beginnings, part 2--scroll down

I had always been around quilts and loved them. I helped Mom tie some quilts with yarn on borrowed quilt frames as a youngster. I have already shown you Mom's first quilt that I used at home and now own.

At some point in the mid 80's or so Mom started quilting. I remember when she bought her first rotary cutting, ruler and mat and being enthralled by how that all worked. By 88 she was teaching a beginning quilt class in an adult ed program with our friend Linda Hutchins in the town she lived in . I took that and the 2nd session that followed. I learned the basics of strip piecing but also how to make templates and the principles of drafting which helps me use EQ now. I guess you could say that Eleanor Burns and Georgia Bonesteel were our early influences.

Mom sent me this snap shot of me in the learning phases there in the church basement. (I had decorated that lovely sweatshirt I am wearing, BTW) I loved to knit, cross stitch, crewel embroidery, needlepoint, chicken scratching and had done macrame and that thing with the thread and nails too but I was hooked on this quilting stuff! At some point Mom joined the area quilt guild in Bloomington-Normal and then I did as well.

I could not see making blocks without a specific purpose in mind and decided to make a quilt for my long time love, DJ. I wanted a blue quilt and he wanted brown so it is brown with some blues. It was quilt as you go but duh, I forgot that blocks were to share their sashing! It got huge but what bachelor type was going to use a dust ruffle on his bed?? This is a horrid picture of it as it is obviously not hanging straight. Those blocks are all square and look distorted here. There is another row across the top that is not shown and the bottom border is folded up. (all hand quilted)

Of course, I lost interest in it. My mom sewed the quilt as you go parts together just to expedite matters. I shorted her fabric on the back--it was a mess! She eventually finished quilting the borders on it for me. 7 years later it was hanging in the quilt show, LOL. It is the one he uses in the winter.

I love to hand quilt though. I participated in a making blocks for the artisan's guild raffle quilts such as the one you see me holding up here. I made blocks for the guild's raffle quilts--I showed you the mistake block I made on an Amish flavored one on my "lost" blog. Tried this and that quilt wise and honed my craft. At some point the grandkids started arriving and I did a few quilts there but not many. Who could keep up if you were a hand quilter? And I wanted to try it all---still do, as a matter of fact!

DJ and I moved to Alabama in 97 and it took me two years to get hooked up with any quilters down here. I worked on a dolls and their little quilts, other craft projects and home decorating and gave up on the idea of garmet sewing at some point. Quilting really took over in late 99 when I began making quilts for WTIL and I've never stopped.

Somewhere in 2000 or 2001 I started machine quilting. Joy could not keep up quilting everybody's tops and I needed to pull my own weight. Still not fond of free motion. I have taught some quilting classes at Hancock's in the past and done some quilting for others but my main focus has been quilts for kids. It's my mission.

I found some other pictures that I will share in future posts--those dolls I made for the nieces, an Amish wall hanging that I mentioned in a comment on someones blog recently, etc. If I am going to get any work done today and an errand run, I'll post this and get busy!

quilting beginnings

This is where my quilting journey began as far as me personally quilting. I made this topsy/turvy doll for my niece/godchild Allison back in 85 or 86 or so. Actually I did pretty good getting those pieces to line up properly.

Mom had taught be to sew years before that. I remember back in the early 60's cutting off the cuffs of worn out socks and hand stitching spaghetti straps of thread onto them the cuffs to make Barbie doll dresses. Probably some little glimmer of talent was seen and I was shown how to operate the machine. LOL, much like picking out the notes to "Mary had a Little Lamb" on the piano meant years of piano lessons.

Barbie doll clothes though--how in the world did I get my fingers into those itty bitty things when I won't hardly touch a strip less than 1 1/2 inches wide now?
Mom taught me about clothing construction, how to cut out a pattern and so forth. She also taught me how to knit and crochet. I hated to hear the words "it is not right--take it out" but really those words still echo in my ear when I don't have seams that line up properly. I am not a perfectionist but I do want things to look like I at least tried to do it right. Some things get the galloping horse rule but other things have to be re-done.

