I started decorating for Fall at the end of August when I put the lotus pods and the Fall runner back on top of the yellow dresser at the end of the hall. That led me to bring out the Fall pillow for the hall bench. My youngest sister had made several of these patchwork leaf panels before she died and her daughter gave one to me and one to my other sister. I made mine into a pillow and I love bringing it out each Fall.
One of the bloggers I read posed the question, “Do you ever have an internal struggle between the ease of doing the same thing you did last year or mixing it up a little by adding something new?” Well, no I don’t struggle – I like doing the same things every year AND adding something new. This year I put my velvet pumpkins in a basket and put them on the bench that had belonged to my older daughter and now sits below our gallery wall.
And when I got a cute little pumpkin person from my Birmingham niece I knew it belonged on the top of the china cabinet which hosts pretty much the same pieces as last year.
The Day of the Dead decorations are new to the top of the china cabinet. I gave the doll made by my Birmingham niece to my older daughter for her birthday a few years ago and bought her the Day of the Dead cat in front of the blue vase at a CVS. The Day of the Dead cat mask displayed on a pumpkin was made by my Birmingham niece and I wore it for Halloween the year she sent us all Day of the Dead masks.
I had moved Batty Girl and the Wicked Pumpkin over to the CD case last year and this year they were joined by the new skull fabric pumpkin I bought at Target and a skeleton arrangement we bought at a store that is going out of business (more on that in a bit).
Around the corner I hung something new – a skeleton I downloaded from the Ella Claire Inspired website.
We put the black trees in the dining room area windows again and decorated them with the Halloween and unbreakable Day of the Dead ornaments. They posed somewhat of a challenge in the beginning as it turns out Mr. Burns is one of those cats that thinks felt ornaments are cat toys.
Our biggest challenge this year was finding a branch for our Fall ornaments. Since we had a derecho this year (this was a new term to me – it turns out it is a storm like a tornado but in a straight line) and a lot of trees had lost their branches that we would have been able to find lots of possibilities for our Fall branch in the park. But because the park was such a mess with not only branches but trees all over the place and because many regular park activities are suspended in the Time of Coron, the park workers have been diligently cleaning up the branches so none remain. I had no idea how I was going to hang all my Fall decorations but after I saw my Birmingham niece’s daughter’s bird ornament wreath (see last post) I had an idea for some of my leaves and nuts.
But the wreath only held a small portion of the Fall ornaments. The store that is going out of business that I have mentioned a few times is both a gift store and a floral arrangement store so I thought maybe they would sell us some branches from one of their arrangements. They would! We bought three stalks that resemble grapevines but seem a bit sturdier and hung them up.
We were only able to hang the rest of the leaves and acorns and the pinecones and fruit. There was no room for the owls, foxes, and other Fall ornaments although we did squeeze in the three breakable Day of the Dead ornaments- one for each window. Each window also got an anthropomorphic leaf or acorn hanging above the branch.
We hung the leaf/ light garland in the window between the wreath and the branches.
A few more old favorites and our decorating was complete.
For Indigenous People’s Day my Birmingham niece texted me greetings from her Navajo and Seminole dolls who are displayed with her dolls from Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico.
And then when I sent her a felt owl I made a few years ago she texted me a picture of it hanging on her daughter’s bird ornament collection wreath.
I also sent my niece the black felt cat ornament and she texted a picture of it hanging above her Halloween castle display of felted monsters.
That started an exchange of photos of our Fall decorating. She decorates her fireplace and her piano for Halloween and Day of the Dead.
She has a Frida Kahlo corner.
And a Day of the Dead tree.
And I thought I had a lot!
For one weekend at this time every year the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) sponsors Open House Chicago – an opportunity to see inside buildings all over Chicago that are usually not open to the public. We’ve picked a few buildings in or close to our neighborhood each of the last two years and have really enjoyed the chance to peek in. Of course this year in the time of Corona changes had to be made. This year they are offering virtual programming and self directed tours for two weekends and the week in between. We downloaded the app and did a few of the walking tours this week.
On Monday we headed to Wicker Park to go on the Beer Baron Row Tour. Our first stop was the Weinhardt Mansion. This Queen Anne was built in 1888. The gingerbread trim was amazing and it even had a Little Free Library with its own gingerbread trim.
Another Queen Anne built in 1877 for Herman Plautz who owned the Northwest Brewery Company was decorated for Halloween like many of the houses in the neighborhood.
