A quick catch-up

I haven't been posting as I normally do. It's really beginning to irk me that I've gotten lazy about reading and posting. Hopefully now that the kids are back in school, and there will be less babysitting, I'll be able to pick up the pace.

In the meantime, there are a few happenings that I want to share with you. One is that I visited a friend and saw her great-grandmother's Sunbonnet Sue quilt hanging in a guest bedroom. It's in pristine condition, which tells me that it was put away for special guests.  Isn't it sweet? And to have been hand quilted by her great-grandmother! She told me that it is over 100 years old. What a treasure.

The second thing is that Richard helped me to remake the design wall. Check it out. It has two parts. 

The top is a flannel fabric with one inch lines. I found it in my mom's fabrics. It's old and discolored but for the most part intact. I had to piece it together but did a pretty good job of matching the lines. 

The idea is that I'll be able to use the lines to keep my blocks straight as I put them up. I may even be able to use them to measure blocks and strips. That we'll have to wait to see.

The bottom part is a vinyl tablecloth. I've had it for a long time so the fold lines are seriously ugly. They may relax over time, not that it matters much. What does matter is that the design board is about 84" square. I need a step to reach the very top and it goes to the floor, but there are times when I need that much space. I'll keep a step-stool in the play area that Milly can sit on when she plays dolls. 

LSU Memories ~~ a finish!

A finish! Wait, a quilt finish! I've actually finished a quilt. This one is a memory quilt made of tee shirts from LSU. Purple and gold again! 

This quilt is to be a gift. A former client returned to request that I make another. I guess I couldn't resist that compliment because I happily took the job.  

I can't seem to just do the easy thing. I have to try something different every time I make a quilt. With this one, I decided to give color blocking a run. Some of the tees had designs on both sides, so those were easy to match up. Luckily, there were a few different shirts that looked good together and could make a large color block.

six gold blocks, note that I placed
 the two heavy designs side-by-side

four purple blocks from three quilts;
not all blocks are the same size

Of course, I didn't made this color block decision until after I'd already sewed columns together, so I had to rip a few seams out to make things match up. 

one block from many small designs

one block from four designs,
two pockets, and some filler area

Some of the tees had small designs that I could sew into one block. On the left block two pieces are actually pockets, which I left intact and open. Since I got two blocks this way, I was able to get 30 blocks to sew into five blocks by six blocks, making the quilt 70" x 84".


As I generally do with memory quilts, I chose to quilt each shirt or section with a different quilting motif. In the collage above you can see that the gray has an allover meander of loops within loops; the white Spring Greening Day has a tight flower motif; the purple (though it looks blue) has one of my favorites, scrolls; and the white Tabasco shirt has bamboo stalks. 

Each one either mimics a design on the shirt itself or picks up the theme of the shirt. For example, Avery Island, where Tabasco is made and bottled, has a grove of huge bamboo stalks and a large Buddha statue. Anyone who has toured the island would remember seeing the bamboo grove. Many brides have their bridals taken in the gardens, and there's a place in the grove where photo subjects can easily step into the bamboo for shots. I'm not sure that it's encouraged, however. 

And finally for the binding I chose this interesting tiger-skin cotton from my stash. The colors are blackish purple and shades of gold. I'm not sure I'm thrilled but it fits the theme of the quilt and seems to frame it well. 

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	LSU Memories
	Size:	70 x 84
	Fabrics:	Tee shirts from client
	Backing:	Natural muslin
	Binding:	Tiger-skin fabric from stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Pattern:	Puzzle design
	Quilting:	custom design based on tee-shirts
	Completed:	2018 August

Here's another LSU quilt from 2012. It seems that I've made two LSU quilts already, but I can't seem to find the other. I suppose that I've lost track of all these memory quilts. A bit ironic, don't you think?

Link Ups

(It is a quilt finish, after all!)

My Quilt Infatuation (NTT)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Life's little things

Do you have those days when it seems that you haven't accomplished much, but a look back makes a few small discoveries?

I've had weeks of those kinds of days. I really felt that I had not accomplished anything of worth lately. Then I drove Richard's mom to a wake. As we were talking, I mentioned my feelings of wasted time, and she began a list my recent doings.

She and my father-in-law belong at the top of the list. I don't do enough for them, but I do try to help. They truly enjoy when I  visit, but even just a few in a week eats into four or five hours. Let's just say I'm a good conversationalist. Plus I have experience with dementia patients. And they are good people.  

She reminded me of the little dresses and outfits I've made for Milly and the 7-8 year olds. Marley, Caki and Soph have gotten only a few pairs of shorts, but I've also altered a few uniforms for grandchildren so everyone could start the school year off.


Hmm, she reminded me that I'm the lone member on the church directory "committee." It's not a difficult job, but it takes time and only one person can put all the information and photos into the directory. And other committees are slowing me down since I have to wait for their info and photos. These two photos came along quite recently. The one on the right below is a painting of the church by a local art teacher, Mrs. V. McNutt, who has been deceased for several years. 




Then there's a quilt guild that requires about three days of each month. Not much, grant it, but still there go three days.

And in case I don't have enough going on, there are grandie duties--babysitting, taxi services, general pop-ins, plus family time, meals and the happy news of little ones on the way. 

