"Entrant's Lament"

Here is today's poem:

Entrant's Lament

My quilt show comes
As the summer leaves.
But can you guess
My two pet peeves?

Labels and sleeves,
Labels and sleeves!!
       
       -Victoria Carroll-Parkhill copyright  2013

Whew! I have been working hard to get final details done to ready my quilts for my Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild quilt show on the 5th & 6th of October. So I've been hauling them out, making sure that I have them measured, and making labels and sleeves.

In my haste to sew this label onto Cappuchino, I managed to put it on perfectly, but SIDEWAYS!

Too bad! I'm leaving it that way, LOL! I love putting a tiny line of Elmer's Clear School glue (starch based glue that washes out completely) on the folded under edges of my label and then heat setting it with a hot iron. That keeps it from shifting for when I stitch it down.

This one I even machined on! Egads, woman, have you no pride? LOL!
The sleeves are all temporary and pinned on, but it takes effort to make and pin them onto the quilt. I chose to work on my bed rather than the driveway so it was a backache rather than sore knees.

What was I thinking when I bought that hideous fabric? Ugh! At least as a sleeve no one will really see it, LOL!

This was a sleeve that I had pieced two years ago from the leftovers of the backing of my Cotton Candy (Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll by Bonnie K. Hunter). That's what's on the bed, peeking out from under the back side of Mr. Bojangles.
All the really cool quilters in my guild have been making gorgeous quilt bags, but my quilts will be stuffed into a Joann's go green bag.

I still need to do Easy Street but I have a sleeve made and a label made, just need to attach them.

I'm putting in six bed sized quilts and on Monday, I was in a blind panic. I could NOT FIND my Cappuchino quilt anywhere in this hoarder-crowded house!!!! Yikes! I looked everywhere, even going out to look in the trunk of my car. After hours of being in a tizzy over it, I said, right out loud,

"Saint Anthony, please help me find my quilt!"

I went back, for the thousandth time, into my guest bedroom. I just stood there in the doorway. Then the thought crept over me that perhaps my missing quilt, which had been folded and in a plastic bag, might have slipped off the far edge of the bed and over onto the floor where it would be invisible? ahhhah! Yes, there it was!!!!! This old Unitarian loves Saint Anthony!
And not least, I bound 12 of those happy star potholders and that took a few days to do. Yippee!

Stay calm and quilt on!

Shameless Bragging Department

Wait!!!!
We interrupt this blog for some shameless bragging. I was just contacted by my friend, Nann, that my quilting guru, Bonnie K. Hunter has put a picture of my finished "Easy Street" on her blog of people's show & share.
Click here to see it.
Wow! What an honor that is. Thank you, Bonnie!

It was last year's fall mystery that traditionally Bonnie starts on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States. The mystery is free! It is Bonnie's gift to her quilting fans. The instructions stay up usually until March or April, when they are taken down to appear in whatever will be her newest book.
It is such fun to play along with the mystery and with all the chatter in Bonnie's chat group, Quiltvillechat.com. If you haven't tried one, you are in for a treat!

Also a big THANK YOU hug goes out to Nann, for having sent me the word. Additionally, Nann sent me a surprise package in the snail mail.

Thank you, Nann!
Inside the package there were three wonderful patterns for Civil War style quilts, one of which she had emailed to me, but it got lost inside my computer. Like the old Prego spaghetti sauce television commercials used to say, "It's IN there!" But I can't find it, LOL!

There was also a marvelous baggie of Civil War reds, madders, and shirting scraps! Wheeeee!!!
I have the best friends in the world! Thank you, Nann!

Now, on a more humble note, I did put my log cabin blocks out onto the driveway to see them. Then I wondered why, oh why, did they appear to be so small and skimpy from the Cappuchino quilt that I had remembered?
Here are the blocks:

Okay, very nice, but here is the quilt that I want to duplicate:

It's twice as many blocks! I had mis-remembered how many blocks that it took to make this quilt. Cappuchino was 24 blocks set 4 by 6, not 12 blocks set 3 by 4.

Groan. I sure did feel dumb! Maybe admitting the mistake makes up for all that shameless bragging, LOL!

Stay calm and quilt on!

Retail Therapy

Saturday's weather was just perfect! Nice crisp dry air with bright sunny breezes energized me. Although I do quite a bit of online shopping, I like to support my local quilt shops, too.

One shop in particular, "Evergreen Country Primitives", has just made the transition to all Civil War reproductions, so I've been dying to go. The shop is in the basement level of Camile Arnone's beautiful log cabin home on a residential street in Milton, New Hampshire. Yet it is only a block away from Exit 17 off the Spaulding Turnpike. You take the walk through the pretty flowerboxes to get there.

