Why We Quilt

Meet Wade, he belongs to our small group friend, Nane; isn't he absolutely the cutest little guy?  When Nane and her husband were planning their trip to China this past spring to  adopt their son and bring Wade home, our group got busy quietly conspiring and contributing novelty fabrics toward a Picture Play quilt to present to our new little buddy. It was secretly pieced in one home and handed off for quilting; it made one more stop for binding and, before we knew it, our long awaited Sew Day  had arrived at Nane's barn! We were all about to burst with happy anticipation as the big presentation moment occurred... little did we know that our own excitement was about to be eclipsed by that of the recipient~ click here to view. The quilt has found it's forever home; with Wade, where it belongs. It's why we quilt.

Life is Good!  

Holding On...

You may think I've fallen off the face of the earth; it's been a very long time since I've been blog-present (my own or yours) but, no, I'm holding on and I shall return... soon. Last week was my own milestone birthday and coming up this week we'll launch into our family's birthday "high season", four in the next three days! We celebrated the combined birthdays with a family dinner at our home last evening. It took a little effort but we did manage to corral all the little ones into the same spot for one brief, shining moment... the highlight of my day!

Life is Good!

 

Hairdos (And Dont's) Through The Years...

I was talking with a good friend on Saturday and she mentioned to me that she has had the same hairdo for the last forty years. She's the second person to tell me that in as many weeks; I cannot relate. The last forty years have seen many different styles atop my own head; some were good, some that I recall were a royal pain to maintain, and some were from the "what was I thinking?" era. Recently I have been reacquainted with all of them through my self-imposed "this is your life" photo-organization journey. I thought it appropriate to post this one today, on the 26th anniversary of my 34th birthday... I would love to gather the children and recreate a modern version of this snapshot; we'll skip re-doing that hairdo though... it was one from that "pain to maintain" category!

I thought, since we were on the subject of 1987, you'd enjoy these two photos (another view of that hairstyle!) as well. Back then, I volunteered to spend time working with a 5th grade class at the local elementary school; they wanted to construct a quilt depicting lifestyle changes over the two hundred year span of the United States Constitution. The students drew, and hand appliqued, each block themselves! I recall working with them over a few months' time and then guiding them through the hand quilting and finishing process. Here they are, with their teacher and the finished quilt. I am amazed to see these photos once again and still, after all these years, marvel over what an incredible job these ten and eleven-year-olds did on this project. I remember these days quite well... looking that young, however~ not so much!

Life is Good!

Potholes and Pitfalls

I am treading carefully in the studio these days, deftly stepping to avoid tripping as floorboards are replaced after moving a floor plug to a better location, directly under my sewing tables! You're probably thinking "why wasn't it there to begin with?" Well, it was... until Sundance moved in five years ago and the furniture placement was changed to accomodate the quilting machine and a twelve foot table! Ever since that time I've been making do with extension cords running here, there and everywhere; we didn't want to change anything too hastily in case I wasn't happy with the machines/tables where they were. Okay, five and half years later is suffiicent time to realize that this arrangement works just fine! I'm moving judiciously, in that same manner, around the dining room table as the photo documentation project drags on... potholes and pitfalls lurk at every turn in there too. I could write a manual "what to avoid" when embarking on such a task; it's almost impossible to avoid tripping up by either (a.) heading down memory lane or (b.) overthinking what to keep and what to pitch or (c.) spending entirely too much time trying to identify complete randomness (in many categories, i.e: quilt pictures, other people's children from thirty years ago, cars(!?!)... that group is never-ending). I'm finally ready to leap high over these stumbling blocks and be done with it all; and not look back! It was nice having Mr. Goodneedle underfoot (literally) yesterday while Sundance and I put the last quilting stitches in Sturbridge Strawberries... he and I were, literally, working only inches apart; I had to keep a watchful eye behind myself every time I stepped back!  This floor plug move will be nice, no more extension cords running evrywhere over the floor; this has been on the top of my home-improvement list for a long time; I am so thankful my list and his finally coalesced!

"Sturbridge Strawberries" ~ 56" X 68"

Quilt model/ surface embellishment ~ approx. 11 lbs.

Life is Good!

Morning...

...and this, my friends, is precisely why I rise before the sun...

Life is Good!

Fire Starters

 This post is a sort of a follow-up to the sawmill, logging post from yesterday. What to do with all of those leftover chunks, hunks, and slabs of wood that didn't make it into the board pile? Well, they're destined for the bonfire of course! I had seen a tutorial for making firestarters a while ago and I started making and collecting them, originally for my son who enjoys camping vacations, but he now has a portable propane campfire. Oh well, I kept on making them anyway... today my husband put a few to the test. I keep a clear plastic glass on top of the dryer with an empty toilet tissue tube standing in it (this containment cuts down on dust) into which I stuff all the dryer lint as it accumulates. You can fit a LOT of dryer lint in one tube, I pack it in firmly.

