Tag Archives: Quilting

Needles and Pins

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Needles have factored in my life ever since I was ten years old when I hand sewed clothes for my rescue Barbie. I call her that because that is what she was; my father rescued her on his sanitation department rounds. Picked her right out of someone’s trash and brought her home to me. She was dirtied and naked, but I cleaned her up, and dressed her, and loved her.

I come from a long line of women who sew, by choice or necessity, or both. A lot of my clothes were made by my mother, who made many of her own dresses as well. My much older sister also contributed to my wardrobe by making for me a green plaid skirt that came with attached suspenders. I was surprised because she seemed to always have it out for me, accused me of being the pampered one, once proclaiming that I got to have new shoes, but she only got new soles. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was growing and she was grown.

I guess the suspenders were her way of getting even. But if that was her plan, it failed. I liked the skirt and wore it often. Working with needles was ingrained in us, as demonstrated by her choice with which to do battle. Of course, I ended up picking a profession in which needles factored greatly. In days past, I could get an IV into the tiniest and rolliest of veins. It was nothing laudable, just part of my job, just something my limber, strong, young fingers could do.

Today, I am retired from my profession and am an active sewer and quilter. And my fingers are not so limber and stealthy anymore thanks to RA, and the osteoarthritis that comes from wear and tear. But I blame RA more. Always more.

This year, I found myself getting pricked too frequently by the straight pins that I would use to hold piecework together so that the seams and the corners turn out perfectly even as they are sewn. I know my poor fingers weren’t stabbing themselves on purpose, but I got pretty darn tired of it.

I decided to retire the straight pins and switch to these darling little clips. They have almost a death grip and hold the pieces tightly together. But they are a little hard to open if I don’t grasp them just so. And they do pinch me on occasion, but it hurts a lot less than a needle stab. I love them. Not going back to pins unless there is some particular instance why it must be a pin that is used.

So no more this.

The moral of the story is, I suppose, adapt or (hobbies) die.

Yes, please

One of my projects in progress, safety-pinned and ready for quilting. I decided to make myself a scrap quilt using 2-by-2-inch squares out of each of the fabrics I’ve worked with. I reached the size I wanted (just covers the top of my queen-sized bed) without running out of all the fabrics I’ve used for many other projects. But there’s always more scrap quilts to come.

Perhaps I will plan a quilt for my sister. I should incorporate some green plaid fabric, and maybe a shoe print fabric.

Y’all take care now.

Idle Hands

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I did an unwitting experiment yesterday. My only intention was a day of rest. It had been a long while since I’d had a day to myself. Normally these are luxuriant days, doing only what I desire to do, but they come few and very far between.

My husband had taken up the challenge of doing the MS Ride once again. 75 miles to Key Largo. And back. On a bike.

Last year he’d said he wasn’t doing it again and I agreed. He’s not exactly 16 anymore; he rides frequently, just not 150 miles in two days’ time. But his company came up with the dough for donation and yesterday he took off at dawn.

I figured since he’d be away all weekend, I’d chill. My daughter and granddaughter, who are staying with us at present, left for the whole day too. I’d kept Alyssa on Friday and we’d worked most of the day on a quilt that she’d designed.

I’d shown her my collection of quilt sketches drawn and colored on graph paper and that made her want to draw her own so that I could make her a blanket she said. I took her scribbles and translated them into alternating squares and rectangles, which she then filled in with color pencils.

It took several days for her to select a fabric from my stash to match each square and rectangle. I then cut them out while she watched. Friday, we took advantage of her staying home from preschool to finish all the cutting and to lay out the pieces on a piece of fleece that I use as a “design wall.” (The cotton fabric sticks to the fleece and provides me with a road map to follow as I sew the pieces together.) It was a busy day that culminated with both us falling asleep early that night.

Yesterday, I slept late and then watched TV all day. Or rather, I glanced at the TV all day while I read. I did make the bed but didn’t get out of it, getting up only to grab breakfast, lunch and dinner. Simple, light meals that required no time at all.

I didn’t feel one smack of guilt for hibernating. Not even a smidgen. In fact, I didn’t feel much of anything until late in the evening when I was preparing to pour some green tea and the ice cubes fell through my fingers. I had a bunch in my hand transferring them from the ice container in the freezer to my glass and then, they were all over the floor.

My husband hates that I do that instead of using the ice dispenser on the door, but it’s so noisy I prefer to just open the freezer and grab a handful. Normally it goes smoothly, but this time I was left staring at shards of ice splayed around me on the floor.

Why had I dropped them? Why had the ice cubes slithered through my fingers so easily? The day before I’d been wielding a lethal rotary cutter slicing through 64 different fabrics with exacting precision.

I flexed my hands and noted that my fingers were stiff and swollen. They felt as if I’d just woken up. But it was the evening, when my fingers are supposed to be most nimble.

But my hands didn’t know it was evening. My hands didn’t know they were supposed to be loosened up by then. They only knew that they’d done next to nothing all day. That they’d been mostly at rest as if the night had extended on through the day. The most intricate thing they’d done was to hold a phone, a tablet or a TV controller.

There’d been no fine motor functions expected of them. No cooking, no housework, no driving, no typing, no writing, no sewing. In essence, there’d been no wake-up call for them at all.

Why did it take me till evening to notice? I have no idea. Maybe I was enjoying the idleness too much. But one thing was definitely reinforced by my inaction. Idle hands become frozen hands.

Quilting

Placing down the pieces, one by one.

Proudly done!

Proudly done!

My fabric stash, or rather part of it.

My fabric stash, or rather, part of it.

Falling Leaves

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quilt designThe goal: to bring this pencil sketch into quilt reality.

It took all of an afternoon to bring what was in my head onto graph paper. And then a while longer to make the math add up so every piece of fabric will nestle precisely against the other.

It may now only be pencil lead on white paper, but in the unshaded areas I see a light green background upon which fragile leaves softly undulate as they fall.

I see rich brown borders, bronze in tone, depicting a boundary of welcoming soil upon which the leaves will land, knowing they only have so far to fall.

Within, the Flying Geese will move, resplendent in a wild array of fall colors, from blood red to golden yellow. The colors symbolize inevitable change as the geese fly to and fro along the confines, mimicking the ebbs and flows of life itself.

quilt fabricsThese fabrics will help me paint.

As they go through the auditioning process they will speak to me, or not. And as happens in life, they won’t all make the literal cut. But all will not be lost for they might foster ideas for another time.

And I know this lot will not suffice. Therefore, I will set out to hunt and gather additional fabrics as I search for more color, more vibrancy, more life.