A Note Of Thanks Is Overdue

I have wanted to write for as long as I can remember. When I was in the fourth grade, I had to go to school early as my parents left for work and I couldn't be home alone. For those of us who arrived early, the school had someone to watch us on the play ground as long as the weather permitted. If it was too cold or raining, we could come in to the gym, but we weren't allowed to play. We were to quietly work on our homework. I always did my homework the night before so I had nothing to do. Rather than get in trouble for talking, I decided to write a book. I was no Anne Frank! I decided that my book would be about a little girl and her adventures. Of course the little girl was me, but her adventures were from my dreams. I loved the mornings when we were in the gym. I would write and write, lost in a world that only existed in my head. After so many pages, I decided that I had done enough for a chapter and on I would go to the next. I had no idea of how to structure a book, four or five pages of notebook paper seemed like enough for a chapter. Sadly, all those pages filled with adventure were thrown away when we prepared for our next move. What I wouldn't give to just have a peek at what I wrote so long ago. After so many years, I am writing once again. What a joy it is for me, and how grateful I am to all of you who read and send the most wonderful notes to me. I think the notes that I receive are my favorite part of writing this blog. You inspire me. Just recently I found out that my blog had been in one of the Threads emails. You can see the article if you go to www.threadsmagazine.com/item/17646/when-the-ground-is-white-youve-got-time-to-write. In the article they tell you how you can submit a potential article to Threads Magazine. I received an email from a follower in Houston,TX who is the newsletter editor for the Greater Houston ASG. She had put the information about my blog in thier newsletter. Quite an honor. And thanks to another follower, I found out about http://www.artisanssquare.com/. If you type in my name in the search area you will see all the conversation that has gone on about the Spin Around Top. One of the ladies has made a pile of them. Incredible. Two of my friends here in Chicago are working on the jacket pattern that I sent out to a number of you. One is doing the jacket in the most beautiful red silk from China. The other is doing her jacket in a wonderful piece of felted wool. I saw it last Sunday. I wanted to keep it! This same friend decided to make the rectangle skirt that I posted a while back. She walked in to the luncheon and fashion show wearing her skirt and looking like a million bucks. Doesn't she look great?!! This picture I just had to include. I love meeting Rhondas. There aren't a lot of us out there. Rhonda is on the right. She won the faux fur collar I made and donated to the raffle for the Haute Couture Fashion show. I had no idea who won it until I walked out in my first garment and saw Rhonda sitting there wearing the collar. I received a message today that she wore it the entire afternoon. This is a great collar and very easy to do. It was a free download from Haberman's Fabrics which is in Michigan. The address for the collar is www.habermanfabrics.com/proj_furcollar.html. It can be worn in a number of ways, and I think it's just a fun item to add to your wardrobe. Between a broken computer and just having a little too much on my plate, I have let me little series of Rectangles, Squares and Circles slide. I am coming back to it and I have some great things in store. Thank you all again for following and for your wonderful messages and emails. As I said, you all inspire me.

A Walking Quilt, A Mattress and A Fashion Show

I'm reading a book entitled, "The Quilt That Walked to Golden." It's a true story about a family that moved from the east to Colorado in search of a better life. Because the wagon was so full of "necessary" things, the husband told his wife that she could only take the clothes that were on her back. As the story goes, she just couldn't part with her precious garments and proceeded to layer on as many of her things as possible. After they arrived in Golden, Colorado, she made a quilt out of her dresses. This is a woman after my own heart. I don't know that I would have the fortitude to walk all those miles with layer upon layer on my body, but I guess that when there's a will, there's a way.

My great-great grandmother walked from Florida to Texas. She was born in Texas, married and then followed her husband to Florida. In Florida she had four children. When my great grandmother was about twelve, her father died. It's very hard to believe, but a woman could not own land in the state of Florida at that time. So my great-great grandmother packed her wagon, tied her cow to the back and set out on the journey back to Texas with her four children. At that time a woman could own land in Texas as long as she was not married. Once she married, the land would then belong to her husband. Kind of a rotten deal. Thankfully, at least from a woman's perspective, things have changed. I am amazed by her courage, setting out on a trip like that, alone with four children.

Now my great grandmother had all the fortitude and courage of her mother. At seventeen, she married my great grandfather who already had five children. His first wife had died. The oldest child was twelve, so not a vast age difference between my great grandmother and the oldest of her now stepchildren. She went on to have eight children of her own. She was truly incredible. She was a wonderful cook, she made the quilts for her family, made clothes for her daughters, kept her home, never missed a Sunday church service, and after my great grandfather died, she ran the farm. Not only did she make the quilts, she made the mattresses as well. They were incredible, big fluffy feather mattresses that were made from the feathers of her geese. I can remember going for a visit and sleeping on those wonderful beds. Getting into bed was a bit of a shock as there was no heat in the bedrooms, so the sheets were icy cold, but by morning I was as warm as I could be nestled in the feathers with heaps of quilts over me. The only thing that could pull me from that bed was the smell of breakfast poking at my nose.

