Patriotic Tribute

I actually drafted this post a couple days ago and called it something else.  But since July 4th is so close I decided to rewrite it-kind of.  I have been in such a funk for so long, (over a year), that I really have not felt like sewing much.  I have had a lot happen to me the past year that I won’t go into now.  And that is one reason I redid my sewing room to motivate me, and I think it has helped as I have been spending more time back here and I found things and I have definitely been re-inspired.

My Dear Jane® retreat group is working on a border robin.  Several newbies wanted to do a round robin but did not feel comfortable working on others’ projects so we came up with a way for them to be able to achieve the effect and gain the skills for another time-maybe.  We’ll see how this time goes.  It will be their fabric choices and their workmanship, but they have to draw for the element what their round has to contain. 

 I decided to participate in this after just finishing a round robin with 6 others.  (Why do I keep doing this to myself?)  This is my finished top from that round robin.  I would very much like to thank Paula, Mary Louise, Sarah, Sheila and Pat for making my center look so wonderful.  This will have a Civil War toile on the back.  My center was inspired from a Feathered Star quilt in the Virginia state book and I redrafted a block from Block Base to get exactly what I wanted.

For the individual border robin I decided I would try a miniature.  Well, I fell way behind on my center.  While redoing my room, I found an appliqué pattern I had prepared with freezer paper for machine appliqué.  I decided I would make this block for my center for my border robin and try to catch up, but I hand appliquéd it instead.  I have 4 rounds to do before I will be caught up.  There is a total of 6 rounds plus the center.

I chose a very unusual pattern that a friend and I had noticed in a catalog from the 1950’s.  Mrs. Scioto Danner had a home-based pattern business and I was lucky enough to track down a copy of her Prince’s Feather pattern before I found that her patterns were online.  Thanks Peggy!  You can find how to get it here.  I adapted the pattern a bit to make it fill a 24” block a little better.  You can contact me about my pattern if you are interested.  You will need the original for the border pattern.

The original quilt is in the Denver Art Museum.  It was made c. 1829 and traveled from Kentucky to California in 1853.  I have seen the full quilt in only one catalog or book of the Denver Art Museum: Quilts and Coverlets and there is also a side (border) of it showing towards the back of The Quilt that Walked to Golden by Sandra Dallas.

The original is red, green and yellow solids on white and had 12 blocks, with a border that sort of echoes the block.  I have plans to make 4 blocks of that color way.  I have 1/2 block appliquéd by back basting.  This particular is red, white and blue.  I seem to be stuck on both those 2 color combinations.  My DJ is red and green and my round robin, which I absolutely love, is too as you saw above.  I decided, if I should draw Words, Script or Theme for a round, my words or theme will be something like “Founding Fathers”.  So instead of calling this block Prince’s Feather, I would call it Princes’ Feather, a tribute to all the men who fought and founded our great nation.

Here is my block.  I hope you enjoy it’s beauty as much as I do.  I will be sure to post my finished project, as soon as I finish it.  Hopefully that will only be months for a change.

Everyone enjoy a safe and sparkling 4th!

Sew Having Fun,

Sarah 

Technorati Tags: quilts,quilt history

Do I Need Any More Tins?

Here I am, 4 weeks after separation surgery;  I still have one open spot on the skin graft on the top of the middle finger.  It’s a place where a knot was and the knot was basically embedded.  It’s definitely taking awhile to heal. Most of the rest is healed, except for little bumps where the stitches were, which I figure are inflamed nerves.  I have started physical therapy 3 times a week.  It seems slow going to me, but I have made some progress after almost 2 weeks.

I thought I would give you a preview of my room.  I am going to start with my tins.  I have so many they will make for a post all in their own.  I like old (and new) advertising tins.  Or tins that the product actually came in, as long as it’s not too cute, like M & M®’s.

First, before I redid my room I just had tins above the windows above the windows on south wall-over 19 feet.  Now I have double that and I still have tins that are not out, a lot that are older than what is out in my room.  Here are 2 views of the south wall.  

This one below is looking east.

This one is looking west.

 This is my east wall,  which is just over 11 feet long.

And then I have 3 specialty groupings.  One is really not considered tins, but there are tin signs on the wall as well as one of my JANIAC license plates.  You can still see that it reflects the light from the flash.  I did not need new plates         

  

 Above my yardage fabric and book shelves, about 8 feet  total, I have my sewing related tins.  I wanted to put them above my sewing area but I ran out of room fast!

  

And my last specialty wall is my Coke® wall.  I have always collected Coke things when I saw things I liked or could afford.  (And I don’t drink Coke®).    The trays I picked up when  I was in high school for $1.79 each at the local Super Valu grocery store.  They are over 30 years old, probably close to 40.  I bought them before I graduated and I have been out 34 years.

      

So there is most of the pictures I have taken so far.  You got a sneak peek at my renovated sewing room.  I still need to take pictures of my sewing and cutting area.  I am trying to decide if I want to take separate pictures or just one big one.

