Pics or It'll Never Happen

The funny thing about not blogging regularly is that I still take pictures as though I were.  Maybe not as many, but I still do some kind of photo documentation on a regular basis.  

Then every so often (like this evening) I'll be looking through my photo archives and wonder why I couldn't get my act together and just write a blog post.  

(Table runner made for a friend)

When and if I ever figure that out, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, how about I share a few pictures from the past several months.

I love a good thrift shop fabric score, which will come as no surprise to many of you.  

One day, I bought a bag that I thought was fabric scraps and one completed quilt block in it that I could see.  It was sealed with tape so I couldn't inspect the rest of the contents, but I took a chance.  

Turns out it was a whole bag of orphan blocks!

I put them up on the design wall and left them there for a week or two while I mulled over whether (and how) I might put them together into one quilt. 

Ultimately, it just made my brain hurt so I nixed the idea (for the time being), and they all went back in the bag from whence they came and then into my own orphan block box.  But when I opened that box to put them in, some orphan squares of my own caught my eye and I pulled those out to play with.

I ended up making hourglass blocks out of those leftover squares and it turned into this baby quilt.

(Back of hourglass block baby quilt)

 So I guess the bag of orphan blocks was worth it insofar as getting me in the headspace to create something from (my own) orphans.

Here's something I left behind at the thrift store recently, but I had to take a picture.

This sewing machine reminded me of the one I learned to sew on.  My mom bought a second-hand machine for my sister and I to use.  I don't remember the brand, but it looked an awful lot like this one.  I really, really liked that machine.  This one was only marked $15, but goodness knows I don't need another vintage machine.  It sure was pretty, though!

This post is getting a little long (or I'm just getting tired), but I have more pics to share, so look for Part 2 soon.  I'll leave you with a couple non-sewing related photos from the summer. 

My husband I were biking along on a country road, blasting Led Zeppelin from a portable bluetooth speaker, when I noticed cranes in a field out of the corner of my eye.  Not just sandhill cranes but also a pair of whooping cranes!  

I quickly killed the music so as not to scare them away, and we got off our bikes to watch them for awhile.  How exciting!

~Paulette

Luck at the Thrifts

I've had some good luck at the thrift stores over the past few months.  I don't think I've done a post about these finds, but forgive me if I do repeat anything.

Actually, this first item came from a flea market several months ago.  One group of tables was piled with clothing and that's where I spied this beautiful red plaid shirt.  The tables seemed to be a family affair, so when I asked how much the shirt was, the man deferred to his tween-age son to answer with a price.  The kid said, "Fifty cents."  The father nodded.  Sold!

This is a big shirt!  There's a lot of usable fabric in this XL size.  And it looked like it had never been worn, with a lightly starched feeling and creasing like it was right out of the package.  A quality brand as well, Brooks Brothers.  Deal of the day!  It's so pretty, I haven't even washed and deboned it yet, but eventually I'll do that and add it to the shirt stash, along with another one I found at a thrift store, below.

I like the bright blue and turquoise check of this shirt.  I have no immediate plans for it, but it adds a nice variety to the stash.  I did use up quite a few shirts for the last couple of quilts, so I'm on the lookout for good ones, especially lights and brights.  

As far as actual fabric finds, you can see a couple pieces that I got the same day I bought the checked shirt.  At another store, I found quite a few good-sized pieces, including some John Deere fabric, the three pieces on the right side below.

I hadn't thought of making a John Deere themed quilt, but when I saw these, I decided maybe it was time to do that.  Dear Dad, who worked for Deere for 35 years, would have approved.

Now, I'm not a big jewelry wearer anymore; my pierced ears have closed up (might get them re-pierced), but once in a while I wear a necklace.  This one caught my eye at the thrift store.  Even if I don't wear the pendant (but why not?), the chain is nice and I could put a number of other pendants on it or wear it alone.  At under two bucks, it was a no-brainer.  Found another green and yellow fabric there, too.  It could become part of the JD quilt?

This gorgeous apron caught my eye.  Just look at that bright yellow gingham and the pretty embroidery.  It's been washed and pressed, and Dolly (my mannequin) is now modeling springtime itself!

