Hi! Ho! Silver! Away!

I worked today at the LQS, and managed to actually come home with only 9 spools of thread in colors I didn't have, and of course needed! Why in the world would I need 9 different colors of thread at this moment?

Welllllllllll...can you guess?

I'm going to Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Retreat (not on Beaver Island anymore) in Elk Rapids, MI!!!!

This is me last year, wading in Elk Lake which is at the edge of where our retreat building is. I couldn't believe the water was as clear OR as warm as it is!

Yep, it's the second week in September, so where else would I be? This year the theme is baskets, and I have all the backgrounds cut (45 different) and all of the basket fabrics chosen, and cut into smaller manageable (read that as packable) pieces.

What is so nice about her retreats, is that she really has put the R-E-T-R-E-A-T back into quilt retreat. She sets the theme, and most everyone plays along, but some bring other things to work on too. There is minimal structured events, and mostly comraderie between about 25-30 women. This year, I plan on sleeping in a bit, sitting by the lake, reading AND working on my baskets. At this moment, I'm all packed except the last minute stuff like my toothbrush, and my eyeliner:)

Here's Gwen and I (me, a few pounds heavier then) last year...and I think I've cropped out almost all of the threads that were on my shirt!


In honor of this trip, I bought a Tutto Machine on Wheels case. I so love my Pfaff that I don't want to sew on anything else. Especially HSTs that are 1/2" finished! So, we'll see how this works toting it on the plane.

I return next Sunday, the 16th. You all be good and get lots of sewing done!

More Nashville Stories - Again!

Now it's on to the Confederate side of the family. This one is the most interesting, so I won't post all of the others that I found in (former)family fields, and unknown corners of Dickson County, TN. But I can tell you that this day of my genealogy sleuthing was very rewarding. And if you want skip the genealogy trip, and just see some quilts, scroll to the bottom of this posting, where I will reward YOU with two that I've made since I've been home!




This is Carnton Plantation in Williamson, TN, near Murfreesboro. It turns out I have Confederate ancestors buried here that I hadn't been able to locate before I read the book, Widow of the South. "Historic Carnton Plantation is a private non-profit historic site located in Franklin, Tennessee. Late on the afternoon of November 30, 1864, Carnton was witness to one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War. Carnton, the home of John and Carrie McGavock, served as the main Confederate field hospital for hundreds of wounded and dying soldiers. In 1866, the McGavocks designated two acres of their land as a final burial place for nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers killed in the Battle of Franklin. Today the site has 48 of the original 1,400 acres and includes the restored antebellum home, a recreated one-acre 1847 garden, slave quarters, smokehouse, springhouse and the adjacent Confederate and family cemetery." The cemetery isn't far from the house.


Over time, the headstones have fallen into disrepair, and they've been replaced with square concrete markers. You need to know what section the soldier is buried in, then you can locate it in the McGavock book. Unfortunately, only one of my soldier's graves is marked with a concrete block with his initials, but the others are with the sections marked with their regimental State.

MAJ. Amzli T. Meek, 2nd Regiment, ARK, age 25, died in the Battle of Franklin, TN





And this is Moses Harvey Meek, born 25 July 1839, died 27 Sept 1929 (along with some of the rest of the family) in a small field along a road by a major highway near Burns, TN.


As a Kansas Art Quilter, I am invited to make quilts for Fabriquilt to show their new lines at the Houston Market in November. When I got home, the fabric was waiting for me - and you must use what they give you, and can't add anything else. It's to show their new lines, so that makes sense. BUT it sure makes it hard when you are a scrap quilter like me!

Here's Classic Blues. Does the pattern surprise you? LOL!

And here is Bloomsbury Square(s). I used a template I had purchased at the Nashville show to make it. It surprised me how much I liked the color of the fabrics once I put them together.

More Nashville Stories

Have you ever heard the phrase "Quilters are just friends you haven't met yet?" Well, here are some St. Louis, MO friends I hadn't met yet! I am so sorry, but I can't remember everyone's name, but the closest one to me is Debbie Reynolds...how could I NOT remember that? And the lady (mom) in the rose colored shirt is Rose.

While I was at the Nashville AQS show, I sat down on the steps to wait for my friend Carolyn. Sharing the steps with me were these gals, talking about what they had bought, and of course, I had to get into the conversation, too. Carolyn arrived, and we continued the conversation with suggesting a background fabric for their gramma's 30's blocks (Kona Cotton Snow), explaining an easier way of applique, and in general sharing quilting talk - as quilters do.

