Scary Sewing

Good morning, my friends. Everyone remain calm. There's no reason for you to be scared. As for me, yesterday's sewing could best be described in a single word: "Gulp." I'll tell you about that in just a minute, but let's back up a few steps. When I left you yesterday, we were contemplating the trip up our steep snow-covered driveway to the main road. Could we do it? And let me just skip to the exciting conclusion: YES!!! Only, just hold the celebration because it only means we're going grocery shopping. Sigh. We encountered nothing but wet pavement when we hit the main road, and so it was an easy trip into town.

Of course, any trip into town completely wears me out, and so a nap was in order after lunch. When all was said and done, I took the first stitches on February's block for The Sewing Room quilt. Sadie was my emotional support cat.

With her help, I stitched it this much...it isn't a lot, but I was missing a floss color I needed. When I stitched it this far, I called it quits for the day. Probably, I'll finish it this morning.

Before I could do anything else, I wanted to bake something for our pre-breakfast morning snack. I had a yen for these Jumbo Breakfast Cookies. Usually I'm baking these for when we travel. They're a nice alternative to Clif bars when we're going down the road. They're made with peanut butter, old-fashioned oats, raisins, and multigrain Cheerios, and they are so yummy. I'm not a big fan of peanut butter cookies, but I like these. 

Before I could take their picture, one of them disappeared. I blame the "Y" chromosome in our family, and I'm not talking about Smitty.

While those were baking the Wells Fargo Wagon (UPS to you) pulled up with another gift box from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Look at these pretty King Tut thread colors. 

Also, she sent these two books. They include some ideas for setting quilt blocks.

Paging through, I could already see some ideas for some of the embroidered quilts I've made. Also, there were some good ideas for using panels. I'll get a lot of good from these.

There was also a USB stick with lots of quilt patterns and other helpful quilting information. As always, this stuff is very much appreciated. Thank you, Ila.

When the cookies were finished, I headed into the sewing room. It was nearing dinner time by then, but I still thought I could get a start on the Great Outdoors redux. Sadie has strong feelings about this since this is the quilt she and I use to snuggle when we're watching TV in the evening. She believes this quilt belongs to her. I'll admit, it compliments the colors in her fur.

After some discussion, I purrsuaded her that this was going to work out just fine. It'll be the best quilt the world has ever seen. Nobody has ever seen a quilt like it. This may be the quilt to end all quilts. (I've been practicing my hyperbole. It works fairly well with cats.)

And then, I gulped hard and cut right along the ragged seam.

I cut off the whole bottom row, and then cut the blocks apart one by one.

I started at the bottom because I wanted to try to preserve this label. And there it is...I finished this quilt in November of 2009. I'd only been making quilts for about a year at that point. Probably I stitched the lettering on my domestic machine...a Bernina 440QE at the time. I left the edges raw like the rest of the rag quilt.

Here's how that block looks on top. You can see the original three quilting lines running horizontally through the piece. For the remainder of the quilt. I'll center those lines before I cut. For this block, I was trying to preserve the label, and so I cut it off center before stitching from corner to corner.

Here's how that looks from the back. I had to stitch through the label, but it still looks fine to me. I've heard of quilters who add their identifying label before the quilting. That way, if the quilt is ever stolen, the label cannot be removed.

Okay, and so continuing on, I centered my 9-1/2 inch square ruler at the 4-3/4 mark so that the intersection of seams would be centered.

Here's where I found problems with the batting that had bunched up underneath through years of usage. It was felted to itself.

Pulling it apart and stretching it out, I just cut off the excess.

It was about here that I remembered I'd "machine tied" this quilt using the eyelet buttonhole on my sewing machine. That worked pretty well. I'd do this again if I had in mind to use my machine for tying.

There was a "tie" in each of the four pieces of the four-patch.

And then I just stitched corner to corner there too.

Here's how that looks from the back.

When all the blocks were finished, I sewed them into a row.

Here's how that looks from the back.

Also, I ran a line of stitching around the outer edges. Even with all that extra stitching, the label still looks fine to me.

But the all-important question is...what will I use for a quilt while this one is out of service? Well, I happen to have this flannel crazy quilt made by my grandmother.

Ordinarily, it has a place of honor, displayed on a quilt rack. I can't bear to use it very much, although I don't know why I'm saving it. It has her lovely hand feather-stitching. This quilt could be as much as 100 years old. I'm sure I found some flannel fabrics used to make shirts for my grandfather.

It was also tied. Here's how it looks from the back. Also, notice how she finished the edges. Look at the edge on the right side of the image below. It looks as if she turned under the raw edges and then finished it with a blanket stitch. And maybe that's where the term "blanket stitch" originated. 

I'm the last person left alive who knew my grandmother. When I came to that realization some years back, I donated many of her quilts to the Tillamook Quilt and Textile Museum. If you find yourself traveling through Tillamook, Oregon, it's worth a stop. Call ahead, and ask to see the "Bertha Maust Collection." They'll bring the quilts out to show you. And all of that to say that I was reminded of this quote that I love from Janet Finley. 

My grandmother passed away on New Year's Day in 1973. And here I am, more than 52 years after her death, tell you about her, and how much she meant to me. I can remember visiting their farm and being completely enchanted by her quilts. It was because of her that I learned to quilt after I retired, awakening my passion for the art and the craft. While I was looking for that quote above, I came across this one...so true:

So I'll just continue on with the Great Outdoors quilt today. I'm confident it's going to work out, and I'll have myself a quilt going on its second life. The blocks go pretty fast, but I doubt I can finish it in a single day. And, in any case, there's all the snipping when it's finished. I might be able to get Mr. Y Chromosome to help me with that. Probably I can bait him with cookies.

When the snipping starts, I'll be ready to start the quilting on the Vintage Linen quilt. It seems a good time for this since this is made from my grandmother's hand embroidered dresser scarves. Clearly, she's present in my life right now. Maybe there's a message for me that I haven't picked up on yet.

I'm still trying to decide how I want to quilt this. I have some ideas, but nothing I've settled on. It's my goal for February's 

If I want to finish it by the end of the month, I need to get going on it.

Okay, so I have some things on my to-do list this morning, including making tonight's dinner ahead of time. It's after 11:00 a.m. just now, and so the day is getting away from me. Time to get moving. And if you've enjoyed today's post, you can thank my editor in chief, Smitty.

It's good to have so much kitty help around. Honestly, if you don't have cats around to help, how do you get anything done?