Did
I ever tell you about the time I, at about the age of 7, was with my parents at
a campground (one of the few times my father actually sprang for a nice
campground – he preferred free [but smelly ol’] truck stops) ... and a woman
was trying to ‘help’ her husband back their small pop-up camper into a nice,
wide spot between a picnic bench, a grill, and a water spigot?
I was perched on a picnic table watching the
show. The woman was positioned on one side of the camper, and her job was
to wildly wave her arms. At least, that’s what she was doing.
There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to her gesturing. The man
cramped the wheel one way, backed. The camper took a hard left and
ricocheted off the picnic table. The woman yelled and waved her arms
wildly. The man pulled forward, cramped the wheel hard the other way,
backed. The camper took a sharp right and smacked the grill. The
woman yelled and waved her arms wildly. The man pulled forward far enough
that it seemed certain he would drive into the lake, suddenly realized his
peril, slammed on the brakes, turned the wheel, debated, turned it the other
way, backed. The camper wigwagged backwards – and ka-bonked into the
picnic table. The woman yelled and waved her arms wildly. The man
got out, yelled back (I’m not sure if he was yelling at his wife, or at the picnic table), and
waved his arms wildly. He got back into his vehicle,
pulled forward, backed up, and sideswiped the grill. More yelling and
waving ensued.
Suddenly I heard another noise, turned my
head, and saw my father tapping on our trailer window and motioning me to come
in. I ran to the camper and hopped inside, wondering what the matter was,
as Daddy was frowning.
“Don’t sit out there on a picnic bench
and laugh at those poor people!” he reprimanded.
(I hadn’t realized I was actually laughing
out loud, or so anybody could tell it.)
“Come inside,” he continued, “and we’ll laugh
together!”
“George!” said Mama (but she was laughing,
too).
Somehow
those people finally got their camper parked.
And, amazingly enough, they managed to miss the water spigot.
Last week for our weekly ‘Winding Thread’ topic on our quilting group, I
asked, “What do you do with a quilt that is absolutely not turning out the way
you want it to? What if it just keeps getting uglier, the more you work
at it?”
I told my own
story:
I was once making a
commissioned quillow for a customer. She chose the design and the
fabrics. It was dull, dull, dull – pastels on dark cream
background. Not nearly enough contrast.
In her defense, she chose the colors online, and that generally makes it
a little more difficult to get the right color combination.
The more I worked
on that quilt, the blander it got.
Well... I decided I
wasn’t about to send anything like that out with my name on it. I knew
the lady wasn’t going to be the least bit upset if I added my own idea
to it. (I hoped.) (Maybe she
wouldn’t even realize she hadn’t asked for it to be that way in the first
place, heh.) Sooo... I pulled out
some black, forest green, and purple fabrics from my bins, and made three-strip
sashings.
The lady had asked
for flowers in the blocks, and then in the plain blocks beside the flowers,
both the English and Latin names of the flowers were machine-embroidered.
Around the plain
cream-colored, embroidered blocks I put a darker ecru border, but only on two
sides, in order to give it a 3D shadow effect.
When I finished, surprisingly
enough, I was happy with it. And my customer was delighted. More
pictures here: A Quilter’s Garden Quillow
If you keep
clicking ‘Older Posts’ at the bottom, you’ll be able to see the quilt as it
progressed, and you’ll see more clearly why it was a PIP – Problem in Progress.
Or go over to the
right side margin and click back through October’s and September’s posts, and
you’ll see individual blocks – and they don’t look good.
Here’s the page
where I explain the problems, and what I did as a solution: A Quilter’s Garden Quillow Problem, Resolved
My last paragraph
on that page made me laugh; I forgot I wrote it:
“Let’s hope she
didn’t order beige on tan and cream on sour cream because she’s a person given
to epilepsy at the sight of too much brightness, because, if that’s the case,
she’s going to have an epileptic attack promptly upon viewing this quilt, from
apoplexy if not from epilepsy!”