We all laughed a lot when we found out they have another relative that lives fairly close to us, and they come to the Kansas City metro area several times a year. So, the pencils came out, and a list of all the fabulous quilt shops in our area were made. I hope they make a comment on this blog so I can get their email address and we can visit again when they come to town!

Another friend I hadn't met yet in person was Debby. She was so busy at the time I was there, I hope I didn't get her in a spot of trouble by taking time out for a picture! I guess I just missed Judy, but she's about an hour and a half away so maybe I'll get her here before the end of the year!! Of course, I've been trying to find some time to see her since she moved to MO, and that hasn't happened yet!

Debby and Sharon at Nashville AQS, 2007.

There were some beautiful quilts, and some fantastic quilts, wonderful ideas, and unique perspectives. I came away, as usual, with more ideas than I'll ever be able to use, and inspired to play again with color and fabric.

More on the show and the last of my genealogy trip in the next post.

Home again, home again

Home again, home again, jiggety jig! I have so many different things to blog about, it's taken me a while to think about how to do this. I am going blog chronologically and some entries will be about only one day, and others will combine days. So sit back, and fasten your seatbelt! Be prepared to go into the past to the Civil War, spend some time at a quilt show, see new work of mine, and just generally get caught up with a cup of tea or coffee!

Before I start with my trip, I'll try to answer a couple of questions asked rgarding the Cherry Limeade quilt. First of all, there is only one pattern - a circle! I've referenced Dale Fleming's book and technique before about how to make these circles, so you can learn that from her. She was on Alex Anderson's show, and you can see the reference points here. Sharon Schaumburg and Kelly Gallagher Abbot both use pretty much the same technique, but I think Dale's book is a bit more straight forward with pictures to reference. The background is also explained in her book. The green fabric with the pink polka dots is called Dipped Chicks from Clothworks. I haven't finished the final borders simply because of the trip and several other commitments that must be done SOON. I'll post it when it's completed!

Here I am home in the Midwest again, with my family and friends around me. I spent a marvelous day in Tennessee following my research of my ancestors, finding their home land and graves. I learned more about the Civil War than I ever had in the past, and met some wonderful people along the way.

I started my journey by driving south of Nashville to the Murfreesboro area. There I found the Stones River National Cemetery, where one of my ancestors lays at rest in the National Cemetery. I was able to locate his name by using an on-line civil war soldier cemetery locator, and I've had this piece of information for several years. I've just never been in this area to go find him before. Additionally, all I had was the date that he died and that he died at Murfreesboro.

At the visitor center, I found Park Ranger Bill, anxious and willing to share information with me. He was so excited to have a descendant, too! I got to sign a descendant's register, and I felt quite honored. He got out maps of the day of the battle, hour by hour, and found the regiment that my soldier was with, then proceeded to tell me where he was at all points of the battle. After I bought a book about the three day battle at Stones River, I was ready to walk the battle area. Now, you have to understand, that it was very hot this day! The temperature was 107 degrees!!!!! Whewee!

This is where I started walking. As you can tell by the marker, this is the eve of the battle.

This is where Thomas (my soldier) was having breakfast with the 49th Ohio infantry regiment when the battle began about 6 AM on Dec 31, 1862.

There is a lot to see and absorb at this site, and if you want to read more about it, you can find more information here. It's wonderfully preserved, with the original cannons, and cleared fields. Even if you don't have ancestors here, you would truly enjoy the history of the area!

This is only a partial view of the cemetery.

Thomas VanBuskirt(k) at rest. He was wounded in this battle, and moved to Murfreesboro. He died 6 months later (June), and laid to rest in this cemetery.

The next posting will be more genealogy, and some fun stuff from the Nashville AQS show.

A week of tomatoes, sewing and circles

Gosh, the week sure has flown by! The weather has been pretty hot, and I've tried to stay inside as much as I can. Today, Hubby did his "every other day" garden thing with his tomatoes. All our neighbors benefited today, and tomorrow the doctor's office will get some, too. Aren't they all so pretty? There's about 5 different varieties there, including some heirloom ones that are my favorites.


I spent most of the week behind the sewing machine or on the other end of a sewing needle. I managed to hand sew the binding completely on the Kitchen Sink quilt. The one thing left for it is a label - why I didn't make one for it at the same time I did my other two is beyond my memory.

The second and last circle class was Saturday, so I spent most of Thursday and Friday preparing for that. We had a lot of fun, and both of the students had all twenty of their circles complete before class began. Of course, they needed to make another 20 in class, so unfortunately, their quilts are not to a where they can be photographed yet. The "girls" assure me that they WILL finish them, though. When they do, I'll post pictures of them for sure!

