Wild Flowers -- A Better Garden

 Today's post is not about my current quilting activity (although I've been piecing every day), it's about native spring wild flowers here in Ohio.  The spring before Covid, I visited the southwest corner of Ohio to participate in a Wild Flower Pilgrimage and have wanted to return each spring since.  Finally this spring, in the company of a friend, I was able to do that. 

I think that first trip was a turning point for me and my home garden because now I just want to fill it with native wild flowers.  Their beauty has won me over and the more I learn about their importance to building a healthy natural habitat that attracts insects and birds, the more fascinated I have become.  I've spent many pleasant hours during Covid viewing webinars about the importance of native habitats and am convinced this is the right direction to go with my home garden.  

So let me show you some of the beauty I enjoyed over the past few days!  It's hard for me to resist a path that begins like this -- greeted by wild blue phlox and lured ahead by Virginia bluebells . . . . 

 . . . . . . . into a landscape created by time and natural events to see breathtaking sights -- some are grand and spectacular while others are subtle and quiet.

This is at Ohio River Bluffs Preserve managed by the Arc of Appalachia, a growing "land trust" in southwestern Ohio that is working to preserve and restore precious remnants of natural habitats.  The preserve is located west of the small town of Manchester, Ohio and overlooks the Ohio River.  It is a remnant of what is believed to have been a twenty-four mile stretch of spectacular spring wildflowers on the steep hillsides and bluffs along the north side of the river.

This is currently the star of the show -- dwarf larkspur!

At the midpoint of the trail we were walking, these striking flowers dominated the hillside as far as we could see in any direction.  This picture looks "lame" but it's the best I can do to convey this marvelous sight.

We even spotted a few light morphs of the species.

It was an new species of wildflower for me and another new one was Blue-eyed Mary (named after me?).  Apparently, this little charmer is an annual and prolific in some places but I've never seen it.

One of the aspects of the areas we visited was how the plants "create" charming little landscapes with no help from a human like this little "white garden".  I know gardeners who work so hard to accomplish this and here is a square foot of diverse plants all "coordinated" in white and green.

We also visited Miller State Nature Preserve about an hour north of the river near the small town of Bainbridge, Ohio in Ross County.  It was a different palette of flowers partly because spring moves north and so some flowers that were finished along the river were at their peak in this river gorge but the soil also influences the plants that thrive there.  Every cranny of the rock face was filled with moss,  tiny ferns, white trillium, Dutchman's breeches, and miterwort -- I defy any landscape architect to create such a dynamic scene.

We found these bellwort almost in full bloom -- the flowers always droop from the end of the stalk and I seldom see them in my area.  I hope I can find a local-to-me native plant grower with them in stock!

In the northeast corner of the state, we rarely see this "toad-shade" trillium.  Those dark red petals never spread wide open and would offer a nice contrast to the large flowered white trilliums that already grow in my garden if my soil conditions permit.

We were also delighted with the cheery blooms on the wood poppies scattered amidst the many shades of  lavender and purple flowers.  I have a small clump in my garden already but now I want more!  And Whipple State Nature Preserve east of Manchester, Ohio is awash in them right now.

One of the plants I added to my garden last year was wild blue phlox -- it was blooming down south but it will be another 10 to 14 days before mine open -- I hope they look this sweet!

Here in Ohio, the state Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife has a series of sixteen nature guides available and one of them is Spring Wildflowers of Ohio.  You can download it as a PDF online HERE, but my local park system has the print versions of them available and I picked one up recently.  Out of the 65 species included in the booklet, we saw 27 in bloom and another dozen or so not yet blooming.  

Happily, I was able to manage my back issues better than I imagined and enjoy myself -- I wasn't sure I could accomplish that.  I came home determined to "wild" up my home landscape some more because it's more beautiful and vibrant than anything I can "create" with carefully tended non-native perennials.  I also believe it will require less maintenance on my part.  The fall leaves can stay, the native shrubs and wildflowers can mingle together, the insects can pollinate the plants, and the birds can harvest the seeds.  The whole effect will be inspiring and calming for me. 