When the tube is full roll it up in an empty cereal or cracker box liner; 
twist the ends in opposite directions.

My husband sets the first one into action, it took a minute to catch but then it did a slow burn;
he had plenty of paper kindling too, which didn't hurt to get the fire roaring. I am thinking that the cereal and cracker box liners of old (wax paper) would be much better then this wierd plastic material used now, but it does burn. (Perhaps dipping this entire unit into a parrafin bath would improve the flammability level... however, that step's way too messy for me; I'll leave them as is.)

I'm not sure how much my homemade firestarters really helped, but I'll probably keep making and setting them aside, until someone tells me to stop; they're items that I would throw away anyway, and they look really cute all lined up in a zip-loc bag!   The bonfire has begun...

There's plenty of fuel, too, to keep it stoked... pass the marshmallows.

Life is Good!

Under The Weather...

Forced "down time" today is leaving me with a depleted energy level but ample opportunity to skip around and visit blogs that I've been missing. I have no idea what hit me but it was swift and complete. What started off with a raging sore throat and cold-like symptoms quickly escalated into something akin to food poisoning with a case of severe chills thrown in for good measure! All of this occurred in a 24 hour time period and I am happy to find myself greatly improved today, just wrung out. Bummer.

Lots of fun things have been going on around here. Remember that storm that wiped out trees and tore up the woods surrounding our home back in June? Mr. Goodneedle finally got the big  logs separated out from all the debris and hired a man with a portable sawmill to come out last Saturday and cut them up into boards. This is a new twist on making lemonade from the lemons we were dealt. We got approximately 1,600 board feet of oak and cherry; that's a whole LOT of lemonade!

This photo gives some good perspective to the size of the logs to be cut as they lie-in-wait, just outside the garage door.

Hannes, helping.

These two photos, above, capture the set-up and the workings of the sawmill. It was fast and efficient!

Once cut, the boards are stacked where they will remain in our garage while they dry. Our basement smells like a lumber yard; no complaints, I do enjoy the fragrance of fresh-cut wood... good thing!

Speaking of sawmills... I've been watching back-to-back episodes of "The Waltons" on the Hallmark Channel when I'm home in the afternoons sewing or quilting; I was really surprised to learn that on the later episodes John Boy was portrayed by a different actor than Richard Thomas... did you know that? Did you also know that in those same later episodes Olivia's character went to a sanitaruim in Arizona to receive treatment for tuberculosis? Her cousin, Rose (played by Peggy Rea), moved into the farmhouse to help John care for the family. I don't know where I was in the early 1980's when those major TV family changes happened... oh, I suppose I was too busy caring for my own family back then to even notice! 

Our daughter-in-law had a birthday on Sunday; we took her, and the family, to Firehouse Subs for a birthday lunch after church. On the way out to the car Gregory spotted this relic and, of course, asked the normal Gregory questions: "what's that?"..."how works?"... which begs an even greater question: "how many of these are still in existence?" He'll be able to count on one hand the number of these he sees in his lifetime!

Life is Good!

 

It's All Good...

Sundance and I spent the entire day together on Saturday.  I chose to quilt arcs (which  line up nicely to form "kissing" circles) all over the surface of "Sturbridge Strawberries" using a pretty "toast" colored thread; except for in the appliqué areas where I have free-motioned some little pointy-swirls, and the feathered outer borders. This photo can be enlarged by clicking it for more detail. Interestingly enough I ran across this picture, below, just the other day from a guild meeting back in June of 1997. I did the  program that evening on Round Robin quilts and just happened to bring this top then for show and tell (even though it is NOT a Round Robin quilt). It's hard to believe that this one's been shelved, and waiting, (with the binding all prepared!?!) for the last sixteen years; but that's the truth!

One thing I have learned is that the longer one waits for something the more one appreciates it when it's a reality; for, after all, anything worth having is worth waiting for (which makes the worth of this one astronomical!). Stay tuned for the finish and the hanging, I'm in the homestretch and on a roll now...

and it's all good...

Life is Good!

Was It Something I Said?

My mother called to tell me a joke the other night; it was about a nun who took a vow of silence at the convent she joined, she was promised that she could speak two words after five years. When five years had passed she was called into the office and asked if she had two words to commincate : "hard bed" was her response. Upon hearing that she was assured that her comfort would be taken into account and attended to; she was dismissed for five more years. Five more years went by and, again, she was called into the office; this time "cold food" were her two words. She was sent away with more reassurance that her meals would be more to her liking. Ultimately, five more years passed and the office scenario was replayed; this time "I quit" were the nun's two words. "Well, I think that would be best" came the response from her superior, "all you've done since you arrived here is complain!" I liked the joke, it has stayed with me yesterday. I've thought about this and at the risk of over-analyzing what was meant to be a cute joke I began to think about how what we say, regardless of how often we say it, becomes a definition of who we are. If we use many, or just a few, our words (like it or not) become reflections of our personalities. I, for one, am going to pay closer attention to the words I use today and think, deliberately, of how they might be heard and interpreted!

