Suffering the DT's

 As in a Dire Tickle to play with fabric! 

Other than doing one paper piecing block for a Guild project, I haven't had the opportunity to sew for almost a week....maybe longer! I am preparing for our big trip, so I have been busy collecting things and finding a niche for everything in the RV. I've packed a Singer Featherweight and threw in a bit of fabric for a wall hanging...but wanted to have something more on hand...just in case I end up with time on my hands. I wanted to play with fabric now! 

The owner of Bold Notions Quilt shop sells APQS long arms and has a delicious stash of wide backings and quilting threads. She also has some collections of quilting cotton. She also posts frequent videos of quilts she is making or quilting as inspiration!

A few weeks ago Lauren posted a reel on Facebook making this happy scrappy quilt. I saved it as I have a lot of scraps! I decided that I'd try making a few of the blocks today, and if I liked them, I could cut the fabric to take with me on our trip. 

The blocks are easy to make and don't require any special rulers. That will be nice on the road when my cutting space will be limited to a 12" square mat.

After a few hours of cutting...tada! I'm ready for the road!

Does my stash look much smaller?

You'll have to take my word...it doesn't! I used a some 2 1/2" squares I had previously cut, and some 2 1/2" strips from earlier projects, as well as wider strips I have cut and stashed away elsewhere. I did pull out some of the pieces you see behind me, and I cut a strip or two off of them...but most all went back on the shelves! 

I feel better now. I am prepared! And, if I don't get to it on the trip, I have an easy project to tackle when I return! 

Book Club - The Frozen River

 Today was our book club. I was the moderator. The book that had been selected was The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon. 

I am in awe of how the author constructed a complex historical fiction novel with many webs around life in Maine in the 18th century, midwifery, women's roles, a murder! The novel uses the diary of Martha Ballard, a midwife who chronicled her daily doings from 1784-1812 as the basis for much of her story. 

What intrigued me the most was that Martha's diary survived. It was transcribed by Robert & Cynthia McCausland, beginning in 1982. The process took over 10 years, and is comprised of 1400 pages.

Images of each page of the diary, and the transcription may be explored at https://dohistory.org.  

Ariel Lawhon includes relevant excerpts from the diary, but has conventionalized spelling and capitalization to make the entries easier to read.

I found a fascinating interview with Ariel Lawhon:

Another book about Martha Ballard was written by Laurel Thatcher. She wrote A Midwife’s Tale, The Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diary 1785-1812. This is not a work of fiction, but Laurel shares pertinent parts of the diary and then discusses different aspects of life in Maine including health issues, social networks, economic roles and women's work. I found it rather challenging to read, but it considered to be a masterpiece. 

PBS aired a
film in their American Experience series about A Midwife's Tale. I found it to be excellent, and a good tie in to 

with The Frozen River.  

This is all probably more information than you want to know...but since I found these resources for the book club, I figured I might as well share them again! 

After the book club I worked on making a bag for our Dialysis patient friend. The quilt I made will fit in it, and he can carry a book, his phone, a pen, etc. I will pick up the straps tomorrow. There is a shop nearby that specializes in bag making. They have great nylon straps that are more durable than anything I can make out of fabric. 

We had rain! Four days in a row! This morning it poured-almost 2"! Even in our sandy area we had some standing water on the roads- for a short period of time. We had more rain late this afternoon. Maybe we are finally in the rainy season...aka the monsoon season! 

Is hamburger $8-$9.99 a pound in your area? No wonder hamburgers at some restaurants are $22!!! For dinner we had a meatloaf made with 50/50 beef and pork. It's the way my mom used to make meatloaf...and it was great. 

Rainbow of Colors

Who doesn't like a new box of crayons? 

Those prefect, shiny points;

That distinct, memorable crayon smell!

A side note: schools, teachers and kids often need crayons. Sometimes as the new school year approaches, there are great prices on crayons. If you have the opportunity, adopt a class or school and bring in some school supplies that can be shared with needful students. 

One thing that may be even better than a new box of crayons....

A new, HUGE, box of colored pencils!

I have a handful of Prismacolor pencils that I acquired many years ago. Many of my pencils have been reduced to nubs. My palette of colors is limited. I decided that I would expand my collection and fill in holes in different hues by purchasing individual colors. I stopped by the art section of Hobby Lobby and found that Prsimacolor pencils were $1.25 each! Seriously? While I was in California I thought I'd swing by the Dick Blick art store...it's a bit of a haul on my bike so I looked online and found out that individual pencils were $1.23 each, not a price I was willing to expend that much energy on! I thought that I'd look at sets. The price per pencil in sets was better....the 150 color set was $135....that's only $ .90 per pencil. I decided it was a good price....but, maybe not now.  Then, because I had put it in my cart at Dick Blick, online, I received a notice that there had been a price drop....now the 150 colored pencil set was only $120....or $.80 per pencil! 

