Did you know milk is the state beverage of North Carolina? Thanks, Wikipedia! Image: Wikipedia.
I have come to North Carolina to a quilting retreat. I do not get to retreat, exactly; I’m here to work. I’m at the Carolina Charm Quilt and Craft Retreat Center, a charming, renovated antebellum house and studio run by the delightful Joanna and husband Frank.
My flight put me in Raleigh-Durham. From there, it was a 2.5-hour drive through this attractive state to get to the venue. I pulled up, parked the car, and walked into the studio. I could literally hear laughing and carrying on as I walked up the sidewalk. When I opened the door, I found the studio bursting at the seams with quilters having a grand old time already — just think how much fun we’ll have when the main event happens! (I’m pretty sure the main event is me, but the lasagna Frank made for dinner was pretty spectacular. I’ll check the website.)
A few updates and then I’m turning in; those girls are gonna be a handful tomorrow — in the best possible way, of course. I’m already in love with each of them.
So many people love tied quilts, too! I feel like we’ve all been keeping this a secret.
Back in November, I posted something I read in The Sun magazine that I needed to read. Well, guess who commented on the post today? The lady who wrote it! Read the post here and check out her amazing reply.
Also, milk is the state beverage of North Carolina.
It just looks so comfy. (I could do without the cow skull, however.) Image: Wikipedia.
I confessed the other day that I am scared to go see my doctor. I don’t have my appointment, yet, but I do have about nine friends who emailed, texted, or called me to tell me they’d go with me when I do. And the virtual company I’ll have because of you — yes, you — means that when I report back after the checkup, I’m sure I’ll tell you that it wasn’t so bad after all. Thank you; I’ll keep you posted.
Now that that’s settled, I have another confession. This one is not so dramatic — or is it??
Here we go:
I love tied quilts. I love tied quilts maybe-almost-kinda-just-a-little-bit-more-than quilted quilts.
Wait! Stop! Don’t throw me out of Quilting!
Here’s the thing: Every quilt is different. If you pay attention and think and cock your head just the right way when you look at a quilt, it will tell you what it needs when it comes to stitching the three layers together. Sometimes the quilt wants to be quilted with a gorgeous feather motif; sometimes it needs straight lines. Some quilts (like this one!) will say “Hand quilt me!” and some say, “Put me on the next UPS truck to the longarmer’s right now.” Other quilts are happy to be quilted on the domestic machine while you watch old episodes of Quilty with Mary Fons. What?!
And some quilts — though they don’t get a lot of press — want to be tied.
I hardly need to explain to the non-quilters out there what a tied quilt is, but just in case Mark is scratching his head, a quilt’s three layers (being the pieced top, the warm middle batting, and the backing fabric) need to be stitched together. Most of the time, this happens with the quilting of the quilt with thread and this is done in pretty patterns and stuff. A tied quilt is a quilt that isn’t quilted at all: It’s tied together with many little knots, basically, across the expanse of the quilt.
The tied quilt is not as sophisticated as the quilted quilt. I think that’s pretty much a fact. I mean, you can’t really add any design elements with tied knots; no lovely feather motifs are going to emerge. And you need very little skill to tie a quilt; if you can tie a knot, you can tie a quilt. So a quilter doesn’t get a lot of points for tying over quilting and in fact may get some snickers from her quilting friends, though I know none of you would ever, ever snicker at anyone’s quilt, ever, because you are kind and welcoming to all quilters everywhere, regardless of pattern, technique, or taste. Ahem.
But here’s the thing: Tied quilts are sometimes…softer. And they may be slightly warmer. Of course, there are many factors that go into the softness and warmth of a quilt, but it’s true that the heavier the quilting, the less warm or soft a quilt will be. A tied quilt has more space for trapping air in between the layers, and that will arguably make it warmer. And because there aren’t a bazillion tiny knots all over the quilt, that sucker’s gonna be soft. Well, as long as you’re not tying with electrical wire or something. (It’s usually embroidery floss or yarn, Mark.) And there’s also the intense, inexplicably satisfying textural thing that happens with all those little ties. Run your hands over all the little nubby ties and you’ll smile. You just will.
I’m tying a quilt right now. As in, I stopped working on it to write this and will return to my task when I’m done. I’m having so much fun. I love it. I mean, I love this tying process. I want to tie more quilts. This particular quilt on my floor right now is so charming with the ties, I can hardly stand it. It’s hitting three ‘C’s: cozy, comfy, and…country.
About a year ago, I heard a Chicago chef talking about her strategy for making the desserts that have made her world famous. She said, “It’s simple. If it’s delicious, it goes on the plate.”
This has become my approach to quiltmaking. If it’s delicious, it goes in the quilt. And I’m telling you, these ties are delicious. I’ll show you when I’m done.
Postscript: I have just realized I may have stoked the ire of longarmers everywhere! Longarmers, fear not: You will never lack for business. If a small tied-quilt trend begins in a small corner of the quilt world, it’s not going to be a problem, I promise. As long as quilters are making quilts, this is good for everyone. Please, please don’t be mad. I will forever need you in my life, believe me…
As much as I like bats, they’re not handsome creatures. I went with free clip art on this one. Image: Internet.
A couple weeks ago, Sophie and I took a trip to the Montrose Point Bird Watching Sanctuary. This sweet enclave of brambles and bushes and trees has gotten the nickname “The Magic Hedge” because over 300 species of birds can be found there, according to the Illinois Audubon Society. The Magic Hedge is one of Sophie and her partner Luke’s favorite places to go because Sophie and Luke are legit bird-watchers. In fact, the first time I ever met Luke, he and Sophie had just come from bird-watching. I swear the crazy kids were wearing matching shirts with birds on them. I might be making that up but it’s definitely something they would do.
