Hunh? you say?

Well, it started last fall when fellow Frayed Edge Kate Cutko wanted to make floor cloths to sell at a holiday craft bazaar. Rhea Daiute at Alewives Fabrics in Damariscotta Mills had some on display last year at Maine Quilts (the annual show of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild) and sold out on her kits! And On Board Fabrics in Edgecomb, where Kate used to work, carries the canvas in varying widths. So, on our Frayed Edges field trip to the Botanical Gardens (see here1, here2, here3 and here4 for those posts).

Unlike me, Kate actually got things done. Here is a picture of one cloth she began and another (the green) Painted canvas underneath ready for the fabric–wouldn’t that mango one be glorious as a kitchen runner?

Kathy made several as Christmas gifts (why the heck don’t I have PHOTOS of their finished ones???????)… while surfing around for links to Alewives and my blogposts, I discovered Rhea has a blog, and she even blogged about a floorcloth workshop, here. Well, I figured the last thing we need in our house (with, at the time, two boys, two dogs one of whom was 150+ pounds and hairy, and four cats) was one more thing to get dirty on the floor……BUT, I was wishing for some wipe-down placemats as the boys are still kinda sloppy.

So…… floorcloth becomes 8 placemats! I used the leftover paint from painting my fabric shelves (remember these?) as the base color, then picked a selection of my favorite Caribbean-ish batiks for my squares. Oh…by the way, I had to ask Kate to help me remember, but you paint the canvas first, THEN glue (if you do it the other way, we learned the hard way, the edges ripple).

Then there were some little leftover bits of canvas…can’t let those go to waste… Bingo! Coasters for the drippy, sweaty iced-tea glasses of summer:

So far, after having used THREE coats of polyurethane (semi-gloss) on them, the wiping up is working! The hard part was keeping (and failing) the floating cat hairs out of the stuff as it dried, so a few random bits of Thumper, Tyger, Hannah and Zeus appear to have become part of the mats…. Anyway, I figure wiping mats (but not submerging them) to clean can’t be much more wear and tear than a floorcloth! And some day, I may actually make a floorcloth! Rhea and Alewives Fabrics will apparently be selling more kits at Maine Quilts, so stop by the booth early..they’re sure to sell out again!  They also have this cool Non-skid stuff to paint on the backs so you don’t break your neck with the cloth skittering across the floor… check it out!

Our Monday meeting in late January was a welcome respite from the chaos that is my life these days. So much so, that I headed out Route 1 south I found myself talking to myself with glee: “yipppeeee! Girls day out! Girls day away!” Ya think I needed the break? Yep.

The day started nicely, and I stopped at the Starbucks at Cook’s Corner en route to Hannah’s. I went in instead of through the drive-through (and found a gift for hubby for Valentine’s), and found this “art notebook” (above). The trees remind me a bit of Deborah, and I loved the inside (below). But I think I can make a nicer quality one…this was really neat, but I can make it even more fun (and all mine!). Still, I liked it enough to snap pics, and I really liked the embroidered detail on the flap covering the pencil points, which alas you can’t see because I lifted the flap for the photo—smack self upside head!

We met at Hannah’s house, where her youngest took a long nap (and the babysitter was there to boot!), we shared and talked and ate and played, pretty much in that order, except we also ate while sharing! Kath brought muffins and I brought juice (I have fallen in love with the Simply Orange, which tastes like fresh…and the jars are great for mixing dyes, too.) Kathy brought her being-quilted chickadee quilt which she has discussed over on her blog, here. I brought my in-progress Hawaiian style quilt that will be in my book (which will be delayed again as I deal with mom’s decline), and Hannah had these incredible delectables tucked away, but we found them anyway…. I am in LOVE with that tree piece (second photo)!

Hannah had a project she wanted us to try and even had all the supplies… she had seen on Martha how you cover a canvas with your own cloth, Mod Podge it to seal it and glue it to the canvas. Then you take a mask or a stencil and paint around a shape. Here’s Kate working on hers as Hannah starts on our Italian sub sandwiches for lunch:

Of course I couldn’t do what the instructions said…. I decided to tear strips of cloth and have a striped background….

And I was SO inspired by this flyer from the library in Brunswick (or was it the local film / cinema group? It was about movies)… aren’t these incredible graphics? I think I’ll tear masking tape to mask off trees and birds on my striped cloth one before I paint…. but what color? Deep navy? Teal? Silver? That last hadn’t occurred to me until I just typed it, but maybe that’s it…. or a dark metallic gray?

And then there was Kate’s rum cake for dessert….. *almost* needed to worry about a breathelyzer test after that one….grin! And, sigh, we missed Deborah, who always took photos of our feast…..

