One Quick Trip

We've only just returned from a quick trip to Massachusetts; this time, sadly, for a family funeral. Our dear friend, and brother-in-law, Dick, passed away on Friday, September 8th. He'd been sick for the last few months, we kept up constant communication with Mr. G's sister, Barbara, and knew of his rapidly deteriorating condition but still were not prepared for that phone call informing us that he was gone. We have so many wonderful memories of him throughout the years.

In this photo, taken twenty five years ago, they were visiting us in our home overseas. Dick is on the far left, then Barbara, me and Mr. G. Those were happy times; we enjoyed SO many together! As you can tell by the picture at the top, Augie made himself at home while we stayed with Barbara, trying to help out as we could. That quilt in the upper photo is one that I made for my mother-in-law, seventeen years ago. You can read about it here; I was a brand new blogger way back then; the quilt now resides with my sister-in-law. 💗

We were able to dash up the road a little further, to NH, and grabbed lunch with my Mom and Dad on Friday (fish chow-dah, 'nuf said), it was so good to see them! On Sunday, when we were getting ready to leave, Augie and Monty (Barbara's dog) had a spirited game of tug-of turtle as we were eating breakfast. They're the original Big Dog, Little Dog pair.  They really do miss each other now. 

I read this book while traveling and highly recommend it; such great insight into dog behavior!  Home again, we're back to work on the kitchen project, finishing up the backsplash.

This is totally random but I thought I'd include this topic since I only just tackled it. When we arrived home there was a water ring mark on our coffee table. I have no idea where it came from or how long it had been there. I looked up some remedies and found one that utilized combining mayonnaise and fireplace ashes. I mixed up a small amount, rubbed in into the offending mark with a soft cloth, and left it there for about an hour. When I rubbed it off the mark was gone completely; I used equal parts, probably about a TBSP of each. 

Life is Good!

With Love and Best Wishes

At long last I can share what I've been keeping under wraps for months! Our Pastor and his fiancée were married on Saturday, it was a glorious day filled to overflowing with love and happiness. Earlier in the year I thought it might be a great gift from the congregation to present them with a quilt full of best wishes on their wedding day. Every part of this project was top secret! The bride had shared with me her favorite colors; we were off and running. I took two friends with me to shop for fabric and using this pattern from Lella Boutique,  set to work. It took me a few weeks to get all of the blocks ready and stabilized with freezer paper, but by April they were good to go!

I made 35 blocks, (an extra row) instead of the 30 called for, as our Pastor is 6'8"! Armed with Pigma pens, I invited the congregation to come and sign a block, at their convenience, on three consecutive Saturday afternoons. We also took blocks to the shut-ins so that they could participate as well! Everyone was so excited about the idea, the insides of the hearts were filled with loving well-wishes, scripture verses, advice and signatures. 

There ended up being a few blank hearts that I filled with some personalized embroidery to commemorate their big day!

Ready for loading onto the long arm.

It was quilted with a modified Clamshell which covered nicely, mimicked the curve of a heart and didn't obscure the signatures at all. 

Before we knew it the big day had arrived! Their quilt of love and best wishes was secretly placed in the bride's dressing room last Friday afternoon. I believe they were pleased with the gift. Someone involved in the wedding moved it to the Fellowship Hall before the ceremony began, it was a great conversation piece as I noticed people huddling around the quilt display looking for their names and reading what everyone else had written. This is truly a gift from many hearts; one quilt that bears the love and best wishes of a grateful congregation, that's a LOT for a quilt to do but it does its job beautifully! As for our little church, we couldn't be happier and, along with this quilt, wish the happy couple a lifetime of love and God's blessings!

💗

"With Love and Best Wishes" ~ 68" X 92"

Life is Good!

Quilt In A Day?

I’d like an opportunity to set the record straight: “a quilt in a day” is a complete and total myth! Mr. Goodneedle and I have been watching old episodes of Chicago Med in the evenings on Netflix. There was a recent episode where a Chicago police officer died in the hospital and her organs were kept alive for transplant. Supposedly all of the action took place within one day. At the conclusion of this episode, the head emergency room nurse arranged for all available police officers to line the halls, as the officer's badge number was retired and a personalized (with machine embroidered blocks) quilt was presented to the officer's waiting husband. It was an emotional and touching scene- unless you're a quilter! "Impossible", I shouted, "this misrepresents quiltmakers everywhere!" Yes, a quilt gift such as this one is most appropriate and meaningful; but, no, it can't be done (cut out, pieced, embroidered, quilted and finished) all in one day! They may have teams for medical fact checking but they could’ve use a quiltmaker too. Just sayin’. 😉

Life is Good!