The next day we did a leg of the Tales of the Gold Coast Trail. One of the highlights was the Charnley-Persky House designed by Adler and Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright who still worked there in 1891.
Another interesting house was the Holabird and Root 1928 -9 Art Deco house. The CAC app states that “it is a rare example of a single family Deco home in Chicago”.
We took Wednesday off and on Thursday we headed out to see the Historic Mansions of Prairie Avenue. These included the Clarke House oldest house in Chicago and the Glessner House the only H.H. Richardson house left in Chicago. I didn’t take any photos on this tour but while we were there we found a Prairie Avenue Walking Tour Guide pamphlet with lots more of interest so I think we’ll go back soon.
No tours today since it was raining but while I was writing this I got an email saying that Open House Chicago has been extended for another week so I’m sure we’ll do at least one more next week since it’s been fun – in this time of Corona it is so great to have somewhere to go!
Our neighbor told us about a store in Lincoln Park that is going out of business and said she thought we’d like to check out. So we took a drive there last week and we drove by a place I had seen from the bus a while ago and really wanted to check out. This week when we went to the store again (they are marking things down more each week and actually giving things away so we’re going to keep stopping by) we walked up to check it out. The Egyptian inspired building I had glimpsed from the bus turned out to be The Reebie Storage Warehouse which was built in the early 1920’s. I couldn’t get a photo of the whole building so here are two from a website called Public Art in Chicago which has a lot of information about the building that was inspired by a trip to Egypt and another Egyptian Revival Storage Building in California.
The storage company is still in business but they don’t use the front of the building anymore. In this photo the doors are closed and there is a sign directing people to the back but the front is now home to the New Elephant Resale Shop of Chicago so we got to go inside and see the interior Egyptian details as well. Unfortunately although the store had a sign that stated facemasks were required and the Ramses II statues in the front were wearing them the store’s customers were not so we didn’t spend much time looking at the resale goods.
In an earlier post I wrote about taking a look at my embroidery books before I began my first Time of Corona cross stitch embroidery project. I remembered that one of my older books had directions for a felt ball and I decided to make one for each of my twin grandnieces. I thought the book had a photograph of a ball but I must have been remembering an actual ball I’d seen somewhere (perhaps at my Northampton nephew’s) because the book only had some limited directions.
The directions didn’t include a pattern or even a size suggestion for the pentagons so I took a guess and downloaded what was labeled a 3 inch pentagon from a website. I also did some searching and read some posts and watched a video on assembling the shapes to make a ball. The book shows circular embroidery designs which proved to be pretty difficult for me. The pentagons became more like individual samplers of different stitches from the books and designs inspired by embroidery pieces I’ve seen on Instagram.
When I mentioned my embroidery books earlier (Crafting in the Time of Corona III) I wrote about the book “Hoopla” and my introduction to Mr. X Stitch and how I got an idea for my first Nero Wolfe cover cross stitch from the cover of his magazine. I also wrote to him about it and he printed my letter in his next issue and sent me an electronic copy.
I don’t think anyone would want to print a picture of my felt balls and rudimentary embroidery in a magazine (I think I should stick with counted cross stitch in the future) but I had fun trying things out and I think my tiny grandnieces will find them entertaining (as my friend Barbara would say).
I made another set of props for the felted playmat I gave my Chicago grandnephew for his birthday. I drew rocks on the dark grey felt and then stiffened it with watered down white glue to make the castle. Some gold trim I had was perfect for the crowns of the King and Queen and for embellishing their robes.
Meanwhile in another part of the land a dragon and some knights can be found. I needlefelted the dragon and didn’t really know how he would turn out but now that he’s finished he reminds of the dragon in the Tomie de Paola book “The Knight and the Dragon.”
Of course now I am looking at that feather coming out of the knight’s helmet and wondering if my peg knights need feathers…
When I purchased a Knitting Nancy in the Wisconsin Dells several years ago I must admit I was attracted to its looks not to its crafting potential. And when I bought the mushroom spool knitter in Brattleboro a little later it was with my collector’s eye, “I have one of these so I should get this one too.” They never did become a collection although thanks to Pinterest, I have seen some amazing ones.
I took mine off the shelf recently thinking the time of Corona was a good time to learn how to use them with my oldest granddaughter. Unfortunately I didn’t figure it out fast enough so she lost interest in learning but I went on to knit a long red “horse rein” to use as a Christmas tree garland.
When I told my Alabama niece that I was doing some spool knitting and hoped to do some more with my granddaughter she asked if she could send me some things she had come across during her Corona Cleaning.
