the last row (minus one already sewn on) of my second completely hand-stitched hexagon quilt. Not counting small quilts, they were the quickest quilts I've ever made due, I am certain, to the fact that I prefer hand-stitching to working on the sewing machine. The first took a mere two months to the day. The current one has taken a bit longer (not quite three months), and I will have it done by tomorrow evening. Then I can devote myself entirely to Ring Cycles (seen here as the backdrop). It is also going more quickly than expected, at least as far as piecing is concerned. However, once I am done assembling all those little one-inch squares, the quilt will need to be backed and batted, and then mounted on the frame for hand-quilting over the winter months.