* Update: In response to the comments below I want to make sure that I'm not misunderstood. My point with this post was simply to make clear that the personalized quilt shown in the episode (not apparent in the photo above) to which I'm referring could not have been made in a single day. I'm fully aware that this is a fictional television show, I just hoped to validate all of my fellow quilters. Certainly, I'm aware that simple quilts can be made in a day and that quilt closets filled with completed quilts are always available for presenting quilts on occasions such as these; I have such a closet here at my own home. When I mentioned quilters being misrepresented I say that only to exonerate all of us who've been asked on the spur of the moment, by a well meaning non-quilter, if we could make a quilt for their sister's -brother-in-law's- aunt's birthday on Friday; (one of specific design, color and measurements) and we've then had to look them in the eye and say, sadly, "no". There's no greater gift than a quilt gift, I believe that with all my heart and quilters are among the most generous people that I know, but we're not miracle workers; even the most skilled, well-stocked professionals have their limits, time being one of the greatest of them. Thanks for reading. 

A Quilted Hug

After learning the news about my dear friend (and former neighbor) who's currently going through chemotherapy for a recent lymphoma diagnosis all I could think of is "what can I do?" She lives in Oklahoma, so not only is distance a factor in feeling helpless, but my current state of worry over infecting someone with anything, (let alone a dreaded virus) when their immune system is wiped out is another, even if I still lived next door to her! I thought about her having to endure the treatments and worried about her being warm and comfortable throughout those procedures. What could I do? I quilted up the most recently completed top that I had on hand and quickly put together a matching tote bag which I personalized for her; my thinking was that this could be her "go bag", it could stay in her car and be ready whenever she needed it. I shipped it off on Wednesday. It's all that I could think of that I could do right away, I sent it along with love and prayers; I included a note and explained to her that this was a quilted hug, directly from me to her. She received it yesterday and I heard from her immediately; she began her first chemotherapy treatment on Thursday, it lasted for eight hours and will recur every three weeks. She loved the quilt but was concerned because her skin is leaching toxins out through her pores and, if she used it, that the quilt will need to be washed constantly, in hot water. I assured her there was no problem whatsoever with that, everything had been prewashed and if the quilt wore out (is there any higher praise for a quiltmaker?) over time that I would make her another! I know that she feels the love and the prayers; thank you for praying for Janis; please, keep them coming! Through tortured hours of repeated questions running on a loop within my brain: "how could I help, what could I do", God whispered directly to my heart: "send off a quilt"~  that's exactly what I did!

💗

 Isn't this why we do what we do?

💗 

We cover those that we know, and many times those we'll never meet, 

with love and quilted hugs, warming their bodies and their souls. 

Life is Good!

Which Way Now?

Which Way Now? ~ 57" X 57"

Here's my contribution to the growing library of Quarantine Quilts available. "Which Way Now?" grew from my desire to stick to my guiding word for 2020: "Vision" and that is defined, for me, as having the clarity to use up what I have accumulated right here at home. Scraps from leftover projects are in plentiful supply, available resources weren't a problem. The design, born of half-square triangles (HSTs), reflects the changing directions in policy and procedure as the global virus spread and took hold. The resulting pinwheels that occurred represent the wonderful and unexpected benefits that have occurred as the outcome of staying at home: *family (in my case- husband/wife) time, *increased dedication to creative pursuits, *opportunities to read more, *chances to become increasingly self-reliant, *freedom to slow down and enjoy those little things that are all too often overlooked and taken for granted. This quilt top is the happy result of time spent on this idea.

Not one speck of fabric was purchased and a variety of background fabrics were used (and exhausted!) from the stash.

I bought a wool pressing mat a few months ago and used it, a LOT, on this project. It worked to keep every block and section flat and square, I love that aspect of it; however, it did make the sewing space smell like bath time at the sheep farm! I don't know if that scent dissipates over time, with more usage, but I certainly can vouch for the effectiveness of the product as a pressing aid-- I'm a huge steam-freak anyway. Time will tell.  

Here's the 12" block layout if you want to give this one a try. The HSts all finish to 3". There are two 3" background squares in each block too; watch the direction and the layout to get the secondary pinwheels to occur at the block intersections. My quilt has 16 blocks set 4 X 4. I added a 1.5" (finished) inner "stop" border and a 3"(finished) outer border incorporating my leftover HSts. Nothing bought, nothing wasted! Win-win!

Pressed and ready to be added to the "to-be-quilted" queue-- whoever has time to leave home?

Yesterday was my Dad's 92nd birthday. He's doing well, stays as busy as he can in light of the current restrictions. I am blessed to still have both of my parents and miss the fact that I can't currently travel to spend time with them. In this picture I'm guessing he must have been four or five years old, it's a treasure! 💗 My sister said "it's a wonder that he ever sat still that long"- that's certainly the truth!

