The End is in Sight...

Above is the view of my machine quilt frame from one end. It barely fits in my bedroom. The second pic is a close-up of the quilt I'm re-quilting. It appears that I have about 4 more passes before I'm finished. After getting it loaded, winding bobbins to match the back, and all, I had a hard time getting back to it yesterday. But I did eventually. I quilted off and on in the afternoon.

Before I knew it, it was time to pick my son up from work and get ready for our mid-week service at church. A little more work on this today, and it will be FINISHED! Finished is good.

~Joan

4-Patch March

When I was downloading the pics of Isaac yesterday, this was already on my camera. Emily is piecing a quilt top for a customer (we LOVE doing that!). She or one of her siblings must have taken this pic of the 4-patches marching away from the iron! She is very methodical in her piecing. Notice the neat stacks of ironed units against the back of our "pressing station"? That's Emily!
Here's a close-up of her nimble fingers at work.
This block is not completely sewn. I layered the top and bottom units under the center to see how it would look when those seams were sewn. This block is called Windowpane. They are going to be set on point with a dark red alternate plain block. I think it's going to have a classic old-fashioned look. Finished blocks are 7" square, if I remember correctly.
Emily is having her wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. Please pray that all goes well with that. Her two older siblings had theirs out in the past year, and had very smooth recoveries. I pray that it is the same with her.

I'm still walking. Missed the last two days because I couldn't walk w/o a great deal of pain. All is well now though. It's only 63 degrees out now, but warming up steadily. Yesterday afternoon it got up to 96. Felt like it, too.

My WH and Susanna got home around midnight last night. They went to offer moral support to WH's grandfather, whose brother passed away last week.

Off to the races!

~Joan

Haircut: Before, During, and After

This boy needs a haircut. He and his next-older brother have the same hair type...it just gets thicker and thicker, but doesn't hang down. It kind of poofs out. The need for a cut kind of sneaks up on them, happening very gradually.

I've cut my WH's hair since before we were married. Only once has someone else cut his hair in our nearly 20 years of marriage...I was pregnant and on bed rest in a hospital.

As the children came along, I cut their hair, too. My WH will occasionally cut the boys' hair, but mostly it falls to me.

As gas prices have risen, I've been even more thankful for being able to do so much for ourselves at home. Think of the zillions of dollars we've saved by simply cutting hair! Well, maybe not zillions, but hundreds and hundreds at least!! Nine people every 6 weeks. I'm the only one that gets haircuts that are done out of house.

Here Isaac is before the haircut. He has a couple loose baby teeth--only adding to his charm.

We use a pair of clippers that have snap-on guides of several sizes. We've used the same pair all these years, only replacing the blades once--last year. For Isaac, I cut the top with a 3/8" guide, and use 1/4" for the sides and back. It's not unlike shearing a sheep, I'd imagine.
Here I am cutting from right to left in the picture. See the hair rolling up as I cut? With my two oldest boys and WH, it just falls to the floor as I cut. Not with Isaac and the next oldest boy, Benjamin. It just rolls and rolls as I cut, only falling (ending with a *boing* on the floor) when I reach the end of their hairline.
Voila! Here he is...freshly shorn. I made my WH the cape from parachute fabric when we were engaged. The hair just flies off of it. I took a big square, cut a seam up the back, finished the seam and neck (which I cut freehand in a circle), and had his initials embroidered on it for added flair! I put black Velcro around the neck to hold it in place.

Over 20 years of use, and still doing a great job.

My goal today is to re-quilt a customer's quilt. This has been something I've been meaning to do for months now. I quilted it with a thread recommended by the local sewing shop. I didn't think it would work well, but they insisted. After using the quilt lightly for only a few months, the threads started wearing down and eventually away on the top of the quilt. So it had to be un-quilted and then re-quilted. An arduous process, let me tell you. I have it about 1/5 re-quilted. I did that much on my DSM. Today I loaded it on the Little Gracie frame. I should be able to knock it out in an hour or so if all goes well. I'll post some pics later if I still have my sanity.

I placed safety pins about every 6" as it was un-quilted to keep the batting from shifting. I will remove them as I re-quilt. I can hardly wait until this project is off the list of things to do.

~Joan