Eventually I took a sewing machine away with me to school and my first apartment-- her old Kenmore in a cabinet. It was a contrary thing with tension problems. My complaints got me the response of "if you don't like it, get your own". I did eventually--a Brother cheapie but what I could afford at the time. The day I decided to make a cover for the trundle bed that doubled as a couch and a bed, I guess I would try about anything.

Well, blogger is definitely not being cooperative in posting another picture or 3 with this narrative so I'm publishing this and will try another tack.

Done and what's up next

Color me happy---I am done with that round robin applique and it did not kill me. I can post this because the person who will receive it in the end is not online and is not likely to be reading my blog. I took the last stitch in the silk ribbon embroidered bees at 5 p.m. I see the little things did not show up terribly well in this picture. Looks like a little speck of dirt in this shot, LOL but trust me, they are there! The flight paths I made with two strands of embroidery floss show up better in person as well.

So it will give me great pleasure to cross this off my April goals. I revised the April, May and June goals a couple days ago--much of April had to be moved to May because this applique thing was so time consuming.

Next up? I will be completing a Christmas quilt top that our friend and fellow Bama Belles started for one of her sons. She passed away 2 plus years ago and left about a third of the top completed with some loose blocks included. I was asked to complete it as I have the book that some of the patterns came from. Betsy had already made one for her other son and I know on the second go round she had already decided to make some changes in the design. There is a folded flower block that we did as a group, a friendship star in log cabin that her secret pal made for her and she left the cookie letter off the cookie jar on round 2 as that about drove her around the bend the first time. Good plan!

I have re-drawn it in EQ to accomodate those changes. I should also say that I have one of these started for myself---another UFO on the list. Her son called about this not long ago so it is time to get his mom's top moved along. His dad can take it on to the machine quilter in Birmingham that did her long arm work for her once I'm done.

The patterns were one of those "buy two packets each month" format from Oxmoor House--one was pieced and the other appliqued. The original quilt was designed by Jeanne Kimball. Oxmoor House is based in Birmingham and some of the featured stitchers in the book are quilters that we know from the area. One owns Quiltmaker's Workshop, one is the the long armer I mentioned, another owns Heart to Heart Quilt Shop and designed that "Nine Patch Fun" pattern I referred to in my "Whatever" block post a few days ago as a matter of fact.

Anyway, where you see a gap it is meant to be an appliqued block place holder that I didn't want to try to draw but it should be a little like this with borders. It has been a while since I looked at my notes so some review will be in order before starting it up. I am setting a goal of May 10 to get this done.

I'm taking the rest of the night off!

Don't have a clue

I don't have a clue what she was doing with this basket. She had a little wild hair thing going last night and this is how DJ caught her.

We have a vaulted ceiling in kitchen and living room with an open spaced wall between them. She hops up from the back of the couch, up to the open window space, to the top of the refrigerator and up to the top of the kitchen cabinets. Then she has the option of going even higher atop the top board of the windowed area.

DJ said he had a wonderful birthday. The weather was chamber of commerce beautiful yesterday so that made our laps around the Oxford Lake very pleasant with a nice breeze off the water. We found a tape measure for half price at Sears to replace his worn out one and walked down to where we thought the cafeteria restaurant was. The mall had converted that space into a Goody's department store but a lady walking by heard our conversation about "it was right here" and directed us to where it had basically moved--now it's buffet style. Thank you for all the birthday greetings you sent on to him. He is 16 years older than me and is actually more a contemporary of my parents -- just turned 70. I would rather than be a older man's darling than a young man's slave anyday!!

Yesterday I got all the appliqued pieces that were basted down in the previous post appliqued and still had time to stick down one of the beehives that are part of my design. This means that my work is half done. Once I determine that DJ no longer needs my help with this storm door project I can get back to work.

I appreciate the compliments you gave on the work in progress and the helpful hints that Judy and Patti passed on to me. Y'all are the best! The suggestions may not have helped with this project since I had already gotten the project started the "wrong" way on part of it. I didn't even draw this thing out to have anything to line it up on. It will not be exactly the same on both sides. It does help to know that I can sew the centers down on the remaining flowers first though. Live and learn, right? I think it is possible that I could have this finished up by tomorrow night if I keep at it diligently this afternoon and tomorrow.

