Carousel Interlude: The Adirondack Carousel

Now that we're already in for the second snowstorm of the season here in upstate New York, I am thinking back to my summer vacation and how nice it was when I could go outside and enjoy the world. One of the most exciting things that happened on my vacation was randomly stumbling upon this beautiful carousel in Saranac Lake, NY back in August. Anyone who read my blog back in its brief heyday of regular posts in 2011 (yeah, I'm talking to you, audience of like two people) will remember my love of antique wooden carousels with carved horses or, ideally, many different animals. I wrote about the ones in Millville, PA and Myrtle Beach because they are such beautiful works of art. So it was a huge surprise to discover this wonderful carousel full of unique carved wooden animals in the remote Adirondack location of Saranac Lake. As you can see in the photos, these are not your typical carousel animals! A skunk, rabbit, turtle, raccoon, duck, fly and multiple fish were some of the creatures you can ride here!

This one-of-a-kind carousel completely mystified me, but then I learned that it is a modern carousel crafted in the antique style. It only includes animals that are found in the natural habitats of the local Adirondack ecosystem! The animals are hand-carved by artists, just like the antique animals were in the early twentieth century, the only difference being that these are living artists who donated their talents to carve the animals a mere decade ago as part of a community project. I love that this project attempted to keep the tradition alive. I thought that nobody cared about old carousels but me.

This is the sort of thing I would have made a special trip to go and see, so it was incredibly lucky that we just happened upon it while wandering around the sleepy town of Saranac Lake after hitting the tiny Robert Louis Stevenson Museum. We went to the Adirondacks to explore Lake Placid, but this carousel turned out to be the highlight of the trip!

I love carousel animals so much that I have started a Christmas ornament collection of them. Right now I have a giraffe, polar bear, and horse. If I ever leave the apartment again this winter, I plan to get another exotic carousel ornament. They really add pizzazz to my tree.

Blog Revival: Flatware Discoveries

("Countess," 1880, William Rogers)

If anything warrants raising this blog from the dead, it is the strides I have been making with my new hobby--flatware jewelry! This past January when I had just moved to upstate New York and was very stressed, I was whiling away too many empty hours in the old way, by quilting. But my heart just wasn't in it. I almost completed my second small quilt of the past year before giving up and turning to TV for solace. I seriously watched almost the entire series of Mad Men for the second time before deciding that I needed a new hobby to channel my creative energy and get off the couch. I have also been playing harp pretty diligently, but I think the crafting half of arts and crafts satisfies a different part of my brain or something, and I wanted to be creating objects that were not quilts.

So I decided to give flatware jewelry a try. I am way behind the times I think because I did not even know that flatware jewelry existed until last spring when I saw an octopus necklace made out of soldered forks at a craft display in an antique store. I had to have it! It's one of my favorite pieces of jewelry and this gave me the idea of making my own someday. Since then I have seen flatware rings and bracelets made by local artists at various antique stores and craft fairs, not to mention a ton on Etsy.

I am definitely not up to the level of octopuses yet. In fact, I haven't learned to solder at all and right now I am making all my jewelry without any heat or blowtorches. I bend the spoons through sheer muscular force! And I use the Dremel tool to cut and smooth the metal.  Someday I would like to graduate to the level of soldering even though it is quite intimidating. Using a drill is milestone enough for now.

But really, the thing that I might enjoy most about this hobby is looking for the flatware itself at antique stores. This has truly been a pleasure for me in a time of serious professional turmoil in my life. And I have found some beauts! Here is a selection:



From left to right the patterns are called: Carlton, Florida, Violet, and Wild Rose. I just love, love, love the variety of silverplate patterns that are out there. When I was in Pennsylvania last week visiting my parents I stopped in at Street of Shops (where I found the Carlton forks) and a few thrift stores. At one thrift store I was amazed to find these:

 

This pattern is called "Milady" and they were 10 cents apiece because they were so heavily tarnished that no one realized that it was basically a complete silverplate set. Here is what they looked like before I cleaned them up, very speckled and dirty:



There were so many I ended up leaving some behind. As it is, I have no idea when I will be able to use them all for jewelry crafting. But since they were so cheap they will be good to experiment with if I decide to branch out from necklaces and bracelets.

So far I haven't made much, but here are a couple of pieces that I think turned out pretty well.

This is my favorite and I wear it out a lot. I couldn't identify the exact pattern but it looks a lot like "Yorkshire Rose" that another company manufactured. The necklace below is a popular pattern called "Rosalie." I gave this one to a friend of mine. I love how art deco it looks!



