Beth Ferrier’s Blog

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle. ~Author Unknown 

It’s funny, isn’t it, how life sorts itself out. Seemingly random choices can all add up to an entirely different sum. It appears to me that I have spent my whole life preparing for a career that I didn’t even know existed until 14 years ago. The writing and publishing classes I took in college, mostly just to fill the time until Kent graduated, have helped me launch my own pattern company.

A bunch of quilt teachers were chatting recently about how much math we use in our design work. For some it’s their least favorite part. But not me. I love the math! There is nothing more exciting than a fresh new story problem to solve! I love the ciphering part, working out the cutting order so it’s most efficient. 

And don’t get me started on the joy of creating “systems”, oh, be still my heart! My classes in chemistry helped me to understand processes and ”rate determining steps.” Who knew that information would apply to quiltmaking? I love designing processes for making piecing and applique easier. As I’m working out the steps for creating a pieced block or a new applique design I’m constantly questioning, how can I do this better, and can I do it in fewer steps.

I’m always amazed at how my classes  in special education have transfered to perfectly to teaching adult women how to quilt. Or how raising four ADHD sons has improved my classroom management style.

When you’re a kid and you ask an adult “why?”, they often assume that you’re questioning their authority. I was always in trouble for asking why. But it was information that I was seeking, if you know the reason behind a task you may be able to exploit that, for an easier outcome, or even a brand new process. Who knows what wonderous things we can discover if we just try.

(And so far, no, I can’t hold knitting needles with my right hand in it’s current position, or scissors. But I’m happy that I learned how to rotary cut with my left hand. It’s too soon to use my cast hand to hold the ruler, but it won’t be long…)

Just for the record, I’d like to start by expressing my gratitude that I’m not a horse, because if I were, I’d be a bottle of glue by now. And, just so you know, I’m in great shape for the shape I’m in.

It’s funny how disturbing one part of the body tends to make other parts cranky as well. The injury to my collar bone from the seat belt has made the shoulder I messed up (yanking fifty pound suitcases up a flight of stairs during an unexpected home stay last year) very unhappy. Having my right hand in a cast has made me rely on my left hand, also injured in the accident, and piled on top of an injury from last winter dragging my gate-checked carry-on off a cart. Don’t get me started on the knees!  In other words, I’m a mess.

But the hardest part of all has been to just be still. I’m rarely still. Even if I’m watching tv my hands are usually busy with knitting or applique. I keep reminding myself that I’ve been the family’s caretaker for thirty years, I have a little time banked in the needy-o-meter. But to my mind, I am too plain to be considered decorative, I was most certainly designed to be practical, useful.

I find myself thinking about the refining process for gold. A great deal of heat is applied, the impurities all float to the surface where they are skimmed away. Life offers opportunities for our refinement. Despite my best efforts, the accident has brought some of my least attractive traits to the surface. I’m oh-so-impatient, I do love to be in control, I like my freedom, I hate, hate, hate asking for help. I am trying to be a good student, learn what I can from the experience, skim off the dross and be a better person.

But for now, I’m off to find a little cheese to go with my whine.

Even though it was early, the sun was already beginning to brighten the bedroom. The day before I had conquered some pretty hefty deadlines, despite returning from snowy Tyler, Texas with an annoying stomach bug. I was pleased that, even though I was not at the top of my game, my students left my Friday workshop happy with the class and asking for a return engagement, a very high compliment for a traveling teacher. I was looking forward to packing off the last of the Be Still My Heart kits, clearing the way to start on an exciting new project. The bug was finally done with me. I cuddled up to my waking hubby and whispered in his ear, “I think this is going to be a really good day”.

 After running an errand in the morning I returned home to care for my youngest son, who had had a root canal done on an abscessed tooth. It was clear that he was going to need his prescription for pain meds filled, pronto. So, after giving him some good natured guff about dropping everything to run to the pharmacy, off I went, still having a good day, in my darling little red car.

I made a lot of choices that trip. I decided to go to our usual pharmacy, instead of going to one closer, even though we’ve been less happy with the service lately and have been considering a change. I decided to go straight to the store instead of stopping at the bank first, because the bank also has offices at this superstore and  I could take care of the deposit while waiting for the prescriptions to be filled. I decided to use the center entrance instead of my usual habit of taking the westerly entrance, to be closer to the end of the store with the pharmacy. I was looking forward to picking up a dozen roses to replace the dead ones on the dining room table. (I don’t know why I’m the only one who can decide that cut flowers are no longer attractive and can be thrown away. Sometimes I get stubborn and leave the dead flowers there, just to see who will crack first. It’s always me.)

