I bought this fabric in July in preparation for the next quilt we are going to make. I mentioned earlier that we were searching for pattern ideas to make a quilt for N’s brother for his wedding — we finally settled on a modified version of “Drunk Love Two-Tone” from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book. Instead of two colors we are going with 3 (two blues and a green) and some patterned/colored highlights.



Making this quilt with more than two colors has really complicated things. Since the pieces have to be cut individually I had to plan out ahead of time how many of each color I would need. I laid the quilt pattern out in Adobe Illustrator (image above) to get a good balance of the three colors and then made spreadsheets to keep track of what had been cut. Cutting pieces seemed to take forever but we have *mostly* finished (I still need to cut the highlights) and I am finally on to the sewing.

Can you see it? There is a pile of sewn pieces on my desk and a pile of cut pieces on my work table. I’ve done a fair amount of crafting this summer but I haven’t written much about it. I think I can attribute this largely due to the lack of good lighting in my apartment. With N’s new job and long commute our evenings are more condensed and progress on the quilt primarily happens after 9pm (which doesn’t help the lighting situation either).

Even in the dim evening lighting (and less than perfect focus) I still love my desk. I can’t get over how cute the sewing machine is. Apparently other people agree with me, they put the same machine on the cover of ReadyMade for the August/September issue! It is working like a champ too which is good because my singer 301 is skipping stitches. I don’t know if I need to find someone to take a look at it but all of my attempts to modify tension controls and change needles and thread have failed to solve the problem. I’m not sure what we are going to do when we get to quilting everything together because there is no way the whole quilt is going to pass under the arm of my tiny featherweight! Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions for my ailing machine?

This is where I spent the last four days (I’m the one with my legs over the side). The majority of the time I was soaking wet and freezing cold but I still managed to have a good time. The guys on the boat were great and everyone had such a good attitude. It is almost always fun if you are winning, so I really appreciate when racing stays fun even when things don’t go as well.

This event was truly a “Yacht” race - big boats funded by rich people and lots of extravagance. I love sailboat racing but I don’t love the Yacht Club scene. It is not for me. I feel awkward and out of place. One of these days I’ll get back into the kind of racing I love to do - in small boats with fun competitors, no yacht club required.

The state of the built environment in central Alaska leaves something to be desired. Despite extremely harsh winters requiring large amounts of energy to heat homes (40 below is not an uncommon temperature) it seems like a huge number of them are either built improperly for the environment or just plain built improperly. It is not quite correct to say that there is no building code but I would say by observation that many (many) structures do not follow said code. I guess the reason this bothers me so much is because there is a large energy consumption associated with poor building in a climate such as interior Alaska. Despite being in an oil state, fuel still costs ~$4/gallon and a house can use more than a thousand gallons of oil over a winter (according to the local paper the average is between 1,300 and 1,350 gallons of heating fuel per year). How can these people afford to heat their homes?

The house my friends purchased this summer consists of two buildings connected together by an internal causeway. One of the buildings is about 30 years old and made of logs without additional insulation. 8″ of wood is better than nothing but it can’t keep things particularly warm. The other building is newer, insulated and contains the house’s water system and bedrooms.

The list of things to be built or re-built is fairly substantial and the deadline is November. Some of the projects are to bring the house into compliance with insurance requirements, others are to save some money and energy heating. They are hoping to take advantage of a rebate and mortgage rate reduction available if they can greatly improving the energy “rating” of the house.

First on the list: Build a deck railing for insurance compliance.

Next: Build a make-shift kitchen to operate out of while the current kitchen is dismantled. These hearty alaskan folks will probably do ok, but I know I would have trouble working out of this arrangement for more than a few weeks….

They need to replace/update their kitchen so we talked about which parts they would keep and which they would replace or build themselves. They decided to keep the cabinets and re-finish them. We primed them while I was there but reports are that painting them is taking many coats of paint (and therefore a *lot* of time). They still have to decide on a counter surface to put in. I calculated some approximate costs for the seamless counters from the hardware store vs building the counter and tilling it yourself. I think the cost of doing it yourself is about half, but it takes two days of work which might make the two balance out.

The older cabin is going to be framed with new walls, insulated and then sheet rocked. I didn’t get to see the first wall go up, but it was built on the floor the day I left. Only 3 more to go!

Don’t worry, we did some (more traditionally) fun things too! I got to go canoing where I saw the Bald Eagle at the top of the post. The eagle was really close, that photo was shot with a small waterproof digital camera so there is no fancy zoom action.