SOLD!

My pencils arrived today. I can't wait to dig in and play with color...

I have lots of choices! 

This morning I began quilting the blanket for Tim. I'm getting better at communicating with the quilting computer...but on the last two passes we had some disagreements. The computer decided that the quilt was shorter than what I tried to convey to it. I tried to change it up for the last pass, and again, we had a disagreement about the location of the bottom of the quilt. Certainly it is all my fault. I'm failing to communicate with the computer. No problem. I finished the last little bit guiding the machine by hand. I have some clean-up to complete, but that part of the quilt is finished. 

After lunch I played Hand and Foot with some of my new friends. We had a lot of fun, but alas, I did not win! 

We had more rain this morning. The thunder rattled things in the house. Several of my friends commented that they were tired as they couldn't sleep with all of that noise going on. In the last two days we have had over 2.25 inches! 

Sunday Doings

 I didn't go outside to work in the garden today...at all! I stayed inside as I wanted to make a quilted 'blanket' for a friend of one of the Mister's classmate. Her husband has to have dialysis twice a week. She commented about how cold it is in the center when he is held prisoner by the machine. So....the Mister and I went to the local quilt shop to pick out some manly fabric. 

The gal at the shop suggested a panel. That wasn't really what I had in mind, but we looked and found something that the Mister liked, and I figured I could work into a quilted blanket. Last night I cut the images out of the panel and this morning I was ready to get to work:

8:00 AM Sorted the blocks and cut pieces for sashing

Apologies about the quality of the pictures...the sun played havoc with my camera.

9:00 AM  Sashing sewn on most of the squares

10:00 AM Panel borders, with sashing are laid out to help me decide whether to put sashing between the boarder and the central green blanket. Vickie tests it out. She liked how she blended in with the green!

11:00 AM Sewing the borders onto the green batik fabric

12:00 PM Blanket loaded on long arm. It has a brown 'Minkie' backing that will be soft and cuddly.

Lunch for me was the same as breakfast....pineapple jello. I have one of 'those' tests tomorrow, requiring a clear liquid diet and later, prep to clean out my system. Oh, joy.

We went to the local theater production of Mary Poppins.  The cast and crew, 50 folks were involved, did an excellent job. 

Upon our return I prepared my evening cocktail of Magnesium Citrate - ick! I will be happy tomorrow when this is all behind me 🤣...and when I can eat real food! 

Evolution of a Quilt

I have an Accuquilt "Go!" cutter. It's a fabric die cut machine, which advertises that using their system allows the quilter to cut fabric pieces for a quilt faster and with more precision, yielding better end results.   I've used it a bit, but in my mind, not enough. Just over 2 years ago I decided to make a quilt that came in a book accompanying the machine. The quilt was called “My Road to Oklahoma”. It was designed by Eleanor Burns. Eleanor is a master quilter and was the TV host of a show called "Quilt in a Day". This is an image I found on the Internet showing this particular quilt. 

I used the appropriate dies to cut some of the fabric and began piecing pieces together. I laid out some blocks on my design wall, experimenting with the colors and shapes I had cut. As I progressed, I decided I didn't really care for the quilt layout. 

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However, some of the blocks on the diagonal lines reminded me of a pattern that is sometimes called the Chandelier Quilt. 

Picture from the Internet

 I had selected bright fabric so why not let it shine as a chandelier! 

I laid out what I had cut, using a 4-patch block instead of the larger square in the quilt design and stared at it a bit. I also had made up some of the 4-patch star blocks (sometimes called a scrappy star or a sawtooth star). The chandelier quilt didn't have that block in it...but if it is a chandelier...it could have some brighter lights! 

I placed some of the stars randomly among the 'string of lights' in the chandelier. 

All of this was happening around this time that I visited the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. While enjoying the quilts on display I struck up a conversation with two other women. One of them turned out to be Marianne Hatton who wrote a book called “Simply Dynamic Sampler Quilts”. Although the book is out of print, I was able to locate one a few weeks later and loved it. Marianne describes the process for making a sampler quilt with different types of blocks, ie showcasing a 'sample' of quilt blocks. Unlike most sampler quilts, Marianne suggested varying the size of the blocks to add interest to the quilt. 

