Old Stones, Old Bones

This time two years ago I was visiting The Little Blister in Ireland. One of the places our mother liked to go on a Sunday afternoon, when we were young, was Lough Gur, so, one sunny Sunday afternoon we set off. I hadn't been there in years, and had never been since its archaeological significance had been played up, to turn it into a tourist attraction. It was early in the season though, so we almost had the place to ourselves. It is a beautiful place, lovely for walking, so, since I was there and you weren't why, don't you traipse along behind us if you have a few minutes.....

I was afraid the development might have ruined it, but it was very low key, and nicely done. The visitor's center was designed to look like the ancient dwellings that were discovered in the area.

Information boards weere posted along the trails, like this one showing a replica of an ancient shield excavated nearby.........

 

One of the things I love about where I grew up is the proliferation of castles and old ruins. They pop up on the horizon when you least expect them. My mother had no patience with my fascination with what she dismissed as "piles of old rocks," so I never got it out of my system!  This one is right up against a farmhouse, on the road in to Lough Gur, surrounded by muddy fields dotted with cow pies. Obviously they're not trying to attract tourists! I ventured as close as I could, until the Blister, with a wee bit of mother's impatience, warned me that, if I wasn't careful, I'd get the two of us in trouble for trespassing!

A little further out the road from Lough Gur is the area where our mother grew up.We decided to drop in, unannounced, on the farming cousins. If you warn them ahead of time they make an embarrassing fuss, and need a week to prepare, so since we didn't have much time, we thought we'd just pop in!

We'd never have done that with my mother's generation, but the cousins are in charge now and they're as casual as we are. After a lovely visit, and quite a bit of fuss, in spite of our clever plan, we chanced upon this little cemetery on our way home.

 We hopped over the wall and landed in the middle of this patch of bluebells.....

 Cemeteries are fascinating, the older the better. When my youngest daughter was little, she'd point excitedly at any cemetery we passed on our travels and say "Look Mom! Heaven!"  I wouldn't say that a cemetery is exactly my idea of heaven, and we might not have been quite so brave had it been "a dark and stormy night!" But it was a beautiful Spring day so we weren't too worried about running into any ghosts or banshees. The Blister did get the shivers in a few places though........

She absolutely would not walk down the right side of the ruined church above. I  walked there regardless, and was unaware of anything otherworldly, but then I'm not as finely tuned for things supernatural as she is! 

This arch was the door into the church.....My eyes love arches. They look so elegant, and isn't it said that the way the stones are fitted together in an arch makes it one of architecture's strongest designs?

 Singers and story tellers have always been held in the highest regard by the country people in Ireland. After all, they needed some bit of entertainment after longs days in the fields.

Eventually, after all the joy and sorrow, heartache and toil, each of us will be no more than a shiver on someone's spine. But if the shiver could be delivered in a setting like this, looking out over a peaceful lake, I'd be one happy ghost.

So that is where I was two years ago this month. Were you able to keep up?

And this is where the Little Blister will be in less than a week!

Racoon Post Missing In Action!

There was some funny business going on last evening with Blogger. Between the hopping and the trotting my last post "Cactus For Breakfast" has vanished, without a trace. In answer to some questions in the comments, yes, that is a raccoon. They are common in this area. I've seen them most often down by the river. They are scavengers and like nothing more than rooting through garbage. I suspect that he and his compadres, even though I've never seen them back there, are the critters that poke around in our compost pile way out back. So no RR, I did not feel inclined to invite him in for some antacids! In spite of those appealing eyes and funny mask, he and his ilk are not welcome here! Besides, they can have rabies and who needs that?  He must have been disappointed to find no garbage, but, rather than leaving with an empty belly he decided to snack on the Christmas Cactus.......Big mistake, as his pathetic air demonstrated, not to mention the various nasty green deposits he left on the porch!

Looks like Blogger is back to behaving itself today, so no harm done......