Furthering the
‘ugly quilt’ discussion, some ladies recommended giving away a quilt one doesn’t
like, either to a family member who has expressed a liking for it, or to
charity.
Another then wrote, “Giving something we don’t like to
charity doesn’t sound very nice at all. However, given the nature of
human beings, it really makes sense. Because, as we’ve already said, what
I think is ugly may be beautiful to someone else.”
Here’s something I
learned a few years ago: many homeless organizations purposely ask for ‘ugly’
quilts, because that way the quilt is less likely to be stolen. Warmth is more important than beauty, and if
a homeless person should be given a beautiful quilt that immediately gets
stolen, he might find himself in a very bad situation on a cold, cold night.
Maybe the
organizations should ask for ‘simple’ rather than ‘ugly’, so as not to offend
do-gooder’s sensibilities. 😏
Tuesday, I spent
some time working in my flower gardens. My pink lily-of-the-valley is
blooming, and the chokecherry tree is in blossom. More photos here.
A few days earlier,
the crabapple tree, apple tree, and peach tree were flowering, but the petals
have all drifted to the ground now: Crabapple, Violet, Apple, and Peach Blossoms
A friend, upon
seeing the pink lily-of-the-valley pictures, wrote, “I love the fragrance of lily-of-the-valley. Does the pink smell the same as the white?”
“It sure does!” I
told her.
I love it, too. It might even be my favorite scent. The pink and
rosy colored ones are cultivars – that is, they’ve been cultivated by selective
breeding. Did you know they even cultivate double-flowered
lily-of-the-valley? I actually like the
single-bell blossom best, though.
The chokecherry blossoms have a pretty scent, too.
Loren and Norma have continued to work steadily at clearing things out of
Norma’s house, getting rid of excess in both places so they
have room in his house for the things they really want to keep. It’s
hard, combining two households full of stuff into just one! There is a
bit of a rush, since Lawrence’s
daughter and her son are going to live in Norma’s house.
Loren and Norma asked me if I could go to my brother’s house and pack up
all the pink depression glass dishware from one of the china hutches. It
used to be our mother’s, and Lura Kay and I had decided Loren’s late wife
Janice should have it, as my sister and I didn’t really have a place for it,
and we knew Janice really liked it. Well,
now Norma needs a place for her china, and they both want me to have Mama’s depression
glass. A good part of it, she got as a
wedding gift when she and my father were married in 1936.
Monday and Tuesday, I still had a cold, and sure didn’t want to spread it
around. But I was getting better, and
thought I would go there Wednesday to get those dishes. I knew if I didn’t get a move on, Loren would
do it for me.
I was right. I didn’t get there quickly enough, and he did
it for me.
They arrived here
at noon Wednesday, laden with numerous bins and baskets full of dishes. I
wanted to do it, so they wouldn’t have to! But here it is.
My brother and
mother-in-law are both hard workers.
Now I need a china
hutch! Come to think of it, I have one that will do for the time
being. The bottom half is downstairs; the top half is out in the
garage. That, because we used the bottom half under my 14’ quilting frame
with the HQ16. Since I have a new Studio Frame upstairs, the bureau is no
longer being used (other than to store a few groovy boards and quilting
books). I got this china hutch cheap at the Used Furniture Store uptown
for the express purpose of using with the quilting machine when Larry extended
the frame. It’s not really my style (so far as china hutches go), but it’ll
do for now.
Now I need me some
furniture-hauling men!
I went on working
on the rag-shag rug.
“Can you still buy
double knits?” asked a friend.
You
can, but I was amazed to discover it’s often $13-$15/yard! I had enough left over from the 70s to make
the first couple of rugs a few years ago, and then some quilting friends who
saw what I was making offered to sell me some, cheap. One had acquired a bountiful supply when her
mother passed away; the other lady was in her 80s, and had quite a lot in her
own stash. I purchased two big boxfuls
from them for a total of around $100. There
were many yards of fabric crammed in those boxes. (I’d have thought that was a
lot of money, had I not priced new double knits first.) My recommendation, if you want to make this
type of rag rug, is to head for the Goodwill or Salvation Army, and purchase
T-shirts to cut into strips. They’ll be
even softer than these double-knit rugs.
