Beth Ferrier’s Blog

The toughest decision every year is settling on a color scheme for the planters. Mostly I just head for the garden center and go with what catches my fancy, sort of like picking fabric for a new quilt. This year I wanted to create an old fashioned garden feel, so I settled on red and white. Red geraniums and a tall glass of lemonade on the porch swing, that says carefree summer time to me. (I do feel a quilt coming on. Red and white? Red and green and white? We shall see.)

Along the front of the house we have two hanging baskets, four urns and two planters. I decided to just start with those and consider the back yard planters seperately. See the bird’s nest on the ceiling fan? Momma robin was very patient with me as I worked on the porch. We’ll wait for her babies to fledge before knocking down the nest.

The plants wait their turn, sassy red geraniums, verbena and superbells (those adorable tiny petunias), and white bacopa, diamond frost and mini daisies. Tall daisies, medium geraniums mixed with trailing verbena, like a quilt, dark, medium and light.

The garden beds are all perenials. The spring flowering bulbs are all done. Soon we’ll have flashes of color from the irises and peonies. This is the view from the front door.

And from the other end of the walk.

A few years back I decided to group collections of plants. Coral bells come in so many beautiful leaf colors, they are perfect for this partly shadey spot under the old apple tree, at the start of the front walk. Just a few feet away, a gathering of cone flowers, purple, white and red drink in the sun. And just beyond, delphiniums will send up fountains of blue, pink and white.

The lily of the valley smell heavenly for now, but they threaten to overrun the garden. Every year I cherish them as they flower and tear them out when they’re done. Anybody want a shovel full?

Just as a quilt should catch your attention from across the room and then draw you in with the details, I’ve added little bits of color under the main plants. These ornamental strawberries are just charming (looks like my favorite flower shape for applique, huh?) They will bloom for another week or so and then fade into the background.

On this Memorial Day, as I savor the routine tasks of tending a garden I’ll be remembering the men and women who gave their lives in service to our country. As one of my youngest son’s best friends ships out to Afghanistan, I am reminded that our freedoms come at a heavy price and must never be taken for granted. I am proud to be an American, and try to live my life in a way that honors the sacrifice of our military. Thanks, guys.

Here in Saginaw it’s been an uncommonly cold and wet spring. Even the most loyal Michiganians have been crotchety about the weather. We had frost again earlier this week! It’s probably a good thing that this cold has slowed me down, I would have been into serious planting mode if not for it.

We never know what we’ll find when the flood waters recede. One year an aluminum canoe was left behind. With no registration marks it was impossible to return. It sat for years in the side yard, waiting for what, I’m not quite sure. It finally found a home with a friend of a friend.

It’s when the water remains only in the low spots that it gets really interesting. Fish become trapped, making for easy pickings for the predator birds. This majestic fellow made an afternoon of it. Quietly perched at the water’s edge, every few minutes his head would snap down and up, another small fish sliding down his gullet. Watching him move, it’s easy to see how science can suggest that herons are ancient birds, a just feather away from being a dinosaur.

Yesterday one of these fellows showed up at my pond. I was so startled to look up from my desk to see the heron at the pond that I jumped out of my seat and scared him off. Since the fish have been in hiding for the better part of the week, I’m guessing that it wasn’t his first visit. I’ve only seen evidence of four of the seven fish. That doesn’t mean that the other three aren’t there, but I’m guessing that at least one of them became sushi.

As the last of the water sinks into the field, large walleye thrash about, no exit in sight. Our dog used to think it was his responsiblity to locate each dead fish and roll in it. He finally learned that rolling in stinky stuff always resulted rejection from his people and a humiliating bath.

This year a band of turkey vultures showed up to clear the field. Huge and ugly as sin, at least a dozen of these buzzards perched on the peak of the neighbor’s barn. From there they took turns swooping over the field, returning to the barn to brag about their finds. Not at all menancing, they looked more like a bunch of frat boys, shouldering their way into line and squawking about their conquests.

While our field has been fallow for some twenty years, our neighbor leases his for planting. It is finally dry and warm enough for planting. As the huge tractor turns over the soil he is escorted by a troop of seagulls, wheeling and diving, feasting on the newly exposed worms.

For just about the past week this has been my hang out, cuddled up with Kelly cat and a box of tissues and feeling really crappy. Waylaid by a miserable cold, I’ve been living pretty much on cough drops, juice and chicken noodle soup. At the worst of it I couldn’t even knit! Now that’s bad. But I’m finally on the mend and trying to get back into the swing of things.

 The new book is at the page layout design stage, but except for approving the design it’s someone else’s job to complete. All of the deadlines that weighed me down last month have been met. For the first time in a zillion years I have no deadlines. It’s confusing the heck out of me. I’ve always been goal driven, a list maker, a multitasker. 

