Roxanne O'Connell

Writer, Textile Artist, Plantswoman

Category: Needlecraft (Page 1 of 2)

Summer Break is over!

September 6, 2024 /

First! Happy Birthday, Camille! 🎉🎂🍻

You are the sunshine in ALL our lives. I am so happy that you have found yourself living your best life in a caring and friendly home, even if it is nearly half a world (and 8 hours time difference) away. I can’t wait to hear more about the BIG BASH in 2026. I’m going to do my best to be there.

With the exception of a couple of weeks in the US visiting family (Franklin, Seattle, Port Townsend, Seattle, Franklin), a trip that deserves its own post, I have spent much of the summer focusing on three things:

  1. Working on my knitting and quilting projects
  2. Over seeing family projects and travel
  3. Getting my back issues sorted through physiotherapy to avoid surgery

The garden, usually my main summer activity, has been a half-hearted undertaking this year. It has run rampant because of the unusually wet year we’ve had (since last July). It’s not so much more rainfall, although it certainly feels like it because it’s a rare day that doesn’t have at least one shower. There’s just been less sun so damp gardens don’t get to really dry up enough for effective weeding and gardening. The growth has been in more “green” and less fruiting. Real rainforest conditions, in other words.

The second reason for a less than tidy garden is item #3 in my list. Last summer, I did something that caused my back issues to flare up… and it didn’t get better. Lots of visits to doctors, lots of massage and physio to just maintain some mobility ensued. I was given three options: 1) do nothing; 2) surgery; 3) noninvasive treatments. I went for #3. After a couple of cortisone injections that didn’t really help, I looked for a physiotherapist who specializes in scoliosis and back injuries using the Schroth method. I found only one—in Dublin. But as things often work out in Ireland, this therapist has treated a few of my husband’s cousins! So I went for an assessment, came home with some exercises (that I didn’t do correctly or often enough because I didn’t know what a “rep” was and confused it with “sets”—don’t laugh. I was never a gym person and never had the use of a personal trainer.) When I returned, I learned how to do them correctly and, in the course of two months doing my exercises RELIGIOUSLY every day, I am now seeing progress. My therapist has also found me a colleague in Cork so I’m hoping to be able to switch and shorten my travel for treatment to less than an hour each way. The trip from my house to the Dublin location took 4 1/2 hours each way using cars, trains and public transport.

In any event, I’ve kind of given up on this year’s garden and will be working in the spring (with help) to redesign some parts of the garden so that they take less maintenance… and room. The shrubs we planted four years ago have outgrown what we expected in terms of space.

The weather (damper and cooler than usual) and less gardening have meant more time for knitting and quilting. I completed two rather large projects from Stolen Stitches: The Galway Blanket and the Thea Blanket. These are not huge bed sized blankets, but at 40”x50”, fairly time consuming. The nice thing was that both were constructed of 10” squares so VERY portable and doable on trains and planes. I also worked on a couple of shawls for other people and finished the  Torc Cardigan which was the Mystery KAL. I think I made it one size too small, and a little too long. I’m going to send it to my sister Andrée who is both taller and skinnier than I am… and then knit another one for me. I do love how it feels. Her birthday is in October, so that would be perfect!

I’ve been quilting like crazy these past few weeks, hoping to get my granddaughter’s quilt done before the 14th of September but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Better to take my time and get the quilting done to my satisfaction than to rush and feel stressed out about it and put in less detail than I think fitting.  But I will keep tipping away, alternating with some of the other knitting projects I have in the pipeline: a cardigan for my sister-in-law, the last two Celtic Knit Club 2024 projects — a wrap and a sweater, the two fall Stolen Stitches KALs. I have promised to make my sister Camille a new quilt to replace the one that got lost in the move. To be honest, I had made that butterfly quilt for her 21st birthday and she turns 63 today. It was well loved and well used—the last time I saw it, it was pretty tattered. My quilting skills over 40 years ago were not what they are today. It was probably tied—not hand quilted. So I found some gorgeous butterfly fabric and will make this one so it will last. Something for her to cuddle up with on her couch in her new home in Port Townsend.

