Hand Pieced Travel Project

WELL - remember this from a few posts ago? I had lost a piece, and needed the moving truck to arrive to get back on track..... well, voila....

I just love this piece - it's from a hand piecing class I took with Sharon Stroud in Ithaca, NY, and is my first experience with hand-piecing.

Next this will get some setting diamonds on the edges, and a border - and then I'll post another picture... I AM HOOKED ON HAND PIECING!

Happy Saturday to everyone,

Kate

Quilting, Feminism, and Careerism

disclaimer: that is NOT my DH, nor is it MY bra!!!!


Hi everyone - it's time for a discussion. Please jump in and post.

Quilting - let's face it, it's a woman's world. Yes, we welcome those few men who create with fabric, but mostly its us girls. And, the history of quilting is women's work - let's call it "work of the home".... whether it was to create blankets for warmth or for art and beauty.

So - it is easy to type cast quilting as 'traditional' - when it need not be...
And it is easy to think of it as a 'craft' more than an art...
And people may assume quilters aremore likely to be stay-at-home moms than doctors or lawyers - or professors.

So - if you consider yourself either a feminist and/or a professional woman - have you ever found yourself covertly quilting? Or does your sewing machine happily coexist with your computer, your scalpel, your rolodex?

In the sixties - when you burned your bra - - were you simultaneously sewing nine-patches?

Leave a comment, - and let it all out... I'm curious if there are covert quilters out there...Tell us your profession and your relationship to quilting, quilt classes, and quilt guilds. Be warned, however, I may be researching for an article on quilter's profiles (no names, of course, without permission)

Kate

A No-Picture Post

Well, hi all..

Family, feline, vehicles, and 'stuff' have all safely made it to California. If I could find the camera, there would be a picture - but not yet!

For a brief moment yesterday I sewed - but then the guy came to hook up the cable tv, and needed a multi-pronged extension cord, and the only one was attached to my sewing machine... so 'poof' it was stolen... and I am powerless.

Soon, very soon I will be somewhat organized and will find a time for creativity...

............there are hummingbirds in my back yard already..

Kate

RATS !!!

RATS, RATS, RATS....

I brought this hand-piecing project along to work on during the move and until the moving truck arrived... and I've been enjoying it.. but do you see the tiny missing piece on the center hexagon??? Yep - you guessed it - I lost that piece... and the rest of the background fabric is in a box on the truck... so I can't finish the center, and I can't add the final hexagon, or make the border for this piece... at least not yet..

When the truck arrives, I'll be back at work on this, and will post a 'next step' photo...

I love these colors... do you?

Happy Quilting,

Kate

Moving with Stash

Well, last Friday was moving day for our household - the gigantic move all the way from NEW YORK to CALIFORNIA! YIKES.... After weeks of preparation and packing, it was finally time for loading of the truck...




Oh my, but a whole lot of containers said "SEWING ROOM"... and they went right into the truck! (these are just a few of them)


And, of course, there were the drawers of strings and crumbs, etc.:



And look at how this roll of batting was used to stabilize the whole lot of stuff!


Gee - without the batting, the whole load would have slid down!
once again - QUILTING SAVED THE DAY!

The truck is now in: New York (not) Pennsylvania (not) Illinois (not) Colorado (not) - oh yes, it's in Utah!!! Oh its way to California...

I CAN'T WAIT TO QUILT AGAIN! Maybe Saturday the truck will arrive and my stash will be freed!

Happy Quilting Everyone!

Kate

$33 Billion Dollar Stash

HI -

Well - we're moving... and that necessitates packing up all my stash, my machines, my yard, and on and on.... So - that has opened up lots of discussion and comment about just HOW much fabric I really have - and the following discussion:

DH: Is this box trash? ME: Those are scraps...

DH: yes, trash, right? ME: oh heavens , no - scraps are valuable.

DH: are these trash? ME: Oh, no, those are strings...

DH: they are such little pieces, are they any good? ME: oh heavens - - strings are valuable.

DH: are these trash? ME: Oh, no, those are crumbs...

DH they are such TI?ny pieces, are they any good? ME: oh heavens -crumbs are valuable.

So - last night, DH brought me the following AARP publication and said: Look honey, an article about your stash... you see the headlines: "The $33 Billion Stash" !!!! I laughed and laughed...

Why , I am sure my stash is only worth $33 Million, not $33 Billion !!!

Happy Quilting, everyone!

Kate

The Great Fabric Hunt

This is Patchwork Plus, in Marcellus, NY... at 6:30 on this SATURDAY MORNING !!!! Good grief, what's going on here... Well, it's the Great Fabric Hunt, otherwise known as the Anniversary Sale!

