+JMJ+

Hello my dear friends! 

It has been such a long time since I came on here. Part of that reason is the new job, of course, but mostly it's because I've been digging into my workbasket again. And one of those projects was...a scrappy quilt! 

Back in the fall, I talked about potentially making a scrappy quilt on my newsletter. I had inherited a lot more scraps from my mom as we were cleaning out the basement...and they were taking up way too much space in my room! While I loved the previous quilt I had done during the pandemic, I wanted to experiment with a new quilt design. 

After some looking, I decided on a design featuring whirlwind blocks. However, I discovered that this style of block took much bigger scraps than I had available, and the test blocks didn't turn out very well. So I abandoned my original design. 

Later, I found another block design on Pinterest that featured much shorter horizontal stripes and nine patches, which I really liked. After sorting my scraps by color, a great color scheme of reds, yellows, pinks and blues started to form. 

The quilt top came together pretty well, except the vertical stripes. I stretched them a little to make them fit and it warped the design. It's a little noticable upon looking at it, but it became a huge problem when quilting it. 

I nixed the idea of batting at this stage, as the knit fabric I had chosen was a pain enough. It took several tries for me to center and pin the quilt top to the backing without puckering, and the fact that the backing barely puckered at all while quilting was a sheer miracle!

I hand-quilted this one, as my machine would have chewed the backing to ribbons. My handstitching leaves much to be desired. But with the rest of the problems I had with this quilt, it was a minor thing. It took several weeks to finish, and the pins kept dropping out of it (which really annoyed the dickens out of me). I edged it with red binding tape as red was one of the main colors of the quilt. 

So you probably have been asking yourself, why did I choose a knit fabric for the backing?

The answer is that, at the time, this is what I had. It had been stashed for years, and was slated to be some kind of blanket anyway (it was terrible for clothing). 

It turned out well, but I will NEVER use a knit fabric as a backing fabric ever again!! 

All in all, the Cantankerous Crosses Quilt definitely earned it's moniker. But it's not a bad looking quilt, in retrospect. 

What sort of projects have you all been working on? Tell me in the comments below!

God bless, 

Catherine

+JMJ+

What is a woman's role in Mass?

For millennium, it was (and still is) simply assisting at Mass. This includes paying attention to the prayers, offering our own prayers, and meditating on the Passion of Our Lord. This latter action can be very difficult for us to do this because the Passion is so abstract to us - we are, of course, almost 2000 years removed from the events.

To where can we go to learn to meditate better? What example can we follow?

We need not look any further than our Blessed Mother.

Our Lady took no part in the physical sufferings of Our Lord. She was not whipped, nor crowned with thorns, nor scorned. Her role is the most unseen - which is why the title Co-Redemptorix has never been dogmatically defined, despite the tradition. 


Yet through Her cooperation, She made it possible for even the Passion to take place. The flesh that hung on the Cross came from Her. So too, it would not be possible for clergy, or even altar boys for that matter, if they had not been born of women.

Tradition and mystics also testify that She united Herself with the sufferings of Her Son. It is told by Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich that She frequently fainted from the sheer sorrow that She felt during all of the Passion.

At the foot of the Cross, She provided much consolation and compassion for Our Lord and thus helped Him bear the Cross a little better. She listened to each of his Last Words with attention and fervor. That ministry to Him was satisfactory - She need not do any more.

It is from this example that we should learn from in order to unite ourselves more perfectly with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

So, what is woman's role at Mass?

To offer our own sons and brothers as ministers to Christ. To offer our own prayers of adoration, thanksgiving and supplication, and prayers for our constituents. To offer our voices in praise and prayer. To offer our ears to hear the wisdom of Our Lord and the Church fathers. And lastly, to offer our minds and hearts so that Our Lord may occupy them fully.

A blessed Good Friday to all of you!

Old-fashionably yours,

 

+JMJ+

Ahem. This post has been promised here for months, and it turns out that it was only waiting for a silly graphic. *facepalm*

Welp, it's being published now! Enjoy! 

------

A year ago...I wanted a new knitting project. A different knitting project. A historical knitting project. 

Hey, my creative muse gets a funny turn every once in a while. 

I wanted something along the sweater line, but I'm not good with gauge. I was thinking along the shawl lines, but I didn't have enough yarn to do that. And so I decided to in the middle road with a garment called a "sontag" 

What is said "sontag"? 

Well, to put it simply, it's a type of shawl. A "bosom-friend" kind of shawl. No, not making that up, that's it's nickname. It was called a bosom-friend because it covered the shoulders, back and chest, leaving the arms free. It was popular in the 1860s supposedly because an opera singer named Henrietta Sontag promoted it. 

As a former historical reenactor who has tried working with a shawl wrapped around myself...I wanna know why these garments were only popular for a short period of time. Because I would wear the heck out of mine if I ever got one. 

Hence why I made one. 

The start of it.

For this, I used some blue wool yarn that I had stashed. I believe I got it at a Salvation Army sale. I used size 8 needles, which were *ironically* red. You'll see why later. 

I followed the original Godey's Lady's Pattern, which you can find here, with some slight modifications. Firstly, I kept increasing up the back past where it said (like wayyyyy past) so that my shoulders could be covered a lot better. 

Secondly, I shortened the actual "arms" (?) to only reach my waist. I was dreadfully afraid of running out of blue yarn before I could finish it. I ended up with plenty left over, much to my embarrassment. I made up for it in the ties though, lol. I wasn't 100% satisfied with the shape at first, but I grew to like it after I added on the ties. 

After I finished the "blue" part, it was time to add on the border. The original pattern called for a knitted border, but the blog I got it from also said crochet was acceptable. Since I wasn't comfortable knitting on border, I did the crochet one instead. 

The question was....what design to do? 

I had a couple of choices. Since the project was started on Independence Day Weekend 2021 and finished Independence Day Weekend 2022 (hence why the red knitting needles were so ironic), I narrowed down the color choices to blue, red or white. 

And boy did I have a terrible time deciding. My poor Instagram followers were besieged with polls as to what I should do. 

And in the end...I did something that was off the polls entirely. *sigh*

For the border, I crocheted on a white shell border! I used some natural white wool that I had in my stash. It was a heavier weight than the body of the shawl and that made it curl a little bit. The effect isn't too terribly noticeable, and I very much doubt I could have avoided curling entirely because the other colored yarns I had were heavier than the blue. 

I am really glad I went with the white because it sets off the blue a lot nicer than I think the red would have. 

The Sontag was started on Independence Day Weekend 2021 and the blue part was finished Independence Day Weekend 2022. The edging was a couple of weeks after that. So it took a full year, working on and off of it, to finish. Not a bad timeline! 

But now my knitting bag is empty again...a dreadful tragedy indeed. 

Maybe I should try mittens next winter? 

Old-fashionably yours, 

Catherine