Adapting to an upside down🙃 world: Easter worship services were available anywhere and everywhere online this year. What a unique experience to have the opportunity to tune in and watch any number of pastors preaching messages of hope and promise! The best message, for me, was one where the pastor equated the empty sanctuary with the empty tomb and reminded us all that the resurrection had already happened, while it was still dark-- Christ is risen, we're all risen! Alleluia!! 

"For in this hope we were saved. 

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?"  -Romans 8:24

Life is Good!

Up next: YAGOF

  

The Finer Points of Quiltmaking?

I made this quilt for my parents in 1988 to commemorate their joint retirements. They both worked for the town that I was born and raised in; my father for the highway department and my mother as a radio dispatcher for emergency calls at the communications department. I didn't know a whole lot about quilting back then; I had only completed one or two rudiemtary quilts but, undaunted by my complete lack of experience, I thought that this would be the perfect gift. I chose this album block format and decided to hand embroider significant events from their lives up until then in the block centers. I used waste canvas on top of muslin and set to work. 
I continued in this fashion on seventeen of the blocks, listing such momentous occasions as their marriage, childrens' and grandchildrens birth dates, etc.; clear through to the retirement and culminating with a photo transfer of the retirement party invitation in the bottom right block. This was completely hand quilted. Naturally, they loved it and used it for years; they didn't care that it was done by a relative quilting greenhorn, they love me and they graciously held it on to it for the last thirty one years for all that it represents. I was recently reacquainted with it when I visited a few weeks ago.

This quilt is something of a time capsule of fabrics and a reminder of my affection for unbleached muslin back then! I recall using 1/4" masking tape around each square and rectangle to mark the quilting lines and the blue wash-away marker menthod with a stencil for the sashing and setting triangles. One thing that I must not have done was prewash that pretty denim blue fabric!

The bleed-through to the back side is heartbreaking. My mother never told me, she was probably too afraid of hurting my feelings. I brought it home to give it some love and attention. I will attempt to rescue yet another bleeding quilt the same way I did this past summer (click here); I'm no stranger to dye catastrophes.  Oh, what lessons I could teach my 35-year-old self now! But the best is yet to come:

How do you like that corner treatment on the backside of the binding? That was my trademark back then, I would carefully fold the miter on the binding's front side and run a little gathering stitch around the corner as I attached it by hand to the back. I felt very clever. One day, most likely in this same time frame of the late 1980's a kind and patient quilting friend and mentor asked me to sit beside her at lunch during a quilt show judging for our guild. She took a paper napkin and quietly showed me how to fold it so that the miters would be crisp and square, front and back. She had overheard the quilt judge mention in her comments on a quilt of mine that "someone needs to show this lady how to turn a corner with her binding". From that day on I gave up my rounded-off gathering stitch! I thought I might replace the binding on this quilt when I first saw it but have decided not to now, this is a precious reminder (at least to me) of how far I have come over the years. The bleeding will be attended to however, and any necessary repairs will be promptly made. Wish me luck; this quilt makes the now 31-years-older quiltmaker in me smile as much today as the day that it was presented; even though it's rough in its construction methods the amount of love contained here remains. 🧡

Life is Good!

Coming up next: Retreat Recap

First Night

I dropped off her finished quilt while she was at preschool on Friday, her Mommy helped me to smooth it onto her bed; Lynnleigh knew that Nana was going to deliver it and that it would be waiting. My daughter-in-law related this conversation that happened that morning, Lynnleigh was planning an overnight stay with one of her friends for Friday night: 

Lynnleigh: "Oh, NO! I just remembered, I can't sleep at --------'s house tonight!" 

Mommy & Daddy: "Why not?"

Lynnleigh: "Because it's the first night with my new quilt!"

Yes, it's why we quilt. 💗

Life is Good!

It's A Wrap

"Summer Breeze", completed earlier this month, is ready for gifting. I went to the store yesterday intending to buy a gift bag for presenting the gift. I didn't like any of the available offerings and changed my mind about purchasing a gift bag at all. I came home empty handed. I looked at the quilt, neatly folded and thought: "how can I wrap you?"  Then it dawned on me-- Summer Breeze needed a pillowcase of its own!  I had scraps left over. This afternoon I stitched up the perfect, at least to my thinking, gift bag! Not only is it useful, but it matches and can be the ideal storage container when the quilt isn't in use. I believe this impromptu wrapping idea to be the most excellent complement to a quilt gift. I have a feeling this won't be my last.

It's a wrap~

Life is Good!

