Modern Quilting Bee?

Quilting bee. That phrase conjures up an image of several women sitting around a quilt and adding their stitches to make a finished product. The frame is usually set up in one of the women's living room (parlor?) and conversation flows around the group. I never had the opportunity to visit an old-time quilting bee, but my mom did participate in something similar when I was a kid. She was a member of the local extension homemakers club (anyone need a description of what that was?) and occasionally they would make a quilt to have in reserve for a family in need or if one of the members needed one for a special occasion. These ladies gathered once a month in a local church basement where they set up the quilting frame and set to it with their needles and thread. Very similar to my mental image of a quilting bee.

I suspect there are still what I view as traditional quilting bees held around the country, but I belong to what I have come to view as a "modern" quilting bee. What I refer to is the stitch group to which I belong. Last Thursday evening was the first of the July gatherings and while we all work on different projects, the conversation flows just as freely as I imagine occurred in the old-fashioned version. For approximately the first 20 minutes after we gathered last week, there were three separate conversations going on. Then gradually those conversations ended and others began. Sometimes as a group we are "Chatty Cathy" and other times we are heads down and working on our projects with only occasional conversations.

No matter the shape of the conversation on any given evening, we do visit with each other -- a lot! Since I'm the newbie of the group, I'm still learning more about these folks. After gatherings like last week when there was an abundance of conversation, I come home and spend a while reflecting on the group and how much I enjoy being with them. What a great group of dedicated stitchers!

Quilt update: I now have about a third of the alternate blocks finished. I've run out of black fabric so I'm going to have to do some shopping. Darn it! :-) The only bad thing about fabric shopping is I always manage to find lots of other things I absolutely have to have and spend more money than I should. I need the fabric, though, so I guess I'll just bite the bullet and write a large check.

My stitching awaits. Til next time...
Amy

Turned the corner

Turning the corner is not at all like "going round the bend" so you, my snarky friends, will just have to find something else to say about my title!

I have turned the corner on my quilt, though. I have finished the 36 whirligig blocks and have started on the alternate blocks. So far, I think I have finished five of the alternates. When I get a few more finished, I'll post photos of both kinds so we all can get an idea of what the finished product might look like.

While I was finishing the additional whirligig blocks, I lost some of the callus that had built up on my "under finger." That's the finger held underneath the quilt and gets stabbed with a needle with each quilting stitch that is taken. This photo shows what my callus looks like. The callus is on the tip of my left index finger. I tried to put a marker showing the callus, but my photo editing skills are a bit sketchy. You get the idea, though. And yes, behind my hand is the back side of one of the completed alternate blocks. A quick tip: My finger can get really sore while I'm building up the callus. One way I deal with that is to go at it slowly in the beginning. Maybe quilt for an hour and then take a break for a few hours. Another thing I stumbled across this spring is a way to help get the soreness out of the area while the callus is building. One time, I stabbed a bit too hard and actually drew blood. I didn't want to take a chance of infection, but the spot wasn't bad enough for a bandage. So I grabbed the Neosporin and applied a very, very thin film over the tip of my finger. I let it sit like that for five or ten minutes (obviously, I couldn't do anything during this time...other than read). Then I wiped off the excess Neosporin and went about my business of doing something other than quilting for the rest of the day. Surprise! Surprise! All the soreness was gone by the next morning. Now, at the end of each day of heavy quilting, I put Neosporin on my finger just before going to bed and it feels fine the next day. Another happy accident!

This quilt is turning out to be more of a pleasure to work on than I thought it would. I'm excited to see what it turns out like. You see, I don't plan out my quilts. The closest I come to planning is to take the size of the block and multiply it by whatever it takes to make the quilt approximately 85" x 100". The whirligig quilt will be approximately 80" x 90" (hence the need for 72 blocks - 36 whirligig and 36 alternate). And that, my dear blog friends, is the extent of my planning. I know that each whirligig block will be attached to an alternate block, but I don't plan which blocks will go together. As a matter of fact, what I typically do is dump all the blocks into a garbage bag and pull one out when I need it. Definitely random placement!

Back to quilting and the Kindle. Stay as cool as possible in this hot, humid weather. Until next time...

Amy

Back on track...almost

I'm finally back to where I was three weeks ago -- only six more blocks to go to complete the first half of the quilt. Yes, the set-back I experienced a couple of weeks ago when I found myself four blocks short has been rectified. I pieced six new bocks, they have been appliqued to the background fabric, layered with batting and backing fabric and are now ready for quilting. I am about half finished quilting the border of one. With luck, it will be finished before I go to bed tonight or at the latest sometime tomorrow. Maybe I can have half of them (three) done by stitch night this Thursday.