Listening To The Quilt Gods

It all started out innocently enough. One day back in February, I was "playing" in my sewing room and came across a sample of a dimensional bow tie block that a quilting acquaintance had shown me how to do about a year ago. I decided to try it. It turned out to be simple. The third of three seams was a bit fiddly......


                                     


.............but I soon mastered it.

So I made a few more.............
.

And then a few more..........

                                        


An idea was forming....It was so easy to make, and I've always liked Bow Tie, so I thought I'd make a new throw quilt for the back of the sofa. The one that currently lives there is ancient. And faded. It was the first quilt I ever made. Trip Around The World. I've known for some time now that the trip was over, quite a while ago, for this particular quilt. But the cat likes to perch on it on the back of the sofa, and the menfolk like to tease the cat by moving their fingers around under the quilt and tantalizing him. Who knows what goes on in his feline brain when they do this. All I know is that it causes great hilarity [we are easily amused in these parts!] and  also some little rips in the quilt. So, in addition to "ancient," and "faded," it can also say on its resume that it is "tattered."  Not shabby chic. Just plain shabby.

Bow ties to the rescue! I had perfected the technique and could pop out a finished block in just under five minutes. My cunning plan was that to use a variety of light background fabrics and a different medium or dark for each bow tie. This is what saved me. Making the same block over and over has limited charms. Dying of boredom is not the way I want to go. I became reacquainted with all the little bits and pieces in my stash, and even rediscovered some fabrics I'd forgotten about!. Each block was like making a mini quilt, the most fun part being matching up each background with a new bow tie fabric.

Before long I had enough bow ties to cover a small country. Whoa! Let's not get carried away here. So I stopped and laid them out to have a look.[see  photo above.]

Before I sewed them together I decided to move them around to see what other effects I could get.......

Hmmmm. Interesting. I would have to think about this for a while. Let it simmer, as it were, on the mental back burners. While it was simmering I went, one weekend in March, to a quilt show. And saw this:

Interestinger and interestinger! Close up inspection revealed that this design resulted from alternating bow tie blocks with nine patches. I went home, head buzzing, and started making scrappy nine patch blocks.

Now we were getting somewhere!

To pin all those blocks on that design wall I had to climb up and down from my [fortunately] sturdy table, over and over again, pins clamped between determined lips. I would climb up to rearrange some blocks, then climb down to get the overall effect from the other side of the room. And people think us quilters get no exercise! Dissatisfied, I'd have to climb up again, over and over, until finally I was happy with the distribution of  colours. Time to stitch them all together before I had a chance to change my mind again!

!

And here's my quilt top. I'm happy, but not done yet. There's a small matter of borders, both to make it bigger and also to frame it.

But with all those scrappy fabrics, and every colour of the rainbow, how would I find the perfect fabric? I had a beautiful red, left over from another project and used in one of the bow ties. I had just enough to make a half inch border. But what to use for the outside border? A quilt shop seemed like a good place to start. My sister-in-law was visiting for Easter. She always likes to go to a quilt shop when she visits, to drool over all the lovely fabrics, so off we went. Its a tough job as the cliche goes, but someone has to do it. I suffered agonies at the quilt shop, surrounded by such a wealth of gorgeous fabrics. It was really difficult to choose, but I kept coming back to two different blues. Sister-in-law weighed in, as did a couple of the shop ladies, and finally a decision was made. S-I-L bought fabric for a baby quilt for a co-worker and, several hours after we'd come in the quilt shop door, we headed out in search of lunch.  Choosing fabric is exhausting work and when a decision is finally reached you realize that all that agonizing and hand-wringing has left you weak and ravenous!

Nice blue, don't you think? I wasted no time getting the borders on as I don't trust that I've chosen well until I see it stitched onto the quilt. But now I'm confident I chose really well. I love it!

