Nearly Insane ?

This is my nearly insane quilt all quilted......a guild mate quilted it for me....I am not insane enough to try to quilt it myself.  She did an awesome job.  I pick it up tomorrow and can't wait to snuggle under it tomorrow night.  It has wool batting and wool backing......Warmo!

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This is so true and so nearly insane.  I spend a lot of time giving God advice on how to handle different situations :(

I Can See Clearly Now the Fog is Gone!

 This is my friend Lucy, aka Rita, on the left showing her mighty Kimona Quilt.  Can you tell how beautiful it is and how huge?  This is the first quilt she ever started.....Lucy believes in starting at the top and working her way down :)  She has made others in the meantime but this is her piece de resistance.  You should have heard the quilt guild members owwww and ahhhhhhh....they know a masterpiece when they see one.

 One of our members, named Boppy, turned 80 this week.  She shared this little "girl" named Gloria that her greatgranddaughter made for her out of a sock!  The greatgranddaughter said Gloria is wearing one of her many gorgeous pairs shoes.....evidently Boppy has a bit of a shoe fetish and Gloria does as well :)   

My dear, dear, Hubs spent the last two weeks putting five new sliding glass doors in my studio.  The title of this blog alludes to my formerly foggy windows.  I added this room on our house around 1982 when I inherited this oriental rug from my parents' estate.  I used the money I got to build a room for the rug. which I called The Gates Room after my parents.  I really don't know why I thought I needed more room in my already large house but I got the bee in my bonnet and it was all she wrote.

We aren't sure why almost all the sliding glass doors all lost their seal over the years but they have been on our to do list for a l-o-n-g time.  We have three more to do but now that it has turned cold I told Hubs to wait for Spring.  When I retired and started quilting I began sewing in my laundry room (it was my children's nursery once upon a time and is pretty good sized.).  Once day the bright idea occurred to move my sewing operation to the Gates' Room, aka my studio was born.  I love looking out of all the glass and opening the doors on a pretty day.

That is my latest quilt, Nearly Insane, lying to the left of the table.  I am only through with making half the blocks....... when I finish I will call it "Completely Insane."

Any thing making you "Nearly Insane"?

Nearly Insane

Most of you will NOT be surprised by my title. Ah ha! You will say, we always knew she was Nearly Insane! But alas! This is not a statement of my psychological health (or is it?) it is the name of a quilt made by a lady a long time ago with two hundred and some blocks....a few of which contain over 225 pieces. Oh, and the blocks are 6 inches. I 've be invited to join the Nearly Insane Blogger Group so I will be showing some of my blocks.

In addition to sewing , I have been reading. Yesterday I picked up a book I had read about in our local librarian's column in the local paper. A Stranger in the Family by Robert Barnard. It was so good I finished it in one day! It was about a boy who was raised as a couple's natural child only to be told right before his mother's death that he was adopted. Upon investigation he finds he was really abducted. This leads to an interesting and twisted hunt to find his real origins.

Barnard, I see by the list in the front of the book, has published 42 other titles. I will be checking those out and will let you know how they compare.

I really, really, love biographies and autobiographies. In the elemenatary school I attended in Washington, DC we only had a room which was partly devoted to library books. I found the biography section and read every one. For those of my age (66) they had orange covers and were about famous Americans. Juliette Lowe, Dolley Madison, Davy Crockett, etc..... I really believe these books taught me an ordinary person could do extraordinary things.

I am now reading the biography of Janette Oke, written by her daughter Laurel . For those who don't know, Janette Oke writes Christian Historical Fiction. Several of her books have been turned into movies and air on the Hallmark Channel. Love Comes Softly is one title and there is a sequel whose name I don't remember.

Janette herself had an interesting life growing up on the Prairies of Canada and Kansas during the depression. A life so different than ours today. She was one of nine children and when she was a young woman she was often loaned out to neighbors or relatives who were suffering from illness or childbirth complications. She did not resent this; it was just what people did when they were living in an isolated area with no "home health workers" or family to step in during a crisis.

Through reading I have had a million experiences I couldn't have packed into one short lifetime. What have you been reading?

Basting Wall for Quilters

I watched a Patsy Tompson's DVD on Free Motion Quilting. She included a video of her using her Basting Wall which was made of ceiling tiles fastened to a wall of her home. Here is Hubs installing the last of the three lower tiles in my laundry room. We were able to put a row above these making the wall 8 feet tall by 6 feet wide. Of course you can make it as big or small as you like. The tiles we bought were 2 feet by 4 feet and $40 for ten.

The is my quilt top (wrong side out) pinned to the wall with a few T pins.

I then sprayed the quilt top and laid my BLACK batting on top (carefully smoothing and getting out any wrinkles).

Then I spray basted again and "installed" the quilt back. In less than 15 minutes my quilt was basted and ready to go to my machine. Pretty cool huh!

The Inner Accountant

This is my beautiful new Janome 6600 Sewing Machine. For those who don't know how sewing machines have improved, let me just say it is the bomb. It cuts your thread whenever you tell it too for one thing! The beautiful quilt beside it is my Christmas quilt I started at Fall Retreat. I am ready to put the back on it and quilt it with my new machine.

I've just finished South of Broad. I so love Pat Conroy's writing. This book hasn't gotten the best of reviews but no one else can write like he does in my opinion. If you love Charleston, you will love his descriptions in this book. He even talks about Big Johns a place I visited while in college.

