Category Archives: Quilting

My quilt projects.

Spring Has Sprung

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I love Spring. My favorite months of the year are March, April and May.  My birthday was in March and it was a good one as usual, but the whole month just flew by like every one of the others have done lately.  The flowers are appearing. We have daffodils all over our yard and the peonies are peeping up out of the ground and will be beautiful if Lucy and Sugar don’t dig them all up. They have already dug up a few of my flowers this year, but as I have always said, our back yard belongs to the dogs, I cannot complain when they do what dogs do.  One hole was so deep, if I had fallen in it I would have probably broken something or landed in China!

All the flowering trees and bushes are ready to burst out and if we have a few warm days, they will.  And I must get out and enjoy every minute because their beauty won’t last long.  As for beauty……..

My Christmas cactus has surprised me and bloomed once again and has a few more buds on it.

Behind the cactus is the poinsettia I almost killed by forgetting to water, but now it’s got new leaves and I’m going to transplant both plants into larger pots with new soil in hopes that by next Christmas they will be beautiful again.

I spend many hours of most of my days in my shop sewing for my Christmas sale.  I keep thinking of more and more things I want to make.  And the fabric I ordered way before Christmas finally arrived. David had told me he would buy fabric for me for Christmas, so I pre-ordered some and it’s finally here.

I must have really loved this because I ordered four yards.  It will make nice aprons.

I am going to make pillows for my sofa that sets in a room I sit in and do handwork and I am redecorating the whole room this year.  We are going to paint it a pale green and I’m covering the sofa and a chair with white duck slipcovers.  I was going to buy a new sofa this year as our old one is over twenty-five years old, but it is still in good condition and it’s cheaper to slipcover right now. I bought a new rug also.  I hope we can get everything done before hot weather when I want to be outdoors swimming and playing with the dogs.

Anyway, back to fabric..

More aprons will be make from this.

I love this, but haven’t a clue what to do with it yet.

I love all things British and this is the first fabric like this I’ve seen for a while.  I’ll find a good use for it.

This is more Christmas material I will use as backing on small quilts.

This I will use to make a skirt if I can find the time.

Anything with chickens on it, I love.  This is the cutest fabric I’ve seen in a long time.  I just wish I had bought more of it.

This is coordinating fabric.  More chickens.  I never thought I’d become a chicken lady, but I have in the past few years.  My daddy raised hundreds of chickens when I was growing up. They provided us with lots of eggs that my mother cooked with and also sold to a little grocery store near us.  We would have big baskets of eggs sitting in the kitchen waiting to be washed.  The chickens also provided us our Sunday dinners.  I would watch my daddy wring off the chicken’s head, yes, wring off, it’s a technique, and the hen body would flop all over. Me, being a very curious  and rather devilish child, found this rather funny.  Not so much for the chicken.  After the chicken was dead, I would help my daddy pluck the feathers off and he would then take it to my mother to cut up and prepare it to fry the next day.    In later years, my mother taught me how to dress a chicken.  It really isn’t hard and I found it very interesting too.  My mother usually prepared two chickens each Sunday. She would get up early and fry the chicken, go to church and come home and finish preparing the meal.  I want to tell you, that was the best fried chicken I have ever eaten in my entire life. Was it because the meat was so fresh or the way my mother prepared it, I don’t know.  But it was so good everyone wanted to sit at her table and eat it.

Back to fabric..

I REALLY wish I had bought four yards of this.  I love it.

More sewing fabric.  Quilting fabric started to be big back in the 80’s and 90’s. When I first started sewing quilts in the 70’s, it wasn’t easy finding good quality quilt fabric.  We had a fabric store and we sold lots of fabric, but the industry seems to have grown by leaps and bounds since then.  It seems ideas for fabric have not run out and more and more cute fabric is being produced. The new designers have really outdone themselves.  I use to know who all the fabric designers were as I bought the fabric for our store, but there are some really talented men and women producing some beautiful fabrics now.

I use to make these little rabbits and sell them.

I still use them in my Easter displays.

This tray holds some of the toys my children received in their Easter baskets back in the 70’s and 80’s.  Antiques now!  Ha!

I wrote that I would show you some things I am making for my sale. But I will only show you little bits and pieces right now.

Pieces of something I am working on.  I have a bed piled high with things I have already made since last Christmas.  I sew three or four hours every day and I have gotten a lot of things made.  This is all I will show you right now, but be assured, there are lots of other things I’ve made or will make before December 3rd, 2022.

Do any of you watch Home Town?   It’s a show where a young couple redo and restore old houses in Laurel, Mississippi and it’s become one of my favorite shows.  You can find it on HGTV.  Anyway, on one of the show, they were demolishing a kitchen and on one of the cabinet doors, Erin, one of the stars of the show, found some recipes taped and she saved them and had one of the cakes baked from a recipe.  It was called Miss Dot’s Pound Cake. She contacted Miss Dot and Miss Dot baked one for her.  It looked so good.  The pound cake and Miss Dot have become rather famous. You can look up Miss Dot and the recipe online.

I made Miss Dot’s pound cake the other day and it did not disappoint.

The recipe makes a very dense and delicious cake that needs no icing although you could ice it if you want to.   It didn’t last long.

And because David and I love our desserts, I made a pineapple upside down cake a few days later.

It, too, did not last long.

Today David and I went antiquing with some good friends, but I will share that with you another day.