In the meantime, here's a little trick to get a pretty cool background or even an entire quilt, just by making four patches. You end up with bias edged squares, but if you handle them carefully, you can manage.

We started with 6.5" squares of darks and lights, and made them into four patches. Then when they are done, take a 9.5" square ruler, and cut half of them on one direction of slant, and the other half on the other slant.



When you are done, here's how they go together:


Does this look familiar in some way? Well, golly, I just couldn't stay away from my Cherry Limeade. If you look close, you might see a couple of surprises in my "cups"! The border will have to wait until I return from Tennessee on Friday. Between the AQS quilt show and my genealogy sleuthing, I'll be one tired, but very happy camper!

Serendipity

Look what came in my email yesterday? Our very own Judy has this beautiful book out. And then in the mail, came my AQS flyer with the same advertisement for her new book. How lucky we are that Judy is in our webring, and that she shares so freely with us!

I am finally letting myself start to be excited about my upcoming trip to Nashville, TN on August 21. My buddy, Carolyn and I plan on attending the AQS show there. If anybody is going to be there, let me know, and maybe we could meet up? We are returning home late Friday night, so it's a short trip.

What I am most excited about though, is not quilting (for a change). I've been researching our family genealogy for quite a few years now, and this is the area where two and maybe three branches of the family converge. There are quite a few locations where they lived and died within 100 miles of Nashville, so I thought I would do a little genealogy traveling, too.

It turns out that I have "kin" buried in two different family cemeteries in Dickson County, TN, just west of Nashville. THEN, I have 4 others buried in Civil War National Cemeteries south of Nashville, near Franklin and Murfreesboro. This morning, I reviewed the Civil War Day by Day Almanac, and looked at some of the battle maps to get my bearings. This should really be a great trip, and put some perspective on my heritage as well as one of the bloodiest battles near the end of the Civil War. One of my most favorite books of the year is set in this area. If you haven't read it yet, you should read Widow of the South by Robert Hicks. I plan on visiting Carnton Plantation, which is the Widow of the South's home, since some of the ancestors are buried there, too.

Most of yesterday, I spent working on a driving map of the area, along with cemeteries and places to go. Here's my genealogy route, if you are interested.

Have you ever wondered how many degrees of separation there are in our quilting community? Check Bonnie's blog entry on July 28 and see what she was posting about that day. Then come back and read on here.



Look at what came in the mail for me today. Yep! I was the winning bidder on the quilt that Bonnie was talking about then! What a hoot since I was already watching that entry well before she blogged about it! The quilt is ever so soft, made from scraps of 1930's feedsacks, fabrics from the 40's and even a small piece of flannel made it in. The white is all flour sack material. There's only a couple of small spots on the back, and the quilting stitches are nice and tight. I am going to hang this one in my upstairs hall where you can see it when you come in the front door. It really makes me smile!

And of course, Mr. Clyde has laid claim to his part of the quilt, too!


Ahh, serendipitous events!

I've been working on the binding for the little Sunbonnet Sue Story, along with some help. It's finally finished, even though Bonnie didn't like me moving it around for the edge work. It finished at 56" X 66". Now, I am working on binding for Everything But the Kitchen Sink. I posted a picture of it July 5th - you can see it in the archives if you've forgotten what it looks like. It's a big one, so the binding should keep Bonnie and I busy for a while.

Here's a closeup of the blocks. These are painted blocks of the Sunbonnet Babies story, and in each of them, they are doing different activities. I've had the blocks for quite a few years now, and used Sharyn Craig's Successful Sets book to use the idea of how to set them.

Now, this can be put away for a future grandchild or great-grandchild. It's nice to work on something with absolutely no one in mind!

I've put the circles away after sewing a few of the foursome blocks together, and cutting more squares for the future. That way, I don't have to worry about finding some fabric again for them:) BUT, rest assured, they've been packed in a project box waiting for their turn again!

So guess, what's out of the box now? But what was I thinking when I put it away? I am short some of the setting squares, and the red fabric is nowhere to be found. Looks like I need some more red! I'll need to use a black print inner border, then a second border of red, and then it depends on what comes out of my black and white stash box for the final borders.

Whole lotta quiltin' goin' on!

That's not quite how Jerry Lee Lewis sang it, but it's the truth here in Sillywell, today!

The binding is all done, label attached, letters are written, care instructions packaged and the official photos are done for Baskets of Hope. Yea! This quilt will be auctioned at a High Tea in October, with the proceeds going to Cancer Action in Kansas City.

