This is a quick picture taken yesterday of the local Lake Elkhorn, mostly frozen over from our recent ‘real winter’ temperatures. The open water to the left is caused by aeration pipes bubbling upward and disturbing ice formation (that part of the lake is very shallow and can get quite anoxic without the aeration). It has been very cold (for Maryland) with night time temps in the single digits. Brrr!

The weekend was pretty quiet for me. Sunday I spent most of the day sewing in my upstairs (sunny) room, in close coordination with my Nina. 🙂 Saturday I mostly slugged around, staying warm and listening to the wind whip around the house. More brrrs!

This past Friday afternoon I spent with my friends Barbara, Patty and Polly at Springwater Designs quilt shop. The task I took along was to trace off Mimi Dietrich’s quirky eagle block to prepare for embroidery. I used a .01 Micron Pigma pen to do the writing – its ink is permanent and non-blotting on fabric. My hand shakes were causing me to be very deliberate as I worked so I could focus on not making my lines too jagged. Since the Pigma ink is permanent, I want the embroidery threads I use to completely cover my lines.

This is the whole design – about 16″ square, design only. The fabric I’m using has tossed random star clusters on a dark cream ground. Looked suitably patriotic to me without being regimented. 🙂 Here is a section up close – if you look carefully I’m sure you can see my drawn lines jittering.

This is a photo of the original eagle block itself which is part of a very old Baltimore album quilt (circa 1840-45). I was privileged to be able to examine this up close when Mimi brought it to our Grad Class meeting in January. It brought tears to my eyes, seeing the work on someone’s hands from that long ago, work that I myself am able to reproduce using skills I’ve trained over my years as a quilt maker.

I’ve been dithering over whether to do my embroidered version in all blue threads or all red threads. My friend Barbara suggested that I use the colors from the original block – and I think I will do that. Thanks, Barbara!

Today was the first meeting of the new Wool Club at Springwater Designs. Carol Sichler is leading the group. We had 20 paying members show up today and it was glorious! So much fun. I got to the shop early and spent some time working on my crazy quilt patchwork block.

I used the fabrics of men’s ties to create this 12″ square block. I intend to embroider along each seam line as I teach stitches to my Monday evening quilt guild group. I noticed as I was looking at the block yesterday that the fold lines from the original ties were still showing in my pieces (despite washing and ironing the fabrics).

Where you see the light blue running stitch lines was my work for today – I stitched along each fold line that I could find, attaching the silk to the muslin backing I used for stabilizing the block. My motto is ‘make it look like you intended it’ in the design. So, those fold lines have disappeared beneath the running stitches.

This is pretty much a red, white and blue color palette … yet another patriotic item? 🙂

Tomorrow is Grocery Tuesday with my brother. Hope the sun shines!

🙂 Linda