I've Been Out of Commission . . .

I rolled over in bed last Tuesday morning and my knee locked. My husband was away, my daughter was away -- it was just me and the dog and he was no help. This was actually the second time this has happened since I tore the ACL in my left knee more than a decade ago, so I knew exactly what the problem was and what had to be done. So at 6:30 am I got dressed, slid down the stairs on my bottom, got my crutches out of the basement and drove myself to the emergency room.

We North Forkers are lucky to have Eastern Long Island Hospital at our disposal. It is perched on the shore of Sterling Creek and every window you look out of has a terrific water view and every person who works there is friendly and knows someone who knows you. The emergency room staff, the x-ray technician, the MRI guy -- they all took such great care of me and listened to what I had to say. By the time I got home at 2:30 that afternoon, I had seen an orthopedist, had x-rays and an MRI and had surgery scheduled to remove a torn piece of meniscus on Thursday morning, exactly 48 hours after my knee locked.

And it gets even better! When I had this same arthroscopic surgery done about 10 years ago, it hurt like the Dickens. This time: no pain! The crutches hurt more than the surgery! I go for a check up tomorrow and am hoping that the doc will let me off the crutches -- I hate them with a passion!

While I am very grateful to everyone at Eastern Long Island for their help, my undying thanks go to my neighbor Seth who drove me to and from the hospital, picked up my prescription, checked on me throughout the day, took care of the dog, and even picked my husband up at the airport. I will be baking lots of pies for Seth when I can stand on two feet again. He is my hero.

Anyway -- that's where I've been and what I've been doing for the last week. I will be glad to be able to move around freely again and to not watch cooking shows on tv. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to see someone making this great recipe and you can't even go to the grocery to buy the ingredients, never mind stand at a stove and cook . . .

Chesnut Bay Quilting and Crafts

After making the move from eastern Long Island, quilter and horsewoman Patty Cline and her family settled in the beautiful Finger Lakes area of upstate New York. There's lots of space for horses up there, and lots of room for Patty to set up her long-arm quilting machine. A quilting and craft shop was a natural progression for her, and this weekend marks the opening of her new shop, Chestnut Bay Quilting and Crafts.

Chestnut Bay is housed in a beautiful stone home built in the late 1800s by a doctor who lived in the main part of the house and used part of the downstairs as his office. Here are some interior shots from a couple of months ago -- Patty was still setting up, but you can see what a neat space she has.



Patty very kindly asked if I wanted to send her some rugs to sell, so if you stop by you'll see a few of my things. My sister Barb's whimsical creations will also be available at the shop, along with lots of other stuff made by lots of talented people.

If you are in the Finger Lakes area, stop by and see Patty and tell her Sarah sent you! If gas prices come down a bit, I'm hoping to get up there myself. (It's a 7 hour drive from Greenport!)


Chestnut Bay Quilting
3128 Main Street
Caledonia, New York 14423
(585) 538-4420

Progress Report

I've been working on Lucille's rug a little bit every day, despite the heat. These photos show the progress.

I don't care to hook on burlap and the humidity makes it worse. I bought a portable air conditioner for the studio and it is not working very well. It dries out the air, but doesn't cool it. Sometimes it is hotter in the studio than outside. . . So it is going back to the store tomorrow.

I don't know if it is advancing age, or if this July is really hotter and more humid than those in the past, but I am continually out of sorts. Consequently, I'm not getting much accomplished. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day.

Rug Hooking Makes the Nightly News

Really! It was a very brief cameo, but there was a woman hooking in a news report on the mortgage problem last night! The report was about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When they talked about their creation during the depression they showed clips of FDR and an elderly woman bent over her hooking frame! Go here to see the clip. It's about half way through and only lasts a second.

Hip, Hip, Hooray for Dara Torres!

Dara Torres is going to the Olympics yet again! Forty-one years old and a mom and she is beating teenagers! What a great role model. She just won the 100 meter freestyle. I was so excited, I had to text message Clara at her 4th of July BBQ. Clara started swimming competitively when she was about twelve. She gave it up her first year of college, but is now dying to get back in the pool. She's worried she'll be too old and too out of shape, but Dara Torres is proof positive that you're never too old to swim fast.

