I'm gonna miss this view

(taken in early summer a couple years ago)

I'm gonna miss this view when I sit on the patio in the morning with my cup of C and get a little vitamin D.  Watching the prairie grasses in the breeze is as mesmerizing as watching the waves on a great body of water.  The moving truck and packers come today.  I have sorted and tossed as much as will fit in the dumpster every week plus a couple trips to the dump with big things and numberous trips to the places that take used items.  And I spent a couple evenings with the chimnaria burning papers because we had a little rain and there was no wind those nights.  It was very liberating to watch old papers and small scraps of fabric burn.  The movers gave us a considerable discount if I would pack my sewing room.  I'm free of old projects and have made a list of things I'm going to do anymore:

1. Calligraphy
2. Cross stitch
3. Crafts
4. Canning
5. Camping
6. Composting
7. Gardening
8. Collecting containers
9. ??
10. ??   

I left 9 and 10 open because I'm sure when I unpack I will look for something and when I can't find it I will add it to the list so then I can refer to the list when I need a reminder that I don't do those things anymore.  Odd most start with the letter C  the only C thing I'm keeping is Coffee.  I could just say I don't do C things anymore,  kinda like the guessing game where the cook only cooks peas.   The list will save me time looking for stuff!

I'm simplifying and specializing  I will still 

1) Quilt  2) Knit  3) Needlepoint  4)  Sketch  5)  Read.  Isn't 5 really enough things to do?!?

The movers will pack the rest of the house the books, needlepoint and baskets of yarn and necessities they will all put in a box labeled living room so when I start to unpack I can put all those things right back by my favorite chair.  I'll pack the socks I'm working on in my overnight bag.  I'm ready!
The next post will be of my new front door.  --Ann--

On the Needles

 Wink, wink

 I like those eyes better

One pair of socks finished during the olympics and another pair started. Those were such fun colors to knit.  We have had a little rain here enough to green up the lawns which makes knitting brown yarn a little more pleasant.  So sad when everything was so dry and brown but thats what happens to South Dakota when we go for weeks without rain and temps in the 90's and 100's and wind like a generator on the midway at the fair.

I stopped at the bank the other day to cash in my coffee cans full of change, they were heavy!  The bank here is fortunate to own a Harvey Dunn original painting.  He is a South Dakota artist, his painting of the prairie are so beautiful.  The colors are vibrant, from a distance they look very pastel but step up close...........the colors are brilliant.  I can feel the heat and the wind when I look at them.  There is an intense lime green in the grass similar to the green in the socks, the sky and the turquoise are very close and there are little spots of bright pink and orange in the painting.  The painting is about 4 feet by 6 feet.  His most famous painting is The Prairie is My Garden it seems like every other grandmother has a print of it in her home, including my grandmother.  My brothers were almost fighting over who would get the print, they noticed that I wasn't interested and asked why.  I said have you ever seen the original?  Its at the art museum on campus.  Of course they hadn't.  Harvey Dunn's painting like our shrinking native prairie are filled with color if you just look.  --Ann-- Linking to Judy's OTN

another one out of the cupboard and into the box

Here is another quilt that was my Grandma Elsie's.  I'm guessing another farm sale find.  I think she added the green binding to make it usable.  Doesn't the paisley look like a Moda?  I enjoy just looking at this quilt, there are so many surprises in the 9 patches.  They don't all match some of the miss matched squares are close in value or color and some are not, sometimes the 5 squares dominate and sometimes its the 4 squares. I like the blacks and all the shades of grey and of course all the indigos.
600 posts today --Ann--

Out of the cupboard

This is a quilt from my Grandma Elsie but I don't think she made it.  The only fabric my aunts recognized in it from clothes that they wore was the green stripe of the binding.  I'm guessing that Grandpa bought it at a farm auction in the late 20's or 30's and grandma replaced the binding to make it usable. Back in the days before box springs old quilts or blankets were placed under the mattress to protect it from the open bed springs, I think that is where the quilt was when Grandpa bought the bed and quilt.  I think someone  cut out a severely damaged section and sewed the good parts together so it could be used.  I love the indigo blues and the red and black 4 patches.  Wishing another old quilt had a label.  --Ann--

On the Needles

Progress during the olympics and it has been such a pleasant change from the presidential campaign.  I had about 2 inches of these done before the start and almost started a new pair just for the olympics but they would have been brown or dark blue for one of the boys this stripe was more in tune to the colors of the tropics.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the competition or performance that I set the needles aside.  Linking to Judy's OTN.  --Ann--