The book Boho Chic Jewelry by Laura Beth Love has a lot of examples of flatware jewelry and I got some good tips from it. All of my flatware so far has come from antique and thrift stores in central Pennsylvania and upstate New York. I know a lot of people look for this stuff on Ebay, but checking out the local antique scene is well worth it if you have the time!

Fair Interlude: Montour Delong

This week was the Montour Delong Fair, close to where my parents live in central PA. Here is the Ferris Wheel. Sadly, my Ferris Wheel buddy was not in town for the event, so I did not ride it. But I got a pretty nice picture of it against the blue sky.

This is a small community fair, but it does have craft and baked goods contests. My mom enters things every year, and since I was home for it this year I also entered a few pies. I won a red ribbon on one of them!

The great thing about this fair is that they don't waste the baked goods. They take out a slice for judging (hence the tiny portion in the picture) and auction the rest of the pie at the pie and cake auction. They use a professional auctioneer. It is very amusing to see, but it's good that the fair is not as wasteful as a lot of others, which just allow the food to rot on display over the course of the week.

Other than the pies, I was also excited to see the quilts on display. There were several beauties.

I loved the blue and white one with the trapunto quilting design in the white blocks. The one on the far left appeared to be a vintage quilt or quilt top that someone had finished. The fabrics were quite old and it had an antique look about it.

I really enjoyed the floral fabrics of this quilt. I would like to make something like this in the coming year if I have time. This green quilt was rather dazzling as well:

My mom tried to get me to enter the mini flower arrangement contest again this year, but I knew the competition would be too stiff. I was right! There were four beautiful minis. I would have come in dead last again, so it's good I left it up to the professionals this year. The winning entry used a mini flour grinder as its flower pot. Adorable!

This flower arrangement in ice skates was so pretty. I'm glad it got a blue ribbon:

And that's all the news from the fair this year. Maybe by next year I will have a quilt fit to enter one of the contests!

Finished "Sea Urchin" Quilt

My quilt is finished!

I guess I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, although now I wish I hadn't used yarn for the knots. I read somewhere that yarn was fine, but now I'm thinking embroidery floss would have worked out better, and wouldn't have become as fuzzy in the wash. All the blue fuzzy knots remind me of sea urchins for some reason, so I will always think of this as the "Sea Urchin" quilt now. All in all I think it is an improvement from my first quilt, although there is still much progress to be made. Next time I hope for even more mastery of this textile art!

And whatever will I do with myself now that it is finished? I should probably get back to school work for a while. But I'm already thinking of what the next quilt on the horizon will be. I'm thinking…lone star!

Weekend in Santa Barbara

This past weekend I went to Santa Barbara for a mini vacation with my boyfriend. We saw one of California's old missions, built in the late eighteenth century, and spent some time at the beach and walking around downtown Santa Barbara. My favorite part was probably staying in a little studio apartment I had booked online. We did the same thing when we went to Sedona, AZ last summer. I don't know why I love staying in other people's studio apartments so much. I guess it is a little strange, but I think I just like the idea of having a little space all to yourself, with a kitchen included!

We were able to hit one thrift store on the trip. I didn't find any vintage clothes or crafting supplies, but I did find this amazing mounted print of an illustration by Kay Nielsen. I did a little research when I got this picture back to the studio and discovered that Nielsen was a Danish man who illustrated the fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," in the early twentieth century. This illustration is one from that book. I think it is simply wonderful. I had no idea that it had this history behind it when I found it at the store, but it was such a magical image that I had to have it!

My boyfriend was caught in a "should I or shouldn't I" dilemma with a "Balco" t-shirt he found at the thrift shop. I still don't quite understand what he was talking about, but I guess Balco was at the center of some steroid scandal or controversy related to major league baseball in the nineties. I was just like, "okay, you seem to be extremely amused by this shirt, so you should just get it!" He waffled about it the whole time we were there, and finally decided not to get it. Then, the next morning, he said, "Mmmm…maybe we should go back and get that Balco shirt???" He acted like I was going to be annoyed or something, but it's not like I ever mind an extra thrifting excursion. There's always a chance I missed something the first time around. So, we went back! And he got the shirt! Dilemma solved. I still have no idea what was so special about it, but that's sports for you.