The love those two have for birds has had an effect on me; I am more in awe of birds because of their interest and joy in seeing them. But the coolest thing Sophie and I saw at the Bird Sanctuary wasn’t a bird.
It was a bat! Yeah, a bat!
We were going along a hedgerow, picking our way along the path, when an elderly fellow coming the other way stopped us, pointed to a branch mid-way up a tree, and whispered, “There’s a red bat just up ahead. Look there!” There it was! A wee, sleekit bat was hanging upside down, sleeping the day away! Why, he looked like a little pussy willow up there, only with a reddish hue to his fur. Sophie and I couldn’t believe it! A bat! We looked at him for awhile. He didn’t do much but he was great. Then, when a lady came along the path, heading in the direction of Sir Bat, I stopped her and told her about the bat, just as the nice man had done for us.
The bat was probably my favorite thing at the Bird Sanctuary that day. My second favorite thing was witnessing Bird Sanctuary etiquette. I love when people get excited by simple things and help other people get excited about them.
Anywhoo, the very next day I was in the newspaper office looking at a website that lists the National Days. You know, National Donut Day, National PaperGirl Day, stuff like that. Well, what do you suppose I saw? I saw that not only is there a National Bat Appreciation Day, but it was coming up in a matter of days! Amazing.
So I wrote up a short, fun little item about this for F Newsmagazine and I thought I’d send you over there to check it out. I really stand by the reading selections I give you in this article. I know many of you are big readers and I promise: You cannot go wrong with the recommendations offered, even if you aren’t so sure about the subject matter.
Also, “Read All A-Bat-It!” is maybe the best headline I’ve ever written, so there’s that, too. Enjoy!
Illustration by Pearson Scott Foresman. (Courtesy Wikipedia.)
Confession time.
I made an appointment with my GI doctor for Monday. As in, Monday, April 17th. But I called the hospital that morning and rescheduled it for Thursday, but on Wednesday, I called and cancelled it. Did I want to reschedule it, the lady asked?
“No, no. I’ll call back in a few days,” I said, and hung up and rubbed my forehead a while.
I will call back. This week. I really, really will do that and I’ll go because it’s important. It’s like, the most important thing. But I just couldn’t do it this week.
I was too scared.
I’m scared to go see my GI doctor because I’m afraid to get bad news. I’m afraid to endure the tests that she’ll want to schedule because that means scopes and needles and stuff. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I have a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication that I can fill when I have to go do this kind of thing. That’s how freaked out I get, that’s how bad it feels, that’s how potent the fear is on account of the past.
One has to psych oneself up for these things, I told myself on Monday morning, and I was not properly psyched up. As Thursday approached, I was slightly more psyched but recalled that in the past, I have done far better at GI appointments when I have a friend go along with me. But I don’t like to bother anyone, for one thing, and for another thing — second confession — every time I think about asking a friend (or one of my sisters) to go with me to a GI appointment, I start crying because… I don’t know. I just have all these memories of being sick and all the loving things people did for me during the worst of it. And I just start hiccuping with these deep, breaking sobs and I don’t even know what that’s about. But I feel sad and I don’t want to ask anyone to do that.
Confessing to you that I cancelled my appointment twice and promising that I won’t cancel again is my attempt to be accountable. I’m going to schedule the check-up. I’m going to phone a friend. I’m going to take care of my health and I’m not going to be afraid. Or maybe I’ll be afraid, but I’ll do it anyway.
I ran out of salt the other day and it was very exciting.
Running out of salt doesn’t happen often in my home because I buy the big box of Morton’s Kosher Salt. That big box contains three pounds of salt. That’s a lot of salt to get through even for me, a gal who puts salt on everything she eats unless it’s ice cream, and even then, it could happen.
There was a terrifying moment a couple mornings ago when made my scrambled eggs. I had hit the bottom of the previous box of salt but had not yet gotten the new one. I panicked a little and seized the 99.999% empty box, shaking a pathetic cloud of salt dust over my plate. It worked well enough, but it put the fear of Jehovah in me. I wrote “BUY SALT!!!” on my to-do list. At the top.
On my way home that evening, I popped by the store and got my new salt. I wondered to myself as I lugged it home in my totebag* who I might be by the time I finished this box.
I will surely be in my second year of graduate school; there’s no way I’m going to consume quite that much salt from now until late August, am I? I think that would be bad. Will I be in a new relationship? That last box of salt was used in preparing meals for a few gentleman, if I may be frank. (None were named Frank. Maybe I’ll meet a Frank.)
Maybe when I finish that box of salt, all my dreams will have come true and I will be sublimely happy and want for nothing and lack nothing and be this perfect, happy, beneficent, magnificent being that sort of floats along and makes the world a better place and causes no suffering and doesn’t make anything worse.
But I’ll probably just be making scrambled eggs.
*Chicago has implemented a 7 cent bag tax for every plastic or paper bag used for carrying purchases from a store. Grocery stores, convenience stores, department stores — no purchased object is safe. When they announced this, I thought it was just grocery stores for some reason. People were grumbling, but I didn’t think too much of it; it couldn’t add up to too much, I usually have a totebag, anyhow, and if it leads to fewer plastic bags in the world, this is probably good. But then I realized the tax is on all bags! If you purchase one thing every day, on average, and it comes in a bag, that’s $25 a year. It’s annoying, is what I’m saying. Also, I promise not to do any more math in a post for a long time.