I find myself at a glorious moment when I get to decide where I go next. Is it time for another book proposal? Time to finally make a stab at writing fiction? Time to shift direction or dive back into the next quilt. Or perhaps it’s a moment to catch my breath, sit quietly and let my next project find me. I’ll be out back on the cedar swing, sipping my coffee and listening to the joyful song of the orioles and goldfinches.

This month we are working on our roses for our Now & Forever quilt. Yes, I did change the order in which the applique was presented. In my original plan the Sweet Peas were presented in April because that’s when they bloom in my neck of the woods. After working on them, and listening the the concerns on the yahoo list, I decided to switch to doing the simpler roses first.

Even though there are many parts to the roses, the shapes are relatively large and the curves are very gentle. The sweet peas, with all of their pointly leaves require a little more patience and confidence. Once we’ve accomplished our dozens of roses we’ll be up to the challenge.

So, here’s a quick step by step in photos. Of course we’d start by making our stabilizer (I’m using the Tear Away Magic Fusible here) or freezer paper shapes as described in my book, Hand Applique by Machine. You’ll notice that each of the template shapes have a letter and number code. This addressing system allows me to keep track of every bit without giving myself a headache.

The templates have been pressed to the wrong side of the fabric. The seam allowances have been trimmed and the “over” edges have been glue basted. You can see that only the inside curves have been clipped. Yes, there are pleats in the seam allowances, that’s perfectly fine. All that matters is that the turned edge is smooth. Glue basting allows me to continue to adjust the seam allowances until the edges are perfect.

Notice also that I didn’t cut the center out of the “C” shape yet. Leaving the center in place makes it easier to glue baste the edges.

Just snip into the fabric to start the cut, but remember to leave a scant quarter inch seam allowance.

 At home I work on a light box. I use a sheet of template plastic to protect my diagram of the applique shape. I almost always work with the paper side up, adding glue to the basted seam allowances as the motif grows.

I’m adding the “C” shape to the piece. Notice how you can see just a smidge of light around the inside edge. Both the light showing through and the diagram lines help me get the pieces placed just so.

The first round of petals get glued in place next.

And then the second round of petals go on.

This close up really shows how I use the back lighting to get the pieces into the best position. The “J” piece is “underdocked”. Too much light is showing, the slippery, fresh glue will allow me to continue to adjust the shape until it’s pretty near perfect.

Ta-da! A glue basted rose. Yep, that’s a bit of glue on the fabric. No worries, though, I know by the time all the applique stitching and quilting is done, this little bit of glue will flake off and fall away. And if some small bit remains after all that the first run through the washer will finish it off.

I’m making mirror images, some roses lean right, other lean left. It will be a subtle difference, but it will make my quilt more interesting. For some roses I’ll work with the diagram right side up.

 For the other half, the diagram will be wrong side up, but it will show up just fine on the light box.

Covering the diagram sheets with plastic makes it easy to glue the templates together without glueing them to the paper.

 The roses are pretty much done, glue basted any way. I’m making great progess on the sweet peas, which I think are so charming. They just tickle me. I’m having a bit of an disagreement with myself about how to stitch them together. I know that I want to add some details with thread, but I haven’t decided if that should come now, using thread that shows to join the parts together, or later, in the quilting, or perhaps both.

Now that all of my pressing deadlines are behind me I can give this project my full attention again. The pieced blocks are already done. You can see that the applique parts are nearly done. I really love this design, I want to do some really special embellishing on this quilt, using the techniques included in my new book. What do you think?

It’s not the boulder in the road, it’s the pebble in the shoe. We can summon up great courage to conquer the difficult obstacles in our lives only to be felled by small, daily annoyances. 

Not so long ago Kent and I were both running ragged. He was juggling several difficult projects. After working long and hard days even the ride home in his beloved Mustang couldn’t cheer him up. 

I was snowed under with prep for AQS on top of at least six other deadlines. One of the downsides to working at home is that it’s really hard to come home from work. Even though I can close the door between the studio and the rest of the house it’s hard to relax knowing the mess will still be there in the morning. 

So, I hatched a plan. “I’m running away from home next weekend”, I said to Kent. “Want to come with me? I don’t know where I’m going; anywhere will do, as long as it’s not here.”

 “Too busy,” he said, “too much to do.” 

“Hmm,” says I. 

It only took him two days to come around to my way of thinking. So, after a little discussion we decided to head south, to the Dearborn Inn, near Henry Ford Museum and GreenfieldVillage.

I love the black and white tile floor. Set on point, it enlarges an already grand space. We use this idea in our quilts all the time. Rotated a simple forty-five degrees and our pieced blocks take on a whole new look.

