Back in June I posted about a quilt I had quilted for a friend… Trisch. Well, on her blog, she offers some quick tips on Tuesdays. I would like to share one with you today that I think is well worth the visit to her page. If you’ve ever had trouble getting perfect circles for needle-turn applique and other hand-work, you’ve gotta check out how she does her circles on this Quick tip Tuesday page of hers. You won’t regret it!
Remember I said I’d show you how I refinished the stairs? Well, I am sending you to a bunch of different places today so that you can see what you like. First off, go here to see the pictures of how I re-did my stairs to the basement, which is also my quilting studio. One of these days I will finish the basement, but it will likely be a little bit at a time. If you are on Facebook and interested, take a look around there. I am spreading my wings a bit and becoming somewhat of a DIYer.
Last week I went to the International Quilt Festival in Houston. If you haven’t heard of it, just know that it is probably the biggest quilt show on earth. It was my first time to go to this show or to visit Houston, so it was a bit overwhelming. You can find plenty of pictures on my Flickr page.
I especially got a big kick out of the Cow Quilt Exhibit, named Moo-ston. There were lots of amusing quilts. Make sure you check out the close-up pictures of the udders and other details! Hopefully it will bring a smile to your face.
When was the last time you had a “Why?” phase. I’m having one now. Lots of weird things going on, good things, bad things, twisted things and things I don’t understand… with me asking, “Why?” I haven’t had any customer quilts since my last post. Autumn is supposed to be the busiest time of the year for a quilter, when he or she is finishing quilts for her customers to give as Christmas presents. I haven’t had any customer quilts in over a month. Why?
Well, I would like to think the universe is taking care of me. Lots of things have happened in the past month. The biggest thing that’s happened is my Mother-in-Law passed away October 1st. She was 79, and with the choices she has made for her life and her behavior, especially lately, has been sending out signals that it wouldn’t be long before she leaves us. And, she left us rather suddenly. September 22nd we took her to the hospital, because we thought she’d had a stroke. Long story short, she had a heart attack and never got to go home. We have since been trying to clear out her house. So, I am thankful for this time to be able to concentrate on this, but why? Why did she have to die? <sigh>
One of the things that happens when you lose a loved one is the reliving of memories. As we cleared out part of her house, we ran across my MIL’s recipe boxes. My husband spoke of his mother making biscuits with chocolate gravy for him and his brother when they were small. He found that recipe in the recipe box and made it for us for breakfast this past weekend.
It looked like pudding to me, and when I tasted it, I could swear it was chocolate pudding by another name. I looked up the ingredients for each and found that the pudding has eggs in it, which the gravy does not. I guess you get those on the side. 😉
To distract myself from dwelling too much on the “whys,” I’ve been working on my never ending “to do” list. I have only a few pictures to share. First off, I finally finished a charity quilt I’d had for awhile. I filled it with feathers, but they are not my best feathers – that was the day the doorbell kept ringing, which made the dog bark non-stop (someone was working on our broken porch, but they haven’t finished it yet – that was Sept. 25), and the phone rang off the wall as well. I was one jumpy quilter that day.
Full shot
Close-up of block – the quilt maker (who ever she is) did a splendid job on this. I basically just outlined the courthouse steps in the blocks and then put feathers in the plain, gold blocks
Side/border
I also made a floor cloth to put under my kitchen table. I have wooden floors in the kitchen that are sun-bleached and worn out. Since I can’t get them fixed right now, I just made a floor cloth out of a painter’s drop cloth. I painted the squares and then antiqued the cream color and finished it with polyurethane. It goes with the old world French bistro theme in my kitchen.
Speaking of floors, I’ve also been working on the stairs to my basement, but I will tell you more about that later. For now, I’m just tickled that I actually have a quilt top of my own pieced together and ready to quilt. I haven’t made a quilt for myself in about 1 1/2 years, so this feels good. I’ve got another that I am hand appliqueing, but that won’t be done for some time. And, of course, I have tons of them drawn out on paper and in my head. Lots and lots of other stuff going on here and ideas and projects on my “to do” list, but my brain is turning into mush. Why? I don’t know.