In a new Christmas miracle (ahem), I actually got our annual “Christmas” newsletter written, printed, in the envelopes and INTO THE MAIL before Christmas! Some years, this event has occurred the week after Christmas (last year), in early January (several previous years), even February. One year, I thought since I was so late I’d make it an Easter newsletter. That holiday came and went, and by June I decided I was SO LATE I’d just skip it and try to do better the following year. So you can see that this is no small feat! Of course, I will never, ever be able to match my friend Gayle, whose letter and card always arrive shortly after Thanksgiving! I may try, but she’ll always beat me, and I look forward to seeing how early she gets ’em out every year <ggg>.

I thought I’d share some of the newsletter here…. the photo above is the one at the end of the letter and was taken a couple of evenings ago. I probably should have included one of the umpteen-zillion other shots taken trying to get them to sit still and behave…. how many years until they do? At least a dozen I think… For regular readers, you’ll recall all these events, as I think they’ve all been in the blog!

The Smith Family Chronicles, 2007 edition

We are looking forward to 2008, since 2007 has been a roller-coaster-ride. The year started out well, with Joshua coming in 5th in the state in his weight class in middle school wrestling, Eli earning his green belt in Tae Kwon Do (Korean) karate and yellow belt with stripes in Isshinriyu (Okinawan) karate, Paul starting out as a white belt in the Isshinriyu dojo, and Sarah’s quilting career taking off quite nicely. In March we added a new member of the family: the world’s most adorable pug, Pigwidgeon. Eli has always wanted a pug, and for his birthday he got one! ‘Widgeon is named after the hapless Weasley family owl in the Harry Potter series, and he makes EVERYone grin — the whole neighborhood loves him.

Just a few weeks after summer vacation began, things took a decided downturn. Paul had torn something in his shoulder and was scheduled for rotator cuff surgery on Tuesday, July 17th. An hour after Paul’s pre-op appointment on the 16th, Joshua decided to dash to the library. He tore down the hill to the T-intersection at the bottom; when he tried to slow down, the brakes didn’t work properly. He cranked the handlebars to make the right turn as hard as he could, but gravel at the bottom of the hill made things worse and he veered across the yellow line, directly into the front left quarter-panel of a Jeep going the 35 mph speed limit.

Miraculously, and probably with the help of an entire host of angels, he suffered only a severely broken left leg—all three major bones broken, the tib-fib into a compound fracture—a gash on his head (he was NOT!!!! wearing a helmet!) and scrapes and bruises. A friend of Joshua’s who lives near the accident scene heard the crash and called to tell us Joshua had been hit. Paul and Sarah flew down the hill in suspended terror until they saw Joshua sitting up, clutching his left leg, surrounded by helpers including a nurse practitioner who was passing by who was phenomenal—and we don’t even know her name to tell her how much her competence and calm helped us all.
After what seemed like eternity, an ambulance with a patient in the back stopped and dropped off an EMT. The EMT took one look at Joshua and before even kneeling down to examine him, got on her radio to call Life Flight to helicopter Joshua to a regional emergency center since the degree of injury was too much for a local hospital. The poor young woman who hit Joshua was devastated—Paul and I both went over to let her know he would be OK. Later, her dad told us she said her eyes and Joshua’s locked over the hood of the car—terrifying! Fortunately, Joshua only remembers thinking “oh this isn’t gonna be good” as he saw the car approach, and then sitting up and the pain in his leg—he has no recall of being hit.

To make a long story a bit shorter, Joshua endured four surgeries in seven days, including the seven-hour operation two days after the accident to insert a rod into his thigh and apply an “external fixator” to his shinbones. The “ex-fix” was six screws about 6 inches long drilled into his bones, with rods on the outside to keep the bones in position. The pressure from the swelling tissues was so great the surgeons had to do two fasciotomies, basically long slices from knee to ankle on both sides of his shin; without this, the pressure on the tissue would have caused it to turn gangrenous and die. Paul and Sarah rotated spending the night at the hospital: one of us was with Joshua 24/7 for the 3 weeks he was in hospital. Eli was a major trooper throughout this ordeal, and was always helpful and cooperative despite having to ride to and fro for 3 hours nearly every day.

After nearly a week, Joshua slept all day. Between the morphine and other heavy-duty IV drip painkillers and blood loss, he had become severely anemic. He ended up needing two transfusions. After a second week, it was time to close up the fasciotomies, requiring a skin graft from Joshua’s left thigh. Another week of rehab and healing followed. Once the skin graft was pronounced “good to go”, Joshua was released to home, three weeks nearly to the hour after the accident.

August was quiet except for Paul’s surgery and being able to go to the Maine Air Show (in September) and see the Blue Angels aerobatic team—awesome! After two days home, Joshua got fed up with the slowness of the walker and gutted his way to walking with crutches and healed with the speed of youth. Paul’s recovery has been remarkable, amazing his physical therapist and doctor! The local quilters were awesome, several coming to us with meals to feed an army, but instead we ate them with appreciation for their love and compassion. And quilters around the world (on Sarah’s e-lists) sent get-well quilt blocks to Joshua, who will have a huge new quilt as a result.

