Going to Grandma's

My daughter went to Grandma’s this past weekend. When she arrived home she told me all the fun things they had done together, a few of them being, shopping for clothes and going to a tanning booth. Yes, Grandma tanned also. Wow times have changed. Going to Grandma’s house was a different adventure for me when I was growing up. Grandma and Grandpa did not drive, so every other Friday night we would make the 45 minute drive to Grandma’s and spend the whole weekend. We would not leave to come home until after dark on Sunday. Our weekends would be spent taking them to the grocery, and running any general errands for them. Other then that, we would spend all our time at Grandma’s. They had a large grape arbor, we would sit under that and play with our Barbie’s, or read a book. We spent a lot of time playing crazy 8’s and rummy. In the winter we would sit in the parlor room and play games. Evenings we children got to watch the tv while the adults played canasta. During the summer I would spend weeks at a time with Grandma. She taught me to crochet and would give me some change to walk to the ice cream shop. If we needed groceries we would walk blocks to the store pulling a little cart that would hold the grocery sacks on the trip home. She did her laundry in a ringer washer in the basement and this was in the 70’s. I can’t imagine going tanning with Grandma. Tans were received while out picking cherries for pies, or grapes to make jam. I miss her horribly but I still get that sense of excitement of spending time with Grandma every time my daughter comes home from her Grandparents.
This is a quilt I made in memory of my Grandma. All the little items attached are things she made and gave to me.

Hong Kong Escapees

I picked up the newspaper this morning and read it and then wished I hadn’t. The news does that to me sometimes. It really makes you sad for what is going on out there and then it is hard to focus on what you are working on. There are times that I have actually started a quilt from my newspaper reading madness. My Hong Kong Escapees are a perfect example. Back in the late 90’s I read an article concerning chickens in Hong Kong that had been gassed. I realized why they had to do this. It was there methods that so upset me. The chickens didn’t actually die from the gas, many escaped to wander the countryside half dead. How could they not do the job right? Those poor chickens! I became obsessed with them. Reading every article I could and cutting them out. I eventually made the chicken quilt so that I could express my anger and sadness. Nothing has so emotionally pulled at me today that I feel the need to create something, but it still has left a void in my soul that holds me back from wanting to work on other projects. Someday I hope to live that hermit life where the news of the world doesn’t reach me and I can muddle through each day with no worry. Will this actually ever happen? I doubt it! My curiosity will probably get the best of me, but it is a nice thought to hold on to!

Spring has Sprung

We have been experiencing heavy storms. This lets me know that spring is arriving here in Indiana. Other signs of arrival, kids preparing for spring break week, longer days, the furnace not running constantly! Spring is actually my least favorite season. We are very fortunate in Indiana to be able to enjoy all 4 seasons. To me spring is just an endless secession of rain. The warmer temperatures are nice, the longer days and the flowers peaking out, I enjoy all of these things. I guess I just don’t like the rain. Rain means muddy yard, muddy yard means big muddy paws tracking the mud through the house, big muddy paws means I have to mop daily! Quilting also comes to a halt in spring. Weekends are now taken up with baseball games and outdoor clean up. Winter gives me a reason not to have to go outside on the weekends. I feel I no longer have an excuse to sit home and quilt.

My quilting habits truly do change with the seasons. I tend to work more with wool in the spring and summer then fall and winter. That really doesn’t make sense. You would think it would be the opposite but it is not. Wool projects really transport easily. I can throw a little wool wall hanging, quilt block or needle bag into a baggie and take to the ballgame with me to work on. I don’t have to concentrate too much on these projects. They are finished with embroidery stitches and no edges to turn under. I can also work on them in the car when my husband is along for the trip. I have never gotten the knack of appliquéing in the car but I can embroider. Here are a couple of my small wool hangings. The one at top is entitled “Spring has Sprung”. A little like how I am feeling today. I must remember it is only March, we could still have a snowstorm!

