July Concludes

My posting for the month of July has been erratic at best. Like most months, I begin with renewed focus and eager anticipation of what all can be accomplished in the new month. Some months end up being more productive than others; honestly, this is the normal ebb and flow nature of the quilter's work.

It's funny how so much of what we do requires a certain mindset - one that is positive; an all-systems-go sort of outlook. July 2016 found me having sad news to face, and it has been difficult to focus my attention on both quilting and blogging. Just to try to get July tucked away and move on to a happier August, I will share the sad news with you readers; not to garner sympathy, but more just to move on and adjust.

Early in the month I learned of the passing of Mary Harwood, the fun lady with the cute little barn (above) in Grove City who opened her doors for quilters a few times each month. Not only had I sewn at her place 4 or 5 times, she had come down to Frankfort to sew with us at Terry's on more than one occasion. Click here to read about my first trip to her barn.

In the photo above, Mary is showing off a quilt she was preparing to bind. This was taken on one of the trips to sew at her barn.

What a wonderful lady, and no truer friend could you find. While I did not know her as well as other quilters in my extended circle of friends - she was as genuine as could be. She announced back in January that she had been diagnosed with a particularly aggressive cancer and would be suspending her barn gatherings; soon she announced encouraging news that the diagnosis was not as dreadful as earlier suspected. Well, 6 months later, we learned of her passing. Apparently, it was aggressive, and many quilting friends were caught unawares. Here's a link to another blogger's tribute to Mary.

While digesting this news, our own family was dealing with a tragedy - the death of my Aunt Margaret - or Maggie, as she'd come to be called. Maggie is my mom's younger sister; the one who helped out so much during my grandmother's final months in 2015. After retiring in the spring of '15, helping with Grandma's affairs in the summer of '15, and moving with her husband, Uncle Nick, from Kansas back to Ohio in the fall of '15, Maggie began to have some mysterious health issues - mostly sleeplessness. The real alarms began this past May, when by the end of the month she was in the hospital and being tested for all sorts of neurological problems. The preliminary diagnosis was rapidly progressive dementia. Later, after some very specific test results, we learned a name for this disease - CJD, a terminal condition with no known treatment. She died on July 20.

This 2012 picture is possibly the most recent I have of Maggie - along with my mother and me. We were celebrating an OSU football victory at IU. Maggie was fun-loving; she quilted; she loved a party; she loved family. We are just so devastated by her sudden passing - from diagnosis to death was just 3 weeks.

Above is Maggie with her son, my cousin Sam at his wedding (1997), one of hundreds of pictures we enjoyed in a slide show at Maggie's memorial service yesterday. One of her very dear friends who came all the way from Wyoming made a few remarks and ended with this Native American prayer, which was particularly touching:

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still in each new dawn.

And now to my ambivalence about quilting and blogging.

My focusing issues have been exacerbated by troubleshooting how to quilt the big commission I need to be finishing. I've felt in a quandary for weeks now. Ugh!

I do think I have turned a corner, however. Elisa's quilt is beginning to come together more successfully, and an end is in sight. Above I have one of the sections in a prepping stage on the kitchen counter. I pressed the backing and stretched it out using painter's tape to keep it secure. I then pressed the top to the batting, and I used a lot of spray starch to give it some stiffness. Then I pinned the three layers together. I've been quilting and having some pretty decent success. (I will keep quiet about any "unsewing" I've done.)

Let's look forward to August, and see if I can get my mojo back!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Barn Show and Tell

No, I'm not sharing barns today. While at Mary's barn on Tuesday, we had a few quilts to show off. Two gals who attended but were opting to work on their own projects as opposed to making a zipper bag (got all that?) had these to share.

Pam, a quilter I'd met once before when at the barn was trying to complete a table runner.

It looks like a quilt-as-you-go project, and I peeked at her pattern: it's called Blade Runner. Clever.

Pam also had a sweet pin cushion, and I believe she said she made it at the barn.

Cherie was our other non-zipper bag quilter. She had quilts to be bound, so she sat with us and stitched binding.

This next one is the one she finished while with us Tuesday. I have several pictures of it because her quilter used a program that included letters of the alphabet which is a perfect complement to the quilt with Dick and Jane fabric.

I hope you can see the letters in the quilting. It is such a perfect enhancement to the quilt and the fabric. Makes me want to search out some Dick and Jane fabric for myself!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Zipper Bag

I had a fabulous day in Grove City yesterday at "The Barn" - that lovely quilty place of Mary's. The project for the day was to make a Zipper Bag. I met a couple of quilters and got reacquainted with another. And of course, Mary, our hostess, was as gracious and helpful as always, and she fed us a pretty awesome lunch, too. Throw in the gorgeous spring day - Mary opened the big barn door for the first time this season - and it all added up to a really wonderful day.

So, here is the sample bag Mary had for us to see. She said she made it in an afternoon. I think this is possible, but when one is spending as much time with the seam ripper as she is sewing, it was clear I was going to take longer. In fact, I worked on it from about 9:30 - 4:00 with only a break for lunch. My brain just wasn't receptive to cutting and reading directions, for some reason. I felt like Mary had to hold my hand most of the way through it.

The bag has an 18" zipper for the outer closure and three 9" zippers for inner pockets. I love how colorful Mary went with her zippers. The possibilities for playfulness with fabric and zippers are endless.

My choices were limited because I used zippers I had on hand. I thought I had a big variety, but in the sizes I needed I was limited to black and white. So, I found my stash of Morris Apprentice fabric (left over from the Tapestry quilt), and chose my bag colors from there. I think I like it, too.

My 18" zipper was metal, which looks okay with the silvery gray in my outer print. The one white zipper was used on the middle pocket, so it looks like it was all in the original "plan" - ha! Happy accident - that's the reality. :D

I was thinking most of the morning that I'd NEVER do another one of these bags, but by the end of the day, I was planning on making more - sisters, girlfriends, daughters - I think most women believe in the philosophy that one can never have too many bags.

Here are the bags made by my 2 new acquaintances, Jolene and Kay.

Jolene's zipper bag.

Kay's zipper bag.

I will consider making another one. I think I worked out the brain cramps and kinks enough that I could accomplish the task more quickly next time. I will need to invest in some zippers, however.

Tomorrow I will share some of the show and tell projects we saw at the barn.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A UFO Bites the Dust

Feeling pretty good about getting to check another UFO off the list, I must say. I am not making near the headway on my UFOs that some of my stitching friends are, but making any progress at all is still progress.

This table runner was one I made at Mary's Barn over a year ago. It was fun and easy, but I just never made it a priority to finish. I blogged about that day at the barn.

I  am so glad it is now completed - isn't it pretty? My method went like this: I machine quilted the baskets using the stitch-in-the-ditch method. In the two side triangles and the four corner triangles, I traced a quilting design on and hand quilted them. I used a French General backing and binding.


Happy Quilting, Friends!