I found a couple of boxes of handy sewing machine gadgets that will fit my old Singer and the one I gave my sister, too.  I already have most of the cams or discs (those dark circular do-dads) and many of the feet, but I don't think my sister has them, so I'll probably pass these on to her.

That blue and yellow floral piece of fabric was a cotton shower curtain, new in the package.  It has already been used as the back of a quilt.

I think that's about it for now.  I'm sure there were other things I picked up but they never made it into pictures, like the brand new camo pants hubby found for mowing lawn...whenever spring gets here.

Have you found any treasures at the thrift store lately?

~Paulette

Fabric and Finishes

As mentioned in the previous post, my daughter recently brought me two big bags full to the brim with fabric from her coworker.  Here it is on my cutting table after I took it out of the bags and grouped it by colors and thus loads that I could prewash together.

I am allergic to cats and dust (not that you'd know it by the usual state of my housekeeping), so I  prewash everything before incorporating it on my shelves.  Time consuming, yes, but I actually enjoy the opportunity to pet each fabric individually as I take it out of the washing machine (and cut apart the mess of strings), dry the load, and then press each piece one by one.

It took about 10 days to get all of this new-to-me fabric sorted.  Here is everything afterwards, stacked on the cutting table.  There's some great fabric here!  The biggest piece is 3 yards of a Christmas print, but many yard and half-yard cuts, and a whole lot of fat quarter sized pieces.

I am so grateful to this person who wondered what to do with the fabric left from mask making in 2020 and passed it along my way.  I will certainly use it!  

Now for the finishes.  Several months ago, Jo of Jo's Country Junction connected me with a woman named Evelyn in California, who had a flannel quilt kit and a some other UFOs to be finished.  I agreed to finish them for donation.  You may have seen this pretty flannel quilt finish recently on Jo's blog (HERE and HERE).  

After I had pieced it, I sent it to Ray in Florida, a longarm quilter who finishes many donation quilts that come to him through Jo.  It was larger in size than I normally feel able to handle quilting on my regular sewing machine, so I asked Ray if he would be willing to longarm quilt it, and he agreed.  He did a beautiful job!  You can read more about this quilt in the links above, but here is a closeup he sent me of the quilting.

Then this weekend, I finally finished the second UFO from Evelyn.  She had sent some beautiful, neat-as-a-pin redwork embroidery blocks of cute animals, along with the instruction sheet to complete the red and white quilt and fabric to do so.  

Her blocks were so well done!  I really wanted to do her handiwork justice in finishing this quilt.  Here it is pieced together and on the design wall in mid-March.

I did use a different "white" when piecing the borders of the quilt (Kona Snow), as it matched the background of the redwork better than a true white did.  I pieced the backing from some of the other red and white fabric she'd sent, plus added a bit of my own to make the backing big enough.

Then it was time for me to quilt it.  The size was ideal for me to handle, at about 45 x 55, but how was I going to quilt the embroidered blocks?  I had a couple vague ideas, but no concrete plan, so I put the basted quilt aside for several weeks to allow my trepidation to settle.

Last week, having procrastinated long enough, I started in on the ditch quilting.  I still didn't really know what I was going to do around the embroidery, but I know that when I finally get over myself and take the first baby steps, momentum usually takes over. 

And so it did.  Ultimately, I just went with the flow and let the spirit and needle lead the way, block by block.  Over the course of a couple days, it was quilted!

Some blocks may be a little more inspired than others, quilting-wise, but overall I think it turned out well.

I used some red fabric from the new influx of scraps mentioned above in binding the quilt.  There was a long red scrap on the lengthwise straight of grain, which was perfect for this quilt.  

Having quilted more densely in the center than the borders, they threatened to become a bit wavy.  The lengthwise-cut binding helped corral it and made for a nice straight edge.

I will be donating this quilt to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo as part of the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge 2021.  I hope whoever receives it will be uplifted by the playful, whimsical critters in this pretty red and white quilt.  Thanks again to Evelyn for entrusting a few of her projects to me to be finished, and to Jo and Sarah for connecting a community of charitable quilters!

Sunday Sundry 6-23-19

It's been awhile since I've done a post in the "Sunday Sundry" category, where I gather various odds and ends into a smorgasbord of sundry themes.  So let's do this thing.

