Bedroom Update

Long ago (August 2011) I finished my Robbing Peter to Pay Paul quilt, which I had started even longer ago (February 2010). Then I painted the green bedroom walls white. Then I got roller blinds and new sheer curtains for the window. Then I found an awesome new mid-century dresser and matching nightstands. Then we moved some pictures upstairs from the basement. Then we somehow managed to find time to hang them on the walls. And now I've finally taken photos.

So here's the bedroom before:

And here's the after:

A vast improvement, if you ask me. It feels so refreshing to be in this room. I love waking up here.

You may have noticed that there are three guitars in this room. Somehow we have seven guitars in a family that, until very recently, had only one guitar player. It reminds me of a point at which my family, when I was growing up, had five cars for three drivers. Only in America.

My guitar is the one in the last photo. We've started keeping a few handy in the bedroom because our son has gotten used to not only being sung to at night, but being serenaded on guitar. And he often requests particular songs on the electric guitar and others on acoustic. This nightly ritual is good because it makes me practice regularly.

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Done. Finis. Terminado. Fertig. Klaar. Perfectum.

In any language, this quilt is finished.

Now to paint the bedroom...

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The End Is Within Sight

Just a quick note to say that I am on the last row of my big bed quilt. I can't bring myself to take yet more pictures of this work in progress, so here are some links to remind you what on earth this project is (since I started it eons ago). If you have a few minutes you wish were dead, you can go back and follow the agonizingly slow progress, starting in December 2009!

Contemplating a New Quilt

Many Pieces

Get Help

Coming Along

The Top Is Done!

Fall Projects

My, How Time Flies

I'm a bit ashamed at how long this has taken, knowing that if I had put off a few smaller projects in the meantime, I could have powered through and gotten it finished at least the same year I started. But what's done is done. I think I could conceivably finish the quilting by the end of the month. After that, binding is just the matter of watching a few movies and keeping my fingers moving.

What are some big projects you've had a hard time finishing? Is it time to just buckle down and get it done?

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Checking Up On My Goals

Way back when in December I set some goals for myself. Now that we're halfway through the year, I thought I should revisit those goals and see how I was doing.

1. Finish that quilt!
I am much, much closer to finishing my bed quilt. I have about 3 1/2 rows left and I am fairly sure I can finish by fall.

2. Draft an original dress pattern.
I haven't done this yet (mostly because I haven't reached goal number 3). However, I was just looking at some great websites that sell new clothes with a vintage feel (like Ruche and ModCloth) and I feel inspired. I'm also going to start wearing dark lipstick again (remember in the 1990s when everyone did?) more regularly.



I've compiled a collection of dresses from ModCloth that I really like as inspiration.


3. Lose 25 pounds.
I'm down ten pounds since I started the Dukan diet a little less than a month ago, and actually my goal for the year is now bigger than the 25 lbs. My goal has become to reach my ideal and most healthy weight of 155 lbs by the end of the year (which would mean the total would be 35 lbs, not 25). I cut some inches off my dress form today (which felt so wonderful) and I'm feeling fairly positive, though this diet is a little tedious when one has a family that doesn't want to be so restricted (which I totally understand). But looking at the long term, in January of 2010 I weighed 210 lbs, I'm now 180 lbs. This is most certainly a step in the right direction.

4. Do C25k.
I was doing great on this until I took a week off due to illness. I do need to start exercising again to make this weight loss happen a bit faster. Don't think my goal will continue to be a 5k, but if I could manage to run a mile each day, that would be fabulous. Easier said than done.

5. Create and tend my new kitchen garden.
This is DONE and it's awesome! I'm very happy with how things turned out and our vegetables are all growing. We need some serious heat around here for everything to get a kick in the pants (it's almost July and today it was only in the 60s). I've even harvested a little rhubarb for my strawberry rhubarb jam!

So I guess 1 out of 5 doesn't seem like a really great accomplishment, but that one was a lot of work and had to be tackled first if I wanted anything to harvest come fall. The rest have generally seen progress (except the original dress design). And, after all, I still have 6 more months left in 2011 to accomplish these goals.

