Tag Archives: Sewing

Letter A for Album /AtoZ2019

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Welcome!

The April A to Z Challenge is in its tenth year and I’ve now participated for 6 of those years. This year will be my 3rd quilt theme and my first quilt using only patterns from the Kansas City Star newspaper archives. I purchased 2 books to help me accomplish this.

Kansas City Star Books for my A to Z Challenge
Kansas City Star Books for my A to Z Challenge

Why the Kansas City Star blocks? Well I’m a native, lifetime-resident Missourian and feeling like sharing a part of our history here this year. The result, I hope, will leave you with some quilt knowledge and appreciation as well as possibly learning a scrap of information for each year of these blocks—being it’s a scrappy quilt.

  • The Before Assemblage of Scraps
  • The Aftermath Cache

So for the beginning of the quilt, we’re using the pattern entered in the KC Star in 1928– the Album block. In my opinion, it’s the perfect way to start so that I’ll have a way to memorialize the quilt with either a favorite saying, or quote from a fellow A to Z partipant.

Album Layout
First Stitches
LastSeam

The uses for an album block in the past predate photo albums as they are used for signatures to celebrate births, weddings, and fairwells with friends and family.

Completed Album Block
Completed Album Block
From Star Quilts ©KansasCityStarBooks
This is an antique version of an album quilt

Did You Know?

Sliced bread sold for the first time in Chillicothe (Chill – a – koth – ee), Missouri in 1928 thanks to Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s machine invention.

Come back here tomorrow for another quilt block for the A to Z Challenge! Also be sure to visit the home of the A to Z here and see other entrants challenge posts …..the next best thing to sliced bread! (couldn’t resist) There are excellent writers participating every year with topics in whatever you’re interested in.

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D and T Quilt Shop/Thursday Doors

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For the record I have 1 cat. 

I have rarely participated in Black Friday. I happen to think it’s a ploy to rob me. But this year was different. I actually called my mother to invite her along. Stop The Press!!

Yes there was some urgency.

Not my photo. Too rainy that day for me to worry with it.

There was a notice in our paper that the owner of this shop had passed away. And they are selling her fabric at a significantly lower price and closing shop. This local business has been a very big blessing in our area. We live an hour in any direction from the nearest big chain fabric store. (Until recently, we acquired a Hobby Lobby) But let’s get real. This was the Ultra fabric stop for serious quilters.

Mom and I decided to check out the bargains and show our support for the family. This must be difficult for them.

Below is my ‘haul’. I am planning some serious sewing this coming year.  

Mom thought the blue floral reminded her of something her own mother would have used for a dress. Can I get an awwwww?!  Miss my grandmother very much! So blessed to still have my momma!

This is a better look at the fat quarters.

Buy 50/ Get 50 free. And they were already reduced. An irresistable deal. Mother and I both succumbed.

A peek at the gallery will show you all the tiny ‘doors’ I found in this treasure trove. I hope you’ll, somehow, identify with this version of Thursday Doors and take time to visit Norm 2.0 for beautiful door posts around the globe.

  • Venice Doors
  • Scandinavian Doors
  • Log Cabin Doors
  • Birdhouse Doors
  • Amish Doors
  • Farm Doors
  • School House (no door)
  • Eiffel Tower Door
  • Doge’s Palace Doors
  • St. Mark’s Campanile (This one’s for Rachel)

I was neglectful in mentioning the transportation provided by my eldest daughter. Thank you Rachel for tolerating and enabling your mother and grandmother on this expedition. Love you bunches!!!

A Sign of Hospitality

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I searched and searched this house for a pineapple (other than the can in the pantry). An Instagram daily photo prompt is the source of this distress. I knew I wouldn’t be venturing out on the town today so it was up to me to get creative. And since the last Sunday Sampler was in March before the April AtoZ Blog Challenge, it’s definitely past time for a new one!

Grabbed the tools, the fabric and a little inspiration from Pinterest — not necessarily in that order.

