Looking into a Crystal Ball

Does anyone have a crystal ball or even an eight ball? I could use one to figure out 2018, quilty wise! Or maybe it's better to ask dear old Dad. We all know "Father Knows Best."

 

1954 Cast of Popular TV Series: "Father Knows Best"

Oh yay! Dad says he's absolutely certain I'm going to have a great quilty year! Hurray for 2018! Hurray for Dad!

And now, The Word for the Year. A couple of years ago, people starting adopting a word to help them or help them focus for the coming year. I've thought of one of them this year!

FIX

Yup, FIX encompasses a few ideas for my 2018 quilting.

• I have a few quilts that need some fixing, do you have that problem? Mostly they are seams that are coming apart. My grandson´s first quilt, Chris the Fireman, has that problem. He is now 17 years old and I gave it to him when he was 2. It seems about right for a quilt this age to have frays. The interesting part is that it has NEVER been washed!

  

  TELL ME IT'S NOT TRUE! P.U.!

• My quilt: The Seventies Are Calling; They Want Their Fabric Back, was Quilt-As-You Go. The hand-stitching to finish the sashing has come apart and I think I'll fix that by sewing the sashing by quilting it on the machine.
• One more quilt that I'm aware of: one that my husband picked out from Bed, Bath & Beyond. We bought it when we first moved to our new city in 1999. We really liked the pattern and still do. It is now bursting out of its seams. Well, so am I, ahem, but both the quilt and I have the same reason: we're getting older.
• I don't have pictures of lots of my quilts and Aunt Marie's quilts. The pictures of most of my quilts are pictures of blocks or something happening along the way.
• The last definition of FIX! is putting labels on my quilts and my Aunt Marie's quilts. Quilt labels are a rock-solid necessity. My Aunt didn't label her quilts; therefore, I have not information on when she quilted them. Her quilts are incredible! Just as important as dates is information on why the quilt was made and whom it was intended for. You can make one simple like on the left or one more informative.

 UFO's

I have a v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y long list of UFOs. In fact when I was trying to figure out which quilts needed fixing, I notice that the majority of quilts I have are not done! I am only taking on 4 quilts I want to finish this year. I've been slow at finishing my quilts, even with being retired!

1.  Firstest's Graduation Quilt It is due in June and not even started, although I have the fabric and     pattern
2.  Put together the top of Growing Up Odd

3.  Quilt Give and Take
     This one's to have joint custody between my hubby and myself and will be hand-quilted.

 4.  Make 8 more Soul Searching RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) 2015 blocks and sew them  together to make top.

These are a picture of blocks made by someone else for RSC.

Sa lang tid for nu.

I'm of Danish descent. This phrase is "So long for now" in Danish. Just so you know, the "a" in "Sa" actually has a circle above it.

The Evil School Monster Has Captured Me!

An Illustrated Story....

There I was, sleeping blissfully. The alarm clock rang. What’s this? An alarm? What is this all about? A prank?




I turned back over to go back to sleep, when oozing out from under my bed came a sludgie, gelatinous monster. Ooh, ick, he was slimy. It made me shiver and shudder; a gasp may have escaped my lips.

I pulled the blankets down from my head and opened my eyes. Oops, I didn’t tell you I dove under the covers. Uh, well, you know…minor detail.

I stuck out my chest, stiffened my upper lip and took a hard stare at this putrid mass of scummy crud. Somewhere in all the rotten slop dripping from his body, I saw a… oh no! Please, no! It was…it was…a textbook! 



And all of a sudden it hit me. It was August 10th, 6:00 a.m. and horror of horrors! My first day back at school.

Yes, that horrendous monster grabbed me before I could chain myself to summer, and drug me behind him. He gave low, growly chuckles as he jerked me along.

He reached my school office, swung the front door open with a screeching, jarring scrape. He picked me up, and as slime ran all over me, he chucked me through the door. Satisfied, the monster hurled the door closed with a satisfied grunt.

Dear readers, I have been locked in the school dungeon ever since. I’ve barely seen the light of day. But someone, I think a student of mine that I had once and liked me, let me come home for Thanksgiving.


