History Day - 2023 Edition

If it's the first Saturday in October then it must be History Day. Yes, once again I set up my quilting frame to demonstrate the lost art of hand quilting. I took a brand new quilt this year. On many previous occasions, I have taken the same quilt year after year. 

In 2020, the Frankfort Girls had a fun little project in which we made blocks assigned on a monthly basis by each member of the group. By the 7th month, we had 7 blocks - I believe they were 9" blocks - and  we could proceed with whatever we liked to finish. (That's my best summation of the project; it could have been more involved.)

 

In studying this pic from 2020, I think I must have made two of each block, and since one more block was needed to complete the top, I have three Ohio Star blocks and two of all the rest. The setting block was Stepping Stones, one of my faves. I just love how it creates chains through the quilt.

I decided that this would be the quilt for History Day 2023, so I prepared a backing a couple of weeks ago, then sandwiched the layers and loaded the Q-Snap. It is such a lightweight frame, and is so very easy to transport. I had my station set up in no time.

Since marking a quilt is not my favorite thing to do, and since I am notoriously slow about finishing these hand quilting projects, I decided to make things really simple, easy and straightforward. I would stitch diagonally in the stepping stones, outline each block, and outline each design in the pieced blocks (not the setting blocks). 

In the one day of quilting, I did quite a bit -7 needles' worth! - and by the time I'd finished that last needle, my fingers were growing tender and History Day festivities were winding down. Worked out perfectly.

Now that I'm back home, I set the frame up in front of the television with the hope that I would continue quilting. I haven't yet, but it's only been two days. I will do more this week. Promise.

Hope you all are having a great Monday!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome October!

October is here! What a pretty month it is, too, with fall color and crystal blue skies. I bemoan saying goodbye to summer, but October in Ohio is wonderful.

I'm a day late in welcoming the new month, but I have a good excuse. Yesterday was History Day in Greenfield, and after a 2-year hiatus (pandemic, ugh), I was back to demonstrate hand quilting.

I am embarrassed to admit this next part. The quilt I worked on is the same one I was working on in 2018! Yikes! I worked on it again in 2019 - here's that post - and it has collected dust in my sewing room ever since. I've not taken a single stitch on it since that first Saturday in October 2019. *shaking my head in shame*

The pattern is called Fall Foliage by Lynette Jensen of Thimbleberries; it is featured on the cover of her 2001 book September Morning. After extensive searching, I found that I made the quilt top in 2010. It is aging well, isn't it? *hah!*

Since I hand quilt so infrequently, I am often simply stitching in straight lines, and this quilt lends itself quite nicely to a gridded look. I used the outer surround of blocks with the gold centers as my guide to stitch straight lines diagonally across the quilt. I use the seams, tape or a lightly drawn line to keep lines as straight as possible. 

I am keeping this out in the family room for a week or two. I hope to make myself work on it in the evenings while we watch Guardians baseball - they are extending the 2022 campaign into post-season action be claiming the AL Central Division crown. We are sure hoping for a lot more baseball out of these young men!

I'm joining Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching link-up today. It's not all hexagons! ha-ha! This is more than a one-pony show over here!

Coming up this week: the September collage; a foray into making a baby outfit; apple-picking; long arm quilting. Come on back and see what I get into!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Moving Right Along...Slowly

I knew when I agreed to take on the third class at OUC that this fall would begin to feel very hectic. I have been feeling it for about a week, and as a result the long arm room activities have stalled.

The last pictures I shared were from very early in the month, and the long arm was in pieces spread across the floor waiting to be rebuilt. We have done that, and the stall now is the leveling of the table so that the machine stays where I leave it instead of strolling/rolling/listing off to the back or the side. We stopped in to a quilt shop in McArthur last week to pick the brain of a man who sells and operates Tin Lizzies, and he gave us some very good information which we have yet to try. I have every confidence that we will be up and going soon.

The McArthur Quilt Shop has been incredibly helpful in answering my questions about this machine. If I end up needing it, he will even make a house call to fix the problem.

My pictures here are showing a very bare room. I still need to iron and rehang the curtains along with reattaching the curtain hardware. All the outlet covers, vent cover, and switch covers have been reaffixed, although these pictures were taken prior to the fact. I have been giving some thought to what I will use to decorate the walls in this room. Since the long arm takes up so much of the space, there will be very little other furniture in the room, so wall art will be a must.

