Country roads

I feel like I should write something poetic about these pictures but I'll just let them speak for themselves.  

I love hedgerows.

And sunsets.

Tuesday in IL

I am in awe of people who do things really well.  I myself am a dabbler.  I love to learn new things but I am not a perfectionist by any means.  Which means that most of the things I make look like they've been made by someone who isn't a perfectionist.

Today I visited my friend Deb.  Deb is an extremely right-brained person with talent oozing out her fingertips.  She has been doing intricate cross-stitch samplers (reproductions from the 1700 and 1800's) and also hooking rugs for a good many years.  She's also a very talented horsewoman.  And Deb is a perfectionist.  No, she's a Perfectionist.  I thought I'd share a few pictures I took today to give you an idea of how talented she is.

Hooked rug of hollyhocks and animals.   Look at the detail! Click on picture!!!

Photos don't capture the detail but this is so beautiful.

Perhaps this photo lets you see some of the artistry that goes into creating a hooked rug masterpiece.

Detail of pineapple rug

And here's Deb with the rug she is giving (yes GIVING) me!  She left some of it for me to finish and I quake at the thought of dabbling with her work.

Deb and mille fleur hooked rug

After we spent an hour getting inspired by Deb's work, we went to Kathy's where Becca enjoyed riding Sonny.

Wide open spaces.  

A day of inspiration and recreation.

What's up?

When the kids were little they used to get a kick out of what they considered "funny sayings."  I was reminded of one of them today when I saw this.  Question:  "What's up?"  Answer: " Chicken butt!"

Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder

I know that if we are alert to it, we find beautiful things every place we go.  California has so many beautiful places and there are delights to the eye on every walk I take, every day.  Pete and I love to vacation in Utah and there are things there that take my breath away.  I sometimes think that my opinion of Illinois' beauty is colored by my love for home and that, in reality, maybe it isn't as beautiful as it is in my mind.  But today convinced me once again that it isn't just my imagination - Illinois truly is a beautiful place.

I went for a walk with a friend at Hammel Woods Forest Preserve this morning.  Lovely winding asphalt trails through woods and along streams, carpets of wildflowers under the old trees, birds flitting and singing in the dappled sunshine.  And a different kind of beauty, also - Kelly and I walked the trails for an hour and a half and during that entire time we saw a total of four people.  The beauty of solitude.

This afternoon we had a "weeding bee" (sort of like a quilting bee except you are pulling weeds together instead of quilting) here at Mark and Janine's.  Weeding is a highly underrated form of therapy.  What equals the satisfaction of sitting back to survey a lovely bed of herbs or a border of flowers that are now weed-free due to your efforts?  If you can do this in fresh air and sunshine, chatting all the while about books and authors and apple tree varieties, well, I think it's a day well spent.

This evening I was driving back to the farm after dinner with friends.  In the east a full moon was rising - huge and white and icy looking, climbing up the deepening blue sky.  At the same time in the west the sun was sinking, a massive ball of orange, pink and red melting into the horizon.  Silhouetted against both were trees and barns, dark in relief against these heavenly lights.  A spectacular sight, put there for the enjoyment of anyone who cared to look.  I drove home slowly, letting the evening settle around me.  It's cold here tonight.  Cold but beautiful.

In the west...

In the east.

A Taste of the Past

This morning I attended worship service at the church I attended when I was growing up.  There's a new addition to the building and lots of new faces inside but still lots of people I've known my entire life.   It was really good to experience the continuity of a place where people don't move around and where there's a sense of community and memory.   And lots of children!  The church was packed with young families.

This evening I wanted to take our host and hostess to dinner (or supper as it's called here), after picking Becca up from the airport.  They asked where I'd like to go and I said the first thing that came into my mind, "Merichka's!"  It's an old restaurant on the north side of Joliet in an ethnic community that has remained pretty undisturbed.  It's a place my parents used to take us when I was a kid, a family restaurant has been a family business since 1933.  Their specialty is "poorboy steak sandwiches". Here's how one guy describes it: A steak poor boy is 7 oz. of cubed steak perfectly cooked, then slapped onto a long bun that has been smothered in Garlic Butterine.  Top it off with your choice of cheese and perhaps some pickles and we're done!  Grab a stack of napkins and a breath mint, 'cuz you're gonna need both.