Or I may go into that unusual block I told you about last time, it is finished.  It actually feels good to finish something, it has been so long.  Anyone have a preference?

Sew Having Fun!

Sarah

5 Fingered Again…

Well, it has been better than a month since I posted.  My finger tissue did not take and I have had two surgeries in that time, the last one just a week ago.  What they did in my case is called a cross-finger flip.  It evidently is quite uncommon.  My doctor’s assistant who has been with him for 5 years now, said my surgery was the second time she had seen him do it.  His nurse who does his surgery scheduling has been with him a year and she had never seen it-until mine. 

This is what they did-if you can imagine it.  They cut out the skin on top of the middle joint of my middle finger on three sides, leaving the the side closest to the ring finger uncut or some of it uncut.  They then slice it down to the tendon and take it out and flip it so the top of the middle finger can now be used for the pad of the ring finger.  It is sewn to the finger on 3 sides and left attached at the “twist” for the blood flow.  I was in a splint for 15 days with the last three fingers immobilized.  Last Friday I went in and they cut the two apart and I now have 5 fingers instead of 4.  They are wrapped so I have no idea of what they look like.  There was a skin graft taken from my inner forearm to cover my middle finger joint, which I was told would fill in with whatever.  This is my understanding of the whole procedure, but I could have it wrong.

I have been finishing up my room, it just needs a few things found a place for and I have a shelf to paint, as well as two boards to strip, which will have to wait until much later.   It will never be a showplace-too much stuff and not enough room.  But it’s mine.

I have also been doing a little appliqué.  I think it is helping with the stiffness in my fingers.  I will post a picture when I get it done, which should be soon.  It’s an old block not many will recognize, done in red, white and blue, far different from the usual red, green and yellow.   And I will also post a few pictures of my room too.  Then maybe I will start talking quilts.

Sew Having Fun,

Sarah

Not Short, Definitely NOT Sweet

If you have been a regular reader as I am just sure you are, you might not be seeing much written here for awhile.  I took some time off yesterday from my room to load some music onto my great new iPod® (thanks to all my great TWISTED SISTERS) as my husband left for Oklahoma in the a.m.  Then yesterday evening I decided I had better mow as two days earlier he asked when I was going to mow again.  My answer to him was “I am not the only person who lives here.”  He’s retired for goodness sake’s and had just spent the previous day doing absolutely nothing.  The particular day he made that remark, he had cut down and sawn up a suppressed oak tree for firewood and then took the rest of the day off.  For the last two months I have been cooking, cleaning, (if that’s what you call it), mowing the yard when it needed it and I have even helped him cut wood this spring when he did that without him asking me; AND keeping busy with my room almost daily.

So I get in my rattiest jeans, a pair I was going to throw out after I get through with my room, painting mainly and I check the oil and gas in the mower.  Great, he had filled it with gas and the oil is fine.  I get started about 4:30 or so.  I had one small (dusty) area mowed and was working on cutting out a bigger one with more grass.  We have two crape myrtles growing close together, just wide enough for the riding mower to pass through.  I went through those two trunks once with no problem.  The north trunk is huge.  I normally go through these two trunks east to west but this time I was going west to east and both the deck lever and clutch pedal would be on the side towards that larger, more angled trunk.  The smaller one grows straighter.  On that second pass, the deck lever gets caught on the west fork.  I think “No problem, just back up, turn a bit, and I’ll be through them.”  So I raise the deck with my left hand, the rear wheels were spinning, pushed the clutch in and put it in reverse and I did not move like I thought I would so I put it in forward with my hand still on the deck lever and the clutch pedal is wedged in an east fork without me noticing it.  The mower is still trying to go forward with my hand on the deck lever and the back, the pad, down to the first joint of my left ring finger is torn off.  I quickly disengage the deck, turn off the mower, peel my finger pad off the bark and race to the house.  I throw the key and ear plugs in the back screen door.  Then I run around and go through to the kitchen so I don’t get blood on my new 6 month old carpet!  The new laminate will clean.  I grab several paper towels, the pad I just curl in my bleeding hand, my purse and keys, lock the doors (which I thought I had forgot) and I drive myself to the ER.  Remember, Stan had gone to OK.  I arrive in the ER, very dusty and dirty, about 20 minutes later and glory be, I only had to fill out one short form and they took me right back.  It probably took well over an hour before I actually saw a doctor, but he said my injury is a very serious injury.  He had to consult a hand specialist.  He was also attending to a heart attack victim.  I think the heart attack  and my mangled finger were the highlights of the evening for the ER staff.  I had many people come in just to see it.  Doc finely comes back in after getting hold of either a hand specialist or a plastic surgeon.  He says as long as the pad is there, tack it on, and send her over to see me the next available appointment next week.  The Doc says I have a high tolerance to pain, I am not taking anything for pain except naproxen sodium even though he gave me something.  The only pain I have is around the nail and I figure it is because it is so thin, nothing to hold it and I barely feel it.  The Doc, who had a habit of calling the female patient ‘darling’, made me feel very relaxed about my situation.

