This is an old quilt from my childhood. No matter what cute matching bedspreads and pillow shams my mother made me (usually coordinated with curtains she made, too), I always wanted this quilt on my bed. On top. (no silly bedspread covering it up) I have no idea what my reasons were, but I well remember loving this quilt and spending endless hours looking at the various diamonds and counting the ones of each color and loving the fabrics. At the time, I thought my grandmother had made it, because she was always doing embroidery and she had given it to me, but I really think her mother had made it. I don't think she ever did any quilting. I have another quilt that her mother, my great-grandmother made, and it is really a scrap quilt - string pieced from various plaids and such.

A few folks have had questions about the quilt patis and the difference between them and traditional English paper piecing and also how they work, so I took a picture of some of the backs so you can see that a few sloppy backstitches do the trick. I included a pati on a square of fabric just to show what it looks like before you start wrapping and backstitching. The ones with bigger flaps on the back are ones I cut from a leftover strip I had that was 2 1/2" instead of 2" and I sure wasn't going to bother cutting off that other 1/2", so they're done with rectangles instead of squares.

It's been another hot day, and around lunchtime the black clouds made it almost night-time dark while the thunder rolled in the background. However, by the time the rain actually got here, it was much lighter, and the worst of everything appeared to go around us. I think we're set for stronger storm activity in about an hour or so. Who knows? This time of year it's pretty unpredictable. (this is looking over the barn roof at the first clouds)

I've made a trial run with a handy little tool - the Quick Starter. You use it to draw on the back of squares destined to become part of triangle squares. You get both stitching lines and the cutting line in between. I'm kind of copying a quilt done by Creative Little Daisy that I just fell in love with, using the Wee Play charm squares. When I get a few stitched, I'll take a picture of them.

In the meantime, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Blessings:

• living in such a beautiful place
• handy gadgets
• clever folks who design wonderful material

Whew! What a week. It might have been a day shorter, but it sure seemed a day longer. I won't go into details, but a couple of weeks ago I had to have one of those serious "sit down, this is going into your personnel file" conversations with a very talented worker who yet keeps letting her various personal crises interfere way too much with work and has left some very important things undone - one of which was not sending in recredentialing papers for one of our insurance carriers on time, which meant that the doctors can't be preferred providers again until the paperwork is done. Not a good thing at all. It's a minor carrier with whom we have very few patients, but it should never have happened. Anyway, she's doing better on the surface and there's not any specific or tangible thing to speak about, but I think she's going here and there in the building whispering. Next week there will have to be another conversation.

We keep having rainy spots and teeny bits of thunderstorms. This is looking out from our front porch a couple of weeks ago, and the leaves are even fuller and lusher now. Our weather this spring has been more like England with frequent but not torrential rains and lower temperatures - hence the heavier than usual blooming of pretty much everything from irises to bushes to trees. The honeysuckle fragrance is especially heavenly right now.

I've finally decided what to do for my hand-piecing project - I'm going to dig out the Quilt Patis that I bought a few years ago and try to do a small grandmother's flower garden project!

Beth is making good progress with her begining effort. I haven't seen it yet, but she's got all her blocks together and rows together and ready to do the border. She just did simple 3" squares to mimic an old scrap quilt like MeeMaw used to make, and started with a table-topper type size. But for a girl who's never had the remotest interest in doing any hand sewing of any kind - pretty impressive! She's been looking through some of my quilt books and has decided that the idea of strip piecing has definite merits, although I personally can't imagine doing that by hand. We're going to get some batting for her today and try to get her quilt sandwiched so she can start hand quilting. She wants to try using my hoop.

I'll leave you with another view of the interesting old quilt I got at the flea market that I think I won't be able to cut.

Enjoy the weekend!

Back to a little quilty stuff

Here's a portion of my flea market quilt showing the little square in a square blocks. Notice how the red strip is going different ways - I'm guessing scraps were used according to their size with little regard for design. Those triangles are TINY!

And I just love the way some blocks seem to be somewhat planned and some blocks seem to be quite spontaneous.
There is more blue (with the white) than any other color, but there's even some yellow.