Pinterest Find
Fabric groupings
Tools and a 2 1/4 inch square

Cut enough squares to make 3 of these quilt squares. I don’t think they’ll be used together but you never know?

From the Green Stash
Squares with extras, just in case.

After a few minor adjustments – like increasing the size of the squares that were to become 1/2 square triangle blocks – I think I accomplished what I set out to do.

Without the sashing
Completed Block

A little batting, backing ,basting and it’ll be quilting time! My plan? A wall hanger will be the final outcome of this symbol of hospitality. Thanks for visiting!

Ta-Da!

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We’ve had a heatwave.

Plain and simple, the vegies I usually plant for a later harvest have struggled.

So to compensate, I dug through my stash of old sheets and between the hubby and I, came up with an idea that just might do the trick.

I present the Cucumbers of July 16, 2018 complete with sunburn and impending death.Cucs shaded9.jpg

What our young cucs needed was some relief in the form of shade. So I looked into the mesh shade cloth that you see at greenhouses and larger gardens.

It’s very nice, but I want to save a few pennies. That’s the whole point of gardening right?! Grow your own vegies to save on the grocery bill? And of course there’s the flavor 😉

Cucs shaded7

So here’s what we came up with. Two giant ‘sails’. Really just a curtain with rod pockets at top and bottom. Some old pipe came in handy to attach it to our raised bed. And when storm clouds rise or the weather turns fair, we gather it in the middle and tie it up until danger of getting ripped passes.

Cucs shaded

Taken just 1 week after assembling this shade curtain. And I will admit to having some nice rainfall to help the situation. Just a good all around combination.

Cucs shaded1

And here’s the mandatory garden view.

images

Adding this post to my new page, “Free Tip Friday”. New content on the way!

 

 

Throwing Some Shade/Thursday Doors

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When your daughter has a request, you do what most mothers do…..Fill that request. On this occasion, I took myself through this door and got busy.

Rach'sDoor.jpg

The plan was to get some window treatments to keep the heat out in summer and the heat in during the upcoming winter months. Trying to save on the utility bill in other words plus stay comfortable. Not to mention, the daughter gets to control the thermostat for the whole building. Sounds good until she found out her apartment was always the warmest in summer and coldest in winter. The culprit….all those dang windows. shadescollage So rather than buy the store variety, we joined our resources and with a little elbow grease, thread and time, we managed to recreate for 1/3 the price what she could have picked up. The only downside was the wait. It takes time to measure, cut and sew it all up. But mission accomplished and if nothing else, the sun won’t be quite as bright in those east windows every morning.

onthebacks.jpg

I think this is where I’m supposed to insert something about ‘on the backs of immigrants’ as I wasn’t tall enough to reach the foot pedal while making the shades. We are very proud of our immigrant heritage and I’m going to heist those books someday in the future for some ‘light’ reading. History is always worth reading and remembering.

For other wonderful Thursday Doors entries, please visit Norm 2.0 and he will direct you to the blue frog.

Eight Hands Around/#AtoZ

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The April A to Z Blog Challenge is an annual blogging event in which participants blog every day (except Sundays) one post for each letter of the alphabet for the entire month. My theme for the year will be “Quilts and Ozark Slang.” So gitchur coffee or sodapop, grab a pilluh, and sit a spell.

The Letter today is E.

Book Illustration
The layout that needs ironing.

Something I haven’t Explained yet is the reason to lay out the pieces as you see above. One reason, for me at least, is to make sure all the right sides are facing up. Sometimes the difference between the front and back of a fabric is pretty similar…..until you sew it together wrong. Then it sticks out like a sore thumb. And of course you’d be obligated to rip it out and sew it over. Just a pain when you are on a timeline like this A to Z Challenge. Carpenters measure twice, cut once. Quilters check the fabric by it’s right or wrong side as well as if it’s in the correct direction. We’ll leave the ‘direction’ of the fabric topic for another post, though.8HandsAround2

Eight Hands Around is a title that is supposed to be a reference to a quilting bee. And one of the words you may hear a few old-timers say at said quilt gathering is ‘Edumacated’.  It’s just saying, “They went off to college, earned a law degree, or Ph.D, or some other higher education.” In such a setting, it would be used to suggest pride in the one they’re referring to. Because of course, we want to see our friends and relatives do better. It gives us a sense of pride that they came from our region and “made it” in the world. Success gives us mothers something to brag about too. (wink wink)

There are many more wonderful blogs this year that I hope you can spend a couple minutes reading. All you have to do is click here and select something that interests you. To read about the A to Z Challenge and what we are all about, click here.

