My artist friend Marion Barnett wrote a blog today about the Clootie Well Tree in Rosemarkie, on the Black Isle. She had visited the area and the tree on a recent holiday, saying the tree always made her feel hopeful and the area, peaceful. Here is a photo of my quilt which I say is the "Disney" version of the tree because it is so idealised. That is because I did it from memory, from my impression of the tree having driven by it for years and years before we stopped to take a closer look. I didn't work from a photograph, which is my usual modus operandi, because I wanted the romance to come through. All the cloots came from various pieces of clothing I purchased from the Comrie Cancer Charity Shop. I love the way I managed to achieve the effect of the cloots fluttering in the wind. As a token of reality, I have one strip of fabric at the foot of the tree, tea-dyed so as to look trodden in the mud. A couple of years after making the quilt, when I returned to the site, I was suprised to see how different it was from my memory of it. If you'd like to see photos of the actual well, see Marion's blog at http://artmixter.blogspot.com The reality is quite different from my fantasy.
By the way, Marion mentioned in her blog that the cloots biodegrade, i.e., they rot and return to the earth. I was amazed recently to see that the sun not only faded the navy blue bottom panel of a quilt I made for my grandson after only a few years, but it also rotted the fabric to shreds after 10 years of exposure from the afternoon sun shining on the foot of his bed every day up in Rochester, New York, which is on Lake Ontario near Canada.
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Speaking of that quilt, during our recent visit to Rochester, on November 18th we washed the replacement piece of navy blue fabric with ecru stars and I began work on replacing the old quilt panel with the new one. Jill has had my old 1964 Singer 504 Slant-Needle sewing machine since I got my used Bernina 1230 back in the mid-90s. Unfortunately, she hasn't used it much and it is much in need of service. When I tried to use it, I couldn't get the bottom tension to behave no matter what adjustment I made. My only choice was to replace the quilt panel by hand. It took a while but I got it done that Saturday.
Kevin's ice hockey team had a game that afternoon which we attended. His team shut out the other team 3-0 and so he returned home triumphant. In the late afternoon, Jill had wanted me to get her started again working on the quilt kit I prepared for her back in 2003. We had last worked on it in 2004 but hadn't had a chance to get back to it during our 2005 visit. Most importantly, of course, she had to have a workable sewing machine. Fortunately, a friend loaned her one and I was able to get her going again on her project (which she swears she'll continue to work on). Meanwhile she is seriously considering buying herself a new sewing machine. I am encouraging her.
That night we had take-away Dynosaur's barbecue for dinner (the final item--#10--on our NYS Major Food Group list). After dinner we babysat while Jill and Julius went to their monthly bowling night. The boys and we played the junior version of Trivial Pursuit.
Don, who reads my blog faithfully, tells me every day that I've gotten some little detail of the trip out of order. I wanted to write that Jill made us a terrific chicken dish for dinner but never could remember the night she did it. Now I've run out of nights so let me just include a photograph here of Jill and Don working on that meal--whatever night it was!
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