Stained Glass Window

 

Life resembles a stained glass window.  The majority of the events in life form the design to fill with bright vivid colors.  Sunlight pours through the panes of the happy memories of the past on display for all to see the joy of living.  The black edging of the metal work crawls through the design giving the piece definition of the harshness of each circumstance.  Harsh words spoken or negative emotions, the taint of the human condition that creates shadow on the world.  Occasionally, a storm hits the window exploding chards of glass inward.

For the past few months, I have been working on a stained glass window quilt.  My mom pieced the project together.  She started hand quilting one block but never finished the project.  I puzzled over the quilting she did trying to find a way to continue using the sewing machine.  The blanket is lap sized.  Not horribly bulky to work on the machine if I was to do a straight stitch the length of the quilt but I would have needed to twist and turn the blanket in all direction every three to four inches.  Plus, the stitch would have been off too much.  I grumbled, a lot!  But, I picked up a needle and thread and began hand stitching.

I found a rhythm.  I learned thread types matter.  I broke an embroidery hoop.  I prayed for hours as I stitched.  I watched a lot of television and listened to music.  I began enjoying the task.  My stitches became better, not great, but better.  I tweaked my mother's design to fit my needs; though hers is the better.  Mine is the done.  Near the end, I changed.

My mother and I have always had a rocky relationship, oil and water.  I could carry on for hours with stories.  I could drone on about how I felt about her, especially in the end.  The last ten years were terrible.  Amazingly enough, the last five became even worse.  At the end, I was relieved when the drama ended.  I only cried once and that was out of anger that she couldn't love my sister and I enough to enjoy us, enjoy life.  I didn't miss her at all until a few days ago.

I am not sure what changed or why.  It probably has to do with the bloody stained glass window quilt, all those hours I felt her watching over my shoulder criticizing me.  I know she would not like the way I did the quilt or my stitching.  I am not the perfectionist she was.  However, I found myself missing our good talks on the phone.  Me calling to tell her what I had been up to.  Discussing quilting or gardening.  I didn't/don't want to miss her.  My husband says it is because I want to hold onto the anger.  I disagree.  I don't like being angry.  I think missing her hurts to much.  I don't want to hurt for her because of all the black running through our relationship.  Much of it was an ugly tar that covered the glass that could have been so beautiful.

I even hand sewed on the back of the binding.  More black.  Michel.  Shattered chards of glass laying on the floor.  As I continued to stitch on Thanksgiving, his favorite holiday, I reflected on my emotional health.  I had prepped myself for the possibility of being depressed.  From the time he knew what a feast was, he loved Thanksgiving.  The memories made me smile, not become sad.  However, sad I was.

I miss my husband.  Last year, he was in Fort Bliss getting ready to deploy to Cuba.  This year he is in Fort Bliss again.  He is getting ready to deploy to the Middle East this time.  In the past year and a month, I have seen him a total of three and a half months.  Yes, I am sad.  And as I stitched away, I realized this sadness is the black metal of my stained glass window.  I could dwell on the black until no sunlight spilled through the panes of glass, or I could give the black a respectful nod and continue with my day.  I continued the day by stitching and cooking.

Today marks the day my son's life was taken from him, from us.  The situation will always cause me to have some anger sliding along the black metal.  The panes of glass from his last six years on earth are dark.  I am thankful that most of my days in the last six months have lost the darkness of mourning.  Yes, I have bad moments.  His birthday was a hard day.  It began as black as night.  I prayed.  I baked his favorite cookies to take to school, peanut butter with chocolate chips.  The memories of his childhood brought a happy smile to my face, the sunlight filtered through casting a rainbow of colors in the air.

This holiday season I could easily keep my eyes on the metal.  I could dwell on the anger of Michel's death or the gaping hole of my husband being gone for another year or the state of the world.  Instead, I am going to be thankful for all my blessings.  I have tons of happy memories with Michel.  I have a loving husband who is providing for us and keeping the world a safer place to live.  I have two amazing kids who are standing by me in this crazy life.  Friends and family abound.  Projects literally are spilling out of my craft/writing room.  Okay, they are also in my bedroom closet and garage.  Uff da.

