Cop Car's Beat

Catching up on photos

In the past few weeks I've taken photos that have not made it to posting. This is to remedy the situation (not that you could not live without them!)

In Pillows and Rugosas Have Nothing to do With Each Other, daughter Bogie posted a photo of some decorative pillows that I made and sent to her. Here is a photo of our guest bed that shows, not only the blue pillows that were shipped to Bogie, but the red/orange/yellow pillows that were taken to elder daughter Dudette, last Sunday. In case I failed to tell you, Bogie, the covers are removable and washable. In fact, each of the small pillows has a utility pillow case under the decorative one.

P.S. The framed photo above the bed was taken by Fred First of Fragments from Floyd. (See Photographic Meme for more information on the photo.)

Here are a couple of photos of the mallard duck nest that is against our house - after it had served its purpose and been abandoned. In the closeup view, tufts of dark down are visible among the dried leaves.

This morning, I picked two bouquets: asparagus spears and white lilacs. (I consumed a couple of spears while going about my yard work and a few more at lunch.)

My mother would be proud!

Not much

The title is the answer to "What's happening?" around here. Hunky Husband and I seem to keep busy; but, neither of us feels that a lot is being accomplished. However, I will post one photo to show where a tiny fraction of my time has gone in the past several days - since my sewing machine (Bernina 1005) came home from being serviced. I'm writing about the sewing machine, now, when I tell you that there was a screw loose. They tightened the screw, cleaned and oiled the machine, adjusted the tension settings (more screw tightening), and pronounced it fit.

I won't, very much, go into the conversation that I had with the service guy about the sanity of a design that - supposedly - precludes an owner's doing routine maintenance on the machine. "Stupid" figured prominently in my pronouncements along with "I have twice taken the darned thing apart and oiled every joint that I could access...." On the service guy's part, "They don't want you to service the machine!" was intoned at least twice. This was the first time that the machine had been serviced by the dealer since HH bought the machine for me in about 1995, at which time the machine had already been used in a high school class for 10-15 years. But...contrast that to the 30 years that Expert Seamstress used her Bernina 831 before having it serviced. The 831 model is built with swing-out panels that "allow" an owner to do routine maintenance!

In cleaning out my sewing room last month, during which I disposed of about 40 hunks of fabric (none of them quilting fabrics, but fabrics that had been purchased to make dresses and sweats and such!) that I had owned even longer than I had owned the Bernina 1005, I ran across three hunks of fabric that I'm pretty sure I bought for use in quilting. However, those particular hunks of fabric are too heavy to be used with most other quilting fabrics. Juxtapose that with the fact that I had six boudoir-sized (about 12"x16") feather pillows and three 16"x16" pillow forms and you have a project a-budding. Aha! I shall cover the pillows and inflict them upon "the kids" as I had intended to do when the pillows and pillow forms were first purchased - back when Wonderful GrandDaughter was too young to be considered one of "the kids". Getting on with the story: Here, below, is a photo showing two of the three (HH is already using one that is similar to the smaller pillow) pillows that I've finished, so far, and the other two hunks of material.

Dear Dudette, Bogie, & WGD: Do not fret. No one will be forced to accept/use the pillows. Acceptance is strictly voluntary. In fact, I'm thinking that a different type of fabric (sturdier) might be in order for any pillows intended for Bogie's home as they will surely be used by her retinue of canines and felines. The whole intent is to lighten the load on my sewing room by ridding it of (at least) three hunks of fabric and nine pillows/pillow forms.

Grandmother Hall's comforter - plus a turkey photo

The first photo, below, shows the front of a comforter that (my mother told me) my paternal grandmother made from her (and Grandfather's?) wedding clothes. Over the years (about 100 of them, give or take - the wedding was in 1908), the batting had clumped and shifted and torn so badly that the comforter was unusable. As my sewing machine was clattering and skipping stitches (as opposed to its usual beautiful stitching), I knew that I wouldn't be using it for a while - until it had been serviced and, possibly, repaired. (I took the machine in for servicing, yesterday, and they said it would take about one week.) Thus, I started disassembling the comforter. My intention is to keep the front and back as intact as possible while making the comforter into a quilt.

