Request for Prayer...

I'm sure many of you have heard of the mine explosion in West Virginia. My Grandfather was a West Virginia coal miner and when something like this happens, it is more upsetting to the families and communities than you can understand. We were heartbroken to hear this evening that there had been a mistake in the press release and that there had been 13 lost and only one found alive. I am still not sure if that is correct information, but I do know that there are so many families that could use your prayers during this tragic time.

My attempt at blue and yellow...
So, what do you think? I plan on making this one like Bonnie's, with sashing and light-colored cornerstones. I think it'll be alright. I am seriously enjoying my "new" featherweight. I found a note on it, yesterday, that read, "Everytime I see this thing it keeps getting smaller and smaller!!! Are you sure this is what you want? I'm thinking you need a big industrial machine to support your addiction, er... hobby." Oh, he is just too funny. It seems to be plenty big for my needs.

Sarah's other trip around the world...
Isn't she well traveled? She made this quilt for my second DD, Rebekah. Wasn't that a great gift? She also brought me a box of my favorite chocolates. I'm conflicted about which gift I liked the best... Abraham uses the quilt now, and he loves it, too. So the quilt is definitely longer lasting the the pound of chocolate I snarfed down in about two days- hey, I was pacing myself! She made this quilt before we had bought the quilting machine, so it is tied- and it has held up amazingly well. Notice the surprising color combination- I'm afraid it was only the beginning of an apparently life-long obsession. I fuel the fire, as I bought her several yards of blue and yellow, only yesterday. And doesn't she put them together well? It isn't broken, so I don't suggest she fix it. I only like teasing her about it- as she does my affinity for all things orange.

Me, Eva and the 3 foot drift...
Well, it doesn't look like much, but that is the 3 foot drift that Eva and I landed in a few weeks ago. We were on our way to town to run some errands and we hit a "patch" of ice that was about, oh, 100 meters long. I skidded this way and that as the back of the truck kept trying to be the front of the truck. And wouldn't you know, it was on a stretch of road that had telephone poles on both sides! I felt like we were on some sort of medievil obstacle course- with Eva screaming like a girl- ok, she is a girl, but it wasn't helping me any. And wouldn't you know it, I was driving my dad's truck as it had been sitting in the driveway for nearly two weeks and he said the battery needed a spin. So it wasn't my old clunker of a jeep, it was his nice, pretty, shiny truck. Finally, I felt that our luck was gonna run out as were were headed for that next-to-last pole, so I just turned the truck around and slid us into the ditch. Now, how come, when the weather is fair you never take notice of which side of the road has the deepest ditch? If I had chosen the other side, I would have landed in 3 inches of snow. As it was, I choose the 3 foot snow drift to land in. It was a fairly soft landing and Eva finally quit screaming- to burst into tears, and I was just so glad I missed that last telephone pole. I felt so foolish- cars started stopping to see if I had a cell phone to call someone- honestly, there is rarely a car on that road, but it was getting time for school to be in, so there were dozens of gawkers- like they never saw anyone in a ditch. Oh well. Dear husband came to the rescue- it was only one mile down the road from our home. He brought my two oldest boys. They were grinning from ear to ear- figure this wasn't something that we could keep in the family. Oh, no, now they have proof. They walk around the truck surveying the predicament I'm in- still all grins. Boys. Then I notice that the 15 yr old is three feet shorter than the 14 yr old. Wonder when they'll notice? Finally, Joe looks up at his little brother and they both burst out laughing. Joe is a hefty fellow- and his size 14 shoes still aren't big enough to hold him on top of the snow. Dan is as thin as a fence rail- and his size 13 shoes were acting like snowshoes- there he was just walking along on top of the snow, while Joe is trudging with snow up to his hips! They came with shovels and salt- gonna dig me out as I am actually on top of the 3 feet of snow. About 30 minutes into it, a second car slides- on the very same place- and ends up in the ditch. I felt a little better. It took almost 3 hours to get me out of there, with the help of 3 more school boys- Brock, Nathan and Brandon- thank you. And just as an aside- naming your child Brock will probably assure that he will be built like a small locomotive and have freckles and red hair. The kid was huge and it felt funny writing, "Please excuse Brock from being tardy- he helped me get out of a ditch." I wonder if it worked. But I don't think these boys are new to being in trouble. Here they all were, sitting shoulder to shoulder in an old beat-up pick-up truck- the type that looks suspiciously like the kind you see out late on Saturday night bashing in mail boxes. (Is that an Indiana thing? Nothing to do, so the youngin's make a sport of taking baseball bats to all the mail boxes on these rural roads. It's really not nice, but once your mailbox is "christened" they rarely hit it again- and as long as the door still works, we all figure we got off pretty light. I see some neighbors have had enough, and they barracade their boxes with scraps of 2x4's. It must work.) I don't mean to malign these young men, but they just had a certain gleam in their eyes- even if they were very handy to have around on that cold and slippery morning. Eva says it was a very exciting day for her.

