Started sewing on the quilts for Darryl and Mike.  Something I'm doing now to keep more organized is I cut the entire quilt out and put it in a box. I used to cut as I went because the cutting was so tough on my neck and my carpel tunnel.  But now I'm trying to cut it all. For the pattern I make a color copy of the quilt and instructions and then have it laminated.  This quilt is from the January/February 2010 issue of McCall's Quilting  and was designed by Kim Brackett.  I'm doing it scrappy but it would work great with a jelly roll.

By  having it laminated I have an easier time keeping track of the pattern, and when the quilt is completed I can punch the pages and put it in the binder where I keep the information on each quilt that I make.  My grandmother and mother never documented their quilts.  Both have made many, many quilts, but I don't think anyone other than me has documented any of them. I try to fill out all the pertinent information, who made it, who was it made for, where, when, I made include scraps of the fabric, the cost of fabric and the story behind why it was made.

In 1987 I volunteered at Michigan State University Museum with the Michigan Quilt Project.  I always feel bad that so many women get no credit for the beautiful things they made.  So I try to document all the quilts that I make.  I also make sure now that any quilt my mother makes are at least labeled.

Crafty Wednesdays

At least a year ago some of my fellow employees and I were discussing at lunch how hard it is to sometimes fit in time for the crafts we enjoy.  We have several scrapbookers, quilters, & knitter/crocheters here at work.  I proposed that one day a week we reserve a room (as I work at a college) and take advantage of oue lunch hour a week to get something accomplished.  We have just started up again as things are settling into a slower pace.  Yesterday I brought a quilt that I had gotten cut out for my nephew at our last quilting retreat to start sewing.  Rhonda brougt the materials to start cutting out a Trip Around the World quilt.

I picked up the tradition from my Grandma Pline to made a quilt for highschool graduation.  She did it for almost every one of her 44 grandchildren.  I only have 3 nieces and 1 nephew so that was a more realistic goal for me.  I started however with a quilt for my goddaughter, Sarah, who was the last grandchild and who graduated after Grandma passed away.  Darryl's quilt was an extra long twin as he was off to college.  But the 3 nieces each got a double size quilt. So a few months ago I decided to make him a full size quilt as he just turned 30.  But I thought to check with him first and found he was in the market for a queen size bed, so will have to make the quilt bigger.

I have also started making quilts for my family members for their birthdays.  So far both my sister-in-laws have received quilts as well as my youngest brother.  Mike, the middle brothers birthday is coming up in October I would like to get one done for him as well.  His and Darryl's might be the same pattern, only Mike's will be a lap size.

If I can find pictures will try to put them in over the weekend.  So much to do and so little time.

Quote for the day:

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.  Lin Yutang

Little of this, little of that

While in England on vacation in April, god that seems eons ago, I kept seeing greeting cards, posters and books with a vintage look that said, "Keep Calm and Cary On."  This was designed during World War II. And with these economic times it is making a comeback.  There is also a little red books  by the same title that is "Good Advice for Hard Times."  It is a collection of quotes from Socrates to George Bush.

So from time to time I will be throwing in quotes out of this little jewel, and others I have collected over

the years.  Today's is:

"The greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid of making one," Elbert Hubbard

Now on to sewing things.  I was watching  "Sewing with Nancy" this weekend.  It was a show encouraging us to get our sergers out of their boxes and using them.  To that end they showed several easy projects to get people using these machines.  In one segment they were making potholders.  I was surprised to see them using a product I hadn't seen before.  It was an insulated batt used for a hold host of projects.  When I was in JoAnn Fabrics on Saturday I remembers to asked if they carried such a product and found that they do.

It is a batt made of hollow, polyester fibers needlepunched through Mylar.  So a yard of this along with some of the home dec fabrics I bought at an estate sale a year ago, will hopefully lead to some interesting gifts. This might also be good to use when I recover my big board.  I think the price was $6.99 per yard.

Yippee! A Holiday Weekend

Yea! The first holiday weekend of the summer.  Now do I get stuff done around the house?  Play? I guess a little bit of both.  A little laundry this morning.  Refresh the paint on a little lawn art that I have.  Water the flowers. Put up my flag banners on my front porch.

While looking around I discovered that some of my peonies were finally opening up.  I love my really full pink but I also love a single white that I got about 15 years ago.

This is also is a shot of the new flag I got for the side of the garage at the Portland Porch and Garden Extravaganza last weekend.

This is the combination that I put in my large planter this eyar.  A couple of coleous with burgundy and lime colors. A lime and a burgundy sweet potato plants and blue fescue and some nicotiana.  The pot is a large plastic one.  So last year I filled it about half full with pine bark mulch and then put some landscape cloth over it.  Then I put in the potting soil and compost and planted it.  This made the pot lighter and didn't take quite so much dirt to fill it and the plants did fine.  I have also heard that people have used foam packing peanuts as a filler or using empty water bottles in the bottom.

Well, I think it's time to run some errands and then maybe have some fun by going down to the HomeGoods store.

Have a great weekend and remember to find the time to honor those who have fought for our freedoms.