As I sat in the left turn lane, waiting for traffic to clear, I watched as a car pop into the turn lane, coming towards me. My first inclination was to check to make sure my headlights were on, and they were. The car sure seemed to be coming awfully fast, speeding up instead of slowing down to make a left turn. I had just enough time to realize that I wasn’t going to like what was about to happen, blow the horn, and wonder how much it would hurt.

I saw the hood crumple, and heard the bang of the impact. The next thing I knew the car was sitting sideways in the road and I felt like the Friendly Giant’s evil twin had stomped on my chest. Almost instantly, it seemed, a police car was parked to my right, an officer was checking my condition. Yes, I was hurt, how badly, I did not know.

Soon the paramedics arrived, gently tied me down to a back board and moved me to a gurney. It’s been almost thirty years since I’ve ridden in an ambulance, and that time it didn’t turn out well. But this time I knew that, while parts of me hurt like hell, I was going to be okay.

After a series of xrays it was determined that the only thing broken was my right radius bone, at the wrist. A nice clean break, not at all dislocated, and easily treated with a cast. (Kent suggested I choose a cast in a neutral color that would go with everything, so I picked purple.) The rest of me was just deeply bruised, and would heal in time.

For someone who considers herself a “recovering” control freak, watching someone drive into me has been a struggle to process. Why did the driver continue to accelerate right up to impact? How could she not see me, in my darling little red car, with the lights on, turn signal flashing and horn blaring? Why didn’t I do something besides sit there and watch it happen?

Kent has reminded me that while it may have seemed to happen slowly in my mind, it was really only seconds. Not only was there no time to react, with traffic all around, there was really nothing I could do. Any movement on my part would have very likely only made it worse.

Sometimes I sit on the edge of crazy because I can’t hold a pair of scissors, or glue stick, or mouse, or knitting needles with my right hand in a cast. I have design deadlines weighing heavily. The need to be productive is pretty compelling. But it’s only been a week, and things are looking up. I took my first unassisted shower this morning. I’m grateful that it’s not shorts season here, my legs look like they were shaved by, well, a person with her good hand in a cast.

Turns out last Tuesday was still a good day. My darling little car protected me from greater harm (five star safety rating!), the care I needed was there right away, and very gentle and kind. I have a fantastic support system of family and friends who have pampered me, and humored my tantrums when frustrated by the recovery. Looks like I’ll be shopping for a brand new darling little red car.

Soon I will have to figure out how to meet those design deadlines, but I know I will, I always do. As for today, my biggest concern is what color hot-fix crystals I should use to decorate the cast.

It’s finally done, ready, and uploaded!

This year’s Block of the Month will be a series of wall hangings, all finishing about 37 x 42 inches, celebrating the seasons. Our first quilt, Be Still My Heart, features tulips, one of my favorite flowers.

It’s quite a job, to get everything in order to offer fabric kits. Just when I thought everything was ready to go, another detail would need my attention. I’m already working on the kit for the next quilt. (I may have it all figured out by the end of the year.)

Several people suggested the quilt’s name, thank you so much. It turned out to be the perfect name, for more than one reason. You see, while trying to get all the loose ends tied up for this quilt I was also dealing with a very sick dad. My father had a mild heart attack on the fifteenth. Tests showed major blockages and he was scheduled for a triple bypass. He came through the surgery okay, but a complication sent him back into surgery twelve hours later. The good news is that’s he’s doing fine! He’s been moved out of intensive care to a room on the cardiac floor. His heart muscle is a little weak and he really needs to quit smoking (like that will happen, he’s been smoking since he was a kid), but for now, we get to keep him a little longer.

So, for me, this happy quilt will remind me how blessed we are to have healthy and loving hearts.

I’m off to Spokane, Washington today. I’m looking forward to this first teaching trip of the year. See you there?

The goal was to be able to present the new block of the month project today. But then I decided that I’d like to offer fabric kits to go with the design. Shopping for yardage to sell is not nearly as much fun as shopping for fabric for my stash. Since it’s something that I don’t do all that often I don’t have a fabric rep or contacts at the manufacturers. Progress stalled.

 I have found this killer fabric to use for the applique, five shades across the width of the fabric! When it comes to applique it doesn’t get any better than that. Still working on the background fabric, but I am making progress.

These lovely sorbet colors came from two fabrics, medium and light. Isn’t that cool? The colors blend across the width, with magical swirls of shades. I especially like how the fabric reads as a solid, just begging for thread work and embellishment.

All of this applique came from just four fabrics! Oh, be still my heart.

So here’s the deal. This year, instead of one large project, we’ll be having four seasonal block of the month projects. The quilts will finish about 38 x 42 inches, a nice wall or lap size. We’ll post the projects in three steps each, and just as we’ve done for years, the steps will be free for one month.

New this year, we’re going to offer the complete pattern for sale, as a download, when the first step is posted. We’ll get our act together and offer fabric kits. I’d like to also offer thread or embellishment kits. And eventually I will combine the motifs from all four seasonal patterns into one really deluxe larger quilt. At least that’s the plan as it stands today.