Making a rag-shag rug
is time-consuming. It
took me about an hour for each additional row of gathered strips. And of
course the rows continue to get bigger, thus taking longer, as I go along. Several people have wanted to order one from
me – both when I made Aaron’s and Joanna’s, seven years ago, and again this
time.
One person offered
to pay me $20. She had particular colors she wanted, so the double knits
would need to be purchased new.
Okay, let’s figure
this out: As mentioned, if you buy double knits these days, you will very
likely pay $13-$15/yard. Let’s say she wants a rug of 30” x 30”.
That takes about four yards of fabric. We’ll figure the stuff at $13/yard;
that equals $52. A yard of gabardine backing: $5.98. I have
at least 30 hours in this rug now, counting cutting and sewing, and still need
to paint the rubbery stuff on the back. A jar of non-skid backing is
$24.27. I would spend at least a couple of hours finishing it. If I
charged a pauper’s sum of $10 per hour, I’d get $320 for labor.
So the total for
this rug would be $402.25.
Do you know anybody
who’d pay $402.25 for a 30” x 30” rag-shag rug?
Nope, didn’t think
so.
But... here’s the
thing: I spent a whole lot less than $13 a yard for the double knits and
the gabardine. My time is my own; I can use it as I please. I can
listen to music or open the windows and hear the birds as I sew. I can
pause to pet the cat any time I jolly well please. And rugs that I don’t
like as well as this one cost $100 or more.
So I shall happily
muddle along!
Thursday, I went to
Omaha with Victoria and Baby Carolyn.
First, we went to a children’s resale store called Big Wheels 2 Butterflies. Some things are used, some things are brand
new – but all of it looks brand new. The
purchaser is good at her job, and doesn’t buy anything ragtag.
I bought quite a
pile of stuff for Baby Keira – dresses, sleepers, sweaters, onesies, and blankets.
I got a sleeper for Carolyn, too. I intend to go back and get things for the
other grandchildren for Christmas. They
have clothes up to size 12, and a lot of nice toys and books. Victoria got three board books for Carolyn,
and they all looked brand new.
I paid an average
of $2.50 for each of the items I bought. One little dress/hat/bloomers set still had
the original tags on, and the price read $30.00. I paid $3.50. For a soft, bleached white crinkle muslin
blanket with small, soft pastel butterflies printed on it here and there,
$1.50.
After leaving the
store, we stopped at Bagel Bin for
lunch. Victoria got a toasted pumpernickel
bagel with cream cheese, and I got a toasted and buttered blueberry bagel,
along with a vanilla latte. Carolyn
happily mulled over a few small pieces of Victoria’s bagel. We also each purchased a bag of challah rolls
to take home.
Next, we toured the
Lauritzen Gardens. Such a pretty place, with all the spring flowers in
bloom. I hope to return to see the
summer flowers, and the autumn blossoms, too.
We were surprised
to find an entire network of model trains, and spent a while watching them. The miniature buildings along the tracks were
replicas of buildings making up Omaha’s own skyline, and even included a
diminutive Desert Dome like the one at Henry Doorly Zoo.
Hester sent a picture of Keira. Such a beautiful little baby. I think one can tell from the photo that her little
arm looks just a wee bit plumper, and those little cheeks a wee bit chubbier,
than they did a week ago. She was up to 3
pounds, 4 ounces that day.
Here’s a shot
Victoria took of me. I was pushing baby Carolyn in her stroller. She’s the sweetest little thing, a delight to
be with.
