Raz-a-ma-taz in Action

In July I posted my blog on what the word Raz-a-ma-taz means.  When I think of it I see lots of light, color, glitter.  I have been thinking about the word ever since.  With everything that is going on in the world right now, I thought I needed some Raz-a-ma-taz.  so I decided to make a prayer flag.

 I started imaging what it would look like.  Now usually prayer flags are square or rectangle but I have seen some which look like pennants.  That is what my Raz-a-ma-taz needed to be: a different shape, a shape that represented a celebration of some sort. 

How big should my Raz be? I decided the size of typing paper would be good.  It would be big enough for designs but not so big to be overwhelming.

     

So now the fabric.  What to choose.  Well about the time this was all going through my head I came across a box of items I needed to sort (trying to unclutter a bit) and there was a pink, satiny crepe type remnant of fabric. Perfect.  It was pink – a favorite color.  It had a sheen to it and a bit of texture.  That was what I was going to use.  When I cut it out with my pattern,  I added about an inch to the top to be able to make a sleeve for hanging.

                                          

Now what to put on the pennant?  I didn’t want to hem the flag (truth be told I hate hemming) but I did have some fuzzy yarn so why not edge the pennant with the yarn.  It would certainly make it noticeable.

It is time for more designs.  And I also need time so I will show you what I came up with next week.  See you then.

©2020 Cheryl Fillion

 

 

Autumn is here

I posted this blog before but this year with so many events closed and feeling very isolated because of the Covid virus, I needed to remind myself that things do naturally change and have fun with that change. 

Autumn is here.  You can tell by the cooler weather, the falling leaves, the harvest of apples and pumpkins, the falling leaves, the shorter amount of daylight, the falling leaves, the Halloween decorations, and, of course, the falling of leaves.   What is also here is seasonal fun. 

To me fall is here when I see caramel apples in the grocery store and rows of potted mums near the parking lot.  I love to see the trees change colors.  Where I grew up in Green Bay Wisconsin there was a park behind my Mother’s house.  It was filled with maple trees, which would turn the most beautiful red and gold every year.  I still to this day can’t decided if I liked the color of the trees against a blue clear or gray cloudy sky.  Each sky changed the hue of the leaves just a little.  

I was always thought to be crazy because I enjoy raking leaves.  Still do.  It allowed me to be outdoors in cool crisp weather.  I love the smell of the air while raking – it was fresh and earthy.  And there is something meditative about pulling the rake back and forth as I worked across the lawn.  I love to rake; I hate to bag the leaves.  I always wanted to do what writer and psychologist Leo Buscaglia talked about doing.  He liked walking through piles of leaves so much he wanted to bring them into his house.  It’s not so crazy, he would add, when you think that people bring whole trees into their house at Christmas. So what’s a few leaves.  And as he would say, “I am not asking you to clean them up.

Autumn provides a wonderful way to have fun.  It is time for outdoor activities now that the heat of summer has passed.  Why do we need to bag up the leaves?  Put them in a big pile in the middle of your yard and jump in them.  Take a handful and throw them up in the air like confetti.  Roll around in them until your hair is tangled in leaves (you might want that as your Halloween costume.) 

Of course Halloween is the highlight of autumn fun.   Halloween was originally associated with death and the supernatural, falling on the eve of All Saint’s Day, a holy holiday for Catholics and Anglicans.  Now it is a day of fun and parties and dressing up in costume.  It allows children of all ages to fantasize.  I have never been a costume person but my favorite one was an old sheet and a plastic mask to be a friendly ghost when I was about 7. I have liked ghosts ever since.  

I remember that holiday as one where my mother created my brother Jim and my costumes.  I can see her on our living room floor copying in white paint the design of a skeleton on to a black costume she’d sewn for Jim.  I know it was a lot of work but my guess is that she enjoyed doing that much more than buying a store bought costume. 

Autumn and Halloween is when you can have fun and try your hand at something new.  Carve a different face on the pumpkin you bought.  Roast the pumpkin seeds if you have never done that. Try a little bit of costume designing of your own.  Dance a jig in the pile of leaves you have in the back yard (and when you are done, rake them to a corner of the yard and let them decompose through the winter into compost. It will be great for your garden in the spring.) Decorate your house with goblins and ghouls or leaves and gourds.  Try some new apple or pumpkin recipes.  Let the season into your house and life. 

Autumn is here and it can be fun.  So try something new and creative.

© 2016, 2020 – Cheryl Fillion

 

My Quilt Festival Weekend

 

For the last two years I wrote of my adventures at the Houston International Quilt Festival. But this year, due to Covid, it has been cancelled.  So many of the things we look forward to and enjoy doing have been cancelled. 

 

In the Spring here in Tyler we had our local quilt show cancelled.  It was always my little staycation in March.  It was a way to immerse myself with beautiful colors and quilts and people who speak the same language (you know piecing, appliqué, embellishment). This year I felt a bit lost that weekend.  All my activities gone. 

 

Well I recently decided that even if I couldn’t go to Houston for the Quilt show, I was going to have my own quilt festival. So for the first weekend in November I am planning some quilt activities of my own.

 

I am thinking of going to both local quilts shops and if nothing else wander around the wonderful fabrics they have.  I will try to find something to buy so I am supporting our local small business shops.  Shopping is a big activity at any quilts show,

 

I am hoping it will be cold so I can sit under one of my quilts or maybe many of them by switching them out every couple of hours.  I love old quilts so I am going to pull out a quilt history book to read or maybe browse through all the picture I took in Houston the past 2 years.

 

I am trying to decide whether to start a new quilt project or work on one in progress but some amount of stitching needs to occur that weekend. The big question is which project to decide on.  Or maybe I will watch a new technique on Youtube like I would with the free demos at the show.

 

I do know I plan to get a pizza that weekend.  When you think about it pizza is the perfect quilty food.  You have the crust on the bottom which is like the backing of the quilt.  The sauce on the top is like the background fabric of the front of the quilt and the toppings are like an appliqué design with the cheese holding everything together just as the quilting stitches do on a quilt.  Plus by getting a pizza delivered, I don’t have to cook and can spend more time looking, stitching and shopping quilts. 

 

So for one weekend I am going to immerse myself in quilts.  But you don’t make quilts, you say.  Well what other event or activity is being cancelled due to this pandemic?  What about Halloween?   Is trick or treating allowed in your community?  If not what are you going to do?

 

My paternal grandmother lived in a little apartment in the back of a small apartment building.  In the fall it would get dark very early and since the driveway was not well lit and you couldn’t see her porch light from the street, she did not get many trick or treaters except for my brothers and I.  Now I liked going to her house because she always made such a fuss of our costumes but also because she didn’t get many kids, she would buy the big candy bars not the little fun sizes to give out and we would get what was left over.

 

So what if you just took the kids to house where you knew the people (like grandma and grandpa) and give them a big size candy bar..  Or maybe decorate the back yard and have a Halloween treat hunt (like an Easter Egg hunt).  You could buy things you wouldn’t give for regular trick or treat, like big candy bars, or apples, cut out cookies, coloring books or some Halloween themed toys. 

 

There is no reason to just let the events and activities which are cancelled from Covid to slip by.  Create your own event.  No it will not be the same.  I won’t be traveling by bus to Houston with 40 other quilters but I will provide myself with a quilt filled weekend and probably have just as much fun.

 

©2020 Cheryl Fillion