I was able to pass on suggestions to Cher so she could get some circles made so it is not all bad.

Break time is over as "carpenter" man is back from the a run to the hardware store. see ya!

It's finally Friday...........

George Jones song that they play on the country music station here around 4 p.m. on Friday. Funny how that an approaching weekend is not such a big deal when you don't work outside the home.

It's Talladega race weekend and Oxford will be jumping because of the influx of people to the area but here is my little corner of the world my only concern is that my husband have a "happy day" as he passes a milestone birthday. We still have storm door work ahead of us as we basically only got as far as figuring out how the hinged section went on the door itself when it was time to quit. (talk about the blind leading the blind there!)

He has informed me that he wants to eat somewhere near the mall area (about 12 miles south of us) and we will walk around Oxford Lake rather than our section of Chief Ladiga Trail or around the adjacent town park. Meanwhile, I am still in my pj's, thinking about hopping in the shower and doing some of this applique.

Here is the view from my desk this morning. I've got the two sections of stems stitched down and this section of the applique at least basted in place. Hanne showed us her small sunflowers in her post Sunflowers galore and gave me some advice on a cutting method that expedited sewing these little jems. I scaled down an EQ pattern so the motifs would finish about 3- 3 1/2 inches. I knew that the templates needed to be turned into small tumblers in order to make them pointy from making a regular sized Dresden plate like Evelyn AKA Starfishy. I don't know how well the picture will show up I have both 8 pointed and 12 pointed sunflowers here. There is method to my madness, of course--the edges are already turned on them and no needle turning. The blue one and the beehives you don't see in this picture are freezer paper version.

I think it would be far, far easier to applique in block form than a wide border like this. I keep catching the fabric beneath in the stitches and of course, don't see it till I've done a few inches more work. The fabric keeps fraying away in the outside edge of the border too making me think I should have basted down the edge, zigzagged it or ran it through the serger or something ---like you would do with a cross stitched piece.

I was referring to Rodale's "Sensational Sets and Borders" for something else and found out that I could have (should have ?) NOT sewn the borders on first. I was supposed to start the applique, leave the ends loose and then joined them up or left them loose and then appliqued the corner flower on over it. Then join the almost finished pieces to the quilt. Too danged late to discover that when the stems were halfway stitched on, LOL. How would you more experienced folks do this?? ACK, Jeanne is one of them and she is on her way to Vegas.

The other thing I also discovered after trying it "wrong" the first way was I should sew the flower down first and THEN the center. Here I was happily buttonholing around the sunflower center and even stuffed it slightly and the flower is pulling up like a coolie hat, LOL.

I will get through this--I better as the deadline is only a week away now. Y'all may find me in a corner curled up in fetal position sobbing uncontrollably but I WILL get done or learn to enjoy the process a little more as I go along.

Forest Jane, it is the inside curve first stitched down first--that gives the longer outside edge more room to stretch.

Evelyn if you are reading this--what I was looking up in that book was how to do that zig zag set you were using for your blue blocks. I keep tilting my head trying to figure out how in the world you cut strips sewed around them. An email from my mom said that she had used half square triangles to accomplish that on one of her quilts. The book said it was quarter square triangles in a strippie set. Armed with that, I drew up the "Whatever" blocks in that set though I like Forest Jane's sashed and cornerstoned version as well. I think it looked good in a half step drop as well so we will see what I finally decide when I get around to sewing the top together.

I'll post something in response to Vicky's post about how I got started quilting soon but I need to look for a couple of pictures that should go with it. I should be looking at the needle in my hand rather than needle in a haystack looking for the pics right now. Or stop being a blabberfingers and end this post, LOL.

tagged twice!

Hanne and Serena both tagged me for "6 Weird Things About Me". I'm not going tag anyone else but encourage you to participate if you like as some of the others in the ring have done.

I would tend to think along the lines of Jeanne and her gratitudes that she lists in each of her posts. Let me explain. Maybe we would be better served to concentrate on the good things about ourselves rather than the oddities or strange personality quirks. For example: I might say that "I am a good listener" or "My friends know they can tell me something in confidence and it will go no further" or "I am a good hugger".