Coming up is the family trip this month to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Five couples, 8 days, 6 hotels, 2 maybe 3 counties (Galway city is a rain day option, and we do pass through Limerick, but we’re mostly in Kerry and Clare), and who knows who we might run into on our way? This is Ireland. It’s smaller than you think.

The two blankets will be coming along for anyone needing a nap on the mini-coach (probably me), as well as any portable quilt/knitting projects. Robbie and I have been planning this all year. Mouse and our house will be cared for by dear friends who are coming here from Dublin for a week’s getaway. I’m hoping to do a post a day with a record of where we’ve been with story snippets and pictures (maybe video). Someone is bringing a drone and everyone will have phone cameras.

In other words, September posts will more than make up for the lack of posts all summer long—at least, that’s the plan. Eight sleeps and counting.

THE LAST WORD/PHOTO: A couple of things seen in Port Townsend that just cracked me up!

 

 

May has come and gone…

June 9, 2024 /

FIRST!

This post is dedicated to my sister Elise who is 71 today. She was my first roommate and confidant, although I admit we did fight like cats when it came to things like cleaning up our room. I remember that on one of these occasions, my father strode into the room, took all the bedding off the beds and threw it all out into the hall. He then picked up everything else and tossed it on the pile he had made. “There!” he said. “Maybe now I can get some peace.” When he stomped off, Elise and I looked at each other and collapsed laughing. And then we cleaned up the mess and went out to play.

She has a mischievous sense of humor and a ready smile. A true healer, she is gentle, kind, patient and a gift to everyone who knows her. Elise, I hope you have the best birthday! No one deserves it more ❤️🎂❤️

Elise 70 years ago today!

The news media reports that May was the driest month. I don’t know where they got that impression. Down here in the southwest of Ireland, with the exception of a couple of days in the middle and the end of the month, it was gray, gray, gray and almost always wet, even when it wasn’t actively raining. Nothing got enough light and heat to actually dry out much. The ground was still too cold for things to come forth. Even the peas took at least a week longer to germinate and are only now starting to flower, some six weeks after I sowed them. In any event, with all that rain, everything looks lush and green.

Happily, all that rain meant I spent a lot of time knitting and piecing quilts. I have one quilt ready to put on the frame. I’m doing that one for my granddaughter. I’m planning another for a daughter-in-law. These will have to be finished by September when the family will be over here for a weeklong trip. I may get going on those projects this week. In the meantime, I’m finished with the second project (a cowl) in one KAL (Knit Along) club and coming to the end of another KAL (a cardigan). Sadly, I have not even started with the third one but as it’s a blanket throw made of twenty 10” squares I should catch up soon. I really must get my impulse to buy yarn and patterns and join project clubs under control! I had great intentions of using up as much of the wool in my stash as I could but my desire to learn new techniques and undertake the challenges of a mystery knit along is hard to resist.

I did get up to Dublin for a Mother’s Day theatre matinée. I’m lucky, I also get Irish Mother’s Day in March! I went to The Gate Theatre with cousin Paula Bán where we saw “The Pull of the Stars” based on a book by Emma Donoghue. It was amazing, moving, and powerful. At the end, even before the curtain call, the audience was on its feet roaring its applause. I want to read the book but it will have to wait until I can give it the space to be its own thing.

The day had threatened rain but cleared as soon as we came out and strolled down O’Connell Street (oddly the setting for the play) toward Dublin Castle to Café Max, a sweet little French bistro nestled in Parliament Street, the shortest street in Dublin, I think. Moules Frites, a Côtes de Provence white wine and great company. It was a lovely relaxing day. I think we’ll make it a tradition.