Old Business

First, in the interest of closure, I did get the last Hands2Help flimsy quilted and sent off to Quilty Hugs earlier this month.  Norm took a couple minutes out of his yard work to hold the quilt up on the porch for a couple pictures of the front and back.  

Some close-ups. 

This was a great way to utilize 2.5-inch strips and went together fast.  Go back one post for the link to the tutorial, if you're interested in more details.  I'd definitely make one of these again.

Who Likes Leftovers?

I do, when it comes to both food and fabric.  Food-wise, it usually means I don't have to cook, which is a welcome change of pace.  Fabric-wise, it's a fun and creative challenge to make something on a smaller scale within the confines of the scraps from a bigger project.  I like the low pressure, who-cares-if-it-doesn't-work, but-it-might-be-awesome-if-it-does feeling of working with leftovers.

I had a couple orphan blocks left over from the Blooming String Baskets quilt, as well as some leftover triangle units in solid colors.  So I played around with positioning those this way and that, and came up with this table runner.

When it came to quilting it, I had no clear idea, so I started with just ditch quilting, and that led to a bunch of other straight lines.

Here's a fun, good to know tidbit:  Anybody who thinks straight-line quilting is taking the easy way out when it comes to finishing a project, has probably never buried three thousand thread ends!  Of course, I'm exaggerating the number (somewhat), but man oh man, the thread burying on this little ole thing! 

I'm happy with the end result, after all is said and done.  Yeah, so maybe it looks like the carnival has come to town, but it sure brightens up a room!  If it's too bright, I can always flip it over for a (kinda?) more subtle effect.

The next leftover project was with more solid scraps and remaining 2.5-inch strips from the quilt shown above.  I put together a few 16-patch blocks and came up with this little doll-size quilt.

My grand-niece has a birthday in a couple weeks, and I think she and her dollies might like this.

The back is from a vintage fitted crib sheet I found at a thrift store years ago.  It's so soft and sweet, and the perfect size to finish this little quilt.

Non-Sewing Related Gigs

I've been working on a different kind of project lately, and that is transcribing the many hours of conversations I recorded with my dad a year or so before he passed away.  

He's been gone a year and a half now, but I still think of him just about every day.  Sometimes it's just a passing thought.  Other times it's like a step back into a more painful kind of missing him all over again.  

(View from Dad's memorial bench overlooking the marsh near sunset.)

I think grief is like that.  It comes and goes, sometimes dull, sometimes sharp.  I'm no expert, but I think you just have to ride those waves, up and over, as many times as they roll in.  

When I've been out for my daily walks this summer, I've been relistening to those conversations.  Dad wanted to talk about his life, his stories from a young kid on.  When we covered most of that ground, we went through his photo albums and he talked about the people in the pictures.  I'd go over there once a week or so during 2016, with my digital recorder in hand, and hit the record button.

You might think relistening to those conversations would be painful, but I find they are anything but.  To hear his voice again, his stories, his laughter and mine co-mingling, is relaxing and comforting.

(Dad in 2014 - Quote by Scribbles & Crumbs/Lexi Behrndt)

My mom wrote down her stories about growing up and compiled them into a book that she then supplemented with pictures.  She gave each of us children a copy.  When she passed away unexpectedly, 10 years ago, we were all so glad she had done that.  

I think Dad wanted to do the same, but he didn't have the skills mom had when it came to typing it all into the computer and organizing it into a narrative.  I'd helped him edit the book he wrote in 2012 from his handwritten notes, so I think he wanted me to do something similar with his life story. He never asked me explicitly, but I got the drift that that's what he was wanting to do once we got started.  When I was working with him on his book writing project, it became obvious that "the rest of the story" was often in the details I teased out when seeking clarification of his written notes.  He was a great storyteller, and it seemed he recognized that his own story was going to have to come straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, with me asking questions along the way.

(Wild columbine along the bike trail, with "sparkles" of dandelion fluff.)

So now I'm starting to transcribe those long conversations.  I'm a transcriptionist by day, so it's not difficult work for me, just time-consuming.  And after hours of transcribing for my day job, I am usually pretty much over with sitting in front of a screen and typing any more than I have to.  However, last week I had a light workload for some reason, so I got started.