Happy Spring.  Bye.

 

Snow Days and Sew Days

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We finally got snow!  Wonderful, beautiful, white, shining snow!  I was so happy. Quite joyful, really.  I know all you who have to get out and shovel and try to drive in snow weren’t as pleased as I was to see snow, but we haven’t had a substantial snow in soooo long.  I was really hoping for a blizzard and at one time as I watched the snow blowing off the roof of my shop and saw the snow so thick at times it was hard to see very far, but it didn’t last long and after a day it was over.

I’ve been wanting a day like this for a long time.

And looking outside my shop, I was so filled with happiness. Nothing is cozier than being inside warm and snug and watching the snow fall.

But we didn’t stay inside all the time while we still had snow. We went to the hills to watch grandsons sled down them.

Driving back roads, through woods and over hill and dale, we finally came to the hill where the grandsons wanted to sled.

Playing with snow is so much fun.

A lake lies at the foot of the hill and it was frozen solid.

Our grandsons and their father walked out on it. I was a little worried that it wasn’t solid enough, but our son-in-law grew up near the Adirondacks in New York and is well aware of how thick ice should be to walk on.

Ready to go.

Dad and son coming down!

Watch out!

 

Our daughter.  She is so photogenic.

Me, not so much.  I am always caught in the most horrible poses.  I look like I could bite someone here and I was really very happy.  I brought hot chocolate and marshmallows for everyone to drink.  Please, look away from the picture now before you turn to stone!  Some day I will show you a good picture of me. I’m really not that scary.

The snow will not last, sad to say. It’s supposed to be almost fifty degrees tomorrow.

We have done so much already this Winter.  We went to see a Van Gogh exhibit where you are immersed in the pictures. It was wonderful.

People sat around on the floors and watched as the pictures changed.

The pictures seemed to melt onto the floor.

I wore my Van Gogh shirt with these irises on it.  So I blended in well.

Van Gogh was a prolific painter, but he sold very little of his work.  He died a pauper.

At one point he was into chalk drawings.  The drawings appeared to be drawn on the floor at one point.  Some of the pictures came to life, it seemed.  Birds flew. Thunder sounded.  It was all amazing and wonderful.  I could have sat there all day and looked and looked. There was so much to see.  If you get a chance to see this, do.

I took one art class when I was in college and I liked it, but I have never been artistic in this way.  My art is in my quilts.

Speaking of which.   I mentioned I was hoping to have a Christmas sale this year so I have been very busy in my shop making things.

This is what my table looks like right now in my shop.  When I am working on a project fabric gets flung from here to there as I look for just the right fabric piece I need.

I have been making pillows.  I made several of these for Christmas and they were a hit.  I’m also making pillows of my own design.   I plan to make lots of pillows, aprons, pin cushions, pot holders,  small quilts, table runners and anything else I can think of to make.

And because I have been sewing a lot and because you NEVER have enough fabric when you are a quilter, I ordered more.  The line I ordered from is called She Who Sews.

I am absolutely in love with this fabric.   David ordered me a bunch of it for Christmas and I just got it this week.  A  late Christmas present.

Here are some of the other pieces in it.

Each piece has a Bible verse hidden in it. Can you find the one here?

I love, love, love this!

Believe it or not and I’m sure you believe it now, I have ordered more fabric from another company and am waiting for it as it was a pre-order also.  This company sends its fabric all wrapped up in this.

Tissue paper.  I love when companies give that little extra service that makes you feel they care.  This is a great company also if you are looking for fabric.

David got a couple of puzzles for Christmas from the Diary of an Edwardian Lady.

Winter and Fall. He completed them both in record time so I ordered him the Spring one.

And he finished it in a couple of days so he went looking in our closets for another puzzle and found this one.

Different quilt patterns.

Which was only 500 pieces and he finished it in a day and a half.  I’m going to sell this one since he’s done it.    I got my dining table back now and he’s going to have to find something else to do!

I had to buy this book.

It is a facsimile of Edith Holden’s diary she wrote in the early part of the 1900’s. She wrote about the flowers and animals all around her and did water colors of many.  She was an exquisite artist and married a sculptor later in life. She lost her life tragically while searching along a riverbank for some more things to draw, fell in the river and drowned.  She has left us this wonderful  book of her drawings and writings along with poetry and latin names of most of the things she drew.  She was very intelligent.

To be able to draw so beautifully is such a blessing.

Each page is a treasure.   She left us something wonderful to read and beautiful puzzles to do.

February is going as fast as January did so I will be keeping very busy in my shop until warm weather and then it will be time to get back outside and plant flowers again.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all. You are loved so very much by the very One who made you.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Granddaughter’s quilt and a Happy New Year 2022

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I said I would show you the quilt I gave our granddaughter for Christmas, but first a few more pictures of the holiday at our house.

I loved our tree. David wrapped every single present you see except for his own presents, which I wrapped, but not nearly as neatly.

This angel has stood atop our tree for many Christmases.

I actually did not remember I had this Santa holding Labrador dogs, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found him among other Christmas decorations.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

A sailboat that we got in the Virgin Islands a few years ago nestles in the tree.

We always had Spritz cookies at Christmas when I was a girl. I got a new press from a Pampered Chef party a couple of years ago and I tried it this year or rather, David pressed the cookies out. He has more patience than I do.  My daughter mentioned remembering them when I use to make them years ago.  Don’t know why I stopped making them.  I think my old cookie press was not very efficient and I lost all patience with it.