On the Blackwater Cruise

There were some family things in May that got us out of the house and back into the swing of things. Robbie’s cousin Leish brought the ashes of their cousin Cáit to be interred in the family plot in Carrick-on-Suir. The following Tuesday we took Leish and her husband with us on Tony Gallagher’s boat up the Blackwater—the long trip with a picnic in Villierstown. While the sun wasn’t actually shining (no surprise there), it was pleasant and almost warm and, as my mother would say, any day on the water is a great day. Later that month, Máirtín de Cógáin invited us to a session at The Local in Dungarvan. Robbie’s cousin Dónal was there with an amazing box player, Joseph Mannion—definitely a man to watch! Robbie reckons he’ll get the All-Ireland this year. At some point in the evening a Bodhrán solo started. It soon became FOUR bodhráns. Often that’s considered three too many but not this night! See the video: Bodhránimania!

It’s election time here, and we are voting for local councilors and EU representatives. Next year is the national election. We’ve had weeks of the doorbell ringing and campaign flyers in the mailbox. Friday, we went to the local school and cast our ballots and now we are keeping “radio silence” as nothing will be finalized for about a week and the airwaves are full of speculation until all the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. votes are redistributed. It’s proportional representation here. You vote for as many candidates as you are willing to support in the order of preference. Counting the votes is time consuming.

I often wonder how history would have been different had a similar system be used in the United States for federal elections. For instance, would Al Gore have been clearly elected when Ralph Nader’s second preference votes were redistributed, assuming that anyone voting for Nader would have been unlikely to have chosen Bush as a second preference? Would we finally be able to divest ourselves of the Electoral College—an 18th century compromise institution that was invented when news travelled on horseback and now results in a handful of states wielding greater power than their populations warrant? From where I’m sitting, it seems to me that more people would actually vote if they could vote their conscience—if they could vote for the person they most strongly support first and then for whichever they consider the lesser of the remaining evils as second preference, and so forth. How much more invested would we be if the person who wins the election was someone we actually were FOR, even if they were our second or third preference? After all, no one has to vote for someone they absolutely do not support. That would feel unethical. All these questions (and indeed, this whole paragraph) is dedicated to my dear friend June who is herself an elected representative in Rhode Island as well as a professor of Political Science.

Back to less contentious matters. Below are photos I took throughout May (and maybe into June…). Now that we are a week into June, things are looking much better. The roses on the corner of the shed have never been so abundant, the potatoes we planted in the beds outside the studio have really come on—we scrabbled around for some early potatoes and, while they weren’t very big, they were very tasty.

Belated April Post

May 2, 2024 /

It appears that birthday wishes aren’t the only things that can be belated. I was taking photos and thinking about things for an April post all month long but never got there. I have inundated myself with various knitting projects (see links below) and, by the end of the month, got started on a new quilt. Keeping my hands busy has been my salvation through what has seemed an unending series of April showers and torrential downpours. To be fair, we did have a few days where the sun came out and it only rained after dark—but only a few. May, at least so far, seems to be following suit.

May (Bealtaine in Irish—click link for how to pronounce it) is supposed to be the beginning of summer in the Irish calendar. Hence, June 21st, the summer solstice, is called mid-summer’s eve. From that point on, the days will begin to shorten, but it’s too soon to think about that. Let’s hope next week will begin to show us the summer we’ve been waiting for.

I did get my tomato seeds sown in the greenhouse. It will be a while before it will be warm enough for them to thrive outside, if we do that at all. They may just have to stay in the greenhouse when everything else gets planted out. I will be potting them on this coming week, along with Cosmos, and Dahlias (Bishop’s Children) and anything else that’s in need of something more sustaining than seed compost. I sowed the sweet corn into regular compost in deep root trainers because it will be at least 6 weeks before I’ll be able to plant them out. I have Patty Pan and Butternut squash to companion plant with the corn and I’ll probably put in some climbing beans, but only one climber per stalk! Volunteer potato plants have sprung up in the beds I planned to use for the corn, squash and beans (see Three Sisters) so we’ll just harvest them for those little baby potatoes that we love. I’ll top up with compost and manure and put everything in when the weather is warmer and a little drier. Those are my grand plans. We’ll see how they come out.