By the time I got home, hunger pangs were striking. I made some potato soup, and was just
preparing to ladle some into dishes when Larry got home. We had Dole’s apple parfait for dessert, plus some
cupcakes that Victoria got at Jones Bros. Cupcakes (see Goggle Street View,
below). They were filled and decorated
and pretty as could be. 😋
(Don’t tell anybody, but I’d’ve rather had a banana.)
I was writing all this to Hester, as we were sitting down
to eat. They were right then having
soup, too – chicken rice soup. I told
her about the cupcakes, and she wrote back, “We have pumpkin pie. 😅”
“Okay,
now you’re just bragging,” I retorted, to which she responded with this: 😁
Here's the Jones Bros. Cupcake place:
Here's the Jones Bros. Cupcake place:
Friday, I took the
grandchildren home from school, and picked up the mail on the way home. A customer’s quilt was in the mailbox, so I
scurried up to my quilting studio, loaded it on my frame, and started quilting
it. My customer made it for a lady who
has ovarian cancer, and she thinks we need to hurry to get this quilt to her in
time. 😢
On one of the online quilting groups, a lady posted a
photo of a unique quilt: she’d knitted
squares with a soft wool yarn in a diagonal stitch, then sewed the squares
together, and put a gingham check binding on it. She said it had been the family’s favorite
blanket – until one of her sons had washed it on hot in the washing
machine. It was supposed to be hand-washed
in cold.
“It came out about dishrag size,” she said.
I had a son wash and dry – on high heat, mind you – a
wool knit argyle hat with rabbit fur trim that I particularly liked.
She weren’t ze same animal aftuh dat, huh-uh,
nosirreee. I tell you, that hat looked like something the dog had drug in
from the back forty. But the kid looked
almost as woebegone as the hat.
He was trying to be helpful,
after all.
On
a longarm group, the owner asked for funny comments we’d had about our
machines.
I
once had a woman look long and hard at a picture of my 18” machine and 12’
frame, on which was a quilt in progress. Then she asked, “Don’t you find it
hard to do your hand-quilting between those poles and with them set so close
together?”
I
wonder what she thought that big ol’ honkin’ machine was?? A tricycle?
I made it to the
halfway point of my customer’s quilt that night, and finished it on
Saturday. More pictures here.
I have never before
worked with a backing fabric that has behaved like this one: it looked
like the needle was actually punching holes in the fabric! I went with a
smaller needle... but it didn’t help. I used fine thread – the very same
thread combination I’ve used on the previous two or three quilts. The bobbin thread tension appeared to be too
tight, but I loosened it as much as I could get by with. Tension on top looked good, and the needle
holes looked normal.
When I was done, I steamed
the back thoroughly, hoping that would make it look better.
It didn’t. At least the print is busy, and helps
camouflage it. 🤔
I thoroughly
dampened a small section of one corner. When it dried, the holes had definitely shrunk
a bit, but it still didn’t look very good.
My customer assured me all would be well,
and she’d wash it after she bound it.
I think the problem
was due to the multiple layers of dyes they used on that custom printed
fabric. When I posted a picture and asked about it on several quilting
forums, many people replied that they had had the exact same trouble with this
type of fabric, and batiks, too.
Truly, it makes my
hair stand up on end when I feel like I’m doing something bad to a customer’s
quilt! And I know this one is for someone special. Oh me, oh my...
She’s a good
customer, and a lovely lady. This is the drawback to doing work for
others! I’d way rather ruin something of my own, than mess
up someone else’s things. Sigghhhh... At least the top looks beautiful. I’m really pleased with the way the
pantograph, ‘Show Your Support Ribbon’, turned out.
Saturday evening,
Baby Keira was up to 3 pounds, 9 ounces!
She gained about an ounce a day last week.