When he says "smothered in garlic butterine" he really means "drenched" so that it drips down your chin.  I haven't had one of these sandwiches since about 1989 and my memory had not failed me - the sandwich was every bit as good as I remembered it.  And so was the twice baked potato (I had the foresight to share that with Becca).   We're all breathing garlic here tonight - but we're all in the same garlicky boat together.  I'm sure my arteries are protesting the lipid load.  Good thing I only go to this place once every 20 years or so.

Re-Focus

I was sitting in the plane today on my way to IL and thinking.  Airplanes are a good place to do that and traveling alone is a good time to do that.  I had only been underway for a couple hours and already I was experiencing one of the benefits of travel - having the distance from my everyday life that allows me to see things with different eyes.  It's as if I step back a little and suddenly things fall into much sharper focus.   Perhaps it's being away from the daily distractions that clutter my field of vision at home.  As those distractions fade away, the things that are really important stand out in greater relief on the stage of my life.

It was good to have the time to think about the really important things.  Actually, it was only people I was thinking about.  How much I love my husband and my family.  My friends.  How blessed I am to be part of their lives.  And how I wish I knew how to love them all better.   Maybe this time away will help me learn to do that.  Coming back to Illinois is like stepping back into another life - a life I lived in the past.  It doesn't quite fit like it used to because I've changed and I see it with different eyes now, too.  But there is still so much about it that feels like an old shoe.  Or like a beloved home when you finally see it in the distance again.

The trees are bursting with new leaves, the lilacs blooming.  Everywhere I look it's achingly green.  There's no way to describe how it smells except to say it smells like spring.   Wide open spaces and the only thing on the road in front of me was a fertilizer truck as I came down Route 52.  I stepped out of the car and heard the spring peepers chanting their hypnotic song.  Right now the rain is lashing against the roof outside with the wind as background music.  It's a good screen upon which to project my life.  And see what comes into focus.

Strengthening words

Today I read a verse that has meant so much to me over the decades.  Psalm 112:7-8a "He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is upheld, he will not fear".  I memorized that verse years and years ago in the Living paraphrase:  He does not fear bad news nor live in dread of what may happen, for he is settled in his mind that Jehovah will take care of him.

We live in such perilous times and I find that my heart can quickly acquire a vague and oppressive sense of fear.  On both the large international scene and in the everyday of life I am aware of my own helplessness.  Age has a way of bringing my own inadequacies into focus.  It was concretely comforting therefore to be reminded that for those who fear the Lord, He is our security and we need not fear.   He is our Rock and our Fortress, our unchanging God in whom we trust.  As the stage is set for the last days, I need to hold on to these words.

Because he has a cheerful conscience, his heart too is not disconcerted by any evil tidings; it remains erect, straight and firm, without suffering itself to bend or warp; full of confidence, stayed in itself and established.  The last two designations are taken from Isa 26:3, where it is the church of the last times that is spoken of. (Keil and Delitzsch, vol 5, p 703, emphasis mine)


I flipped to Isaiah 26 to remind myself of those beautiful words:  "The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You.  Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an everlasting Rock."

Certainly words of strength to keep me standing erect, straight and firm, without bending or warping, no matter what the storms.

Tiny tutorial on how to sew a zippered pencil case

I've been making some of these recently and thought it might be useful to record the steps and how simple it is.

Step one:  pick out your fabric and decide what size pencil case you want.  I decided I wanted it about 11 inches long and just over 4 inches high finished size so I cut out two pieces, 5.5 inches by 12 inches.

Step two:  Fold one long edge under on each piece, about 5/8 inch.  Press these folds so they stay in.