Knitting Projects—All from Stolen Stitches:

  • Grianchloch Shawl #4 — for my Physio therapist. I told her if she bought the yarn, I’d knit it up for her.
  • Torc Cardigan — something for me 🙂 and a KAL (Knit Along) that’s still open to join!
  • Galway Blanket — using the wool from Galway Sheep
  • Blanket Club KAL — a collaboration between Carol Feller and Thea Coman
  • Celtic Knits Club — So far it’s been a hat and mitts… waiting to see what the next project will be.
  • Ravi Nua Cardigan — I’m planning this one for my dear friend Kate (since our dear friend June is getting a shawl.) The yarn color is “Hatters Teal Party”!

More about the Quilt project later this month when I have photos. It’s made entirely from HST (half square triangles) with a couple of borders. It’s something I can do down in my studio on these rainy days when I can’t be in the garden.

Until then, here is the garden update:

Needlecraft Updates

March 14, 2024 /

Knitting productivity is rampant! I’ve blocked three shawl-scarves and started another shawl with Stolen Stitches, Cois Farraige (Seaside). I literally knitted myself out of a migraine last night with working out this pattern. Sometimes, when you’ve taken everything in your medicine chest for the thing, deeply concentrating on something other than your headache will get you some relief.

Two of the shawls were 1 skein projects I found on Ravelry when I looked for what I could do with two skeins I had bought when the yarn shop in Warren, RI folded. That was probably over 15 years ago and I finally was able to do something with them. I finished knitting them around Christmas but, since I didn’t have anyone in mind, they just sat there, unblocked, unfinished. Talking to a neighbor today, I learned that her sister, Patricia, is in hospice and I asked would she like anything… maybe one of these shawls. My neighbor thought it would cheer her up no end so I went straight to work with blocking it. It should be dry tomorrow and be ready to be sent up when my neighbor goes to visit her sister in Waterford city. That is the trick, for me, of getting something finished—figure out who will get it.

I’m not sure who will get this one, but since I was doing the one, I may as well do both. Normally I would block using the interlocking mats, blocking wires and pins, but that was being used for Patricia’s shawl, I took a leaf out of Carol Feller’s method of using interlocking exercise mats… more than twice the size of my fancy blocking mats. Well I didn’t have those but I did have my yoga mat! I just unrolled it and set everything up on the floor. My studio is DEFINITELY a NO GO area for the CAT now!

Finally, I have my Grianchloch shawl all blocked and finished. It is so lovely and light and soft. I can’t wait to wear it. I have bought MORE yarn for another just like it in blues for my dear friend June who is almost always wearing something around her neck 🙂

March may be half over but it can be a very long month if there’s no knitting to do. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem!

Grianchloch MKAL shawl done!

March 12, 2024 /

To be honest, the finishing of a knitting project is hardly ever my favorite part. Blocking, weaving in the tails of the yarn, all a bit fussy and laborious. And yet, on a misty, rainy day, with no new project on the needles, what else can you do? So, to the sink to wash and wet the garment, wrap it in a towel and squeeze out any extra moisture, and on to the floor to open it out with long wires, pins and interlocking blocking squares.

It took a few hours but I’m happy with how it is shaping up—literally.
I carefully closed and latched the door. If there’s anything the cat likes more than going to sleep on the quilt stretched on my frame, it’s finding T-pins (or ANY kind of pin or needle) to play with.

And now, I need a nap.

Doing an MKAL with Stolen Stitches

February 23, 2024 /

MKAL = Mystery Knit Along! Where you make something based on the written directions in the clues that are published periodically. No pictures. Kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle without the box cover.

A little over a year ago I knitted a shawl (actually 3 of them now) that was originally a Mystery Knit Along kit from a favorite wool site, The Fibre Co. I loved how much I learned from it. But it was never a mystery for me because I bought the kit well after the Mystery/Clue phase was done.

Recently I started viewing tutorials from Carol Feller and found a treasure trove of projects and MKALs, past, present and future! And the bonus for me is that Carol and her studio/shop are right next door in Cork! No more dealing with import VAT and duty and the long wait for stuff to arrive.

