Scrappy quilts are my favorite kind of quilt.
The more fabrics in a scrap quilt the better it looks. Add one or two fabrics to give a unified design.
This crib size quilt belongs to my youngest niece. She is in first grade now and it is used as a couch throw.
I love sleeping under quilts. This is the quilt I am sleeping under while visiting my sister. I made it for my nephew a few years ago.
I saw a quilt done only in red and white in this pattern.
It inspired me to use the same pattern with light and dark fabric scraps instead. I like the way there are light and dark diagonal rows across the quilt.
There are two double four patch blocks that constitute the pattern, one of light large squares and the other with dark. Just make sure that the blocks are rotated the right way when sewing them together to get the lines of light and dark.
This is an interesting design because different parts of it "pop" depending on the angle and distance from which it is viewed.
We are visiting my sister and her family. Today as we headed out to see a matinee (a big thrill for me as I very rarely get to see a movie in the theater), I noticed my niece wearing this shrug that I sent her last year for her birthday.
And don't you just love those acorn earrings with it?
I made this with some of Chris' yarn from a pattern in Wrap Style.
I was wracking my brain trying to think of a post-Thanksgiving blog topic that didn't involve food, tight jeans, or dirty dishes, when Stefani from Blue Yonder graciously tagged me for the "5 random things" meme.
1. Here I am at three. You can see from the photo I started early with my love of chocolate chip cookies. Today I still love to have cookies for breakfast (or any other time of day).
2. My sister and I have birthdays that are nine days apart. We always celebrated together, but our mother made sure we each got our own cake. That is me on the right with the fashionably wide collar.
3. While in middle school I had the unusual ability of being able to do a backbend on my elbows. Back then I thought this was really something special. Now, after spine physical therapy and massage therapy I am not so sure.
4. I fell in love with and married the first and only boy I ever dated. We were married in the gazebo where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed. My husband and I were honored to have Janette Carter (who at the time was the last surviving member of the legendary Carter Family) and her friend, Bill Cliftons, sing and play at our wedding.
5. My last random fact is that I once almost threw up on Jeff Daniels. Really. When I was pregnant with P., I had difficulty keeping anything down. Even water. I went to the doctor to have the glucose test. I had to go in the little blood draw room and drink a bottle of nasty syrup and wait for an hour to have my blood drawn. As I was waiting, and trying very hard to keep the syrup down so as not to have to drink another bottle, Jeff Daniels came into the lab area. He sat next to me and I just sat there thinking "Please don't let me throw up on Jeff Daniels..." The nurse looked out of the little window and asked if I was OK. I guess I didn't look good. I said I was OK. I sat quietly until the hour was up. They called my name and I carefully went to the back and had my blood drawn. I just made it out to the parking lot before I threw up! I'm sure Jeff Daniels does not realize how lucky he is!
Thanks to my sister for the old photos, scanner, and the super fast internet connection to do this post. My set up at home is a super slow dial up connection. We are eagerly awaiting another faster choice...
Our Thankful Jar.
This jar sits next to our dining room table all year long. We keep a small pad of paper and a pen inside. Throughout the year we write things that we are thankful for on slips of paper and leave them in the jar. The boys used to tell me things to write, but now they are old enough to write their own. During our Thanksgiving dinner we put the jar on the table. Throughout the meal we take turns pulling a paper from the jar and reading it aloud. I enjoy hearing the things that make people pause and write something down. It is especially nice to hear things that the kids are thankful for. I keep an envelope for each year of our thankfuls. We sometimes go back and read them from years past.
Enjoy your day of giving thanks.
This morning we walked in the woods near Grandma's house.
Last month was the warmest October on record here in Virginia. They also have had a drought for several months. I wonder if that has anything to do with the leaves staying on the trees longer than normal. One of our usual Thanksgiving week "chores" is to rake all of the leaves in Grandma's yard. We make a huge pile for the kids to play in. When they have had their fill of the leaf pile we drag the leaves down to the back of the yard on tarps. This year most of the leaves are still on the trees.
There were enough leaves to make a small pile for P.
After twelve hours in the car, we are thrilled to finally be at Grandma's house!
Grandma has lots of tall oak trees and the absolute best swing! The kids enjoy swinging in the same swing their dad enjoyed when he was growing up.
Hope all of you are having a swingin' week too.
I am fortunate to have an uncle who is just a few years older than me. It was fun to grow up with an uncle who was old enough to lead outdoor adventures, use a pocket knife, and take us to movies. When he took us to see The Love Bug at the movie theater he bought us Hershey bars AND let us wipe our chocolate covered hands on his WHITE t-shirt. I wish I had a picture of that. He was still young enough to want to spend lots of time with me, my sisters, and cousins. He was lucky; he got to choose to sit at the kid's table at Thanksgiving.
