More Bible blocks

I have been working on my bible blocks. I am getting a little bored with them so I think I will move on to another UFO for a few weeks before coming back to this. I wish a project could hold my interest from start to finish! The first block is “A Wise Woman Builds Her House” and is based on Proverbs 31:28-31. We build our homes everyday, not by doing the laundry and cleaning up after everyone but by being the wife, mother, friend, partner that we are.

The second block is the story of David and Goliath. I have always loved this story, how the little guy beats the bully. It reminds me of my oldest son a few years back. He had this boy at school that threatened and bullied the other kids. My son was truly afraid of him and stayed out of his way. Well one weekend he was working for our neighbor who farms large acreage. He was told that they were going to have an additional helper that day and could he drive over and pick him up. The farmer gave him the address and he headed off to get him. Well to his surprise it was the school bully. He said he didn’t know what to do. He had been afraid of this kid forever and here he was getting into his car. He decided to just act normal and kill him with kindness. He found out that this was just a normal kid who had really low self esteem. His way around this was to bully other kids. They acted like normal teenagers all day and he drove him home at the end, which he didn’t have to do. The following week at school this boy was back to bullying, he ignored my son but kept it up with the other kids. My son on the other hand had killed his giant that weekend which was fear, fear of the school bully.

The Table

I am pretty much in a funk today and it is all because of the table. Back in the late 80’s I went to an estate sale and bought the table. It was in our first home and when we moved it to this house it fit perfectly. I have always loved my table. It is over 8 ft long and could fit a boat load of people at it. When the kids were small I got rid of the chairs and put benches beside it. It made it easier for them to sit and do schoolwork, etc. The table has seen our kids through christenings, birthday parties, holidays, friends over, graduation, and our Sunday dinners together. I have always felt that the one piece of furniture that I could never part with would be the table. Today the table is gone. My dining room is empty except for the built in bookshelves and fireplace. Along with the table went the church pew and the antique ice freezer. All this in the name of marriage. My husband is not a lover of antiques. Slowly over the years I filled the house with them. Last year he asked if he could do one room over and I agreed. He did our living room. Out went the sofa with large comfy cushions and in came the big leather sofas. Out went the quilts hanging on the walls and in came the large artwork. Out went the big braided rug and in came the modern rug. Out went the primitive pie safe that held our tv and in came the modern cabinet. I have adjusted even if it isn’t comfortable. I thought that would make him happy. But that wasn’t enough. Before I knew it he had bartered away my Hoosier cabinet that sat in the kitchen. At this point he seemed satisfied and I relaxed. That is until last week when he decided it was time to redo the dining room. After much discussion, I relented. This time the furniture would have to be something I agreed upon. We went shopping and decisions were made. He actually thought he could just toss my things out and burn them. No way! I took some pictures and he took them into an antique dealer who bought them all on the spot (for more money then I had invested in them). She came to get them yesterday and my house looks so empty. It was just a block of wood, but that block of wood carries the memories of our family for the past 18 years. I will cherish the time I spent with that table, I know that some other family will grab it up and they will start memories of there own. In the meantime I will prepare the room for our new table and know that 18 years down the road this table will have memories of its own.