What have YOU been up to? I really do want to know! Oh, and WHY??? 😉
Now is the time to get those Christmas quilt tops to your quilter. Soon enough all quilters for hire will have a waiting list and you will risk not getting your quilt back on time if you don’t get it to them soon. I know it’s early to be thinking about Christmas, but if you have a special person in mind that you would love to gift a quilt to, now is the time to get that quilt done and get it to your quilter. You might even check to make sure he or she will be able to get to yours in time for Christmas. So, are you ready?
I have had a lot of fun the last couple of weeks working on Elaine’s quilts. Working on these quilts has helped to get me into gear for Christmas and thinking about gifts, etc. Wait ’til you see these quilts! My jaw literally dropped when I opened the package sent via USPS. I have always loved embroidery. It brings back such comforting memories of my mom. So, that was a double blessing with these quilts.
We will start with her “Merry Little Christmas” quilt. Here’s a shot of it in its entirety, and then I’ll add close-ups of different areas.
Center medallion – isn’t it cute?
top center
bottom center – she had gifts with tags on them to a couple of people, so I quilted a gift with a tag “from” her
And a few more “I Spy” quilted surprises. I usually hang customer quilts on my design wall, but it was so dark down there today, I decided to bring them upstairs and hang them in front of the mantle. There is a window on either side, so the quilting really catches the shadows across the quilts. My quilting doesn’t usually show up this well. 🙂 I may have to use this strategy again.
Elaine’s other quilt is appropriately named “Over the River and Through the Woods.” Here’s a shot of the entire quilt. Not only does Elaine do wonderful embroidery work, she also does a great job of piecing her quilts. I am so glad I ?specialize? in quilting, because my piecing leaves a lot to be desired. 
Row by row, so you can see the pictures embroidered by Elaine.
And, some close-ups of the top row…
Middle area(s)…
And bottom row…
Those 2 lines sloping down to the barn in the picture on the left are supposed to be sled tracks. Can you see the stick skier coming down the hill in the picture on the right? I had too much fun drooling doodling on these quilts! And, Elaine was a sweetheart for letting me!
Remember that fence my sister and I tore down in this post? I have been so busy this past month, I forgot to post a picture of the shelves I made from some of the scrap wood. My sister took most of the wood to use as wainscoting in her dining room. Here is what I made. The pieces were broken and warped, but I’m okay with that as long as I have something for my thread. I’d been storing my thread in a plastic drawer, where the threads would get tangled and I couldn’t see very well what all I had in there. So, now the threads are on display where I can easily spot what I have, and I see that I need more to fill those empty spaces! 😉
Here is a picture before I hung them and added thread. I whitewashed the one on the right, because I’d mixed some other wood on the sides, so the wood didn’t match. Plus, the top shelf was broken, so I added some wood glue to hold it together. The whitewashing covered it.
And, here they are with the thread. Don’t you think I need some more? 😉 😉 😉
I also built a garden bed for my husband, so he could grow his vegetables in it next year. Before I got done, though, my back went out and was out for nearly 3 weeks. It’s amazing how happy you can feel when you are not in pain! 🙂 It’s a little bigger than 4 feet by 18 feet and was made with the 4×4 posts that used to be part of our fence – we replaced it with the black chain link fence you see in this picture. I hope it lasts forever, because my back tells me it needs to last at least that long!
I am trying to get all these outside projects done before it gets too cold. We’re supposed to get our front porch mud jacked next week, so I can finally fix/replace the rotting posts and paint the outside trim work. Love me some eye candy! 😉
And, for me, normalcy is me in my studio, working on quilts.
I had said in an earlier post where I was talking about using Zipper Leaders to hold quilts onto the frame that I would also post a picture at a later date of the clips I use – the Grip-Lite Clamps. Well, here they are. They are about the size of those potato bag clips, but a little bulkier. I like them because they are easier for my old hands to open and close in order to clamp onto the fabric.