In full disclosure, I must admit that I could have been finished with those additional six blocks before now, but I got a new gadget/toy! Anybody who knows me well, knows that I like gadgets. My new gadget is a Kindle e-reader from Amazon.com. I am an avid reader and find myself spending a lot of money on books. The problem with that is that eventually space becomes an issue. And I have always been concerned with the killing of trees for my reading pleasure. I find that I love reading on the Kindle. So far I have not purchased a book. Why should I? There are thousands and thousands of free books available. The free books are ones whose copyright has expired, but that translates into mainly the classics. I mean, heck, I can get a free copy of War and Peace! I could, but I probably won't. I wasn't interested in reading the book in paper form (too long!) and I doubt that electronic format will make it any better. On the other hand, maybe I will read it! One of the advantages of the Kindle, or just about any other e-reader, is that you can be reading several books at the same time. I can read a chapter or two of one book and then switch to another book and read some of it. When I go back to the original book, Kindle remembers where I stopped and goes directly to that page. I like the portability of carrying a thousand or more books around with me in a small electronic device. Needless to say, I've been playing with my new toy and not stitching as much. But it's so much fun to play with toys!

Back to readi.....er......uh.....back to stitching. Yeah, that's what I meant......stitching! :-)

Amy

Miscalculation

I'm bummed! Really, I guess it's more frustrated with myself. Last week, I was excited because I thought I had only 6-7 more blocks to go to get to the halfway point with the quilt I'm making. Then on Saturday as I was starting the next to last block, I decided I probably should count to make sure I was where I thought I was. Well, I wasn't! I have completed 32 blocks, which I thought was half of the amount needed. Turns out I need 72 blocks (36 whirligig and 36 alternates) to make the quilt. That left me four blocks short to get to the halfway point. I have plenty of fabric in my stash, but I had used all of the like fabrics I had in the 32 blocks I already made. What to do? The only thing was to dig around in my stash for other bright fabrics and make more whirligig blocks. So that's what I'm doing. I found eight fabrics that were of the appropriate brightness and am now making six more whirligig blocks. Right now, I'm piecing the whirligigs. I hope to have that finished in the next day or two. Then I'll applique them to 10" squares and get them ready for quilting. It will take the rest of the week at least to get those six blocks ready.

I had hoped to have half of the blocks finished by this Thursday night's stitch night, but it's obvious now that that won't happen. Such is life. I decided to make a couple of extra blocks so I can scatter the six new blocks throughout the quilt. That way maybe it won't be too obvious that they are made with different fabrics than the other blocks.

When life gives you lemons, as the saying goes, make lemonade. I like lemonade and it gives me a chance to be creative and problem solve. Maybe a bit of frustration thrown in, but my experience is that when these kinds of "glitches" happen, the end result is even better than the original would have been. Sure hope that holds true this time!

Back to stitching....
Amy

Stitch night

It's been a while since I have added to my blog. I'm sorry about that, but I have been knocked a bit low by bronchitis. It's been a long time since my last bout of bronchitis and I forget from time to time just how much energy it takes to cough all the time. But I'm feeling better each day and it's time now to catch up with blogging.

The SWANs met last night for the first of the twice-monthly stitch night for May. There are so many good things about the group that I'm not sure where to start. I guess the first good thing to talk about is the fact that the group is growing! We've added three new members this year (counting me as one of the three). It's always a pleasure to meet with stitchers and talk. I'm the only quilter, but that doesn't bother anybody. The rest are counted cross stitchers and that's fine with me, too. One of our newbies joined us last night for the first time...and he's a male stitcher. Russ brought along some of his completed projects and he does fantastic work! Now, don't get me wrong. I have absolutely no problem with males choosing needlework as their hobby just like I have no problem with ladies who choose to remodel houses or rebuild cars as their hobby. A hobby is a hobby is a hobby. Gender shouldn't be a factor in any venture.

The only down side about having Russ as part of the group is we're going to have to change our name, I think. You may remember that I said earlier that SWANs stands for Sophisticated Women Addicted to Needlework. Doesn't seem quite appropriate now that Russ is part of us. I know I'm going to put on my thinking cap to see if I can come up with another acronym that is descriptive yet all-inclusive and I suspect my fellow stitchers will be doing the same.

Because of not feeling up to par, I didn't do much stitching last night, but I sure did a lot of talking and listening! We had to move to a larger venue since the group is growing and we now meet at a local church, which means we can be as loud as we want without disturbing the patrons at the coffee shop like we had done in the past. Plus we have more room to spread out. All in all, the move was good. But I digress. I had so much fun last night that it should be illegal! There were about 10 of us and and at any give time, there were at least two conversations taking place. And those conversations ranged from discussions of kids/grandkids, flooding around the country, the oil spill, how we're all tired of rain, and anything else that came to someone's mind. Lots of laughter....LOTS of laughter! Like I said, it should be illegal!

I don't know how most of the group does it. About half of us don't live in Columbia and have to drive at least 25 miles to get here. And that's after working a full day. We gather at 5:30, which means that most of the folks come directly from work. A few of us are retired and have fewer time pressures. I do know that there is no way I could have participated in the group while I was still working. By the end of the day on Thursday, I was always so wiped out that even if the heart had been willing, the body would have told me to go home and relax. I admire the ones who work and come to group, especially when I see how much they accomplish on their stitching between stitch nights. Where do they find the time (and energy) to do all that they do?

So, I came home again last night all fired up to continue working on my quilting project. With luck, I'll start feeling more like stitching soon. Ideally, I would like to have half of my blocks finished by the next stitch night in two weeks. I think it's an achievable goal because I only have 7-8 more to go. Keep your fingers crossed that I make it.

Thanks for reading my post. Now back to stitching.
Amy