Minatures

My maternal grandmother was a very talented lady. She made beautiful quilts in the 30's click,  click and she was a master at arranging flowers and dried flowers.  These were some little place cards she made for the fair well over 40 years ago and are sadly falling apart.  How she cut an acorn crown in half without breaking it to bits is beyond me and then she had the imagination to take all these little bits, pine needles and stickers and put them together into a miniature  floral arrangement and glue it together.  I remember gluing peanut shells together to make a giraffe with her and gluing corn and other seeds into a rooster mosaic. She could keep me busy for hours. She also made some wonderful pinecone wreaths and Christmas trees, click that I am keeping forever. --Ann--

Out of the cupboard

 Another quilt out of the cupboard.  This is an oldie from the early 1990's.  I made a romper for DD out of the blue iris fabric.  I used a goofy tool to cut the star points, first I cut bias strips at an odd angle and sewed two strips together then cut rectangles.... anyway I cut all right hand triangles or maybe it was left but I only had one side so I had to make the mirror image side so somewhere I have a similar  quilt that has never been finished.  The pairs of star points are 2 rectangles sewn together.  I thought I tossed the tool when the tri rec tools came out but I found it last week so now it is gone.  I just machine quilted in the ditch.  Now I would  accentuate the pale yellow star in the middle with free motion quilting and quilt the cornerstones of the blocks to look like bees or butterflies.  I had so little imagination for machine quilting then but I did put a lot of effort into piecing the border.  I could use it for practice quilting. --Ann--

Antique quilt Bunny Hop

As I sort through the closets I find lots of treasures including this heirloom.  I got it from my mother and I'm sure her mother made it but what ever I was told about the quilt is long forgotten.  Alternating blocks quick and easy then I started to take a close up of the print and saw the bunnies.  Those have to be my grandmothers stitches.  It might have been pieced by her mother or mother in law but Grandma Selma quilted it. She started having fun with the quilting stencil because this bunny is twisted slightly in other blocks for a different position in the hop.  Treasures to keep.  --Ann--

On and Off the needles

I finished my summer cardigan Fine Sand with the hempathy yarn which machine washes wonderfully.  Now I just need a cooler day to wear it! Maybe in September.  I made the sleeves longer than 3/4 length because it may shrink a little.  It has short rows in the back so the hem is longer in the back and drapes really nice.  I had my serious face on for the pictures burst mode and self timer,  am I standing in the right place? is the camera going to focus? am I moving too fast? should I have blocked the sweater first? does it make my butt look big? should I have worn a different  t shirt? so many serious thoughts so I cut my head off.

Footies are finished except for the bunny tail to keep them up inside a shoe. They stay up with some shoes but not all shoes. Is it the foot? the sock? or the shoe? The bunny tail solves the problem.  I am getting started on socks for Christmas gifts. Just a 3x3 basket weave pattern with 2 knit rows between, its more fun than plain knitting and doesn't detract from the stripes.   Looking forward to some Olympic knitting time. --Ann--Linking to Judy's OTN

Saving forever on digital

Letting go of more stuff, the new house doesn't have nearly as many closets as our last two houses so storage space is at a premium good thing I read the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo and I'm still not tossing to her standards.  Downsizing was not really part of the plan, the house is almost as big but lacking in comparable closets.  Funny how that didn't register in my brain until the final walk through when I'm envisioning our stuff in the house and none of their stuff.  My sewing room will be so user friendly with less stuff that I will sew lots more quilts and even be able to access the drawing and painting tools.  Such fun ahead.  Optimistic thinking makes it easier.  Back to work --Ann--

Old baggage

Sketch, sketch then watercolor,  the colors are so anemic looking.

I go through things and toss then look again a few days latter and toss some more.  I'm letting go of some baggage that I have been dragging around for decades and 11 moves.  My large sketchbooks from college and some art work from high school.   The last time I looked at this stuff was the last time I packed 10 years ago.  It has only been taking up space since.  So now I am letting go.  I figure the next move will either be in with one of my kids or to the nursing home and I don't think either one will give me a closet big enough for all my baggage.

 There were a few blank pages left in one sketchbook so I took a break and sketched it is amazing how fast a sketch can be done with big fat carpenter type pencils.  I'm keeping the pencils along with all my smaller sketchbooks.  20 days until the moving truck comes and only 3 more times to fill the dumpster. --Ann--