On closets, cleaning, quilting, weight loss and toenails...
All of these things intersect in my life- like the burmuda triangle. Bonnie was talking about cleaning her closet the other day. She mentioned that she wore the same colors that she likes to quilt with. Lots of denim and khaki... got to thinkin' about that. My closet is in the throes of an identity crisis. I used to wear lots of khaki- actually, I wore pretty much exclusively khaki. Khaki skirts, pants and jumpers, jackets. Only solid-color shirts- mostly tan. It was kinda sad and weird, because that certainly wasn't the way I quilted. I love color. I've always loved color. I just didn't want it on me. (But I did and still do have a thing for mono-chromatic quilts.)

But then, I lost 40 pounds. No, I'm not bragging- it's rather embarrassing to admit that I had that much extra weight on me. I do happen to be on the tall side of average, but it was still 40 pounds. And it seems to be the time of year when people start making plans to shed those few extra pounds. So what does weight-loss have to do with quilting and closets? Well, now I wear lots of pink, and I've expanded my horizons to stripes- still not crazy about flower prints- unless they're tiny. I have turquoise shirts and raspberry skirts. Lime-green sweaters and purple t-shirts. And my quilting has changed. I play more than I used to. Someone was talking, here on the Maverick ring, about losing weight, and while I think that it is great for your health, it will most definitely have an impact on your wardrobe- not just the sizes- and on your quilting. It's not a bad thing, just different. I find that I expect more from my quilting. I want it to please me, not just be acceptable. But at the same time, I can force myself to work on something that I particularly don't care for because it is for someone else- and they would love it- while before, I just didn't have the heart to do that. And I love putting colors together that don't exactly go together- just because I like them. But some things stay the same. Like the color blue.

Whenever my husband would start tickling me, all I had to say was the word , "blue, blue, blue," and I wouldn't laugh. I have tried blue. I really have. I even bought me the most beautiful blue shirt from J.Jill- love their clothes- a blue drawstring-pocket shirt. And didn't wear it once. I tried, but before I'd get out of the bedroom, I had to change. It was just too depressing. I have no idea why. I like it at a distance. Sarah loves blue and I love her quilts. I'm trying to work with it, now. I'm making another Pineapple Blossom in blues and yellow. Yeah, I had to buy the fabric instead of using my stash, because I didn't have a single peice of blue. Weird. The whole time I've been working on it, I keep having pessimistic thoughts about how this isn't going to work. I know it's just the blue telling me that. I feel certain it will be ok. I just have to push through. Ok, I do keep bursting out into tears as I'm sewing, but honestly, maybe it's just hormones.

And toenails and quilting? Well, I had a lunch date with some girlfriends, yesterday. After my shower, I look at my toes and realize, I could really use a pedicure. I do my own. I have a choice to make- paint my toenails or sew for an extra 5 minutes. I seriously considered it... went for the sewing. My mom says I definitely have a sickness. I don't guess that's news to anybody, here.

(This is the second quilt top I finished using my FW. I had all of the blocks made, I just needed to join them. The points aren't quite as close as I'd like, but it takes awhile to get used to a new machine. You'd think that a quarter inch would be the same, no matter what. It's for my cousin, for college. His school colors are green and white. Happy new year to all!!)

Woo-hoo! Pineapple blossom done!
It's more like "kinda done." The pineapple blossom blocks are done. Aren't they lovely? Thank you so much for sharing that pattern with us, Bonnie! (I can't even imagine the amount of time it must take to figure one of those up- take all the pictures, type it all in... But I really do appreciate it and I know that there are so many others here, also, that do too!) I used only fabric from my stash. The background peices are all from the same fabric- a fact I nearly regretted. I actually had to peice 2 of the 3 1/2" squares. Now that's using every bit of fabric. And it's a solid- not most quilter's favorite, but I like the soft celery green color. I didn't have much of a selection of light fabrics as I have recently used up a lot in a couple different quilting projects. It's just not very exciting to buy...beige...fabric. You know? So I usually end up with very little in my stash. And it looks so nice in a quilt. Need to change that about myself. I made 48 of Bonnie's pineapple blossom blocks and the top is, thus far, about 58"x72". Something like that. I want to make it larger, so I was thinking that I might use all of those bonus triangle blocks in a saw tooth border. What do you think of that? too pokey? I was thinking to find a batik in, maybe, green. Maybe make a small border, then the sawtooth border and then a wider one. I had some interesting pink/orange fabric, but it muddied up the blossom blocks. It'll have to wait a couple weeks, until I go back to work- and the quilt shop reopens. The Quilter's Toy Box has loads of batiks. I was thinking, if it is alright with Bonnie, that I might see if there is any interest in a class for the Pinapple Blossom. I thought it was a lot of fun and it really slurped up the stash.