Life is a blessing.  My stained glass window is far from complete.  I plan on adding many more panes to the project.  I know more metal has to be added.  I fear the metal.  I try not to panic, but at the moment, the uncertainty of life is a prevalent part of my human condition.  I say a prayer and move from the darkness that tries to dull the colors.  I concentrate on the blessings.  The joy of my faith keeps the light pushing through to shine on me.

The Cabin

 I am writing this post with my cellphone sitting in a cabin in the woods.  Since my son died, I  only have felt like writing when I am quilting or gardening.   Once I leave the task, I loose my words.  Today the words remain.

I gave changed.  I will never be the same person I was before that terrible night November 27, 2020.  Quite frankly,  I don't know who I am or will become.   To find myself, I have retreated into my faith, quilting, and gardening.   I have kept the world at bay.  I do simple social outings with positive friends and family.  I  have tried to avoid news of any sort.  I  would love to hide completely in a cabin in the woods, but I know that isn't completely healthy.

I want to write my story eventually.   This fall I might begin or next week?  Who knows?  Time.  Time and healing in a quiet life is my goal.   Of course,  I feel the world coming closer as I become stronger.   

I love adventures.  Last year tested that love.  I feel the entire year was an adventure in the worst of humankind, including the suicide of my mother and the murder of my son.  Yes, I said murder.  Nothing was proven,  but my mother's heart knows.  This "adventure " I pray never happens again.   

The adventure of healing took many turns and still does.  I am adding the adventure of finding the new me, and I am enjoying the ride.  I have reaffirmed my relationship with God.   I have witnesses my strength.   I have clawed my way in courage to stay connected to people in my community when in the darkest moments I didn't want to leave my bedroom.   I am still a soldier, warrior, valkyrie.  

Unless I have a major shift in myself,  this summer I have dedicated to nature and fun.  I am spending as much time outside as possible either gardening,  painting,  hiking,  or kayaking.   Of course,  fire season may make it difficult, but time will tell.  Basically,  I will fill my days with faith, hope, and love.

I won't be giving up my writing.   I just don't know where I am going with this love of mine.  Again, time and healing will reveal the outcome with God pointing the way.

Blessings. 

Changing Focus

 

I feel so much joy this morning.  The clouds sweep through the valley with a purpose leaving a beautiful blue sky.  The temperature sores upward to dance in the forties.  The essence of who I am is changing.  How can it not after losing a son?  I have been told I will never be the same since Michel died.  But who am I going to let myself become?  In December, I felt I would be angry for life.  January brought the inevitable sadness.  I don’t want either of those things to be with me.  February has been a roller-coaster but mainly depression.

This past week, I thought about meaning and legacy.  Since about September, I have been working at finishing my mother’s legacy.  I dived deeper to runaway from my grief once Michel died.  I got a little angry that I was spending all this time finishing my mom’s stuff.  I need to be me, not her.  So, while I thought, I worked on a project that I started years ago.  I don’t know what it was going to be, so I decided on a baby blanket.  At the same time, I worked on one of her projects because I can’t waste all the material and half-finished things.  I can turn them into something.  That IS who I am.

Of course, I also thought of Michel.  Where is my relationship with him?  I have my mom in the quilting.  I have my dad in gardening, fishing, and the outdoors.  I have my father-in-law in my birdwatching.  What do I have with Michel? 

My emotions have been too big to face alone; yet, I haven’t wanted to burden my family and friends.  I know, I know.  They all want to help, but I didn’t want skewed thoughts from others who have their opinions of me and the situation.  I wanted someone outside of the circle.  COVID has made that very difficult.  Two weeks ago, I saw the clinic’s therapist who gave me a name of a therapist seeing people in person.  Because of both these amazing ladies, I have been able to open the well of feelings.  On Friday, my new, permanent therapist gave me the safety net to explore my life as a mother to Michel.  For now, I am feeling better.  I am sure I will have some relapses, but right now I am good.  Tired, but good.

While in my deep despair, I thought I would quilt for the rest of my life.  Hiding in my quilting room felt safe.  Now, I have been going out and about.  I knew and know I need to go through the motions.  I have been so busy.  Everyday I have something to do with friends and family.  I know they have been helping me immensely.  I have my stitch group, art people, sushi gang, game night kids, Bible study sisters, and my partner in crime who lives in the neighborhood.  I am so very blessed.  In the last two days though, I am getting ready to leave the quilt room.