We, as women and peacekeepers, say "I'm sorry" even when something is not our fault or we say it in a situation where we had nothing to do with outcomes. Maybe that is to express sympathy or comfort whoever we say it to, I don't know. We suffer from enough hits to our self esteem NOT to concentrate on the good things we do or the positives in our personalities. Just a thought.

Well, enough introspection from me this early in the morning, LOL. Onto the oddities.

1. I would just as soon dip my french fries in mayo as ketchup (catsup--which is correct?)



2. I like cranberry sauce on my turkey slices rather than gravy but it has to be my own homemade whole berry stuff.



3. Physically I have a couple: my left ear is crinkled up more than the right, my left boob is slightly lower than the right but give it time and gravity the other will catch up , LOL. I have one long hair that grows up near the bicep of my left arm. Actually what is odder than all that? Anything that gives me pain or has been injured or whatever is always on my left side.



4. I cannot sleep if my hands, feet and/or nose are cold. I have socks on my feet (and sometimes on my hands) very often in the cooler months when I go to bed but they have to be clean socks, not the ones that I wore during the day that may be sweat dampened. Once my feet get warmed up though, the inverse happens. I can't sleep if my feet get too hot and I'll be sticking them out from under the covers.



5. My husband thinks this is odd--I think it is just to keep from hitting the support post of our carport or being the 4th person to cream the Weaver post office building by jumping the curb. I have to LOOK at the transmission to put the car into reverse or drive. Part of this comes from driving a stick tranmission for about 18 years and now I have been given my husband's old Taurus with an automatic. I've driven it for over a year now but he thinks it is silly for me to keep looking at the dash and not feel the clicks. The other part is I also used to check two or three times that the stick was in the right gear at a stop sign because I didn't want to kill it. Habit, in other words.



6. Oops, that was only 5 but I guess I lumped a few together in #3

Guess that's it. Still not dressed and I have a store errand if I am to get my husband's birthday cake made while he is at the golf course. He needs my help hanging a storm door this afternoon--ugh, it has to be drilled which means more work for the guy who does not want to read the directions and wants it done in two minutes time. I should look through the steps myself to keep him on track rather than provide the two extra hands he needs to physically put it in place on our back door.

I DID get some stems appliqued last night on the round robin though I had intended to take the day off from all quilting matters. I almost sent up a distress call to Patti and Jeanne though because I was not sure which side you were supposed to stitch down first--inside curve or the outside. I was talking to Cher and Pam in IM at the time and they got me straightened out so no panicked email was sent out.

Lastly, "Happy Birthday" to a dear friend--have a great day!

7th Annual Spring Sew In

The Bama Belles Quilting Club (of Calhoun County) and I just concluded two days of sewing. When we first started these years ago, Joy opened up her home to us--perfect set up! We often imported talent from out of state from the quilt lists we belonged to or other family and friends. We sewed to all hours of the night and had her neighbors wondering what was going on that late in the evening on her front porch. You could go lay down for awhile if you needed to etc. Even I stayed overnight and I live here! Her daughter-in-law and grandkids came to take care of the kitchen details though we brought food in to pass too. Joy's granddaughter who is now 18 or close to it has been sewing/quilting since age 7 or 8 would sew right along with us. But then Joy moved a good hour away back to her hometown. :-(

Now we just tack an extra day onto our regular meeting date and extend the time. Come when you want, stay as long as you want, one day or both days philosophy. I'm the one with the key to the meeting place so I'm always the first there and last to go. Monday, we had 11 of us working and yesterday, 10--about how many are normally at a meeting as someone is always out of town, has family obligations, illness, whatever.

Some of us were working on "whatever" blocks as shown in the picture below. Others were finishing up other WTIL projects that we had started already that needed moved along---putting on borders, assembling blocks etc. Theramae was "manning" the cutting table---I am thinking there were 12 quilts in all pinned, by my tally. Jane and Ginny could only come help out for a while so they assisted her.

Those "whatever" blocks:

Finn, you may pick out some of your fabric from this blocks in progress picture. Carolyn is pairing up the pre-cut squares you sent us to make four patches. Ada was on pressing and pairing detail. Beverly was sitting opposite Carolyn and working on her own pile of checkerboard. I knew Carolyn was on the right track when I said something about a little cat face showing up in one of the squares--she started looking for pieces that had a novelty, "I Spy" flavor that Forest Jane suggested.