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Calvin Quilts

This morning Calvin said, "Can we go in the sunroom and talk?" So we went in the sunroom and sat and chatted, me with my tea, him with his strawberry milk. We talked about his impending trip to stay with Grandma and Grandpa a few days. We talked about our church picnic at the park tonight. We talked about our vegetable garden. And then Calvin asked about the quilt on the frame. So I told him I was getting closer to having it finished (just four rows to go!) and that I would put it on Mommy and Daddy's bed and we would paint the walls a different color.

After that, we moved to the settee by the quilting rack and Calvin wanted to know how it worked. I showed him how I quilt with a needle and thread (a word which he inexplicably already knew) and a thimble, and I mentioned his baby quilt, which I also quilted by hand. He asked me if I would go get it so he could quilt it.

One plastic crochet needle and some yarn and he was "quilting" alongside me on his baby quilt.

I know he will regret this when he is sixteen. But you heard it here first. He asked me, not the other way around. At least he's wearing a shirt with a scorpion on it. That's not too girly. :)

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My, How Time Flies

In mid-February of 2010 I posted this at my old blog address. It took me awhile to get going on the hand quilting, but by the end of March I was definitely at it. Now it is nearing the end of another March in another year, and I'm still . . . not . . . did you think I was going to say "done?" I'm still not even half way done.

Hand quilting does take awhile, but not a year. Unless you put it away for an entire summer and don't work on it once. Unless when you finally pull it back out again you feel that somehow it will finish itself if you just leave it in your sunroom long enough. Unless you largely ignore it even on the week you took off work to work on it.

Sigh.

The past few mornings I've been working diligently on it. I figure that one really nice thing I could do for my family during my Lenten mornings would be to get the gargantuan quilting frame out of the sunroom by the time we really want to be able to spend a lot of time in that room. The yard is a swamp now, but in a month it will be beautiful and I know that we'll want to spend some time in the sunroom with the windows open. I'd like to have a few friends over to tea in that room, but it's a little hard to have a conversation with someone with eight and a half feet of quilting frame at about eye level. The boy is interested in watching the birds eat from the feeders, and that's the best place for a little guys to see them. Even my husband has been using that room to work on sermons.

So my fingers will continue to trudge along, stitch by stitch, trying to get this silly thing done and out of that room. Mornings, evenings, weekends. I know Zach will be happy when it's done. And so will I.

In other news, my yard is filled with birds enjoying the feeders, including these house finches.

House finches are not natives in this area of the country. They were brought from the Western US to the East Coast as pets and eventually enough of them escaped to produce a viable wild population. So their range includes both the coasts and a ways inland, but you won't typically find them in the middle of the continent. Eventually, I imagine, the two populations will meet somewhere in Nebraska and think, "Hey, you look familiar!"

Besides quilting, which is a fine indoor activity for an adult, today we've been finger painting.

That, my friends, is a look of supreme concentration. In a matter of minutes, the boy produced five lovely works of art. If only I could be so productive in my creative efforts! Of course, they do all look strikingly similar, and quite a bit like his palette at the end of the session.

Incidentally, if you want to be transported instantly back to childhood, the smell of fingerpaints will do it. Smells just like elementary school.

So the rain and sleet come down outside, but inside our little brick house it is warm and full of color, and we can hear the birds singing.

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The Boys' Quilts

Augusta Christine Durow was born in Fairhaven, Michigan, on May 26, 1886, the fourth of five children. Her father Albert was born in Germany and her mother Katherine was born in Canada, making Augusta (or Gusty, as she was nicknamed) a first generation American. Augusta married Frederick Koch and they had two daughters: Marion in 1917, and Lorraine (my paternal grandmother) in 1920. My deepest apologies, but I do not have a photo of Augusta, though I hope to possibly get one from Great Aunt Marion.

In the late 1940s, Augusta made twin bed-sized quilts for Lorraine's two boys: my father, Dale, and his older brother, Gary. She would have been in her late 60s at the time. Dad thought maybe the quilts were made in the early 1950s, but my grandmother's records indicate that Augusta died January 14, 1951, at age 64. So if she did make these in later than the 1940s, it would have to have been 1950, when Gary and Dale were just ages 3 and 4. I discovered these quilts after my grandmother died a couple years ago. Dad and Uncle Gary recognized them immediately and said I could have them.


Gary's Quilt



Dad's Quilt

Unfortunately, neither of them can be used on a bed today. They were definitely well-loved, well-used, and often-washed. The bindings and backings are worn through in spots and Gary's quilt especially has major damage to the top, with some pieces completely blown out.

