Muriel

Some recent projects. More on these in next posts.

Carol and I have been away from TwoLuLa for quite some time now. The fun of blogging disappeared as we dealt with some expected and one very unexpected turn in the road.

Expected was/is my Dad's continued battle with Alzheimer's. I can't even rightly call it a battle because this is a disease which takes away one's ability to comprehend and fight. I will write more about my Dad on another post.

Totally unexpected was the death of Carol's mother Muriel. If you haven't read it yet, please read the post before this one. Carol, very eloquently, shared her feelings about losing her mom and the long path of healing she is now on.

This is Muriel. It is a self portrait. Carol and I have a group of friends who get together to celebrate one another's birthdays, among other things. We each selected something special to do for our fortieth birthdays (yikes! That was a decade ago!) When my turn came I invited the gang over, gave each one a small canvas and asked them to paint a self portrait. I kept the collection of portraits (adding to it self portraits from my husband, children and dad) and made color copies of the complete set for each person. Take a look at our "About TwoLuLa" on the sidebar - those are the portraits Carol and I made (can you figure out who's who?).

I remember being sooo impressed with Muriel's painting! I knew of her talents in sewing and crochet, but I had no idea she was such a talented painter. Muriel was not just Carol's mother, but a cherished member of this group of friends. Muriel was one of the gentlest souls I have ever known. Gentle and kind, a great listener, but also absolutely straight forward with telling you what you needed to hear  (traits, my dear friend Carol, you have inherited from her) Her family meant the world to her and she was an integral part of each of their lives (husband, three daughters and five grandchildren) everyday. Everyday. I count myself as blessed that my family and I were among her adopted extended family.

Muriel's passing has left a great void in so many lives. It is difficult to watch as her family struggles with their grief. As I spend time with each of them I notice slight gestures or fleeting facial expressions, a spoken phrase or an intonation that is Muriel. It is so absolutely clear to me! I wonder if they recognize it in themselves and in each other. I wonder if it is as clear to them as it is to me that Muriel is still here with us through them.  At these times, I can't help but smile to myself and say "Hi Muriel. I'm so glad you visited me today. See you again soon."

Peace,

Cynthia

Five days after our last post, my mother lost her battle with two cancers.  She lived her last day as if it were like any other.  She made my Dad his favorite bread pudding and meals, watched their favorite TV shows together, chatted over tea or coffee.  My parents spent a leisurely afternoon just being together.  I received a phone call from my Dad just after midnight to come over because my Mom was really sick.  My husband and I were still up and drove a fast fifteen minutes to get to them.  I helped my mother in her final moments and never realized what was happening as it was happening.  Later at the hospital we were told that they had never been able to revive her.  The woman in my life that gave me life had lost hers. 

Now I feel a void. 

I am grateful for family and friends, friends like Cynthia (the other half of TwoLuLa) who listens when I ramble and rant, who holds my hand or hugs me when I feel lost and alone, who brings me back to life when I feel defeated.  A best friend.  I lost my greatest best friend in my mother.  I am more grateful for my other best friends now.  Always I have my sisters and my daughters, but now each of the women in my life mean so much more to me.  I treasure each one of these women because life is so precious and valuable and ends in the blink of an eye when we least expect it.  In the friendship of women I find parts of what I loved about my own mother.  I find some of what I have lost. 

Maybe God makes it that way so that we find what we lost in all of those around us that have always been here - men and women alike - but specifically that mothering sisterly bond grows stronger.  When we lose someone we love, the space left behind in our hearts for the love we received from that one special person, begins to be filled in with the love from others too.  We never fully fill up and forget, but we hurt less.  This is my hope, day by day, one day at a time, that me and my family and friends hurt less from the loss of one great lady.

Peace to you,

Carol

Please change our location in your list and re-follow us at twolula2.blogspot.com.

We've Moved!

TwoLuLa has moved!

  Sometime last March our Followers gadget stopped working. Try and try as we might, we could not get it to start working again. We have spent hours searching Blogger help forums and the internet and none of the solutions we found worked. Carol and I worry that something is corrupted in our blog and wonder what could go wrong next.

So we have decided to move all of our content to a new address!

Please come visit us at our new "TwoLuLa!" Our new address is twolula2.blogspot.com.

We would love to see you there and invite you to use our new, working (yippee!) Followers gadget.

I am excited to announce that we have just opened our first link party at TwoLuLa! The theme is Baby Love! Please help inspire us by adding your completed or in progress baby creations. Can't wait to see them!

Peace, Cynthia

Pillow Talk

I

Two weeks ago I started making a pillow for my daughter's dorm room. I chose the colors based upon the colors in the quilt we had already bought for her.





I was intrigued by the stitch pattern of this blanket  bought at the flea market a couple of months back (click here to see more photos of it).  I have seen blankets with this pattern before but couldn't find instructions in any of my books, and was being a bit dense as to figuring it out myself.  Luckily Carol found the stitch pattern in one of her crochet magazines.






The flea market blanket works two (or four) rows in the same color and then changes.  My pillow top is a bit different in that it changes color each row.  Its interesting to see the difference this makes in the overall look.


The pillow top is worked in diagonal rows, starting at one corner and increasing each row until the centerline is reached.  Then each row is decreased until the opposite corner is reached.

I began work on the pillow while on a car trip with the family. I gave my daughter, in the backseat, all 5 skeins of colors.  She randomly (or not, as was her choice) threw me a color when it was time for the next row.  Once all five colors were used I threw them all back to her and we started again.  She decided to make the pillow top symmetric about the center diagonal.

Here is the top, minus another round of black order.  I still have to sew in all the loose ends (my very least favorite thing to do, and hence always left to the very last).