I'm not at all sure I'm going to be able to cut this quilt!






It's just too cool! And I just love the whole scrappy thing going on. I can imagine all sorts of scrap scenarios and winter times when any kind of quilt was desperately needed and family members remembering their flour sack or shirt or apron or pajamas when they saw their quilt . . .

And, for a completely different quilt -

here's the memorial quilt I mentioned months ago - the daughter of one of our nurses was killed in an auto accident and folks at the clinic from doctors to nurses to clerical staff wrote on blocks for a quilt for Rhonda, the mother. There are Bible verses in the middle and some folks quoted or made reference to verses in their blocks also. I've got to do some embroidery flowers in the borders of the central verse section. At the bottom are pictures of Stephanie, the girl who was killed, and also a packet of red KoolAid - because she started the girls in band at the high school here (inclduing my daughter) on the adventure of coloring their hair (very temporarily and just for fun for ballgames). It was such a hoot - I videoed girls who came to our house before the games to color their hair and threatened blackmail to them until one of them laughed and reminded me that I was allowing this and helping this and that the blackmail would probably backfire! And it was all such a huge joke - I mean, girls putting KoolAid on their hair being bad?? This when kids are drinking and doing drugs and sex and getting tattoes?????? One shampoo and it's gone?? C'mon!
Here's the block done by her doctor . . . Paul....RDM is also one of our docs...also Linda...etc...











and here is the bottom with a picture of Stephanie and of a red KoolAid package

Gratitudes...I'm thankful for....

sunshine

friends

love

Blogger HELP section that let me know how to work with images to be expanded!

On The Road Again

I finally did it!! I actually got one of those good deals folks always talk about getting at thrift shops and auctions and such - and I did it at the big monthly flea market at the state fairgrounds in Nashville!!! Had drooled over all sorts of textiles and metal doodads before making it as far back as the Swine Barn. There had been some bad thunderstorms the previous evening and earlier that morning, so the Mule Barn, farthest back in the fairground complex and usually home to some really good stuff (including tablecloths and quilts), was almost completely empty. Just inside the barn on one side, there was a group of miscellaneous stuff, pretty rough looking, and a broken chair with 2 quilts flung over its back. I stopped to look at them and picked one up, looking carefully for critters that might jump out on me (yes, it looked like such could well happen). Really ragged on one edge and none-too-good-looking anywhere but seemed a candidate for a "cutter" quilt - something I've never had and cutting is something I've never been willing to do even to my very worn quilts. I asked the price and was told that the quilts were $10 each. Picked up the other one and looked it over - even more pitiful. Hmmm....kept looking at them....hemmed and hawed and commented sotto voce about the poor condition and ragged edges, etc. The fellow who'd told me the price talked about how they'd found them in the very back of an old house down in Georgia....bottom of a box, etc....said they were almost scared to go into the house. I asked him if they'd taken a big stick with them and he said, "Naw, we got rid of all the varmints afore we went in thar." He was missing several teeth and didn't look like he put too much stock in bathing or shaving or any other such ridiculous activities, so I wondered what he might have been scared of. Anyway, I folded the quilts back up and asked in a kind of unbelieving voice, (as in "I can't believe you really asked as much as you did"), "How much did you say you wanted for these?" and he started to tell me $10 each again but quickly eased into $10 for the pair of them. I'd already been intrigued by the tiny triangles of the square in a square blocks of this one, so I smiled at him and told him he'd just made a sale. Of course, that meant I had to tote 2 rolled up quilts the whole rest of the day as we roamed and explored, but I was tickled to get them home!

These are obviously utility quilts who have seen a hard life after being fashioned from bits and pieces of wornout clothing and whatever fabric scraps might have been available. The square in a square blocks are only about 3" x 3" (some are less than 3" one way since they're not all that square anyway). The more I've looked at it, pitiful as it is, the less I feel able to cut into it. The folks who are scrap fans and recycyling fans could really appreciate what's been done with the various fabrics and how they've been put in to maximize length of pieces, etc., regardless of how that might look.

It's way past my bedtime, but I just HAD to get back to blogland....will post more pictures another day.

Sweet dreams.