Combination Star/#AtoZ

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The April A to Z Blog Challenge is an annual blogging event in which participants blog every day (except Sundays) one post for each letter of the alphabet for the entire month. My theme for the year will be “Quilts and Ozark Slang.” So gitchur coffee or sodapop, grab a pilluh, and sit a spell.

The Letter today is C

 

 

I’ve got to admit, there are a lot of ‘star’ quilt blocks out there. And I’m not very sure why this one is called simply “Combination Star” except for possibly the combination of diagonal squares in each corner to give it a different appearance. I will have to do a tally of just how many star blocks are in my selection for the A to Z Challenge. Til then, I’ll just  ask, Do you see the star in this block?

CombinationStar3

For the Daily Ozark slang, I present “Chester Drawers”. This is the place you’ll find a stash of my quilts. In other words, a “Dresser”. Or where you store your socks, pajamas, tshirts, etc.

My mother was good about proper grammer due, I believe, to the fact that her mother was a one-room schoolhouse teacher. Grammer was her thing. So around my home, this word wasn’t used so much. Maybe it slipped out now and then? I don’t remember if it ever did. But we all recognized its use when used by others.

There are many more wonderful blogs this year that I hope you can spend a couple minutes reading. All you have to do is click here and select something that interests you. To read about the A to Z Challenge and what we are all about, click here.

Broken Arrows/ Letter B

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The April A to Z Blog Challenge is an annual blogging event in which participants blog every day (except Sundays) one post for each letter of the alphabet for the entire month. My theme for the year will be “Quilts and Ozark Slang.” So gitchur coffee or sodapop, grab a pilluh, and sit a spell.

The letter today is B.

Templates needed for cutting fabric pieces
The Book illustration

In quilting, you have a few choices when cutting out your pieces.

  • There are rotary cut pieces that allow you to cut very quickly and efficiently with a large ruler and rotary cutter.
  • There are paper pieced blocks that you lay fabric over in a certain order to sew onto. Paper backing is then removed once the block is complete.
  • Crazy quilters lay fabric pieces at random and sew them together in a pleasing form before embellishing them with fancy stitching.
  • This quilt used templates to use as the guide to cutting each piece. And I do mean Each, And, Every, piece. It is without a doubt, the most time consuming method. But Soooooo worth the end result.

The Layout
I made a little mistake here. Time to rip out stitches.

The Finished block:

BrokenArrows4

Todays Word:

Bawl – When I recently used this word, it raised the eyebrows of my daughter. (She’s getting very good at pointing out my use of words lately.) So I explained it’s probably from farmers hearing calves and other young livestock crying for their mothers. They “bawl”. So she, being the research queen, looked it up and found this information.

The word “bawl” started in the Middle English from Medieval Latin and is also Germanic.” So with the rich German heritage in this area, it has been most likely passed down through generations.  Example: “Don’t go bawlin’ about it! You’ll have to learn sometime.” Back in the 60’s, my own babysitter was very fond of this word. Apparently, it stuck.

There are many more wonderful blogs this year that I hope you can spend a couple minutes reading. All you have to do is click here and select something that interests you. To read about the A to Z Challenge and what we are all about, click here.