So besides my three composition classes, what all has been going on around here? Let's recap a few highlights.

Friday was my mother's birthday, and several available family members gathered at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Hillsboro for a fun dinner celebration.

Saturday was DH's birthday, but we both planned to be involved in History Day activities. To celebrate him, we spent Friday on a long Spyder ride to McArthur and Hocking Hills.( That was before going to Hillsboro for dinner.)

History Day was lots of fun and not too much work, as I was quilting, at least. I love talking to folks who stop by; I catch up with people I've not seen in awhile, and I get to hear many reminiscences of quilts and grandmas, and the like.

On Saturday evening friends invited us over for a bonfire/wiener roast.

Sunday saw us busy with sewing Harry Potter robes for my twin nieces - now nearly 12 years old. I will share pictures of that fun in an upcoming post. While the girls and I were busy in the sewing room, their dad (my brother Mark) and DH took a load of bedroom furniture to my sister's in Hillsboro. Finally, my front room is back to normal!

Then Tuesday night, I hosted my card club ladies. I love having them come here, and it had been awhile! They'd not seen our newly painted kitchen table and chairs, nor several other of the home improvements we have made here in the last 6 months or so.

With all this craziness, I am not getting much quilting done. However, I do have Frankfort girls
at Jan's on Friday morning, and Sharon P. is coming for a sewing day on Saturday. Yay! Hopefully, I will have all my essays graded and will be able to enjoy guilt-free quilting.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

History Day

Since 2010, I have volunteered to demonstrate hand quilting for the Greenfield Historical Society's  annual History Day festivities. The big day is always the first Saturday in October, so guess where I will be tomorrow? I've only missed one since 2010, and that was due to strep throat.

I thought it'd be fun to take a look back at the quilts I have worked on for each of those previous History Days. The pink and brown quilt shown below was my project for both 2010 and 2011 - I hardly quilted on it at all in the year between one and the next, but I can say that it is now finished.

In 2012, I worked on Long Road Home. I loved quilting this quilt. Maybe because I love the quilt! It was fun to piece, and it was fun to quilt. I have shared it often here on the blog and on Instagram, and it always gets a lot of praise, which is appreciated because this was a lot of work!

And to prove it, I was still plugging away on Long Road Home the next year, 2013, and it hadn't been ignored like the previous quilt had. I worked on this a long, long time.

And, I'm almost embarrassed to show you the 2014 quilt - yes, it was still Long Road Home. It was a really, really long road, I guess! In my defense, I don't spend a lot of time throughout the year doing hand quilting.(Stating the obvious, duh!) I have a fun '14 picture of sisters who sat down to try their hand at quilting for a bit. Look at how they are concentrating!

In 2015, I worked on this star quilt. I hand pieced all of the star blocks and then hand pieced the top. So I decided that hand quilting was essential. Interestingly, the finished Long Road Home is draped over the chair in the background.

In 2016, I worked on two quilts - one in the big frame and one in a lap frame. I am glad I took two options. The marking tool I used on the big quilt smeared so terribly that I stopped almost immediately. I still have not finished it; I am in a quandary as to removing the graphite markings. Currently it is folded in the closet of my sewing room. The little quilt in the lap frame is finished.

History Day 2017 is the one I missed due to illness. As I have read back through the archived posts, I see that I called it upper respiratory infection, and not strep throat. I was pretty sick, either way.

For History Day 2018, I worked on a simple Thimbleberries quilt - I forget the name - and it will also be the quilt I work on tomorrow. I have done zero stitching on this quilt in this entire year. I am actually looking forward to getting back to it.

If you happen to find yourself near Greenfield, OH, tomorrow or are looking for a fun outing for a fall day, come on over for a visit! The Historical Society owns several buildings, and all will feature displays and activities. Good food will be available, too! Freshly roasted pork for sandwiches are featured every year. MMM-good!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Bit of Hand Quilting

With each History Day comes an opportunity for me to hand quilt, and for the 2018 History Day project, I pulled out a Thimbleberries lap quilt measuring 56"x65" - not too big and perfect for simple grid quilting.