Sunday afternoon, a
quilting friend from overseas wrote the following:
A young lady in our
church was giving her mum fits. The mum
told her, “I hope you have a kid just like you.” Said child stopped dead in her tracks, and
stammered, “That’s – that’s a terrible thing to say!”
haha
We had a visiting
missionary from Mexico City preaching yesterday, morning and evening. Our church has supported him for several
years now. Recently, he and other
believers have been able to purchase a building in the heart of the city,
renovate it, and finally start using it for services in just the last few
weeks. This is indeed an accomplishment,
considering that extortioners and corrupt officials have opposed them, tried to
stop them, and attempted to get thousands of dollars from them, every step of
the way. We truly believe the Lord is on
our side and can ‘hinder the hinderers’, just like He did to Pharaoh’s army
when they tried chasing the Israelites through the Red Sea.
Today Baby
Keira is five weeks old, and she weighs 3 pounds, 9.8 ounces.
One of my
cousins on my mother’s side of the family had a baby granddaughter born last
week who weighed one pound, 8 ounces.
Mercy me, that’s too, too little.
Her daughter was having kidney failure, and the baby was showing signs
of distress, too, so they had to do an emergency C-section. My cousin’s daughter is on kidney dialysis
now.
Doctors
can sometimes save babies that tiny, but they’ll often have health issues. Thankfully, little Keira has not had anything
major wrong with her.
Precious
little lives... how in the world can anyone even PRETEND abortion is okay? They have eternal souls, from the very moment
of conception!
I’m so
very thankful Hester is all right... and the baby is getting stronger every
day. And Hannah was able to sing in the
choir yesterday.
This afternoon, I went to town to mail my customer’s
quilt.
Just a few minutes
ago, I got an email from a HandiQuilters group, where a lady had the very same
problem with needles punching holes in the fabric. Her fabric was quite
similar to this backing fabric. She said the stuff made it appear as
though her bobbin tension was clear off, and gave her a few backlashes – which
is exactly what happened to me. The bobbin thread looks tight, even
though it was as loose as I could get away with. A close-up shot reveals
that it really isn’t tight.
Others offered
various recommendations:
Something to try is
Magic Sizing, which relaxes the fabric fibers. Spritz the quilt with this, then
use a stiff brush on those needle holes. You can buy it at Walmart; it’s
with the spray starch.
Some mentioned that
the best way to prevent this on stiffer fabrics is to wash the fabric first,
and to use fabric softener. Use fabric softener when washing after
quilting, too.
Another wrote:
I
have found that needle holes alway appear larger just after quilting and before
the quilt is washed. Washing tends to ‘plump up’ the fabric around those
holes and make them disappear. Don’t get too focused on this until you
try washing your quilt.
If I quilt on this
type of fabric again, I think these things might help:
1. Wash fabric first
2. Use heavier bobbin thread (to ‘fill’ the needle holes and make them less
noticeable)
3. Use high-loft batting
Today is laundry day. I just put another load of clothes away, and
started a new load washing. Now for some
computer work – bill-paying, photo-editing, email-answering, etc. Three more quilts just arrived from a
customer, but she said I could finish my Americana Eagle quilt first. Actually, I’ll finish my rug first, as it’s
taking up a lot of space on my sewing/cutting table. That’ll take a full
day. Then the Americana Eagle quilt. I’m getting excited to finish
it!
The birds are
singing like everything. I hadn’t seen
any butterflies yet, until Victoria, Carolyn, and I were at Lauritzen Gardens. All of a sudden, there was a big, bright
Monarch, flitting right at us, circling our heads, and then fluttering on to
some nearby hydrangeas and pansies. I
saw a little ruby-throated hummingbird, too, and heard a number of birds in the
woods and thickets whose songs I couldn’t recognize.
Maybe we can go see
Andrew, Hester, and Keira tomorrow evening. Often the only time we can go anywhere during
the busy construction months is when it rains. What fun is that?!
Almost time for
supper! We’ll have lettuce salad,
croissant sandwiches with turkey and mozzarella, rice pudding, and big, juicy
oranges.
Eeeeek! There
are June bugs all over the front porch, and one just got into the house
through the crack under the front door!
,,,>^..^<,,,
Sarah Somebody Hand Me A Bazooka Lynn
,,,>^..^<,,,
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