As I worked on the shirt pictured below, I couldn't help but think of my great grandmother and those incredible feather mattresses. The fabric (pictured above) looks so much like the ticking fabric she would use. I made the shirt to go with a jacket that I made for our upcoming fashion show. Linda Lee of The Sewing Workshop gave the Haute Couture Club fifty patterns of her San Diego jacket. A few years ago we started doing a type of group project. We choose a pattern and then everyone makes it up however they wish. The audience loves this as it's fun for them to see so many versions of the same pattern. This year is extremely special as Linda Lee will be attending our show.

For my shirt, I used an older Isabel Toledo pattern. I really love this shirt. It's crisp and clean, but yet has a wonderful flair with the structured peplum.

Linda Lee said that we could do anything with the pattern that we chose to do.

The jacket was originally done in the 80's so it has a tremendous amount of ease in it. I did the extra small. Rather than do a shirt version, I decided to make mine into a jacket. I lengthened it a good bit, added a yoke to the back and then redrafted the back to give it a swing.

I made openings in the side seams to put my belt through. The fabric is who knows what. I think it is probably rayon with lycra as it does have a stretch. For the show we are calling it a stretch denim tweed.

The lining is rather fun. I found this fabric on Ebay. There's a woman in Montana that gets some of the most interesting fabric. I'll look up her store and give you the link in another post. The fabric has women walking in great little outfits.

The pants are just skinny, straight leg pants.This is one of eight garments that I will have in the show. Thankfully, I'll have someone to help me change. Stay tuned, I'll try to post all of the garments this week.

Puppies In The Sky With Diamonds

On March 15th I had told you that the following day I would be flying and picking up a mother and her eight babies. That morning I got out to the airport and found out that the weather was not cooperating in southern Illinois. So back home I went. Frustrating, but it happens. For the past two weeks we have tried a number of times to do the flight but it always seemed like the weather was great on the days I couldn't go and horrible on the days that I could go. Finally, the clouds parted and we had a beautiful day yesterday. I was in the air by 8:30. It was such a gorgeous morning, no clouds, beautiful clear skies and no turbulence, just a dream of a flight. When I arrived in Sikeston, Missouri, Laura was in her van waiting for me with a Newfoundland and her 8 rather large puppies. Oh, they were so cute.

I got one look at the puppies and I had no idea how I was going to fit all eight puppies and their mother in the crate that I had. Thankfully Laura donated a crate and we were able to put five puppies in the smaller crate and the mother with three puppies in the larger crate.

Even the line guys got in on the action of loading the puppies.

Check out the two in the back of the crate playing away.

I love this picture. A box full of puppies. Beyond precious.

Sadly, this is not a very good picture of the mother. She is such a sweet dog. As I was flying back, I turned around to check on her. She was sitting in the cage just looking at me. I noticed that she has eyes just like my Gracie. In fact she reminded me a lot of how Gracie was when we first got her. She had also recently had puppies and was horribly thin, but she remained so sweet and so grateful for everything I did for her.

The flight back was rather uneventful except for the wonderful aroma that filled the plane. Puppies will be puppies. As I flew along I tried to think of other things like how this is nothing like how it must be to transport elephants!!! Just a quick story. A friend who flies cargo out of New York was telling me about a flight where they actually flew elephants. The flight didn't last very long. The elephants were chained in the back. As they were taking off the elephants began to move and started to bellow as elephants do when they are about to charge. The pilots made the fast decision to quickly return before they became a flying torpedo headed for the ground. Yikes. I can put up with a little smell any day.

So now for the funny part of the day, at least I have learned to find it funny. Another pilot walked up as we were loading the dogs and was naturally curious. He asked a number of questions and then he asked the two lines guys which one was the pilot. Believe me, this happens all the time. They looked up at him and pointed to me and said, "she is." He was stunned. And then those magical words, "well, you don't look like a pilot, you're too well dressed and you're wearing diamonds in your ears."

Computers...A Love Hate Relationship

The above picture best describes how I have been feeling about my computer. To tell the truth, I came very close to throwing it out the window yesterday. We are getting a new computer!!!
Since the computer has decided to cooperate with me today, I have downloaded close up pictures of my outfit that I wore to the wedding.