I decided to apply that idea and created a large star within a star within a star, and added that to a 'string of lights' in the quilt. The quilt is now on my long arm, ready to be quilted. 

I find it interesting to see how this quilt changed from my first idea to the final product. It really was an evolutionary process....but was it the quilt that evolved, or the quilter, herself?!

Changing the Rules Mid-Game

Today was the CCCQ monthly meeting, whereat I provide an update on the annual Quilt Challenge. I've posted several times about the inception of this challenge and my progress:

January:  Stepping up to the plate

February: Introducing the Challenge to the Guild

March:  My "Big Book" about the challenge: Milt

Sew...what should I do next? I thunk, and I thunk, and I thunk a bit more.

Then, I discovered/realized that we would be meeting on April Fool's Day. I could have some fun with that!

When it was my turn to speak I said something like this:  

"Ladies,  I have received some feedback from others. Some folks are saying my "Challenge" isn't much of a challenge. Heck, a person could take a quilt they made 10 years ago that had tan and green in it and declare that it was a quilt representing New Mexico because it has tan for the desert sand and green for the cacti." 

I went on to say:

"I received some suggestions that I provide a fat quarter of fabric (for the uninitiated a fat quarter is approximately 22" X 18" - it's a 1/2 yard piece cut in half on the fold) so I hunted for something that would work fairly easily with everyone's projects. Something that's....oh, how do you say it?..."

"Oh, yeah. Something that's kinda "neutral". Something that would go with any color. Oh, and by the way, since I had to use some of my budget to buy the fabric,  the prize money will be changed a bit. Instead of $75 for first place, that will now be $45. 2nd Place, instead of $50 will be $30 and third place will be $15 instead of $25."

Maybe they weren't too happy about the prize money changes!

Then I rummaged in my bag and brought out the length of fabric that I brought with me, which would be rather ugly in most quilts. It's a Route 66 themed material that I have on hand to make some journal covers for a Route 66 trip we are taking later this year.  As I held it up I explained,

"It has every color in the rainbow; red, green, blue...and oh yeah, it has some highway signs and sections of maps. It's perfect!" I said as I walked around the room showing the fabric. 

There were only a few ladies who were laughing.

Everyone else was less than impressed!

I explained that I wasn't able to get enough of that one cut of fabric, but found another with similar colors that would work just as well, and participants could pick which fat quarter they preferred. 

That's when I rummaged in my bag and pulled out the next piece:

Our guild president is in the background, laughing,

As were most of the ladies in the room by this time!

(Thanks to my bff for suggesting the sign!)

It was all fun. No harm. No foul. 

Now my only problem is...what can I do next month to inspire, instill enthusiasm, keep folks interested in participating? If you have any ideas, I am open to suggestions! 

Life Resumes its Usual Path

 The Mister is recovering and getting back into some of his projects, as he feels the stamina to pursue. them. 

I'm back in my sewing room, juggling projects. I'm working on Lupine & Laughter, the mystery quilt I started in November. I'm using pieces I've made for the border as 'Leaders and Enders' as I sew the next step on my paper piecing project...and while I'm at it, the long arm is stitching away on a quilt for my BFF. Oh...and I'm listening to a "Meet the Candidates" meeting for folks on the ballot for joining our board of property owners in the community, and occasionally taking notes. 

Yesterday I went to lunch with my Piecemakers group.

 We also visited Sew Yours, a shop in Dunellon, FL that focuses on purse making, having all kinds of vinyl, canvas, fabric, straps, fasteners, etc. While I was there some fabric jumped into my cart! 

The shop is going to focus on purse making and the owner's own fabric designs. Almost all of their other fabrics are 40% off. These fabrics literally jumped in my cart. I know not how!  I did apologize to some of them and put them back on the shelf. But, then a few more hopped in to take their places! What's a lady to do in this case?

They came home with me. I have been cogitating on just what I might do with them in the future, and the kernel of an idea is beginning to form! 

Several years ago I visited the New England Quilt Museum  in Lowell, MA with my BFF. While perusing the quilts, and discussing what we liked about this one, or that one, a woman and her friend happened by. We chatted for a bit. The woman was Marianne Hatton, the author of "Simply Dynamic Sampler Quilts". Of course, I had to buy the book - it's no longer in print, as it was published in 2010, so that was a bit of a challenge. But I was instantly enamored with the content. Marianne's view of contemporary sampler quilts puts a new spin on a time honored practice of learning about quilting by piecing together block after block using traditional patterns. Marianne suggests a more unusual approach where the quilt not only demonstrates different historical blocks, but showcases different techniques, and different sizes, perhaps with an overarching theme, in a balanced quilt unified through color. Here's an image from her book that illustrates my description. 