 And Camille is there to greet you with a big hug!

If you are staying for a class, or just want to chat, the coffee is always on the house! And there is a spotless restroom, too.
As for the fabrics, I couldn't resist those Judie Rothermel "Dressing Gowns" line by Marcus Brothers.

I have so few nice country blues that a bought a couple of yards of those, too. I mean, I have lots of indigos, but not so many in the medium blue range.

You know my penchant for parodies, so you won't be surprised that I sang this on the twenty mile drive home:

"Evergreen" to be sung to the music of "Abilene"

Evergreen, Evergreen,
Prettiest quilt shop that I've ever seen,
The cashier there won't treat you mean,
At Evergreen, my Evergreen!

Marcus neutrals were mighty nice,
Got a discount off the retail price.
If you go, you'll see what I mean
At Evergreen, my Evergreen!

When I got home, I was thrilled to be greeted by three HUGE chrysanthemums that Felix had bought for me!

Gotta love that guy, what a sweetie!

Happy sewing!

My Lucky Day!

Happy Friday the thirteenth to you! The day was filled with showers and a very sticky uncomfortable dew point of 64. Ugh, will we never be done with this terribly humid weather?
The good news is that as I took Sue's Blue Lemoyne Star into the Alton Senior Center, it was not pouring! You can see the quilt hanging up on the French door in the back ground here.

That's Pauline smiling as she works with her "new" Kenmore sewing machine that my Matthew rescued from the free room at the dump.
So few young people sew anymore! Nowadays, when Aunt Suzy dies, everybody wants her jewelry, but nobody will take her sewing machine. Well, this one sews beautifully but needs a good cleaning and oiling, which is just what Pauline will do.

As for that Blue quilt, everybody at the Senior Center loved it, including the most important person, Sue, it's owner! I know that she paid me cash in advance to do the quilting, but I wanted her to be happy. I was so glad she loves it.

Sue is working on her whirling star rail fence quilt next in lovely shades of soft green, tan, brown, and blue.
As for Margery, she's been doing a bit of crochet, but I gave her 81 five inch squares that I'd bought inexpensively on Ebay. There are 27 each of a green, a red, and a cream.

We ate chocolate and drank coffee and had lots of fun. Because I don't like fish, I chose to skip lunch and run home to my freshly made California Tarragon Chicken Salad, LOL! Yummy!

At home, my cutting table downstairs is a disgrace! But I know where everything is in that mess, so I play along and refuse to clean it.
With the constant showers today, it was too wet to use my marvelous driveway as a layout area. That meant that my stack of Cappichino II blocks just sat waiting for a nicer moment. You may recall the Cappichino quilt that was my very first longarming project earlier this March? Well, I have decided to make another one!

It's just a large scale log cabin done in browns and creams with 2 1/2" strips so I was able to put the 12 blocks together in a couple of days. I got all the blocks pressed, too.

Two dear friends, Ilse and Sharon, both raided my potholder basket to get a jump on early Christmas shopping. Thank you, ladies!

I'm honored that they like my work enough to give them as gifts!

But it also meant that I needed to replenish my supply a bit. So these are a few of the blocks that I've been making for them.

I even made a point of cutting into some of my newer fat quarters that I had gotten at the Ladies of the Lakes quilt show, wheee!!!!

Just look at that one on the left in the above photo. It is way too busy, what was I thinking? Oh well too much coffee that day, I guess, LOL!!!

Stay calm and quilt on!

The "Go Green" Quilt

It is unusual for me to post two finishes within the space of one week, but this quilt is "Go Green", a collaborative effort mostly between Jean Vaillaincourt and me. It will be the Sunday raffle quilt at our Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild quilt show on October 5th & 6th. It is a testimony to the fact that a simple design, when nicely crafted, becomes a beautiful quilt!

Here I was trimming off the excess backing and batting on my wonderful driveway with my kneeling pad. The design is a simple rail fence with two slab borders with a cornerstone. The quilt is 66" x 84".
The blocks finished at three inches square.

The blocks were strip-pieced with three strips, going from light to medium to dark in a gradation and each strip was cut at 1 1/2 inches wide by the width of the fabric.

Cut three strips and sew them together the long way, then press and cut the blocks at three and a half inches; what could be easier? Well, you do need 432 blocks, set 18 by 24, so it takes a while!

We opened  up the participation to the whole guild but only got one or two gals to make blocks. Out of 120 members, we were disappointed, but Jean and I made lots of blocks over the course of several months. She did a fabulous job of assembling the blocks and putting the borders on the flimsy, everything is so straight and true! Good job, Jean!