The jacket is not my design. I used a wonderful 1940's pattern. It was a bit strange to put together. This was a pattern where it was a must to mark everything, every dot, every notch. The pattern actually has a two piece sleeve. There is an armhole seam for the front sleeve, but the back sleeve is part of the back pattern piece. There was a strange little dart that formed the shoulder seam. The front actually closes on an angel.

Just for fun, I had these little glass beads so I decided to sew them to the ends of the buttonholes. My buttonholes were fine, but after I did this I realized that this could be a great little trick to cover up a bound buttonhole that didn't quite work out!

The skirt. It was really a lot of fun to put together. The trick was getting the ribbons tight enough, but not too tight.

In my last post, I told you about the ribbon with the stitching on the edge. The ribbon I'm talking about is the beige ribbon. I just loved it. It's very subtle, but it picked up the beige in the jacket and the brown that was used for the dragon motif.

I backed the skirt with a piece of silk and I used a piece of lace seam binding to hold the ribbons down for the hem.

I've been determined to use what I have lately. I had a piece of silk charmuse that was perfect for the lining, but it was just a little too short to add a hem. I was determined, so I started looking through everything and I came across a piece of lace edging that I had cut off of some lace yardage 26 years ago. Magically, I had just enough. So I zigzagged the piece on the silk, done. I was so happy.


And now, just a little fun. The bracelet I bought at an antique store some time ago. I love it. It was crocheted and it has the lovliest white glass buttons on it. I don't think that any two are exactly alike.


And for most of us, the icing on the cake is ironically our shoes and I dooooo love shoes. I have had these shoes for quite a while and they have been a prized piece of my wardrobe as they seem to go with so many things. And here's the best part, I paid $20.00 for them. I was downtown one day and as I was walking to the train, I walked past this shoe store. I thought, I'm just going in to look (sure), I don't need anything. This was the last pair and they had been marked down a number of times. I just couldn't believe that no one had bought them. Need them or not, they were going home with me.

Thank you for all the lovely comments I've received. It means the world to me.

Weaving Memories

From the time I was a small child, I dreamed of one day having my own family, but sometimes life just doesn't work out as we think it should. Without going too much into my story, I will share that we tried everything. Finally, after a period of grieving, I told my husband that yes, I would love to have my own family, but I just needed to feel that I had made a difference in the life of a child. There was an ad in our neighborhood newsletter looking for people to host exchange students. That hit home for me. When I was in high school, I took French and would have loved the opportunity to live and study in France as an exchange student. My father left and there was no money for such an adventure, but here was my chance to make this possible for a teenager. Over the years we hosted 11 students from all over the world. On February 26th, our German student who lived with us the very first year we hosted, got married. We also hosted his two sisters later on. We have 3 Italian students that we have not seen for quite a while, so we arranged to see them before the wedding in Austria. (Going to Austria from Germany is like going to Indiana from Illinois, sounds exotic but it's actually just a 3 hour drive.)

We had a wonderful time. In this picture is from left to right, Massimo, my husband Carl, Giacomo, and Alex. They are all men now and are doing quite well. I am so very proud of them and I loved having them together and sharing stories. Of course their favorite stories are of all the things I did to make their life difficult while they lived with us.

So I needed a special dress for a special wedding. Last summer I decided to weave a skirt out of ribbons. I got it started, but wasn't in a hurry to get it done, so it stayed on my board for quite a while.

The gold ribbon I had. The other ribbons I bought to pick up the colors in a piece of Asian print fabric that I had. I'm sure you can guess where I bought the ribbons, Soutache of course! I was so pleased with the ribbons that I chose. You really can't see it in this picture, but the beige ribbon actually has a small stitched edge on either side and it was absolutely perfect with the fabric.
Everyone who has seen the skirt asks how long it took to do the weaving. Once I decided how I wanted the ribbons to be arranged, the weaving took about 6 hours. The real work came when I attached it to a piece of silk as an underlining and then figuring out exactly how I would finish the hem. I don't have close up pictures at the moment, but I will take some to share with you.

Me with our Martin and his lovely bride, Jeanette.

Another picture of me with Martin taken in the castle where we stayed and where they held the reception.

Sadly, this picture is rather blurred, but at least you can see what my blouse looks like.

This is a picture of the castle where we stayed. It was built in the 1500's and had been the summer home of a duke.

Life did not work out exactly as I had planned. A friend asked me once, "what would you give up now that you have gone on with your life?" That was a very interesting question for me to ponder. If I had gone on to have that family, I would probably have never learned to fly, I would probably not have taken exchange students. Now that I am on this side of those experiences, I can't imagine my life any other way. Some of the ribbons in my skirt are rather narrow and seem less significant than the others, but if one was missing, the whole piece would fall apart. The time I spent with these kids was a very narrow portion of their life and mine as well, but I know that it was significant. They made my life richer and so much more meaningful.