Here is the quilt I gave our granddaughter.

Thirty blocks of Little Garden Girls. Each one different.  Each one holding a bouquet of flowers I embroidered or sewed on.  Almost every one has old lace or eyelet sticking out from under her dress.

Here are just a few of them.

This is the label I sewed on the back.  I already had another label on it telling when I started it and when I finished it. It took me two years to complete this quilt.  A labor of love, I tell you.

This the quilting on the front. All hand quilted.  I echo quilted around every little girl. When I first started, I told David I didn’t know why I was quilting so close, but I had to continue and now I am glad I did.  I love how it looks.  Once I got started quilting it, it was relaxing.

 

This is the backing.  Perfect for a quilt about garden girls.

Now it is New Year’s Eve. People keep saying how horrible 2021 was. Unless you got the Covid or had a death in the family, I hope you think it was a good year.  We had a very nice year actually even with some health issues and other things. It’s life. Not all is good, but hopefully not all is bad, either.  I pray for health and safety for my family and myself and that the year 2022 will bring less turmoil, more peace and happiness to everyone all around the world.   God bless everyone who reads my blog and may you find joy, peace, good health and love in 2022.  Bye.

 

 

 

What I Made and a wonderful Christmas

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I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as mine. It’s always good to have family around and eat good food and open presents.

I worked up to the day before finishing presents.  It was a work of love, for sure, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

First of all, the socks. These are a few of the socks I have knitted this year.  I hang some of them on the mantle and let people pick out the pair they want.  This year I knit over twenty pair of socks and had some left over.  I have already started next year’s batch.

I made this pillow for our daughter. My mother made the Dresden plate many years ago out of her old dresses and aprons and  one of my dresses.

The purple fabric is from a dress I wore when I was little. I remember that dress well. I loved it and hated when I outgrew it.

I made patchwork pillowcases for some.

Another pillow I made.

A small quilt with four barns on it with four different quilt patterns in the door.

I made several pillows from this pattern from a book I got from Country Threads.

I love this one with the moon where the star should be.  I have already got a request for another one.

I also did one in Christmas colors.  These were so much fun to make, I could not stop making them.

My daughter got a new kitty before Christmas. She lost one of her sweet dogs and the kitty helped her so I made her this quilt.  I had this quilt pieced for years and never finished it, but when I saw her new kitty, I knew that I would have to finish it for her. The fabric was in my mother’s stash that I received after she died.

This was the backing. You know how sometime you make something to give away and you hate to give it away?    This quilt was one of those.

This isn’t all the things I made, but I haven’t given away some things so I can’t show you.  It was fun making everything and I have ideas for next year, but first, I am going to work on things for a sale I want to have next October or November. I plan to make lots of pillows, small quilts, socks and other things to sell in my shop.  Kind of a one woman Christmas bazaar.  I will see what I can get done and whether I will make enough to have the sale.

David made picket fences and birdhouses for everyone and they were pleased to get them  I used the one he made for me as decoration on our front porch with garland and lights on it.

Went to the eye doctor and he said my eye was doing very well, but he wanted to see me again in six months.  I asked him if I was going to have to see him every six months forever and he asked me, “Don’t you like us!”  Ha.  I like them, but that doesn’t mean I want to go there every six months. It’s a forty-five minute drive and several hours wait for a five minute checkup so no, I don’t like seeing them!

We had a very nice Christmas with the grandchildren. We gave them these balls that fly and return to them, among other things, and they were a hit. Balls were flying everywhere!  I  gave our granddaughter a quilt I made several years ago and got a blue ribbon at the county fair.  I told her at the time that when I died she would get it, but I got to thinking maybe she may not get it after I died, so I gave it to her for Christmas. I took lots of pictures of it and I will show you my next post.  It’s a Little Garden Girls quilt.  Another gift it was hard to give away, but I’m glad I did.  I know she will cherish it and take care of it, maybe for her daughter one day.

Here’s to Christmases past and present and may we always have a reason to celebrate because we do.  Bye.

 

 

October is Going, Going…..

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I can’t get over how quickly the months have passed this year.  I don’t know if it’s because the stores rush us from season to season with things to buy that they want to sell, or if it’s just my age and the time passes much faster.  Remember when you were a child and it was the last couple of weeks before Christmas how long it seemed?  The time seemed to stand still then although it really didn’t and went no faster  or slower than it goes today. Still, I really wish the days were longer sometimes. Especially now that David is getting off work in the early afternoon and I still have things I want to do besides prepare dinner.

I have really grown to hate cooking the last few years. After all, I’ve cooked for various people every meal almost in the last fifty years and it’s getting old.  I never liked to cook in the first place and it gets worse for me the older I get.  Those pre-packaged, ready to cook meals I see on tv look more and more appealing to me, but I know David, with his finicky eating would not like most of them because there are VEGETABLES in most of them.  Not the kind of vegetables he likes such as corn and green beans. Well, those are the only vegetables he likes.  I eat just about every kind of vegetable there is because I was brought up on a farm and we raised all our vegetables and we ate what was put before us.