No, I am not going far.  In fact, I am only turning my chair around and moving it a few inches to the computer.  I have started journaling again.  I am going to start working on my memories and other grief related ideas.  I am excited because it feels good.  It feels heathy to be back in front of the page.

I knew I would leave the room for gardening, but I am leaving the room next week.  Okay, I will if my surgery goes well tomorrow.  I have to go in for a biopsy.  If I have healed enough, I am going to tear apart the pantry.  The plan is to declutter, clean, and paint.  After that, I am going to tackle the living room entertainment area if the pantry goes well.  If not, I will hire it done.  By the end of March, those areas are going to look good so I can rest with that and hit the gardens, weather permitting.

Yes, I will continue to quilt.  My goal for the year is to finish up a total of 36 projects.  I have accomplished eleven.  I may not make the 36, but even with just the eleven, I have put a dent in the piles.  I do love the quilting.  I just don’t want to stay in the quilt room quite as much.  My focus needs to change.  I need to find the new me.

Here are the two projects I worked on last week.  I still have more sashing to go, quilting, and the border.  I may or may not get them finished up this coming week or two.  I will definitely post them when I do. 

Green

 

Green was the theme.

Last week, I enjoyed finishing up a quilt that I designed from a picture on Pinterest that I found.  I struggled with the green fabric.  I need to go look at the bolt to see what type of cotton blend it is and compare it to other fabrics.  I might be avoiding that type in the future.  The rest of the fabric came from Mom’s stash of strips of fabric.  I still really haven’t put a dent in that pile.  Luckily, I have found other Pinterest pictures to inspire me with other quilts.

 

When I found the top of my next quilting project, I was excited.  The shamrock material and St. Patrick’s Day theme convinced me that Mom was working on this for Kim.  I debated trying my hand at appliqué with the left over fabric I packed with the quilt face.  I worried thought that I would ruin the piece.  I found felt shamrocks.  I started sewing one onto the white block, but I hated the cheap look to the shamrock.  So, I played with stitching a shamrock.  It worked!!!  I loved the way it turned out.  My sister also likes it.  Yay!!!  I will send it to her later this month.

 

This week begins Lent.  I have a bunch of projects I want to do for our ministry at church, but I also want to hit Mom’s piles.  I am not sure I will get anything completed this week, but I will be busy sewing and crocheting for the ministry and Mom.

Wall Hangings

 

My blog seems to have morphed into a quilting blog instead of a hodge podge of all my interests.  I guess that is to be expected due to the nature of my life at the moment.  Last week as I quilted away, I experienced sadness and uncertainty.  I struggled with the loss of my son and faced a biopsy which I will know more about later this month.  The ups and downs of life are difficult but seem even more so during the winter months.

I am excited February arrived.  I am not a fan of this month, but it shows that January is behind me and spring is that much closer.  I am already excited about gardening season and warm weather.  Alas, I continue to fill my days with my mom’s project.

This last week, I worked on two of her wall hangings.  The only thing left on both of them was a little bit of quilting, blocking, and the binding, simple in many ways.  I still had a little to learn.

My mom must have loved to hand sew.  I am not a fan.  When I pulled out both of these projects, I groaned when I saw the hand sewing needles with thread attached to the material.  She was hand quilting both projects.  I might eventually do some hand quilting, but with all the work there is to do, I prefer fast and machine quilting.  I started with the Christmas wall hanging.  The middle block was almost done.  Just one small section needed to be hand stippled.  I did that up quickly to finish the block. 

I turned to the top and bottom blocks.  She had used a pencil to draw where she wanted all the stitching to be done.  On the top, she had crisscrossed lines.  Easy enough.  I finished that up in no time.  On the bottom block, she wanted parallel lines around the design, but stippling up close to the design.  The lines were no problem, but I didn’t want to do all that stippling by hand.  Really, I think it would have been silly.  Her machine does that stitch in two different ways.

I grabbed some throw away fabric to practice on.  The machine stitch was terrible!!!  No wonder she didn’t use this programmed stitch.  I hated it.  Now, over eighteen years ago, I tried stippling with a free motion foot on my machine that I had at the time.  I grabbed Mom’s free motion foot, switched the feet, and played.  The process came back like I did it yesterday.  I took a deep breath.  The first area went without a hitch.  Within about thirty minutes, I finished up the quilting.  Yay.  Now, I can see an issue or two in my work, but nothing that most people would notice.  I blocked the piece and put on the binding.  I am pretty happy with the results.  Oh, I had to hand wash the lines off the material where my mom drew because they could be seen.

