Winter Projects 2015

Maybe you've heard...no ice caves this year.  By this time last year we were beginning a six-week spree of B&B guests coming to see the ice caves.  Not this year.  Down at The Lake, some days it's ice as far as you can see and the next day, open water.   There are some bays that have enough ice for regular winter activities.  Today we were in Ashland which is on Chequamegon Bay.

The bay was dotted with fish houses for those people who go fishing through the holes they drill in the ice.  Now, imagine a line going across the bay from Ashland to Washburn, and then picture yourself skiing or snowshoeing that 10km route in Book Across the Bay happening this Saturday evening.  Pretty cool!

From the website:

Book Across the Bay is the upper Midwest's most unique winter event, open to skiers and snowshoers of all ages and ability levels. The 10-kilometer course, which is groomed for both classic-style and skate skiing, starts in Ashland and ends in Washburn, and follows a route not on land, but over the frozen surface of Lake Superior, the world's largest lake. The event is held at night, and the course is lit by the stars above and up to 1,000 candles in ice luminaries that line the entire route.

So, since we don't have B&B guests, we can spread out with all our winter projects.  Below is one of mine that I started a couple weeks ago, spread out all over the dining room.  Because of circumstances, I ended up with several plastic storage bins full of family pictures and documents from my mother's and father's families that span the years back to the 1850's.  Added to these are all of the pictures from my immediate family and my family since my girls were born.

Most of the time I love going through all of these things and see how people looked through the years.  I always learn something new.  At a point in time back when my parents were still living, I was able to sit with them to go through and label the pictures.  Unfortunately many of the pictures aren't labeled so then I try to play detective to figure them out.   

 Above are pictures of my mother as a little girl and as a young woman in the late '30's.  I'm scanning them and deciding what I should keep and what can become digital family records.  It becomes a lot of deciding!!

The pictures below are from my father's family and these are all from Sweden.  No labels.  Back in the early 1990's I sent photo copies of these to one of the older relatives in Sweden.  He identified some, but most he didn't recognize either.  The lesson in all of this??  Label your pictures while you still can!

And while I'm obsessing over pictures, Leann is cleaning up her quilting stash of flannel fabric by making LOTS of baby quilts.  These aren't her usual "conversation quilts" that we give away as gifts.  These are just soft, colorful baby quilts made using leftover flannel, and she donated them all to the Fig Leaf Thrift Store in Iron River, 15 miles south of here.  Now she has moved onto a different pattern, but I'll post them later.

But it's only early February, so there are more projects to come.  Stay tuned!

"Whatever gets you through the n---", I mean, winter!

I can't help but get John Lennon singing in my head when I think about today's blog post, just changing one word from his version.

Whatever gets us through the winter comes under the heading of "Winter Therapy."  Something caused me to think today about winter therapy - things we do in winter to get through until REAL spring arrives here in the North.  One friend in an email today said writing is his path to sanity.  That and setting a date on the calendar for putting the heavy winter clothes away.   This is important, because if you didn't put them away, you could easily creep back into them on a cool-ish day in June or July.  I have never considered myself to be a writer, but I actually think writing this blog has occupied my brain a good part of this winter, so I will agree with writing as a prescription.  (What will happen when summer comes?)

And I realized today when the UPS truck came that I know a few people, me included, who kind of enjoy those periodic visits from the UPS guy.  You see, in order for the UPS truck to come, there has to have been some retail therapy carried out on a site such as the Amazon.com website or something similar.  And we can justify this because the nearest city for shopping is 50 miles in any direction, so we're just saving time and gas, right?  Just hop on Amazon and that object of our desire can be here in two days!  So far they haven't delivered anything to us via drone, but we're happy with UPS...or FedEx...or the US Post Office!

And a huge form of winter therapy is practiced by Leann in her Craft Room - Quilting!  I've posted about her conversation quilts before, but she has done so many more since then.  For a while she was doing some using a paper piecing method.  Here are some of her birds:

And lately she's just been using up scraps from her "stash" on some nature-themed lap quilts.  Below we have fishing, another bird quilt, and a wildlife/hunting theme.  Lap quilts, anyone?

But I suppose my biggest form of any-time-of-year therapy is time spent doing things on the computer--finding new cool apps, learning new programs, working on websites, organizing my life to perfection (NOT!), and just trying things out.   I could spend hours!

So as the days march on toward spring,  I'll just take John Lennon's affirmation that whatever we're doing to keep sane, "It's alright, alright."

Quilts for conversation

One of the main activities that keeps Leann off the streets in the winter, besides snow, cold and ice, is quilting.

Several years ago she began making a quilt style that has become very popular with her family, friends and co-workers who have young children in their lives.  She calls it her "Conversation Quilt" and it's a fun way to have "conversations" with young children by making up stories or doing "I spy" activities using counting, colors, and objects.

The poem on the card that accompanies this quilt suggests lots of things to do, including "naming the critters, colors, and bugs, or snuggling together and getting big hugs."

But keeping busy with quilting has some requirements for resources - things like large spaces to lay out your projects.

And thread, of course.  A big shout-out to Younger Daughter for keeping Leann in thread at Christmas and birthdays.  Notice the empty spools below - those all have been emptied since the start of this year.  (She makes LOTS of other quilts besides the conversation quilts.)  She's probably keeping them for some new project down the road!

And, as any crafter of any medium will attest, in order to produce, one needs a "stash."  This could be a stash of fabric (this isn't all of it!), yarn (my fave - in other boxes to the right), or whatever is needed to get the job done. And as former schools librarians, organization is key!

So now our guests can peruse our current finished projects in what is becoming the "Larson Creek Farm Boutique."

We're really having too much fun "working!"