I don’t know how I got off on that tangent. Oh, yes, the shorter days and having to stop to cook, Ugh.   The days David doesn’t work he will sometimes prepare a meal and I love it. His meals tastes better than mine.  Are you that way?  The food you cook doesn’t taste good, but someone else could make the very same meal and it’s yummy.   I made roast pork loin, green bean bake and mashed potatoes with apple crunch for dessert today.  None of it tasted good to me, but David ate two helpings so it must not have been too bad.

Well, to change the subject.  I have been working on an Autumn quilt for the past month. It has twenty fifteen inch square blocks. Each block has about one hundred pieces in it. It’s been a fun one to make.

David came into my shop the other day and said, “I know you know what each pile of pieces are for, but to me it looks like a jumbled mess!”  I laughed and pointed out each pile and told him the size of the pieces in each one.  There is a method to my madness. I can work in chaos and come out with something in order.

This is just one of the blocks.  I now have the quilt top completed and will show you when I get a good picture of it.  As you can see, there are many different fabrics in this quilt.  I love the Fall colors so much.

Here is a stack of the blocks I had done that particular day.  There was a LOT of cutting of pieces for this quilt. I made a smaller version of it a couple of years ago.  It’s on a chair in my living room so I can look at it all season.  I will really try to remember to get pictures to show you my next blog. I notice I have promised to show things in the past and completely forgotten about showing them when I write new posts. I will try not to do that this time.

Now that I am done with that quilt it is on to making Christmas gifts. I  was going through my fabric boxes getting ideas for what to make and found material I had completely forgotten about but that would go very well into the projects I have planned.  They say the store shelves may be emptier this year for Christmas shopping so I am preparing to make a lot of my gifts.

We had a beautiful rainbow the other day.  We could see it from our front porch. We have been having some rainy days recently.  Yesterday and today have been rather dreary and cold.  But then there comes a rainbow.

We took a drive up to some property we have in the hills of Brown County.  We still don’t know what we will do with that property. We would love to build a log cabin and I have designed exactly what I want, two buildings, one for the living area and kitchen, bath and laundry and the other for the master bedroom and bathroom with an enclosed dog trot between them. And I want another building just for storage and my quilting.  One can dream.  Always.

This is part of our property. It runs down a hill to a little stream at the bottom.  David wants to go over there sometime and bush hog some of the land to make a path to walk.

One of our grandsons played in the championship game of his soccer travel league.

 

We took our lawn chairs and blankets and watched behind the fence.  It was a pretty good spot as his team spent most of their time at this end and we saw a lot of action.

Here he is with his medal.

It is a very nice medal and we are so proud of him.

As we were leaving the game we saw the Hunter’s Moon above us.

It was so beautiful with the clouds all around it.

I managed to get some pretty good pictures of it with my little camera. Looks like Halloween. Do you see the witch flying across its face?  When I was a child and there was a full moon, my mother would scare all us kids by saying she saw the witch flying across the moon.  I was so sure she was right that I saw her, too!

Hope your October has been happy and you have enjoyed the Autumn Days.  Hopefully our trees will be changing their colors in the next week.  Happy Halloween!  Bye.

 

 

 

Color, Texture and Pattern

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From as long as I can remember, I have been interested in fabric and sewing and in recent years, knitting socks, also.  My earliest remembrance of trying to design something was when I was three years old.  My mother was outside hanging up clothes to dry and I was outside with her, when suddenly she noticed I was missing.  She began a frantic search all around the outside of our house and barnyard and up to our neighbor’s looking for me.  I can imagine how terrified she was that she could not find me.  She went into the house to call the town sheriff and there I was, sitting in my little chair behind the stove carefully drawing on the face of my favorite rag doll with lipstick. She had no idea I could reach the handle on the door to get into the house.  I don’t remember if she was angry or just happy to find me, but I remember that doll, how it was dressed in a pink dress with brown braided  yarn hair and to my mind, now looked even better with lipstick.  My mother gave me an old sock and told me to make a sock doll and I did, painstakingly sewing its arms and legs and drawing a face on it. I still have that doll and if I can find it in the bowels of this house, I will show you.  I have so many things tucked away that I have no idea where they are. My love of sewing and fabric had begun.

I remember clothes and textures from long ago. I always noticed what people wore.  Years later when my mother and I would go to the JC Penney store in the city and we would go to the fabric department, I remember loving walking through the rows of fabric, feeling each one and thinking about things to sew.  I couldn’t sew then, but my mother could and she made my clothes for years.  I remember in particular a white dotted swiss dress with red polka dots and  with a full skirt and a red velvet sash. I felt so pretty in that dress.  I wore it to the Ruth Lyons’ 50-50 club, a tv show out of Cincinnati. It was one of the first colorized tv shows in the area and my mother wanted my dress to show up well on camera.  The audience would be filmed waving and I’m sure I was on tv that day.

When I took Home Ec. in junior high, I made a suit from kelly green cotton. A short jacket and a straight skirt with a matching green and white print blouse.  I modeled it in the Home Ec. style show that was held every year.  I was a good seamstress by that time.

In the sixties and seventies, polyester knits were in vogue. I was married  at the time and I made David a polyester suit, jacket, pants and all.  When we look at pictures of him in that suit now, we laugh because I had placed the belt loops on the jacket too high and the jacket was belted almost up around David’s chest. But he wore that suit proudly.  I have a picture of him in it that is precious to me.

Many clothes passed through my sewing machine while my children were young. I made all three clothes. One of my sons told me his teacher didn’t believe I had made a shirt and pants he wore to school, but I had.  We went to a wedding in Detroit, Michigan when our boys were young and I made theirs and my outfits we wore to the wedding.  I use to sew clothes for display at JoAnn’s fabrics when a friend of mine worked there.

