Happy Easter, 2019!

Nothing like a bit of Bunny Ear Time with Friends!

Lori of Humble Quilts screenshotted (yes, that is a word!) the two of us while we were video chatting with Kevin the Quilter from the sewing room at the cabin.  Oh my gosh, too much fun!

I’ve been saving this photo for my Easter post – and as I look back over the past couple of weeks and all we crammed into Lori’s short visit I can’t help but laugh at the antics.

For instance – after breaking a cork screw deep into the cork – we had to YouTube how to open a bottle of wine without a cork screw.  The best of all the methods?  Click to Play:

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MacGyver the wine bottle!! We broke the corkscrew first! #wine #goodideas #fiveoclocksomewhere @quiltville_bonnie

A post shared by loridej (@loridej) on Apr 8, 2019 at 3:40pm PDT

What would our lives be like without our friends?  This Easter I am extremely grateful for friends who have especially lifted me over the past year.  Because of them I can laugh and smile and realize just how good and wonderful life still is, even with the tremendous losses that have crossed my path.

Trimming up the Winter Blues!

I arrived home early yesterday afternoon through intermittent soft rain – and dug right in to the awaiting mail order that had piled up over the past week while I was in Virginia.  My goal was to get it out of the way – all 52 orders – so that my Easter Sunday is free and clear with nothing else to do but pack for tomorrow’s trip to Texas, and some relaxing sewing time.

By evening I was caught up, and ready to tackle the big trimming job ahead. 

Those of you who have made my Garden Party quilt will recognize the similarities here.  The outside edge of the quilt is jagged – squares at the edges left whole so that no bias happens on the outside of the quilt until borders are ready to be added.  Who wants to deal with itty bitty tiny quarter-square triangles at the edge of the quilt. (Can you see how small the trimmings are?!)  NOT ME!

I trim with a small ruler.

The quilt top is wibbly-wobbly.  I use a small square ruler and place the 1/4’’ line on the ruler at the corners of the neutral sashings and trim 1/4’’ beyond those corners.  The pieces that are trimmed are even too small to bother saving.  

BUT:  It puts the WHOLE OUTSIDE EDGE of the quilt on the bias.

You don’t need to fear the bias – just respect it.

Last corner trimmed.

Stay-Stitching those edges!

I stay-stitch the outside edge of my quilt top with a longer stitch length, staying just less than 1/4’’ away from the edge of the quilt for a couple of reasons.

It stabilizes the edge so the bias doesn’t stretch.  (This is the STAY part of STAY-STITCHING!)

It secures all of those seams at the outside edge of the quilt top so nothing pops open during the border adding process.

Stay-stitching my quilt centers, whether on the bias like this, or straight-set has saved my bacon numerous times.  It’s worth it.  Give it a try on your next quilt.  It’s worth the extra step.

As to my borders – well.  If I had kept the quilt square it would have been easier to build the quilt center up with a spacer border to make the math work for what I wanted to do.  But this is an on-point setting, and it is a rectangle which totally convolutes the math.

I’m not thrilled with the idea of MORE piano keys.  The whole reason this quilt happened was an idea to use the leftover piano key border pieces from Idaho Square Dance from the cover of the Addicted to Scraps book.  I’m thinking I don’t WANT another piano key border. So it may sit in “time-out” for a while before I decide to do something with it.  I don’t currently fancy the idea of wider inner borders top and bottom to narrower side borders to adjust the math to make it work for something pieced.

Maybe in honor of Gwen Marston, I just do what I want to do and chop it off where needed?  Maybe time-out is a better idea.

Emmy Lou Lou giving the hexie quilt some kitty love.

Ready to move to the next section.

Last evening’s Netflix watching? 

Brene Brown – the Call to Courage.

She tells the story of her rise to fame, explaining how she didn’t want to give a dry TED Talk, and instead dared to shed her “academic armor” for something more personable. That took two things. What were they again? Oh, right: courage and vulnerability! Her talk went viral. Then she read the nasty online comment section, and retreated inward. Her antidote? “Peanut butter and ‘Downton Abbey’,” she deadpans, to big laughs. 

She also shares stories about an ugly almost-argument with her husband, her son taking a chance on a school project, her daughter struggling mightily at a swim meet — all real-life examples solidifying her stance and underscoring her studies. 

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll consider shedding your armor and embracing the terrifying thought of making yourself emotionally vulnerable more often in a society that tends to teach us the opposite. [source]

I loved everything she said.  I could relate to every word.  I laughed til I cried.  I will watch it again.  There is so much value in how real she is in so many ways.  There is a reason I have quoted her in my Quiltville Quotes so very many times.  She speaks to my heart and my journey.

This morning’s walk with Sadie -

Quiet and early on an Easter morning.

While I’ve been up in Virginia over the past 8 days – EVERYTHING has leafed out – the world is so GREEN!  And I am so happy it is.  Spring speaks to my heart like no other season.

There is a lot of debris clean up to happen from this week’s storms.

But I love this little house tucked into the trees.

(Sadie is down the drive waiting for me!)

It will be a quiet Easter here.  Just Jeff and I as Dave is still in China.  I am missing Jason all the way in Portland, Oregon.  There will be phone calls to him and other far away family members.

And while I let that border for Winter Blues percolate – I feel the need to make something.  Maybe start in on some table runners for Quiltville Inn?  What about those placemats I was going to do with the quilt shop license plates?  We shall see.

Quiltville Quote of the Day

However you celebrate your day, enjoy the love of family, friends and the beautiful change of seasons before us!

Happy Easter!