The MKAL I’m doing now is called Grianchloch (Irish for quartz I think—”sun rock”). The yarns are “scrummy”, to use a favorite Mary Berry term—rich colors and gorgeous textures. I’m just about done with the first clue. The second clue is issued on the 27th.

In May, I’ll be starting another MKAL—a throw blanket from a collaboration between Carol and Thea  Colman—Queen of the cables! I’m looking forward to that one, but the work will have to be squeezed in between the demands of the garden. Two years ago, I was away in August and September and last year I was away in April and May and again in September. I’m afraid my vegetable garden paid the price.

I’m going to be more focused this year and try to enjoy whatever bit of summer we get. So far nothing has matched the standard set in the summer of 2020. But I’m hopeful that this year will make up for the wet miserable summer we had last year. And if it is wet and dreary, I’ll just keep quilting and knitting.

Quilting Crazy

February 10, 2024 /

The rain is drumming on the skylights. The sky is leaden. It feels like ages since the sun has had a full day out. It’s the kind of February day that could really get you down. But I have the antidote—at least for me. Read on…

I have come to the conclusion that I’m in my “happy place” most when I’m sitting in my comfy chair, my earbuds in, a great narrator reading me a wonderful book, and my quilting hoop on my lap. Added pleasure is a cat lying across my foot. There are days during this rainy winter when I find myself just filling in time until dinner is done, the plates cleared and all is tidied up so I can lose myself for the evening in the gentle order of stitches making patterns across the patchwork of whatever quilt I’ve put together.

Putting the actual quilt top together has its own rhythm and energy. Sew two pieces of fabric together, add that assembly to more pieces and you’ve created a fabric building “block.” Sew two or more blocks together and you create a new visual landscape.  Every time I go to the ironing board to press the seams it’s a magical reveal of a new patterned fabric unfolding like the twist of a kaleidoscope. But most of that work happens during the day. It generates excitement and anticipation. It is not conducive to relaxation and unwinding. For that I need to don my earbuds and thimble, enfold myself in a good story and stitch myself back together from whatever I’ve been doing all day.

This is especially true on days when I’ve been dealing with things like paying bills, reconciling bank statements, preparing for the tax return or deleting over 7,500 malware posts from this blogsite. (The good folks at DreamHost have cleaned out all the bad code and we’ve reset passwords and installed other safety protocols. But the most important thing I can do, I think, is get back to doing, at a minimum, a post a month. So this is February’s post.)

To catch up with what I’ve been doing  since August, here’s a little gallery of the Quilts I’ve worked on since my last post:

Well, I know that’s cheating a little… because I finished Cath’s Coastal quilt in May. But I didn’t get to see it on her bed in her new condo until September. Aiden’s quilt is deceptively simple. I used a sea themed “layer cake” I thought I might use for Cath’s quilt but the collection was a little too subdued. The challenge came in creating something a 19 year old male would like (and hopefully treasure.) And in giving each 10″ block some interesting geometric quilting in black thread for contrast.

Nicki’s quilt was a major challenge, each block of symbolic significance (Sister’s Choice, Storm at Sea, Slip Knot, Trip Around the World) and each needing a different quilting pattern. The border, because it was so wide, needed special attention—a balance of geometric lines and curves. I found a stencil for a spiral seashell that worked perfectly! The decision to use only fabric (for the top) that I already had, including some batiks that Nicki had brought me (decades ago) from Indonesia, also put me on my current path—I’ve resolved to use (as much as possible) whatever I have in my stash in various kinds of “scrap” quilts.

What is a scrap quilt? It’s a quilt where you use, as much as possible, fabric leftover from other projects. New fabric can be bought for the background or borders, but you get an extra thrill when you can keep that to a minimum, or not use “new” at all! My first scrap quilt is the one we have on our bed. In it are fabrics I used for other quilts and my daughter’s little dresses. It took 20 years to finish because I had several twists and turns in my professional life as well as a move to a smaller house with no room to set up my big frame, so it stayed rolled up under the bed in the spare room. It was the specter of having to move it unfinished YET AGAIN that goaded me into finishing it before we came to Ireland in 2017.