Primitive Applique

For many years I was a piecer. The “A” word really scared me. And in all reality I was happy piecing my quilts! Then the ideas started forming and to execute these ideas I was going to have to learn to appliqué. After poor attempts at this art I decided to take a class. I learned the ins and outs of appliqué and made my daughter a nice appliqué quilt for her birthday. Not long after I took a class from Terry Clothier Thompson, I will admit that Terry has influenced me greatly in my quilting. Since this first class I have taken many from Terry and continue to learn from her. In that first class I took with her she showed us some amazing appliqué quilts. She then had us look closely at them and many were appliquéd using a running stitch. These were quilts that were over 100 years old and had held up. She challenged us to use this stitch when appliquéing. Well there was no way I was going to give this a try. I had just learned to appliqué correctly and I just knew the quilt police would be all over me if I switched to the running stitch. So I went home from this class and continued to work using my slower but beautifully executed stitches. The funny thing was that I was getting no where real fast. I had all these ideas going through my head but my fingers couldn’t keep up with them. I decided I would give Terry’s method a try and to my utter amazement I loved it. I could work really quickly and I found that as long as I kept the thread color matched to the fabric, you really couldn’t tell that I had done a running stitch. I played around with this and started doing what I call “Primitive Applique”. This consists of not marking your background fabrics with the appliqué shapes as you would normally do. I just slap my pieces onto the fabric and either glue or pin them down depending on the size of the quilt top. I mark my shapes on freezer paper, cut out and iron onto the top of the fabric and cut out a scant ¼” from the edge. I like to have a bit larger piece of fabric to tuck under, this way I know I will catch both pieces when doing the stitch and it will stay secure. I then start pushing the fabric under the freezer paper piece as I stitch, a basic needleturn method, and using the running stitch go just along the top edge of the fabric. I have been able to complete a lot of quilts using this method and many have been washed numerous times and have held up perfectly.
Guess what, the quilt police never did show up. In fact they called me a primitive artist. Go figure! Now I teach other quilters my lazy methods and get paid for it. The greatest satisfaction I have received is from being able to actually complete some projects that I would otherwise not have gotten done. I challenge you to give it a try!
The quilt above is titled “Be free”. A couple of local guilds had asked me to come teach Primitive Applique and I didn’t want them to all bring in a different pattern to work on. So I designed this to cover all the areas we would work on, curves, circles, layering and points. Of course I couldn’t leave off words!

UFO's and other stuff

I don’t usually make resolutions at the beginning of each New Year. I know that I won’t be able to follow through so why make the effort. But this year was different. I was on vacation for a couple of weeks during the Christmas season and during this time I did a little cleaning in my sewing room. What I uncovered was a whole bunch of UFO’s. I admit I tend to work on a bunch of different projects at one time. This is what keeps me motivated. The problem is that once I start a new project one of the old ones gets pushed to the side and forgotten about. I realized why going through these UFO’s that there were quite a few that I still would like to finish. Therefore, I made the resolution to complete UFO’s in the year 2006. I was really off to a good start. I finished a large one block star scrap quilt that because of poor and incorrect directions I thought I would never complete. ( I contacted the designer and she did post corrections on her website after I informed her.) I also finished a jewel box mystery quilt which I have already shown you and a pink and brown scrappy sawtooth that I still need to quilt. I was on a roll until I found my way over to Bonnie’s site and saw her plaid stars quilt. So I not only started one more UFO but two. Bonnie gave instructions on how to sew the triangles you are cutting off into ½ square triangles giving me a second quilt. I have all my little cut off triangles sewed into pinwheels and they are now sewed together. I am putting words on the border, which I will show you all later. This weekend I got my plaid stars all sewed together. This was fun! I only used fabrics from my stash. I have a large supply of red and green plaids so I went with them for the stars. I think I will use Tonya’s wonky letters and put a Christmas verse of some sort around the border. So let’s do the math. It is now March, I have completed 3 UFO’s and started 2 more. Not very good results, but at least I am ahead! I have realized that my problem seems to be the borders. I get that far and quit. I think it is because I always have great ideas for the borders but executing them is a different story. Time management is a big problem that I need to work on! But I also don’t want to make quilting a job. I want it to be fun and to keep it fun I don’t want to pencil in a time to work on it and then feel guilty if I don’t work on it in the allotted time. How do you all fit quilting into your time? So I have rambled on enough. Today I am showing one of my UFO’s. I have 4 large blocks done of this Christmas Cactus pattern. I have not sewn them together. I have no idea where I am going with the border on this and it is holding me back. I love these blocks and want to finish them. Any ideas?

It's 5 o'clock somewhere!

I have a great group of friends that I travel with. Two of our friends travel from there homes in other states to join us on these travels. Recently we all traveled to Florida for a week and stayed in the second home of one of the group. It is on the bay in St Petersburg and is gorgeous. It was a really fun week. Before hand it was decided that we should have a challenge block. The theme 5 o’clock Somewhere was decided upon. One of the girls made up a margarita glass for us to appliqué. I made up packets which included the pattern, possible quilt layout, challenge instructions, numerous margarita recipes and the history of the margarita to send to everyone. We all had a great time with this. At one of our nightly margarita happy hours we drew for the block winner. We had all put the name of our Texas friend Jan in the hat. We felt we owed her the blocks because of a trick we had played on her at Paducah last year. Of course we also had ulterior motives. Jan only works on one project at a time and likes to brag about that fact. This would mean that she would have at least 2 projects going on at one time. We just got together again a couple of weeks ago and Jan had already put the quilt blocks together and had a finished quilt. It turned out wonderful. As wonderful as the friends who helped make it!
I made the block in the center with the orange background! We are all pointing to our blocks.

This is the front our folders that I made up for all nine of us, this included our instructions and other fun things.