If you aren't in the habit of searching out your local spring wildflowers, I encourage you to give it a try.  You can start with your local park system to see if they have guides or better yet, guided hikes and begin to learn what would work in your garden/yard.  "Google" for wildflower guides for your state.

See if there is a regional native wildflower society -- we have one in Northeast Ohio which conducts a series of six spring wildflower walks beginning this week.  

Wild Ones is a national organization  with local groups that is very active in educating and promoting wilder landscapes and a source of lots of information.  You may have a local "watershed" group or "soil and water" office that can point you to educational opportunities like invasive species removal projects.  I've become a chronic garlic mustard puller over the past few years and come out of every park all spring with as much of it as I can carry as a result of getting educated about the damage it does in native habitats.  I can't get it all but I can make a dent!!

Here is a YouTube link to my local Western Reserve Land Conservancy's videos and there is a series of five titled "Inviting Biodiversity Into Our Gardens" that explains this movement to "wildness at home".  It has been an inspiration this winter along with the series from the Ohio State University Bee Lab programming -- you can find that series and lots of links to useful information HERE.  I was so delighted to see dozens of queen bumble bees foraging this past week looking for nesting sites to start this year's colonies.  I haven't seen any up "north" yet, but am hoping to enjoy that sight in my own garden very soon.

The more I engage with the wild spaces around me, the more I appreciate their beauty and the importance of reestablishing a landscape dominated by native species.  Inspiring my neighbors will likely be the biggest challenge but it's worth spreading the word where ever possible.

I hope you will join me this spring and enjoy the awakening of your local wild spaces and be inspired to invite it into your own home space.

Mary

The Ups and The Downs

I don't like change!  How about you?

It took me a while (as I'm sure it did you) to settle into a Covid way of life and find a level of contentment in what I could safely function.  Now it seems I have to reverse engines and go back the other way.  The question is how far back do I want to go? 

As things would have it, an official diagnosis of arthritis in my back last week will be a factor in my return to "normal" (whatever that is?).  It's been suspected for several years and I've actually been taking steps to manage it with monthly maintenance sessions with a physical therapist, monthly massages, and a morning stretching routine since it was first a possible reason for my back issues.  But something about having the doctor say where it's located and that it's "severe" threw me for a bit of a loop and I spent lots of time last week fretting about what this means long term -- the DOWNS.

  I have to fret -- that's how I deal with change -- but today I'm done with the fretting and ready to make changes that will enable me to feel energetic and as pain-free as possible.

Thank goodness for my sewing!!  It has been my default for a long time when fretting -- the familiar actions of piecing calm me down and allow the rational, practical part of my character to activate.  While I haven't had any finishes for almost a month, I've made lots of progress on a variety of projects since doing anything more than 30 minutes at a time leads to backaches so lots of changing up around here!?!

My version of @jemimas_creative_quilting EPP project has finally reached part 7.  The auditioning for each part goes slowly and I waffle about fabric choices though being a couple steps behind the release of the mystery parts is a bit of an advantage because I know where the design is going.  Actually, as I write this and look at the picture, I think the picture will help me make a couple of decisions.  I work on it during the evenings (watching murderous English TV series) and during webinars about native plants and pollinator insects (which are abundant right now).

I finished the blocks for Forever Friends (in the  book, Sisterhood of Scraps) -- settled on 24 blocks and started adding the sashing and setting the blocks together. 

 It should be about 40" by 60" -- nice laprobe!

I think I found a pressing misprint in the instructions for the strip sets in steps 6 (page 39) and 8 (page 41).  I noticed I was having to re-press every corner unit as I set the blocks together.  I tried pressing the strip sets opposite to the instructions and didn't have to do that anymore.  So if you try out this pattern, keep that in mind and see if you have the same experience.

 

Yesterday, I tidied up all the strips and had an inspiration -- drat?!?

Warm versus cool log cabin or pineapple blocks!?!  Sorted and ready to go!!!

But I'm not allowing myself to start that until I get this top quilted (and there are a few ahead of it in that queue) -- I need to cut more warm strips anyway.

 

For the moment, I'm caught up with Katja Marek's current sewalong, too!  Weeks 1 through 10 are pieced!  