The day may yet come that I plan a quilt from start to finish, on paper, before making that first cut or taking that first stitch. Meanwhile I'm quite content letting the quilt gods whisper in my ear at every step of the process. Sometimes I am more surprised than anyone at the results!  I never agonize at the outset about what I will use as a border or what kind of sashing I need. It's too early for all that  I am confident that all will be revealed in the fullness of time!. Without a set of rigid ideas, the quilt will tell me in what direction it wants to go......It's more exciting that way. I like going into my sewing room and not knowing quite what will happen.

Sometimes I'm happy with the results; sometimes not quite; this time I am delighted

Of course it's not finished yet! But I do already have a couple of options for backing..........Meantime, every time I look at it, I smile!

Counting Blessings....

We've been picking blueberries for more than a week now. In our own garden. Thanks to the interest, patience, persistence, perseverance and unfailing green thumbs of The Bean. Until now I've sort of taken it for granted. Yes, he loves to grow stuff. There are always pots of this and that, in various stages of growth all around the house and garden.

His fruit tree experiments are lined up on the patio in various stages of growth....His orchids fill all the available space on the patio windowsills. Inside, on the kitchen counter, there are always cuttings of some kind, in jars of water, growing roots.....

 And we always have bags of dirt and cow manure to step over. It's not very tidy. Better Homes and Gardens would not come here for a photo shoot....... though Organic Gardener might.
 

 He would like to be a farmer. Except we don't have a farm. His great grandfather in Eastern Europe had lots of land. Until the Russians decided he should "sign it over" to the state. My maternal grandfather was a farmer, and my uncles, after he died, and now my cousins..........In Ireland. With his talent he should be a farmer.....


I went out to the garden to pick the latest batch of blueberries this morning. The bushes were laden down with fruit, and it made me so happy, just standing there in the sunshine, filling my bowl with those little berries. When I came in I went to find him [in front of the computer---finals are coming up]

"Stand up," I said, "I need to hug you!"

"Why?" he asked.

"For giving me the simple, but unbelievable pleasure, of  picking these in my own garden," I said, and showed him my overflowing bowl of berries.

Small blessings in the form of little blue berries. A big blessing in the strapping son who grew them.

So, breakfast was a no-brainer.... Yup....... Blueberry pancakes.

You could still taste the sunshine.

My Own Blue Bayou

The inmates didn't do much exciting last weekend, the one swotting for mid-terms and the other compulsively sewing. Since the weather was dull and gray, it was no hardship to be indoors, and now the scholar has good marks and I have the makings of a new quilt for the back of the sofa, to replace the rag that currently lives there! More on all that soon.

 Meantime,Tuesday afternoon fairly sparkled with blue skies and sunshine. The scholar had a break from mid-terms and I was free, so it didn't take long to figure out there was only one sensible thing to do.....Down tools and head for the river!

It was a glorious afternoon and, being the middle of the week, we had the river to ourselves. The scholar loves the tranquility, the wildlife and the workout. As soon as we were in the water, he disappeared off upstream  in a spray of water and a flash of oars, leaving me to doddle along peacefully at a considerably slower pace.

Doddling quietly along should not be confused with "dawdling," which, while it does have the advantage of being a real word, does not adequately describe the art of doddling which is my own patented way of  drifting along, willy-nilly, hardly using the paddles except to fend off attacks by overhanging branches; Gazing dreamily about, on the lookout for birds and flowers and wildlife, and wandering into quiet loops to better examine interesting root formations on the banks, where one could easily imagine colonies of Rattys, Moles and Badgers living out their days!

Without the splash of paddles to break the spell, the peace of the river fills up all the empty, lonely corners of your heart. It is so calm out there. Nothing but clear, blue-green water, birdsong and rushy sounds, inner peace and darting fishes. If there is a place to find the answers to life's perplexing questions [thank you Guy Noir!] or at least to escape from them for a while, this is probably it.