Many people would have thrown these away or used them to move furniture or stuck them in a car trunk in case of an emergency. But Grandma had them tucked away in white pillowcases for safekeeping. I wonder if she ever got them out to look at them and remember the times when her sons were young and her husband was still alive. Or maybe she didn't look at them because it would bring to mind the sad fact that her husband had been gone for more than 30 years. Regardless, she kept them well and because of that, I can know my great-grandmother just a little better.

When I was preparing to do this post, I asked my dad to send me some photos of him and Gary at about the time they would have used these quilts. He did me one better, sending me photos of them actually sleeping under the quilts.

Gary asleep under his quilt. This photo and the one below it are
very early Polaroids taken sometime between 1959 and 1961.

Dad sleeping under his quilt. Note that he had the backing side up,
but you can still identify it because of the pattern.

This is a good reminder that if you have heirlooms in the house that you're unsure about, that you don't know the history of, start looking through old family photos to see if you can spot them. That might help you learn a bit more about who used them and when.

Uncle Gary and Dad in 1956. Dad still wears plaid,
button-down shirts just like this one today.

I occasionally feel a bit wistful about boys' clothes and bedding of the past. In our day of loudly-colored t-shirts and bedding covered with licensed characters from movies, it's hard to come up with sewing ideas that wouldn't make our sons or nephews cringe. I have made my own son a quilt (his baby quilt, which is the first quilt pictured in this old post) and I even made my nephew a rather unconventional bed quilt, but I wonder how much sweetness I could get away with on a bed-sized quilt for Calvin. I know he would enjoy a Thomas the Tank Engine-themed room (almost as much as his father would) or a Lightning McQueen toddler bed (almost as much as his father would), but I would far prefer to make him a handsome, not-too-cute but still little-boyish quilt (with no Disney/Pixer/Hit Entertainment characters on it) and decorate his walls with his own finger paintings.

And in fact the time where he won't really care and he'll like anything I give him is running out as he gets older. Will I miss my chance to make him a quilt that will someday be an heirloom for his own children and grandchildren? Let's face it, no one is handing down a cheaply-made Buzz Lightyear comforter to their progeny. The concept of heirlooms is in danger of dying out as we continue to consume cheap, mass-produced schlock in place of items carefully crafted with thought and love.

End rant.

Anyway, before wrapping this up, I want to leave you with my favorite picture of my dad and Uncle Gary, at least from this decade. Here the boys are with their cousins, Jim and Dave, the other grandchildren of Augusta Koch (but more importantly, the other members of the illustrious Hotshot Band). Not sure if she managed to make Jim and Dave quilts as well, but I will have to check that out.


That's Gary on the clarinet, Dale on the trumpet, Jim on the piano, and Dave on the drums. Just look
how intense and into it they are. Glenn Miller's band couldn't do any better, I suspect.

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Grandma Wiggins' Cross-Stitched Quilt

My last heirloom post involved my great-grandmother Elizabeth Smith. Forty to fifty years after she finished her yo-yo coverlet, her daughter-in-law Helen Wiggins (married to two of Elizabeth's sons, Norval and Linny—not at the same time) was working hard on a very different quilt. In the 1970s, my grandmother Helen was cross-stitching this masterpiece.

You can tell from the colors that this kit was a product of the 1970s, can't you? According to my mother it took her mom years to finish the cross-stitching but she's pretty sure it was finished by the time Linny died in 1986.

After Lin died, Helen moved from Detroit to Bay City to be closer to my parents. She looked for a few years before she found someone to hand quilt the piece.

I don't know the identity of the quilter or how much Grandma paid, but I think she got her money's worth no matter what because it really is very fine quilting. It's hard for me to imagine putting all that work into hand quilting and then handing it back to its owner, no matter what I got paid.

This quilt is sized for a double bed. If we had a guest room, this would definitely be on rotation. But I don't envision a time when we'll have a double bed in the house, so for now we generally use this on the couch when Mom comes to visit overnight or on the futon downstairs on the rare occasions we have other overnight guests.

