Hello,
I feel so very fortunate to have such kind  and generous friends. Last week I got a surprise package in the mail from my friend Patti. It was a paint brush organizer. So very handy and I put my brushed in strait away. I feel so flattered that she would share her time and effort to make and send me such a nice gift. People can be so very kind and it is doubly wonderful when it comes for no reason. It touches the heart. Such a small act can really lift the soul and raise one’s sprites.   I will try to do the same in the future.
I had four Zoom meetings this week. The QuEG’s meant on Tue with the FAB and Pixies meeting yesterday. It so good to stay connected. The Textile Artists Stitch Club started a new project with Jude Kilgshott. I am still not done with the handwork on my leaf print, but I went a head with the new assignment anyway. Jude asked us to collage a bit with fabric pieces and then stitch them down. I am half done with that as there are suppose to be 8 pages. She was trying to help us see the beauty of the back of the stitch work as well as the front and the transparency of Organdy really does allow that. I will keep working and hopefully get back to the old project too.

Progress Report: Murder  II This work is 36″ X 46″.   I discovered that I had on older piece named Murder of Crows   so I had to rename this work.

 

 

 

 

I did stitch in the ditch  in the seams and around the crows. But I felt that was not enough so I added what I call “ wind lines”  of quilting that run horizontally across the quilt in a wavy pattern. It works and the piece is stable now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap Happy I made  a trip to the Dr on Monday and he said I was healing nicely and could go back to normal activity.  That meant that I could lift things without fear of breaking the stitches on the back of my hand. So the first thing I did was quilt this queen sized quilt. It was hard to rustle about under the machine but I did it. Then I did the binding and it is done now.

 

Quiet- Daily Practice One of the other things I could not do with the hand , was stretch this piece. So I did that this week  now  that I have full use of my hands.

 

Black Roses      The work is 38″ X 36″ .    This is a rescue piece. The base was the original  background for Three Sisters.  I removed the figures  and had the old background  piece on the table.  Next to it was   black and white rose fabric .    It was a  gift from my friend Tanya. She often passes me interesting fabrics to play with. It just seemed to go together. And I had a chance to use my cording foot tht I had purchased for the machine.

 

I enjoyed this project.

 

 

 

 

Three Sisters So this piece got a new base and some additional build up. I think I am now ready to stitch the parts down.

 

 

 

 

 

After the Fall This work too had to be put on hold until I got the OK form the Dr. It takes about 10 min to stitch down each  leaf and I find that I can only work  for about half and hour before I begin to tire. All the stopping and truing the whole quilt to sew half and quarter inch sections  is slow work.

Felted Backs I built these backgrounds for the machine drawn birds. I will get out the Felter and do the  felt work this week so I can put it all together.

 

 

Daily Practice I am working away on the daily practice too. This is the new one with a week’s work of effort on it.

 

Childhood Memories- Dr Kunkel and Sailing
Moving to Muncie changed the lives of all of the family in different ways. Gene seemed to have  had  the most difficulty adjusting to a new bigger school. Dad said a new place was a great chance for a fresh start and I took it that way.   One of the changes Dad did was he started using his real first name. When Dad was born  one of his cousin’s  was born across the county   a day after  Dad.   Both boys were named James McElhinney. To keep them strait in the community, Dad went by his middle name of Howard. When we moved to Muncie and his diploma said “James” , he decided to go by that name. In October, I was really  feeling my oats and that nearly lead to disaster. I was comfortably reading away in my room one afternoon when the phone rang. I go up and went down the hall to our only phone and answered.
“Is Jim there?” asked the voice. I said “No” and hung up the phone. I had just gotten settled  when the phone rang again. This time it was the same question and same answer. I returned to my room and the phone rang yet again. As I walked down the hall I though, “ I ‘ll play a joke on this guy.”
“Is Jim there ? ” the caller asked for a third time.
“Yes,” I said. “But he is too drunk to come to the phone.”
“Is this Jim McElhinney’s home?” the caller asked.
I was not smart enough to just hang up, but said. “ Oh! I am so sorry. He is here and I will got to the garden and get him for you.”
After Dad got off the phone he gave me a bit of a dress down for being such a smart-allic.
“What if that had been one of my bosses?” he asked. I never did anything like that again.  As it turned out the man thought the whole thing was quit funny.    He was Dad’s office partner, Dr Kunkle. He and Dad got to be great friends and traveled all over Indiana working with teachers to develop curriculum programs. The two of them also went to Alaska to do the same thing with the Klincket Native American tribes off the coast.   I also developed a connection with Dr Kunkle when I went to Ball State. He was the sponsor of the sailing club there. That is were I learned to sail and I became proficient enough to be a Captain. My friend Margaret and I went out in one of  the club’s Windmill lots of times. On one trip with her I even swamped the boat and had to haul it back to the dock myself. It was a cold event. I only had one more  experience with sailing when I was much older. I spent afternoon trying to learn to sail surf on Cazenovia Lake. I could not “come about”  so I could “tack” north.     I kept   losing control and falling off the board.   So I was slowly “sailing”  farther and farther down the lake. Finally the owner came with his son and rescued me . The son sailed the board home and I rode in the cab back to the house.   Gene got to be good friend with Dr Kunkle too and also learned to sail with him. Gene was a good sailor and the two of them went to lots of sail boat races on weekends.   They eve won some cups.

Stay safe

Carol