We picked some rhubarb



and blueberries



and I saw all sorts of neat plant life. Arctic vegetation is on my brain these days and I find the plant communities there fascinating.

I did a fair share of knitting as well. It seemed appropriate to work on my norwegian mittens while in a cold climate. I’m loving how they are turning out. Maybe I’ll get around to posting about them later, otherwise you can check them out on Ravelry.

For some cultural exposure we attended the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. They have some crazy sports that involve jumping really high and kicking your feet in the air. There is also a selection of sports which involve ears - hanging large weights from your ears or having a “tug of war” between two ears. I think I’m glad I missed those events. Check out this coat from the native regalia contest. I was in love…



That woman also competed in the blanket toss event and wore the coat for the first jump!

The flight home was long and tiring. Most flights out of Fairbanks come and go around 1am, so I flew all night. I used to take the red-eye back to NY when I lived there, but this was much more brutal than I remember. I have recovered now though and I had a great time. It is fun to work on large scale house projects when you don’t have your own. It is even better when I don’t have to make the decisions! I just think now I might need vacation from my vacation…

Speaking of going to the Heath factory, the reason the name Heath catches my ear in the first place is from the work I did with my parents re-tiling their kitchen counters and bathroom floor. Below is a blog post I wrote for a diy-home type website, but I think it is time the story came to my blog to live. The following was written more than a year ago (March 2007) and we started with the kitchen counters in summer 2004.
——-
In the last two years I have helped design and install a tile counter and bathroom floor that is less than traditional. It was a lot more time consuming and involved than a tile installation with only one or two types of tiles but I think the results are very rewarding.

The background:
My parents built their house in 1980 and it is just getting to the time where things like counters are needing replacement. The original countertop was made using seconds from a local handmade tile shop which were pretty but, after 20 yrs, a bit boring. They hemmed and hawed over what kind surfacing to put in. There were granites they liked but with a 4′ by 8′ island and a 3′ by 12′ counter a slab was out of their price range and tiles had a lot of variation. They liked the handmade tiles but they were somewhat bland over such a large area. They were really looking for something dynamic. I took my mom to a tile mosaic shop for some inspiration and we ended up walking away with boxes and boxes of tiles. The colors! The variety! It was wonderful. So we decided to make the counter a mosaic, albeit not your typical broken tile type. In fact we designed it much more with quilts than mosaics in mind. We made it all up as we went along and my parents like it so much we did the bathroom floor too!

Here is how we did it:
Shopping for tile
We shopped for tile at a tile mosaic store and also at factories near by. We happen to live close to two tile manufacturers: McIntyre Tile and Heath Ceramics. Heath had a whole room of seconds and overstock that were at reduced prices. McIntyre has one large sale of seconds etc. each year, usually in the fall. The mosaic store has since closed but stocked overstock, seconds, glaze samples and experimental tiles from several tile makers. Most of the tile was sold by the pound. We bought a large variety of colors, sizes and textures (including one box of matching tiles for a border) using a very rough estimate of what we needed and headed home. With this method you really need to buy more than you will use so you have some variety and choice while laying out the design.

Design
The first thing I did was lay all of the tiles out arranged by color and size.

The 6″ tile color pallate.  Notice the old tile counter underneath (tiles also from McIntyre)

3″ tile color pallate

We set some basic parameters for our layout by deciding that the kitchen counter would have a 6 inch border of large matching tiles and then a 6 inch grid. The back splash and the bathroom floor were much more free form. I made a scale layout of the counter tops out of paper in another room and then walked back and forth choosing tiles out of the color arrays and placing them onto the paper layout.

Mock-up of the kitchen counter on paper.

The grid on the kitchen counter was done with interspersed 6″ tiles and then collections of other shapes and sizes to make a 6″ square. When we abandoned the grid in the bathroom it became much more difficult to account for the proper grout sizing but I was more comfortable with laying out the design by then and I was able to compensate. We had a tile saw available and we used it to cut down tiles to fit in obscure sized holes in the design. We made all of the border tiles (6″ by 12″) from 12 by 12 ” square tiles. With a little more planning (and different border tiles) we could have done without a tile saw at all.

Laying the tiles
For the kitchen we built the counters first using plywood sheets glued and screwed together and then covered with cement board. I drew a grid in directly onto the cement board with a sharpie for guidance. We laid the tiles in thin-set cement which we mixed in a 5 gallon bucket.