In fact, it's the only heirloom quilt I actually use because it is the only one that isn't pretty seriously damaged, probably because it is a more recent creation and has certainly never been washed. To my knowledge, Grandma never used it. I never saw it until after she died in the late 1990s. It's a shame that she worked so hard on it and paid to get it quilted and then put it in storage. If you're a quilter or a knitter or a crocheter, use your creations. It makes them happy to be used.


Helen and Linny



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Great-Grandmother Elizabeth's Yo-Yo Coverlet

Elizabeth Smith was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1884, the third of eight children. Her father Samuel was born in Ontario and had been left an orphan at age two and was raised by a woman named Mrs. Wilson while his sister was shipped out west to another family and was lost track of in later years. Samuel eventually became a metal pattern maker (one of the first Henry Ford had) and moved around as his job demanded. Thus his children were born in various Midwestern cities, including Bay City, Michigan (where I grew up); Cleveland, Ohio; and Windsor, Ontario.

Elizabeth married Robert Andrew Wiggins in 1906 and among their children was Norval Wiggins, my mother's father, and Robert Linwood (Linny), my mother's uncle and, after his brother Norval's death, my mother's stepfather.


Elizabeth with her daughter Gertrude, son Linny (in the grass), and husband Bob

 I don't know much about Elizabeth. I have two heirlooms that belonged to her, once of which is this pretty spectacular queen-sized yo-yo coverlet.

My estimate puts this coverlet being constructed of probably in excess of 3,000 yo-yos. The patterned yo-yos were made from fabric scraps from the house dresses Elizabeth had made herself in the 1920s and 1930s (judging by the fabrics).


Elizabeth (far right) with a sister and perhaps a friend or relative (the tall one) in the 1920s

Elizabeth died in Detroit 1939 at age 55, just four years after her arrival in the US (she lived most of her life in Windsor, Ontario). I imagine that this quilt was completed sometime in the mid to late 1930s.

My mother passed this quilt on to me when I moved into our house, thinking that I might be able to display it and in any case that I would like to be its caretaker since I actually quilt. Unfortunately, 1930s colors don't match my color scheme and I'm pretty sure most men think yo-yo coverlets are hideous and too "country" looking, so I don't think Zach would be super thrilled to have it out (and I'm sure my Dad didn't care for it either). Still, I store it and I did spend a fairly significant bit of time repairing it once it was in my possession. Many of the yo-yos had detached from their neighbors. I searched for offenders and tacked them back together. Incredibly, there is only one yo-yo that is completely damaged.

Really, I'm not sure how practical yo-yo coverlets are. They aren't really used for warmth because they have no batting and are filled with holes. And they tend to be delicate because they are all hand-sewn. But they are impressive.

I don't know if Elizabeth produced any other quilts or blankets in her lifetime, but my understanding is that she was an excellent seamstress. Judging by the number of fabrics used in this coverlet, and if they truly did come from her leftovers after sewing house dresses, I have some catching up to do!

Elizabeth (second from right) with all of her living sisters in the 1930s. I want their hats.

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Company and Crafts

Last Sunday we attempted to have some friends over from the Chin Christian Fellowship, a group of Chin refugees from Burma (Myanmar) who meet in our church building and with whom some of us are working to help them learn English. That dinner never panned out. But this Sunday our communication was clear and the table was again set.

Five Chin friends came over and we had a great time eating a Thanksgiving-style dinner, with a huge turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and corn, made by yours truly.

I'm always happy to share my home with others, but especially when it's decorated for Christmas and the fire is burning and popping and my brand-spanking-new stockings are finished and hanging by the fireplace!

These snazzy stockings were made completely with scrap fabric, batting, and notions from my stash. The print fabrics are from a couple of those little layer cakes (a bunch of coordinating fabric already cut to 4x4 squares) which I had bought three or four years ago. I had sewn them all in strips and meant to make a Christmas quilt last year, then pulled them out again this year to finish, and once I decided I needed to make new stockings (because we still didn't have one for the boy) I cut the strips apart and ironed the pieces onto double-sided iron-on interfacing (the same stuff I used to make this quilt for my nephew).

I cut out simple shapes—squares for the presents, triangles for the tree, circles for the snowman (traced around a wine class, a little condiment dish, etc.)—and ironed them in place on red stockings that I cut out of red fabric from the stash. For the stocking shape, I just freehanded one stocking on four layers of red fabric then laid those on top of two more layers of red and cut around them without even pinning them. This isn't rocket science. Let's not over-complicate things. Then I did the same on white muslin leftover from this quilt (which is still not quilted!) for the insides and the same on some leftover batting.