Fast forward years later and we had a quilt fabric store and my love of making quilts took hold and I’ve been making quilts ever since. I still love fabrics, but now I look at them online in most cases and order them sent to my home which I think is pretty wonderful.

This past Spring I backordered some Autumn and Halloween fabrics and I just got them in the last couple of weeks. It was like Christmas.  Let me show you some of the fabrics.

These cat eyes look like they glow, but they really don’t. Just how they turned out in the picture. Kind of spooky.

All the things of Autumn I love on one quilt panel.

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I love harlequin fabric.  A little of it in a quilt really looks nice.

Makes me want to make Halloween sugar cookies.

 

I am going to make a skirt out of this fabric.  It looks like just about any top would go with it.

I finished a quilt I started years ago. That is what I do. Start one quilt, put it aside, start another and then years later finish the first one. This one had been in a box for a long time until I found it again and finally finished it.

Not sure what this pattern is called.  I do remember it was fun to make and I found the perfect backing for it.

An old quilt I either bought at an auction or at an antique store. The colors on this old quilt went perfectly with the quilt on the front.

And I loved the fabrics the quilt maker used in her quilt top. I hope she would be glad her quilt is finished, even if it is the backing of another one.

She had a wonderful eye for fabric placement.

I love the old fabrics. Many look like they could have been aprons at one time.

She wasn’t afraid to use plaids.

Or indigos.

She must have had a large stash of fabric because there are so many different ones in this quilt. Not sure what year she may have made this, but I would say some of the fabrics are from the forties and fifties.   This quilt could be reversible as I think the back is just a as pretty as the front.

I’m in love with the textures and colors of yarn too.  Almost as much as I love fabric.

One company had yarn named after national parks. This one is called Zion National Park. I have already knit the socks from this and they are beautiful.

This is Grand Canyon.  Having been to the Grand Canyon twice, I can see the colors of the cliffs and the river below.

Just loved all these colors.

I don’t think I will ever tire of fabrics and yarn.  I’m hoping textures, colors and patterns will be a part of my life until I die.   I found my love very early in life and am so glad I did.

Here’s to the joy of doing something you love. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the Brontes

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I watched a movie about the Bronte Sisters that was shown first on PBS. It is called To Walk Invisible, which is what the Bronte girls had to do when they were writing and getting their works published. They had to publish under a man’s name for a time.  I found this movie very interesting, but what I really loved seeing were the clothes.

In my previous post I talked about how people really wore colorful clothes back in the 1800’s.  I’m sure the people at PBS tried to be as historically accurate as they could be while making this movie about the Brontes.  The clothes were just beautiful. Now the Brontes were not rich by any means, but the clothes they wore were still beautiful.

I would love to see women dressed like this coming down the street. Look at the rich colors, the plaids, the florals.  The wonderful capes in such beautiful colors.

Kidskin gloves. Tight bodices.

Tiny, corseted waistlines.

Even the hats had pretty, bright ribbons and look at the floral fabric in her dress.  I have some reproduction material that almost looks like this fabric.

The Brontes were trying so hard to get their poetry and books published.  They had to pretend to be something they were not. To be invisible. It was a man’s world and women just did not do something like write a book. How silly that sounds now with all the women authors we have now. I can’t imagine what it must have been like back then to know you could write and really wanted to write, but it was discouraged at every turn. These women were so brave and ahead of their time.

But back to the clothes, here the sisters come walking down the street all dressed up in their gorgeous dresses, capes and scarves.   The actresses who played the Bronte sisters were excellent.  The sisters had to deal with their brother’s drug and alcohol abuse and he had an affair with a married woman which was quite the scandal back then.

I’m in love with this dress. If only I could go back in time for just a while and dress like this.

Not a good picture of it, but this dress looked like it was made of satin. Very dressy to be an every day dress.

I love this shawl.   And there is that floral fabric again.

I’m going to watch this again and really look at the clothes.

I may just get a pattern and some reproduction material and try making a Summer dress. I haven’t sewn clothes in a long time.

This book has been keeping me busy.

Sewing little 4 1/2 inch blocks. Seventy-two of them, plus I sewed nine extra to go in the center. The pattern calls for a center medallion, but I didn’t like it so I sewed eight flying geese blocks and one log cabin block and I will call my quilt, “Geese Around the Cabin.”

Here is the center of the quilt.

And here it is, almost done.

I still have a sawed tooth border to go around it and then a six and 1/2 inch border around that and then it will be ready to be sandwiched and quilted. I think I may quilt this one by hand. I have another one almost done with the same patterns in Christmas greens and reds.

This quilt has come together surprisingly easily and I really have enjoyed making it.  It’s going to have to be hung on a wall somewhere after it’s done.

Here’s to the Brontes and all brave girls everywhere. Bye.

 

 

The Brontes, the British and Me

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I love all things British.  Just about any PBS show based on an English author is a must see for me.  Today I discovered a show about the Bronte sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne and their attempts to get their books and poetry published.  It was hard for women back in their day. They had to send their work to publishers under men’s names.  This show is brilliant in its portrayal of the sisters and their brother, Branwell, who lived a less than calm life himself.

