Sashing with Karen

"Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere" Life Lessons According to Regina 

 Karen has these blocks to assemble..........

Really good color combination, but she has a dilemma==What sashing should she use? 

I suggest laying out the blocks with some sashing choices and take a photo--it's amazing what the camera eye sees that ours don't.  Okay, we laid out the blocks and put down the cross bars.  What do you think was her choice?

And now, what do you we should use for the outside borders? 

This one?

This one?

How about this?

Another choice

Then, this one.  What did she choose?  We won't know until she brings the quilt top back next month; then we'll see.  What would you choose if this was your quilt?

Now, here is Karen's choice:

She decided to use just red for the intersections and now will work on the border 

She will use the curling ribbon for her outside border with a light inter border

A small sample of the ribbon effect--she is going to use the solid red for the half block--will be interesting quilt top. Soon we'll see the finished project!

 

Other Stitching Techniques

"If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back"  Life Lessons According to Regina

When we gather as Weavers, we don't always talk JUST about weaving.............

Because, all fiber techniques have interlacement of yarn in some way or other.

Susan is working on these Noro Yarn blocks

She is using this pattern

Susan has this lamp shade to repair and here is her thoughts--knitted lace panels for each section or one large lace piece that will fit around the shade--absolutely genius!

She had knitted this scarf and it wasn't totally symmetrical so she was trying to figure out why--even though she had weighed her yarns.  My thought--colored yarns weigh more due to the dyes--do you agree?  

And now, we look at Penny's cowl she is knitting in linen stitch--how neat is this color combination!  A solid gold with variegated--soon we'll see the finished project.

Oh yes, we don't always have some weaving to discuss but our hands and minds are busy with other interlacement tecniques.

Weave, Wove, Woven

"Envy and jealousy is a waste of time. You already have all you need" Life Lessons According to Regina

Oh Yeah!  We are weaving!

I love the day we have our weavers study group gathering--especially when there is some show and tell--I think it's the touchy feely part of the whole meeting

Tracy had a pile of towels!  Yes, a whole 11 yards worth of warp!

 

All piled up neatly with delicious and colorful weavings

The touch was pure organic cotton

Wouldn't you love one of these towels in your kitchen?

I would only bring them out on special occasions!

D'Anne was wearing this great scarf--we even un-dress those who come with wearables--

Don't you love this silk warp and weft?

All hand dyed.

Barbara had bamboo scarves 

Canvas weave structure

Karen enjoys shapes and designs in her work so she wove this double binding rug, set at 6 epi

It is definitely revisable

Karen is also working on a tapestry journal/diary.  Each month she will work a different technique--here is January and February

and the back could be used as a rya carpet.  Will be anxious to see what she comes up for March's lesson.  Yes, We are weaving and our woven textiles are making people happy!

Mystery Fan? Book Winners!

"No matter how you feel, get up, get dressed up and show up"  Life Lessons According to Regina

Are you a mystery fan like I am?  I have a stack of books by my Night stand that will take me years to get through.  But, I can't help myself--if I see an interesting mystery, I'll check it out of the library or look for it on PBS.   And to make it worse--if that is possible--when I see a list like this one from Mystery Fanfare Blog I'm ready to buy them!  Then there is audio at Audible  
I'm a hopeless mystery fan!

What have you read?

Best Mystery Novel
Sandrine’s Case by Thomas H. Cook (Mysterious Press)
Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Crime)
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger (Atria Books)
The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood (Penguin Books)
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)
Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin (Reagan Arthur Books)

Best First Mystery 
Yesterday’s Echo by Matt Coyle (Oceanview Publishing)
Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman (Minotaur Books)
Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman (Ballantine Books)
Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
A Killing at Cotton Hill by Terry Shames (Seventh Street Books)

Best Mystery Short Story 
“The Terminal” by Reed Farrel Coleman (Kwik Krimes, edited by Otto Penzler; Thomas & Mercer)
“The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” by John Connolly (Bibliomysteries: Short Tales about Deadly Books, edited by Otto Penzler; Bookspan)
“The Dragon’s Tail” by Martin Limon (Nightmare Range: The Collected Sueno and Bascom Short Stories, Soho Books)
“The Hindi Houdini” by Gigi Pandian (Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology, edited by Ramona DeFelice Long; Wildside Press)
“Incident on the 405” by Travis Richardson (The Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, edited by Clare Toohey; Macmillan)
 “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants” by Art Taylor (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013)

Best Nonfiction
The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo (William Morrow)
Being Cool: The Work of Elmore Leonard by Charles J. Rzepka (Johns Hopkins University Press)
The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower (Minotaur Books)

Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award 
A Murder at Rosamund's Gate by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur Books)
Saving Lincoln by Robert Kresge (ABQ Press)
Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses by Catriona McPherson (Minotaur Books)
Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell (Little, Brown)
Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime)

There is a Finish to That Downtown Abbey Quilt!

"Your children get only one childhood"  Life Lessons According to Regina

Finally!!  There is a Finish!

I'm so far behind the deadline on this Downtown Abbey Quilt, designed by Lovebug Studios

Two more small blocks completed

 

Then another larger 12.5" block finished--you've must remember, that we are not making just one block at a time, we're making 6 of these!

 

Have you ever seen the saying on products "some assembly required"?  Well, I'm in the process of assembling all these blocks into one top.  Maybe, I should have looked at the finished top when it came out a few weeks ago, but oh no, I waited for the big reveal until I was ready to assemble--next time, I'll look and I assemble as I go ! 

,,

FINISHED!   

Well.....................DARN It!

