Whiz, bang POW!

Life continues to throw wrinkles my way but I do find the silver linings. Hurricane Irene left a devastating path along the whole East coast and the devastation is amazing. Without power and a just a bit of damage with erosion on the waterfront of our property and food spoilage we didn't fare as badly as quite a few of our neighboring friends, they lost everything. We do need to install our electric service line and both of us are thinking of having it buried to eliminate any future damages done to it by storms. Currently we are waiting to hear back from an electrician. Along the roadways where there were no brooks or rivers the erosion was amazing to see what flash floods could do. Tearing up the road shoulders, support systems and making ravines wherever the water wanted to go, carving out paths through tarmack even. Flash floods are something that typically don't happen in our neck of the woods so it is with a renewed reverence for water that I report this.

I have always had respect for our fore bearers in working in lamplight while doing their craft and found myself grateful to have flash lights and candles for working on my WIPS while we were without communication, power and even cell phone coverage. My silver linings were that I was able to finish my BBD Easter Parade while the lights were gone, and also made huge headway in my monstrous sized quilt of the Jeweled Pavers, aka Patience Corners. The binding was just finished this evening so the only bit left is to make the label for it. Our daughter borrowed our camera to capture the damages she had from Hurricane Irene, so when I get it back, I'll be showing you my finishes.

The next focus on my WIPS, (After the above mentioned label of course) is to finish my borders on the C.O.C. quilt that will be in next month's quilt show. The acronym for that quilt could be Color on Color since it is quite boldly colored and not my usual trend, but it was an exercise in color for me that started as the Cadyville "Orange Crush" Mystery quilt. It was started a couple of years ago as a "mystery quilt" with Bonnie Turner from Quiltville.com. so I did try to follow her recommendations BUT I did have a scrap Madras skirt in my scrap pile that I thought, those colors were close to what she suggested and would stretch my color consciousness too and the rest as they say is history. So recently, during Hurricane Irene, while stitching the other items, I pondered and finally figured out what the best border treatment for C.O.C. quilt is calling for. I only hope it works and can be finished quickly.

Will be back with you when I can.

Jane

During day one of the Hurricane, DH set up our generator to at least run freezers and our medical equipment. It was a gas powered one that kept reving up and shuddering down. Then in the middle of the night, while it was whizzing more strenuously "ka- POW"! She broke down.
Great! with our medical equipment, a machine for his heart and then my C-pap machine for my apnea we were literally sleeping with one eye open, or at least that's how it felt. Thankfully a friend tried to repair it but alas, without success. Thankfully our local fire dept loaned us a generator the last day of our lack of energy, what saints they were and are.

Musings

I still have to get to my backing for the Patience Corners quilt I am contemplating on calling Aquarius and I think a muse might have hit me smack dab in the middle of the night. Years ago while still in school, an English teacher introduced the class to poetry and specifically, Haiku. I was enamoured of it and since English was always my toughest subject, I was glad I could so successfully do Haiku. While blogging I stumbled onto a blog by Julie. It is here. She reminded me of this lost art I used to love and compelled me to think about one of my passions.


WATER




These pictures are from her blog and came from Google images.

Water has been a substance I honor, cherish and have loved for my entire life. It wasn't until my late 20s when I realized that every vacation I took, brought me within a close proximity to water. Being blessed to live in the northeast, we have an abundance of good quality water (for the most part). But specifically where I live, when my husband and I had our hand dug well replaced with a drilled well, we were lucky to hit an artisian spring.
I digress, sorry about that. Even though water is abundant for us, I realize this earth has many areas where water is a highly priced commodity and for many, a luxury. Many people and countries do not have this liquid libation so readily available. Throughout my life I have taught my children to not be wasteful and to recycle when we can but that's a totally other subject for another day. With the shortages in some areas and the unusuable water in others, this resource is one to be cherished, honored and not abused and I feel very strongly about it.

Even now when the grandchildren spend the night while brushing their teeth, the faucet does not have to run nonstop, they can shut it off while brushing and then turn the tap on when needed to rinse the brush. Such a simple concept, but if all people would do this, what a difference it could make.

While working as a supervisor in a prison system, inmates would leave water running because they thought another would be coming along behind them to use the sinks, I quickly and succinctly taught them to not abuse this resource, that the next man was very capable of turning on the faucet himself. To not let the faucets drip. Informing them that many people in Africa and through out our world would walk for miles to obtain potable water, that we should do our part to make this a better world. Many were ignorant of other countries plights and soon came back to let me know that they never knew that and thanked me for the knowledge, especially with many of them proud of their family heritages.

With making quilts, some of my friends and I have been doing the humpjumpers for years. Utilizing our scraps to catch the thread when stepping from one step of a quilt to the next and before you know it, you had enough scrap parts assembled to make another quilt. It got so that I have many "humpjumper quilt parts ready to finish into quilts". One of these "hump-jumpers" was my Patience Corners quilt. Whenever I sewed with black thread I had strips of 1-1/2" black Kona cotton and I would stitch a strip of a 4-1/2" WOF fabric onto this strip aftrer reaching 4-6 strips, I would cut them apart and have them ready for the next step of their process as my humpjumper. I gathered many jewel toned colors to have a more restricted colorway and found myself thinking this quilt was a "jewel" and reminded me of my blessings of water.

To make a long story a bit shorter, when my muse recently hit, I came up with this Haiku:

Luminous Liquid
Wonderfully Wet Water
Nuturing my Soul

and thought about the PC hump jumper quilt. I have an idea......
Perhaps could I? Write this haiku on the backside of my quilt? I have longed to do more liberated quiltmaking. Thinking originally of doing a couple of wonky, LARGER THEN LIFE log cabin blocks on the back and then using black and a taupe to have broad stripes to finish this quilt but with this current idea WOW! I am inspired by Julie's blog and I think I will.

Perhaps I'll play with some paper and get a feel for how I'll construct it. I won't use the same method of machine applique that I did for the back of my alien invasion quilt. Perhaps I could piece it. Then add another tidbit I thought of after seeing the water images. It's time to play, especially since this quilt is my UFO #1 challenge and who knows, perhaps this quilt will become my "Aquarius".



Jane