On the back of the clamp gives you a website where you can buy them. Of course, if you Google them, you will find other places that sell them, too.
Onto the quilts I’ve been working on… It was Christmas in August here. It’s a good thing Joan gave this to me now, because quilters get VERY busy the 3 months before Christmas, and if you don’t get your Christmas present quilt top to us early on, you stand the chance that it may not be done in time for Christmas. Joan wanted swirls quilted onto her quilt, and I was so happy and relieved to do that for her. Have I told you that I LOVE swirls? I have had so much fun quilting swirls into quilts. Other than the surprises that my evil twin sneaks into quilts, swirls are probably my favorite thing to quilt. This is her finished quilt and a picture of the swirls on the blocks. She chose a variegated cream, which goes well with this quilt, and the swirls do not interfere with the pictures on the blocks.
I also mixed some holly leaves and berries in the swirls but tried to keep them off the pictures themselves in order not to interfere or compete with them.
We did a separate border with the same theme; swirls with holly and berries. I played around on my drawing board for ideas for the border.
And, this is what I did, swirls with holly in the center of the back and forth swirls, similar to my bottom drawing.
And, finally, a couple of surprises to make this Joan’s personal heirloom quilt… mailbox stitched around the bird and 2013 stitched into the bottom right of a block. She’s got one more surprise, but it’s a very small one. I’ll let her wonder what it is and look for that one. I had a LOT of fun with this quilt!
This next quilt is Wilma’s. I don’t know how she does it, but I swear, she’s been piecing at least one quilt a month. She’s keeping me busy, and I am perfectly okay with that! 😉 Here’s a full shot of her quilt.
She wanted maple leaves quilted into it to match the fabric, so she chose a pantograph that had the maple leaves for the body of her quilt and piano keys for the border. The pantograph I used was Maple Breezes by MeadowLyon Designs. You can find the pattern here. Angela Meadows and Judy Lyon are a team of quilters in business together. As far as I know, Angela does the quilting, and with Angela’s input, Judy designs the pantographs. If you’ve used their pantographs or seen their pantographs, you know they have a wide variety of designs. I don’t know where Judy comes up with all her designs!
Now the problem with this (for my evil twin) was how on earth I would be able to add surprises to a pantograph… I couldn’t add a surprise to the border, because it was all piano keys; straight lines. The good thing about this particular pantograph is that there were some areas that had big swirls where I could put a surprise in its place. If you’ve ever used a pantograph, you know you have to play around with the edges anyway and especially when you are almost done with the quilt and have only 1/2 of a row for a full row of pantograph. So, you just draw lines with a dry erase marker on the plastic on top of the pantograph, so you can adapt it to fit the space you have available. Okay, so if I can do that, I can add a surprise. I just drew out a mouse on Vellum paper to be eating within all those leaves and taped it to the spot where I wanted it to go. That red dot is the laser light pointing where to follow the lines.
And, here is what the mouse looks like stitched out.
I put another mouse in the other corner, so they could be friends out foraging for food before the winter sets in. I think this one looks more like scribbles. But, hey, what do you expect? 😉
I loved how the colors of the variegated thread popped off Wilma’s quilt. It was as if this thread was made for this quilt. But then, I think Wilma’s got great color sense and her quilts “pop” anyway. Don’t you?
On a lighter note… Thought I would tell you a story about when we lived in Hartford City, Indiana. Hartford City is in Blackford County, the smallest county in Indiana. It is north of Muncie, northeast of Indianapolis, and south of Fort Wayne. It is also one county away, or 30 minutes, from Ohio’s state line. When we lived there, Blackford County had about 6,000 residents. My husband taught in Muncie, and I taught in Jay County (the county between Ohio and Blackford County).
This was a small town we lived in, and I was a big city girl before we moved there. Actually, we moved there to get away from the big city. We both had grandparents who lived on farms, so it’s not like we didn’t know about farming or small towns. It’s just that we had gotten used to being rather metropolitan, especially since we had lived all over the world. So, moving to this small town and the slower pace was good for us. My theory is that there is much to learn in any situation.