So now I have a splint on my wrapped finger, hoping the tissue will “take”.  There is a chance it won’t, even though he said it looked very good.  If it doesn’t, they will amputate part of the finger, assuming down to the first joint.  Thank goodness it’s not my quilting hand, though I do type with both hands.  This has taken awhile to type without the use of that finger.

The bad part of all this, is I have a Dear  Jane® retreat starting Thursday next week.  Since my room is not done, I probably wouldn’t have been working on anything anyway, but now I could not have sewn even had I wanted to sew.  I guess I will sit there and listen to my new music on my iPod®.  Thanks again, guys.  You have saved this retreat for me.

Pray my tissue ‘takes'’…

Sarah

“Such Junk, Such Junk”

Does anybody remember what movie that line is from?  I will give you a bit to think about it.  Literally, I have too much junk, or junque as I would rather think of it.  I would like to think my junque , the junque I need to quilt with is a little more high brow than just everyday junk.  But I am finding I have too much of it as I put my room back together.  I have almost found a home for most of it, mainly the stuff from around the computer and what projects are not in the closets have not found a home yet.  I still have to get my fabric in there, BUT the garage is empty and I can park my SUV back in there again-after 2 months.  I have to wait until I get the fabric back in there to see how much room I have for projects.  I may have to cull yet some more stuff-fabric and junque.

I had a shelf the length of the long wall up high that was lined with tins.  When I redid the room I added another shelf on a short wall, thinking that would be enough room for all my tins.  NOT!  I had planned to put my sewing tins above my machine and they would not fit.  So they are on top of my two sets of shelves.  Shelf area I was using for bolts of fabric before.  And I still have a box in the closet and the shed out back I would like to display.  I guess I am a tin junkie as well.

I hope I am done with my room by retreat.  It is going to be close.  Retreat starts in just over a week.  I have not prepared for it, because I have been obsessed with my room.  It’s a Dear Jane® retreat with some of my dearest friends who started out as my students.  If it’s not done, I have no idea what I will work on.

Back to “Such junk, such junk.”  The movie had Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as the two main characters.  The old lady who was lifting wallets said the line at the other resort.  Dirty Dancing!

Until next time when I hope to show you gobs of pictures of my finished room,

Sarah

Slow but Sure, Progress

It has been over 6 weeks since I started renovating my sewing room.  I won’t call it a studio because it is not huge and spacious nor is the light that good.  But it is a good sized room though not a shape that I think works well for quilting, at least for me.  There are windows or a door on every wall in this room.  This really makes it hard to arrange things in a room.

This week I had my laminate flooring installed.  I got all my wood blinds installed except one, I bought the wrong size.  One out of nine isn’t bad, is it?  And it was for the door.  I also got two walls lined with shelves 11 down from the ceiling.  These shelves are for my tins.  I love my tins and really like the way they look.  I prefer old and new advertising tins.  I will post pictures when I get everything back in place, especially of the tins.

But I am now ready to start moving things back into the room, FINALLY!  My cutting table is in there and my two sets of shelves are attached to the wall.  I am about to set up my sewing table and get my computer back in place.  Then it will be time to start making trips back in from the garage and fabric from the closet.  I can hardly wait.

Speaking of the garage, I was looking for something in the garage to do the last of my painting this afternoon.  We leave the garage door up a lot when the weather is nice.  This morning I noticed a bird in there.  He spent the night in there.  I have a barrister bookcase out there that has two baskets of fabric on one shelf.  They stuck out so I could not close them.  While looking for whatever it was I was looking for, I found the start of that bird’s nest in one of those baskets.  It is not the first time we have had wren’s nests in the garage, but must they build one in my nicely folded, washed, ironed orange and rust fabric?  I will keep a better eye open until all my stuff is back where it belongs.

Until next time,

Sarah

Slow But Sure…Progress

It has been awhile since I posted.  That means I have been busy, I hope.  I did go to the quilt show, it was nice and there were a lot of really nice reproduction quilts this year.  Seems to me like more than normal.  I did not take any pictures.  Most were real simple.  Besides, for me it is basically the fabrics that make the quilt.

I did come home from the show to a sick dog.  My Bassett Hound, Zeke, somehow had gotten pancreatitis.  He will eat anything and had gotten into some cat treats.  And that was evidently too much fat for him and he spent the weekend at the vet.  He came home on Monday, after over $400 later.  Poor baby, but I will do just about anything for my animals.

My room is coming along slow but sure.  It is all primed, trim is basically painted and the walls will come next.  After painting the trim, I am afraid it will take two topcoats of paint.  Oh well.  I have had to go slow because of my shoulder and I have had to make several trips to town lately but I hope to be ready to have new laminate installed by the end of this week.  I finally have an itch to sew after all these months and I think I should take advantage of it.  I have never made a string quilt and I ran across a cute little little idea for miniature string quilt.  It would be quick and easy and be a good way to try out my new sewing arrangement when I get my room back together.  I know I can find tons of pieces to cut small strips from in my scrap tin.  I must remember to throw some cheddar in there.

Sarah