This is a close up of the "wreath" so far.   I'm using stash fabrics and my only fear is that I'll use up all my light blues . . . . but then I'll have to shop!!!

I'm a little behind on the pressing but doesn't it look great when it's done?

Week 11's flower is pink and I'll use it as "leaders and enders" as I assemble the Friends Forever top.

I managed to get back into my early morning machine quilting habit over the weekend -- finished one small piece and started working on this small quilt.  Seems to be the best strategy for me -- quilt 30 minutes first thing!

How's this for a cheerful bouquet?  There are a half dozen amaryllis bulbs in this big bowl -- I have more red than I remembered but a couple have yet to open so hoping the white one and the red and white striped one are among them.

We are expecting a week of mild weather here in Northeast Ohio -- that will be good!!

It  makes it so much easier to convince myself to go outside!  I'm looking forward to spring "firsts" as always -- the first red-winged blackbird is here, the turkey vultures are back, the garden witch hazel bushes are blooming and skunk cabbage has been sighted.  Singing frogs should be soon and I'm checking everyday for the rhubarb plant to poke through.  That also means it is time to cover the strawberry bed so the deer don't browse the plants and shift the pots full of spring bulbs to the patio entrance.

Looking forward to a week of being UP!

Mary

The Lure of a "Rabbit Hole"

Are you susceptible to the lure of interesting ideas?

I certainly am!!  That's why I have so many "oars out of the boat" all the time.  Something catches my fancy and I'm off like it is the most important thing in the world for me to do or learn.  I love the thrill of the original curiosity and then the conquest of learning about it or being able to do it!  Sometimes that is all I need to accomplish but other times, I fall down a rabbit hole of obsession.

Enter the Forever Friends pattern by Sandy Klop in Sisterhood of Scraps.  It's so scrappy and I just love that!  I've had the book for almost two years and been cutting strips for over a year but I held back (such restraint) during 2021 in my drive to #quilt21in2021.  It didn't hurt that every time I read through the directions, I was puzzled -- the instructions made no sense and that made it easier to delay the deep dive.

But last weekend,  as I hid in the sewing room (in an attempt to reverse a mental health downturn) I decided to tackle the instructions the way my mother taught me -- read one sentence, do it, read the next sentence, do it and so on.  The first block took three hours on Saturday afternoon and I was exhausted mentally!?!  But when I returned on Sunday, my inclination to build a personal work process enabled me to complete two blocks in just two hours.  The instructions were beginning to make sense and they are thoughtfully written.

Since the weekend I've been up there every day, cracking out another block (or two) and I'm in love with the results and the process.

So I decided that I'd share some tips on pushing through the early stages of this project in hopes that it might either give you the courage to try this pattern or to push through to understanding with a pattern that has you intimidated.

As a quilt making teacher for almost 40 years, I saw lots of students and customers suffer from the intimidation of trying new patterns because "it didn't make sense".  As a pattern writer who traveled regionally to teach those patterns, I learned that how each of us approaches instructions is based on how we were taught to read instructions and the skills we learned.  While my local students could take one of my patterns and whiz through it because they learned their basic skills and terminology from me, students in other regions who learned a different sets of skills and terminology were puzzled.

So it might not be you and I hope that encourages you to try!

This isn't a call to change the way you work through a new pattern.  I'm going to share the reasons I was puzzled by these instructions and how I moved through them as an illustration for you to consider how your skills and work habits influence the way you approach a new project.

To begin, I was trained by Mary Ellen Hopkins to be a machine piecing teacher and learned to cut as you go.  We never cut all the pieces for a project before doing any sewing.  The reason for that was we didn't have 1/4" presser feet, so seam allowances varied a bit from machine to machine.  We cut the first step, stitched the first step, and then measured the results before cutting for the second step. 

The result of that is that I'm skeptical of any pattern that tells me to cut everything up front.

And so I always skip that step which is okay because it works for me!

(BONUS -- if I get bored with the project, I can quit and repurpose easier with no guilt because I don't have all that fabric cut up.) 