Santa Barbara had some very ritzy antique and vintage stores. We browsed in a few. There were beautiful things to see, but I just can't spend a lot of money on old things that you can find much cheaper in less tourist-run areas. There was a spectacular blue velvet dress from the 50s or 60s in one of those shops. Alas, another dress that got away! But at $75, it just wasn't worth it to me. I will have to keep an eye out for something similar.

Hopefully I will be able to post something about my **finished** quilt in the next few weeks. It's not there yet, but I have started tying it. Yes, I decided to turn it into a knot quilt, with a tiny bit of handquilting in a few areas for effect. A shameless cop-out? Perhaps. But I want this quilt to be done! I have so many other quilts I want to begin, and this one is getting in my way!

Fair Interlude: The L.A. County Fair

The "Starry Splendor" quilt top is almost finished! I have added the piano key border. I need to add one more border of cream fabric and then it will be ready for quilting. But, since it would be boring to post another set of pictures of my unfinished quilt top, I am writing instead about a far more interesting event: the L.A. County Fair in Pomona, CA.

The fair was over a month ago, but the arts and crafts building was so fun that I am still thinking about it! Below are some of the amazing things I got the chance to see:

I have to say that this was probably my favorite quilt at the fair. I realized too late that I should have written down the names of the artists of these quilts to give credit where credit is due, so my apologies. This quilt was just so vibrant and beautiful. After working with the more subdued tones for the "Starry Splendor" quilt, I am thinking that I would like to switch to bolder colors for my next quilt. I can certainly use this lonestar quilt for color inspiration!

Here's another beautiful quilt. I guess it is a cross between and nine-patch and a log cabin, with a little applique thrown in as well. It all works so well together!

I can't resist any kind of Christmas tree. So I was delighted by the Christmas tree contest! They are all winners in my eyes!

Here is a tree with only cupcake ornaments! Tasty! There was so much food at the fair, but looking at this tree still made me hungry.

And here was a Christmas tree made out of sparkly jewelry! I'll tell you what, I simply cannot get enough of this stuff. I love fairs!

Did anybody ever look more delighted to be spending the day at the fair? Can't wait until next year!

Partially Complete Quilt Top: Starry Splendor

Yes, this top isn't even finished yet. I have a lot of work to do in terms of borders, which will be in a piano key style and require lots of additional fabric cutting. But I'm so excited that the *hard* part of the top is over that I decided to post about it. All the star blocks are sewn together:

This is the "Starry Splendor" quilt top (or, partial top) from Connecting Threads that I received in kit form. I decided to stay pretty true to the original pattern configuration in terms of colors and prints. Some variation was inevitable due to errors and aesthetic choices, but I liked the look of the advertised quilt so much that I more or less followed it to the letter. So far, I think it is turning out pretty well. I can already see that I am improving from my first quilt, which I made last year (photos forthcoming in another post). But there are still a ton of inaccuracies in this top, and, while I'm not thrilled about them, I am pleased that I am making progress in my piecing skills, and that this is sure to become an eminently functional and also very pretty quilt (in my eyes, at least! The photos below are a little washed out since I turned off the flash. The colors are really not this dull, although part of the charm of the quilt is its rustic, earthy feel).

Here is an example of an inaccuracy. The cream diamond in the middle is very off. It almost looks like it was done on purpose, but it wasn't! Failing to get points to meet and inadvertently cutting off points that are already there is something I will have to work on in the future, but right now it is simply beyond me how some people can get their quilts geometrically perfect. I see it happen on all the quilt blogs I read, so I know it's possible!

But even though there are many places where the points are a mess, in other spots I think they turned out better. The cream diamonds here don't look half bad!

Well, I am excited to move on to the part of this top that doesn't involve any stars, points, or diamonds. I am already getting anxious thinking about the actual quilting phase that is right around the corner. I am toying with the idea of quilting it by hand, but I know when it comes down to it, I will just want to do it swiftly with the machine. I'm nervous because the machine quilting was a challenge with my first quilt, and I only did very simple X lines through square blocks. I suppose I could do that again, but I'd like more of a challenge. I wonder if my machine is up for it! Sometimes I fear that I expect too much from it, since it is just a regular sewing machine and not really meant for quilting.

I will post all about it as I continue making progress on this quilt. In other news, today I got caught in a Pinterest vortex of mini-quilt photos! Mini-quilts are so adorable and it seems like the perfect way to work on specific skills, although working in such small dimensions must be a nightmare. I am thinking of ordering a mini-quilt kit next since I might be burned out on big quilts for a while, but I am still on the fence about it. More internet research on mini-quilts must be done!