Guild Flea Market Night!

Last night was our guild flea market where you can bring stuff you want to get rid of and sell it to someone else who wants it. There were lots of interesting things, some of the "higher" priced items like sets of antique quilt blocks, or finished tops that needed to find a home were auctioned off..the bidding was fast and furious and quite funny. There were even some NON quilt items up for auction. I came home with a pool cue in a leather carrier for Jeff. He will be tickled I think....but he won't see it til later in the week. He is in Greenville with a friend and his cousin having a blast.

After the auction part was over, the flea market part started! Someone had all these fabric pieces and they were going for 25 cents each piece! One of the pieces had more than a yard in it. I couldn't resist, even though I said I didn't need more fabric, who can pass it up..most of it was 1/2 yard or more...for 25 cents?

The three red pieces are an older (like late 1980s to early 1990s) Jinny Beyer fabrics. No date on the selvege, but no www.rjr.com either, so it was before internet! (Doesn't it feel weird to say that..to remember life before internet?) They remind me of the antique dutch chintzes that I saw in the netherlands, so I snatched them up for a "some day" repro dutch quilt.

The others I snatched because they were different, but went well with the style of things I like. They all smell like they've been stored in moth balls (ackk..phheww!) and so they are now in the washing machine to get the stink out.

My blurb on the workshop for next month went well and a lot of ladies seem interested to want to give the "simply strippy" quilt a try. It's super simple and I know it will be a fun night of sewing and snacking and laughter and fun visiting. I like the workshop nights the best.

Bonnie

Long Ago, in Oklahoma.....

I received this pic via email by a gentleman trying to find out more information on this quilt. I wish I could see it in color! Isn't it just the greatest pic? It looks like it was taken by a travelling photographer, going farm to farm taking family photos, as was quite popular around 1910.

I love the woman's dress and her 'up-do' hair! But it does look like times were really tough. The quilt to me looks like a lone star variation, but instead of diamonds, the star blocks are pieced with triangles stitched into diamonds, a dark triangle was stitched to a light triangle to make the diamond units. They aren't equilateral triangles...more like the longer skinnier "kaleidoscope" type with the sides being a bit longer than the bottom. It looks like she used everything in this quilt, probably stitching the stars first before scrounging for fabric to use as the block backgrounds and finding sashing fabrics to put them together with.

Some of the blocks have chopped off points...I think I would have liked this quilter! There is no way to know if the woman in the photo was the maker, or if she was given the quilt by someone else..maybe as a wedding present, or as they left for the territories to try their hands at farming in Oklahoma. We can only look at it and study it and imagine what life was like during those hard times for these poor farmers.

If we could see it in color...maybe it wouldn't look so hard. Seen in all sepia tones, it does look like life has lost all it's color and luster for these people, but they were living it in color, so maybe it was a lot brighter and hopeful for them than the picture lets us think :c)

I just thought the pic was interesting, and thought you'd like to see it too! If anyone has seen this pattern anywhere, please let me know. I checked block base, but it isn't listed in the 8 pointed star variations...

Bonnie

Lo, and Behold! She SEWED!!

I sewed I sewed! Kind of forced to, but hopefully this will open the flood gates! Next month I am giving a charity quilt workshop for my guild, and we will be making "Simply Strippy" Quilts to use up scraps and will be donating the quilts to the local Breast Cancer Center.

I dug in my bin of 3.5" strips and was able to sew this top in one evening! I have to give a little "blurb" about the workshop tonight at guild meeting, so they will know what they are making, along with handing out a list of what they will need so everyone will be ready for the August meeting. I wasn't able to get this quilted (I have someone else's quilt in the machine) but I will have it done for the August meeting. It just felt good to SIT AND SEW!

Before Siobhan left for New England (And from there she moves to England) we met for dinner and had some fun shopping, wandering through the antique mall, and going to Hobby Lobby, etc. I found these wonderful old cotton carding combs! There are still fibers left in the tines...I don't know how old they are, but I love that the label on them is so visible...

Other than that, work is going well, and I joined a gym right down the street from work, so when I have bookend clients, some in the morning, some in the late afternoon, I can take the hours in between and go do the eliptical machine (and watch Oprah!) do some weights, and swim some laps! I think it will work out great to use up the "sitting around and waiting" time. So far I haven't been able to make myself sit at a quilting project in those idle moments at work. They are just not that idle..answering phones, talking to people..and can't really have a sewing mess all over the place.

The family reunion to MN is coming up and I am getting very excited to see my mom and all of her side of the family....

Bonnie

I am SO bad!

At posting! I come home in the evening after working a long day, and either die (after putting a frozen pizza in the oven) or spend a couple hours working on a customer's quilt with no time for my own. I don't know how you other working girls do it, how do you keep up, how do you find time for your OWN projects?

I thought I'd have morning time..after all my first client isn't until 10am, but wait...there are linens to wash from the day before, and dry and fold, and the house needs cleaning, and I need to leave 45 minutes before the time I need to be there for work to allow for traffic etc...there goes my morning quilting time!

What to do what to do? How can I get myself out of this slump. I feel like kicking myself out of my own blog ring because I can't live up to the parameters we set on keeping blogs current!

I did piece ONE block, for a block lotto I do with a small group. That felt good, and shoot, it only took me about 20 minutes to piece it, so why can't I find 20 minutes a day? I am supposed to be the organized one.....