When I was a child, we would visit my grandparents’ farm often. I got to help my grandfather feed the chickens. And, I thought I’d like it, but what I found is that the chickens liked me… a lot. They would peck my legs to death, and I learned to fear going into the pen with them as well as learned not to feel so sorry for them when Grandma or Grandpa would kill one for supper.
However, as a child with a big heart, I also had trouble eating animals that I’d known were previously alive. My reasons for not eating fish or seafood of any kind stems from going fishing with my dad. He’d pull the fish out of the water, and they’d be staring at us. Then, Mom would fix them in the oven and put them on a platter on the table, looking exactly like they looked when they were pulled out of the water… still staring at us but relaxing on a platter together. So, I am not altogether heartless when it comes to animals (as you probably already know because of my dogs and cat), and that leads me to a story of one Saturday morning in Hartford City.
It wasn’t like we’d just had the 4-H fair. It was in the autumn, and the fair was held in the summer. The folks across the street had several bags of trash at the curb. I spotted a chicken digging in their trash. It wasn’t any ol’ white chicken, but a fancy looking chicken; one like you’d enter into the 4-H fair. Not that I thought it was pretty or anything, but someone else might.
As I watched this chicken, it started bobbing across the road, you know how chickens do with their heads going back and forth… Well, we lived in the “heart” of Hartford City; a block from the County Square, right next to the County Library. And, that chicken was headed straight for the library! It was almost 10:00 in the morning when the library was due to open. Now, to set you up so you can get a picture in your mind, here is a picture of the Blackford County Library. And, here is a picture of the Blackford County Library with our house in the background. You can see how we have a good view of the library from our house. This was our house, an old Victorian built in 1893. You can see more pictures of this house in another of my posts here.
So, I’m watching this chicken become the “Wal-Mart Greeter” for the library. It’s walking all over the steps and greeting people as they come and go from the library. I was thinking this chicken must belong to someone. It looks like a special kind of chicken, and whoever it belongs to might want it back. So, what do you do in a small town? Who do you call for a lost chicken? Well, I called the sheriff to see if he knew who I should call (think “Mayberry”). As I’m explaining this to the sheriff and he is saying, “uh huh… uh huh…” the chicken starts chasing people. Flash back! Memories of my childhood in the chicken pen ran through my mind and I started chuckling. Then, I saw a lady run away, dropping her books, with her arms waving in the air, and that chicken was running after her. Hmm… so it’s not just me that’s scared of chickens! They really are a threat! 😉
As I start laughing out loud while on the phone with the sheriff, I explain that the chicken is now harassing the patrons of the library. He says he’ll be right over and for me to “detain” the perpetrator. Are you kidding me??? I asked him how I was going to do that, and he said to just keep an eye on it (probably how my eyeball ended up in the shape it’s in now). So, I went out and watched it, while keeping my distance (I’m no fool… anymore). A librarian comes out with a box and tries to lure the perpetrator into the box, but the chicken continues to chase people to their cars and be a town nuisance.
Here comes the sheriff, crawling up in his patrol car. The librarian yells to him that we’re going to have chicken for supper! He looks at the chicken and says to me that it looks like one of Earl’s. Now, how on earth can you tell it’s one of EARL’s? Anyhow, once again, he wants me to “keep an eye on it” and don’t let it get away, while he goes to get Earl. Back at the ranch, we’re starting to get hungry but I can’t cook breakfast, because I’ve got to watch that damned chicken!
So, my husband goes up to McDonald’s to get breakfast while I detain the prisoner chicken. When hubby gets back home, the chicken makes a run for him and his food. Aha! My husband says the bird is probably hungry. I’m trying to remember from my childhood what chickens eat, and all I can come up with is dried corn which we don’t have. Hubby suggests giving it bird seed, and I wondered if it would be okay for a chicken. He reminded me that chickens are birds, too (that’s the extent of my farming knowledge). Here is that “chicken” eating bird seed on our back patio.