I made the label a bit different this time. I cropped a section of the quilt, worked with some text in Photoshop and then printed it on the cotton poplin sheet from Crafter's Images (formerly Muttonhead). I like this fabric - it's already pretreated, and the ink from my HP inkjet are stable through the wash. With my JoAnn's coupons, I can get it at half price, too! I think I like using the quilt photo on the label, and it's probably something I'll continue to do. (Names are left off to protect the innocent!)


"The Story of Sunbonnet Sue" came home from the quilter yesterday. It really turned out nice, with feathered circles between the blocks, and two sizes of feathers in each of the borders around. Once the binding is handsewn back, there will be a final picture of it, too. This is what it looked like before lunch.....


This is what it looked like after lunch. Lazy cats! They didn't sew the binding on until after their nap:)


I also finally got the border chosen for the replacement of the braid/no braid quilt, now officially known as Bound to the Prairie. It just happens to be the name of the line of fabric chosen for the connecting blocks, and when I saw that name on the selvedge the other night, it seemed to stick. I hated to go back to the store and buy MORE fabric, doncha know? Seems my math was just about right, too! This is all that is left of it!


The quilt is large enough to fit our bed, as requested by Hubby. I don't often make a pillow roll. I make it generally no smaller than 86" X 95", then turn it sideways on the bed. BOUND TO THE PRAIRIE is 102" X 92"! The backing was prepared today, and it is packed and ready to go to the IA quilter on Monday! (You see a lighter beige quilt under the edges in this picture.)




And last to report about is yesterday's circle class. All I can say, is that a great time was had by all - all three of us. We meet again to finish up the top in two weeks. Their homework was to sew 20 small circles, and make large 4 patch units for next time. Here's Beth and Vicky with their first circles. Class started at 10 AM, and these circles were made by 11AM. Way to go, ladies!

Oh, if it just was this simple

I saw this today in a small town (south of where I live) grocery store parking lot.


You MUST click on the photographs to see the other phrases in all their glory!


I'm not sure, but I think the official Handicap Tag is laying in the dash, but it could just be another note about being handicapped, right? Or maybe the rear view mirror would fall off if a plastic hang tag was there?

I waited a while to see who the grumpy old man might be, but I never saw him, and I needed to get my starch and be on my way. So, beware of the "no fake" grumpy old handicapped man" that might be out there!

More posting later in the week about the successful circle class I held today.

New (additional) blog, flimsies, and more zucchini!

I've had a bit of time to think recently.

I had a bit of a scare with a sudden and extreme elevation of blood pressure, so I've been quiet, and resting until some medication kicks in. With that thinking, I've decided that I need another blog page just to keep my quilt pictures, my art, and my creative writing in one place. So, with that in mind, I've added an additional blog: Granny's Hands. You can use the link on the right side of this page to switch back and forth easily, I think.

I've been pondering creative writing for a while. I will probably use Grannys Hands mostly for that, but I will also from time to time, save other finished art with little or no dialog there. Well, at least I think I will not add dialog. That might be difficult for this Chatty Cathy! So check out Grannys Hands from time to time and see what my "other brain" has been doing!

In the meantime, I'm getting all my stuff ready to teach a circle class tomorrow. It's for the first time, so I hope I have everything I need. I hope everyone has a good time. And, I hope everyone gets a circle quilt done by the end of the second class! Im going to be working on Cherry Limeade as part of the demonstrations.


I've also decided to try a couple of other local quilters (new to me). I've got to get the flannel backing ready on the Dogz flimsie (red and black. Then the blue and white friendship exchange block flimsie is all set to go. Both of them are small, so it will be a nice test to see how their stitches are, and how well we communicate with each other.

Local machine quilters prices are so high, even for overall pantographs, that I often hiccup and just leave them as completed flimsies without finishing them. And no, I don't want to learn how to machine quilt. I WILL do small wall hangings, and I do all my charity lap quilts, but I don't want to do anything bigger. I still have an Inspira quilt frame for sale, with no takers, so if it's not gone by the end of the year, I might have to donate it to a guild, or something creative like that. Oh! I get my Sunbonnet Sue Story back tomorrow, and I am anxious to see how it looks, too!


More zucchini came in from the garden last night. Here's the next best thing to zucchini bread (and healthier too). Last night's dinner was Ocean Perch, green beans from the garden, and zucchini cakes. Ummm yum! Recipe follows the picture.

ZUCCHINI PATTIES
5 TBSP Bisquick
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 eggs
2 TBSP butter
2 c shredded zucchini

Blend the bisquick, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper; add the eggs. Grate the zucchini (I like mine coarse) and add to the mixture. Spray a griddle or skillet with butter flavored cooking spray over medium heat. Pour batter into patties; cook about 3 minutes on each side until done to the desired degree of browness/crispness. Make about 5 good sized patties.