Tag: sewing

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!)

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!

Thoughts on Grannies and lost skills

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When I was little most of my friends had a Granny who lived at home with them.  It was great because Granny was always there to fix a boo-boo or tell stories about when she was a little girl.  She was  also a great cook.   She knew how to bake the best bread, cakes and cookies.  Why she even knew how to can and preserve,  although those skills were in less demand living in the suburbs.

However, there was one skill that Granny knew that was always in demand.  She knew how to mend.  She could and would take the time to fix a shirt  without a button, or put a patch on the knees of trousers that were ‘still serviceable.’  She washed and repaired, lowered and raised hemlines,  and when it wasn’t ‘serviceable’ anymore she’d cut it up and use it for quilting or dusting.  She never wasted anything and that included socks.

Now mending socks, well that was an art because you had to take very tiny stitches, placed very close together, in order for the mend to be smooth enough to wear comfortably.  The tools for the job were a needle and thread, small scissors, and of course a burned out light bulb.   The light bulb was pure genius because it was dropped down into the sock where it provided a curved and hard surface to deflect the needle, and thereby saved your fingers being stabbed.  The bulb’s  curved surface also allowed the new seam to follow the natural tube shape of the sock.

Yup, Grannies were indispensable!  Or so I thought when I was young.  Time has passed and few people know the luxury of having a knowledgeable and talented Granny living at home with them.  Yet, after all this time I remember those borrowed moments with my playmates and their loving Grannies.

So today I sit here by the light of my dinning room window mending a sock.  I look out the window and realize how much I learned from those borrowed moments…  and I smile.    Biting  the thread to loosen it from the sock I feel some measure of pride at making  it once again ‘serviceable.’