Harry and Wilbur

A sad fact of farm life is that unlike how they are portrayed in the movies or books, runts are usually killed immediately. They serve no purpose to the farm and would only be a problem to deal with. On our small farm runts were always welcomed and eagerly anticipated when birthing happened. The kids loved dealing with the runts be it pigs, or kittens, etc. Harry and Wilbur (yes he was named after our favorite turkey!) came into our lives as runts. They were moved up to the chicken coop so that we could keep a closer eye on them and have a heat lamp over them. They flourished in this environment. They had daily contact with the kids and the dog and before you knew it they were both acting almost dog like. Have you ever seen the movie “The Ugly Dachshund”? This Great Dane was raised with Dachshunds and believed that he was a Dachshund. Well this is kind of what happened here. These pigs definitely did not believe that they were pigs. As they grew they had free rein of the yard. It was a common site for the neighbors to see me chasing Wilbur down the road with a broom to get him back home. Harry’s days of freedom ended when he came through the back screen door and walked right into the house. We knew they were outgrowing the chicken coop but we also knew that they couldn’t survive back out with the pigs. They were too humanized. One summer afternoon I came home from shopping to find they were not in the pen. They had rooted underneath the chicken wire. I called and called for them and they didn’t come. We were surrounded by corn that summer and a quick sweep through the fields didn’t find them. It was a big concern to us, we were worried about them but also worried that they might wonder into the road at night and actually cause harm to someone. They were gone for a whole 3 weeks. I was sewing one afternoon with the windows open and while ironing I heard rustling coming from the corn. I hollered out the window and then hightailed it outside. They came trotting out of the field. It was obvious they were thrilled to be home. They looked really healthy after all that time in the cornfield. I expect our neighbors yields were down that year! My husband decided that it was time for Harry and Wilbur to have a new life. He did some checking around and we moved them to another farm where they could have more room. They will always be remembered, I regret that we never took any pictures of them. But I do have them on film. My quilt guild came out to the house to do a segment on sewing rooms. Harry and Wilbur came up to great them so I did my opening standing next to the 2 of them. They were both real sweeties!
Dawn posted this quilt of mine on her site. It always reminds me of Harry and Wilbur when I see it. The summer after they had left, the chicken coop became overgrown with volunteer pumpkins. The kids had thrown a bunch of broken pumpkins we had grown the previous summer into the chicken coop for Harry and Wilbur to feast on. They had spread the seeds everywhere and we were greeted the following fall with a cornucopia of pumpkins.

For the love of bees!

I have a love/hate relationship with bees. I like how they look in my quilts, so that definitely makes them useful. I like how they have this whole pollinating thing going on that is useful to all of us and I like honey, in fact I love honey. So I think that is where the love thing comes in. Now comes the hate thing. A few years back I came downstairs one morning, made coffee as is my usually routine and when I went to set it down on the dining room table I seen there was a sticky substance. With further examination I found that this sticky substance not only was on the table but also on the floor, coming down the wall and going across the top of the ceiling. We had this whole Amityville thing going on. My initial reaction was to run out the door screaming, call in the media and make some instant cash off of our house of horrors. But common sense and past experiences told me this was just another round of bad luck with our old house. Husband comes home, sticks his finger in it and then licks it, “ummmm honey”. Okay so now we know we don’t have some kind of poltergeist taking over, but we definitely have a bee problem. It seems the bees had moved into the floor of our bedroom. How this happened I don’t know. It was decided that we would have the bees smoked out and then we would do the clean-up. This consisted of pulling our floor boards up and removing a whole bunch of honey combs, honey, etc. from inside the floor/ceiling. What a job, we removed buckets full. We then laid floor dry to seep up more honey and then removed it. After the job was done we re-laid our floor and went back to our less then normal life. How did these bees move in? They obviously worked very hard at what they were doing, how did I not hear them? Since this experience bees have shown up quite often in my work. They always look kind of cute, something I now know is not true. But I now have a connection to these bees. A connection to this circle of life that is happening around us (sometimes closer then we think) even when we are not thinking about it (or possibly when we are sleeping above it)!
M’s Easter baskets usually have a theme. One year it was bees! Flower seeds to plant,
a book on bees, a little dress with bees on it and a little wool purse with bees!

Love Much, Laugh Often

Every year of my daughter’s life I have made her a quilt (and then some). We call it the birthday quilt, but she never gets these on her birthday. She is a December baby so they usually come the following year. As the years have gone on the quilts have gotten bigger and she has started putting her ideas into them. When she turned 10 she threw me for a loop. She wanted a quilt that was to be hers only. She did not want one made from a pattern. It was to be created by me for her. This was a real stretch for me. I had many times came up with my own ideas for quilts, but this one had to be all about her. I also felt that one of my whimsical folk art quilts would not suit her. In her mind a quilt was about pattern. I drafted and played around and finally came up with the 9 patch heart block. After making the hearts I decided it definitely needed words. Love Much, Laugh Often suited her to a T. Her smile and her big heart are both always giving. She loves the quilt which makes me happy because it was made out of my love for her. Happy Valentines Day everyone!