School began, life assumed some normalcy, and Eli played on his first soccer team. He proved to be a quick study once again—his proud Mom and Dad think he can excel at anything he sets his mind to! And we’re proud he was selected for Horizons, the gifted student program, for the fourth grade. Eli also competed in Maine’s biggest martial-arts tournament as an Isshinryu student and took 2nd out of 26 kids in kata (forms), and 4th out of 26 kids in fighting—way to go Eli! Joshua’s leg hardware came off in early November in his sixth and hopefully final surgery (there could be one more in about a year if the rod inside his femur bothers him and needs to come out). He will heal completely!

Sarah’s quilting is going gangbusters! She had two articles published in Quilting Arts magazine this past year, the top quilting magazine for art quilters. As well: two projects were selected to be in a book to be published in May 2008 called Quilting with Beads, the Frayed Edges (Sarah and four friends) had a month-long show in the gallery space at the beautiful Camden library, and (drum roll please) she got a contract from AQS (one of the three largest quilt publishing houses) to write a book! The book is tentatively titled “Unraveling Threadwork,” and is about using thread on the surface of a quilt: appliqué, embellishment and quilting by machine. She had hoped it would be out in Fall 2008, but the hurly burly of the summer may cause the date to slip. Sarah’s teaching is also taking off, with three big-time teaching gigs in 2008 including at the HUGE AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky.

In early December, Sarah traveled to California for her mom’s 89th birthday! We are all hoping that Nana will be able to move to Camden (on the waiting list for the retirement community there) in 2008. Joyce, Sarah’s beloved sister in law, came up from L.A. Sarah’s half-brother Tom J. passed away at the age of nearly 75 in late June, and Sarah had been scheduled to go out in July for the celebration of his life. Joshua’s accident changed those plans, so we were all thrilled that the three remaining “Maleady’s” were able to be together.

So that’s it for a crazy year! We are all looking forward to a less-eventful 2008!

With love, cheer and good will,

Paul, Sarah, Joshua and Eli
And the many critters:
Zeus, Tyger, Hannah, Thumper,
Yeti and ‘Widgeon

On Monday the 17th, Kate, Kathy and I met at Kate’s house in Bowdoinham to share and celebrate the season. As I mentioned earlier, Hannah’s daughter was down with a fever, so she stayed home, and of course our dear Deborah is living on the dark side of the moon a.k.a. Dallas (sorry to all Texans…but you’re a loooonnnnggggg way away from here! it seems that far!). Deborah’s box was delayed in the mail, so I won’t share the goodies that the three of us exchanged, since not everyone has seen their holiday gifties (I will share AFTER Christmas!). We had a wonderful time in Kate’s old (maybe early 1800s?) house, which is remarkably sunny and light. It has the small rooms typical of New England, which hold the heat well yet let in lots of light.

First we shared. Kathy has almost completed the glorious art bed quilt (yes, it is possible to make art for the bed and Kathy has just proved it!). The quilt is a commission for a friend, who wanted the quilt to celebrate the favorite places she and her husband have been in their long marriage, from the Caribbean to Maine, Mexico, New Zealand (I think it was), Newfoundland and beyond. I am in lust:

I shared my Naiads quilt, which alas I can’t share here for a couple of months…sigh… but it was such a thrill to have MADE something that is art!

I loved this view from the dining room:

I loved this view even more… lunch with my friends! The only thing that would have made it better would have been Hannah and Deborah. We had Kate’s panini, my potato-turkey kielbasa soup (thank you Janet! I use that recipe a LOT), and Kathy’s treats for dessert (they involve graham crackers, butter, sugar, chocolate, nuts…heavenly).

Then we decamped to the living room for prezzies under the tree! On the far side of the room is one of my favorite paintings, which Kate did for an art class in college:

On the shelf underneath was this lovely vignette… Kate’s home is filled with these wonderful little suprises and joys… We have so many cats (and cat hair and dust) I don’t do stuff like this, and I should!

Then, goodies made by friends… could it be any better?

You’ll have to wait to see the contents, though… but Kate and Kathy, gifts have already been pressed into joyful service!

Well….. medicine in the US can do many wonderful things, but taking into consideration the patient as a feeling, sentient single entity, and his family, is not one of them. Yesterday the doc said if all goes well he could have surgery Weds. and go home Thursday. Today he actually LOOKED at the incisions and said they would have to do skin grafts, meaning MORE days in the hospital and not home Thursday. Sigh. I’m sick of the ortho guys not taking to the plastics guys not talking to trauma not talking to rehab … or if they ARE communicating to each other, failing to communicate that to us.

Anyway, I’m tired, and that is part of my grumpiness! I hope to have time to blog about Maine Quilts, this past weekend (I got a 90 minute window of opportunity to visit! YEAH!), and Kate and I hang the Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library…. if you put Frayed Edges into the search box, it will bring up posts about our mini-group; the most recent is your invite to come to the show! Gotta run….chores to do before heading back up to Bangor, Cheers, Sarah