Step three:  Find a zipper that matches or at least works with the fabric.  Make sure that it is at least as long as the long edge of the fabric.  If it's too long (as mine is in this photo) you can cut the zipper to fit.   Hang on, I'll tell you just how to do that.

Step four:  Mark how long the zipper should be.

Step five:  With a needle and thread, sew around the teeth of the zipper a bunch of times to make a new zipper stop.  Doesn't have to be super neat.  The point is to keep the zipper-pull from running clear off the end of the zipper because you are going to cut off the original zipper stop.  If it runs off the end of the track, you are up a creek without a paddle.

Step six:  Cut off the excess zipper.  Leave just a tad beyond where you sewed the new stop.

Step seven:  Lay the zipper face up and place one piece of fabric right side up with the fold next to the teeth of the zipper.  Line 'em up nice at the ends.  Place a few pins to hold the fold to the zipper fabric.

Step eight:  Saddle up your sewing machine by getting it bobbin-ed and threaded.  Put the zipper foot on the machine.  This is a nifty little foot that allows you to sew right up next to the zipper without bumping into the teeth.

Zipper foot on left, regular presser foot on right

Step nine:  Open the zipper a couple of inches to start with.  Drop your needle into the fabric, do a couple reinforcing stitches and then sew a nice straight little seam down almost to the zipper pull.

Step ten:  When you are almost down to the zipper pull, lift your presser foot up, leaving your needle DOWN in the fabric to keep things from moving.  Tug the zipper pull back to the top so the zipper is now closed.  Then put the presser foot down again and sew to the bottom of the seam.  Do a couple reverse stitches to reinforce the seam at the bottom.

Step eleven:  Take the piece off the machine and admire your handiwork.  Nice seam!

Step twelve:  Put the second side piece on the other side of the zipper, right side up, the fold by the teeth of the zipper.  Move your zipper foot to the other side (you were sewing on the right side of the zipper, now you want to sew on the left side, going from the top to the bottom again.)  Don't try to cut corners and sew from the bottom to the top without moving the zipper foot.  They won't line up properly if you do that.  Trust me.  Zipper feet are quite handily adjustable, right or left.

Move the foot to the left side now!

Step thirteen:  Open the zipper a couple of inches again and repeat steps 9-11.

Step fourteen:  Press the whole shebang.  Be careful if you have a nylon zipper - you don't want to melt the teeth of the zipper so don't "hot it up" too much.

Step fifteen:  Open the zipper up most of the way.  You are now going to sew the side and bottom seams and if you leave the zipper closed at this point, you will have some tricky finger work to get the zipper open when everything is seamed closed.  Pin the bottom edges together.  Sew with a 5/8 inch seam (or thereabouts).

Step sixteen:  Sew the side seams closed (5/8 is lovely).

Step seventeen:  Turn your almost-completed pencil case right side out and give 'er a good pressing.

Step eighteen:  Cut two pieces of coordinating fabric the same size as the two pieces you started with.

Step nineteen:  Fold and press under one long edge on each, 5/8 inch.

Step twenty:  Lay the two pieces right sides together.  Pin the sides and bottom.

Step twenty-one:  Put the regular presser foot back on your machine.  Sew the side and bottom seams.  Press nice and flat.  No, don't turn it right side out.

Step twenty-two:  Slip the lining pouch into the zipper pouch, wrong sides together.  Amazing how it fits, isn't it?

They don't look like they fit but they do!  

Step twenty-three:  Pin the lining to the zipper pouch around the top.  Using a needle and thread, hand stitch them using a blind stitch.  Or if you are in a hurry you can machine stitch them (you'd need your zipper foot again) but I personally think an invisible hand stitch is much nicer.  Be sure to keep the lining fabric far enough away from the teeth of the zipper so it won't get caught.

Step twenty-four:  Give the finished case a good pressing.  Now would be the time to put a pretty little dangly thing on the zipper as a pull.  You can make one out of yarn or beads or buttons.  But that's another story!