A Dandy/ #AtoZChallenge

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To those who celebrate, Happy Easter! And to those who celebrate in other ways, I hope you have a wonderful day! As for me, today’s the day! I will blog every day this month (except Sundays) for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Welcome to you if this is your first time participating. Welcome if this is your first time reading. For myself, it’s Year #5. Oh! And April Fools! We blog our first letter today, Sunday! Just the way it turned out with the calendar. So here goes……

a2z-h-small

I’m so pleased to have you stop in and ‘sit a spell’. A little addition to my plan for the Challenge this year will be to share some Missouri Ozark slang each day (with a translation in case you’ve never heard them). I live in west central Missouri, just up the road from the hills that begin the Ozark mountains. We still have church on Sundays, pictures of our boys in their first pair of overalls, and mostly civil politicians. That’s just the beginning.

First, a little about quilting, the book I used for reference and some tools of the trade……in collage format. (Hover over pics for description) Thanks to the editors of 256 Fat Quarter Quilt Blocks,  Jeanne Stauffer and Sandra L. Hatch. This book has been in my library for some time and I rediscovered it for the Challenge this year. It has so many blocks to choose from. Hope you all enjoy them.

 

My 1993 Bernina 1080.
Using gray thread. I think this is enough.
My 10-year old iron. Still with stickers attached from the manufacturer.
My Ottlite that I’ve repaired with duct tape
These are the ‘helpers’ of a quilter. I’ll explain later.
This book is my reference and guide for all the blocks this challenge.

About the block………

 

For Letter A, you get “A Dandy”. It’s a 12 x 12 inch block once it’s trimmed/squared up. This is a term we use to cut off those ‘dog ears’ (extra points of fabric sticking out) and to make the edges nice and even. Its name reminds me of all the nicknames my grandmother had for each of her grands. She was an Ozark native.

Adandy 11

#4 Finished!

Why the Ozark Slang for the Challenge?

When my eldest daughter moved off to college, whe noticed perplexed looks on the faces of some others when she would use certain expressions or phrases.  Do not be alarmed. She is very intelligent and extremely well-spoken. And in no way do I intend to put down the intelligence of my Ozark kin. We just use some different expressions that may or may not have leaked out to the rest of you. So this April, I’m sharing with you the wonderful language of my upbringing. I hope you will let me know how far-reaching these expressions have traveled.

For Today: “Alrighty then.” This is a sentence. It is equal to meaning , “Well you just go right on ahead and do that” or “I guess you’ve made your mind up and I can’t change it.” I once had a boyfriend who used this expression quite a bit. I believe he understood I was pretty stubborn. I prefer to call it Independent. 😉

There are many more wonderful blogs this year that I hope you can spend a couple minutes reading. All you have to do is click here and select something that interests you. To read about the A to Z Challenge and what we are all about, click here.

Sweet Stripes/WPC/Sunday Sampler

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Sweet

To begin with, I like to provide pillows to the children in my home daycare. Soft spots to lay your head when you aren’t really ready to be awake yet. Getting here at 6:30 a.m. is not always on the agenda of a child under age 5. Getting up from nap can have the same outcome. They often let everyone know. Pillows offer something to clutch, hug, squeeze, sit on or even punch. There are days you don’t know what you’ll get in the realm of childhood emotions. I present an option to keep those pillows neat as a button and the children Sweet on this Sunday Sampler.IMG_0937

Now lately, some pillows have been coming undone from their protective cases. This is with the help of little hands. This new discovery of “I can pull out the pillow” is a great dexterity skill but, as the whole country knows, flu season has been relentless and not keeping pillows sanitary is not an option. So to keep pillows safeguarded, I am putting my snap tool to use. Why?

  1. Because I don’t have time to make feel like making 15 more pillow cases with envelope closures.
  2. Snaps are more secure because…..
  3. They would soon figure out the envelope opens up.
  4. Never, ever underestimate the ingenuity of a 2 year old.
  5. Or even a 1 year old.
  6. Trust me on this!
  7. I’ve even had the pleasure of seeing a child stick feet into 2 separate pillows to walk around pretending they had Big feet this winter. Who’dathunk?! (but it was cute).

Now that I’ve made my case, here’s a little slide show of my tool and the finished result.

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Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday!!