Second, when my mother taught me to knit and sew, she waited to explain things to me until I had attempted to figure it out for myself.  Read one sentence, do it.  Read the next sentence, do it.

Often, we read all the instructions before starting a project and they make no sense because we can't visualize how the process is working.  But if we go sentence by sentence even though we don't understand why we are doing something, we get to the end and can look back to see how things went together and THEN we understand the process because we've experienced it.

Finally, I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that the restrictions of editors on pattern writers (especially in books) can oversimplify explanations that might benefit readers so it might not be that the designed is a poor instruction writer - there could be other reasons. 

(That's why some elect to self-publish!)

I've watched quilters work through this pattern on Instagram and all seem to work block by block but when I read the instructions (over and over), the implication is that all the strip sets are made first ("make 252 each of A, B, C, and D units") and then arranged?  

Where's the "shocked" emoji??

So I began with my chaotic pile of strips (see first picture) and proceeded one sentence at a time for just ONE block even though I could not make sense of how it would come together.

It took three blocks before the process made sense and it's brilliant.

Here's the block I just made in place on the work wall.  Notice above that the center of the block stops at the green round and the four corners are different.  

Each adjacent block shares two corners and with the addition of sashing units, a new Trip around the World motif is created.   Now I get it!!  The more "blocks" I make, the easier the process becomes and I'm happy with the results.

If this beauty is on your "want to do" list -- here's a couple tips. 

Page 38 to 40 -- Steps 1 through 4 make the central "trip" motif and use 4 fabrics.  I pick those as I'm finishing a work session so they are ready and waiting when I return making it easier to dive back in.

This is a dull combo but that's the beauty of scrappy quilts -- the dull has a place!

Steps 6 through 8 make four corner units and four different ones are needed for each block.  After the first block, you always have at least two corner units already done each time you start a new block.  Since these units use three different prints, I set aside groups of three that catch my eye as I'm rummaging through the pile so they are ready to pick up and stitch.

And most important, follow the pressing directions to the "T" -- they are thoughtful and will make the assembly so easy but if you ignore them . . . . . . . . . . big mess!!

I set aside strips once used so they aren't repeated too close together.  Last evening, I returned all the strips used for the first 9 blocks into the "stash of strips" and sorted them out into color families - yes, on the floor -- which will make it easier to pull combos (and less messy).

(Notice the two "corner combos" in lower right corner that I pulled during the tidy-up.)

As soon as I finish editing this post, I'm headed back up to the sewing room to crack out another block!  My original idea was to make a lap robe size quilt with 20 blocks but I might go bigger depending on how much fun I'm having at the 20 block mark?!?

(Those units pinned to the wall around the edges are corner units waiting for their block to be made.)

And I'm not falling behind on my Homage to Grandmother's Flower Garden because I can use it for "leaders and enders" as I assemble the Forever Friends blocks!!!

Part 7 almost finished.

LOL -- at this rate, it won't be long before I have another 21 quilt tops stacked up?!?

Enjoy your weekend and try to get outside especially if you are up "north" -- it's good for our mental health!!  My foray a couple days ago led me to this group of tundra swans resting on the ice out on Lake Erie!  One never knows what wonders are waiting out there even in crummy weather!

Back to puttering around in my current "rabbit hole"!

 Mary

 

What's On Your "To-Do" List?

 Greetings from a sunny ( and balmy) snowy Northeast Ohio!!  

It's 37 degrees F. and after the cold days last week, it feels quite nice.  I might not even wear gloves outside today?!?  Yes, all those comedy routines and jokes about us apply when the winter sun is shining and it gets up to freezing!  We are on the downhill side of winter and the year round resident birds like cardinals and tufted titmice have started territorial singing as the daylight increases.  Hearing them cheers me right up and is a signal to my brain that spring is coming!!

How many new projects have you started this year so far?

I found one!!  It's Katja Marek's Homage to Grandmother's Flower Garden.  Have you seen it?  It's a stunning layout!  The pace is doable since the quilt is broken into 52 weekly sections.  I'm using 3/4" finished hexagons because it's larger than I want with the 1" that she has used.  And since I already have an EPP project going, I'm machine piecing this one using the Set-In Piecing Simplified chain piecing technique.  