He has many talents, but one is the ability to carve monkeys and baskets out of peach pits. He made all of his nieces these peach pit baskets when we were little and we wore them as necklaces. We thought we were really something.
I found this great vintage fabric back in the summer.
I love that there is so much of it.
It was screaming to be made into aprons.
I had some help pressing the pockets.
This is one of the finished aprons.
I think I got it from my grandmother - the fear that I will run out. With her it was paper towels and toilet paper. Her attic was full of it. For me it is projects to work on while away from home.
We are getting ready to visit family for Thanksgiving. I have started packing my bag. First in are some bags of perle cotton and beads for making some beaded bags.
Next in is the hat to match Ps.
Then the slippers I am knitting for myself because I used yellow for the cuff on the last pair and yellow doesn't felt like the darker colors and they don't stay on my feet.
Then the pink socks I have been knitting for months. I am still on the first sock.
Here's the bag that will be at my feet for the long ride and while visiting the relatives.
And I still think I'll add some cotton yarn in case I decide to knit a dishcloth. M. mentioned wanting a hat with ear flaps and I also have some embroidery that I am working on....We will be gone a week. Do you think I have enough?
Redwork has always appealed to me. I have looked at old redwork quilts in museums and books. They often depict political figures, and social events of the time they were made. Many also picture domesticated animals.
Years ago I wanted to make a redwork quilt but I wanted it to mean something to me, to be a unique family keepsake. I thought redwork would be good for a Thanksgiving quilt. Each person in the family traced their hand on a piece of paper and designed their own turkey that could be stitched. I told them I would sew it just as it was drawn. We each went to a different room so we wouldn't influence each other. You can see the result. Someone evidently got out the bird identification book to help with his design. I had to simplify it a bit for stitching.
I love getting this fun quilt out every year! I didn't put a label on this so I don't know what year I made it, but I still remember the day that everyone worked on their drawings. I just love the way it turned out.
Yes, It has been pointed out to me that we will have to add a secondary quilt. I think I will wait a little longer until P. can design her own turkey. Stay tuned...
My daughter is teaching me a lot of things. The other night we had candles on the table for dinner. She was so excited and thought it was a party. She tried to blow them out. She then got out the ice cream scoop and said she wanted ice cream on cake!
Why can't every day have some excitement? We need to find a way to celebrate a little something each day whether it is a birthday or not. We will use the good china and have candles at dinner more.
Several years ago I had a dream about a knit basket. Really. The next day I had to try it out. The basic basket is a very simple design. I made several of them out of different yarns. That one on the left is some of my first hand spun yarn. The possibilities from even a simple pattern are endless. You can try different types of edges.How about fur around the top and a handle?
This one is knit loosely with ribbon yarn and has eyelet holes for a drawstring.
Here is one knit with wool and then felted. Felting is also a great way to disguise hand spun yarn that really didn't turn out well. This would be my very first ever hand spun yarn.
This basket is an experiment with a two color all over cable design. It is not the greatest yarn combination but they were the two yarns that were handy when I had the idea.
I like the unexpected results on the bottom.
A simple project like this is a great way to try new ideas or techniques. Take a base pattern that you are familiar with and change it a little. There are still a lot of variations yet to be made of this simple Dream Basket pattern.
Our High School Orchestra program held their annual Harvest Hoe Down fund raising event this past weekend. The orchestra students planned, and ran the whole event. They are good at coming up with activities that the other kids will enjoy. They had a two story cardboard maze, musical chairs, find the candy in the hay pile, pumpkin painting, donut on a string, tug of war, bobbing for apples, pumpkin toss and of course, music. We donated our left over pumpkins to the event and came home with a truck load of straw and a truck load of smashed pumpkins! Our chickens were very happy.
We let them out in the yard to eat bugs and plants but in cooler weather they eat more feed from the store. We were glad to have fresh food for them.
By keeping our own chickens we are provided with artistic inspiration, hours of amusement, and great fresh eggs.
Several years ago we had four members of our family who were moved into nursing homes. I knew we would be traveling and visiting a lot so I wanted to have a portable project.
This applique design was taken from a small image in a library book on design history. I had originally planned to use is as the quilting design in the center of an Amish style quilt but decided to make an applique project because I knew that once I had the fabrics basted together I would only have to do the sewing. The center is a single piece of fabric hand appliqued to the black background.
The quilting design for the border is an original design in the style of the applique. The quilt is hand quilted and measures 42.5 x 41.5 inches.
It is called Childhood's End because the making of it encompassed the movement of four relatives to nursing homes and also their deaths. If we think of life on earth as our childhood and the afterlife as the adult stage then this would be their "childhood's end." In another sense, as I have lost so many older relatives and become one of the older generation of my family it is also my childhood's end.