The lighter pieces are from muslin. If you are familiar with old, old fabrics, you know that muslin had about the weave and heft of well-made cheese cloth. Thus, many of the lighter pieces have holes worn through by abrasion of cloth edges at the seams. The large, black squares are a hefty, highly textured material that is in good shape. The smaller, navy pieces are a plain weave; but, are a little tighter, heftier weave than the muslin and are almost all in good shape. (For those who wonder at the bits scattered over the surface of the quilt: they are tufts of thread. Grandmother had used two strands of yellow-ish tan and two strands of rusty red threads to tie knots - intended to keep the batting from shifting.)

The back of the comforter, below, is a twill woven of a fine-gauge yarn - wool, I think. The back is sewn from the gores of a skirt - alternating direction to provide uniform width. I suspect that, at some point in its life, the comforter spent time (perhaps years) folded at the foot of a bed - which would account for the bleached look of one end (which is the "foot" end). Originally, I believe that all of the panels were of the same, deep green. (Note the patch in the foreground.) One panel is badly spotted and has several holes (some of which had been patched on the inside), so I am pondering the adviseability of replacing the whole panel or of applying one large patch (probably on the inside, with top hand stitching around each of the holes - the way that Grandmother taught me to make a neat patch!)

Today, at the office, I was unable to work (computer problems that were not solved within a couple of hours); so, I dropped by a quilt store where the owner is having a going-out-of-business sale. (The owner, at age 87, has decided it is time to retire!) They had no woolen fabrics; but, I was able to pick up wool batting (photo, below) for the quilt that the comforter is to become.

Finally, because I know that one of my blog friends grooves on turkeys, a photo of our turkey family that has recently returned after an absence of several weeks. Originally, we had a mother and nine chicks (see Young Turkey Family). Now, the family is down to seven, total, and I can no longer tell the hen from the chicks. Unfortunately, one of the turkeys has a lame leg.

Presents

Frequently, Hunky Husband and/or I will have no earthly clue what to give the other on a gift-giving occasion. We sometimes wait months/years for the other person to express a wish for something that they want. Sometimes, I'm sure, we have gone beyond the limits of our memories and forgotten the intended gift all together. This year is different. HH wanted a new smart phone (we both already had smart phones but have never subscribed to the data packages to enable email and internet access). Come to think of it, he's been researching smart phones for months - maybe, even, a year or so. He now has a Nokia 822 (or something like that).

I had been toying with the idea of a new camera for some months. I now have a Nikon 1 - and one lens that is longer than the one that came with the camera (30-110mm vs 10-30mm).

Here are two views of my new toy.

 

Yes, I realize that the "extra" lens is a different color from the camera; but, white was all they had on hand and I don't really care about the color.

And, here is the first photo taken with the Nikon 1 - taken with natural lighting.

Surprise, surprise!

It isn't often that I am really surprised. Yesterday was exceptional. I received a small box in the mail. Having recently ordered a new swimsuit (on sale, don't you know?), I didn't tear into the box. I thought that I knew what was inside. It wasn't until about an hour after Hunky Husband had deposited the box into my "in" basket that I idly picked it up to open it.

As I worked at opening the box, I noted that the addressing was hand printed. Unusual for a box from Lands' End...hmmm...the return address said "Buffy". Wow! Now I tore into the box! She had sent me three things: a letter (most welcome!), a DVR of a movie that we had discussed (Wind Talkers starring Nicolas Cage), and a beautiful small quilt that Buffy had made. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Buffy!

I share a photo of the quilt (note how well the colors go with the chair on which it is displayed!) In addition to the beauty of the quilt (precisely constructed!) and to the friendship of its maker, Buffy knew that I would appreciate it for incorporating several of the fabrics that she had shared with me some years ago. How thoughtful can a friend be?!

Buffy doesn't post as much as she used to - other things are taking precedence these days. Foremost on her agenda is preparing to move from the home that she has loved for the past couple of decades. She and her Dear Husband are powering down and sizing down toward retirement. When she has anything that resembles a small chunk of time to do as she pleases, Buffy is a prolific quilter. Batik Quilt shows a block from just one of her cajillion quilts - a real jewel! In fact, on 8/1/2006, Buffy posted about making this quilt at Cop Car, Do You Remember....:...this fabric? in which she includes photographs of the fabrics and of a trial layout. I doubt that Buffy knows how much joy she has added to my life. I should tell her!

I should also thank Bogie who introduced us. Bogie and Buffy were blog pals before I ever made the scene. Thank you, Bogie.