I made the backing from random greens from my stash and I cannot recall if those are fat quarters or half yard pieces, but I think that they were fat quarter sized. It never even made a dent in my greens, LOL!

I put the binding on the quilt, sewing it on by machine and hand hemming it down on the back. The binding is a bias-printed stripe in greens and cream with a touch of eggplant for an accent.

It really just glows!

Even the backing looks nice, which surprised me greatly because I used all my "ugly" greens, LOL!

Linda Monasky of The Bear Paw Gallery donated her quilting on her longarm and it is beautifully done. She made an edge-to-edge, hand-guided design of loops and ivy vines that is sewn in an olive thread. Thank you so very much, Linda, you're terrific!!!!!

By the way, our federal government, the IRS, does NOT allow any business write-off for the time and effort that Linda put in to do this because it is her labor for charity and not materials. That seems so unfair to me. I hope you will consider using her on your next quilt top.

So we worked on it most of last winter and I plan on buying raffle tickets!!!

 Happy sewing!

A Workout At The Gym

No, I wasn't on an elliptical machine or a treadmaster, I was quilting one of my dear student's quilts for her! And yes, quilting on a longarm machine is a workout!!!
First, I needed to measure carefully and cut a 130" piece of batting off of the roll. That meant I had to hike it out of the guestroom and out to my wonderful driveway.

Geez, it was heavy! Once I got it measured in two places, I drew a line across the roll with a black Sharpie marker and a yardstick to make sure that I had a nice straight cut off of the roll. That also meant that the line left on the roll is now nice and straight for the next cut, too.
On a small slip of paper, I marked the date, and the amount taken, and what quilt it was for, and then pinned that back onto the roll.
I've never owned a whole 25 yard roll of batting before. Can you tell, LOL? Well, for me it was a huge investment and I want to use my resources wisely!

The quilt that I did today is very special because it is a memory quilt. It was begun by a gal that passed away and left the unfinished blocks to her cousin, Sue. Sue is one of my Friday quilters of the "Sunshine Girls" over at the Alton Senior Center.
Sue is finishing this quilt as a tribute to her departed cousin's memory. It is a sashed Blue Lemoyne Star and it finished at 82" X 120" after quilting.

Here I am, wearing my new Stashbuster's tee shirt (that reads, "Done is better than perfect") over at Ellen Peters' Cat Whiskers Quilting Studio on Tremont Street in Laconia, New Hampshire. Ellen was helping me load the quilt.

We got the quilt loaded successfully and treated the fact that it had some wavy issues with all due respect.

Although I had originally planned an all-over meander, I talked it over with Ellen and Linda, both more experienced longarmers than I am, and we decided on a big loop de loop pattern of quilting.

Ellen found a beautifully matched blue thread and I was off to the quilting races! Actually, the machine was on manual so that I could stitch slowly to try to prevent as many pleats as possible.

I got it done in under three hours and I was very pleased with the work! Almost all of the waves and puckers in the stitching had been quilted out, with only two minor exceptions. The overall impression is lovely!

Here it is coming off of the machine. I want to say a big "THANK YOU" to Ellen Peters for all her help and expert coaching to make this very loved quilt top become a quilt for Sue.

I got it home to my house and realized that Sue would have a lot of trouble getting this large quilt properly trimmed of the excess backing and batting. But I came in the door like a cripple, whining about sore muscles and my poor trick ankle, and hungry enough to be grouchy to boot!

Fortunately, the world's most supportive quilting husband came to the rescue. Felix made me a corned beef sandwich on 12-grain bread with both mayonnaise and mustard, salt and pepper, and lots of fresh Romaine lettuce, and brought me a coffee-flavored water to help wash it down. I ate like a wolf cub!
Then he had me lie down and rubbed my back and shoulders and neck with Extra Strength Ben-Gay ointment. I love the smell of that stuff! By the way, he did that trick ankle, too. After a 30 minute rest, I felt great and ready to trim the quilt just before sundown.

Notice that except for some small rumpling in the borders, this quilt is lying FLAT!!! Yippee!!!

I do use a small kneeling pad to do all my trimming because that asphalt is really hard on the joints!

I needed help to get it folded after the trimming because it is so big and heavy, so Matthew gave me a hand.
It is a stressful venture to quilt for someone else. You hope so much that they will like your work! I don't see Sue until Friday the 13th, but here she is, clowning around and hiding behind her brownie.

Pauline, on the left, and Margie on the right, couldn't help but giggle at her antics!

Pauline is holding up her crocheted doily and Margie was doing some crocheting too. The Sunshine Girls eat a lot of chocolates and we giggle often!



Stay calm and quilt on!