Travelling with the Old Crank

Singer 99 handcrank from the late 1930's.

 I took it along to my daughter's college apartment for the long weekend to make some covers for the arms of the living room chairs.  (They were wearing a definitely amateur fix.)

 I had quilted the yardage at home before I went.  She and the young woman who will be her roommate for this coming year share some favorite colors--most notably that pale teal or aquamarine.  My Sweet Teen is taking a summer class, working as a summer resident hall assistant, and working in the materials science and engineering department. (And I have a bit less than six weeks to be able to call her a Sweet Teen.  Where have these years gone?!)

This is one of the lovely covers on the chairs--corduroy and safety pins.

All four arms look like this:

Now they look a lot better!

That little 99 handcrank was amazing (as well as quiet).  I took along some size 16 and 18 needles, but it did a great job with the 14s I use for most piecing and quilting. However, the next time I plan to sew while visiting her, I'll take a TV table so I'll be cranking at a more comfortable height.

And in completing these, I fell in love with bias binding all over again!  (We usually use straight binding for our prayer quilts.)

Our solution for the really ugly sofa was to cover it with a large cotton painter's canvas from Harbor Freight.  Before I took the large one she had a smaller one that covered only part of the sofa.  She and her friends made some "chocolate bowls" last week, forming the bowls around balloons. One exploded, creating a chocolate mess on the canvas.  All the chocolate washed out and the canvas is whiter and had a lovely hand, so I'm sure she'll be willing to launder the new one too.  She thought she wanted the same covers for the sofa, but when we put the chair covers on the sofa over the canvas, we didn't really like them, so at some point I may make her some in an off white or cream color.  By happy coincidence, when I'd purchased some cooking tools for her kitchen, the store had some lovely sea-colored melamine, so I bought two dinner plates, two salad plates, and two bowls.  The smaller plates were the perfect size for a pattern for the front piece on each cover!

I'm eager to do some more quilting, but I spent this morning and a good hunk of the afternoon in Albuquerque getting our office ready to paint.  And I'll be back there to paint tomorrow.  Not nearly as much fun as quilting! But the robin's egg blue we chose will make our office environment a lot more soothing than the multiple shades of white and water stains in there right now!

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

Photos 7 & 8 Prayer Quilt

More fun and happy quilts from our quilt dedication:

This Saturday we'll be sewing more quilt tops for more prayer quilts.

Yesterday I stopped in Joann's Fabrics for some fabrics to make accessories for the furniture in my daughter's student apartment.  I found what I wanted.  I even had coupons they wouldn't accept.  I got to wait in two lines for at least twenty minutes each.  I can't help feeling sad for what the venture capitalists who own Joann's have done to their stores.

I did meet a couple of quilters and will probably get together with them to do some sharing.  That's fun!

Happy quiltmaking,

More Quilt Shots 5 & 6

April prayer quilts from our dedication service:

I quilted some of these, but most were quilted by others.

Happy quiltmaking,

More Prayer Quilts-#3 & 4

Here are a couple more beauties from our April Prayer Quilt Dedication.

happy quiltmaking.....

Prayer Quilts...1 and 2

To assure people I'm still around, I'm posting photos 1 and 2 of our April Prayer Quilt Blessing.

Since I'm not getting a chance to make quilts during these crazy final two weeks of school, I'll try to post more of our prayer quilts in a day or two.

I hope everyone had a good Mother's Day--especially the women too familiar with that deep longing for a child but who done have one as well as the mothers who know the very special pain of losing a child.

Finding Time

Actually, I'm not finding time....However, I'm grateful to have friends who have asked if I've disappeared.  I do apologize for appearing to disappear.

No quilting has happened for several weeks.  Last month I did get to a lovely show where I made two purchases:

 These tools are a purple-ish violet, but the camera chose blue, and I wasn't able to edit the photo to make the color closer to reality.  These were purchased from Lumenaris. I had contacted Lumenaris ahead of time asking them to please bring me some violet colored tools.  I got to the show two or three hours before it closed the first day, and these two were the ones that were left. These are wonderful tools!  I did buy the extra stiletto tip for the screwdriver set so that I can have both the stiletto and seam ripper at hand.

The show was for sewing, quilting, and crafting and was mostly vendors with a few of the vendors classes thrown in.

 I also got more of this miracle fabric to cover a new rectangular ironing surface I want to make.  They do sell completely finished ironing board covers.  I made my first purchase from them quite a few years ago and would hate to have to go back to a regular ironing surface.  Those of you who prefer pretty ironing covers from quilt related cottons would still enjoy these.  You can put a pretty cotton cover on top of a cover made of this fabric, and it would still reflect most of the heat.  It is lovely to be able to have beautiful pressing without having irons at their highest temperature.  Goodness knows irons aren't built to get really hot anymore. This fabric counters some of that.

Some quilty items are wonderful investments and this is definitely near the top of my list.

I've done no quilting at all since our prayer quilt dedication at church in early April.  I'm overwhelmed with school stuff.  However, I hope to post photos of all the prayer quilts soon.

I purchased a new-to-me car just over two weeks ago.  Before I had it two weeks, I parked at the grocery store next to an end curb.  Someone intentionally ran a grocery basket into that small space, rammed it with great force into my car multiple times, did side damage and front bumper damage--$2200 worth.  The owner of the body shop said there is a lot of this going on and that I personally wasn't targeted.  But I'm wondering if someone saw the temporary permit we have to post in the back window until the license plate arrives and then targeted my car.  Ugly stuff.  So, Monday I have to take it to collision repair and pick up a rental.  I just dread the whole thing.

Right now I also have a lot of friends and relatives dealing with unpleasant health issues--which kind of tells me I need to be taking time to quilt.  There's also yard work to be done since we've had a lot of wind and tumbleweeds love to travel through and park in our yards on this street.  But every time I set aside time to do that we get another storm.  My school year will be over in two weeks, so I'm hopeful that I'll soon be able to let more quiltmaking be my therapy.

Time for some deep breaths!

Happy quiltmaking,.....