Sorry, Sewing Instead of Blogging

I haven’t been blogging much, I’m too busy sewing. Hope everyone is well and I’ll see you soon.

Quilting Into The New Year

is always my most enjoyable prospect! A new year, new plans for quilts. The prospect of a whole year seems to open up enormous vistas of time. Unfortunately, the reality is never quite that easy.

I am contemplating making some big changes in my life this year. I would like to move back to my beloved ocean soon. One of my dilemmas is my mountain of fabric I would not want to leave behind. So I have resolved to try not to buy any fabric this year but to use up what I have.

This is a scary thought. There is always something new I just have to have or just a splendid day of shopping and picking up something new. But, I am firm in my resolve at this point. Anyway, with all the things happening in our world I just can’t justify hoarding more fabric.

I propose to work on charity quilts, finish my projects I have started and sew up as much fabric as I can! I am well aware I cannot possibly sew it all but perhaps I can make a noticeable dint in my stash.

Perusing the heavily laden shelves I was struck by how beautiful the fabric I have is. It is amazing the way you forget what you have and I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with those marvelous folds of cloth buried under piles of other gorgeous cloth.

My daughter shakes her head in utter disbelief as I ooh and aah over particular favorites. She can’t imagine the pleasure I get from stroking this wonderous soft bank account in my sewing room.

Our guild challenge this year for the Little Balkans Quilt Guild is to repurpose and create from something already used. Years ago I resued three kimonos(yukatas actually) from certain destruction and have been wanting to make them into something. This seems the perfect opportunity to make myself a lap quilt from them. These items have hung on walls as decorative accents, they have been worn when I wanted comfort, I think they are begging for resurrection.

Post and tell me your ideas for the New Year.

McDonald 3

It is so amazing what has been hiding in my scrap piles

Didn't like the green fabric but it is turning out cute

McDonald 2

Using up all the bits of fabric

McDonald 1

Polyester batting with multicolor backing

Scraps strip pieced

Ronald McDonald House Quilts

My guild has been asked to make some children’s quilts and some adult quilts for the local Ronald McDonald House. The guild tries to make and donate every year to good causes. One of the problems we are having in our guild is no one has the time to make charity quilts. I thoroughly understand this as my own life is very busy, but there are some things you just have to make time for.

So the big question has been: how do we get some quilts made? Our president came up with the quilt as you go idea which seems the most practical way to do this. Over the next few weeks I will be posting my progress.

My plan: to use up scraps and fabrics I don’t really plan to use in any quilts. The guild is supplying me with low loft polyester batting (I usually use cotton) so my costs are my fabric and thread and time. My criteria is that they be bright and cheerful. I have planned two 48″ X 56″ children’s quilts so far. I have cut my batting for the first one into 42 8″ squares. I have chosen two backing fabrics and have cut 21 of each color into 10″ squares.

The fun part is using up leftover scraps. I have no plan, just cut up fabric and sew it together. When I have an 8″ square I layer it onto the top of the batting, then place those in the middle of the backing, leaving one inch all around of backing fabric. Then do a simple quilting design by machine through all three layers.

After that you sew a one inch seam between squares and double fold over to make your sashing. Quilt down that. Above are some pictures of what I am doing, more pics will be on photo page.

A Christmas Story

Way back when, the fall of 1965, I was twelve years old. My parents raised their four children in a house on wheels. We lived in a thirty-two foot bright silver trailer. Home was a series of trailer parks for a few months at a time until the urge to move on would hit my parents. At that point, we would close up the trailer and hitch it to the Carryall, to head down the road once more.

I can’t imagine any other way of life for me because that was my way of  life. I remember how excited we would get when we saw our parents walking up to the entrance of a school to check us out. We knew we were heading into a new adventure full of promise and hope.

It was tight quarters. You had a limited amount of space for your things and you couldn’t take over someone else’s. In the very back of the trailer were two twin beds built in. Two children assigned to each bed.

Being the oldest I opted to have the baby sleep with me. The two middle children were bedwetters and so, even though he was a boy, I much preferred to share my kingdom of the bed with him.