That’s what led to Mick & Paula’s Anniversary Quilt—a log cabin quilt made of scrap fabrics. I even carefully stitched together the batting from leftovers. The backing was some fabric I had bought yards of thinking that I would make curtains when we moved to Bristol, RI, but never used because I was in a new job and then decided to go back to school for my PhD. It’s interesting that the fabrics I’m drawn to tend to be 100% cotton (and the yarns tend to be luxurious wools!). I’ve also been known to buy the rest of the bolt if there’s only a yard or so left.

I’ve discovered the constraints that come with only using what you’ve got have actually push me to be more creative and daring in my use of color and shape and I’m really pleased with the outcome. The quilt I am now working on has, as its focus, a panel I bought over 35 years ago. I actually bought two identical panels. The first was quilted into a wall hanging for my friends, Brian and Lindsay, who love everything Christmas. The second was intended for ourselves but, alas, I never got around to it and it sat in a bin of UFPs (Unfinished Projects) until now. The images on the panel are charming and I’m totally immersed in them. Each picture in the panel gives me a new treatment challenge—how much or how little to quilt to emphasize the shapes within the pictures needs careful study. And sometimes my stitches need to be very small indeed!

It’s been a miserably wet winter so far and this month hasn’t looked much better. But it can rain all evening and I won’t complain. As long as I have my hoop, my thimble and and something to quilt, I’m more than content—I’m at peace.

Things to look back on

December 18, 2022 /

This is largely a post to remind me of midwinter 2022. Days are passing so quickly that it’s difficult to remember what happened just last week, let alone last year.

This was my year of travel! I went to the States for a month—probably a week or two too long but I had a lot to catch up on. I enjoyed the whole thing but was glad to get home—my new home. It made me realize that you can’t really go back to any part of your life. The more time that has passed, the more difficult it is to fit back in to where you left off. But, with true friends, one can always get together in the now and feel as if no time has passed at all. That’s certainly how it was meeting Catherine BS in Morocco in November for her birthday week In Marrakech. We’ve known each other nearly 50 years and only see each other every now and again. And yet, it seems as if no time passes in between our visits with each other. She’s a little younger than me but I can’t help feeling that she’s my older sister—must have been so in a previous life time. I will not likely go to Morocco again but I’m glad I went. Even if I was sick as a dog for over a week at the end.

From the warmth of Marrakech to rainy, wet Ireland was a bit of a jolt. Even the gardening has been perfunctory given how the weather was either really wet or really, really cold. We’ve just come out of two weeks of below zero celsius temperatures and days so short the sun didn’t have time to melt the frost that lay like snow over everything. All those little things, like taking up the dahlias and swapping the summer plant inground pots for the ones with spring bulbs in them, just didn’t happen. If there’s even one day with a bit of sun this week, I’ll at least chop back the flower beds at the grotto. And maybe get up the lovely white dahlia. It will all depend on the ground thawing a bit.

I’ve been mostly involved in knitting and quilting for the past few months. But I have been MAKING all kinds of things, learning new techniques and stretching myself in between doing those things that are tried and true. And that makes me happy:

  • A big bulky jumper, hat and mittens for Robbie’s cousin
  • Mittens for Alice, Robbie and a neighbor, Gretta… oh, and myself. That was the “practice” pair
  • A cowl for Catherine BS’s birthday
  • A calendar for my Morocco friends to send as a “Jour de l’An” gift
  • Cath and Mike’s quilt
  • Some awesome banana bread… changed the recipe to use a little maple syrup and cranberries
  • The trifecta of roast chicken/roast chicken stock/chestnut mushroom soup

In the works now is the homemade beef stock for Christmas Onion Soup. Starting Friday, the 23rd, I’ll be making loads of pastry for Tourtière and mince pies and maybe a Quiche Lorraine for Christmas morning. We will be having something else for Christmas dinner (smoked ham) because we’re keeping the turkey for Robbie’s birthday. Cath and Mike will be here for four short days. But I imagine next Christmas will be very different. Owen and Liz will have their cottage up/down the road and I’m hoping they’ll be here and that a few of the others will be here too.

