Feast or Famine

Over the last few weeks I have done some fun stash building.

First there was the mother load of fabric from Judy's cedar chest, and then I got a sweet package in the mail from Carli at Good Earth Quilting. Carli introduced me to the tern "blended quilts" - quilts made up of both new and repurposed materials. I like the idea of blending new and recycled fabric to create something that is both beautiful and also exhibits the heart and purpose of traditional quilt making.

She sent me this beautiful fat quarter bundle of organic cotton prints. They are so lovely and I can't wait to work with them! Thank you so much Carli! 

Some I-Spy bits and pieces

I also went shopping this weekend, which is a big deal. Because I live on a remote island I only go shopping once every month or two, and it is an all day affair full of errands, driving, riding the ferry, and hauling our stuff from place to place. The ferry is "passenger only", so we have to haul all of our stuff on and off along with all of the other passengers. It can get totally crazy with everybody's boxes of groceries, building supplies, laundry bags, plants and animals, you name it.

My sign for the drill that I left on the ferry.

A couple hours after I got home, after everything was unpacked, I was super bummed out to realize that I had left my BRAND NEW DRILL on the ferry, with a huge box of screws. A well-meaning friend loaded it on to the ferry and forgot to tell me. It wasn't with the rest of my stuff and it got covered up by some other cargo and I stupidly went home without it. When I went back to get it, it was gone. Ouch.

Citrus blossoms on the marmalade tree.

What can I do but let it go. Not that I didn't kick myself for a while, but it does put things into perspective. In truth I have so much, and I only lost a mere tool that can be replaced. Thank goodness for the health and abundance in our lives, and if somebody out there yoinked my drill then that is poor karma for that person.

So there.

Besides, when I consider the value of all the great stuff that I have brought home from the Free Store, I am super lucky! Check out this beautiful print that I found today. About 3 yards of little wagons and wishing wells. Pink with grey is so sweet.

And check this sweet quilt made with Moda's 30's Playtime fabric. It is showcased on a Craftsy course called "Quilting Quickly". Yeah! Just my style! I bought a couple of charm packs of this line and now I have some pre cuts in my stash for when I feel like zipping something together like this.

That is, after I transplant about a gazillion veggie starts.

The roosters are all so cool. How to decide which guy shall rule the roost?

I finally started practicing yoga again post-pneumonia. I painfully damaged my intercostal muscles and at one point I was sure I had broken a rib from coughing. I barely even touched my toes for the last 2 months and it was hard for me to start up again.

I'm workin' on it.

Sour Pie Cherry trees in flower

Wishing you a glad heart and a grateful spirit.

May the Fourth be with you!

Fabric Score!

I was just thinking yesterday, I need more bright fabric. I have loads of beautiful dark pieces and I love dark colors but I also LOVE bright, colorful quilts. Yes, I thought. I need to buy some fabric.

Well, today I brought home a wheelbarrow load of fabric from my dear friend Judy!! Judy moved up here from California in the 1970's and she brought with her a cedar chest full of fabric and clothing patterns that remained almost untouched for the last 40 years.

Judy and her family just relocated into their new house so they are in the process of cleaning out their old place and sorting through stuff. She generously offered me anything from the chest that struck my fancy. 

There were some clothing patterns and bits of projects from when Judy was a single mom of four and made clothes for herself and for all of her children. All of the fabric is in amazing condition considering it has been in that chest for so long. I got some hounds-tooth knits and some beautiful shot cotton, lots of bright polyester, fun quilting scraps, and an embroidery project that was only just begun. I would love to finish the embroidery and make a pillow or something for Judy as a thank-you.

Wouldn't these make some fun tights?

It is amazing how sometimes the things we want or need just manifest themselves like that. A wonderful and welcome reminder to send gratitude to the universe.

Also very grateful that the beet seeds I hurriedly threw into the ground have sprouted. Now I will wait for them to get a bit bigger before thinning them out so that the roots have room to develop.

Lots of cheery flowers blooming, Johnny Jump Ups, and Purple Iris buds ready to open.

This beautiful Viburnum specimen has a heady scent like a lilac or a rose. This is a big perennial that we basically ignore all year round until the scent stops us in our tracks and forces us to notice it. I put a clump of blossoms on the coffee table and it scented the whole room. In the yard the air smells like fruit tree blossoms and dew (or alternatively chicken poop or goats, depending on where you stand). 

Hooray for Spring, flowers, and sunshine!

And a Very Happy Birthday to my older brother who is thirty today!

Horsetail on the drying rack.

This is a great time to harvest herbs. I've been picking dandelion roots and horsetail. Dandelion roots are a blood cleanser and liver tonic, and Horsetail shoots have a high silica content and they are good for skin and hair. I dry the shoots for making tea. I figure that since both of these plants grow in my garden whether I like it or not, I may as well use them.

McNugget or "Big Mac" is all grown up.

I have some work to do with the animals. We have too many roosters and one billy goat that is too big for his britches. I will spare you all of the gory details but it might be time for a BBQ.