Anyway that fall we moved into a trailer court in McAllen, Tx. It was a rather full trailer court, full of older people who had come down to the Rio Grande Valley to escape the northern cold. There were palm trees in each yard and you could always hear the strains of Mexican music being played on the radios wafting out through open windows.

What made that fall special was our next door neighbor. He was an older retired military man, not particularly friendly. His trailer was next to ours with windows opening on to the little strip of grass called our yard.

We kids didn’t spend much time inside. For one thing there wasn’t much room and for another there was always something interesting outside. Take for instance, the man next door. That old man fascinated us. We had caught glimpses of his treasure inside when his curtains were left open.

He had the marvel of marvels sitting in front of the window. We would catch bright flashes of color and light while we were playing games in the grass. He had a color television set. We had never seen one before and were dying to really see the picture on that magnificent 25″ screen.

It was so different from our television. We had a tiny black and white set sitting on a shelf that had a tiny picture. You really had to want to watch tv to squint at that screen.We would sit outside in the grass and listen to the sounds coming out from behind the curtains. How wonderful it must be to have a movie theater in your living room we speculated. And so, it went all fall.

In December he caught us walking by his front door trying to catch sight of his wonderful machine. He didn’t say anything but that evening when we were sitting in the grass, he opened his curtains. Then wonder of wonders he turned the television so we could watch what he was watching. He even turned up the sound!

Mesmerized we watched television with him every evening through that month for an hour. We were in heaven! We would sit very quietly and watch Jackie Gleason and the June Taylor dancers or some other equally exciting program. We were afraid if we weren’t very quiet he might get annoyed and shut the curtains.

Every evening we were entertained during that month by a man who never spoke to us, not even a smile crossed his face. After an hour was up he would turn the set around and close the curtains.

I think of that month of wonders as a stranger’s Christmas present to four young children. We enjoyed it so much, talked about it for months afterward, long after we had moved on down the road. Years later I bought a color television set with a 25″ screen. When I first turned it on, I felt that moment of magic come back to me. The magic quickly faded but the memory of that man’s kindness remains. Merry Christmas everybody!

Time To Quilt

I am getting ready to wind down my blogging for this year. Starting on the 23rd I am officially on annual company leave until Jan. 2nd.

It is my time to let quilting consume me. I have multiple projects planned and I hope to complete some of them. In my guild we make and donate quilts to charity. I want to make a double sized quilt and a child’s quilt for that. Quick and easy patterns, quick to make without extensive quilting.

My landscape quilt is begging for attention. I wish to finish it and take pictures. I can hardly wait for the time.

There is a cog in the machinery though. My daughter is having surgery tomorrow and will be laid up during this time. But, I have warned her about my plans.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday and here’s hoping we get to make lots of quilts next year!

My Website

You may go to my website for some additional ideas about making clouds.

http://arlindajohnson.webs.com

Making Clouds

I saw on my search that someone was wondering how to make clouds for their landscape quilt. That set me to thinking. First what kind of sky is it? Is it summer with puffballs tossed on the blue of the sky? Is there a storm coming with big menacing thunderheads dark and flat at the bottom racing across the sky?

Maybe it is sunset with streaks of color spreading out from the horizon. How about daybreak when the rays of the sun pierce through the clouds?

There are as many different cloud patterns as there are skies. Seems to me a person should first know what kind of sky they are trying to make. Clouds can be fabric cut into shapes, clouds can be textures stitched onto the sky. Clouds can be streaks of paint dragged across the sky. Before you make clouds you should look at clouds.

When I was a girl I could lay on the ground forever staring up at clouds and the shapes they made as they floated across the sky. I think people try too hard to make clouds, relax. Don’t cut perfect shapes, clouds aren’t made like that, they are jagged, they are wispy, they are flat bottomed, they are streaks. Play with cloud shapes, think about the day you are depicting. Clouds.

PS: Take a cottonball and make a cloud. Pull it apart and you have a wispy cloud. Add more cottonballs left pretty dense and you can form thunderheads. Play with those cottonballs and you will understand making clouds.