We caught up with Mr. G’s parents last Sunday to celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary. Mr. G needed to fix his mom’s computer (this is true pretty much every time we visit them), so he and his father headed upstairs for some tinkering and man chat. But Alice and I made straight for the basement where she’s got her quilting supplies and sewing station. Turns out visiting friends who sew is just like visiting friends who knit: the best fun is to root through the stash together. It’s much the way we used to play as children, don’t you think? Pull out all the available playthings, maybe even mix together your collections and do a little swapping, because everything old is new again under the friendly eye of a kindred spirit? Anyway, Alice sent me home with her extra cutting mat and three Kaffe Fassett quilting books on loan from her personal library.

Rewind to Saturday. Mr. G was at a Ruby on Rails conference (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, join the club where we just try to picture a massive geek-fest with lots of men and just a dash of women pushing their glasses up their noses and talking gobbledygook that you and I wouldn’t understand anyway). I was feeling a little mopey that I’d hardly had a glimpse of my husband in a week and that he was opting to stay out until 3am playing geek-fest games like Werewolf (which turns out to be exactly the same as Mafia, a favorite pastime among my middle schoolers) instead of coming home to bed. I decided it would lift my spirits to drive down to Mill End and frolic in their massive fabric selection with an eye to collecting some tidbits for a new quilt idea I’d had. But when I stood before the big wall of fat quarters, I found another force was guiding my eyes and my grabby fingers. Instead of industrial blues, greys, dirty whites, russets, and maroons, I was snatching up patterned greens and deep floral reds and buttery creams and Japanese botanicals. And once I had them all out together, I couldn’t put them back. I fell for a cream-ochre-and-green calico that happened to coordinate perfectly as a backing, and I had the makings of a quilt I hadn’t even envisioned yet.

So it must have been fate, because when I opened Kaffe Fassett’s Museum Quilts (all inspired by pieces in the Victoria & Albert Museum, probably my favorite place I’ve never been) the next evening, I lit immediately on the daftly-but-winsomely named Leafy Snowball quilt. And there was my project.

Turns out Kaffe is my man for the times when I just can’t resist the prints. My taste is more temperate than his sultry hothouse love of overblown, saturated florals and geometrics. But whenever a quilt recipe suggests a palette of solids enlivened with a few quiet prints and I can’t keep my hands off the wilder calicoes and toiles de Jouy, I know Kaffe will beckon. He’s beckoning already, because I’ve also fallen for these (links where I could find examples on Flickr, but you should really just go to the library and page through these sumptuous books):

From Museum Quilts:

Bricks Patchworks
Clamshell Quilt (or more realistically, the Square Clamshell Quilt)
Jockey’s Cap Baby Quilt

From Passionate Patchwork:

Squares Window Blind
Shirt-stripe Boxes (probably my favorite of all – and here’s Lauren’s beautiful version)
Baby’s Corrugated Quilt

But before I get too far ahead of myself, there’s my simple Lap Quilt to finish. I’ve done half my in-the-ditch stitching, so the quilting itself will soon be finished, but the binding I’ll do at least partially by hand, so it will be a little longer before I can claim victory. I’m thinking this quilt will be for the new baby next door, but she’s not arriving until the fall. This gives me time to make something for her big sister, too, which I think is important: when you’re not yet three, it’s hard to understand why the baby gets all the presents and attention. Plus it’s an excuse to keep on sewing!

Early May was scorching hot. The vegetable starts prostrated themselves in their pots; the cucumbers gave up the ghost entirely. Mosquitoes hatched and reveled at the feast of tender Portlanders exposing bare skin for the first time all season. When the thermometer soared past 90, I rushed to finish the sundress I was sewing: there’s no more comfortable hot-weather garb than short, full, cotton skirts, mosquitoes be damned. I inserted an invisible zipper. Signy and I made our first buttonhole together so I could secure the shoulder “tie” that wasn’t long enough to do its job. I wore this sucker to school on the hottest day of all. I even dragged Mr. G out the front door one sticky evening to take pictures:

Today I shiver just to look at these photographs. Now that June has arrived and we’re on the cusp of summer, it’s 52 degrees, rain is spitting at the windows, and the trees are flailing helplessly in a dour wind. I can only trust that one day it will be warm enough to drag this dress out of the closet again. Want the specs in case you live in the other Portland, or somewhere else that’s weathering 90-degree temperatures today?