Other things I love about this program are the clothes and the fabrics.  I am working on a quilt right now using reproduction fabrics from the 1880’s and the early 1900’s.  We think of people back then wearing dark and somber clothes, but they really didn’t.   They used vibrant colors in their clothes, florals and paisleys.  When we look at the black and white photos or pictures from those times, we may think all people wore were black and brown clothes.

The quilt I am making is called the “School Girl Sampler Quilt,” and is made from many different fabrics. I’ve ordered fabric twice in the last month to add to my reproduction fabric stash and I must say, I am falling in love with these fabrics and would love to make some clothes from them.  I have always thought I was born in the wrong era as I don’t think people dress very well in this day and age.  Back in the Brontes’ time, full skirts and petticoats were the norm as were corsets to hold in their tiny waists.  Not sure I’d like wearing a corset, but the dresses are lovely.

Along with the quilt using reproduction fabric, I’m making another just like it in Christmas greens and reds.  There will be one hundred and forty-four blocks, seventy-two in each quilt.  The blocks are 4 and1/2 inches each and there are half square triangles that border the blocks.  It’s quite a lot of cutting out and piecing of fabric, but it’s what I love.  I spend hours in my shop, the three doggies asleep in their crates, cutting out blocks and sewing them together. It’s a peaceful kind of work and when it’s all done, I will have two more quilts.  There are 5000 women and men all over the world working on the same quilt.  You can see some of their handiwork on Kathleen Tracy’s facebook page. Kathleen Tracy is the lady who designed this particular quilt and wrote a quilt book around it.  It’s really going to be quite an accomplishment when it is finished. It’s fun seeing all the different fabrics people are using. Each quilt will be unique.

While talking about British writers, I have always been a fan of Charles Dickens.  Now he could publish in his own name and made quite a name for himself back in his day.  I  have always loved Dickens’ Christmas Carol and have seen several adaptations of this story in different forms. This past Christmas I watched Disney’s version and it was wonderful. The best I’ve seen, I think.  I watched it twice during the Christmas season.  I always love to see how Scrooge’s outlook on Christmas changes so dramatically, from “Bah, humbug,” to buying the biggest turkey for the Christmas dinner.  If you ever get the chance to see this version, do.  You think of cartoons with Disney, but this was made like the Snowball Express where the people look almost real.  I loved it.

Here it is, the end of January. David celebrated another birthday. He took a week off work and I enjoyed it. I hope he did.  I took him out for dinner and baked his favorite chocolate cake.  I keep thinking he is younger than he is. In fact, I told a repairman, who was at our house this week, that he was two years younger than he is!  I wish I could wish the years away like that, but time marches on.  My granddaughter is getting married this Summer and she posted on Facebook “could there be as great a love as this?”  And I told her yes, there is and I hope and pray she and her future husband will be together fifty years from now. I know they think that’s a long way away, but it’s really not. Those years flew for David and me.  This year will be our fifty-third anniversary. It’s true, life is just a vapor. We are born and before we know it, we are old and you wonder where the years went even though you enjoyed them all for the most part.

I must show you a beautiful flower I bought myself for Christmas this year. The last couple of years I’ve sent my sister and her husband an amaryllis and this year I decided to get one myself. It has not been a disappointment.  Better than any poinsettia I’ve had and much longer lasting. When I got it the flowers had not even started growing so we watched every day as the stems grew taller and taller and finally a few days after Christmas this one popped out.

This week three more flowers came out. It’s been so much fun watching this plant grow. I will probably buy another one next Christmas.

Our puppies tore a hole in our pool liner a few weeks ago. They are the first labs we’ve had that wanted to get into the water.  So, today we went and looked at pool liners and ordered one to replace the torn one.  The man working there told us that it has been so hard to get pool supplies and parts for pools because of the pandemic that they are two years behind in installing pools.  People will have to wait until 2022 for their pools to be installed. We had to put a down payment on the liner and get in line to have it installed and still we won’t have it in until June or July which is all right with me as I usually don’t swim until it’s hot, but David usually is in no later than May so he’s kind of disappointed.

How are you doing in this longest of pandemics?  David and I are managing to be active and enjoy our time together. This has really been a blessing in some ways, but I can’t imagine what it’s like for those who live alone or are in nursing homes or hospitals and cannot have visitors.  I gave David a puzzle for Christmas to keep him busy, He had it done in two days.

It’s a puzzle of quilt patterns.  Wouldn’t a quilt be lovely in these colors?

Besides quilting, knitting socks, and playing with pups, I’m painting another picture. It doesn’t look like much now.   I heard in a movie this week a girl describing another girl saying she was like a Monet painting. Beautiful from far away, but a real mess up close!  I thought that was so true. Paintings seen up close you do see all the imperfections, but viewing them from a distance they look good or great depending on the artist.

Here’s to the British, to wonderful quilts and Christmas flowers that delight. Bye.

 

 

Good-Bye 2020 Welcome 2021, I Think

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What a year 2020 has been and it just keeps on giving.  When the new year started, it seemed like everything was so fresh and new and that wonderful things would happen and then,…. China gave us the present of the Covid Virus. I’ve heard that was an act of aggression on their part or even an act of war, but we Americans calmly accepted it and started the journey of quarantining ourselves, wearing masks and not gathering together.  It was all so strange. We are a people who like to do things in large groups.  This year we won’t even be able to gather in Times Square and welcome in the new year. Oh, the ball will still drop, but no one will be there to see it.  Is it kind of like if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there, will anyone hear it kind of thing.