Filling the spaces between the conversations areas, the tile both sets the areas apart, lending a feel a privacy in this very public space, and joins them together to retain the grand sweep of the room.

It’s been a week since I returned from teaching for the American Quilters Society in Paducah, Kentucky. It’s taken that long to regroup and recover from the big push to have everything ready for classes. The kits seemed to be a big hit. All of my fears (that they would hate the fabric choices, think the kits cost too much, discover that the kits were missing some vital part, and on and on) were completely without merit. (Yes, Karen, “I told you so,” would be appropriate here.)

This was my first trip to Paducah for the show, let alone my first time teaching. The show was wonderful and the quilters seemed to be very happy to be there! Click here to see the spectacular winning quilts. The vendor booths were hopping, proving once again that quilters are the backbone of our economy. Even with the short time to shop between classes I found a couple of treasures to bring home.

After a couple of false starts my Challenge quilt was finished in the nick of time and packed off to Kentucky. In the end I added a light blue print to give the challenge fabrics a little breathing room.

It was a treat to see my quilt hanging with the others in the Pilgrim & Roy Invitational Challenge.

And nice to know that some folks liked it enough to take a picture. See, I told you that the quilt makers lurk at the shows to hear the comments about their quilts. Be nice! Save the critiques for the ride home, please!

 I thought that the quilts were especially terrific this year. Libby Lehman used rick rack to decorate hers, which made me really sad that I decided against the rick rack in the flowers at the last minute. One of the other quilts just knocked my socks off. It was hung at a right angle to the rest of the quilts so I couldn’t get it into the group shot.

 Sorry that it’s a little warped, because of the way it was hung it was tough to get a good shot. But wowsers! And like a dork, I didn’t write down the name of the maker. I wasn’t familiar with her name, and I couldn’t get it to stick in my head.

Just because I know someone will ask, here’s a close up of my quilt to show the quilting.

The collection will travel for the year. For information to borrow the quilts for your quilt show, click here. The quilts will then be auctioned off at the show next year, proceeds to benefit the National Quilt Museum. It was a really honor to be included again.

Deep in my soul lives a frustrated earth mother, longing to be self-sufficient. For years I have been pestering for chickens, years. Each spring I spend hours studying up on how easy it would be to raise chickens.

I hang around the tractor supply store, gazing longingly into the pens of chicks, wondering just how long Kent would be mad at me if I brought some home. With a sigh, I realize that it would be longer that I’d care to risk. Considering my travel schedule he’d have to be fully on-board with the whole livestock deal. It would fall to him to take care of the critters while I’m off playing with quilters.

And then a few years ago another issue arose to entirely thwart my chicken quest.

Almost every spring the Tittabawasse River floods into our field. This year, with all the snow and rain, it has flooded several times. To tell the truth, I kind of enjoy the view. The river is usually hidden by the tree line. While it’s flooded we have beautiful waterfront property.

Isn’t it lovely? Each time the water rises in the field I hope against hope that this time it will stay. This time it will cut a groove that exposes a spring that will miraculously fill the field with a permanent pond.

 But here’s the rub. We live downstream from a great big Chemical plant. Years ago, when we were young and stupid and thought dilution was the solution to pollution, dioxin was released into the river. Today it lurks in the soil in the flood plain. Even though there is no evidence of illness, folks who live in the watershed area have their knickers in a twist, perhaps understandably so.

Which brings us back to chickens. As long as we refrain from licking the rocks in the field the dioxin doesn’t pose much of a risk to us. Chickens, unfortunately, are just not that clever. I’ve tried to suggest that chickens would be an organic solution to the grubs (and the moles that follow them) that are tearing up our yard, there’s no convincing Kent that we should keep them. Just think of the dioxin that would be concentrating in the eggs! Now I’m thinking that might be a bonus. Imagine how easy it would be to find glow-in-the-dark eggs!

While taking a break from glue-basting sweet peas a couple of days ago I frightened a wild turkey out of my garden. We have all kinds of wild life around us (including our four boys). It’s not unusual to see a flock of turkeys strutting their gawky way across the field. But this young lady left in such a rush, and look what she left behind!

It made me so sad. Two abandoned turkey eggs. Should I collect them and try to hatch them? It’s probably too late, right? I should collect them and blow them out and display them. They are a lovely, speckled brown. No, they probably carry some dread disease (but no evidence of glowing in the dark). I decided to just think about it for a while.

And then yesterday, while visiting my garden between rain drops, I found this:

Just outside the window which is right next to my desk. While I quietly glue-basted even more sweet peas, momma turkey has returned to make yet another deposit. Looks like we’ll have a flock of something this spring after all.