Can you tell what kind of bird rooster it is? The sheriff did eventually bring Earl back and it was, indeed, Earl’s chicken. But, Earl had to chase it around, too, in order to catch it. Only in a small town like Hartford City…
So, why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the library… <groan>
This post is going to be a little different from many of my posts. I was going to just write these thoughts and ramblings down in my journal, but I thought some of you may be dealing with this stuff, too. So, if you are not in the mood for anything philosophical today, you can stop here and I won’t be offended.
Last time I told you about Robin’s bedspread top, but what I didn’t tell you was that she wanted it cut 79″ x 81″ to fit the bed top. And, this will be for a customer of hers. So, not only did I need to worry about making sure my customer was happy with the finished product, I was now also making sure it was good for her customer (double-edged sword). I was nervous about cutting this exactly as measured. You know how one mistake can mess it all up…
So, I took out my trusty laser square to help me get the measurements exact and not skewered, with one end longer than the other or wonky with curved lines. The first thing I did was get close to the edges of where I quilted and put my 12 1/2 inch ruler in that corner (you can see the ruler in the upper right hand of the picture). Then I took my laser square and lined up the laser lines with the cuts I had made.
I proceeded to cut along the laser lines with my long ruler and rotary cutter until I got to the middle of the sides. For the top end, I used my 12 1/2″ square ruler to start the other long side and then I would use my laser square to get down those long sides. When I got to the bottom end of the “quilt” I then put my laser square at that end to join the lines and proceeded to cut from there. I measured the sides several times along the way to make sure I was meeting the exact measurements of 79″ across. And, then I moved the laser square to the other end and started to cut across the bottom in the same manner after I’d measured to be sure I had 81″ along each side.
I am not sure where I got my laser square, because I’ve had it for awhile now, but I’m pretty sure I got it at Home Depot. My husband is not handy, so he would not have one of these in his tools, But, if your significant other is handy, look in his/her toolbox for one of these before purchasing it yourself. I have found this to be a huge help to me many times. It’s definitely worth the $42.97 that Home Depot charges for it.
Oh, one more thing… After all this measuring, I took this to my client’s house (yes, I travel to my clients to make it convenient for them) and we measured this folded in half the long way. It measured 78″ folded. Talk about sweating bullets!!! Oh my gosh, I thought I was going to faint right then and there. We then unfolded it and it measured 79″. So, it just goes to show you how rolling or folding quilts in any manner, to include on a quilting machine frame, can make your quilt shrink up or appear to shrink up. :-\
In my last post I said the quilts were next, and they are. But, before I get to all the quilts my machine, Frida, has been putting out, I want to add that before I went to Amana, I put a ceiling fan up for my hubby and then put up another one after we got back. I still have one more to put up when things slow down. I am busy this week getting ready for a garage sale. I used to teach English Language Learners (grades K-12) in the public schools. When we moved back here in 2009, I was unable to get any job in education, not even a teacher’s aide. The budget cuts were so severe at that time that schools were closing and teachers were being laid off. Anyhow, I have moved on in my life and no longer need any of my teaching stuff, so I am selling it in a garage sale this weekend. I don’t remember garage sales being this much work, but I was much younger the last time we had one, which was a very long time ago. Hopefully I will make enough money from this garage sale to fix my front porch. Last summer when we had the drought, our porch sunk quite a bit, and the insurance does not cover it. I am not complaining, but quilters just do not get rich doing what they do. They do it because they love it and no other reason. Therefore, I am forced to be creative with our finances and the porch has had to wait.
So, onto what Frida, my quilting machine, has been up to, spinning her magic thread… This is Wilma’s One Block Wonder quilt. I love the way Wilma works magic with colors. This picture doesn’t do her quilt justice. The fabric is silky soft with leaves and music notes.
So, she asked me to quilt leaves in the middle portion and music notes in the green.
