{Post 1,707} More Booth Work

I had a few more ideas for my booth. I get great satisfaction from making things myself. A few days ago I was at my favorite thrift store and saw a big piece of finished wood in the “$1 frame” box. It was not a frame, just a large piece of shaped and stained wood with some kind of acrylic finish on it. I went back yesterday to see if it was still there and made this sign for my booth last night...

I was looking at my most recent booth pictures, and I have some ideas for how to use it in my hutch. I hope it works.

There is also a need for more space for hand-painted signs that I have made. I am going to group most of the kitchen items on the hutch and move most of the signs to my shuttered door. I saw some pictures on Pinterest of people who hung framed pictures on shutters. I could not figure out how it was done, so I contacted someone who had them on her blog. She got back to me (after a couple weeks). It seems easy, but time will tell. Stay tuned.

I scrounged around in our garage and came up with enough wood to make three miniature pictures ledges to attach to the flat part of my shutter door (I think it was a closet door in a former life). When I bought it, someone had placed 5 screws in it haphazardly and at different angles. I am OCD. For real. I removed the screws, patched the holes, and painted the whole door last night. I am about to attach my picture ledges to the flat part. I’ll post later about how it goes. I’m a little nervous about drilling through the back and hitting just the part of the wood that I want. Here is the door freshly painted and one picture ledge before IT was painted. 

Just to get you salivating, I am sharing a picture of my favorite food on earth...homemade cinnamon rolls. I bakes 4 dozen for a fund-raiser last night. I kept six of them at home to share with my son and one of his friends.

Update: I attached my picture ledges by going through the front of the shelf. The screws were countersunk and painted over. There will be a picture in front of them anyway. Here is it, not quite dry, but assembled at the very least!

{Post 1,706} Ohio & Pennsylvania

I left my house Wednesday AM (Feb 5th) to head for my parents in OH. I was about 4 hours away when my Dad called and told me not to come, so I headed over to my sister’s. I spent parts of 3 days and 2 nights with them. Then I drove over to my daughter’s in PA. Well, I tried. I got stuck in this.

I got to within a couple miles of their house before I was just spinning in place on a hill. My son-in-law came and rescued me. I was right past a volunteer fire department parking lot, so I backed down the slight grade and turned in there. We got my car a couple days later. It was treacherous.

We’ve had a great visit. I have not taken many pictures. I’ve done lots of painting, cuddling, cooking, cleaning, dishwashing, and the usual shopping, errands, etc. 

I picked up a few good pieces at the Goodwill here to make over for my booth. I am eager to work on them.

While I have been here (on one day actually), I had 3 former customers ask me about quilting something for them as soon as I got home. Then I also had someone ask me to make them a twin quilt from soup to nuts. She is a woman who was my next-door neighbor growing up, and we were best friends for years. 

Here are a few pictures from my visit. The flower picture is the before of the walls in the first picture. It is a mobile home that we painted the bedroom of. We are going home Tuesday AM. Practically every minute has been planned out between now and then. We are singing a quartet (my husband, who arrived yesterday, my daughter, my SIL, and I) in the morning service tomorrow. That is fun and exciting. I love every single thing about the song we are singing.

{Post 1,705} What I’m Loving Now

As many of you know, I have recently started renting a booth at an antique mall. One of my friends gave me a quilt that was given to her husband years ago. She thought I might want to repair, revive, and sell it. She hated it. It was falling apart. It was incredibly heavy. So she gave it to me and told me that if I didn’t want to repair it to throw it away. Are you picking up on the fact that she wasn’t attached to it? At first, I wasn’t either. But I’ve been spending some time with it. There are many characteristics of old quilts that I love. I love the way the fabric “acts”. I unstitched the crazy 1960/1970’s sheet that was used for backing and wrapped haphazardly around to the front for a binding of sorts. One can see how much the border fabric still showing has faded with age. Here is a picture with a line showing the part that was under the “binding” that is brighter than the rest. The heart is showing the holes where the yarn was removed.

There was a super thick and compressed batting as well as a cotton blanket tied between this lovely quilt top and the hideous backing (sheet). Once I removed the ties, the top started to fall apart. I think the ties were holding some of the seams together.

Above is the only picture I have of it before I started working on it. It was tied with “safety orange” and white yarn. When I cut off all the ties, little holes remained in the fabric. I am hoping that most of them just go away when it is washed after I quilt it. I am pretty sure I am going to keep this. It will remind me of my dear friend who donated it, and I’m frankly becoming attached.  I have repaired all the seams that just came unsewn. Now I am replacing fan blades that are shredded.