Life is Good!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

There's a certain urgency about those last, waning days of summer. As Labor Day approached and that fall calendar loomed there seemed to be a much more deliberate effort, on my part, to make every last summer minute count for something! Maybe it's a throw-back to those inevitable "how I spent my summer vacation" assignments of days gone by, or maybe it's that recognized realization that at this time of year, when school begins again, there's that "starting over" opportunity.

Whatever it is, there's been a surge of activity around here resulting in projects seeing new beginnings. One such project is really three in one. The strip pieced quilt blocks (above) and the tumbler pieces (right) are combining to become Chicken Soup quilts #1 and #2 for gift giving at Christmas. This summer I amassed a very healthy low volume fabric collection. I ended up with enough fat quarters to begin construction of not only these two (in the 60" X 80" size range) but also had sufficient leftover scraps for three hundred 60 degree diamonds to stich up this, a keeper quilt too! By the way: cutting all those strips and diamonds took days to for me accomplish, while cutting the 400+  tumbler shapes took about one hour with the Accquilt cutter! Take a look at that little hen piece and the words "she quietly chuckled" printed below, my feelings exactly about using the ever-efficient die cutter! Directions for that Sunday Morning strip-pieced quilt mention acheiving a random look by throwing all the strips into a brown paper bag, and mixing them up well, and simply grabbing them out one at a time for stitching together in that fashion. Well, I'm here to tell you, that random isn't easy for this quilter! I do love the results but I find myself second guessing every single selection!

The dining room table continues to hold the photo archives, what a major project this has become! Each photo triggers a memory and it has taken much fortitude to avoid repeated trips down memory lane and stick to the path of organization. The piles grow taller as the identification and documentation, year by year, goes on. I recently saw some first day of school photos on Facebook with kiddos cleverly holding large ordinal numbers displaying their school grade. Oh, how I wish I had done something similar when our children were younger! I have many "1st day" photographs that are undated and struggle to differentiate third grade from fourth or even fifth! Sigh. The urgency behind completing this project has become the fact that I can't clean any of this up until the task is done; setting this up front and center in our home was the best idea, there's no avoiding this responsibility anymore once it's spread out before me!

That looming fall calendar that I mentioned above signals the return of Quilt Ministry on Thursday mornings at church. The stewardship committee has requested tri-fold information boards from each standing committee and ministry to be on display as part of this years Stewardship Fair for their Every Member Response campaign. I began on Saturday and got this much done, (yes, this has been a long-standing summer assignment!) Hannes would like very much to be a part of our display, I believe he'd be a great asset in recruiting new members; today I will add selected photos, quotes, and the remaining information to the board to round out the Quilt Ministry's presence and plan to get it all set up down there tomorrow. A trip to the local Scrapbooking mecca for cardstock is on today's agenda; it's difficult shopping there while wearing blinders as I am always bumping into things, but that's a necessity! I avoid that place like the plague only because it represents yet one more path that I don't ever need to venture down; but, oh, how tempting that diversionary route appears to be! And so...one more summer is, officially, in the books; and what a wonderful summer it's been. 

How did you spend yours?

Life is Good!

Editing As A Way Of Life

I love to edit my photos; rarely do I ever post a photo on this blog that hasn't been retouched in some way, making for a tidied-up version of the original snapshot. My favorite Picasa editing tools are "boost" (brightening), "focal zoom" (highlighting the subject) and "vignette" (isolating the central portion of the image by obscuring the periphary). Of course the basic editing tools are almost always used too: "crop" to center the image and "I'm feeling lucky" to enable the best color and contrast. Yesterday's Gospel reading was from the book of Luke, the 14th chapter; the parable where Jesus explains that one should never seek praise and recognition through a "seat of honor" at the table, but rather sit right away at a lower place and avoid being asked then to move down. We are reminded here that through humbling ourselves we are truly exalted. While we may think it best to appear "tidied-up" to the world around us...better, nicer, kinder, more generous; in actuality, an edited version of our true selves, we can never deceive our God. We can "boost", "zoom", "vignette", "crop" and "feel just as lucky" as we choose through our words and actions but, if they're not authentic, we are no more genuine than the perched bird in the PicMonkeyed photo above. God knows us just as we are, the unedited version of our sinful warts-and-all selves, and loves us anyway. The next time I use editing tools on my photos I am going to think about another tool available to me: "undo". When I  make an unwanted change I can immediately erase it with "undo"; likewise, God grants little old me unlimited "undos" for every single one of my sins through His loving grace and forgiveness; what a humbling and welcome reassurance that is!

Life is Good!