Can you see it? What a lot of people don’t realize is that I customize my customers’ quilts by adding personal touches. Wilma is okay with me quilting little surprises into her quilts and in the past, I have quilted bugs, birds, and butterflies into her quilts. This time I did something different and put a poem into her quilt. She never did find it – that’s the thing about quilting. People look at the colors, blocks and quilt first and tend to notice the quilting as an afterthought. So, you can sneak stuff into there. The poem goes like this.
One Block Wonder Spirals around Creating magic With fabric found Like leaves in the fall Dancing down to the ground.I also quilted a quilt for Wilma to give to Velma’s family. Velma passed away a couple of months ago, and her family donated her fabric to the quilt guild. Wilma generously made a quilt from Velma’s fabric, and I quilted it with a quick E2E (Edge to Edge) design. Wilma will be giving it to Velma’s family soon. Once again, you will see Wilma’s got good color sense, imho.
Hang in there! Only three more quilts and a coverlet to go!
Cindi very graciously took a chance on me and had me quilt 3 of her quilts. She is a newbie quilt-maker, and I think she did an absolutely fabulous job on her quilts! Of course, she is still in the stage where she notices her mistakes and points them out to others, but she will learn that others make so many more mistakes than the very few that she did, but they don’t, or won’t admit to them! I love this girl!
Here is the first quilt I quilted for Cindi.
She wanted simple straight lines quilted on it and numbers in the borders. I used her numbers as the guidelines for the numbers I put into her borders. I think if I had put different kinds of numbers, such as skinny numbers, etc. it would not have accented her work as well. Anyhow, this was the procedure I followed for the numbers. First, I copied what numbers she had on her quilt and then I looked online for numbers that matched her numbers and made them the same size. I then took a piece of vellum (actually, I think I used onion skin on this one) and traced numbers in a random order on the the paper that was the size of the border; 1 piece for each side. And, then I poked pins straight down into the paper and fabric and stitched the pencil drawn numbers. You pull the paper off when you are done with the row of numbers.
Here is the back and binding of this quilt.
The above quilt and the next one are for her grandsons, if I remember right. All three of these quilts will be at her lake house, so if you notice a theme going on here, that is why.
It was hard to stitch any surprises into this quilt with the straight lines and the numbers. Of course, after I finished them, I thought I could have put faces into the numbers.
Front, binding, and back…
And, this quilt is for Cindi. I LOVE this quilt and think she did a stupendous job on it as well as the 2 above.
Front and back… By the way, the numbers are representative of birthdays/birth months/birth years.
I think we can figure out how old Cindi is by this picture, but trust me, she DOES NOT LOOK IT!!! I thought she was younger than me! Cindi wanted straight lines for the quilting on this one, except she wanted fish quilted into the light blue border. It’s always nice to find out things about the people you quilt for, so I try to listen for bits of information so I can personalize their quilts. This was an easy one to personalize. I knew she had grandsons from the 2 earlier quilts, and I knew they were at the stage where they might like monsters, etc. So, I stitched some monster fish into the light blue border, along with a bunch of “normal” (if there is such a thing with free-hand quilting) fish. I also stitched a hook next to an open mouth of a fish, and I stitched a shark looking at a “surprised” fish that is looking back with bulging eyes.
I was so happy Cindi asked me to finish these quilts for her and hope I did a good enough job that she will ask me again (surprises and all!).
Finally, this next “quilt” is actually for an interior designer, Robin. She is making a bedspread for a customer, but she does not quilt. So, she just had me quilt this “coverlet” for the top and she will add piping, etc. All she wanted was the designs outlined/traced. Some people call that custom quilting, but I call that Edge to Edge. It was easy peasy!
I would love to see what Robin does with the rooms and the homes she decorates. Maybe one of these days??? Who knows what the future holds?…
Anyhow, as you can see Frida and I have been busy, busy this past month. I am glad for it, because I do love spending time with that machine and creating what I consider works of art and many future heirlooms.
Cowtown Quilts 