 

The next project, I am sure Mom would be annoyed with how I finished it.  On the right and bottom, she chalked where she wanted to put the word WELCOME on the hanging.  I am sure she planned to appliqué the letters.  I am not ready to get to appliqué.  Besides, I think I want to keep this piece and didn’t want the words on the piece.  When I blocked the project, I just cut off the extra fabric.  I also had to wash off the markings. 

 

All in all, I am happy with both projects.  I relearned stippling.  I continue to marvel at how I approach sewing so differently than Mom.  Also, I prefer pins over stitches.  With the before picture of the birdhouse, the stitches to hold the front, middle, and back of the stitch had to be cleaned up.  I prefer using the quilting pins instead.  Of course, I have been quilting for less than a year.  Maybe when I hit Mom’s status, I will be doing this stitching thing too.

The Beast

      Life contains beasts in our lives.  Feelings, situations, and objects in our life that hold difficulty.  I have a number of them circling around me.  One beast obviously is the beast of mourning my son.  This beast and a few others I am not ready to discuss.  Feelings and situations are tough to talk about; I will leave those for another day.  Instead, I will talk about an object.

When my mother died, she left  four sewing machines.  A friend asked for her ancient machine which I was happy to give to her.  One we put in the rummage sale.  No one bought it.  My cousin asked about it, so I gave it to her.  The machine was almost ancient.  The other two I kept for myself.  The first, an inexpensive, lightweight Singer, is the machine I have been using for the past couple of months.  There are no bells and whistles on this machine, straightforward and very simple.  The last machine, well let’s just say, I have been avoiding the beast.  One look at the price tag scared the crap out of me.  This thing has a computer in it.  Uff da.

 

In November, I brought the beast out of the closet to look at and contemplate.  When Michel died, I put it back in the writing room to get it out of the way of all the company that came in waves.  Well, two weeks ago, my left arm ached when I woke up.  Tying knots in quilts flared my autoimmune issues.  I needed to rest for a day and not tie so many knots.  The time off from projects was the perfect opportunity to learn about the machine.

I couldn’t find many YouTube videos about the Elna Pro Quilter’s Dream.  One woman did have a video on her regular Elna that gave me the courage to turn mine on.  I grabbed the instruction manual and took a good thirty minutes just figuring out all the feet for the bloody beast.  Finally, I grabbed some strips of fabric and began sewing.  Oh, what a dream!!!  The fabric stays straight.  There is a speed control on the foot pedal.  Amazing.  I hummed away for a good couple of days just sewing fabric together.

This last week, I became braver.  I started playing with the embroidery options.  I grabbed the first quilt square I ever sewed and decided to quilt that into a wall hanging on the beast.  What fun.  I programmed the machine to sew little flowers.  I also used one of the vine leaf options to put a little more detail into the project.  I had fun.

 

Now, to use up all of Mom’s pieces and parts, I have a lot of big quilts that I will need to either quilt or tie.  I like the tying options for a lot of reasons.  First, the distance between the knots keeps the quilt fluffy instead of stiff.  Also, trying to maneuver all that fabric around in a sewing machine is complicated and bulky.  If I go to a long arm shop, I will be spending a lot of money to rent a machine.  I mean, I don’t mind on a special project, but the majority of what I will be doing is scrap quilts.  I needed a solution.  I found one.  On my second twin block quilt, I embroidered little designs where I would have put a knot.  I made a few mistakes and I chose a design that went crazy from time to time, but I like the results just the same. 

 

I will continue to work on this technique along with the stitch in the ditch on strip quilts.  I learned a lot in the last two weeks about the beast.  I have a bunch more to learn, but we have begun the taming process.  I am excited to continue with all the projects set before me.  Together the beast and I will carry on a long family tradition.  Well, at least I know Grandma Nixon, Jerry’s Grandma Richard, Aunt Ellen, and Mom have done quilting.  I will continue.

Experience

 

Over the weekend, I met with two friends.  As we were talking, I about quilting, one of them asked about my experience at quilting.  She was wondering how I could just jump into all these projects of my mom’s and get stuff done so quickly.  I told her in some instances most of the work was already done.  I laughed when she gave me her look.  She tends to think I don’t give myself enough credit.  That might be a discussion for another day.  At any rate, I realized I probably hadn’t mentioned my past experience here in the blog.