I hate wearing a mask. I have breathing problems at times anyway and wearing a mask gives me claustrophobia and shortness of breath so I try to avoid places where I have to wear one.  Thankfully, we are not required to wear them in church.  I try to do all my shopping at once so I don’t have to go several times a month.  I try to spend time outdoors in the fresh air as much as possible. With three dogs, I have to be outside.

Speaking of dogs, they have been a life saver, keeping me company and giving me entertainment.  Lucy and Sugar have definitely become MY dogs. David can be outside playing with them and all they have to do is hear me open the back door and they are off to the races seeing who can get to me first and jump on me.  We are working on that jumping part because when you have two fifty pound puppies slam into you, you really feel it!  At least they are happy to see me and I am usually happy to see them unless they get muddy paws all over me.

Three needy dogs.  They are all three people pups. They love being with people.  The puppies have grown so much and they are still only about half the size they will be.  Our vet said they were slightly overweight, but they look skinny next to Molly and she has lost some weight. The vet told us Labs were always hungry and she was right. They act starved all the time.

They are so darn cute, I can’t get mad at them even when they tear up everything in the back yard. One of them dug up all the flowers I planted around our porch.  I hope they get that out of their system before next growing season.  Lucy still has those beautiful eyes.

They are all partners in crimes. Here David has a treat waiting for them.  All eyes on it!

All our dogs when they were puppies destroyed something. Well, our new pups tore the pool liner getting in and out of the pool so we are going to have to replace it next Spring. The pool is eighteen years old, so the liner was needing to be replaced.  David didn’t even act disturbed about it. Hmmmm.  When Molly tore up the pool heater he had built, I thought she was dead dog walking for a while.  He is attached to these puppies like no other.

Then there’s the chickens or chooks if you are in Australia.   They are such good little layers.  We haven’t had a period without eggs for a long while.  Our new layers are starting to lay some pretty big eggs.

One of these eggs is not like the others…..

I love our eggs. They taste like butter.  We have given away dozens of eggs this year. People always offer to pay for them, but we like giving them away.  As long as we are able, we will continue to do so.

I call this one our loner chicken because she stays outside looking in. When I feed them, she waits for all the rest to begin and then she will find a place to fit in. She’s not henpecked, just chooses to be alone.  I guess if some people live like that, so can chickens.

This is our bossy hen. She meets me at the gate every single time telling me I’m not feeding them fast enough. She has grabbed a bowl of feed right out of my hand and will peck me if she feels like it.  She is also a talker and will follow me around clucking up a storm.

Our only Buff Orpington left. She has been a good layer and the next time we get chicks, I’m getting more Buffs.  They are a gentle, sweet chicken.

No exactly sure what kind this chicken is. I thought I was getting a Silver Laced Wyndotte, but I don’t think that is what she is. She is a lot smaller than the other hens.

It’s been a little cold for bird watching although I still feed the birds, but the other day I got a few photos.

He looks well fed, doesn’t he?

Remember Frankenbird?  She has blossomed from an ugly bird.

She’s got a crest and more feathers. Here she almost looks rainbow colored.  I’m happy for her.

Sitting in the living room the other day I noticed the light at the window was beautiful through our lace curtains.

I took a few pictures.  “Scarlette, it’s the land you love.”  Does this look like that scene a bit?

The sky was on fire.  Just beautiful. God’s creation on display for all to see.

Back to the puppies. I couldn’t resist.  David had to build this gate because the pups were eating our shoes we leave on the porch and they tore the screen door out.  David didn’t seemed disturbed by that either. Hmmmmmmmmmm.  Is he getting soft in his old age?

In the new year I am starting a new quilt project. I have never joined a quilt along before. A quilt along, if you don’t know, is where several people get together online and follow instructions on how to make a certain quilt and we make our quilts together and when it’s over, we should have a finished quilt top. There are over 5,000 people all around the world getting ready to quilt with this quilt along.

We are using this quilt book by Kathleen Tracy.  All the blocks measure four and a half inches square and there are 72 squares and a middle medallion with a saw toothed edging.

It’s not too late to join, but you need Kathleen’s book and lots of different materials. You will need to follow her on her Facebook page. I’ve been going through my stash.

As you can see, I  am very well organized. I’ve got boxes and boxes of material and it’s like shopping for new when I go through them as I’ve forgotten a lot of these fabrics. but…

Wouldn’t you know?  I ordered more!  And I’ve ordered more again and am waiting for it to come!  And,… I will probably order more before this quilt is done. I always can find an excuse to order more fabric. One of these fabrics has chickens on it, too!  I’m going to try to make two of these quilts at a time. One in reproduction fabrics from the 1800’s and one from Christmas fabrics, so I will have two finished quilt tops by March, I hope.  It’s going to be so much fun.

Years ago, I use to quilt with a friend and all of a sudden one day I lost my quilting mojo. I just didn’t feel like making quilts. It was awful.  I could not get interested. My friend was worried about me. Thankfully, that little blip lasted a very short time and I was soon quilting again. We had just closed our quilt shop at that time and I think I was just burned out with quilts, quilting, fabric, the whole thing. But now I am as passionate about it or more. I love making quilts I can share with others and our house is full of them.  I told my daughter that was my legacy to her and she can do whatever she wants with them when I’m gone.  She already has several quilts I’ve made her as do her two boys.  I love knowing that when I’m gone people will still be snuggling under quilts I’ve made for them.