I could use a little help with a name for this quilt. Ideas anyone?

It was a most decadent purchase, my Kitchenaid mixer. Almost twenty years ago, I bought it on sale at Kohls. Because it was so expensive, I felt guilty for ages. The guys benefitted from that guilt, as I produced batch after batch of yummy baked goods to justify the purchase.

I have been lusting after the larger professional version for several years. Just when I thought my big-batch cooking days were over I’ve found myself cooking for larger groups. As our family grows to include daughters-in-law, significant others and grandchildren I’ve found that my trusty mixer just isn’t up to the task.

It’s kind of like my sewing machines. Why do I need to upgrade when the one I have works mostly just fine? Sure the new machines have nifty new features that I would really use (like more space for machine quilting!), but my old trusty machine works just fine ninty percent of the time.

It could have been my Christmas present, but I said, no, it’s too expensive. And besides, the machine won’t fit on the counter, it’s too tall to fit under the cabinets. But then Kohls put it on sale after the holidays. I had $60 in Kohls credit for shopping earlier in the season, and money from returning a gift. And then I found a rebate on line. Kent said, what color do you want? And off we went.

I wasn’t sure about red, but Kent was. And it turns out to be a perfect red that I’m pretty sure will go with every color our kitchen might be in the future. (I guess I get to decide that, eh?)

But before we could take it out of the box we had to solve the counter problem. I admit to secretly hoping the machine would lead to a sorely needed kitchen remodel. (The magical work triangle overlaps the path from the back door to the rest of the house.) But that would be silly.

Instead, I found this perfect kitchen cart, on clearance at the local grocery/super store. The marble board, a Christmas gift from Kent, fits perfectly next to the dream machine. It’s excellent for rolling out dough, which I promptly did, making chicken pot pies for our weekly Sunday Dinner with the kids.

Last night I made home made spaghetti noodles. I put the pasta roller attachment on Big Red, and the cutting roller on my trusty old faithful, and I was a pasta making machine! Oh, my, what fun! It also ended any discussion on getting rid of the old machine.

There really is no substitute for the right tool (s) for the job. No, we don’t need a top of the line machine to do good work. But if you need justification for one, I can help you with that. Cookies, anyone?

There is a very long list of things I’d like to learn how to do. I’d like to learn to spin my own yarn. I’d like to raise chickens (which will never happen as long as we live downriver from a chemical plant, but I can dream). I’d love to learn how to throw pottery on a wheel. And it would be really good if I could learn how to take better pictures.

Everything that happens in my life is pretty much a crime of opportunity. Keeping chocolate morsels in the pantry significantly increases the likelihood of cookies, for example. I’ve gathered the supplies for painting on silk, painting lace, beading, machine embroidery, heirloom sewing and others just in case I have a dire need to paint, bead or embroider. It could happen. Over the last year or so I’ve been gathering the tools for rug hooking, or more precisely, punch needle rug hooking.

Several years ago (um, like maybe eight years ago, but who’s counting?) I started a rug with the traditional hook technique. I got as far as WE in “welcome” before I lost interest. Of course that hasn’t kept me from collecting wool to cut into strips. But still, I didn’t really enjoy using the hook to lift the strips to the front of the work, it hurt my hands. So, the base fabric hangs from the quilt hoop frame (that I bought thinking that I might like hand quilting someday), waiting.

After knitting myself crazy making the stranded projects for Christmas I decided the time was right to pull out those punchneedle supplies. I pushed a few lines around to create the design, snapped up a sharpie marker and set to work.

In no time at all I had the design traced and hooped, feeling very clever that I had the foresight to stash this stuff.

As with all things, there was a learning curve. My first leaves were too densely packed. The yarn was too thin for the punch needle, so I doubled it up. It didn’t occur to me to check the other punch needle I had stashed, trusting my memory that it was larger. (It isn’t.) But I found that I liked using two different shades at once, and the doubled strands filled the spaces faster.

Not bad for a first attempt. This thirteen inch circle took just a couple of hours and put a significant dent in my Christmas knitting leftover yarn. I guess it will become a pillow top, or something.

But what is an appliquist to do? The design just demanded that I applique it. I mean, really, how could I not?

Time to run to the stash and pull some fabrics the fine folks at Northcott sent me, gradation of shade and color across the width of the fabric, it’s an appliquist’s dream.

Here it is, laid out just as for the little rug thingie. It’s lovely, I really love it. I love the delicate shading that the fabric provides. I really like the circle showing through the background fabric, I’ve been thinking about how that should be incorporated into the design. 