Other news...I am saying good bye to my living room furniture because DH and son decided they want a POOL TABLE! *gasp* So, the living room doesn't really have much living going on in it anyway, we use the family room for that, but I did have it set up very victorian and was a great place to display my quilts. I've got two nice wingback chairs in there (one will go to our bedroom) some beaded glass lamps, a pedestal duncan fife table, a queen anne style camel back sofa with claw feet and a really nice coffee table with leaded glass inserts also with claw feet...and my hinterberg 3 rail quilt frame (that I will admit, only gets used for quilt DISPLAY as I don't like to sit at it anyway.

I also have an antique radio cabinet that I think can be moved to the front hall, but the treadle machine cabinet with the eastlake door on it? (this one doesn't have the treadle visible, the whole thing folds up into itself and it looks like a table) is going to have to go somewhere too?

I guess the quilts can STAY on the WALLS at least!? And if I have a pool table, I have a place where I can lay out blocks?? I'm not sure hubby and son will be happy with little thread bits all over their felt table surface! *LOL*

I'm counting down the days to the family reunion in MN. I haven't seen my mom in 4 years. That is way too long. She lives in Idaho, I live in South Carolina. Neither of us live in an easy to get to place without many layovers at airports, neither of us by a najor hub airport so it makes travel expensive. I know it's no excuse. Need to remedy that, so I am going to be at the family reunion to see my mom with both of my boys.

I guess I better get those massage table linens in the dryer and get this day going. I've got about 1 hour before I have to leave for the clinic....what can I sew? hurry! Help me get inspired!

Bonnie

Boney Macaroni & Etc!

I have been neglectful and slow at posting some pics. The hard part has been 1.) getting the scanner to cooperate, and 2.) being able to pinpoint one photo subject to stand still and be HERE so I could take a pic!

The other part is that Blogger is not LIKING me and is not uploading my pics. AUGH! I get the "waiting for photos.blogger.com" prompt on the bottom of the screen, but nothing uploads. I've edited my photos. they are way under 100k a piece...I don't know what the deal is, but I did upgrade my firefox and maybe it has something to do with that. Some glitch or something. I didn't have the problem with the OLD firefox!

FINALLY! I have tried IE, I have tried netscape, I went back to firefox, I rebooted the computer...FINALLY..I can get pics in!

This quilt pic is of a customer's "dutch geese" quilt. I LOVE IT! It reminds me so much of the colors I saw in the netherlands, some places even the walls were painted this bright blue, or the golden yellow...this is the next quilt up on my machine and I'm needing some ideas on how to quilt it. The fabrics are SO busy, there isn't alot of space for quilting that will show. I'm leaning towards baptist fans, but what thread color? Every color is going to clash somewhere...I'm thinking either the gold, or kind of an in-between grey-blue that might hide itself in the prints of the fabrics. I can use any suggestions you can send!

When Jason and Shanon came to visit in March, we made an appt to go to sears to get pics made. The fight with the scanner meant that I never got around to uploading them! Here is one I really like....done in sepia tones. The boys are 22, and 16 and when they were little, you could tell the age difference. I see now that the gap is getting narrower! They are about the same height and I hope that when Jeff has also grown into adulthood that they will form a strong brotherly bond. With the 6 years in between they never had a lot in common, other than pestering each other.

This close up is of Jason and Shanon. A couple weeks ago they moved up to Mankato Minnesota where Shanon's family and grandparents live. This tickles me, because I was born in Minnesota! I still have aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins and one grandfather who also still live there. There is a family reunion for my mom's side of the family at the end of July and I am looking forward to going. My mom lives in Idaho, and it's been FOUR YEARS since we have seen eachother due to the fact that we are nearly on opposite sides of the country. Jason and Shanon will be able to come to the family reunion too, and I will get to meet Shanon's family. I'm really looking forward to this trip.


And now for the Boney Macaroni part! It's a nickname we have given Jeff...he has gotten so tall so fast, that there is no meat on his bones :c) His brother did the same thing, and so did their father and myself in our teenage years. I have no fear, just wait til they hit 40...and I know they will fill out :c| This is the buzz cut that Jeff and his friend did last week. When he said he SHAVED his head...I thought really SHAVED...it's just a short buzz, and I really like it! So does he. You can see his friend Allen behind him in the pic if you look close.

I did get my bernina picked up last friday, and hallelujia, they did a cleaning/maintenance on it too, not just fix the foot pedal, so I don't have to take it in next month and be without it again. I also bought the new foot that has the knife edge on it for accurate 1/4" piecing. Not sure if I like it as well as I liked just having the screw on guide up against it, but I haven't done much piecing to really tell if it is going to work for me or not. I pieced ONE block over the weekend, and that was for a block lotto for a small group that I belong to.

This past weekend I did post-event massage at an olympic distance triathlon in Greenwood SC..it was 100 degrees, with the heat index make that 105 in the shade, and I was roasting! When I came home from that I just died in front of the a/c for the rest of the afternoon. My massage practice is building, which is wonderful....I'm still keeping up on customer quilts, but it has eatten in to the time for my own piecing/quilting and I feel bad about that...like I've chopped off my right foot. I just hope it grows back soon!

I'm heading into the clinic in about an hour...I'm fully booked this afternoon, I don't finish my last client until 6:15, I'll be home around 7pm....I'll feel like going to bed, and starting another day when I wake up tomorrow morning. That's about the extent of it!

Bonnie