World MS Day

 National MS Society

I know that I am a day late, but this is something that is very important to me since I suffer from this disease.  People I feel need to be made more aware of the disease and its debilitating effects on people.  Please help conquer MS!

And now that, that is over, I will be back sometime this weekend with pictures and updates about April, May, and maybe whats coming up in June!

I am still here

Hello!  Man has it ever been a long time since I have blogged.  I just forgot how long it had been until I started receiving e-mails about where was I.  Well, its been busy, I haven't exactly had the time I wanted off from work, they decided to have a alternate location, good for the library, but not so good for me.  So I work a day a week at the local college's library. 

I have been cleaning like mad, and getting things organized and fabric sorted to get rid of.  Major improvements are happening on all levels, which I am very excited about.  But with those major happenings, things are getting a little busy and have had no sewing time what so ever.  Those I will talk about in a later post, once things have been settled down and are slowing down.

Not many of you know that I also do lots of freelance work for others, such as art style quilts.  Personally they are not my favorite quilt to make, because I am so much more traditional in that aspect, but they do earn me some extra money, and every once in a while, I make a couple art quilts for myself.  I don't tend to share those, because I don't think they are very good, but there are a couple art galleries in Omaha, who are very interested in these quilts that I keep tucked away, and they want to plan a gallery opening, which is very exciting for me.  I have a couple more to make to if I ever have time, because I have to have even numbers or a odd number, that looks symetrical, i.e. like 9 quilts or fifteen quilts works for me, but not 7 or say eleven or nineteen.

When the quilts are hung in the gallery, or if they are hung, I will be sure to take pictures to share with everyone.  I have also been getting my class teaching schedule ready for teaching some art classes at the Fremont Art Gallery.  So my life has been busier than normal, and I wish that the weather would certainly make up its mind if its going to be winter or spring.  I am tired of the cold, the wind and the rain.

What a Crazy Week

Its hard to believe that I haven't done any quilting or piecing since the string top.  Things just get in the way, ike life and work.  Right now at work we are busy getting things packed up to move the library temporarily to two different satellite locations because of renovations of the current library location.  Because of the type of working being done to the building everything must come out, and no one can be inside the library.

We are getting a new heating/air conditioning unit, a fire suppression system, new carpeting and the entire two floors of the building will be painted with many updates.  The building isn't that old, it was built in 1969, with lots of mid-century design elements which actually cause many problems in the current heating system.  It has a old boiler that only has two settings cold or hot, and its constantly deciding what it wants to do.  Since the ceilings and the walls need to be opened up, its a good time to update the carpeting with carpet tiles, which makes a lot of sense, since we would realistically only need to replace 4 carpet squares at the most, depending on the problems.

Oh yeah, and our Library Director decided to retire on the day we close.  What perfect timing!  So not!

They are thinking all this work can be done in 6 weeks, which in my mind is very doubtful in my opinion, but no one asked me.  So I have my desk to clean, and to remove everything, while still trying to provide complete service until next week, when we close.  We will have three days to do the packing and moving of the books, which is not a lot of time. So that's why I have been drained when I get home in the evenings.

Blue and Yellow Heartstrings Top COMPLETE!

Here are some quick pics of the finished blue and yellow random string quilt top.  I have a nice piece of blue flannel for the back, and maybe a lightweight batting.  Some curvy quilting might be in my future in a couple days!

Blue and Yellow Heartstrings Blocks

I belong to Heartstrings, and we do special projects every so often.  Today, Mary announced a random blue and yellow string blocks.  So I set right to work and got 48 done.  I am in the process of trimming them now.

Quilt of Valor Album Blocks

I am done making these!  My final total was 36, less than I hoped to make.  Since red and blue are not my favorite colors, I really don't have much of them.  Then when I get rid of the obviously feminine prints, there is considerably less than what I found.  Some of the blocks have tone on tone floral, but since they are small, I left them in my group. 

Since I am cleaning fabric out, I don't want to add more, so I stopped.  I have 4 nice size pieces that I hate to cut into strings, since I can make a "pattern" quilt for Quilts of Valor. 

Tomorrow I will get them all pressed and ready to go!  Then I think I will start on a Double Irish Chain for QoV in red and blue and cream.  I also have enough Chinese Coins to make a top.  

Thread

EDIT:  Here I am back home, and they do have 100% cotton thread in large spools, 1200 yards I believe for $4.94. I bought one.  Then came promptly home and ordered my normal thread.  Good thing I went too, I needed some toilet paper, LOL

How can one run out of thread?  Well I did tonight on the mission of making string blocks.  And what makes it worse is that, the only thread that I do have is only suitable for quilting, via hand or machine.  So apparently I need to make a midnight trip to Wal-Mart and see what kind of thread I can find.  Wish me luck!  As I truly hate the big box store!

QOV Signature Blocks

One of my quilting buddies, Julia, (Hey Julia!) needs help making 500 String Signature blocks by April 30th for the Lincoln, NE Quilts of Valor.  Here are my first 10 blocks done, with many more on the way I hope!  If you want to  help, please let me know, and I will get you in contact with Julia.

Its a good cause, and if you aren't helping you should, its not about politics, its about supporting those people who put their lives on the line for our country.  Whether you agree with the current war or not, its showing that you care, and you support THEM!

Teaching kids to quilt - homeless quilts

I teach many young kids, how to quilt.  Mostly all the items are for charity, more specifically the homeless problem in our area.  By working with the local synagogue we are able to get donations of fabric, and I have found several machines that work for this group.  There is also a second group that I work with and they are more advanced in technique and through the library, we will be able to start making quilts for Quilts of Valor.


So I thought I would share some of the quilts the kids and I made at the synagogue in the past weeks.  They aren't pretty, well they are, but in that unique loving way.  They are very warm, with mattress pads as batting, and flannel on the back.  Two are pieced with cotton on the top, and the pink one is all double knit.

Stash Report

Well this is kind of an odd stash report.  In the past three weeks I have gotten rid of over 1000 yards of fabric.  Its hard to think that I have gotten rid of that much fabric, considering, I still have tons more to go through, and more to clean out and to get rid of. 

I know at one time I was feeling completely overwhelmed by my stash.  And I still feel overwhelmed but not nearly as much as I have in the past.  While giving fabric away, I feel a tremendous weight lifting off my shoulders. So much so that I have decided to keep getting rid of fabric.

Last weekend while I gave about 200 yards of fabric to Lori and Henrietta, I felt wonderful knowing that this fabric was going to be used, and it would be used in my lifetime.  Which makes lots of sense, since some of what I gave them had dates of 1952 on the selvage end of the fabric.  Not only did I send fabric, I also sent to unfinished cross stitched tops, that were almost complete.  They were probably from the 50's and 60's.  They were started and never finished.   I hope they get finished, but if they don't, I don't have to worry about them not being finished on my watch! 

With that being said, I see that solid fabric quilts are making a come back. Which is very exciting, since I hand pieced this Trip Around the World quilt top a couple years ago.  I think its going to be next one to be inserted into my hand quilting frame.  Now that I have the picture on blogger, I see it looks almost Amish, but not quite.