In loving memory of the three who died this week in 2000.
Ken Harris
Daisy Graf
Ruth Carson
As much as I would like all of my sewing time to be artistic and creative, I also have to face the fact that there will always be some practical sewing that needs to be done. I can put it off for extended periods of time, but there comes a time when there is danger of the mending pile toppling over on me while I sit at the sewing machine. So for the last few days, I spent some time patching work pants, mending sweaters, sewing on buttons, and hemming pants. With that pile down to socks that need darning I moved on to some other practical but more fun sewing.
I looked through my large collection of vintage children's clothing patterns and found a pattern that would work for making P. some pants. She seems to have trouble with ready made pants. She is tall and thin and can't keep them up.
I cut up an old corduroy skirt and a pair of old corduroy pants and made two pair of pants.
Now I feel free to get back to some creative play in my sewing room.
Artistic challenges are fun. My local quilting group sometimes has challenges where we each make a quilt based on a given idea or technique. I enjoy seeing what different things come out of the base idea. I have found that given a challenge like this I often try new ideas. It could be a new technique, color, material combination or something else. The challenge idea gives me a different place to start and I think about the project in a different way than I usually would. It really helps me grow as a fiber artist.
Last year I found the Tie One On challenge hosted by Amy Karol. She has a lot of information on apron history and apron styles on her blog. She cleverly challenges sewers to make an apron based on one of her theme ideas such as "Valentines day," "Rick Rack," or "the pocket." Her latest challenge was "Local Pride." After reading her presentation of the theme I thought about my home town, and state. I thought about what makes it special. Several ideas came to mind, but I settled in on something that my family loves to do every July. We pick blueberries. We go to the local blueberry farm in the early morning and pick berries before it is too hot. We have our buckets strapped around our waists and pick the berries with both hands. We bring them home and eat them by the hands full. We bake blueberry pies, scones, and muffins. We eat them on cereal. We make blueberry shakes. We freeze pounds and pounds of them to eat through the winter.
This child's apron is my entry in the "Local Pride" apron challenge:
Very recently I found another challenge site, The Purse Project. Anything you ever wanted to know about bags or purses can be found here! Barb Lawrence challenges her readers to make different kinds of purses, bags, or totes. The most recent challenge here was the amulet bag. This is the bag I submitted.
I have made a number of bags in this style but thought this challenge called for something different. After reading her ideas, and history I decided that my bag needed to be "earthy." I chose earth brown beads with subtle variations as there are on earth and lovely brown perle cotton. The bag is knit with the beads slipped between the stitches as you go. The strap beads include some tubular bone beads.
Years ago I made some oatmeal cookies from a recipe on the package of oats. Over the years I have adjusted the recipe to be more nutritious. We eat a lot of these cookies (or "tookies" as P says). Some of us even eat these cookies for breakfast. This is the most recent variation.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 sticks butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ripe banana
2 cups flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 cups oats
2 cups chocolate chips
Cream butter and sugars. Add the egg, vanilla and banana.
Mix the flour, wheat germ, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg and add to the butter mixture.
Add the oats.
Add the chocolate chips.
Spoon onto a cookie sheet and bake 12 minutes at 325 degrees F.
Enjoy. Some of us like to keep them in the refrigerator and eat them cold.
Everything starts with the imagination. We usually imagine something before we actually accomplish it. Even Olympic athletes will visualize a winning race or perfect gymnastics sequence before competing.
Those of us who create or craft use our imagination quite a bit. We can look at a hank of fine merino wool yarn and imagine a soft, warm, pair of socks with a cable running up the side of the leg. We might look at another hank of yarn and see a gossamer web lace shawl. Some of us may see a pile of fabric scraps and see a lovely apple core charm quilt or a double wedding ring.
That is how we can start with an idea and pull together some fabrics like this:
and end up with a project like this.
I remember the excitement at our house when my mother won this doll and extravagant handmade wardrobe. The evening dress has individually sewn rhinestones and came with a white fur stole. She also has a red crinoline under that dress.
Her wardrobe included day outfits and coats and even matching hats and purses.
She has some sporty summer wear and even a swimsuit that somehow did not make it into the photo. Look at that hand embroidery on the blue shift.
She has some casual mix and match separates.
No wardrobe would be complete without undergarments, a nightgown, and bathrobe.
The clothes all have hand finishing and tiny little snaps and buttons. I wonder about the person who made all of these and never saw the children who spent so much time playing with them. I am curious what her group was raising money for and wonder how much they made by raffling the doll and clothes.
I may make detailed doll clothes for one of Ps dolls one day (this one is fragile and is for display) but now I am making simple dresses like this:
and this:
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