Pam had sent on some Marcus Bros. sample squares that I had trimmed down so those are added to the mix.

Theramae tried to sew yesterday but her "new" featherweight belt was shredding! She thought it best to set it aside till the problem could be looked at more closely--the previous belt was doing the same thing so it probably was the machine, not the belt causing the problems. Judy was working on her own stack of 30's repros to make "Whatever" blocks--I know she had enough (and some extras) for a 3 x 4 set. Lovely!

I also had brought a box of 2 1/2 inch strips to share from my stash. Lois and Beverly were following the strip pieced way more like a checkerboard idea (like Brandy's "Chiclets') to arrive at the center sections. I was following the Billie Lauder "2 for 1" way since I had demo'd that for the un-initiated. I only got a couple of centers done but I had other fish to fry, LOL.

Here are some of the completed blocks after the first day.

We do have enough for the one quilt and the starts of another. Lots of four patch units to be completed. Lois was adding the border bits around the checkerboards that you see on the table yesterday. I'll be doing the assembly--that's my "job". Judy and I were talking about possibly floating the blocks a bit and using a half step drop so they staggered rather than stayed in linear rows. Or in my case, to add a small frame of the muslin around in order to square them up a bit with the variances of quarter inches.

This is a top that Aline assembled from blocks we had donated for another project. (Some of you may remember from my "old lost " blog a quilt she had made for a friend of her daughter's who had lost everything in a fire. ) Aline had more blocks than she needed for that quilt but none of us wanted our blocks back if they could be used for the donation quilts. Rather than start another project with the "whatever" block, she sashed these and assembled them in this pretty top. She also made a pieced back for it and the girls pinned it. Stashbusting!!

Later she was working on putting triangles around some string pieced blocks she had been working on at home for another top.

Linda S was working on borders on a top she had made at home. Finn, a piece of blue that you had sent for binding or whatever came in very handy as the color was perfect for the outside edges. She also started making another pile of crazy patched blocks and had another top done. I came home with 4 of her tops to quilt.

Antoinette had three lovely projects in progress when she came--a pinned Pineapple Blossom, a rail fence section set on point with setting triangles in complementary colors that she then bordered and helped pin and a streak of lightning top that we worked out a design for in progress.

Betsy was having to work on a deadline personal project--a Victorian era blouse for a 100th Anniversary for DAR. That's fine though--personal projects are allowed. We were happy to have her company. Marilyn's guest Kim was quite interested in the clothing construction aspect and was able to answer a lot of Kim's questions. Marilyn got borders on a top she had started at home but we'll pin it at the next meeting. She also needed some design help on another project.

Here is Ginny's Pioneer Braid that she started at the last meeting. That Ginny gets any sewing done at home is amazing as she has two young daughters--8 and 5, I think is right. The picture is not doing the colors justice.

I actually got some sewing done this time--since I wasn't having to cut fabric or trim down blocks. The checkerboards, I mentioned. My main objective was to get the 4 1/2 bands of Pioneer Braid done from the last meeting. I had two bands with their corresponding plain strip joined by lunch time yesterday but three more bands to complete! Pedal to the metal time. I took the last stitch at 5:30 last night and trimmed the 3 bands down since the space to do it was NOT what I would enjoy at home. Wahoo--top is still not done but it will be before the next meeting.

Antoinette and her husband came back over to take down the 5 extra tables I had drug out Monday morning. They got things back to the configuration there were in. Antoinette finished up the vacuuming in my area so I could pack up, finish putting stuff away and get the foodstuffs etc gathered up. Of course, none of it is put away here at home yet--other than the food that required refrigeration. The machine, the tote bags, etc--all in the pull cart yet or piled on the cutting table. I've got quilts piled up everywhere--some need labels, some need numbers, some need quilting and I sure wasn't ready to sort that all out last night.

Okay, I guess that's it for any of the curious--Pam, Cher, my quilt group, my mom. I am not sure where the text and the pictures are going to land when I publish this so some editing may be in order. Blogger is good to do that, as we know.