So many questions go through my mind when I am repairing an old quilt like this. How can one fan blade be completely shredded when the ones on both sides of it are like new? 

Here are some blades I replaced with 1930’s reproduction fabric which I had purchased for making a new quilt. This first one was near the top border and was an odd shape. You can see in the second picture that I removed the tattered one to use for a pattern. Although most of the blade was gone, it fit perfectly.

Two were replaced next to each other here. The left one was shredded nearly down the center of the piece. I used the blue one on the right for my pattern for cutting all the new blades. Fabric tends to stick to fabric, so I just lay it on my new piece and trim around it.

The heart shape is around where I inserted the two new pieces. They match the other fabrics well, huh? I think so.

I love piddling around and doing this meticulous work. For some reason, it never seems like a chore. It is like restoring an old friend.

In this next picture, I am showing how I closely pin the seams that just had a break in the hand stitching and came apart. One of the other things that fascinate me about this fabric is how it can be so strong and yet be so soft. It barely ravels at all, even when these seams have been broken for quite a while.

Now that all the straight seams and curved seams have been repaired, I am going block by block to see if each fan blade is maintaining its integrity. If one looks weak or has a hole, I am replacing it. 

I won’t be sewing much for the next few days at home. I am leaving Wednesday AM to head to Ohio then Pennsylvania. I will visit my parents and sister in Ohio for a couple days, then spend a couple weeks with my daughter and her family in PA. I need to prepare projects for the time I’m there. 

I am taking my Featherweight to sew some new things for my booth. I want to make bag holders for grocery bag storage (I don’t know how people live without one or more of these), bowl cozies (my main item for now), and a baby quilt I will need for a baby shower on March 1. I have the backing fabric for the baby quilt, so I need to pull colors from that for the front. I will likely piece that first, then work on the other items as I have time. My girl wants me to help her paint their huge bedroom, bathroom, and closet while I’m there. I usually go to bed way after and get up way before them, so I plan to take things to keep my little fingers busy.

{Post 1,704} Color Red Runs

I have bought a number of quilt tops to quilt, bind, and sell. There was a heart top that I thought would be perfect in my booth for Valentine’s Day. Someone saw it (unquilted) at my house, and she offered to buy it once I had it quilted and bound. Well, I decided to wash it for her as well. Better me than her. The reds ran. Here are the color catcher sheets after the first and second loads. When I saw them red as crimson after the first wash, I immediately threw in two more sheets, removed the first ones, and washed it again. It was STILL pink when I pulled it out the second time.

I could not figure out why the dye had run with a 1/4” frame around the heart. I looked up (on Pinterest, of course) how to get the dye out. I filled our bathtub with hot water, boiled some pots of water, and added Dawn dish detergent and donned thick rubber gloves. I swished my quilt through it, and a lot more dye came out, making the water pink. 

It was rare, but it had snowed here unexpectedly this AM. At the time of the quilt anxiety, it was far from AM. Plus, we were having guests for supper, and I had to make dessert and supper yet. But my quilt needed me. My husband was reluctant to have me go out because it appeared that the roads were bad.

I called a local store to see if they carried a product called Carbona Color Run Remover. They did. I bought two boxes and went directly to the laundromat with my still-wet quilt. I ran it through their washer (which is much more aggressive then mine and uses quite a bit more water). When it came out, still wet, I noticed that the “bleed” pattern matched the fabric of the heart pattern right above it. Then it dawned on me...the person who pieced it did not cut off the extra red when she did the flipped-corner technique. Because it was wet, the red showed through the thinner white fabric used as a background. Oh, me! I was so upset previously. So I threw caution to the wind and just dried it in our dryer at home.

Here are some pictures of before and after. I think I still see some pink, but hopefully it is just in my memory.

What do you think? Do you see pink in the bottom picture, where the quilt is completely dry?

{Post 1,703} What Else Is New Here

I have two other new things I am working on for my booth (well, two off a long list). One of the reasons I love doing this is that I can do whatever I want. I have no limits or minimums or anything. That alone is quite daunting. But I am forging ahead. I made another wood quilt pattern, and I love it. I think aqua/turquoise is my new color. It is 9-1/2” square. Anywho, this needs to be sanded and antiqued, but here it is (in sunlight through a curtain, so not a super good picture)...