Somehow in the midst of all this I will manage to finish that hexagon baby quilt and take some photos of the embroidery project.

Thanks so much for reading!

I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day.

Hexagons and Dandelions

I was all geared up to start hand quilting my improv quilt and then I realized that all of my safety pins are on the hexagon baby quilt. I am not prepared to thread baste so I just stopped procrastinating and started quilting the hexagons.

I'm doing a basic stippling pattern again, still working on my FMQ skills.

Stippling is so fun!

There are tonnes of dandelions blooming in the yard and today I went around and picked a bowl of them for an experimental batch of dandelion wine.

David helped me and we pretended that the flowers were gold doubloons.

The little chickens are so funny, they won't let us pet them but if we wander out into the yard, they follow along behind us, just to see what's up. Still no eggs yet but we had our first rooster crow this week!

Here is David down by the lake, where the goaties live. The goat pasture was fenced in long before the goats arrived, and it was not originally intended for animals. Luckily there are established nut trees, oaks, and rhododendrons, all of which the goats avoid. There are too many tannins in the oak and nut trees and the rhodos are poisonous.

Individual goats have different tastes and food preferences.

But there are certainly many plants for them to eat. I rescued some tea roses and flowering currants, and here is Firefly eating a flowering Spirea. Oddly last year and the year before that, the goats didn't touch the Spirea. I want to save it so it is slated for removal and will be transplanted into the main yard where it can grow. On the upside, the goats are doing a great job mowing the lawn.

I've been looking for a source for cheese-making supplies. I want to try making homemade Havarti. The first place I stayed on the West Coast was a dairy goat farm and the ladies there made amazing dill Havarti cheese.

David studiously filling up the tub

Finally, the cast iron bathtub is ready to go!! After working all day it is so great to sit in a hot outdoor bath, listening to the birds sing and breathing in the scent of flowering fruit trees.

I keep meaning to get a photo of myself in there with my toes hanging out and the fire going underneath it, but you get the idea. The water can stay hot for hours as long as I keep the fire stoked. I always find it a little bit ironic when doing things the old country way is actually more luxurious than the modern, more convenient version.

Then there is wee David who is content just to get soaked with the cold hose.

Hope you all saw some sunshine today.

I'm linking up with Stitch by Stitch's 'Anything Goes' Monday. 

Thank you for stopping by!

Blogging and Sowing

My work in progress this week has been my blog! I'm trying to complete some pages including an "About Me" and photos of my quilt finishes and quilts in progress.

Nalia's Love Blanket

Including the knit blankets that our community has made for our friends who have been affected by cancer or other life threatening illness. I was involved in sewing together the first 3 and the women of our island have gone on to make at least six more! It has been a great way to send warmth and healing energy to someone who is going through a hard time.

I am writing tutorials on traditional skills (canning, making candles, brewing beer and wine at home, hide tanning) gardening (how to prepare a bed, planting tips, using mulch and cover crops) and keeping dual purpose animals like chickens, goats, and rabbits, which can be used to prepare land for planting crops and also provide fertilizer to the garden and meat for the household.

I guess that makes this more of a farm blog than a quilt blog, even though my blogroll is all quilters.

I have a passion for making quilts but I am still a beginner. Living off the grid and growing food for the last eight years, I have learned a lot along the way. There are so many beautiful quilters out there and hundreds of great tutorials, but what is much less common is good information relating to homesteading and self-sufficiency. I hope to fill the gap and maybe inspire others to grow their own, buy locally, and learn about how to survive away from corporations and processed food.

I started as a suburban teenager who ate fast food and didn't know squat about nature, armed only with an independent spirit and willingness to work hard and learn. Living off the grid means that we supply all of our own electricity, water, and heating. This is often hard work but is very satisfying and I wouldn't trade it for a high paid job in the city, no way.

Good Morning!

Gardening is also more work than grocery shopping but well worth it in food quality.

Shallots

Strawberry Plants

And a nice bed, fertilized, turned to a fine tilth, and ready for some snow peas which are soaking overnight.

In the meantime I have really enjoyed meeting quilters through the online community of quilt blogs and I am continually inspired to try new things.

Thanks for teaching me how to quilt!!

Piano Keys From Gee's Bend

I literally could not help myself. I have so much to do this time of year - and many sewing projects on the go - but after seeing the beautiful quilts that came out of Gee's Bend, Alabama, I had to put together an improv quilt top.

I am calling this quilt "Piano Keys"

I didn't use a ruler, or my rotary cutter and mat, just some mid-sized fabric scissors. I didn't measure anything! IT WAS AWESOME! I was commenting about this to someone else and she told me that after she saw the quilts from Gee's Bend, she made 28 improv quilts!!!

I might never follow a pattern again!!

This quilt was made from 100% wool pants, shirts, and sweaters. I kept the buttons on one piece from a plaid shirt that I cut up for the quilt, as a reminder that the patches in this blanket are all repurposed materials.