Look Sarah!!! Look Judy!!!
Look what Santa brought me!!! No surprise to you Sarah! Judy, the big box under the tree was full of smelly tennis shoes! BUT the box that was wrapped in the bedroom closet... now, that one was a Singer Featherweight! Isn't she a beaut?! I am so thrilled. DH Bill has been bugging me to get a new sewing machine for years, but I kept putting him off. I just hated to get something new. I'm really more of a vintage kind of girl than a designer one. I have an ancient Jeep that I drive around- lots of rust. You know the kind with the wood panels on the side? But I never worry that it is going to get dinged in a parking lot, or that I'll wreck it. It's kinda disposable. It's comfortable. That's the way I felt about my old machine. Yes, lots of weird little quirks, but basically reliable. A new machine? Well, you have to spend all of this time getting to know it, you're worried it'll break. Especially those fancy computerized ones. My SIL has one that actually tells her what to do. The gall. No thank you. Sarah mentioned to Bill way back in July that I might really like a Featherweight. What a friend. Bill has been looking for one, ever since. (You have to know Bill... He is so sweet and generous. My Dad actually admonished me- the week before I was to marry him, to be nice and careful not to take advantage of him. I was offended, but Dad was right. You have to be very careful not to mention that you like something, or else it goes home with you. So what would be wrong with that, you ask? Well, just because I like something doesn't mean I want it or need it. And it wouldn't be any fun to run us into financial ruination for, say, an ice tea maker! I can boil tea just like most of the tea-drinking world.) I'm rambling, right? But I am just so thrilled. Sarah says he called her when I was in WV with my dad, and asked some more specific questions about what I might like. If I recall, that was shortly after I was reading Judy's blog about all of her Featherweights and Singer 301s. I tilted the monitor ever so slightly so Bill could see what I was ohhing and ahhing over. He asked if I might be interested in one of them and I said I was- but didn't know which one. So now that I have the featherweight, he says that if we find a 301 that I like better, that we can always sell the featherweight, since they are so popular. Silly man.

It runs like a dream and I have finished two quilt tops since Xmas- not bad, huh? I had forgetten how fun peicing can be. Honestly, it's been a long time since the activity in my quilting room resembled anything close to mere sewing. With my old sewing machine it was more akin to a WWF wrestling match- complete with trash talk. ie.-"Oh yeah, you're going' down. I am the undisputed champion in this sewing room! You wanna peice of me?" Leaders and enders? na-uh. Not possible, as every single peice had to be fed in- with the pressure foot up. Remember me grumbling about the bulkiness I ran into when I did some of Tonya's letters? Well, that's because sewing more than two layers was almost impossible. Now this baby just glides through tons of seam allowances and, I'm saying this in hushed tones as I don't want to alert the sewing maffia, but I can even sew over seams with pins in them!! I took a clothing construction class in college and I thought the teacher was going to stab me with her pinking shears when I stitched over a pin. But sometimes you kinda need to, you know? And now I can. I can even sew off of the fabric and hop onto another peice. Amazing. It doesn't knot all up in the bobbin case. And the feed dog plate is flat to the machine surface-instead of 1/4" step up- like the old machine and kept flipping my seams in the wrong direction. I don't have to tug and pull and push. I just sit there like a normal human being, and it's so quiet and it doesn't rattle off the table and constantly need to be dragged back into position. Bill even bought me 18 extra bobbins. It does smell a little like the barber clippers that I use on the boys' hair. But that's just the oil, I think. I can live with it. I'm a happy, happy camper! Thank you, Bill!

(Sarah- yet another thing we have in common! I also love using up every bit of thread off the spool! I can hardly stand to let them go!! Notice the pile of spools by my new machine. That's just two weeks worth. I try to throw them away, monthly. Joe once asked me why I keep empty spools of thread and I told him it reminded me that I did get something done, today. I usually pick them up on clearance- just odd colors, ones I consider neutral. I remember when all I did was dress making- it would take me forever to run through a spool of thread- if ever. Now it is an almost daily thing. And that's a good and lovely day!)