Laying the kitchen counter

Since the tiles were all laid out on the floor in the living room we had to transport them before putting them into the cement. We used a small plywood boards (3′ by 4′ ?) and would transfer small sections at a time to the board and then move the tiles from the board into the cement. This process didn’t work as well in the bathroom where we had no grid in the design. It was hard to account for the necessary grout thickness in the design phase so we had too many tiles when we went to put them on the floor. I was fairly comfortable with the shapes and sizes by then so I just re-designed that part of the floor as I was laying the tiles.

Bathroom Floor before border tiles and grout

There was a large variation in thickness of tiles since we were using anything and everything from a variety of sources. We accounted for this by applying a compensating thickness of cement to the back of each tile. Very thick tiles had almost no cement on the back while thin ones had a generous layer. After all the tiles were laid we used plywood pieces (the same boards from before) to apply an even pressure across the surface and push down any tile sticking too far up.

We let the cement set and then grouted using a neutral gray which went well with the range of colors represented. That’s pretty much it! Here is the bathroom floor complete (ok, the tiles are done but the baseboard still isn’t on).


Bathroom Floor with border tiles and grout

the Kitchen Island




And the backsplash

I would love to hear about other people with similar projects, my parents have never seen anything quite like it!

The last thing I want to do right now is turn on an iron or sit with a quilt in my lap sewing, but N’s brother is getting married in the fall and we have been planning to make them a quilt as a wedding gift. The quilt we made last summer was a rare opportunity where N wanted to make something crafty together and the couple seemed to really appreciate receiving a handmade gift of such a scale. The wedding is in October and while that is not quite around the corner yet I have a feeling summer is going to be over before I blink my eyes so I need to get moving on the project. Here are some thoughts I’m having:

1. Run and Fall, 2. amy butler doing turning 20, plus some, 3. Orange / Yellow Joel Dewberry Quilt: Front, 4. conran quilt - part of top, 5. coin quilt - top finished!, 6. sprout quilt mockup, 7. belle quilt - quilt top, 8. IMG_6008, 9. quilt front, 10. Amy Butler Happy Hour quilt, 11. Orange & Brown Quilt, 12. 19th Century Sampler, 13. Flying Geese Quilt, 14. Queen Size Love Bead Quilt Top, 15. orange, yellow, and green baby quilt, inspired by DS “couldn’t keep it to myself”, 16. finished Ice Pops quilt, 17. Roots, 18. Hop, Skip, Jump Quilt, 19. quilt top, 20. finished brick road quilt, 21. handkerchief corners quilt, 22. Big Zig, 23. what a bunch of squares quilt, 24. red and white Hop Skip and a Jump baby quilt, 25. Zig-Zag Quilt Top, 26. On the big-boy bed, 27. Horizons Quilt Front, 28. quilt, 29. skyline quilt, 30. Run and Fall, 31. Drunk Love 2-tone, 32. On and On, 33. Roots, 34. Coulden’t keep it to myself, 35. Ice Pops Baby Quilt - Front, 36. Completed quilt - Optical Squares

The view is drastically different than when I was young. The distribution of tree species has changed dramatically with the influx of sudden oak death, the proliferation of Douglass fir trees and some disease that has killed all of the Madrones.

Despite the changes in tree distribution, the character of the landscape is still very much the same. Sometimes I get nostalgic when I see photos or movies which show landscapes that look like Sonoma County.

This past weekend a crowd gathered for the afternoon. There were kittens, cars, crafting and lots of eating.



I also got to visit Brookfarm Alpacas. I met Sarah (of the Brookfarm Alpacas family) a few weeks ago at a knitting night in Oakland and we discovered that our parents live less than a mile apart. I never knew there were Alpacas so close by! Ingo, Kate, my Mom and myself drove down the hill to meet Sarah and look around the farm. The Alpacas are too cute.






In addition to the animals, we got to see a fleece rolled out for sorting and a room full of bags of fiber. It looks like they have a lot to sort through! It is too bad that we came just after shearing and missed them in full fluffy glory. Maybe I can visit again sometime?

There were, of course, kitties too. It is kitten season again and my dad has a new crop of three adorable little ones (he fosters kittens). Meet Madeline, Pascal and Marie (the one being sat upon). Anyone looking to adopt a kitten? I can tell you honestly that these three will be expertly socialized! Don’t get too attached to little Madeline though, it seems she has been spoken for.
Photo of Madeline by Brent G.

It was a great way to spend the holiday weekend and the weather cooperated with us. Even Bart got a little attention, and all 6 cats got their claws trimmed!



(Photo of Bart by Brent G)

I walked briefly thorough the Bazarre Bizarre but I was so over-stimulated and it was so crowded in there that I couldn’t calm down enough to actually check anything out. It is too bad, but the day really isn’t about shopping anyway.