This quilt top is going to get a border and will then be hand quilted in an imitation of the quilts from the Gee's Bend book. Generally I'm not a huge fan of monochromatic color schemes but this quilt was really fun to make, and I'm going to give it to my son's dad, who isn't a bright colors kind of a guy anyway.

I even let the dog lie on it. This is usually blasphemy.

Stewie is kind of color-coordinated, don't you think?

In other homesteading news, I managed to throw some seeds into the ground this week and I can only hope that they germinate and grow. Carrots and parsnips and a big beet patch are all in my hopes for the garden this year.

Chicken Tractor

The bantam chickens are still super tiny. We were worried about them getting eaten by a larger prey bird after we lost a bigger chicken to the ravens. So now they have their own little coop with a run attached. Over time the chickens will scratch up all of the grass and the dirt will be fertilized by their poo and food scraps. 

This is a win-win for the birds and for us as it creates a fertile garden bed and the chicks have a place to peck and scratch.

Yesterday I visited a friend in the community who just had twin babies, a boy and a girl. They were like fuzzy little peanuts, and because they are twins they seemed sooo tiny. The baby boy was about 5lbs, like a sweet little doll. It gave me an idea for a large baby quilt that is half blue and half pink. I don't think I have enough fabric in my stash but I might have to come up with something so that I can do a photo shoot with those little babies. So precious and a very fitting experience for this Easter weekend as we celebrate fertility and birth!

Happy Spring!

The Quilts of Gee's Bend

I stopped by my friend's house today to pick up a dozen eggs, and she handed me this book.

I'm sure a lot of you quilters out there are already familiar with this collection but I had never seen it before, and I was so blown away I have to recommend this to all artists and quilters everywhere.

The book is about the women quilters of Gee's Bend, a small, black community in Alabama that produced hundreds of stunningly beautiful quilts. They are incredible works of art, abstract and made with pure creativity and recycled materials.

One quilt that really stuck with me is one that a woman made from her husband's work clothes after he died. They quoted the woman who said that she wanted the quilt made from his clothing to "cover up under for love". The quilt was made with practically every stitch of his clothing, stains and all. It was completely un-square. Probably the most beautiful quilt I have ever seen.

It felt good to flip through this book after my little rant about recycling. I don't want to get too political or anything, I know that sweatshops are a touchy subject and it can be really uncomfortable to think about where a lot of the fabric we wear and use comes from. 

These women said it all with their quilts. Made with love and made to BE loved, made used and made to be used. 

Truly touching.

Quilting and Recycling

The batting is cut to size because I'm planning on binding with the back.

I'm making this little quilt to test out a pattern I drafted for a hexagon quilt that is sown in strips. Mostly I made the top out of articles of clothing. A few pretty tops and a brown skirt and this blue vintage sheet, plus some scraps of plaid. The batting is an airplane blanket.

I love to recycle and re-purpose fabric into quilt projects. I often drool over designer collections and I do buy fabric sometimes, but mostly I find lines of fabric to be pure inspiration for how to pair fabrics in my own stash. So much fabric is readily available in the way of clothes and cotton sheets, so much of it in perfect condition aside from minor flaws that can be discarded when choosing quilt pieces. It is like a puzzle, trying to decide what to use. 

Especially for a project like this one, which is a practice piece. I have it basted and ready to go, just as soon as I decide how to quilt it.

I am inspired to finish up this quilt because I was telling my BC quilting friend Caroline Heinrichs at Good Earth Quilting about my interest in recycling and I won her giveaway! I am so excited not only to win some beautiful fabric but to have made a connection with another quilter who enjoys the economical and environmentally friendly practice of re-purposing fabric.

We have so much surplus in this age when things are made to be thrown away.

Also I just have to bring to light that clothing manufacture is often outsourced to factories where people are paid poorly and have no rights. Banana Republic, GAP, Old Navy, Levi's, Victoria's Secret, etc etc... it is shocking to do some research and investigate how many popular stores and brand names get their clothes from third-world countries with the cheapest labor.  For me, using these like-new but discarded items is a way to honor the people who made them, who might work in a sweat shop, while we in the developed world might buy something and never even wear it.

The age of consumerism is soiling our planet. I love new fabric and I do buy it with pleasure, however I also want to advocate for reducing waste, reusing materials, and recycling products whenever possible. For thrift of course but also for the Earth and for our oceans.

Okay, now I will get off my recycling soap box, promise!

Up close and personal with a baby goat's breakfast

At home I am counting my blessings, and among them my three milking goats and the bounty of milk and poo for the garden that they give us. Animals always pick up on my mood and every morning they offer me a reminder to have gratitude for the abundance in my life and to live in the present moment. The goats love having a routine, and they give me a reason to maintain stability in my life.

I might be in danger of becoming a crazy hippie goat lady.

I can always count on these two to help make the milk disappear.

It is my sweet boy's birthday today.

We had a pirate party and he had a wonderful time, greeting every guest at the door with a big "Happy Birthday!!"

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading my rambles!

On this Work In Progress Wednesday I am linking up with Lee at her blog, Freshly Pieced.

Have a beautiful week out there.