To satisfy my "fussy cutting" itch (without starting yet another project), I chose this gorgeous floral from my stash to use for the center round of the large flowers.  It also has determined the color palette of rosy pink, golden yellow, and cornflower blue for the entire quilt.

Katja has designed the quilt with an interesting background but since I'm a devoted stash buster at this point, I'm working with a blended scrappy assortment of the palest blues I can find on the shelves.  To keep my momentum going down the road, I've precut lots of these blue hexagons so I can dive into each section without much effort.

My fussy cutting is rather casual but it still scratches my itch.

The trickiest part is inserting the leaves but after some fiddling with different approaches,  setting each one up as a unit like this seems to work best for me.  Sometimes that will mean pinning those pieces to the body of the top until an adjacent section is added but sewing the two background hexagons to the "weird" pieces and then to the leaf section with the final seam being between the two "weird" sections works well.  The "weird" shape is called "Marge's star" as it was introduced by the Aussie designer, Marge Sampson-George.

Isn't it delightful so far?!?

While I'm stuck on the next quilting step for that quilt I showed you in my last post, I've been moving some old UFO's forward.  If you ever attended one of my UFO Assault Lectures, you might recognize this little pineapple piece -- I finally took off the foundation papers and found this cute print in my stash for a wide border to bring it up to a usable size.

This old teaching step-sample is all stitched together and I'm auditioning borders today -- the pieced green border is settled but I'm waffling about a narrow accent border -- argh!!

It's all laid out on the floor just inside the sewing room and so hopefully, when I go back up there later today, one of the five choices I laid out will sing right out!

And I'll have another top to quilt!!

I'm excited to have all the units for parts 4 and 5 ready to add to my version of Jemina's Creative Quilting current mystery sew along!  I've become a regular Zoom webinar attendee for native plants and insect programs -- it's a great time to baste hexies, too!

So it might seem like all I'm doing is stitching?

That about sums it up -- mostly all I'm doing is stitching.  But I think I've stumbled onto a more upbeat strategy for not feeling guilty about it.  For some (inspired?) reason, I didn't make a "to-do" list last week?!?   Instead, I did "got-it-done" lists at the end of each day.  Everyday there were two or three household chores done plus the stitching and no guilt.  It amounted to the same amount of daily housework and sewing as usual, but not having the "to-do" list guilt was great!! Soooo, the "to-do" list will only have notations for tasks I might forget and very few deadlines.  

Up with the "got-it-done" lists because accomplishments build positive momentum!!

And that's a good thing!

Have a guilt-free week!!

Mary

Checking In

 So how is your January stitching coming along?  This past weekend, I traded my messy desk and cluttered studio for a cabin in a snowy central Ohio state park where a friend and I hung out stitching and talking.  It was so cold we didn't even leave the cabin except to check out the geese on the river flowing past the back porch.  It was a very pleasant break!

Of course, I took more than I could reasonably expect to work on but I made sure what I did do would push a couple projects forward in a significant way . . .  but nothing finished.

Over the past week, I've been slowly getting this piece quilted.  The simplest approach would have been a grid or straight lines but neither seemed right.  I wanted to emphasize the swirling feel I get from the blocks. 

After looking at it for a couple days and drawing design ideas on the quilt with a chalk wheel I settled on this modified "continuous curve" idea.  I like the way it makes the blocks whirl visually. 

To emphasize the overall shape, I outlined the outer edges of each block 1/4" from the seams with a muted shade of green thread.

That left me with a weird shaped background section.  )-: ?

While doodling a circular spiral idea, I experimented with rotating a modified "Baptist fan" motif to form a circular design.  It was easy and by maintaining five "arcs" to each quarter, it enabled me to complete the entire design with just one start and stop.

Second quarter and two more to go.  Much easier than trying to maintain a good looking spiral, too!!  If you go back up and look at the large picture of the quilt again, you can see my funky spinning motifs.

Of course, now I'm stuck again for design inspiration for the area surrounding the center of the quilt and the border.  There have been a couple glimmers but not in a rush at this point so just letting it simmer.