 

New bug

Getting a bug:

Someone pointed out to me that I was getting a little one-sided in my normal activities - spending 'way too much time at volunteer endeavors and not enough time on family endeavors. Coincidentally, there was a death in our family that brought my two brothers and me together for the first time since 1994. (Unfortunately, the photos of the three of us were technically flawed to the point of their being un-salvageable.) Also, somewhat coincidentally, Ancestry.com had recently made an offer that I couldn't refuse - an offer that allowed me to access a file that Elder Brother had sent me of the family tree he had started documenting shortly after our mother died in 1994. In short, now I am spending much time retrieving and documenting our family tree.

One of the "good deals" that Ancestry.com offered me, enticed me to pay for a 3-month international membership (my description for whatever the real terminology is that they use) to their services. As all of my known blood relatives have been in the USA since the eighteenth century, my interest in "international" records access is to work with Hunky Husband's side of our family tree. HH's mother was born in the former Yugoslavia and his father was born to his paternal grandparents a few years after they came - also from the former Yugoslavia.

As has been the case in much of my personal and professional life, I find that I enjoy the challenge of doing research - even when it is family history rather than science.

A challenge on the male side:

In the past, I have frequently lamented the propensity of women (in the past couple of centuries in the USA, at least) to change their last names. It makes it darned hard to trace them through the years. How much easier it has usually been to trace men whom I've known than to trace the women! I, myself, plead guilty. In my younger years, I took HH's last name. Then, when we divorced, I assumed yet a third last name - which I kept when, years later, we married again. Gah! Although I have used the same last name for the past 40+ years, how much simpler it would have been never to have changed my name at all!

Now, somewhat late in life, I am a huge advocate of having male babies use their fathers' last name and female babies using their mothers'. (Our own two girl babies and their one girl baby seem to have fared well in sharing their fathers' last names and then their husbands' last names. But still....)

Well...as it turns out...it has been much easier tracing HH's maternal line than his paternal line. There have been at least four spellings of his paternal lineage's last name - three of which have no real resemblance (in English) to the name that appears on his great-grandfather's grave marker. I shall persevere (for a time, at least - until my ADD kicks in) in trying to find HH's paternal family member who came over on a ship from the Old Country.

I must thank Hunky Husband for his contributions. Just yesterday afternoon, he entrusted to my hands a file (about two inches thick) of papers containing all that he knew about his own family. Many of the papers are in his father's or mother's handwriting and contain assorted "facts" - themselves using various spellings of names of family members. (My father-in-law, whom you probably have read in past postings, I loved dearly, spelled his own mother-in-law's first name two different ways.) Some years ago, HH had taken photos of his grandparents' grave markers. Here is one of his photos (below) which may show a grave marker for a relative, or for another family of like name nearby.

                          
 

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the variety of spellings in HH's family members' names. We, in modern times, use somewhat standardized spellings when compared to spellings of previous centuries. However, people still change their names (I'm thinking of making "Hartpence" into "Hart" etc), so why should I expect differently within a somewhat recently immigrated peoples? It would, however, be nice to know how many of the spelling variations are due to errors on a census-taker's part (sorry, Bogie!) or on the part of a family member who did not yet "know" English and how many are due to changes in the way the family members used their own names.

BTW: I never saw anything written in English by either of HH's grandmothers although I could understand their spoken English. I miss hearing their accented English! As I believe often happens, I came to love HH's family very deeply and miss them (in particular his parents) very nearly as deeply as I miss "my own".

Ready to quilt

Wonderful GrandDaughter is expected to produce a brother for Next Generation 1, in May. Next Generation 2's quilt top has been sandwiched and is ready for me to start the quilting. Yea! I'm on schedule!

 

 The second photo is a close-up of the appliqued dragon that echos the dragon in the main fabric's design.

More odds & ends 2010

Here is the snow doll that appeared in the photo of my ceramic products (previous posting) - now with its "arms" installed and with the tiny muffler that I knitted for it. 

Below is a closeup of the dragon that was among my ceramics in the previous posting. I put cork on the base of the piece so that it would not mar the surface of whatever it was placed upon.
 

I believe that the ceramic, internally lit Christmas tree was a Campfire project that Dudette made. I know that Dudette made it for my mother. When mother died, I found a sticker on the base of the tree that bequeathed the tree to me. I love it! It is on display for the holidays - along with the above-pictured snow doll and the costume jewelry wreath on velvet backing that is pictured below the tree. I made the wreath for my parents when Elegant Friend and I were doing crafting in the mid-1960s.