One of the most interesting things about spool knitters are the many names they are known by. My niece mentioned that the large pink corker was perfect for making doll hats so when it arrived I tried making one. It took me a couple of tries and it turned out way too long but I am pretty proud of it since it actually looks like a knitted hat and knitting is a skill I never mastered.
My granddaughter found a doll it would fit and while she still wasn’t interested in learning how to do spool knitting or corking, she was very interested in learning how to make pom poms so I taught her how to make those instead. And it looks like I have a collection of wooden spool knitters now since “three of anything is collection”!
The Lakeview Post Office is the closest post office to us which was a surprise when we first moved here as it is not that close. There are two other surprises inside. The first is that while the name on the outside of the building is the Lakeview Post Office it is the now called the Steve Goodman Post Office.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post office that was named after a person before and the fact that this one is named after a pretty obscure singer/songwriter was surprising. The most well known song Steve Goodman wrote is “The City of New Orleans” which was a hit for Arlo Guthrie. But the song I most associated him with even before I moved to Chicago is “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” because the radio host of the show we listened to every Sunday morning in Northampton always played it on the Sunday closest to opening day of the baseball season. It turns out Steve Goodman also wrote “Go Cubs Go” the official Chicago Cubs victory song. And Wrigley Field, the home of the Cubs, is also in Lakeview so it makes sense in a way but I still wondered how the post office got his name. It turns out that on August 3. 2010 President Obama signed the bill honoring Steve Goodman, introduced by Illinois Representative Mike Quigley, into law. As you walk into the post office you can stop in front of a display case with Steve Goodman memorabilia.
Then you turn a corner and get another surprise.
This wonderful WPA mural, “Chicago: Epoch of a Great City” by Harry Sternberg was completed in 1937.
It’s hard to get a picture of the whole mural which is a timeline of the building of Chicago with Fort Dearborn, the Great Fire, and a 1937 skyline in the middle. The right side depicts Chicago’s agricultural side and the left its industrial side.
There are framed panels with information about the Federal Art Project and the Works Progress Administration, the mural, and the artist on the opposite wall. Between this information and the information about Steve Goodman, you could spend hours in this post office although the layout would make that difficult especially now.
As I was writing this I remembered that I did actually used to spend a lot of time reading in the Nyack post office when I was growing up but reading of quite a different nature. At that time I was fascinated by the FBI’s Most Wanted posters and was never ready to leave – the same feeling I have now whenever I go to the Steve Goodman Post Office.
There is no more room for display so my cross stitch pulp series is now complete. I actually wasn’t intending to make a series but after I finished the first one I found another cover on the internet and after I finished that one I found yet another. This last one for “The Silent Speaker” features the monkey wrench the victim was killed with.
Since I know the colors aren’t always accurate on the internet images, I figured I could adjust them. I thought the orange blood a little weird so I did the blood in the same red as I had on the knife of the previous cover and I matched the greens to the body on that cover as well. The body on the tag had to be simplified. And I didn’t like how the monkey wrench on the actual cover looked like it had an eye so I eliminated that detail. I alternated the two black one green and two green one black threads for the background on the right and while it doesn’t quite recreate that area of the cover I think it has somewhat of the same effect and complements the purple of the “Three at Wolfe’s Door” cover.
We’ve been hooked on the HGTV show House Hunters ever since we started looking for our new condo. The house hunters often act like a house is either “move in ready” (perfect) or a “total gut job”. I think there are another two categories: “I wouldn’t have chosen it but I can live with it” or “I can live with it for awhile.” The light fixtures in our new condo belonged to the second category. There was mostly long white track lighting which wouldn’t have been too bad despite some odd placement except for the yellow discoloration. At some point after we moved in the track in the entrance hall broke and that along with a desire to hang the handmade glass globe light that was my mother’s led us to a decision to call an electrician recently and replace almost all the light fixtures in the condo.
In normal times we would have gone from store to store to find the best fixtures but in these times the internet seemed like the way to go. My husband did most of the searching and called me in for consultation. We ended up with a great selection.
There is one light we love in our condo. The light in our bedroom is in a ceiling fan. We had never had a ceiling fan before and now we are ceiling fan converts so we wanted one in the living room as well. There was a capped outlet in the open part of the room and the electrician was able to get it working again so we ordered a fan as well. I think it helps to fill the space in this oddly shaped room and it really helps to move the air conditioning to the couch area.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 