Well - everyone knows, to go hunting, one must head out well before dawn:

...........yep, 4:36, off we go to Patchwork Plus. Dear Hubby went with me to help me with carry my 'bounty'.

....... we got in the front part of the line of hunters by arriving early

..... there are the treasures we are hunting - quilt-shop-quality fabric at $2.30 a yard, in honor of Patchwork Plus's 23rd Anniversary!

And sharply at 7:00 am, the hunters are allowed into the corral, and the grabbing frenzy begins:

Here is my treasure - good grief - 156 yards of fabric - BUT ITS FABULOUS FABRIC... (and that is DH (sorry about your head, dear) )

And by 7:30, the tables were empty, and everyone put their trophies on their vehicles and headed home to prepare their prizes for future quilting and sewing...

This great sale is held every summer... come on up to the Finger Lakes next year - shop, fish, and hunt fabric...

Kate

Gracie, Farewell

My very special kitty friend Gracie is gone, and my heart aches. She 'adopted' us 17 years ago, when we moved to a new house, and she was living in the crawlspace. She blessed us with four kittens right away, and we discovered we had adopted FIVE cats. Fortunately homes were found for the extra blessings.

She was the most affectionate, attentive, SMART of cats... and she loved her basket of toy mice and assorted 'friends'. Every night she would 'hunt' among her toys, and then spend the entire night bringing her captures up the stairs to lay next to our bed. In the morning, we would be surrounded by as many as a dozen small 'gifts'.

She had a wonderful kitty life, and we kept one of her kittens, so she snuggled him every day and night. We nursed her through her final illnesses until we knew she was in distress, and then we showed her the way to the Rainbow Bridge.

My DH loved her so much... I want to make a quilt in Rainbow colors with her photo on it somewhere so he will feel her close to him, which is where she always wanted to be...

Well done, my sweet girl... you are missed.

MY FAVORITE FABRIC SALE IS COMING UP!!!

YIPPEE !! It's time for my favorite sale - at Patchwork Plus, in Marcellus, New York. It's their anniversary sale...And it is oh so much fun! And it's this Saturday... can't wait, can't wait.

People start to arrive around 5:30 or 6:00 am, and forming a line, while the staff arrive early to put all the sale fabric out in a big white tent.

All the fabric is end-of-bolt - with as much as 5 yards on each bolt. You must buy the entire bolt - no cutting. But the price, which corresponds with the number of years the store has been in business, so this year (their 23rd), the price is $2.30 a yard! And its all top-line quilt shop quality!

At 7:00 sharp, the line is given access to the tent, and people start grabbing bolts of fabric. Everyone piles their bolts on chairs or under a tree, and puts a sign with their name on them - some piles are 3-4 feet tall.

Last year my DH went with me and was my 'sherpa' - I would just grab a fabric and hand it to him... boy did I score, with an assistant!!

By 7:30, the tables are empty, and everyone moves to the checkout line, which goes amazingly fast, and by 8:00, the tent sale is over... For the rest of the day, everything in the store is on sale at 23% off!

The tent sale reminds me of one of those documentaries about ants eating the meat off the bones of a carcass... a flurry of activity over the 'goods'... (bad pun)...

AND I JUST CAN'T WAIT... even my DH enjoyed it last year - he said he didn't know that buying fabric was a contact sport!

photos will follow!

Kate

denim-in-the-box

Well - that's a LOT of DENIM, isn't it???

Well, I have THREE BINS full of it.

These are the legs of jeans - my Linus Project group in Greensboro, North Carolina (where I used to live) was donated about 30 giant boxes of denim by Cone Mills, who makes jeans. THANK YOU, CONE MILLS.

These leg portions are what are used as samples to market the various shades of denim, from the very dark indigo color to the stonewashed, bleached, light blue or even white. And, when the samples are not needed, they are discarded - into the landfill.

So, boxes and boxes of denim were available. I took 6 boxes, and immediately started trimming them down, dividing the front of the leg from the back, and trimming of the top and bottom hems. What is left is this wonderful piece, down the side, with the side hem running in the middle, just for interest. After trimming, I had THREE BOXES - yippee!

Several quilts like this have come from this denim - it's especially great for boys or teenageers... especially those who like all things "country".

And at this point I estimate I can make around 350 more quilts with the amount of denim I have.... YIKES!

Happy Quilting to you......................Kate

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

THE MIGHTY RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR SAYS:

the giveaway winners are:

Janet in KY
and c from cutnsewdesign

Thanks to all who entered!

Kate