Back among the Living

Well, I see that its been awhile since I posted.

The good old flu bug struck, nasty business. Kind of drained me. And though I have been back in the quilt room working alittle. Well, it hasn't been with much devotion.

This morning I drug out the camera to do an update of the "chaos room" and it looks like the last time
that I used the camera "somebody" left it on and the battery was dead.

"Oh Well"  I think that, "that " is a Tony Bennett song and not my favorite, but it kind of expresses it all!

The Celtic Solstice quilt needs work. So I have drug that out, and counted my blocks to date and started fine tuning them, starting with the neutral /blue star points. They surely needed a lot of fine tuning. Mercy Sakes! I was in a rush wasn't I?

When I was about in the 7th grade, my mom let me loose with her sewing machine. It was an old treadle singer that my brother had added an electric moter for her. It was also the only machine that
my mom ever had that I knew of. She showed me how to use it, taught me what grainlines were about, the importance of a consistant seam, bought me a pattern for what ever it was I wanted to make, and turned me loose. I could go to her and she was helpful, but basically, it was kind of a self taught thing as progress was made. Trial and error. When I needed clothes, I made them. No $ for shopping for readymades. In those days,(those words are the mark of an old person) it was cheaper to buy fabric and thread and make your own.

As I fine tuned my sewing, I read, studied and sewed a lot.

My mother had been busy with a needle, all my life. She crocheted, tatted, sewed and quilted. I remember a yellow to gold on cream, Lone Star quilt, and especially a green scraps drunkerds path that I especially loved and drooled over, but they were company quilts and thats the only time that they came out onto the bed.When mom was in the nursing home, I searched and searched for that quilt, but she had already passed it on to a needy grandchild or horrors! It had been used for padding to move a refrigerater or such!

Sometime when my 4th child was in the 7th or 8th grade, I made an applique, red plaid scotty on black pillow for my 5th daughter and decided that it would be better if it had some hand quilting. Shall we just say, that my hands cannot do a consistant stitch. I grew up with my mom having a quilting frame full , rolled and hanging over the top of her bed, and in the off garden season, she had a quilt in it most of the time. There were no quilting bees at our house, just mom, her frame and meditation. She always complained that she just couldn't do the perfect stitch. Well, I inherited that! In Spades!

So, not satisfied with my quilted pillow, I felt the need to make a bed quilt, for that 4th child. I had been looking at quilts in the lady's magazines and it didn't look too hard. So off I went to the local "everything" store in our country town that carried a fabric department. I had decided to make an Ohio Star pattern and was sort of prepared, mentally anyway. I bough some pink, blue and off white. I don't remember the  fabric very well, and the quilt is long gone, I think. I later mended it for her so many times. It was her quilt that she took on the bus on cold winter nights with the basket ball team, the one she took to young kids do's and sleepovers. It got a lot of wear and tear and she loved it. She was in her twenties at a house party when she realized that her quilt was really pretty full of holes and just plain wore out. And thats when she decide to Make HER a replacement. But that is a story in itself.

I remember terms that I used alot. Wing it. Fudge facter. Just do it. So as you can imagine, I never had lessons except from books, never had an instructor. Oh the home ec teacher tried, but she was so demanding of excellence, slow,and boring. It would take a week to get you new pair of shorts cut out and another week to get a zipper in. That was BORING and not my style at all.

So now what I am that I am turning 68, I am trying to fine tuns some skills and it is not boring, but it is not exciting either. It is feels good  to learn new ways, short cuts, and how to use the tools that I have been collecting. So lately ,thats where you find me a few hours a day. taking out, resewing or tossing, and fine tuning. I am pleased (though yawning).

To keep my Celtic Solice neutral/blue blocks company, I have decided to finish the four patch blocks, a snap for sure, and then I can put them together and lay the stars aside and start on the other block. But, I have been unpicking and resewing and recounting and hmm. It is taking some time.

About this mystery quilt, Bonnie Hunters Celtic Solstice Mystery. I had never done a quilt before that I did not know where it was suposed to be going. I say supposed to , because if you are a quilter, you know that when you create a quilt, at some point it takes over and tells you what it wants and needs. Looking at some of the blocks others have done, I worry that my scrappy quilt will not come together and meld properly. I  have saw a few that look lovely but with control and some that have the eye jumping all over----at once. And I wonder, really wonder how I will like this thing once its done?

And on another note-- There was this frenzy to do some work, get so much cranked out, Christmas, Fuenrals, concerts, basketball games and shopping all thrown together mad dash and then a trip to California. When the REVEAL came. It was kind of--oh! Ok. Is that It? The pattern is essentially a Tennesse Waltz quilt that I have had on my board for about 4 years now-- to do. I bought the pattern for it and the material in a lovely little quilt shop in Duvall Wa. when  I went over there and stayed to attend  the Tulip Festival. I sought the right and unusual fabrics and had  it all planned with browns with a purple tint, yellows and some really odd prints of deep purple violets, acid greens and more yellow to gold ranges. They spoke to me.

So, do  I even want to do this quilt again? Will I be happy with this in scrappy? And will I want to use those odd prints in anything else when I see them so clearly in this quilt?  I guess that time will tell.

Oh Well---