Olivia likes how it turned out. Though, I have to confess, I am not exactly head-over-heeels in love with it.  I'm not sure why, maybe its just a bit too busy or random for my eye. Sometimes I look at it and love it.  Sometimes not.

So...I decided to make another pillow top with the same colors. This time I wanted larger bands of color. I decided to use a wavy pattern.

To add some texture, I worked the right side in the back loop only and the wrong side in the front loop only.

I still need to add a border, and of course, sew in the loose ends!

 I've decided to attach the pillow tops together to make a reversible pillow.  Olivia can decide which side to show depending on how she's feeling.   I'll show you the final pillow as soon as it is done.

Peace,

Cynthia

Busy, busy, busy

Have you been busy?  I know I have.  Summer seemed to race by (when it wasn't roasting me).  Mine was busy for many reasons, but my favorite reason was to finish crochet projects.  Remember that blanket I photographed last March?  The one I was making for Joanie?  Well after a few false starts and pattern adjustments, this is the blanket:

Joanie's blanket

rounds and rounds of double crochet

It took me forever to do this blanket!  I am not completely happy with the finished project because I noticed a mistake made too early to change it.  I am hoping it will please my eleven-year-old niece anyway. 

Then I began my next project which went faster.  Much much faster.  I completed this in two weeks!!  I promised a blanket to Cynthia's daughter Olivia for her high school graduation and wanted it done before she moved on campus.  Well, I was a week late, but she is now the owner of the "crayon blanket".  What color blanket do you give an artist?  Olivia had four colors that she recommended and I found those, but for some reason, it just needed more color.  So I explored my "stash" (aka, my personal store) and added more colors.

Here it is:

I played with stitches so that each color change was a stitch change too.  It is not ROYGBIV (for all the artists out there), but it is a variation of each color without being in rainbow order.  

 

 

Waldo got into the middle of things while I was photographing the blanket. (I did wash it before delivering it.)

Olivia, I really hope you like it!  Have a wonderful college experience!  Become that fine tuned artist you hope to become.  You are so very talented already it should be a piece of cake, right?











My next projects will be a plethora of baby things.  I know two women having babies this winter and one that had hers over the summer.  And a one year old that I want to make something special to wear.  I am planning to make two blankets for 6 month old and 4 year old boys.  I am also involved in sewing handbags and other things getting ready for some fall craft shows (and hoping for a little cash to fee my yarn habit :o)  And then there are all those squares we are still sewing together for our church's stitches group to donate.

Peace to you all!

A Return to Blogging

Hello blogging friends!  I hope your summer (or winter I guess, depending upon which end of the world you're on) has been lovely.  I am dismayed at how long its been since Carol or I have posted anything on TwoLuLa.  

I decided to go back and read our first post and reconnect with why we started TwoLuLa in the first place.  Carol wrote:

"Cynthia and I have decided to embark on a journey to discover the creativity in our friendship, in our lives, in our unique perspective on life as Christian women in a Lutheran church, in the ordinariness of our days, and who knows where that journey will lead us?  

We create.  We both crochet.  Cynthia gardens and dabbles in sketching.  She has even taken that step into learning more in an art class!  I have made jewelry.  I love to write.  Cynthia quilts.  I dream of quilting.  I sew.  Lately, I have been involved in making huge banners for our new church worship space.  We both collect books and specialty magazines.  And we have families – believe me child-raising and husband-pleasing takes enormous amounts of creativity and perseverance and endurance.  And prayer.  Lots and lots of prayer!

So to refuse to allow life to get in the way of creativity, we have decided to get together on a weekly or nearly-weekly basis to be creative.  To chat.  To grow our friendship.  And along the way, improve our lives.

I hope something that we do inspires you, or at the very least, makes you smile or laugh with us."

I think we both still agree that its vital to find creative time in each day - be it crochet, knitting, sewing or needlework,  drawing, painting, writing or photography, gardening, cooking or homemaking.  Creativity  takes so many, many forms! But whatever the form, it is rejuvenating to the spirit and calming to the body. And absolutely essential!

Carol and I have not done a good job at all with getting together on a weekly or even near weekly basis. This we must remedy!  Children return to school in two weeks or so and I think we will, no, I know we must, begin our weekly visits again.

My first Wool Eater blanket.

So what creative endeavors have I been occupied with?  The summer months have definitely lessened my time spent crocheting.  But I did start a new bavarian crochet (aka Wool Eater) blanket.  The one I started a few months ago, which was intended as a blanket for a cousin's little girl ended up as a table topper in my home.  While I loved the colors, I thought they were better suited to my dining room than for this little girl. 

So here's my progress on blanket number two:

My plan is a bit of a rainbow effect.  As you can see I am into the blues now.  They will slowly turn to greens and then yellows.  Looking at it I wish I had a better gradation of pinks and purples, but I was trying to work with the yarn I have and resist the temptation to buy more.

 

Some of the pinks and purples are the same as the first blanket.  It was absolutely amazing the effect the  rounds of blue had.  The whole blanket just popped!

I have also been working on my son Daniel's blanket and am almost done crocheting the rows.  I need to take some photos to post.  Maybe tomorrow, if its sunny and I get new camera batteries.

Running with a meadow of butterflies and birds on one side of me and...

 I started running back in June while on vacation down in Hilton Head South Carolina.  It was so, so lovely to run along the beach with the ocean on one side of me and the endless sky above.  I wish I had pictures to share.  I kept on running once we returned from that paradise.  Mainly I run around the neighborhood, but sometimes I find lovely places such as the Teetertown Nature Preserve in New Jersey.

a sweet little pond on the other.

I find  my time running to be so rejuvenating and spirit lifting.  I am not mom nor wife nor daughter when I run.  Just me, listening to music and being with me.

Peace,

Cynthia