Quilting Adventure

My daughter, Jill, found a picture on the internet of a lovely quilt and printed a picture of it out, and cut the picture up. She figured out that the quilt had been made with a striped material, and went to town to buy some and try her hand at it. She told me about it and posted pictures on facebook so I could see her progress on her creation. I was in awe of what she was doing and decided to try my hand at it. Above is a picture of the two yards of striped material I bought along with a coordinating print. Below is a farther away view of the same thing. And--I have discovered that I must have a smudge on my camera lens. This is my old digital camera.

Below is a close-up with a yardstick to show the repeat across the fabric.

After doing some quilting engineering I determined that I want to make my first triangle cut of fabric with a dark red violin in the center of it. I bought a Fons and Porter triangle to help me do the cutting. If I were better at quilt blogging, I would have taken a picture of it to show you.

I also put a brand-new blade in my rotary cutter. Wow, did it work nice. Why do I ever use dull, knicked blades?

But first I must cut a straight line through the bottom of the area below the violin. I am rather nervous about making a mistake, so I decided to use scisssors.

Here is the section I cut off. Now to get those violins centered. They are about 11 inches apart, so the size of this triangle will determine the size of the other triangles.

And, eureka, I have cut a triangle! What was I so afraid of?

Methinks the picture below is out of place. It happens to be one of the other blocks.

By putting four of my violin triangles together, I have come up with a block that looks like this:




And here is another block:

I should have taken a few more pictures. The main blocks are the ones that have the base of the triangles cut on the straight grain of the fabric (parallel to the selvedge--were you listening in home ec. class?) Then there are triangles that are cut from the areas in between the main blocks that have their base on the cross-grain of the fabric. The stripes on them run up and down, and I managed to cut them as mirror images of each other. When you add them to the original four squares, they end up looking like this:

I discovered that there is a certain order to adding the outside triangles, and the block above is wrong. In the next pictures you will see that by doing those outside triangles right, you get more designs between the squares.

When I laid these out on my kitchen island, I really began to get excited when I saw the designs forming between the blocks! Out of my two yards of striped fabric, I got ten main square blocks, but only enough other triangles to add to five of them. So, back to Joann Fabrics, where I bought another 1 1/2 yards so I would have enough of those triangles to finish them off. I will get some main blocks out of it, too, which I will probably put together a different way with sashing or something.

The quilt I want to make will hang in the area above the headboard of our bed. We have had a green pinwheel quilt hanging there for nearly ten years, so it is time for a change!

I will be updating you on my progress! I have been so thoroughly intrigued by it!

My thanks is to my daughter Jill for discovering a picture of a quilt on the internet, and figuring out how to make it, and sharing the idea with me. Here is what I have so far:

Where were you Sept. 11, 2001?

2001 was an eventful year in our lives. My oldest brother, Ben, died from complications of cancer surgery on Jan. 19. In May, our oldest son, Roy, came home with burnout from his almost ten years of preaching the Gospel. I could write a lot about both those experiences, but we all know that the events of September 11 shook the whole world.

I was actually prepping for a colonoscopy on that fateful day--a liquid diet, then at 4 PM I was to begin drinking the clean-out stuff. Since my brother Ben had had colon cancer, it seemed like a good idea for me to be checked to see if my colon was in good shape.

So, Tuesday, as usual, I made a trip to Reynoldsville to sell my rugs at the farmer's market. Two of our workers, Cindy Peter and Karen Richardson, were at Doretha Murray's and I had something to give to them--mail, I think. I left home earlier than usual and stopped there to give them whatever it was. Donna Crawford and I had just come back from convention at Madisonville, KY, and I had a picture of the workers there. I was showing it to Cindy and Karen when Doretha's phone rang. Her niece, Rhonda DeBlasio, was calling to tell her that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, she called with the news that a second plane had hit the other tower. Yikes! What was happening anyways?

Well, I moseyed down in to town for the farmer's market where we were all nervously setting up our goods. I remember looking up often, and wondering about things flying over. The man set up next to me had his radio going in his car, and I listened with him some. There were more reports of planes, but the information at that time was rather sketchy.

Business was certainly poor. Before long, the streets were clear of people. I expect most were glued to a televisions somewhere. I remember a man walking up the street with a Bible in his hand. He was a preacher and was inviting people to a prayer service that afternoon in his church.

I decided to go home early. Others were, too.

At four o'clock I began my prepartation for the colonoscopy, wondering if this was really necessary since I really wondered if we would be blown off the map by morning! President Bush had cleared the skies of all air traffic, and it seemed almost surreal to look up and think that the sky was empty of planes.