I don’t remember my mother even not having a sewing project.  She may not have sat down to the sewing machine for days on end or finished a project on time, but she had projects galore.  When I was little, she didn’t have the patience to teach me.  In junior high, our home economics teacher taught a unit in sewing.  I was so excited.  We went to the Eureka Mercantile to pick out fabric and a pattern for a simple blouse.  I chose a flowered lavender print.  The fun ended there.

The teacher taught me one way of sewing.  Then my mother would rant and rave about the terrible techniques and made me fix everything.  By the time I finished that project, I hated it with a passion.  I also hated sewing.  I went back to being a daddy’s girl and chopped wood.  I didn’t take another sewing class in school.  I was never going to be a sewer.  Kind of funny when I look back at the whole situation.

Moving forward, I believe my mother-in-law gave me her old machine when the boys were little.  I was interested in quilting.  I loved the artistry of quilting.  I love shapes and colors.  I went home the next summer and my mom taught me the basic fundamentals of sewing a straight line and cutting fabric.  I am not sure what year this was, but I do know that when we moved to Helena, I did start sewing with a purpose.

From about 1998 to 2002, I sewed when I had time.  Of course, being a mom of two busy boys, working fulltime, and Guard weekends, I didn’t have a lot of time, but I would spend an entire weekend here and there doing nothing but sewing.  I loved it.  The problem is I never learned how to finish a quilt.  I also didn’t learn how to do the quilting part to any real extent.  I played with a little free motion stitching and stitch in a ditch on scraps.  In 2001, my sister-in-law was expecting her first baby.  I was so excited.  A baby quilt was the exact thing I needed to learn how to do everything.  The quilt is in my closet only partially done.  Little Eric only lived for a few minutes after being born early.  Soon after that, I found myself expecting.  I gave my sewing room to Madelle and packed everything away until this past summer.  I had accomplished one quilt face, numerous quilt blocks, a millennial quilt kit, and Eric’s unfinished quilt.  That was it.

Once I learned how to put on a binding and knot a quilt on Youtube this summer, I was able to fly with all of the projects.  Of course, the learning curve took me a bit through September.  Once I finished my first quilt, I have quite a lot of confidence in the simple quilting.  I don’t know how long it would take me to have to cut fabric into the right pieces and do an entire quilt from start to finish.  I do know that with Mom’s cut fabric and all the work she has done on so many, for this first little while, I will be able to get projects done rather quickly.  Well, until spring when I spend a lot of time playing outside.

So that is my experience and background. And here is my next finished project.  I found 50 sewn blocks in Mom’s stash.  I laid them out on the bed.  To use all 50, the quilt would have been enormous.  Instead, I decided to make two lap quilts out of the blocks.  Here is the first one.  I tied the quilt, so it went rather quickly.  I will do a different technique on the second one and discuss that when it is finished.

 

I am also excited that I have accomplished my list for January.  I was hoping to get two wall hangings and two quilts done.  Yay, I did it.  Anything else I accomplish will be binding on the quilt.

A Map of Misadventures

 

Every now and then, a gift of epic proportions is given.  Yesterday, Clay came home to visit.  He tends to order Christmas presents a couple days before an occasion and they come in afterwards.  When he told me he was bringing presents, I thought he got me a cool new cribbage board because he said we had talked about the gift before.  Nope, I was so surprised to receive a map of the world with pushpins to put in the places I have traveled.  I have always thought this was a fun idea, but I never wanted to spend money on such a thing, so what a perfect gift.  Of course, now all I can think of is traveling.

Last year, my sister and I talked about going to South Carolina.  I also planned to travel to New Mexico to see the White Sands for a book project.  This year, I planned to travel to Ireland with family in June.  Instead, my mother died and COVID shut down travel.  I don’t see Ireland anything opening anytime soon.  Ugh.  We do have a contingent plan to go to San Antonio for Madelle’s trip.

I look at my new map and wonder when I will be able to add another pin.  This fall I want to go to South Carolina, but will our country even be ready for such an adventure?  I still want to see the White Sands in New Mexico.  Well, I want to see all sorts of stuff, but these areas are the next on my list.  We still want to go to Ireland.  Italy and Norway are calling for me to visit.  I am getting impatient to go, go, go.