Sew, now, it's time to stare at the fabric and think. And think some more. And see if the fabric evokes a theme, or if I come up with some other idea!

And, besides that, it is time to focus on dinner! 

Milt

Yesterday was Quilt Guild day. I got to solicit, appeal, whine, wheedle and cajole members to participate in the annual CHALLENGE! I wanted to make a "Big Book" and read it to the ladies as if they were in Kindergarten (because that's how some of them behaved last month!) But I lacked the resources to craft such a thing - large paper (a trip to Hobby Lobby would have solved that) and the art skills (no amount of practice would've helped me out there!) 

Sew.....what's a gal to do? This self-proclaimed PowerPoint Queen of yesteryear stepped up to the plate and opened Apple's equivalent, Keynote, and turned my Big Book idea into a slide show. 

This was the beginning of my Keynote presentation:

Here's the text of the "book":

I am Milt, I am built!

I am Milt and I like to quilt.   

I like to quilt while wearing a kilt,

And I buy fabric and have no guilt.

 

I can make quilts here and there,

I can make them in my underwear!

I can sew blocks as singles, or pairs,

But how ‘bout you? 

Do you dare?

Step up to the plate, take this challenge to heart.

Show us your talent, show us your art. 

Draw a state’s name from out of the hat,

And make some sort of quilt about that.

Showcase that particular state,

And make a quilt that can’t equate.

A quilt like no-one else will sew,

A quilt that makes folks gawk and say, “Whoa”!

A quilt that such extraordinary emotions evoke,

A quilt that is worthy of any show!

Oh, come on now, and join the fun!

Your joy in this challenge has just begun.

Pull a slip from out of the hat,

And make a quilt using that. 

How can you miss this chance for some fun?

This is the State Challenge….and the fun has just begun!

I used images from the Internet to illustrate the presentation, and doctored a few of them to fit my needs!

I closed the presentation with the rules for the challenge, and included this slide:

That is a real quilt covering a minivan. A friend from my the quilt guild I belonged to before I moved made this 'quilt' to advertise that guild's quilt show. She asked members to bring in 'orphan blocks' and she put them together, with some help from other guild members, and made this cover. The quilt would adorn her car whenever guild members were selling tickets for the show. 

The women enjoyed the presentation, and a few more signed up to participate. I know not everyone will do it. Some folks don't care for challenges of any sort (definitely not me!) Others have a lot on their plates already. 

I have picked the state for my challenge quilt. I won't say what it is here, just in case any of the guild members stumble on my post. I have my plan for what I'm going to do. I worked on designs using EQ8 to play with options, and think I've settled on one that I like. I've collected some fabrics; I picked up some in Berkeley on my recent trip. I found another piece I might use in a town just north of where I live. I ordered something on eBay, too. And, a blog reader, Barbara, suggested some fabrics and is sending me one. How exciting is that?!

Can you tell that I love challenges?! Here's a little secret: If you want me to accomplish anything....just present it as a challenge. Just say, "I bet you can't....." and fill in the blank!!

 

Quilts for my Sis

I am the baby of the family. My brother and sister are only 18 months apart. I came along a little later. Judging from the looks on my siblings' faces, I'm not sure I was welcome!

In my previous post I mentioned that my sister suffered a brain injury and must live in an assisted living facility. We are about as far apart in the US as one can be, living in Florida and Seattle. I do get out to see her on occasion. My brother lives a bit closer to her, so he gets to visit a bit more often.

I have made her two quilts. The first was very early on in my quilting 'career' - being made in 2016. Someone hung the quilt up in her tiny apartment. 

For a while my sister lived near Santa Fe, NM. She loves the southwest, and when I saw the fabric, and when I happened upon the embroidery patterns, I was inspired to make this quilt. 

I used 'stack and whack' to create the colorful blocks. I didn't have enough fabric to do more than 4 pieces for each block, but it worked out. 

I used an appliqué machine embroidery pattern for four of the blocks. 

I fell in love with the mottled red fabric. It reminded me of some of the pottery I've seen on our travels. 

I designed some SW Indian-looking motifs and embroidered them using my domestic machine.

Even now I look at this and I'm in awe of what I managed to do.

In 2021 I completed this bright quilt and sent it to her. 

She keeps it on the back of her couch.

She has always loved bright colors!