I try not to overthink most aspects of my quilting, especially when the quilt will be used and laundered, and definitely  not pampered. The pieced blocks (with the gold centers) lend themselves to a simple 9-patch-style grid, so I extended those lines into the larger unpieced blocks. Easy-peasy.

During the five hours of History Day festivities, I did a fair amount of stitching - in between visiting with friends and acquaintances who passed by my corner of the Grain and Hay building.

To enhance my little corner, I displayed some quilts. The ones with the orange stars are hand quilted. Three of them have actually been projects for previous History Day efforts.

I am linking with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, even though I admit that all this stitching was done on Saturday. Today, only reading and grading essays are on my agenda.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Prepped for History Day

In a previous post, I mentioned Greenfield's History Day, and that I was prepping a week ahead (unheard of for me!) to be sure I was ready. I so typically put these sorts of things off until the very last minute.

And it took quite awhile to do the prepping, so I am glad I did it early. I wouldn't be too far off in estimating that it took me a couple of hours to get two quilts into frames.

First, I had to decide on the quilts I would most like to work on. One has several matters to consider - is this quilt worthy of my hand-quilting time? Is it one that I will enjoy looking at up close and personal? Is the size manageable? Those are the questions for the bigger frame. For the lap frame, I looked for something that gave me incentive to finish. It would be small and quick. I think I found two winners.

On my Q-Snap frame that sits up like a table, I pulled out Fall Foliage, a throw-size quilt that I made quite awhile ago. I've tried to track down exactly when I made this quilt top to no avail. 

While digging for suitable backing fabric, I came across a remnant from the quilt, and further digging eventually resulted in finding a decent piece that matched the remnant. Happiness!! After stitching them together I turned my attention to batting. Since this is a throw quilt, I didn't want to cut into a brand new batt, so I pieced together 3 batting remnants and used them for my quilt sandwich. Whew! Such a lot of work! Piecing backings and battings are NOT on my list of most fun things to do. This was truly labor.

Then I turned my attention to preparing the smaller quilt for the lap-frame. Last December I made the HST quilt from some of the Roman Holiday remnants, and I thought it'd be so nice to have that finished in time to actually use this coming holiday season. Could I do it fast enough? Well, I think I can, because I plan to do "big-stitch" quilting on it. Perhaps in a Baptist Fan design? I'm leaning that direction.

Below is the backing I chose - an older red with a holiday vibe to it by Robin Pandolph. It's barely big enough, but I made it work.

I glue-basted the backing and batting (another remnant) together. Then I did the same with the top. On smaller projects, glue-basting is the way to go, in my opinion. This was fast and easy.

So now I'm set. I have all these items set aside in a spare bedroom, and have added necessaries like thread, needles, thimbles, scissors -- all the usual tools. I will take a folding tv tray/table, a cushion for my chair, and 3-4 finished quilts that I hand-quilted. I display these behind me as folks to like to see them, and I love for them to be seen! *grin*

I have prepared a special feature for History Day -- a slide show which I will run on a continuous loop on my laptop. I went back through all my picture files and pulled every quilt I could find that I'd made. I selected over 100 pictures, and created a show of about 98 slides. It was fun to do, and I hope folks enjoy watching it. 

It's been awhile since I've joined a linky party so why not go have a visit with Kelly at her weekly Needle and Thread Thursday party! Looks like fun!

I hope you are having an awesome Thursday!! I have essays to grade, and later tonight - cards with some girlfriends. Busy day for me!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

History Day - A Week Away

This time next week, I will be perched at my quilt frame all set up to demonstrate hand quilting at our annual History Day celebration in Greenfield. Because several good family friends are members of the Greenfield Historical Society board and officers, I was asked several years ago (maybe 8?) if I would do this, and I've been doing it ever since.* Other "old time" arts demonstrated are chair caning, wood carving, watercolor painting, apple cider making, and more. I enjoy the day, as I get to see so many folks from around the area. I also love it when an onlooker asks questions about quilting or begins telling a story of a grandmother's quilts or some such. (This post from '16 explains the basics of History Day.)

Today, the question before me is what quilt will I put in the frame to work on? I hate to admit that the quilt I took TWO YEARS ago is still in the frame, untouched (except to move it from one spot to another) since 2016. Shameful! I plan to take that one out, and put something else in.