In the studio there are some things happening: I've finished another quilt in my bipolar series and begun a fourth. I'm sewing lots of tee shirts for my friend Leta. Uh, 75ish so far and still another 50ish to go. 

Then that idea of cleaning the studio got started. What came over me? I haven't a clue, but I've made a huge mess--really huge--and pop! Nothing happening for weeks now. 

Except that Richard helped build a new design wall. The old one was a mess, dirty and ugly, so we pulled it down. He also built a cabinet with cubbies for fat quarters and small cuts. I folded for days!

We concocted this design wall using flannel and a tablecloth. I'm hoping the lines on the flannel will help me to keep blocks in relatively straight row/column lines. I make lines that slant higher and higher as I move to the right. I need level lines to follow. 

The flannel was in my mom's stash and I knew immediately what it was meant for. Now the wall is about 90" square. A good queen size. I may add numbers to the blocks on the flannel for easy measuring.

Since there are so many things happening, I have a plan to finish some of these starts: 

1. Tee-shirts go out this weekend. Boom! top of the list. 
2. My self-imposed deadline for the church directory is the 30th. (No more waiting...get the stuff to me or don't.) That book is going!
3. The alterations and repairs have been shut down for a while now that everyone is back in school. On hold till the Christmas holiday rush.
4. The guild meetings happen when they happen, and get done at the last minute. That's just how it is.
5. The cleaning mess will annoy me until that day (not too far away) when I can't stand it. At that point nothing else will happen until I finish cleaning.
6. The in-laws are flexible and I can pop in at any time. So I'll just continue to do that two or three times a week. I sometimes bring handwork to do while I sit and visit, something I used to do when I'd sit with momma. My hands like to be busy.
7. I don't know. The rest will take care of itself. I'll get a quilt finished eventually and then I'll start cranking them out again. That's just how life's little things happen here. 

How do you handle life's little things? Do you plan or fly by the seat of your pants? Or do you do both badly, like I seem to do?

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: plaids

Plaids are different. Let's look at a few.

And for a few quilts that make good use of plaid fabric. 

Join the 2,000 other followers and see over 8,000 other quilts on my Pinterest board, "heart, quilts." 

Pin It Weekly #252

I have a Silhouette Cameo machine. Now I'm not so excited because it's not my machine. It's actually Stacey's Cameo 3, but she doesn't seem to want to deal with it. 







.
It's taking space in my studio, so I've decided to use it. The problem is that I haven't the slightest idea how. Uhhm, Pinterest, please. 

And so these pins. Mostly tutorials. A few project ideas. And a couple of lettering thingies. I have to start somewhere, right?

I have a feeling that I'll go down a rabbit hole when I get started with a few of these. Oh well, one rabbit hole or another. Does it really matter? 

Where are these? All in my "Silhouette, Cameo 3" board. Along with another 20 or so pins. I was a bit discerning when pinning because, well, that rabbit hole is pretty big without digging it deeper.

The Forest: a novel by Edward Rutherfurd {book review}

It's Monday morning and I am finally realizing that I have not posted Pin It Weekly and Sunday Quilt Inspiration! I'd say that is because I just didn't have enough time, thank you doctor's appointments. 

Richard had two tests and an appointment; I had two appointments, and the dreaded look-inside-the-entire-human-digestive-system scopes. Luckily I've blocked out (or drugged out) every possible moment of our time with doctors. 

On the happy side, all of the waiting room sitting meant I got to read! I'm almost in the middle of Edward Rutherfurd's The Forest.

Here's a blurb on Rutherfurd's book:  " AS ENTERTAINING AS "SARUM" AND RUTHERFURD' S OTHER SWEEPING NOVEL OF BRITISH HISTORY, "LONDON,"" "- The Boston Globe"""" Engaging . . . A sprawling tome that combines fact with fiction and covers 900 years in the history of New Forest, a 100,000-acre woodland in southern England . . . Rutherfurd sketches the histories of six fictional families, ranging from aristocrats to peasants, who have lived in the forest for generations. . . . But the real success is in how Rutherfurd paints his picture of the wooded enclave with images of treachery and violence, as well as magic and beauty." "- The New York Post""

I think, however, that the best acclaim I can give is that his works are on my reading list, and I rarely deviate from classic fiction. Thus far I've read Russka, London, and Sarum which means I have four more works Paris, New York, Rebels of Ireland, and Princes of Ireland. I love his on-going historical sagas. 


It's rather like living through centuries of time and, even better, I am a character in each account. So as I read about a family during a particular time of New Forest, I am the main character. The chapter closes; we time-travel 100 or so years, and in just paragraphs I become a new character in a new time. The setting is still New Forest, but perhaps the location has moved to a different area of the Forest. 

Rutherfurd continues to use the details of place, however. So by looking at the map provided in the front of the book, I am able to keep my bearings and follow the overall story. Rutherford's motif of describing a character trait in a particular family and continuing to use it through the generations of that family is my favorite thematic structure. This trick is especially useful in remembering the family and its connections to other characters. 


Rutherfurd is my favorite current writer. I have no doubt that his works, with their historical accounts, elevated writing style, and interesting characters, will become part of the classic writing canon. Do pick one up and give yourself an opportunity to enjoy historical fiction that is as much history as fiction. 

These book pins can be found on my board, "bookworm, books."