Best Kept Secret

"Boiler Up!"  60" X 78"

This quilt might just be the very best kept secret of all time!  I made and surprised my husband with it for Christmas. You might not realize how hard it is for me to keep a secret; the very fact that he didn't know a thing about this quilt until he tore off the wrapping paper was an enormous feat on my part. It isn't that I can't keep a secret because I want to spoil anyone's surprise... it's just so very hard for me to keep any kind of happy news bottled up inside of me; it usually finds a way of leaking out. Years ago, when I suspected that our daughter's then boyfriend was going to ask my husband for his blessing before he proposed, I made my husband promise that he wouldn't tell me... I knew I could never keep that kind of news from our daughter and I didn't want to be responsible for spilling any beans.  He promised that he wouldn't tell me. But then, after the two men had spent time together, the suspense was killing me; I begged my husband to tell me what they had talked about. My husband looked me straight in the eye and said to me: " you made me promise", that was true, I had, but when I suspected that he knew something that I didn't I was tormented by suspicion. It's just the way I am... terrible with secrets. Anyway, back to the quilt story. I had planned to make Mr. Goodneedle a Purdue quilt for a very long time. Last February when I was at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival I selected 18 fat quarters to combine with this Purdue themed fabric in all shades of black and old gold, I hid them away and began making the blocks last August while on a day-long retreat. The pattern that I selected is the 3-6-9 Quilt. I secretly set the blocks together and added the borders when Mr. Goodneedle was away from the house, I was extra careful to make sure that not even the tiniest scrap was in the trash can, I didn't want even a thread to hint at what I might be working on.

As luck would have it, out son invited Mr. Goodneedle for a weekend away in early November... perfect timing! While they were gone I loaded the quilt and easily finished all the quilting in one day.

I added the binding on day number two of their weekend away. I even had enough time to reload and repostion the quilt that I had been quilting on Snowbird when he left; he was none the wiser.

Here's the quilt and a very happy Purdue alumni on Christmas morning. It was worth all the stealth maneuvers just to hear him ask the two-part question: "how did you do this, when did you do this"?

I just smiled; to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how I was able to keep a secret like this one!

Life is Good!

A "Soft" Quilt

Gregory's Soft Quilt ~ 47" X 67"

Gregory's birthday is coming up next month, he'll be four year old. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and his immediate response was this: "I want a soft quilt, one like Mama's, but mine needs to have cowboys and trains and horses and tractors and race cars... oh, and barns too!" My daughter-in-law explained to me later that he was referring to her flannel quilt as the soft one. She received that quilt  from our Quilt Ministry when she was hospitalized with complications following Lynnleigh's birth. She went on to explain that Gregory would likely want his to be tied, not quilted, like hers; so that it would be soft and puffier. Okay, got it. But now, how to corral all those disparate prints into something that didn't look like a mish-mash? I dragged out an old pattern, the Quick Step Quilt * by Carol Britt. This top went together quickly today, I bordered it all around as a means of reining it in and I do think that it does look neat and orderly. Initially, I was really at a loss as to where to find all of these novelty prints in flannel... but wouldn't you know it, there's an online source: flannel world, and yes, they had everything Gregory's soft quilt called for! I washed and dried all the pieces before I set to cutting, each one came out of the dryer soft and fluffy; I was pleased with the quality.

Cowboys, trains, horses, tractors, race cars and barns, all together in one soft quilt; 
made-to-order for one very special little boy!

Here's the biggest surprise of all, the backing fabric is Minkee;
ramping up the soft factor to a whole new level! 

* I have used this pattern many times before, but it's been quite a few years; it is designed to be made in vertical columns, front, back and batting together. The units join together and actually quilt the piece at the same time. On this quilt, though, I was only interested in the layout for the front. I forgot all about the unusual assembly for this quilt and bought the fabric according to the yardage requirements on the pattern... plus the backing fabric. As a result I have enough of all the required flannel prints to make another, identical, quilt... just in case he loves this one to bits!

Life is Good!

A Centennial Quilt, Times TWO!

Bailey's Chapel Centennial Quilt 66" X 78"

I've been helping out with a special project for a local church over the last several months. They wanted a unique way to celebrate their centennial anniversary and settled on a quilt; well, actually, TWO identical quilts! One will hang in their sanctuary and one will be raffled off to support the church. You may recall seeing a photo on this blog of the growing pile of "signature" blocks as I embroidered them, there are 58 of them (per quilt!)! The church members sold these blocks as opportunities to have one's name immortalized on the quilt. They opted for machine embroidery in a consistent font/size so that it would look harmonious and the names would be visible from a distance. I worked from printed forms to ensure that the names/spellings/ dedications were exactly right.

There was a celebratory moment over the weekend when focus shifted from these signature blocks to the machine appliquéed banner sections! There are sections for five photo transfers; the church in every season in each of the four corners plus one larger, 12" square panel, in the center of the quilt a group snapshot of the membership gathered in front of the church at the Centennial Gathering last summer.

I've assisted by serving as the designer (thank you, EQ, you make me look smart!) and facilitator for this project. It won't be long now before workshops are scheduled and I can hand over the units to the church members for assembly. This has been a wonderful collaborative effort and I'm proud to have had a hand in seeing them achieve a dream, I am also very grateful to them for their patience with yours truly!

Life is Good!