Summer Reading

One of my great joys on Saturday morning is listening to National Public Radio while I'm scouting yard sales or doing errands. I love all the comedy shows -- Car Talk, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I'm sure other drivers think I'm crazy, speeding down the road while laughing my head off. Of course, I like the non-comedic NPR shows as well. I've been known to pull over to the side of the road to write down the name of an author or musician for future consumption. Last Saturday, June 28, Scott Simon of Weekend Edition spoke with Patrick Hemingway, Ernest's son, who turned 80 that day, and inspired me to revisit his father's work.

I have never been a Hemingway fan. I read him in high school and as an English Major had to read him again in college. Sadly, his writing never spoke to me, and the superficial image of him as a macho, gun-toting, heavy-drinking hot shot turned me off. But -- I loved listening to his son the other day. He takes the stewardship of his father's books and name very seriously, but still has a great sense of humor. (Patrick told the story of someone he met about 15 years ago who told him how much he admired his work, and that his favorite book was The Grapes of Wrath. Both Hemigway and Steinbeck must have turned over in their graves . . .) My favorite quote from the radio interview is this: "Literature is what intelligent people have instead of dope." It made me laugh. My husband says I read too much. I cannot go to sleep at night if I have not read at least a chapter of my current book. Right now I have 4 books going at once. . . I guess I am a reading addict.

Anyway, I liked Patrick Hemingway so much, I decided to put away my prejudices, and read his father's work again. I went to the library and took out a rather dog-eared copy of A Farewell to Arms. I've read a couple of chapters and do believe I am liking it a bit better than I did 35 years ago . . . So we'll see.


Here's another gem I'll be reading this summer: Hooked Rugs and How to Make Them written by Anna M. Laise Phillips and published in 1925. I recently added this to my rug hooking library after winning it on ebay.

Here is the forward to this little book:

"Out of darkness cometh light, out of chaos cometh order, after sorrow cometh joy.

Sometimes I wonder if the thing itself is as important as the reason for its being; and in view of the darkness and dawn, the chaos and then the order, the trials and then the joy of our work, it seems that the things we do are but the outlet of our inner selves. We grope in darkness and then suddenly over our world comes a light, softly stealing away all the shadows. We may remain in the spot where once it was dark, yet just because of a little thing, a circumstance, perhaps, that place is forever glorified and black darkness is forgotten in the light of a new activity."

Whew. Heavy duty stuff for a rug hooker . . . Rug hooking isn't even mentioned until the second page, after Satan is introduced. This is a far cry from current books about rug hooking, which are filled with dye recipes and color photos of faces hooked in shades of blue. . . I'll be getting a religious education as well as some tips on creating the perfect rug.


My third and last suggestion for summer reading is much lighter. I am a big fan of mysteries, especially British mysteries. Give me a new P. D. James or Ian Rankin and I'll have it read in a matter of hours. But there are some great American mystery writers out there, too. Lisa Richland, the director of William Floyd Memorial Library here in Greenport, highly recommended this first novel by Cornelia Read to me. A Field of Darkness is the title, and I find myself rereading passages that are so beautifully written I wish I'd written them myself. Her second novel is out now, The Crazy School, and I am looking forward to reading that as well.

So that's my current reading list. Any suggestions to add to it? Just leave me a comment . . .

A New Project

A friend of mine has hired me to finish a rug for her. She hurt her rotator cuff and can no longer hook. I've never really wanted to finish someone else's work before -- especially a pattern drawn out on burlap -- but Lucille is one of the sweetest people I know. So when she asked if I knew anyone who could do this rug for her, I offered up my own services.

The pattern is called Kit's Treasure by Patsy Becker. It is very simple and the center motif is already completed. I just have to fill in the background and figure out a border. I started hooking this morning, and it is more difficult than I imagined it would be. I hook much more closely than Lucille does, so I am having to go a little slower than I normally do so I can match her style.

I've been a little scattered lately, so I thought this project might get me back on track. I am keeping a record of the time I spend hooking, something I don;t normally do. Since it feels like a real job and I want to get it done in a timely manner, I need to keep myself on track. One of tricks to keeping myself seated at my frame -- Netflix. I find shows, often British mysteries, that are serialized, and I watch them on my computer out in the studio. The time flies by and so does the hooking.