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The Journey Continues

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Where am I going?  Nowhere really, but I am enjoying the experience and getting nearer stitch by stitch!

Let me explain…

I had wanted to get an Etsy store up and running featuring my handwork at my sewing machine and using my hand stitching skills.  Well, what you used to know, and had skill doing, can and will be lost over the years.  How does the saying go?  “Use it or lose it!”  So, OK I haven’t completely lost it, but it was definitely rusty.

To regain, sharpen, and incorporate new skills, I have been practicing on myself and a new friend.  I’m pretty certain she won’t mind being my guinea pig for this project.  Pretty certain…

So day by day, week by week I sewed, ripped, sewed again.   Now I am down to the hand stitching part.  I have done many a project that utilized embroidery, but never hand quilting.  Um, don’t let the looks of it fool you!

IT’S HARD.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say I am not enjoying it.  I am!  I find that stitch by stitch they get smaller, tighter, straighter… or not… and then it’s pick-pick-pick it out and try again.  I poke my fingers with the little needle.  I watch the ladies on Youtube as they stitch away in perfect stitches.  Heck, I watched one lady at least a dozen times to try to figure out how to just tie a proper knot and hide it into the quilt.  GOT IT!  But I’ll by hanged if I can figure out how she tied it at the end and hid the last finishing stitch.  Till then, I make my sewn finishing stitch as I would for a tailored item and hide the end of the thread beneath the fabric so it at least looks tidy.

I will not win a quilting ribbon for my first item, but I am pleased that this old lady can still learn a trick or two!  The refining will still take a bit, but I feel like I am on my way!

So, my stitches aren’t perfect, but hey, they are vastly improved! 🙂

Note:  The stitches on the right were the first rows done, and the two boxes in the center are just finished.  Better?  (Red running stitches are basting.  The quilting pins were making me feel like a human pincushion!)

Ollie-Ollie-Alls-for-Free (or oxen free)

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So this morning I go to let the geese out of the barn and there are only two in the nest!  Polly and the little girl.  Where’s that little boy gotten off too?  I search the barn calling out for him and I hear a weak little peep, peep, peep – peep, peep, peep…

I look everywhere and I can hear him faintly, but cannot see him!

Finally, I  find him.  He had escaped his corral and gotten himself wedged UP-SIDE-DOWN between the wall and a pallet laying on the ground.  His little flappy feet are kicking back and forth uselessly in time to his little peeping sounds.  I scoop him up, turn him right side up, and carry him out to fresh grass and water.

When I put him down he tries to stand, totters and falls back down.  I think he must have been upside-down for a very long while.  Poor Baby!  Those flappy feet “went to sleep without him!”  Later that day all is well and he is happily following along with Polly and the baby girl again.

“:<>

“My feet went to sleep without me!”  What I used to say when very young and suffering from that nasty pins and needles feeling.

Photo Friday: the invasion has begun

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Like aliens from some unknown realm

they dig their way to the surface

climb the nearest building, tree,

or truck tire.

There they latch on tightly,

and begin to split down the middle…

emerging as

Cicadas.

For most of the summer they will buzz

in the heat of the day,

singing in waves across pastures

and through forest stands

calling, calling, calling,*

till they find the response

they were looking for.

~*~

Cicadas lie in the ground for 13 years and then emerge en masse.  Apparently, 2011 is the year!  This year marks the Magicicada XIX!

Just for fun:

A recent news story out of Tennessee about Chocolate covered Cicadas

AND, possibly more info, and videos, than you ever wanted to know about the curious little creatures  can be found… HERE!

*I took a drive to Collinsville, Alabama on a two lane highway (Hwy. 11) through the country.  Radio on, windows up, I think, “What is that noise?”   Turning off the radio and rolling down the windows I hear it…  Imagine multiplying  the call (linked in ‘calling’ above) by hundreds of thousands and you will know what I heard!  Amazing sound for a little one inch flying bug!

And Sew it Begins: avoiding alzheimers

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They say that if you want to avoid Alzheimers then you should teach yourself something new as you grow older.  And so I have chosen to teach myself to quilt.  When I started I wasn’t sure if I would like it, but I wanted quilts for my home and couldn’t think of any affordable way to get them other than to make them myself…

And so it is that I have discovered a new passion in life!  Quilting!  In my research I found the Missouri Star Quilting Company who offers lessons online.  I have also discovered Sir’s Fabrics in Fayetteville, TN, where I can go and get plenty of fabric for practicing my new-found craft… This allows me to learn, and make mistakes, for very little money.

Also of interest is the site called Civil War Quilts.  Here I can learn to quilt a block a week and I get a little history lesson via featured excerpts from diaries that were written by women of the period.  I find it fascinating and fun.

The following is a bit of what I am currently working on and yes I am working on more than one project.  (Weirdly, I often read more than one book at a time too.  I suspect that it is a hangover from study habits in my college days.)

The Sock Monkey

One row of blocks…

This quilt is called a disappearing nine patch.  You begin with the basic nine patch quilt block, cut it into fours, and rotate each piece.  The end result is a more modern mosaic of color vs. the old-fashioned pieced blocks.

So why call it the Sock Monkey?  It’s all about the colors…

Isn’t he adorable!

…and a lot about nostalgia!  Everybody’s Granny made these for their grandkids when I was little.  (Hmm… my Grannies missed out on this gene.)

Progress on the Sock Monkey?

Two rows of blocks sewn together and bout 1/4 done.

I had hoped to have this done for the guest room in October, that’s when some very good friends will be visiting, but it remains to be seen if I will get there.  Fact is, I have recently found out that if I want it machine quilted it will cost me about 1 cent per inch… or about $100.00.  (So much for economical quilts!)  So, I may be doing it the old-fashioned way with needle and tread.  That will take a while.

The Underground Railroad, from the Civil War Quilts site is my inspiration for a table runner I will be making.

Pattern:  The Underground Railroad

I found the lovely fabric at a little quilt shop called A Time 2 Sew in Collinsville, AL.  I just love the ladies there.  They are so friendly and full of advice and information.  Want to know a little secret about their shop?  It is housed in what was, until the mid seventies, the Collinsville Jail!  The cells are now used for storage and to display some of the antique quilts they have there!

I am dying to show you my nearly complete creation, but it is for a friend in Chicago and I don’t want to spoil the surprise!  I will share when it is done.  I promise!