But now I have a problem. What do I do with this design? I’m sort of obsessing on the Block of the Month for this year. I was thinking that I’d really like to do a Baltimore Album style quilt. Or a series of little quilts. Or, ideally, a series of little quilts that could be combined to make a Baltimore album quilt. My default setting for quilt design is to start with a queen size. I’m too practical. Everything must be useful, have a purpose. So, what do you think? A series of circles? A series of circles with no other plan than to let you decide what you’re doing with the end product? Arggg! Help me out here!

We repainted the kitchen way back at the beginning of summer. It was the first room to be redecorated when we moved in almost fifteen years ago. The room was so hideous that we started on it the afternoon we signed the papers. It was orange and black. No kidding. Orange and black, with a weird wallpaper border of European style children carrying swords, and burnt orange indoor-outdoor carpet.

Back then we painted the walls and woodwork several shades of white, and decorated with blue stenciling just under the crown molding. The curtains were made from the Smithsonian reproduction fabrics from the Civil War era, perfect for this 1860 house.

 The new wall color is a cheerful blue, almost periwinkle, pulled from my beloved Blue Willow dishes. The blue of the old curtains clashed with the new wall color and had to go. I found just the right fabrics several months ago. They’ve been stacked up next to my cutting table, just waiting their turn. 

 With the Christmas hub bub done it was finally time to get those curtains made. I’ve had the pattern forever, the copyright is 1992. I’ve used it again and again.

I like the new color. Blue always looks so clean and fresh, especially in light reflected by snow. I think I’m entering my blue phase. For years my favorite colors have been red and green. My dresser drawers are full of red clothes. My stash is dominated by red and green fabrics, even though they are usually the first pulled and used. (Clearly they are also the first purchased.)

But now that my hair is turning gray I find that red no longer suits me. I really like what pale aqua does for my skin tone. The cool tones of blue, turquoise and mint green are replacing fire engine red in my closet. I wonder how long it will be before it is also replaced in my quilts! I’ve noticed in classes that students often work with the same colors that they wear. What do you think? Do your closet and stash match?

Like many families, this year we decided to rein in our Christmas spending. While we’ve never been really extravagant, our budget had been slowly creeping upward. The truth is, especially when considering our siblings; we’re comfortable enough to be able to purchase pretty much anything gift-sized for ourselves. That means only one thing to me: time for handmade gifts. In years past I have baked my fool head off, providing holiday cookie trays for my sibs-in-law. Always well received, at first this seemed to be the perfect plan for this Christmas. But I just couldn’t get there. No, I wanted to do something new.

I’m sure it had a lot to do with this book, Color by Kristin, by Kristin Nicholas. I’ve been a fan since I discovered her first book and dove head first into a cardigan project (which is as yet unfinished, but that’s another story). Adding fuel to the fire, the fall issue of Knitter’s magazine had the cutest ever stranded hat and mittens.

So, off I trotted to the local yarn shop and loaded up with skeins of color. Just like shopping for fat quarters, I looked for happy colors in multiple shades where possible. I learned that knitters don’t have nearly the choices that quilters do, when it comes to a range of value.

As the Christmas season arrived I found myself in a very odd state. For the first time in maybe a bazillion years I had no big on-going projects. The book was published, the block of the month completed, all deadlines met, and almost three months until the next teaching trip.

I’ve discovered that I don’t do “time off” very well, (okay, buddies, you can stop laughing now), and I’m going to do my darnedest to never let that happen again. I think it’s my ADHD showing up. I really, really hate transitions. It’s always been hard to change gears, harder still to come to a complete stop and start up again.

Luckily, my time off arrived just in time for the Christmas holidays. Decorating and parties and gift making helped carry me through.

We celebrated birthdays. To honor my dad we met at the Outback restaurant where my niece is a server. He’s 80 this year, but somehow, he doesn’t really look old to me. It’s nearly impossible to get a good picture of him. (I think that must be where I got it). His smile often ends up looking rather like Jacob Marley’s open maw from Dicken’s Christmas Carol. (It would help if he left his teeth in, to be sure.)

The best part of the holidays, for me, has always been Christmas morning. The prep is done, another deadline met, time to relax and enjoy the day. Every year I vow to enjoy the process of Christmas preparations, but I’m not much of a shopper. If I’m not careful holiday shopping becomes a contest to find the most perfect gift, the one thing that will make each person’s life complete. Too much pressure! Instead, this year I tried to find little ways to say “I love you”, and keep the receipts handy.

Now that the boys are grown and mostly out on their own, they no longer wake us in the middle of the night, excited to see what’s under the tree. Christmas morning is most civilized now, beginning with breakfast at a leisurely 10 am, followed by opening gifts. We’re finished by early afternoon as the boys head off to spend time with their spouses’ families. It’s then that I relax with a sigh, collaspsing into a soft chair with a good book, to enjoy the quiet of the season.