I was also excited to see Ponoko there. I’m fascinated by the idea of being able to produce goods on fancy schmancy machines from my own designs. And locally no less! They are just getting started with shops in the US and I can’t wait to design something and send it their way. As an added bonus, I had a nice chat with the guy manning their booth (I’m sorry, I can’t remember his name!) who told me that he wanted to start Ponoko after he was involved with a climate blog called Celsias. I haven’t spent too much time looking around yet, but the site looks like a combination of science & policy news and discussion as well as networking for projects to reduce the impact of global warming. Yay solutions!

Every time I have been to the Maker Faire I spend a good part of the day thinking about how much my dad would enjoy it but I’ve yet to get him to come along. This year I spied a three wheeled car with a motorcycle license plate. Lets just say there has been some experience with that around his house. The ride may or may not look something like this:

(video from Karrie)

Pewter polwarth locks from A Verb For Keeping Warm. 3oz yielded 192 yds of navajo plied sport-ish weight yarn. It is nice and soft and squishy… I cant wait to spin the other two bags!

Mixed batt from Tactile Fiber Arts including alpaca, merino, bamboo, silk tussah, silk noils, angora and I can’t remember what else. Purchased at Stitches West 2008. 2 oz, 128 yards, two ply.

Merino-Silk (80-20), dark blue. 69 yards, navajo plied. This is a test skein to see how I like this fiber spun. I have lots left to make more.

The last skein in the top image is just some white domestic top. Handspun tweed chickens anyone?

This is me with my entire inventory in a small tin standing in front of several car-loads of yarn and fiber being unpacked for the Tactile/A Verb For Keeping Warm booth next to us. Their stuff is not only fabulous but also voluminous! Here they are setting up, and this was just the beginning…

The event also hosted classes on drop spindling, hand loom weaving and fiber tastings. I participated in the rare wool breeds fiber tasting with Maia from Tactitle Fiber Arts. We tried 8 breeds/preparations including Icelandic (two ways), California Red, California Variegated Mutant (my favorite name!), Gotland and Polwarth. When I get myself organized I’ll add some finished yarn to the card in addition to the raw fiber sample.

I really enjoyed the Polwarth, so, though I yearn for chocolate colored Polwarth, I bought some Silver and Pewter locks from A Verb For Keeping Warm to tide me over until more chocolate is available. I also enjoyed the Gotland and bought some Indigo dipped roving from Kristine. Last, but not least, I bought some Wensleydale roving from Tactile. I didn’t even get a chance to check out the rovings from Krista at Piegonroof Studios because she was nearly sold out within an hour!

On Friday I spent some time over at Karrie’s getting all of her things ready for the show. I helped her start a new product: the ‘Stache Sachet. Aside from nearly asphyxiating ourselves with volatilizing essential oils (which we mixed with cedar chips and lavender) we also gocco-ed up some muslin bags. I just have to say, I loves me some gocco-ing. I wish I could think of more opportunities to print 50 copies of things!

I think the event owes a lot to those who organized it, thanks especially to Sara and Ted for keeping it all running smoothly. It was a wonderful day and I hope we get to do it again soon!

It is earth day. I’m at my desk at work still so instead of sharing some creative or clever idea for earth friendly crafting (my opinions can be summed thus: yay recycling!) I will share some images of the earth that fascinate me. And yes, it is an atmosphere-centric view, but that is what you get from someone who studies climate all day.

First up: Atmospheric vortices.

A vortex on a large scale, Hurricane Katrina at landfall

Image From Earth Observatory

Also amazing is this video of the entire 2005 Atlantic Hurricane season. Link

von Karmon vortex sheet in the atmosphere

From Earth Observatory
It blows my mind that these features from tank experiments actually show up in the real world. Wow!

Next: Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms look like boiling water! It is unlikely that I will ever get over that. These are over the Amazon. Link

here is another one over Africa

Image from Earth Observatory

Also fantastic is this sequence of images showing the onset of the rainy season over the Amazon. Link

And finally: Crazy fantastic landscapes

Agricultural Patterns

Image from Earth Observatory
This set of images makes me wonder how I can possibly expect to represent crops in large grid cell climate models. It also makes me think about the patterns that humans exert on the landscape. Just look at Kansas!

North Slope of Alaska

I have this on my screensaver and it is impressive how many heads it turns. Tundra, lakes AND the arctic ocean all in one. Link

So I hope that you made it through this extremely craft-free tour of earth images from space. I understand that most people don’t find these all as amazing as I do, but then most people don’t choose to spend all day thinking about it either :)

Happy Earth Day!