I just had a thought.  How obnoxious will it be to travel when the authorities open the flood gates?  The tourist places are going to be packed even more than normal.  Heavy sigh!  I won’t let that stop me.  As soon as COVID doesn’t run our lives, I will book flights for at least me and Madelle for Ireland.  My 54^th or 55^th birthday will be spent in Italy.  This year I will at least go to the Grand Tetons.  I will see something new!  Okay, maybe I will only make it to Garnet Ghost Town.

I had intended this to be a fun post about a fun gift.  Now I just want to jump in my truck and drive.  I am so ready to play, to run away.  Last week, I took a leap and bought me and my sister tickets to the Avett Brothers concert in July.  Madelle and I agreed we will attempt Texas in June, even if we have to drive.  Clay is game for the trip too.  Sure, I have been to Missoula and San Antonio in the past, but I haven’t heard the Avett Brothers in person.  I also haven’t seen everything there is to see in San Antonio.  Besides, there is the Phil Factor.  Cousin Phil lives there, and Madelle has adored him since she was little.  We were going to go see him last year.  This year it will happen.

I am determined.  I will have fun this year!!!  On the map, Clay had engraved “the Misadventure Of The Great And Powerful Lisa Nixon Richard.”  Watch out.  The misadventures will take place.

Freezer Bag Quilt

 

After Christmas, I turned back to my quilting projects.  I have found with quilting that I like having projects at different stages.  At times I fear I am getting as obnoxious as my mom.  The jury is still out about that.  Anyway, I can’t spend an entire day tying knots because my hands hurt after a long period of time.  Thus, I have a knotting project in one room.  In the other room, I use my sewing machine on the latest project.  Since I can go from one to the other, I am making pretty good time.

 

 

This wall hanging is a bit hilarious.  When I threw it in an unfinished box, the quilting fluff was showing; yet, a sleeve had been sewn on to hang the piece.  I pulled it out to put the binding on.  I cut some black fabric that I had to buy.  I cut all the edges.  At some point during all of this, I flipped it over.  Mom had sewn a tag on the back that said it was finished in 1995.  I realized the quilt fluff was supposed to be the spider webbing.  Opps.  At this point I had already blocked it.  Jerry and Madelle didn’t like Mom’s look, so I continued to bind the edges.  I did work that didn’t need done.  Oh well.  Now it is nice and tidy. 

 

The Valentine wall hanging had me a pit nervous.  A needle and thread had been placed in the spot Mom had left off hand stitching.  When I decided I need to face my fear of hand stitching, I realized I needed to finish up the edge of two blocks and two hearts.  I knew my stitches wouldn’t look as good as Mom’s.  I turned on my music and began the job.  Low and behold, a person would have to look hard to find the differences between our stitches.  I am not that bad at hand stitching.  I won’t earn any prices, but I can hold my own.

 

 

This quilt will always make me laugh.  I call it the freezer bag quilt.  When I began unpacking and going through Mom’s unfinished projects, I was organizing cut fabric, quilt blocks, projects that needed quilted, projects that needed binding, and put the in-between throughout the mix.  Well, as my pile of cut strips of fabric grew and grew, I became extremely overwhelmed.  When I filled an entire section of my area to keep the strips, I pulled out a gallon freezer bag filled with strips.

 

 

I almost felt like burning everything right then and there.  I needed to feel I was making progress.  I opened the bag and grabbed two strips of fabric and sewed them together at the ends.  I kept adding pieces with the same technique that I used for Jerry’s quilt.  Within a couple of days, I had the entire face of the quilt.  All of it came from a freezer bag and I used all the fabric except a couple of strips of Raggedy Andy and Ann fabric.  Of course, I worried because it was crazy long. 

Well, the quilt ended up being meant for Clay.  He is 6.3 or 6.4.  At Christmas, he complained about short blankets.  The other day he came home.  He tested the newly finished quilt.  A perfect fit!  He took the quilt home to Belgrade.  I couldn’t be happier that it went to him.  Yay.  Now for my next quilt to finish.

I added Leo because he is so cute.

At the moment, I am working on twin quilts.  I am tying one and will start the other to tie soon.  I have another I am designing from scraps of strips of material.  I also have a wall hanging sitting out that I am contemplating.  Hopefully soon, I will be able to post those as finished.  Until then, I have to get back to work.