A Glimpse of Heaven

It's been quite a while since my last post. We were in Germany attending the wedding of one of our exchange students. I'll write more about this later this week, but tonight I would like to share an incredible story.
Last summer I had the opportunity to fly a litter of Blue Tick puppies from Sikeston,MO back to Chicago where another pilot met me and then flew them on to Appleton,WI. Missouri is a hot bed for puppy mills. So sad, but this is a very happy story. Take a look at the puppy that is in my right arm in the above picture. She is now a grown dog living in Wisconsin and she has a job. She is now a psychiatric service dog. You can see her in the picture below wearing her vest, so proudly I might add.

I always say a prayer over every dog I fly hoping that they will find their special mission. Abby found hers.


The smile on this mans face is worth far more than gold. It's truly priceless.

For me this is like a glimpse of heaven. To know that a few moments of my time has changed someones life is the most incredible gift. Tomorrow morning I will be up early and off to Missouri once again to pick up a mother and her eight puppies. I will probably never know where they will end up, but I hope they will make someone smile as big as Abby has made her friend smile.

This is the first big trip since I lost my alternator in Ohio. So if you happen to read this, send a few prayers my way tomorrow. I'll post pictures tomorrow night.

Rectangles, Circles and Squares. Post 4

This has been quite a week. While we were in Colorado, my little dog ended up with an infection caused by an abscess on one of her back teeth. I had noticed a bump on her cheek, but thought it was caused by the two dogs wrestling. I went to Denver to do a little shopping and looking around. Within an hour it had blown up to the point that it was pushing her eye closed. All I could think about was getting somewhere where I knew someone and finding someone to help for her. A friend texted the number to a vet in a nearby town. This man is such a wonderful vet, he has his cell phone number on his answering machine when he is not in the office. He gave me some antibiotics and felt that they should take care of the problem. Well, it came back this week. Tuesday night, I couldn't sleep. I was able to get her to the vet on Wednesday morning. As it turns out, her back tooth is broken which has allowed it to become infected. She is once again on antibiotics and is scheduled for surgery. On Wednesday night, I pulled her into bed with me, held her tight and cried my self to sleep. Now some may think it's crazy to be so attached to a dog, maybe, but remember, I fly all over the place for dogs that don't even belong to me. So as crazy as I may be, mine are especially special to me. My husband loves to give me a hard time about how spoiled they are. My reply is always the same, "their little lives are so short, they should just be happy." I think he agrees, he just likes to give me a hard time.

My Little Bit, snuggled tight in my robe. Now who can say this is a spoiled dog? Well, maybe a little.

Another Rectangle

So, finally, my fourth post. Two more and I'll be caught up. Again...finally.

This rectangle is so incredibly easy.

The rectangle is the skirt. To begin with, you will need to have a knit fabric. It does not need to be a two-way stretch, but it does need to have a crosswise or lengthwise stretch. I like knits that have a two-way stretch as they just seem to work better. The stretch will need to go the length of your rectangle.

The measurements are as follows;

For a size small, cut the rectangle 54" x 25".

For a size medium, cut the rectangle 56" x 25".

For a size large, cut the rectangle 58"x 25".
The 25" measurement is the width of the skirt. You can cut it a little wider, especially if you are rather tall, but take a look at the picture above and you can see that the point hangs rather low. So you don't want to cut the length too much more than 25". If you are rather short, cut it less than 25" wide so that the point will not be not be touching the ground.
First, serge all edges of your rectangle with a rolled edge. If you don't have a serger, just finish all four sides of your rectangle.

Once all of your edges have been serged or finished by machine, take one end of your rectangle and bring it over to the top side of your rectangle. Sew or serge a seam.

Once the seam has been sewn, your piece will look something like this. Thankfully, we wear fabric and not paper so yours will have a nice drape.

Once it is on the body, it will look like this. You can see from the picture that the piece will form a V at the waist. I always wear a top over my skirt, so this is not an issue for me.


I made two skirts that coordinate and I wear one over the other.

Or you can wear one as a skirt and the other as a poncho.



Remember the jacket that I said looked like something Morticia would wear? Well, I also made a skirt out of that fabric.

This fabric is not a two-way stretch. In fact, I didn't even finish the edges. The knit does not run, so I only sewed the one seam. It doesn't get any easier than that. The piece is great for throwing over my shoulders at night. I also put it over pants and you can see from the above picture, I can also use it as another layer over the other skirt, and I've worn it with other skirts.

Give it a try. It's a nice little versatile piece to have in your wardrobe.