"Don't audit life....Show up and make the most of it now" Life Lessons According to Regina

 

 

 

Well, Darn It!

 

I chose to wear this pair of socks on one cold  day, 

But, holy moly, there was a small hole!  Well, darn it!   Yes, I think I will fix it by darning that hole!

I have this 'egg' darner that a good friend gave me years ago--it's the perfect tool for this job.

On close examination, I see how the knit stitches have fizzed away--why?  I don't have the foggiest idea--hopefully, not a moth in my sock drawer

Since I don't have this yarn anymore, I find a thread that is closest in color and begin to DARN. 

I try to do a knit stitch as close as possible.  It's not the greatest, but it will hold and I can wear my socks again!

Marching on..........................................

"Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does"  Life Lessons According to Regina

So, I'm working away on my February lace section and have about half of the pattern completed--when I discover--I began the right side of the next pattern on the WRONG side of January's lace section!!  Horrors!  Stupid mistake for sure--I did the frog thing "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it" back to the beginning!  and let's begin again......................

and now we have this

We March onto the third lace pattern: With beads or without beads! 

GERMAINE STITCH PATTERN
#3. Germaine Stitch Pattern (multiple of 11 + 7)

Listen Up--Great Books For Your Ears!

"However good or bad a situation is, it will change"  Life Lessons According to Regina

Oh yes!  My favorite spot to get books with great information!

Craft-Lit! is the Best!  At the present time we are learning about "Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (free!)  On the prime side ($5 monthly fee) we are listening to "Portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.  Below are just a few of the books we have completed!

Come join in on the listening pleasure!

Book List

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.
• A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
• American Regional Writers
• Bonus Episodes Any little bonus episodes are listed here. Special Interviews with scholars, experts, and more.
• Dracula by Bram Stoker.
• Flatland by Edwin Abbott.
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.
• Persuasion by Jane Austen.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
• "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
• "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
• Tristan and Isolde trans. Joseph Bédier.
• Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Museum Day With Peter Paul Rubens

"However good or bad a situation is, it will change" Life Lessons According to Regina

As a weaver, spinner and natural dyer, it was with pleasure I viewed this fabulous exhibit presented by Houston Museum of Fine Arts 

In the early 1620s, Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens completed one of his greatest achievements: designing the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestries. The most elaborate and expensive tapestries made in Europe in the 17th century, the 20 monumental works in this series celebrated the principles of the Roman Catholic Church.
Rubens (1577–1640) was commissioned to create the tapestries by the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, governor-general of the Netherlands, as a gift to her favorite convent, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales (Convent of the Barefoot Royals) in Madrid. Raised at the Spanish court, the infanta was the daughter of Habsburg monarchs Philip II and Isabel of Valois. Spectacular Rubens reunites Rubens’s exuberant oil sketches painted for this commission with the original tapestries, the largest number of works for the Eucharist series assembled in more than half a century. The exhibition offers an unrivaled opportunity for visitors to experience the Baroque master’s extraordinary impact, on both an intimate and a broad scale.
Spectacular Rubens features six painted modelli, or large-scale oil-on-panel studies, from the collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. Also on view are four of the original silk and wool tapestries, among the most renowned treasures of the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales; several paintings by Rubens related to the Eucharist series; and a series of preparatory sketches for three of the four tapestries. The modelli have recently undergone conservation, rendering the pictorial surfaces once again lively and forceful, offering a record of Rubens’s impressive and beautiful brushwork.

Let's Rodeo!

"Time heals almost everything....Give it time"  Life Lessons According to Regina

Rodeo Houston Livestock Show And Rodeo is HERE!!  We are ready with our scootin' boots, tight cowboy jeans, gaudy jewelry, big hair up-dos, flashy shirts, Stetson Hats--Yes, bring it on!  Tonight we are celebrating the start of 21 days of sheer fun and adventure--We are venturing though the music of Eric Church, whom we first saw on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville many years ago!

Yee-haw Y'all!  

Texas Independence Day

"What other people think of you is none of your business"  Life Lessons According to Regina

Texas Independence Day commemorates the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. This event marked Texas’ independence from Mexico. Sixty delegates from all over Texas signed the declaration. Its language in many ways parallels the 1776 Declaration of Independence of the United States, which is observed on Independence Day, also known as “the fourth of July”.
The Republic of Texas was annexed to the US by joint resolution of the US Congress nine years after the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed. The US Congress then admitted Texas as a constituent state of the Union on December 29, 1845. Texas Independence Day is an official holiday in Texas. Sam Houston Day is also observed on March 2, marking the birthday of the man who led the Texans to victory over Mexican troops at the battle of San Jacinto

Symbols

Texas’ Lone Star flag became the state’s official flag on January 24, 1839. It consists of a rectangle with a width to length ratio of two to three featuring:

• A blue vertical stripe one-third the entire length of the flag wide, and two equal horizontal stripes, the upper stripe white, the lower red, each two-thirds the entire length of the flag long.
• A white, regular five-pointed star in the center of the blue stripe, oriented so that one point faces upward, and of such a size that the diameter of a circle passing through the five points of the star is equal to three-fourths the width of the blue stripe.

Texas has various symbols such as the Bluebonnet (state flower), the Northern Mockingbird (state bird), and the horned lizard (state reptile).
State historic sites include the Casa Navarro in San Antonio, Texas. It was the home of Tejano patriot Jose Antonio Navarro, who was influential in the fight for Texas’ independence. Another important site is the San Jacinto Monument in La Porte, Texas, which is built on the actual battleground where Texas won its independence from Mexico.