Vogue pattern V8380

Alexander Henry fabric

This is my second sewn garment (the first — last summer — was a simple skirt), and by far the most technical project I’ve taken on. The skirt, cut to the pattern, was so blousy that I looked like a little child all stretched: Alice after the EAT ME cake. I ripped it off the bodice, lopped a good six inches of width off one side, and stitched it up again. It’s still more of an empire waist than I generally think flatters my figure, but it’s a lot better. And undeniably suitable for hot weather when you want the breeze to circulate as far up as possible. I expect to wear it often once the real summer returns (it has to, right?).

Tour de France Countdown

My favorite annual sporting event begins in Brest, France in exactly one month! I think there’s still space in the KAL if you hurry and sign up right now. I’ll be competing in the Green Jersey category, trying to complete my first contribution to Popknits by the time the cyclists reach Paris. I’m also Chef d’Equipe for Team Rabobank this year! Kate of Knights Don’t Knight is going to assist me and take the reins while I’m at Knitting Camp. I can’t wait to see who’s on our squad and what they’re knitting.

Epic Lace Knit 2007-2008 has drawn to a close, and I think I’ve dragged the coverage out just about long enough. The fat lady has sung: the bride warmed her shoulders with her lilac lace during the wedding supper, and called it the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen and required that everyone admire it during her speech of welcome on the dance floor. That’ll do for me! So let’s say our goodbyes to the Mediterranean Ivy Lace:

I have the prettiest new sister ever, don’t I?

Final specs:

Mediterranean Lace by Maureen Egan Emlet, from A Gathering of Lace

Modified as a rectangular stole by working the ivy lace chart for the “wings” only, 16 repetitions. If you’re planning to knit this, note that 17 reps would have been a better number for picking up multiples of 42 sts for the edging. I would have run out of yarn, though. Speaking of yarn:

Most of 3 skeins (~1500 yards) ArtYarns Cashmere 1, in a color I call Pale Lilac. It isn’t listed on their website anymore, so it may be discontinued.

US#2 Addi Lacepoints for the body; US#0 regular blunt Addis, 48″, for the edging. Curse their stumpiness. I’d rather be cast into Tartarus than pick up 1200 stitches with them again.

Cast on in August 2007; finished in May 2008. I could’ve produced a baby in that time, folks. (And honestly, Marika would have been just as excited. But it wouldn’t have been as soft and pretty, and now I can sleep at night besides!)

So what’s next? I’ve just started the lace portion of my Indigo Ripples skirt. I think I’m going to like the fit a lot – I lengthened the stockinet upper part by a couple of inches for modesty, as I want to be able to wear this thing to school without scandalizing my colleagues or scarring the children. And yesterday I basted together my quilt sandwich and began hand quilting it. I’m going to do a mixture of hand quilting around some of the large flowers and machine quilting long vertical lines as given in the instructions. We’ll see how it turns out! But I’ve had to put the crafting on hold today. I’m blogging while I watch the conclusion of the Giro d’Italia, but then I need to get back to my major task of the weekend: I’m the faculty reader for a young man who has produced a 480-page historical fiction/biography entitled Aeneas of Rome as his graduation project. That’s graduation from the eighth grade, you understand. He’s been working with a classical scholar and a college English professor. The chapters open with quotes in Latin and Greek, with his own translations. The kid is going places. But he has to present his work to the faculty for review on Tuesday, so I’ve got my work cut out for me!

I don’t have photos of the Mediterranean Ivy Stole in action yet, and I know that’s what you’re waiting for. Ye olde husband convinced me to take the garment bag with all of our wedding finery home so he could travel less encumbered down to DC after the nuptials. This pushed me over the number of bags permitted on the airplane, so I swapped him for the camera bag. And like a fool, I didn’t confiscate the card before I handed it over. So, a distraction: How about I show you — three years late — some pictures of my wedding lace?

Since I like to trot it out again whenever the occasion allows, I wore it on the rehearsal night. It was very windy here by the water at the Wainwright House. See?

For those who haven’t been reading here for three years, this is the Baltic Sea Stole by Faina Letoutchaia. I used Madil Kid Seta (KidSilk Haze’s more modest cousin), every last inch of four balls. I also used some modifications to the chart graciously provided by Kate Gilbert, who knit one of these for her own wedding in a stunning magenta. Credit for the photos goes to my father. Thanks, Daddy!

And now, just to be a tease:

Let’s just say the stole felt right at home draped over the antiques in a beautiful bayside mansion.