I’ve been reading my way through two authors: Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Some I listen to on Audible while I’m knitting and quilting, others I read either curled up by the fire or in bed before sleep. I kept to the Tiffany Aching group for a while, not knowing that The Shepherd’s Crown was Terry’s last book. Looking back, it seems he wrote all the Tiffany books at five year intervals (give or take)… except for the first two. I enjoyed them enormously and wished I had known of them when Sofia was younger. But I discovered them after 70 so she’s got time if she’s as avid a reader as I think she is. But she’s 14 so who knows.

There are plenty of Pratchett books left and a few books on paper that I’m saving for Christmas week and the New Year. I’ve realized that I have gone back in time in a way—to a time when Robbie and I were first together and we spent our time reading and cooking and being together. Only now we have a fireplace to sit by on these cold winter nights.

Here are some images to go with this post.

Time to get back to the quilting frame on this wet (albeit mild) Sunday afternoon.

Beannachtaí na Nollag oraibh go léir!

March update…

March 13, 2022 /

Spring is definitely on its way—even if we had hail, sleet and thunderstorms yesterday. The hills and valleys are showing signs of winter’s retreat. The furze are in flower, primula peeking out from under the hedges and a verdant glow on the fields makes you stop… and breath the clean earthy air.

I’ve lightened up on the scanning and Ancestry projects. The weather, while still unpredictable, has been sunnier and a little warmer. The greenhouse is calling. A week ago I sowed my first “propagator” seed. I bought a propagator last fall when I saw they were back in stock. I’ve discovered that there’s no point in waiting until you need something to order it. Everyone else in the gardening world seemed to have done that and now there’s nothing left. So I keep a mental list of the things I need/want and when I see they are available or even ON SALE, I hop on it. The propagator stayed in its box for months but now I’ve put it to work and it does a great job. My tomato, basil and jalapeño pepper seedlings have come up. The sunflowers have not appeared yet but they do take longer. I’ll sow some Sweet Pea today and check on the chitted potatoes. We want the earlies in by Patrick’s Day. For the record, this is what the garden looks like today. I’ll try to remember to post what it looks like on April 13!

Speaking of potatoes and Patrick’s Day, the few sprouting potatoes I planted in a grow bag in the green house have taken off and we’re hoping to harvest some for the day that’s in it (Thursday!). They may not be very big, but they will be VERY new potatoes. And we’re still harvesting chard so that will make a nice dinner.

We watched the first Gardeners’ World episode for 2022 on Saturday. It has become a ritual with us to listen to the soothing tones of Monty Don and make notes about planting trees, sowing seed, and pruning. This week featured cyclamen coum and I’m planning to get some for the grotto. It is hardy and will self-seed in the shady areas. That and some snow drops and hellebore will make the woodland areas we are planting out have color and interest through the winter and into the spring. Last Sunday we planted out shrubs and perennials with the Foróige Junior Tidy Towns committee. Six young people planted and as many adults supervised.

Now it’s time for me to swing into quilting. I picked the fabric months ago for a friend’s wedding quilt. The colors I chose were blue white and yellow—blue and white being the Waterford hurling colors and, as it turns out, blue and yellow are the colors for An Rinn’s team. And they look fantastic together—bright and cheerful. Never did I imagine that the quilt would take on a geo-political theme. It will make working on it interesting as the conflict in northeast Europe plays out. Let’s hope that as I finish it, the war, too, will have come to a satisfactory end.

Give a girl a staple gun!!

November 24, 2020 /

I have been away from this blog for a good while. I’m not sure why. I think I found myself vortexed into my computer whenever I started writing from here. And that was disorienting me. I have this desire to be less and less digital as the pandemic wears on. I don’t know if it is related to COVID or not—maybe it’s just where I am in my life. It isn’t about writing. I write by hand (nearly) every morning and get great satisfaction from thinking on the page. It was the idea of sinking myself into writing one of these personal essays—content creation, research, photos, editing, telling a coherent story. I would have an idea and I’d want to write about it but I would often be in the middle of something else—something with time restrictions like making bread or getting plants potted or watered. There simply wasn’t the time to stop and just jot something down off the top of my head, because that was never the actual process.