Mothers Day and Variable Star Group

Mother's Day was a good day.  I went out to Portland to help my brother fix dinner for my mother.  She had gone out to breakfast with my brothers, grandkids and great grandkids.  Then Dennis and I fixed lunch.  Then we went out and emptried out all of her planters, worked up the dirt, amended it and put it back in.  So now as soon as the weather warms up she/we can just pop in the plants.  Then, knowing it was too early for us to leave I asked if she wanted to play cards and Dennis suggested rummy.  So we played cards.  One of my nieces is in the fashion industry and recently sent some jackets to my mom.  So of course I asked her to model them for us.

Then tonight was our May Variable Star quilt meeting.  We are losing a member, Dian, who is going to be moving to Florida shortly.  The move is to be closer to family.  Dian will be greatly missed in our group.  We decided to each make at least one star block of our choice for her.  Dian is recovering from shoulder surgery so Jo volunteered to set them together so after after we looked them over and fondle them, and then we took them back.  These are the blocks of the members who were here tonight: Roxie, Barb, Jo, Beckie, Melanie, Pam and myself.  I think we did a pretty good job.

In our Variable Star group we each generally work on our own projects.  But once a year one of our members, Wendy, who is a professional long arm quilter provides us with a mystery quilt for us to work on. Each month she gives us one set of instructions.  This is the first challenge that I really went to and worked on it hard and got it done.  Now it helped that it only made a small quilt. 

We had to pick 4 fabrics: 1 dark, a background and 2 mediums.  I decided to try colors that are out of my comfort range.  And this was the outcome.

 

Spring house cleaning

It was a busy weekend.  Back from London I feel like I have to make up for lost time.  The flower beds need weeking, lawn needs mowing, etc.  So Saturday was the start.  I had carpet cleaners coming, but not until 4:30, so I started laundry and tried to clear things out of the living room.  To my surprise they reassigned a different crew to to my carpets and they were there at noon.  They did a good job and the carpets looked great.  The only problems then is there isn't much I can until they are dry. 

So it proved to be a good time to get some work done outside.  Mowed the lawn, picked up all the branches that have dropped out of my maple over the winter and bundled them up for the city waste pickup.  Now I had a head of steam up.  I garden in 5 large containers as along my driveway is the only place sunny enough for tomatores.  Each spring I dump these out one at a time on a tarp in the driveway,  break up the soil, add some compost and time released fertalizer and refill them.  So I decided the time was right.  My compost stash (a 30 gallon trash container) was empty so I screened enough compost to fill it up.  Then started to work on the containers.  When I dumped out my oldest container I found it was split from top to bottom.  So I quickly ran to the store to get a new container.  Came home, took care of all the containers, planted 4 big boy tomatoe plants and 4 sweet 100 plants and put my wall-0-water green houses on them.

That was a pretty good days work.

Sometime around the end of April I made the decision that it was time to paint my living room.  Afterall that paint and border had been up 20 years.  Now was the time to do something different.  In Country Living magazine I had noticed lately when they give paint suggestions, they show several possibilities for paint colors.  I decided it was time to expand so I picked bamboo mat to try.  Friday I picked up the paint and then on Sunday my mother and I steamed off the old wallpaper border and washed the walls and baseboards. Work on the living room is going well.

This weekend the extra warm weather brought out some color in my tree peony.  I added this plant to my landscape about 5 years ago as a little 4 inch plant.  Look at it now.

The Little Things

When I was in high school I had a teacher who really pushed us to be aware, to notice the world around us, to sit up and pay attention.  I think I always have been a keen observer, at least of my surroundings.  I always notice the first crocuses in the spring, when the trees start to bud, that first morning after a rain in the spring when everything has a green hue about it.  I enjoy noticing these things.  These are some of the iittle things I noticed on my trip.

These were some different flower I noticed while in England.  Still have to do some research as I haven't quite figured out what they all might be.

And the trees reminded me of a series of quilts I had seen at the Chicago International Quilt show in 2008 that showed trees from this perspective throughout the year.  Another idea for a quilt!  I also got ideas for quilts from the French countryside as I came back from my day trip to Paris.  Trees on the hillside, outline against the dusk sky looked like a row of lollipops.

And there were other inspirations like all the different tile patterns I came across.  Some were on what I would call a front porch, some on the floors in the halls of the Victoria & Albert Museum and some in tiles that adorned the outside of churches.

Just 2 more observations.  Where else but in England could you go to the park and a wonderful Saturday afternoon and watch bowmen practicing their sport.

 

This construction walkway was on Bayswater across from Hyde Park.  On the first Sunday I noticed the interesting treatment they have given the top of the pedestrian walk way.  Covered with books, pencils, and boxes of crayons.

It was only on the following Sunday and I looked again and realized the what was behind the pencils, etc. was a tarp that was painted to look like a velvet curtain and the entire facade of the building being worked on.  Sometimes it takes me a while but I guess that speaks to the great job that the company did that made the tarps!

And last but not least, a shot of Great Aunt Jackie's "lady truck".

Good night!