There weren't as many birds as usual, though I did spot a few herons. I saw several large painted turtles feeding on the river bottom, and some fish called, I think, alligator gar, with really long pointy snouts, that I had never seen before. They sped through the water in groups of three or four, in perfect synchronization with one another, as though in a well choreographed, fast-paced dance!

Since we are well into March, I didn't expect to see manatees. I figured they'd be moving back out to the gulf now that the weather is getting warmer, so I was surprized and delighted to come upon a mother and calf, quietly munching away, just beneath my kayak!

 A case could be made for saying that a manatee has a face only a mother could love!

 But they are so huge, and so gentle, that you find yourself falling in love with them anyway..... These two were completely calm and accepting, and happy to share the river with me. I must have stayed in that spot for almost an hour, just hanging out with my new pals! As they munched their way slowly upstream I paddled quietly along beside them.

It almost seemed as though they were being playful.....I'd have the camera poised for a shot and just as I clicked [and had that confounded delay!] they'd veer off under me, so I ended up with some very "arty" shots of shimmering shadows! But they also co-operated enough that I got a few decent shots too. Like this one....

I'm so glad we downed tools and went to the river on Tuesday! Since then it's turned cold again [I'm sitting here shivering], then the tsunami hit Japan, then California Girl called to say they were under a tsunami watch....And Mr. Gadhafi is still in power......Just the world as usual, hurtling along regardless! We can never know what lies in wait 'round the next bend so we might as well seize the day, or the afternoon........preferably out on the river!.

My Pal, Vidal

Sassoon-Deconstructivism
Originally uploaded by manos.spa

I was listening to the radio one day recently. Someone was interviewing Vidal Sassoon. Remember him?


It was the mid sixties. America was fighting in Vietnam. Twiggy was making emaciation so sexy that curvy women were jumping off tall buildings [well, thinking about it, anyway.] Hairstyles ran to flips and bee hives, teasing [back-combing] and lots and lots of hair spray. Looking natural was considered un-natural! Instead, we were supposed to torture ourselves by "setting" our hair in "curlers" every time we washed it. These were cylindrical torture devices with prickly bits to catch and hold the hair. I'm pretty sure sleeping in them caused brain damage as well as painful dents in the scalp. Rebellion was frowned upon. What? Go out without setting your hair? As soon as I washed my hair my mother would miraculously appear, all business, ready to set it for me. She was probably afraid I'd just comb it and go, and how would she ever live with the shame? Arguing with one's mother was not encouraged back then so I would grit my teeth, groan inwardly and submit.

My mother was petite. And stylish. It was a penance for her to have string bean daughters instead of dainty persons who enjoyed wearing make-up and letting her "beautify" them. Looking back, I realize the problem was that I was born either too late or too early. I would have fit right in had I been born a hundred years earlier, in my grand mother's day. Likewise if I'd been born when my sister was. But, I was born when I was born and so had to submit to my mother's plans for the perplexing question of how to turn her duckling into a swan.

I hated it! After every last hair had been tightly wound onto rollers I'd have to sit under another instrument of torture---the hairdryer. After my head cooked for half an hour and I began to think it would surely catch on fire, my mother would reappear brandishing combs and brushes and the dreaded hair spray. Taking the curlers out was torture in itself, as those prickly rollers did not easily release their prisoners. Some hairs inevitably got yanked out by the roots. Ouch! Then she would brush vigorously, but the hair promptly "boinged" back to sausage shapes. She was not a woman to give up easily. There were ways to make my hair do what she wanted it to. Teasing, or backcombing, for instance. Lord, how I hated that!

"Only a little," she'd coax. "Just to give it a little height."

Additional height was the last thing I needed. I was already taller than I was comfortable being, I didn't need six more inches of fluffed up hair! And besides, why would you tear perfectly healthy hair like that? And then, to add insult to injury, she'd spray the whole lot with hair spray. Because everyone knows that Prince Charming, when he finally shows up [and it could be any minute now,] will be longing to run his fingers through my helmet! Finally satisfied that I looked presentable she'd encourage me to go look in the mirror, hoping each time that this time I'd love it. Poor woman. Her efforts were wasted. I was an unappreciative ingrate, but would manage a sickly smile so as not to hurt her feelings. Though now I have to wonder why my feelings weren't taken into consideration? Considering it was my hair.