I also just read Sue Monk Kidd's latest; that she wrote with her daughter . It is mostly about how and why a black Madonna came to be her writing muse and their trip to Europe to visit ancient Mary Shrines. I started reading Ms. Kidd back in the 80's when she wrote for Guideposts. I've read everything she has written as she has progressed from a "normal Christian" to a weirdo. If you read the book, let me know what you think.

Now for the Inner Critic/Accountant. In Mary B's blog where they tried to write a book in a week the moderators advised writers to silence their inner critic and just write. It made me think about my "inner accountant". I don't know where I got her. Probably during the many droughts we went through on the farm. I learned that famine wasn't fun and I'd rather avoid it even if the checkbook says its okay to feast.

Buying the new Janome has caused IA (Inner Accountant) to rise up and shake her finger at me a lot. "No, you do not need black shoes to wear with black pants....wear brown....it is not important in the world scheme of things for your shoes to match." "and you oh so don't need new sheets for the boy's bedroom.....just because they are the ones your mother used at her beach house sixty some years ago does not mean they should be replaced". And on and on she whispers. It is a good thing my husband can out vote her our there would be no new nothin' around here!

Do any of you have an inner accountant?

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Hot Dog.....We're Home!

On our way North to Meadows of Dan, Virginia, Curtis and I stopped in at the Ebenezer Grill in Rock Hill, SC to lunch with our daughter, Gabby.

Since we try hard never to miss an opportunity to embarrass the heck out of her....we tried on the Hot Dog Hat! My husband should wear it 24-7 since he eats AT LEAST one hot dog a day and usually two. I think that makes him the Hot Dog King and by default I guess I am the Queen of Hot Dogs.

While visiting with Sallie and Andy, Sallie and I went to two huge fabric/quilt stores. This one at fancy gap had upgraded quite a bit. I bought fabric to do my next quilt here.

The next day, Sallie and Lynn, her neighbor and a fellow quilter, and I went to Wytheville to the SEW WHAT FABRICS store. OMGoodness! I should have taken the pic inside. Three levels of fabulous fabrics. And a good portion on sale. This store advertises in national quilt magazines; it was great to see it in person. I bought more fabric and thread for the new quilt.

When lunch time rolled around we went next door to the Log Cabin Restaurant established in 1776. It is truly an old log cabin with so much ambiance......if you are ever on the way anywhere and see the sign for Wytheville....stop and ask for The Log Cabin Restaurant. (Or Goggle it.)

This is Sallie's quilt that set me off on making a quilt with a border print. I made a few of the nine patches while I was there and as soon as I finish my Christmas Quilt I will be working on this one.

Well must go sew on my NEW JANOME 6600P Sewing Machine. Will tell more about that in another post.

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Guilded Lillies (Get it?)

Yesterday was Quilt Guild, and the "Guilded Lillies" had quite a few show and tells in addition to our Make It, Bake It, Grow it Silent and Loud Auctions. Marlene made this lovely doggie quilt she named "Must Love Dogs" for her grand daughter!

Not only that, she made a mini-quilt for the GD's American Girl Doll....called Must love Puppies!

I tried to get Marlene to adopt me as a grand daughter but she was not interested :(

Judy name this quilt for the Make A Wish Foundation to sell. I think you all know Make A Wish benefits terminally ill children.

My blurry photo does not do Lillie's Heart Quilt justice. Several of our ladies made quilts for The Heart Association Fundraiser. This photo....if it were good....shows where her husband's heart was damaged when he had a heart attach a few years back.

Carolyn never ceases to amaze me with her interpretations. Many fabrics were fused together and little mirrors attached in those gold hearts for her "Look Into Your Heart" entry.

Frances came up with "Heartsville" a wall hanging named for our town. She appliqued each little window on there And put little heart charms on each house.

Frances, our President and Over Achiever Extraordinaire did a second one and I forgot the title. But those are silver faces, hands and feet sewn on it.

It was a wonderful meeting and the pictures above show that as quilters we are an involved bunch of ladies using our skills to better the world around us :)

Do you have any skills you can use to better the world around you?

If you answered "No".....I beg to differ.....YOU CAN PRAY! Right now a 2 year old little girl named Belle has been diagnosed with brain and spinal cancer. PLEASE pray for Belle; and for her doctors who don't know quite how to treat her.....GOD KNOWS.....Let's ask HIM to help.

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Sewing With Rita

Yesterday, my good friend and fellow quilter, Rita came over to help me with some quilting issues. I wanted to learn how to piece a "pineapple block". She came and printed the pattern on tissue paper using my printer and then taught me how to piece it.

We had a great time. We chatted and sewed and pressed and chatted while we worked. (Oh, and I threw in a little lunch to keep her working :)

These are the two blocks we completed. Aren't they beautimus?? Now only 80 or so to go and I'll have a quilt. (Maybe I can trick her into coming back!?)

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Quiterama

Gosh, you would think quilters invented the computer to see the number of them blogging. There must be a million!

So I've gotta keep up right?

Well, this is my latest quilt in progress. Wild, huh? Not your Grandma's quilt, eh? Well, I found the fabrics at the Big Red Barn at North Myrtle Beach and they just called my name. But I waited until I finished my other projects before starting.

The next quilt is a "community quilt" I made from flannel shirts I bought at the Salvation Army and cut up . It has a million pieces I swear and that taught me one thing; I do not like making the same block over and over even if it is in different colors. But I do like the way it turned out.

So what have you been up to these cold days?