Today is a little different in that I started with a couple of projects that were supposed to take much longer and then… didn’t. And I have my new staple gun to thank!

This is not my first staple gun. To my recollection I have two somewhere between the tool shed and a box or drawer somewhere here in the studio. But after a couple of days of searching I decided to stop at Flynn’s hardware on my way to do the grocery shopping and just get ANOTHER one. If all goes the usual way, I will find one of the other (or both) staple guns any day now.

Bilious plush seat cover fabric

For some time now (decades!) I was planning to recover two things—a sewing stool that was my grandmothers and a small chair I had picked up somewhere with an appalling gold-green-brown plush seat cushion—a color found in nature but usually associated with the result of a night of guinness and enchiladas. The chair was against the wall in the dining room as a spare for when we had a crowd. It is narrower than most and light to carry. The sewing stool was frequently used as a piano stool. Actually, both the chair and the sewing stool were called into service when we had the whole family for Thanksgiving. Maybe, because this is Turkey week and a very strange one at that, recovering these two seats became something of a mission for me.

That I’ve been thinking of recovering these seats for about 20 years means that I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I’d like to have for the finished product. However, nothing ever caught my fancy sufficiently enough to get me going.

That changed when I decided I needed to cover my new work area. The work surface is MDF and could be painted, but not until we have a really nice, long, dry, day so I can do it outside. That won’t be until May if past experience is anything to go by. I needed something durable, water resistant, and nice enough to make it a pleasure to see, and I needed it now.

In sorting through the many boxes of stuff I had collected and stored over 39 years and then shipped to Ireland, I found about 3 yards of oilcloth in a Newgrange triple spiral inspired design I bought some time in the mid-1980s. I remember buying it in Ireland for our family kitchen table, an oak trestle table made by Colleen Miller (of Montana) that could comfortably seat a crowd. With four kids, it needed a bit of protection. However, as is often the case with material I buy, it was stored away and never used—but it was perfect! I measured off the length I needed and I had some left over. And, there, just below the work area was my grandmother’s sewing stool.

I set to work on cutting a piece of the oilcloth, pressed out the wrinkles and folds and went to work with the staple gun and voilà! A lovely rebirth of a family heirloom.

Carried on by waves of excitement and the thrill of having achieved something on this gray, dull, rainy day, I looked at the little chair with its bilious seat cushion.

Years and years ago, I had a book of oriental carpet patterns for needlepoint. (I would love to find it now but I fear it has gone missing in all the moves.) I remember doing a motif in needlepoint for a pillow that, while the tapestry piece itself was finished, the pillow never got made. I found the tapestry in a UFO (Unfinished Objects) box with a few other needlepoint and cross stitch projects that also were awaiting finishing touches (my personal “Isle of Misfit Toys”.) It comes as no surprise to my family that the needlework itself is where I get my pleasure—more than a few projects are to be found in that box. The pillow tapestry was just the right size for the chair cushion. Sometimes things just fall into place.

The piece needed work. It was all askew and had to be blocked so that it would lie straight. I thought it would take days. I would need some kind of board I could pin it to. I would have to wet it and stretch it, and what if the colors ran!?! And then I thought of my trusty steam cleaner… and didn’t I have an extra IKEA shelf that would be about the right size? And some of those map pins that I use for sticking up all kinds of thing? Usually, any one of these things would be a set back—a barrier to getting something done when I actually felt like doing it. But today, it seemed as if I was meant to get this done. The shelf was just the right size, the steamer worked a treat and, before the steamed, straightened piece of tapestry was dry, I was able to stretch it over the seat cushion and staple it into place!  I am so pleased with the result—20 or 30 years in the making.

Girls with tools… it’s a beautiful thing 🙂

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