The Freedom Quilt

I didn’t get much sewing done this weekend. I worked on getting a few more pinwheels done for my daughter’s quilt and that was it. Middle child had a high school basketball game and our girl’s basketball sectional was going on, so we kept busy. Basketball is big business in Indiana!
We received some not so happy news last week. Our oldest son is attending college on a baseball scholarship. He has a tear in his rotator cuff that will need surgery to repair it. So this means we will redshirt this year and add another year to the original 4 year plan. It is such a little thing to most but a big deal to him, and mom and dad are loving the scholarship so we want to see this healed!
In honor of the big V day tomorrow I am showing the red and white quilt I made for his high school graduation.

My take on rug hooking

Quilting Fitzy asked me to tell more about my rug hooking. I am definitely not an expert on rug hooking. I have only been doing it for a short time. I don’t have the expensive frame, hooks, or wool cutters that dedicated hookers have. It is not a huge investment to start rug hooking unless you want all the fancy tools that go along with it. I purchased a $5 hook to get myself started. I had trouble using it so in the end I bought a tiny crochet hook and put a rubber cover over the end and it works great for me. I would like to eventually get a frame. It would hold the rug much tighter and make the hooking process a lot easier. But I am not ready to make that investment yet so I use my round quilting hoop. If I am working on a smaller project I use a heavy embroidery hoop that I have. I cut my wool myself using my rotary cutter, mat and Omnigrid ruler. I purchase a lot of my wool at thrift shops, Goodwill, etc. I have had the best luck in buying 100% wool skirts and then taking the waistband and all seams out. I then felt the wool by washing it in hot water in my washing machine and drying it in my dryer. I have dyed it using regular fabric dyes. I usually take the easy route out. For example, if I am working in a lot of blue fabrics I will cut large pieces from each and put in a large pot on the stove and boil them, I then let them sit. The dyes bleed and run into each other. This is called marrying the fabric. I use monks cloth or linen to hook on. It is easily available online. You can draw your own pattern or purchase patterns already drawn on the cloth. There are free instructions out there on how to finish your rug. I am sure you could just google and find them. At the moment I am working on a couple of things. First, my Bullvye rug which I showed in a previous blog. I am also hooking a purse which has penny’s some with felted wool centers.

Above is a wool bag that I hooked a flower vase onto it. It was a Kindred Spirits pattern.
Hooking is a lot of fun. I just need to find the time to do more of it. It is an addiction just like quilting. I have more ideas floating around then I will ever find the time to do!

Needle Cases

I have a group of quilting friends that I travel with. We have a tendency to buy each other gifts. I swear that the few times I have missed Paducah I have received more stuff then what I would have purchased myself. One of the fun things we do is give each other roommate gifts. I have received some really great things over the years. Sometimes they are simple homemade gifts, other times it may be a bunch of fabric to your tastes, or office supplies, and always candy. The little needlecases that are pictured above make up quickly for a unique gift. I have done mine in both wool and woolfelt but you could easily use any heavy fabric and embellish them any way you like. I have some really bright wools that I think would look great with couched threads all over them. Less primitive, more artsy. I always enclose a package of needles with the case. Here are the instructions if you are interested in making your own!

Materials Needed:
5 x 12 ½” piece of wool or heavy fabric for needle case
embellishment of your choice
5 x 12 ½” piece of cotton fabric for lining
14” of cord for strap
snap or Velcro for closure

Step 1: Take the large piece of wool and fold in 2 places so that you have the body of the needle case and a flap over the top of the needle case. The flap should measure around 1 ½”. I take and iron it in place so that I have fold lines. I then place a pin on the fold lines.

Step 2: Embellish the front of the case as you desire.

Step 3: Sew the cord inside the front of the needle case. This is right above the embellishment you just stitched down. Using a zigzag stitch on your machine, stitch the cord in place on each front corner. This will be hidden when you have the flap over it.

Step 4: Take the lining piece and iron under a ¼” all the way around it. Center it on the inside of the needle case and stitch down by hand using a running stitch or whip stitch. The woolfelt is thick enough that you just have to catch it, don’t go all the way through to
the front. When finished fold your needle case in place and pin the sides.

