Back in the seventies when my babies were babies and I didn’t have much money but a lot of determination, I decided to make a quilt.  There were no quilt shops all over the country.  Not many books teaching quilting or magazines about quilting. There certainly were no blogs about quilting and the International Quilt Market was just a dream.  The only place to get material was at the JC Penney’s or JoAnn’s fabric. I searched the library for books about quilting.  My sister had been making quilts for years, but I never really paid attention to how she did it. So I began the odyssey of learning how to piece a quilt and how to put it together.  Back then Better Homes and Gardens put out a craft magazine that had all kinds of crafts in it.  My mother used to get it and when I got married I would get it.  In one issue there were several quilt patterns.  Not like in magazines today where the quilt patterns are the actual size of the pattern, no.  I had to draft the quilt pattern myself from a drawing the magazine had of the quilt pieces on squares that you had to draw, each square equaling one inch and then draw the pattern.  It wasn’t easy, but, like I said, I was determined.  There was one pattern I especially liked called the pyramid quilt made up of triangles.  I told my sister what I was going to do and like some bossy sisters are, she told me it was impossible for me to make a quilt out of all triangles.  I’m the type of person that if someone tells me I can’t do something, that’s when I will do it and I proceeded to begin the quilt. I didn’t have the fabric stash I have now, so I had to find material wherever I could get it.  I sponged some off my mother who had been sewing for years and had her own stash.  I had material left over from sewing clothes for the children.  Soon I had enough fabric to piece the quilt.  I worked on the quilt every chance I got. With two small children at the time it was not easy.  I finally got it pieced and it sat for years waiting to be quilted.  I didn’t finish that quilt until about fifteen or twenty years later.  Then I washed it and some of the fabric ran, because at that time I didn’t know you should prewash your fabrics if you don’t want them to run.  I still have that quilt and love it. Fast forward to 2015 and I am still quilting with the same passion I had at the beginning.   Maybe more so.  I still have several quilts waiting to be completed, but I still keep starting others. I decided to get one ready to quilt this week.  The one in my header.

It is a king size quilt and I had to clear out our dining room to have room to lay it out.  First I had to piece the backing for it because the quilt was so large.  I laid the backing wrong side up on the floor and laid the quilt batting over that.  Then I spread the quilt over it all.  Now came the real work.  Years ago when I wanted to get a quilt ready for quilting I would put all the layers down, pin them together with straight pins and then begin to laboriously thread needles and baste the layers together.  It took forever.  Then, I saw a lady from Alaska on television and she safety pinned all her quilt layers together.  I suddenly had an epiphany.   How hard could that be??????

I got out my little tin of safety pins that I have had forever and began to pin.

Hundreds of pins later, I am finished and the quilt is ready to be quilted.

I loved the way the light and shadow played on the quilt.

Crawling around on my hands and knees putting in one pin at a time. I had entertainment while doing so. I turned on the television just for the noise until I saw the movie that was on.  One of my all time favorite movies, The Big Country, starring two of my all time favorite stars.

Gregory Peck. Swoon.  He was at his most handsome in this movie.  I have always loved his movies.   One of my favorites of his is called Duel in the Sun.  Omigosh, he was handsome in that one.  He was handsome until the day he died.  He was in my town one time and I missed him!  He and his wife were just passing through and stopped at our local old fashion ice cream parlor that is known world wide, Zaharakos.   People come from all over to see it.  Anyway, Gregory Peck was there one time and oh, how I wish I could have seen him.  Loretta Lynn, the country western singer,had quite the crush on Mr. Peck and one time she got to meet him and she acted like a bashful teen-ager with her idol.  I would probably have acted that way too.  There was just something about him.

Charlton Heston.  Swoon again.  I loved every movie I ever saw him in.   Remember Soylent Green and the very first Planet of the Apes?   He made good movies all his life from being Moses in  The Ten Commandments to Ben Hur.  I remember I went to see Ben Hur at our local movie theater with my sixth grade class.   We sat up in the balcony.  All us girls got all dressed up and felt so grownup going to a movie without our parents.  My friend and I got in trouble for talking too much and the usher told us to be quiet.   I still remember the movie and the chariot race, but I think we giggled and talked through the entire movie.  You know, I was one of those kids you don’t want to sit near in a movie?  Funny story.  One time I went to a movie and there were girls just talking constantly behind me so I sat up very tall so that they could not see around me.  One of the girls tapped me on the shoulder and told me she couldn’t see.  I told her I couldn’t hear and that if they would stop talking, I would sit down in my seat.  They were quiet the rest of the movie.  Maybe you might try that next time you have a talker behind you.

Chuck Conners played kind of a bad boy in this movie.  I use to watch him in Rifleman on television years ago.  I had a crush on the boy who played his son. Can’t remember his name though.

Burl Ives.  Known for playing his guitar and singing.  He had a unique voice.  He played a poor rancher fighting for the water rights to the Big Muddy River against a rich rancher.  Suffice it to say, their families did not get along.

Jean Simmons at her prettiest as the love interest for Gregory Peck’s character.  The last time I saw her in a movie she played a quilter in How to Make an American Quilt.   She was still a pretty lady.

The movie ends with Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons looking out at their big country.  The ranch they both loved.  I love the west.  It does seem like a big country in many places.  It’s called the Big Sky country for a reason too.  The sky just looks bigger out there.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie once again.  Even the music makes one think of the west.

I said I was not going to bake for a while after Christmas and it has been almost three weeks since.  I saw this recipe for Morning Buns in my Midwest Living magazine.  It has twelve pats of butter in the dough, butter in the muffin cups and you spread butter over the dough once you roll it out.  Each bun has over 500 calories so you have eaten one fourth of your calories for the day when you eat one, but oh, they are worth it.

The recipe makes twelve large buns.  All sugary and good.

I’d offer you one if you were here.  Bye.