I tell you what, even though you may have heard your parents' or grandparents' stories being told time and time again, there's no way you're going to remember all the details.  And you may hear a snippet of a story here and there but never the whole thing.  In relistening and transcribing Dad's own words, I'm learning many "new" things, even though, technically, I've heard them before.  The overall scope of it is coming into better focus.

It is going to be wonderful to get this down in black and white for posterity, and to share it with the rest of the family.

Thrift Finds

So far this summer, there's been more going out of the house than coming in, which feels like a very good thing.  I've sold an old road bike, a camera, and an amplifier, among other things.  I've driven a couple trunk loads to Goodwill.  The circle of stuff, and all that.

But on Saturday, we happened by a nice thrift store where I sometimes find fabric, and once again, the trip did not disappoint.

That roll of pink fabric?  Five yards!  That'll make a nice backing some day.

Love the paisley print!  And that striped fabric may make a nice binding.

This gray (and black/white/red) fabric was definitely a vintage head-scratcher.  What is with those shapes, for one thing?  And feathers?  It was just too weird to pass up.  I tried Googling the name on the selvage but nothing came up.  Hmm...gotta love a good mystery!

Thrifting and Stash Enhancement

One day a few weeks ago, I met up with my sister in a neighboring town.  We planned to go for a walk and then have lunch and catch up.  We agreed to meet up in the parking lot of the True Value hardware store, but since I got there first, I went into the store to look around.  It'd been quite a while, maybe 10 years, since I'd been in there and I remembered there used to be a fabric section tucked back in the corner of the store when it shared space with Ben Franklin.  

Ben Franklin was a "dime store" kind of place, back before the big box stores were popular (and everywhere).  Little towns might have a Ben Franklin, where they sold all sorts of household items and other stuff.

I don't know what happened to Ben Franklin stores, but this True Value store still had the fabric section back along two short walls, and, oh my gosh, you guys, it was great!

By that I mean, not a huge selection, but what WAS there was some pretty nice stuff!  And they were having a sale where everything was 30% off—which might not sound like such a big deal, but when most of the original bolt prices are $5.99 to $7.99 a yard for popular brand fabric, that is fabulous!

Not pictured are some blender type fabrics, and I also found a 108" wide backing at $8.99 a yard, minus 30% off—plus I signed up for the True Value rewards card at the checkout counter, and they gave me another 10% off my total purchase.

(This was a thrift store find - I thought it looked like brains, at first, but it's raspberries!)

I've also been doing a little thrift store shopping here and there.  Trying not to get carried away, just looking for more useful things like fabric, thread, zippers, drinking glasses, etc.  I've driven loads TO the thrift store since the first of the year, in sorting out Dad's effects, and in general, my desire is to keep more stuff going out than coming in.

However...when your husband helpfully points out two matching pieces of mid-century vintage Royal Haeger pottery you just so happen to collect, what are you going to do?

(Vintage Royal Haeger)

That's right.  You are going to take them home.

On a different thrift store stop, I found some pretty iced tea glasses to replace the ones we've lost over the past year (let's just say "Don't break my dishes" has become a popular refrain when Somebody is loading and unloading the dishwasher). 

So I went up to the cash register to pay for the glasses, which were going to set me back a whopping two dollars, and the lady said, "Did you draw a paddle?"  

Huh? I blinked.  "Uh...no?" I finally replied.

She reached for a pail of paint stirrers ("paddles") and told me to pick one.  The one I chose had the number 75 written in black marker on the far end of it.

"Oh, 75 percent off!" she clucked.  "That's a good one!  Do you want to shop some more?"

She did not have to ask me twice.  I dashed back to the "art department" of the store and pulled a large, professionally framed and matted original watercolor off the wall.  It had a price tag of $39.99, which seemed completely reasonable for that kind of work, but it wasn't something I really needed.  Until that moment.

"You found something!" the lady said as I strode back to the register a few minutes later.

I did, indeed.  

It's signed by "Dick Greene."  I don't know anything about the artist, but I think he did a brilliant job.  (Pardon the reflection of my door window on the glass.)

It's now hanging on the wall in my entryway.  He's watching you!