My 2022 goals have emerged and solidified over the past week, too.  Ready?

1. Finish at least two UFO's each month (there are lots of small ones so this is more doable than it might seem).

2. Eliminate one "un-started" project each month -- put the fabric back into the stash and dispose of the pattern (shocking but some have been waiting for me for years and it will clear the deck for something more interesting and compelling!).

3.  Give away quilted pieces every month -- I could give one away every week and still have plenty.  We'll see how this one goes -- I get pretty attached to my finishes but so far this year, I've given one away every week -- 4 for 4!?!  So we'll see.

I think we need to end with a triplet picture!!  It was our delayed Christmas gathering.  They explored the house completely as it was only their second visit since learning to walk and there was a cat upstairs?!?  Very exciting!!

I have a quiet week ahead -- one appointment, babysitting this gang, and a few native plants and insect webinars, a little cleaning, and lots of stitching!

I love being retired!!

Hope your week is pleasant and you stay healthy!

Mary

One Week Down! Fifty-one To Go

 It's Saturday afternoon and the first week of 2022 has come and is almost gone.  What's that old adage -- start the year the way you mean to go?  I might have set the mark a little too high?

On Monday/Tuesday I pulled out the folding table and layered up three small quilt tops and two table runners (with Harry's help, of course).  

Two of the quilts were lurking in a bin of UFO's I had set aside for my charity group over the course of the past year, but when I re-homed all those supplies during the fall they must have been hiding?!?  Since I'm not going to lead a charity quilt making group any longer, I was peeved with myself for overlooking the projects, but on second thought, I'll still make charity quilts on my own.  So as a kick-start for the year, I finished piecing the easiest one (took an entire afternoon?!?) and organized backing for it and a second top that was already finished.

The third quilt top was the only top I pieced in 2021.  I used a newish pattern, Vanity Flair, from Karen Ackva at www.easypatchwork.de who quilts and teaches in Germany. You can find it in her ETSY shop HERE.  It's a sweet little quilt and I used up most of one of the (irresistible) layer cakes in my stash.  I cut it out in July . . . . 

. . . . . and then used it as "leaders and enders" whenever I needed a piecing break from all the quilting.

Isn't it sweet?  I'm stuck (as usual) about how to quilt it but something will come to me!?!

I think it will go onto the stack of quilts ready-to-gift.

Today, I finished quilting this one -- a teaching sample from Marti Michell's Volume Six patchwork book using her large Multi-size Hexagon Ruler.***  I kept the quilting simple to complement the piecing.  

Complex quilting would not only take longer but it would disappear into all the lovely Oriental theme prints which carry the show on this quilt.

The second one is a sweet little 9-patch single Irish chain quilt that will be a delightful charity quilt.

So two little quilts ready to bind this coming week!

Over the past couple weeks I've done lots of tidying in my sewing room -- putting fabric away, cutting  scraps into 2 1/2" strips and squares, unearthing UFO's, sorting through leftover batting, "finding" lost tools -- and as usual the UFO list is longer than I expected.  BUT for the first time in many years, it's under 50 projects.  I haven't set any hard and  fast goals for 2022 but I do want to eliminate as many of those UFO's as possible.  Many of them are small projects that started out as teaching samples (and they won't get bigger) but a few are just stacks of wishful thinking -- pattern/book and fabric. 

 I'm thinking I'll aim for finishing two a month and eliminating one a month but that's not written in stone because the idea of eliminating 12 projects this year that I thought I wanted to make is a bit . . . . . I don't know -- intimidating?   I think the key will be to decide if after laying on the "to-do" pile for years, what will I do with it if I make it?   

And eliminating something old will give me time to try something new that is more appealing at the moment!!  Must remember that!!

Now back to editing and revising one of my birding presentations -- being all bird nerd and dropping down into every rabbit-hole I encounter.

Hope your New Year is starting off as you'd like!!

Mary

***EDIT April 2025

Marti Michel closed her business in late in 2024 and while some shops may still have a stock of her templates, you can also find them on Ebay and Etsy.