The last time I visited she was wearing a jacket that my mother quilted. 

Just by chance, I was wearing one I had made....

the first quilted object that I ever made!

(It was made using a quilt-as-you-go technique on a deconstructed sweatshirt.)

This Year's Quilt Challenge

I stepped up to the plate to run our quilt guild's 2026 challenge. I'm excited, as are several of the other members.

This is the blurb that will be in our newsletter explaining the challenge:

This year’s quilt challenge is “The challenge of the States” in honor of our country’s 250th anniversary! Participants are asked to pick the name of one of our 50 states from a hat. They will have the opportunity to research that state.

• What is the state’s flower?
• What about the State bird?
• Is there a State quilt block or quilt?
• Are there colors associated with the state?
• What is the State song or motto and what designs does that inspire?

From there, participants will create an entry for display and judging (by attendees) at the annual  Christmas party. 

Entries may be any size and may be created using any quilting/fabric technique. 

I had so much fun introducing the challenge to the group at yesterday's meeting. I began by playing the music from this video:

After explaining the challenge, I closed my presentation by playing the music from 'Mission Impossible'.

 

There were smiles all around.....until it came time for the ladies to pick a state. Unbelievably I heard the following:

• Illinois is boring.
• I can't do Alabama.
• Is Mississippi a 'red' state? (I was very tempted to pull up a map on my phone to show her what color it was in the illustration 😂)
• I won't do Kansas, (and as she threw the state back into the hat), I'm not gonna do this unless I get a state I like. 
• Yay! I got Texas! (She said as she pulled her hand out of the hat with nothing in it!)

Do you believe the sass I got from ladies who are all of an age they should know/act better? Yeah, I guess you do believe it!

In a Bind

I finished quilting this project around Thanksgiving. Actually, I finished telling the computer on the long arm machine how and where I wanted it quilted!  I am beginning to feel a bit more proficient in communicating my desires to the machine. 

Next step...binding. 

For the uninitiated, when you quilt the project by sewing a backing, batting (some folks call it 'wadding') and the quilted top (some folks call in a 'flimsy') together, the edges need be trimmed and bound together. 

My quilt is draped around 'Shirley', my roll of batting. It needs to be trimmed before I can bind it. 

The next step is to cut strips of fabric, often 2 1/2" in width and sew them together. To eliminate bulk the strips are sewn together at a 45 degree angle. 

When binding a quilt I press the long strip in half, sew the raw edges of the binding along the raw edges of the quilt, and then bring the folded edge up and over the quilt edge and secure it, by hand or machine.

My binding for this quilt was about 200" in length. I have adopted this technique to make that process of ironing it a bit faster. I use my silicone iron mat as a work surface. You might notice that Vickie decided to reshape the silicone mat! It still works for my purpose. (you can also use your ironing surface without a mat - but it might get scorched)

I fold a bit of the strip in half, and using a long pin I make channel slightly larger than the folded strip for to guide the strip across the ironing surface. I do this on each side of the mat. 

The hot iron is placed on the pad, covering the folded strip and I simply pull the strip from one side to the other, feeding the fabric into the pin channel on the right and pulling it out on the left. 

The result: A nicely folded and pressed strip of fabric that can then be used to bind the quilt. 

I can't take any credit for this nifty and quick way of pressing fabric strips. I saw it on the Internet  a few different times. Someone was ingenious! 

 

Not a Sunny Sunday

As was predicted, we did get rain on Sunday, about 1/4". The temperature at the beginning of the day, when we were uncovering the plants around 7 AM, was 57. It dropped as the rain came to 46. We are going below 32 again tonight, so after the rain, the blankets will go back on the plants. 

The dampness made the day feel especially cold.

The stag horn did not like the cold....

but it did appreciate the rain!

I stayed inside almost all day....and I loved it! 

I did some of the PT exercises for my back.

I cut some fabrics, and sewed some others, to work on blocks for the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. 

And I got back on the computer for my long arm machine to try to get the computer to stitch what I wanted and where on this small quilt. It is still taking me a long time to translate my ideas to language the program understands. After a few attempts I was able to tell it to stitch a design around the pineapple. I struggled with communicating where I wanted it to stitch after I had to move the quilt. I will figure that transition out....and some day I will look back and laugh at my ineptness! 

(You really can't see it, but the background of this piece has been quilted.)

The pineapple design was stitched in a class I took in the spring 0f 2019....

I guess it's about time that I finished it! 

I still need to decide how to quilt the pineapple itself, 

but that will be done on my regular machine...I think!