I have a good excuse for my shameful behavior - a couple, actually. First, to explain that asterisk (*) above, I missed out on participating last year (2017) due to an upper respiratory infection. I hated having to cancel, but I was concerned about being infectious, and I didn't think I could maintain the stamina needed to sit and quilt for 6 hours. (Woe is me!)

2016 quilt - Antique Nine Patches (from book by Sue Abrey)

Second, I marked the quilt with a graphite pencil that smeared terribly, and I had a huge mess on both my quilt and my hand. Talk about being totally bummed out! Now that I am two years removed from the unfortunate mishap, I have finally come to a decision as to correcting the situation. I will remove the stitches - there weren't that many - and then gently scrub the smears off. Problem solved.

All this does not, however, solve the dilemma of what to quilt THIS year.

I don't think I want to take the time to prepare the quilt pictured above for a second go-round. I will just remove it from the frame, fold it and set it aside. I need to select a quilt top to layer with batting and backing. I have many from which to choose.

I pulled this lap quilt out of the closet because of the great fall colors, plus it is not a huge quilt and the chances of finishing are greater. It's a Thimbleberries pattern called Fall Foliage, and it measures 56x65 inches. I think I will do a Baptist Fan quilting design on it.

I also pulled an even smaller quilt - table topper or wall hanging - to put in a portable hoop. I stitched this HST quilt out of Roman Holiday remnants last December. I might do "freehand" quilting on this in the style of Lori Simpson. She uses "big-stitch" techniques along with "eye-balling" a design. I think I can do that.

Hope you are having a super Saturday! DH and I are going to learn to polka dance later this evening, and then we have a big ballgame to watch - Ohio State vs. Penn State. Go BUCKS!!!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

History Day 2016

For seven years now, on the first Saturday of October, I have volunteered at History Day sponsored by the Greenfield Historical Society.  It's a day to celebrate Greenfield's rich history and the public is invited, free of charge to view key pieces of the collection. Add in a 5K run, a rummage sale, a delicious midday meal of soup beans and corn bread or pork tenderloin sandwiches from a hog roasted on site, demonstrations and re-enactments, you can get a feel for what History Day is like.

Inside the building known as the Grain and Hay building, I set up my quilting frame, displayed a few hand-quilted quilts on the wall, and settled in for a day of quilting. Back in the corner, an artist who specializes in Prisma pencil drawings demonstrated her skill.

This view shows my little space more fully. I have my Antique Nine Patches in the frame; I have that paper-pieced lap quilt in the oval frame. The three quilts on the wall are Long Road Home, which I quilted for at least the two previous History Days, then Tag Sale, which I quilted about 15 years ago, and 6-Point Star, which I just finished a couple of months ago.

Another feature demonstration was the making of apple cider in an old-fashioned apple press. Guests could help themselves to free samples. 

Besides the Grain and Hay Building, the Historical Society has several other buildings, one of which is the oldest in town - The Travellers Rest, shown above. I spent a lot of time in this building when we were writing the books we published. Click the links to learn more about Images of America - Greenfield, an Arcadia series book, and the coffee table book honoring our high school's centennial - McClain High School A Century of Tradition.

The Depot, just up the street from the Grain and Hay, houses four massive tables of scale models of Greenfield over the years. One table was a scale model of the town in 1850; another was of 1920, and so on. One man is responsible for making these models. It is nothing short of spectacular when you think about the hours of research he's done, then the building of the models, much of which is quite intricate. These pictures are just a small representation of the entire display.

The white-haired man in black  made all of these models.

One of Greenfield's favorite sons is Edward Lee McClain, the benefactor who donated our high school. He made his fortune in horse collar pads - an invention which led to the formation of his company, The American Pad and Textile Company. The building no longer stands, but it looked like the model pictured above.

This pretty yellow house was McClain's home, which stood next to the factory. It, too, no longer stands.

A barn behind the Grain and Hay houses some very interesting vehicles, two of which are pictured above.

And then there's this old fire truck, which several gentlemen are working to restore. They'd like to get it to the point where it could be driven in parades.

Not much for quilting, but this post gives you a more complete picture of our History Day.

Happy Quilting, Friends!