The next day I had my test at the hospital. For the first time, I saw on the television what so many people saw repeatedly--the planes going into the towers. We had survived another day...

Saturday morning after that was another farmer's market in DuBois. That day I had some red, white, and blue woven trim that I made into little bows, put a pin in it, and gave them out to people. I did not charge for them, but many people wanted to pay me a dollar anyways...

So, how did it change me? For a good while I felt that life as I had known it was surely over and that war would just break out everywhere. I believe that the fact that our country has held together since that day is because God's purpose for this old world has yet to be accomplished. He is ever merciful to give us the time we need to get to know Him better.

I think that it changed the way people in our society relate to those we love--we are more communicative about our love. Cell phones have come into common use, and we often overhear people saying "I love you" or "Love you, bye". We realized that life could be snatched from us at any time.

Whether the lessons learned from September 11 have continued to this day is debatable, but it certainly affected our society.

We Did it Again!

Well, we did it again. After Freedom convention, our cup was running over, but we went to Newry two weeks later for more of the same! On Saturday evening at Newry, I was wondering if I really could take any more in, but Sunday was another day of very helpful meetings! Convention is such a rich experience, and I came home with a great desire to spend more time reading the Bible. After having eight days total of convention meetings, the Bible is more open and understandable than ever before. As I read I find myself asking, "How do I do that, Lord?" and little by little, He begins to show me.

And now it is back to ordinary life, lived with a purpose renewed. Ken's job of eleven years is getting increasingly unstable--they got new management there about a month ago, and are replacing somebody every week or so. We wonder what Ken's future is there, but do not worry much about it. Whatever will be, will be. Ken turns 62 on Sept. 18, and has thoughts of retiring next spring.

Now that conventions are over, and summer is drawing to a close, I am more open to the idea of a part-time job. Some weeks ago, I applied at a flower shop in DuBois, but did not hear from them. Last week, I applied at Joann Fabrics in DuBois. I would really like to work there! Perhaps it is a dangerous place for this fabricholic to work??!!?? DH says that maybe I would get tired of fabric--like people getting tired of doughnuts when they work in a doughnut shop! We shall see what opens up for me. I also continue to volunteer Friday mornings at Hahne Cancer Center, and keep my eyes open for opportunities there.

My little garden did fairly well, and DID NOT BLIGHT! After last year's disappointment, I anxiously watched it this year. I did not spray for it because I don't really like to put poison on my garden. I planted most of the garden plot in buckwheat, which grew very well. When it went to seed in July, we cut it down and tilled (or tried to till!) it under. It reseeded itself nicely, and we got another stand of it. Since convention, Ken has mowed it, and I intend to till it one day soon. I have beautiful tomatoes on my four Big Boy plants, and lots of cherry tomatoes on the other two plants.

Ken's mother, Martha Grady, turned 96 on August 29. We had an open house birthday party for her that Sunday afternoon over at Jane's. It was lots of fun! She is such an amazing woman. Nobody in her family that we know of has ever lived this long.

The Labor Day picnic at Cook Forest was great fun. Brian Hildebrand and Jim Eaker and some of their family usually go out early to reserve the spot. They cook breakfast there. We decided we were ready for the adventure, too, so we left here at 7:15 and got there about 8. It was COLD, in the 40's! I took some freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and we had blueberry pancakes, ham, sausage, bacon, and eggs. Around 9, Ken and I decided to take a bike ride up the river road, and Brian, Rachel and Jenny came with us. We did a little over 5 miles, round trip. Traffic was light on the road that early.

Pretty soon, in came son Todd and Otto Herr. They are trained bicyclers, and had ridden from Brockway and DuBois to come. Their ride was about 30 to 40 miles.

We had a delightful day of fellowship, food, and fun! Some of us just didn't seem to want to leave, and stood around and talked on our way to our vehicles!!

Now what? Labor Day is past, too. I have determined that I am going to do lots of sewing, unless I get a job. I have lots of fabric and ideas. I have dreams of getting a Handiquilter 16 quilting machine but the over $6000 price tag is holding me back. I have leftover "rug money" for part of it, but kinda hate to beg the money from our joint funds with Ken's job being uncertain. In the meantime, I plan to make some more quilts in readiness for owning one. We have also been watching Craiglist and Ebay, so perhaps I can get a gently used one.

Ken also watches Craiglist and Autotrader for Mustangs! Our dream is to have another one. He had one when we were courting and we honeymooned in it and brought home baby Roy from the hospital. It turned into a rust bucket, so we traded it on another car that was totally without distinction! So, his retirement dream is to get another one, but I guess it will be a third vehicle for us, because they are rear wheel drive and not much good in the wintertime.