My sister [aka Rise, the unblogger!] was only six years younger than me but we seemed to belong to different generations. By the time she came along, rebellion was all the rage. "Teenagers" were beginning to be looked upon as a breed apart, in need of special handling. I don't think her glossy mane was ever wound up in curlers. If anyone had tried they'd have had to catch her first!

And then, one day, Mum sent me off to town for a haircut. And didn't come along to dictate how it should be done. Vidal Sassoon had just exploded onto the hair style scene with his radical ideas.

No teasing.

No hair spray.

It was all about the cut.

This was my kind of guy! I went, in one short half hour, from a boring school girl haircut to the very latest sculptured hairstyle. Vidal, he said in the interview, would like to have been an architect if he had not been cutting hair. Not such a stretch. In the past I'd come away from the hair dresser's feeling naked, as though I'd been scalped. [My hair was wavy and it was my mother's considered opinion that it looked better short. My considered opinion didn't get a look in]

From this haircut I came away feeling gorgeous! Me! And it wasn't because of any artifice. It wasn't because my hair had been teased to within an inch of its life, or sprayed until it was stiff as a board! I couldn't stop smiling. I felt beautiful. For the first time in my life.

Next day, of course, I had to go to school. And face the nuns. Amazingly, the haircut looked just as good after I'd slept on it. My friends were wildly enthusiastic. The unassuming MB had gone and done something daring! There were some raised eyebrows and pursed lips, notably from the Mag, to whom this new haircut looked alarmingly unsuitable for a convent recruit [she was still entertaining hopes for me at that stage!] The Mag was the squirmmeisterin, but this time she didn't succeed. I just tossed my newly glamorous head and refused to feel bad about looking good!

Vidal came along just in time to save me. If growing up was to be about masochistic hair setting rituals, I wasn't sure I wanted to have anything to do with it. His architectural approach was perfect for the way I thought. A good cut every 4-6 weeks and the rest of the time just comb and go! Maybe growing up wouldn't be so bad if you could do it your way!

Does A Bear Poop In The Woods?

It was brown, at first glance, when we walked in the woods on Sunday. Chilly enough for a sweater but blue sky and sunshine spilling down. The recent rains had made the carpet of leaves squishy in low spots while the higher ground was already dry and crunchy. We squished and crunched along companionably enjoying the fresh air.

If  I were a woodland creature I'd hope this cozy dwelling was available for immediate occupancy.......

...........at the base of a mighty oak, with a swimming pool located conveniently nearby........

Mother Nature is quite the decorator. We found a fallen tree bedecked with these frilly fungi....

There's not much colour yet in the woods, but these tiny flowers peeked from beneath the dead leaves......

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And this gorgeous vine surprised us round a bend in the path. We'd seen its fallen blossoms along the way and wondered, then came upon the real thing. Mystery solved.

Well content, we climbed back into the car and headed for home. Gradually my nose became aware of an unpleasant odor........."Did we brush off some plant in the woods that had a nasty smell?"

Unpleasanter by the second.....Oh crap! We hadn't stepped in something, had we?

Indeed we had. The waste product of some, undoubtedly charming, woodland creature was thickly adhered to the sole of my shoe...........The offending shoes were removed, gingerly placed in a plastic bag and relegated to the trunk.... No harm done.

As I was saying, it was brown in the woods on our walk on Sunday..........

Itching To Quilt.....

Last week came a package from my friend Em. Inside, some bits of fabric.  Em knows I'm a quilter. What she doesn't know, and I have no intention of enlightening her, is that I am a horrible fabric snob. I know that the W store sells fabric, but I cringe when I hear anyone talking about actually using it in a quilt. Fabric from the J store is sometimes acceptable, but, for the most part, if I'm going to spend half my life making quilts I want the best quality fabric available. Of course I'd rather not have to pay top dollar for it, so my favourite parts of quilt shops are the sale shelves!

