Basting...It's a Quilt, Not a Turkey

To give you an idea of how long it's been since I basted a quilt for hand quilting, when I hear basting I think of a turkey, not a quilt. I was thinking ahead to a trip my family is making to PA in January. Not being one to waste time, I was wondering what I could work on in the van on the 10-12 hours on the way up there. I haven't been able to successfully hand quilt in the van or car because they don't ride smooth enough (and space is at a premium with 10 of us in there).

I am over halfway finished ripping out the machine quilting and replacing it with hand quilting on this quilt. I am so happy that I dove in and started that process. It has gone very quickly. I know I'll be pleased with it when it's finished. The further ripping out will continue on our road trip. That meant I needed another hand quilting project for NOW.

In the meantime, I have rediscovered the love of hand quilting (at the beginning of this year I hand quilted this piece of history). So I decided to pull out my oldest quilt top and hand quilt it. I never machine quilted it because I thought the machine quilting would distract from the piecing, which is so interesting. I will only show a small piece at a time of the quilt, just to keep your interest. Some of you might recognize the pattern. I'll tell you this much--it's a row quilt. Two of my friends and I each made one. We all made triplicate of 2 rows and swapped them so we all had all 6 of them. I can't remember what year we made it. It was at least 3 years ago, maybe much longer. I'm going to email the other ladies to see if either of them remember. We picked one cream to use for background and the rows inbetween the pieced rows. We also used only Thimbleberries fabric so they would all coordinate. What a fun way to make a quilt with a zillion different pieces in it! This is the second one we made together.

So the picture of the day is my milliner's needle (which is about 8" long), my really bright yellow thread I baste all my quilts with, and a small portion of the quilt. I have picked out a stencil for the cream "stripes" between the rows, so I am all set to start.

My headache finally went away yesterday. Thank you to those who prayed on my behalf. I was so relieved that I slept for 3 hours!!

We had a great time fellowshipping with some friends tonight and got to meet their oldest son (who is here visiting for Christmas--he's 30). Their youngest son turned 18 today, so we had them over for a little birthday get-together. They taught us a new word game, and we loved it.

~Joan

Most Thoughtful Daughter Ever!!

Look what my thoughtful, sweet, forward-thinking, lovely daughter, Elisabeth, got me for Christmas. The picture is terrible, and it needs cleaning (very dusty), but this wonderful gift is the base of an antique treadle Singer sewing machine. The table top made for it is way too modern. My DH suggested cutting off the legs of the antique table that had been sitting there and putting it on instead. Great idea (I think it was my idea, but he agreed to do it...you know, my inspiration and his perspiration).

Hope you all have a great holiday. I've had an industrious-sized headache for 5 days now. Make it go away! I am off to bed early.

~Joan

PS: an update...someone read this then wrote me to ask "what was the gift?", so I edited it some to clarify (I hope). Later that same day, my DH did indeed cut the legs off my former foyer table and attach it to the top of the sewing machine base. It looks marvelous. I'll try to post a picture soon.

More good news...my BIL found our camera at his house and is sending it to me. It has been MIA for over a month!! Yippee!

It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's a...

Pizzelle.

It rhymes with gazelle.

Making pizzelles is one of our family Christmas traditions. We get the pizzelle iron out the day we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. The traditional flavor is anise (black licorice), but we always make them with vanilla.

Below is the pizzelle iron. It is similar to a waffle iron. You put a dollop of batter on each side and clamp it shut. About 45-60 seconds later, two pizzelles are ready to cool.

Our pizzelle iron has done this since we got it...the one on the right always sticks to the lid and the one on the left always stays on the bottom. Once it's "baked", you just transfer it to a cooling rack, then stack them up. They are somewhat fragile. They don't last very long around here. Emily will be making another batch today to take to a friend's house. Mmm-mmm.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas. Remember the birth of Jesus as we celebrate this special day.

~Joan

Snow Woman Tole Painting

This is a snow woman I painted in my second of two tole painting classes. This was fun to do. It ended up that I was the only one in the class. That didn't bother me!!

Happy Holidays,

~Joan

Last Year's Christmas Quilt

I still don't have a picture of this that I am happy with. I've tried some inside, some outside, etc. Here is the best I can do. This is called Cozy Christmas. It is a large throw. All red, green and cream scraps. Each tree is made of one fabric, but all the trees are different. It was finished last year, but I realized I don't have a picture of it on my Web Shots album.

~Joan

New Camera, New Learning Opportunity

Do the learning opportunities ever end? This is a close-up PICTURE of the quilt I am unquilting and then hand quilting. Learning?? Learn to do it the way you want the first time to save time. Learning? Learning to use a new camera that is at one time a blessing and a curse. Our former camera went missing on our Thanksgiving holiday. I did not want to buy a replacement because I am just like that...reluctant to part with a penny if I don't need to!!

So last night, my new camera arrived via my very helpful and thoughtful daughter. I read through the manual. I know that's a stretch for some of you menfolk out there. I charged the battery for 5 hours as instructed. This morning I took some sample pictures. Aarrgghh!! Lots to learn. I will need to work on the focus and some other features.

In the picture above, the foreground is the finished way-I-want-it-to-be part. In the background you can see the machine quilting in cream of loop-de-loops. It makes the quilt stiff, and I don't like the green dots that are the bobbin thread showing. Live and learn, my friends.

Now that I have a camera, the blog posts are bound to be plentiful.

Have a great day,

~Joan, off to bake tons of cookies and breads for gift-giving

Why Quilts?

Above is a quilt I pieced and mostly machine quilted last year (the spots are sun spots). I did the applique in the two end segments and hand-quilted a cross hatch around them. This is not the applique that was on the original pattern...I did not care for the original very much.

In the quilt center, I used cream thread and machine-quilted a loop pattern all over except in the red 4-piece squares on point. I hand quilted a square within a square in each of them. I used the same print for the backing as the binding...a dark green with red leaf shapes.

Just when I thought the quilt was finished, I realized that I could not be happy with the machine quilting. I could not for the life of me get the thread tension perfect so that the cream did not show from the back (on the dark green) and the dark green bobbin thread did not show on the light cream fabric on the front. Although it seems like it will take forever, I plan to unsew all the machine quilting and hand quilt diagonal lines on it. I've already done a corner. It's going faster than I would have thought it would. If I don't do it, I'll forever be plagued with a quilt with dark green "polka dots" of thread on the front and cream ones on the back. I don't care if it takes another whole year, I've made up my mind.

Above is a close-up of the border. Because I haven't seen my camera since we went to GA for Thanksgiving, I'm at the mercy of my sons. I am using their camera, and I cannot crop pictures. That means you get the view of my jumper edge and grey fleece slippers. You're welcome.

I used a holly printed cream for all the background. The green chains and the quarter-square reds are all scrappy. If you've been reading here long at all, you know that scrappy is my favorite!

Now on to the title of this post..."Why Quilts?" I've had a few adventurous readers suggest that they'd rather hear about my family that my quilt-making. They think that would be more interesting. Well, maybe it would.

I started a blog a little over a year ago. My initial reason was because Bonnie Hunter made me, LOL! I was participating in a mystery quilt she designed, and she forced me at rotary cutter point to post pictures of progress on my (then non-existent) blog. Once the mystery quilt was finished, I started sharing about the rest of my full life...children, DH, recipes, couponing, etc. I didn't want anyone to think that all I did was quilt. Because of the nature of blogs (being public and all), I didn't want to reveal too much personal information. That is the main reason that I don't post much about my children. The other is that most days I feel like I'm floundering as a wife and mother and don't want the world to know about it. But now you do.

~Off to join the masses once more...Joan