Yesterday I picked up 3 silver trays at a thrift store for fifty cents each. I am painting those to be chalkboards. I am going to sew up some tiny bags for chalk to add to them and tie it on with jute (wrapped all the way around a couple times). I think they will be super cute. The ones here are “pool blue”, “maize”, and white chalk paint. I still need to touch up the edge of the chalkboard area and seal them.

{Post 1,702} New Projects and Answers to Burning Questions

I know most of American society has gone to very short social interactions like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. But I love reading blogs. I love all the details. I love all the pictures. I love all the ideas that are sparked as a result of all of that. So here I am again, posting about my everyday life.

There were some questions about my booth. It is in an antique mall. The owners divided up most of the space into 8’ wide by 6’10” deep booths. The rent is $75 a month. Most people sell antiques in them. The mall also advertises that they have “craft artisans”. I guess that is where I fit in, although I do have a few antiques that I have picked up at thrift stores. I try to make nearly everything in my store for sale. Props that are not for sale upset the customers. In pictures, the booth look much larger than it is. I am aiming for a lot of selection, but not stuff crammed on every surface.

Every Friday I get allergy shots. They have been helping my allergies tremendously. Since that is halfway to the antique mall, I usually scoot up there and take new items as well as straighten it up. Saturday is the busiest day, and I want it to look sharp. Here are some pictures after my visit yesterday. I finished another antique quilt (the 9-patch on the bottom rung of our quilt ladder). I also added some new signs.

Notice the “QUILTS” sign on the front edge of my booth near the top? I spent a great deal of time painting that this week. It took many coats for the aqua-ish color on the outer ring. It is two-sided so people coming from either direction will notice it.

In the top picture, you can see some of my wood quilt block signs on top of the hutch leaning against a pegboard. There is also one on the second shelf. I moved the largest one over by the quilt ladder in the second picture. The hutch has been perfect for displaying these small items.

In the second picture there are baby quilts on the hooks on the left. I found an Amish baby doll in our attic and added that on the ironing board in the back. Not much else new there. 

The antique 9-patch on the bottom rung is new to the booth. It is made so well in that the maker subbed “color” fabric in such a subtle manner that they aren’t noticable unless you are searching for one. I was so impressed. I think it’s from 1914; I can’t really remember.

{Post 1,701} Booth Happenings

I am loving working on items for my booth at the antique mall. My husband, Wes, and I made 3 display pieces, and I bought four more items very inexpensively.

We built a folding screen with chicken wire in the center. This is great for runners and table mats. Then we made a ladder with 36” wide rungs. It is attached with a wood piece at the top of the ladder. We always have to think of safety. Then I took a junky piece of scrap wood in our garage and sanded, routed, and stained it. We added four hooks, and that’s where I hang the baby/kids’ quilts.

I was fortunate to get an antique hutch at a thrift store where I often get real steals. I paid $30 for it. It is not a first-class piece of furniture, but makes a great display piece. The side doors in the bottom have issues. I don’t know what they are, but I am not using it for storage. I asked Wes to permanently seal them closed, and he did. I painted the back of the hutch “birdsong blue”. It is lovely.

At the same thrift store, I secured a children’s-sized wooden ironing board. I bought a basket for a dollar to add some height and interest. I also got two wooden quilt racks from the same store. I hope to sell them. There is only room for one of them in the booth. It is 8’ wide by 6’10” from front to back.

Here are some pictures from a few days ago. This was after I added a few Valentine items.

My goal is simple. I want to keep the ladder and the hooks full. I have one baby quilt that is a top right now. I hope to finish that tomorrow and take it over this coming week. I want to have a few seasonal items around major holidays, too.

Tonight I cut out and painted a wooden quilt block. It has as many decisions to make as a regular quilt. I could literally make any quilt pattern, any size, any color...it can be paralyzing. This one turned out cute, but it is larger than I would like (about 18” across). I painted it pink, grey, and white because the booths are painted grey inside, and I wanted a touch of pink for Valentine’s Day. My future ones will be smaller. I also want to make some that are glued to a background piece of square wood, then framed. So. Many. Decisions.

I am going to add some picture ledge shelves to the white display piece on the left side of the booth. I bought that from another vendor who closed their booth. I want to make some more wood quilt pictures and wooden signs like the Valentine ones in the hutch. Two of them say “bless your” and have a corrugated metal heart at the bottom.