So, back to Em and the fabric of dubious origins.....I had mentioned to her once that I was making blocks for breast cancer quilts. That may be what started this....... I scratched my head, surveyed the bits and puzzled what to do....These bits were not particularly suitable for the BC quilts. They looked more like leftovers from projects she'd done with her several granddaughters. An idea started to form. It grew and grew and my grin got wider and wider......I'd make her a quilt!  Don't groan. This was an excellent idea on many fronts.

1. It would be small, something she could use as a table topper.
2. It would be simple. I'd start with nine patch blocks and let it evolve.
3. It would be finished within a week, so, no danger of adding to the UFU pile.
4. No agonizing allowed. I'd just cut and stitch, with my eyes closed if need be.
5. I would use only Em's bits and fabric I already had.
6. Best of all, play therapy, badly needed, for me!.

I made the blocks on the  weekend, and alternate blocks at spare minutes during the week. At first my alternate blocks were square within a square. But, do you know how boring they get after you've made four? Deadly! So, what to do? Em's bits were mainly reds, pinks and greens, several had hearts, so I dug around and found some blocks leftover from a ragged hearts wall hanging I'd made years ago. [Vindication for saving useless crap!] They were a bit too big, but a little judicious surgery took care of that!

Onward! No agonizing. Lay them on the floor, switch 'em around, stitch 'em together! Smokin'!

Rummaging in the stash produced fabric for borders and backing. Before you could blink I was pinning layers together. The end was in sight!

I attached my walking foot and sat down to quilt. And that's when TROUBLE reared its ugly head.

One furlong to run and my horse quit. Sat down in the middle of the track and wouldn't budge! I foolishly urged her on, when, obviously, she wasn't up to the job. Drat! Two lines, the width of the quilt, of ugly puckers! I sat for an hour unpicking those ugly puckers, glaring all the while at my recalcitrant horse. She's a game old girl, my Bernina. We've been together for twenty years. We've made some beautiful quilts and had a lot of fun in the making. But I've been neglecting her and she just couldn't take it any more.  She's way overdue for  some R&R.

This morning I made a reservation for her to spend a few days at Dr. Gregor's spa for tired and creaky, overworked and cranky Berninas. She'll stay for a few days and enjoy some badly needed, richly deserved, pampering at the expert hands of Dr. Gregor. He'll give her a full body massage, with aromatic oils imported especially from Switzerland. He'll scratch all her itches, lubricate her aching joints, adjust her stitch width and length regulators,  feed her only the finest oats and make her feel like a young filly again!

And since there'll be no full body massages, or pampering with aromatic oils going on here while she's off , having the time of Reilly, I hope she comes back with her work boots on! We've got a quilt to finish!

Wordless Wednesday....Or # 11

Still Scavenging...

No. 4 - Yarn

When I went to visit in Ohio last October, Lily let me play with her yarn. She knows I get twitchy if I don't have something to do with my hands when I'm out of my natural habitat so she produced this..........

There was lots more than this to start with, but I used it up making a cozy scarf........dashingly modeled for you here by Teddy, my ancient, blind bear.

[Aside from Teddy: "She'd be better employed knitting me a decent pair of socks. Do you see how shoddily shod I am? I'm just saying...."]


No. 6 - A Library:

 

This is not our library proper, but then I'm not a proper rule-follower. Besides, the Little Red Schoolhouse makes a more interesting picture than the actual library. This is where old library books go to die..... or, with a little luck, find a new lease on life.






No. 10 - Something out of Place.

I was stuck for this one, until this morning..........

"Hey Dude! Where'd you park the car?"

......................when I came across these two fellows looking a little distracted in the parking lot.

                                                                   Only four to go!