So I already know what I will be doing the beginning of the new year. These are a few of the blocks I’ve been practicing on.

Do you make new year’s resolutions?  I use to long ago, but I found that I could never keep them or I forgot all about them. I think it’s best to just live each year and be the best you can be. Be kind to people. Enjoy what you do each day.  Find a passion and stick with it. Take a walk.  Get a pet.  Grow something.  Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.  Remember each day could be your last one. We never know.  I’m glad God made it that way.  I don’t think I would do anything much differently if I knew when I was going to die, Maybe patch up some broken relationships if I could.  I’ve tried before.  But the people I love know I love them so I’m good.  Make a new friend.  Go to church because we are to assemble together with one another.  Pray for your country and its leader. We still are not completely sure who our president is.  There was a lot of chicanery that went on with this last election.  I hope it all turns out well. It will be up to the electoral college so pray for those people.  Give money to a charity that helps people.   I’m all for helping animals, but we people are in need of help too. I find that the Salvation Army is one of the best charities to get the most  to more people.  Pray for a cure for all the illnesses in this world. I pray for a cure for MS because my daughter has it and I truly believe she will be healed one day, but pray for anyone you know who is suffering with any illness.  Pray this Covid thing will go away for good.  I could go on and on about what we could or should do, but you know all that.

While it’s been very different this year, I think it’s been a blessing in disguise, too. Families have had to stay together and do things together.  I know my daughter and her sons have had some real quality time. I do hope the boys get back into school at some time because they need that social connection with their peers.  I’ve enjoyed not feeling like I have to be on the go all the time. I’ve read more books, sewn more quilts, and had more free time than I ever have had before and I love it.  My life was not as interrupted as many have been and I know all you social people are ready for a BIG party so I hope you get it soon.

We will face this new year and we will live right through it like we did 2020.  Many did not survive, but we who did have been blessed and we should make the most of every day.  Thank God in Heaven for all you have because we do live in the richest country in the world.  I heard the other day that just one of our states, California, has the fifth largest economy in the world.  One state!  So we are extremely blessed and we really don’t deserve to be. So thank you, God.

I pray for all of you who read this blog that your year will be full of blessings. That your troubles will be few and your blessings many.  Hugs to you all.  Virtually, of course.  Happy New Year. Pray for 2021 that it only can get better from here.  Bye.

 

 

Entertaining Myself

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I read a blog the other day, Yarn Harlot, where she told how when she and her siblings were young, her mother would tell them to entertain themselves. They came up with some very inventive ways to entertain each other.  I had to laugh because my mother was the same way except she told us if we couldn’t find anything to do, she’d find something for us to do which usually meant “work!”  I would hide out and read or play with the kittens in the barn or do anything to keep out of the house.

So during the quarantine days I have found many ways to entertain myself.  One day I made some blueberry pancakes which David loved and I didn’t and I decided to feed mine to the chickens and Molly.  I wanted to see how they all would react to the pancakes. First the chickens.

These two are the “bosses” of the chicken yard and think they will get the most if they stand the closest, but it doesn’t always happen that way.

So once a piece is thrown, the running and grabbing begins. Every chicken manages to get at least one little piece. Even the younger ones who are still learning the rules of the chicken yard.

It’s really a free for all, but I try to throw the pancake to every chicken so each one gets a little piece. They love blueberry pancakes!

Now Molly gets a pancake.

Here it comes, Molly.

Closer, closer. She stays seated like the good girl she is.

Take a bite. Now Labradors have a soft mouth which means they don’t bite down hard on anything unless they are actually eating. It was bred into them so they would not chew up game after it has been shot and they bring it to the hunter.  Molly forgets that I am not a hunter and she really can eat this thing.   She won’t bite it.

“Well, am I going to get to eat that thing?”

Chomp. She took it.

And she chewed it all up and wanted more, but I only had the one pancake for her. Sorry, Molly.

Well, that was entertainment for about ten minutes.  So I still have to fill the days with other things and surprisingly, I have no problem doing that.

This is one thing I am working on, but I can’t show you much of it as it will be a gift, maybe.

I made a pair of socks with left over yarn and I love how these turned out. I’m trying to use up some of my yarn before I buy more.  It’s fun trying to match up yarns that will look good together.

I’ve finished this pair and am on to another.

There is always bird watching.

“What is down there?”

Frankenbird is still around. He/she is growing, but still no feathers on that head.

We are getting so many tomatoes off my four plants. There are about twenty here now. I try to eat a lot of salad with tomatoes, but I think I will have to make some tomato juice before they rot.

We had this vine grow up on our porch steps. We thought it was a morning glory, but the flowers on it are tiny white ones so I’m not sure.

We have this Autumn Clematis coming up in very strange places where I know I haven’t planted it. We think the birds must have done some planting themselves.

Just a picture of the sweetest dog in the world.

The garden by our back door is flourishing and we’ve had some bird families in the birdhouses. Molly torn down a wren house we had on the fence. Thankfully, the wrens had already hatched and flew away, so David put the house back up, only higher so hopefully the wrens will come back and nest again.

David and I took a very exciting trip today.  I have a wonderful surprise to tell you in my next blog.  Hope to see you then.  Have a happy Autumn. It’s here, whether we are ready or not. Bye.