Comfort Quilt Just About Finished

I thought I was never going to get the free motion quilting done on this quilt. Finally, last night I put the last stitches in it- yay! Just need to put on binding and a label. I'll send a picture of the whole quilt when it's completed.

Throwback Thursday; Edna's Hem

My mom, Edna was a self taught seamstress who took great pride in her work. When I was a kid, I was the flower girl for the wedding of family friends. Mom made my dress, the other dresses were made by somebody else. When the pictures came back, I can remember Mom saying "Look how sloppy those other hems are!" When my daughter, Lindsay learned to sew, I was proud of the job she did on a garment, but I had to warn her, "Don't let Grandma see your hem!" So now the very high standards for hems have been passed down for two generations. :) Here is a link to Lindsay's blog to see her version of the hem story: http://www.lindsayjoy.ca/standards-of-excellence/

"Growing Up Odd" Quilt Top Sewn Together

I finished sewing this quilt top together this afternoon. The pattern is "Growing Up Odd", a free tutorial, thanks to the Wedding Dress Blue blog on Wordpress. The pattern used two inch squares, but I used two and a half inch squares because I had a billion of them already cut. I keep getting distracted and starting new quilt tops. This is bad because none of the tops are being quilted! I can't afford to send them to a long arm quilter, so I have to do them myself. Somebody needs to stand over me with a whip and force me to sit at the machine and do some free motion quilting and actually complete something for a change.

Throwback Thursday; Embroidery

I learned to embroider when I was about eight or nine years old. I remember making a doll bed with embroidered sheets and a pillowcase, with a knitted blanket on top. When I was a teenager, I made a "hippie" tunic top that had tons of embroidery on the sleeves and the front panel. Sadly, the top turned out too big for me, a person offered to buy it, then took the top and never paid for it. I was so mad! It took ages to do all that work, only to have it stolen. Since then, I've used embroidery quite often on quilt blocks. These blocks are an ongoing project I've been working on for more than a decade. I've got five of them made so far, I just work on them when I'm camping or travelling. Maybe there'll be enough to make a small quilt eventually.

Throwback Thursday; Beads

I've been so busy working lately, there hasn't been time to complete any quilts. I need to finish quilting the project I was working on at our last retreat: a comfort quilt that I'm going to donate to our guild's stockpile. (When a need comes up, then we have quilts handy to give away.) I ended up hurting my shoulder when I was doing free motion quilting for eleven hours straight. Now that the shoulder has been given a rest for the past few weeks, I should be able to finish the quilt when some spare time eventually comes along. In the meantime, there's Throwback Thursday. :) When I was a kid, I was fascinated with beads and made all kinds of things with them. Every Saturday, Mom would tell me to clean up my room. I'd start cleaning and organizing, but then I'd get distracted by some beads or a craft item. Then I'd end up sitting on the floor in a pile of debris, starting a project. Mom would keep after me until the room was picked up a little, but it never did get thoroughly tidied up. I was too much of a dreamer and a creator to live like "normal" people did. This is a picture of an unfinished bead project that I made when I was a kid. It had been laced onto a bead loom but for some reason was taken off. Too long ago to remember the details.

Throwback Thursday; Knitting

When I was around nine years old, my Aunt Ethel taught me to knit. I made some small items, then when I was eleven, I started making outfits for Barbie dolls and selling them in a store. I would knit a sweater, sew a skirt or pants and crochet a matching hat, then attach the outfit to cardboard and cover it with plastic. By the time I was twelve, the outfits were selling like hotcakes, I had a little factory going on Mom's kitchen table. I manufactured Barbie pants, assembly line style, chain piecing them so I wouldn't waste thread or time. My sister, Linda designed the pattern for the pants. My 15 minutes of fame came when Marg Osbourne from the old TV show, "Don Messer's Jubilee" bought several of my Barbie outfits. I don't have any pictures of those doll clothes, but I still have a sweater that I made when I was 14, it's a combination of knitting, crocheting and embroidery.

I haven't tried knitting for quite a few years because it makes carpal tunnel syndrome flare up in my hands. I bought some yarn, a pattern and some needles to make socks, maybe if I only worked at it a bit at a time, then rested, I'd be able to knit without pain.