Step 5: Using matching embroidery thread (3 strands) and starting on the lower left corner facing you, appliqué the edge down using a buttonhole stitch. Stitch to where the
body ends and the flap begins. This will be where your cord is. Then go to the top of
the right side (facing you) and stitch from the top of the body to the bottom. You then
buttonhole stitch around the flap. Add a snap or Velcro closure and your needle case is finished.

Tonya's Houses

I spent Saturday afternoon playing with fabric and making Tonya’s houses. What fun! I couldn’t stop at just one. I have 2 great pieces of fabric, one has little dogs on it, the other has cats. So I decided my houses would each have a dog or kitty at the door. I would like them to be a bit more wonky. So I am going to have to make some more. I think with a lot of practice they will get better. My 13 year old daughter loves them! She was going through my print outs of instructions for both the houses and letters and stated that we needed to buy all of Tonya’s books and patterns. That her quilts were the best! I agree! Thank you so much Tonya for sharing yourself so freely with us.

My newest mystery quilt!

I just completed this mystery quilt this week. It is a Jewel box variation. My dear friend Carol A. did the longarm quilting on it. As always she has done a fantastic job! I have already done this mystery once and don’t have a picture of it. I gifted it as a graduation present to our good friend’s daughter. Our guild is thinking of doing a scrappy mystery quilt for retreat this fall. So, I pulled out the binders that have printed out mysteries in them and started pulling out the ones that could be done with scraps. I ended up choosing this one only because I had enough background fabric on hand to go ahead and start cutting. I was on clue 3 when I realized it was familiar. I am not big on batiks, but I had purchased a large amount for a Jan Krentz class I had taken. So this was a good project to use them up.
I am happy with the end result. I don’t think you can go wrong with a scrap quilt. I wasn’t able to get the okay from the designer to use it at our retreat. So I am back to square one again and possible mystery quilt #21.

Mystery Quilts part 3

I love Cy’s street. It was a mystery that went good! Talk about a surprising conclusion. If ever there was one in my mystery quilting years this was it. I wish I had a better picture, but this is all I have. When our friends moved out of state I gifted it to their son Cy. I think if I was to ever purposely remake a mystery quilt this would be it. I would love to have this one for myself. Maybe with some saying around the outside in Tonya’s fabulous letters!

M’s age 7 quilt is a mystery I did online with a group of friends. We pulled the pattern weekly off the internet. My daughter and I picked the fabrics out for this at our local quilt store. It is very much my daughter’s colors. The whole group struggled through this quilt as the pattern was not written correctly. With each other’s help we eventually were able to muddle through it. It turned out as a great quilt for a little girl!
Of the 20 mystery quilts I have done, 11 have been based upon or included a star block. It seems to be a favored block among mystery designers.

Mystery Quilts part 2

There have been times when I hit what I like to call a dead spot in my quilting. I just don’t feel like working on anything I have started and I am not excited about starting something new. This is the best time for me to start a mystery. It gives me a challenge. A challenge to pull the correct fabrics, and the suspense of seeing where I am going with this quilt. It brings the excitement back into quilting.

The Bartered Quilt Mystery is probably the most basic mystery pattern that I have done. It is also my biggest disappointment! What was I thinking? When I pulled those fabrics? And you know what is even scarier? I hand quilted it. I learned a valuable lesson on this one. I used a busy background and it would have been much more pleasing if I had chosen a tone on tone for the background.

Frenz was a mystery gone bad that I tried to fix with a clever border. An online group (Frenz) I was on at the time did this 4 block center as a mystery. It called for 2 fabrics. I thought by using fabrics from my stash in the same color family I could get the same results. Unfortunately I lost the star design in the process. What could have turned out as another great 4 block quilt instead ended up as a big mish mash of nothingness. I did have fun piecing the letters.

The fairy quilt had a fabric miscalculation (my mistake) that I feel made this a better quilt. This mystery was in a magazine over a 3 month period of time. I bought fabrics specifically for this quilt since it was to be based on a theme fabric for the border. I went with the Flower Fairy fabrics since it was also to be my daughter’s age 9 quilt (another story for another time). I purchased all the fabrics together out of this line and didn’t realize until I went to cut it out that I had flipped the background and medium fabric requirements around. Now I no longer had a white background. But I like how the pink turned out and call it a happy mistake.