 

 

Cookies, fudges, and part of a nutroll that are sitting around awaiting consumption (mostly by Hunky Husband). Except for the fudges, everything follows recipes that HH's late mother used for her holiday baking. For those who don't know, HH's mother (AKA My Beloved Mother-in-Law) was from Serbia in Yugoslavia (his dad was Croatian). She was a fabulous cook.

 

Finally, I leave you with evidence of productive activity that took place yesterday - Bottoms Up! [I put silicone rubber on the bottoms of a bunch of ceramic pieces that sit about the house - to prevent scratching of furniture. Only a couple are the product of my wheelwork and kiln.]

 

What's a craft room?

Several days ago, in To do or not to do, I mentioned that we had included a craft room in the basement of our "new" house (circa December 1999). For kicks, I'll include a few photos to give a flavor of the room.

Starting with the craft bench, the photos spin about in the clockwise direction. The craft bench has shelves for storing garden bench and stepping stone stained glass patterns where the knee-hole would normally be. A magnetic tool holder, holding most of our glass-cutting tools, is mounted to the wall where a window might be expected to appear (if the cabinets were in a kitchen) - the wall being an interior wall adjoining the laundry room. You can probably pick out (at the left end) the base unit of our glass-grinding tool and (at the right end) three boxes of Diamondcrete. The closed cabinets hold assortments of pottery glazes, towels, books, et cetera.

The second photo shows the folding table on which we do a lot of different things; but, just now, it holds a tub in which clay reposes - with a jar of glaze that I'm in the process of re-hydrating on top. The metal shelves hold our green ware (unfired pieces), bisque ware (fired but not glazed pieces), tubs of clay, denim-covered boards for working the clay, bats for the potter's wheel, et cetera - and, oh yes, cookie tins full of cut stained glass. The window to the right is the escape window for our basement - the same window at which toads and frogs have been photographed for posting.

The third photo shows our electric potter's wheel. Not much to say about it; but, above it, you might espy a couple of containers of potter's tools on the window ledge. Note the tiling that I had added under the window so that when we are using the wheel (then, it is positioned under the window) we have an easier time cleaning up the mess of the clay that gets slopped onto the wall!

The fourth photo shows the electric kiln (with the external exhaust flue) flanked by a tall cabinet, the top of which is the outlet for the clothes shoot chute (I do know the difference!)  from the upstairs bedroom hallway and the bottom of which holds squares (approximately 12"x12") of stained glass and assorted stained-glass-working stuff (such as bathmats and sheets of cardboard that are reserved for glass working). The short, free-standing shelf is a quarter-round shelf that holds coffee cans full of kiln furniture (supports for the shelves & pottery). The door leads to the hallway.

Examples of some of the potter stuff that we did in 2000-2001, include all three stages of pottery. Perhaps you can figure out which is what by looking?

Lower left is a green ware pot, the two plaques to the right of the pot are bisque ware, and the rest of the items have been glazed once. (I still want to re-fire the little pot at the top and the two orange plaques to add a low-temperature glaze to them. The glazes that are on them now are fired at about 2165 degrees Farenheit. The glazes that I will add will be under 1000 degrees Farenheit. The two little sunflowers are for stamping designs into clay items.

That's all folks! 9/2/2010 Well, that's not quite all. I failed to mention that the room for the craft room was chosen for its proximity to the laundry room. By locating the craft room just a couple of steps from the laundry room sink, we saved the expense of installing another "clean up" sink! The door at the left of the photo (below) is the same pocket door that (barely) showed to the left of the workbench in the craft room.

To do or not to do

Just as Hunky Husband's and my new house was being completed (December 1999), Elegant Friend and I bought an electric kiln and potters wheel plus all sorts of tools and equipment for throwing pottery which went into a "crafts room" in HH's and my basement. EF and I got together one night per week (I was still employed at the time) to do pottery. What fun we had!

During the summer months, we did some stained-glass-on-cement work so that I didn't have to fire the kiln (it really puts out the heat!) The next winter, we got together a few times to do pottery. In toto, the kiln (which is a 7 cubic foot one and holds many items) has been fired 13 times.

Since the spring of 2001, the equipment has sat essentially unused. Finally, I told EF that we needed to get all of that stuff out of my basement, that there were better uses for the space. She agreed, since it seemed we would never get back to it. We started researching/figuring out what we want to do with the stuff.

Now I'm getting cold feet. If only we could get back to using the stuff, that would be better than getting rid of it. I miss the good times we had. Oh, me.