Sandwich the backs together and fronts together (be sure to get that toe pointing the right way for the backs!), pin to prevent shifting, and quilt. I quilted the backs with a simple diagonal stripe motif.

For the fronts I quilted close to the outside edges of the shapes (except the snowflakes which I quilting on top of the white part). Then sew the fronts and backs together, trim seam, and bind with bias tape (stash!) to make it nice and clean in there, or leave as is if you're pressed for time or just lazy (no shame in that). I trimmed the top with leftover lime green rick rack from these dresses and more bias tape. I made the loops with bias tape as well.

The brass hooks that the stockings are hanging from? They are over-the-door wreath holders bent to hang over the mantle and slip between the mantle and the wall at the back, keeping our stockings from falling if they get tugged by a toddler. Credit for this fantastic idea goes to my friend Kim who suggested it at coffee on Friday.

These stockings were an easy and fun project and cost me nothing. My next project will be a Christmas stole for my pastor/husband.

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Log Cabin Quilt Top

As I mentioned recently, I'm taking a bit of a break from sewing clothes. But I seem to be incapable from taking a complete break from sewing. So I've been putting together a quilt top for the past week (despite the fact there is a queen size quilt in my sunroom that is still waiting to be finished). I've wanted to do a log cabin quilt ever since I started quilting in 2003. I did a sampler quilt for my mom that year and one of the blocks was a log cabin block. I've loved so many log cabin quilts I've seen in books and magazines. And they are so simple to make.

A month or so ago I was going through my fabric stash and pulling out blues and greens that might work in a quilt together. I added orange for the middle squares for a bit of pop (and to represent the "fireplace" in the log cabin—these squares are traditionally red). After relatively few hours of rotary cutting and chain stitching, I had 25 log cabin blocks.

One of the nice things about this pattern is that the block placement changes the look of the quilt quite dramatically. The problem, then, is making a decision. After trying various arrangements, I realized that some of my blues and greens were not distinctly different enough to make certain block arrangements really work. So I settled on making diagonal stripes with them.

I probably would have been more thrilled with this if I had gone out and bought some more of the brighter blues and some more true greens, but I really wanted to use up stash fabric (and boy did I ever do that). At some point I'll quilt this on my friend's mother-in-law's longarm quilting machine, but since I don't have a particular purpose in mind for it at the moment, it's not a top priority. I think once it is quilted I'll probably like it more. Or maybe it will end up on Etsy.

The next log cabin quilt I attempt will have far greater contrast, skinnier logs (these I cut 2" wide then the seams brought them down to 1 1/2"), and smaller (but more numerous) blocks. Live and learn.

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Fall Projects

Ah, autumn! The time of turning leaves, falling leaves, raking leaves, and burning leaves (I love that smell but, alas, I doubt I can burn them within city limits). But before the leaves put on their show and increase your load of outdoor chores, autumn is an excellent time to tackle projects that you've been avoiding during the hot, humid, nasty days of summer. For instance, I really let the gardens at church slide this summer because I would have fainted of heat stroke had I tried. But come cooler weather, a friend and I managed to get a lot done.

On the home front, I have a few projects in mind for fall. We have a new set of patio furniture that we are in the process of water sealing. This is very easy. All you need is Thompson's Water Sealant, some foam brushes, and two dry days in a row.

I've gotten the quilt frame back out in the sunroom (we put it out of the way for Calvin's 2nd birthday party in May and I haven't worked on it since). I'm nearly done with the second row (with just nine more to go).

Regular readers will remember that I am redoing the backyard gardens in order to grow more of my own produce (see this post, this post, and this post for more information and photos). This week I moved out the big rocks and transplanted twenty perennials.

And this evening while Zach and I started the water sealing on the upper patio (to keep the fumes away from Calvin in the sandbox) our little boy moved from the sandbox to the big hill of dirt to "help rocks."

Eventually "helping" with the rocks turned into building a road, with Calvin as the foreman. Most of the dirt was being relocated onto the foreman's lap.

Normally, work boots are a requirement at a construction site, but when you're the foreman, you have a little more leeway in your footwear choices.

Needless to say, he had a bath after that.

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