Thankful, indeed! I get to see family, eat real food that has no mold on it and actually, amazingly get to quilt!


I have done so little quilting in the dungeon. There was no material, but sometimes the bread was hard enough that I could cut it in squares. I hoarded those until I had enough to sew together with loose threads from my clothing.


But here I am! I’m not going back. Uhh, okay I go back in 6 days. But it seems like forever!


Kind readers, beloved family, and devoted friends, fear not! I have seen the emptiness of the dark pit where I do not blog. It has haunted me as I have gone on a long quest to find a way to blog during the months of August to May. All I have come up with is that I must to blog.

My conclusion is that there will be the school year edition of the blog and the summer and school break edition of the blog. School year will be leaner, but it will be there as often as it can.

Maybe by doing this, I can stop looking at things and thinking “I’m going to write that in my blog.” Or doing something quilty and wanting to share it with my blogland friends.

I will tame the nefarious school monster and live happily in both realms of my life: school and not-school.

See you all soon!

Quilts From My Sewing Machine #6 Baby Chinese Coins

The "birth" (excuse the pun) of this quilt began as a leader/ender somewhere back in 2010 or 2011. My hubby’s father’s wife had given me a large amounts of fat quarters. Among them were these very brightly colored ones. I decided they would make wonderful stacked coins.

I cut each fat quarter into 5"x2.5" blocks. Then I sewed them together in strips. I put them away after this and planned to make them into charity quilts. When I decided to make them into a baby quilt for Sydney & Mike, I pulled them out and used them. There are still plenty left for more quilts.

TGS has a friend, Mike, that he's known for years while living in Maryland. He is a strong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and has never given up on TGS.
 

OSLW & TGS wedding, look to their right and the woman
with the purple sweater is Mommy-To-Be

Around the time that TGS & OSLW were getting ready to marry, Good Friend’s wife, Mommy-To-Be was in the last trimester of her pregnancy. She was so close to her due date it was questionable if she would make it to the wedding, which was in Leesburg, Virginia.
 
Good friend & Mommy-To-Be made it to the wedding. Good friend was TGS’s best man. They attended part of the reception and then headed home.
 
The very, very next day they had their baby. The timing was very close on that birth! (Of course, TGS was born after a 45 minute labor and I just barely made it inside the hospital. But that’s another story!)
 
I wanted to make a quilt for their baby. Mommy-To-Be is the Relief Society’s President (women’s organization) in her branch. She has been a devoted friend to OSLW. She has helped OSLW in her new membership in the Church. I decided that 
the Chinese coins would be a perfect, bright quilt.
 
I used some columns of the coins and still have enough for another larger quilt. I had some white minky that I thought would be perfect for the back. Even though quilters advise against it, I decided to machine quilt, rather than tie, the quilt. 

After reading dozens of Googled articles on quilting and sewing with minky, I nearly changed my mind. Have you ever read them? It goes sort of like this: “Beware! Good-Intentioned Quilter, do not go! Do not pass Go. Go directly to tying the quilt!” (spooky music in the background)

You know the saying, Fools rush in where angels dare to tread!

I decided to persevere and quilt. With tips from several (one or two, deeply-hidden articles), I quilted and… found it easy! Does that make me a fool? I think not!

I remembered that Noel Heart had a woobie that was a baby blanket with satin binding. She loved, loved, loved that binding. She would rub her fingers back and forth on the satin and suck her two fingers.
 
I decided I would put satin binding on the blanket. I'd only had one experience with putting on satin binding to revive a friends baby quilt. Let’s just say that it wasn't a good experience and leave it at that.
 
Back to Googling. Again, after reading enough articles, I put the binding on and it came out perfectly!
 
I sent it off to Good Friend and Mommy-To-Be after school started, even though I had it finished a couple of months before.
 
That brings up another story of the Post Office Curse of the Christensen's. And that is another story.


Baby's Chinese Coins stats:
Life Quilt #38
Started July 2012
Finished July 2012
Mailed: September 2012
Baby Quilt 36” x 36”
Pieced and Quilted by Terri