this just makes me laugh

A quilt shop sent this in their newsletter today:

Advice from a 1949 Singer Sewing Manual

"Prepare yourself mentally for sewing. Think about what you are going to do. . . never approach sewing with a sigh or lackadaisically. Good results are difficult when indifference predominates. Never try to sew with a sink full of dirty dishes or beds unmade. When there are urgent housekeeping chores, do these first so your mind is free to enjoy your sewing. . .When you sew, make yourself as attractive as possible. Put on a clean dress. Keep a little bag full of French chalk near your sewing machine to dust your fingers at intervals. Have your hair in order, powder and lipstick put on . . .[If] you are constantly fearful that a visitor will drop in or your husband will come home and you will not look neatly put together, you will not enjoy your sewing as you should."

Say WHAT? So little did those writers know. :)

Quilts of Valor

66,246 quilts awarded.

The average age of a soldier is 19.Made of 100% cotton, these quilts are given to soldiers injured in combat,  to small children who have lost a parent in combat, and to injured veterans.

One of the five quilt exhibits at the expo was from Quilts of Valor. There is a QOV guild in Wake Forrest that also had a booth set up. Below is one of my favorites from their exhibit, along with a copy of the information sheet that went with it.



For more info on Quilts of Valor, check out one of their promotional videos below:

cool things I learned

At a sewing or quilting expo, there are usually 3 parts: the exhibits, the vendor booths, and the classrooms. This was the first time I had ever shelled out money for the classes, and I was VERY pleased with the results. Every class was very practical and informative, and only one did I feel like I was in the wrong place (the teacher was a clothes designer who has tailored garments for many many years and she was a tad over my head) but even there I did learn quite a few practical things. So here's a few of my favorite classroom (both formal and from the free expo stage lectures) lessons:

 The longarm quilting teacher showed us how she took the feather pattern she was teaching us and used it in different directions to create the above chicken. How cool is that? Of course, she used different colored threads and fabric painting to create the accents, but it was still neat to see how one basic pattern turned in different directions and different sizes could create something so detailed.

 Above on the right is one of the employees for McCalls. (The lady in blue helping hold the quilt is a McCalls editor.) Here she's demonstrating one of her quilts she made totally from scraps. She saves EVERY piece of fabric that's at least 1" wide when she sews. Periodically she takes her scrap bin and sews them in horizontal lines. When that pile reaches a fairly large amount she cuts the strips in various shapes and makes a quilt top. I was expecting to see a modern style quilt (like the one below) and was a little surprised to see something this creative. Most of her quilts were browns,beiges and greens (what she said her daughter calls "icky green") so the colors weren't always my favorite, but I loved seeing her many patterns. It made me realize how much planning goes into great quilts as opposed to my "jump in, feet first" approach.

 Wish Upon A Quilt store in north Raleigh present a free lecture on modern quilts. The one above is one of the few they showed that I really liked. They were laughing about how elderly women inform them there's nothing modern about these quilts. Evidently in small towns throughout the US, especially in African-American towns, quilts in this style and other similar veins were quite common.

And back to the McCall's lecture...Of all her MANY quilts, this was my favorite. The 9 patch squares were part of a quilt project at the McCalls' company (9 patch squares are the chuckwagon squares). Instead of buying fabric, she decided she was going to use up her green fabric stash. It doesn't show very well here, but the right side of the quilt is light green with slightly darker squares. The left side is a shade darker. (She kept running out of her stash and had to keep moving to a darker shade of green.) The bottom halves are both varying degrees of green. It gave it a color wheel effect and looked totally planned. Her point was that we can use what we have and play around with it long enough to make it work instead of always having to buy more fabric to complete a project. She was one of my favorite free lecturers.

I didn't take pictures of the lace shapping class or altering pant size patterns. I hope to try the lace shopping project very soon. The teacher sent us all home with a DVD of her lecture notes, plus she's one of the co-owners of Elegant Stitches in Cary (where I rent the Bernina to quilt). It's nice to know if I get stuck I can go in for advice at the store. And that was one of the nice things about this show - almost half of the vendors were within driving distance. So many quilt shops don't have up-to-date websites, so if you see something at a show and don't get it you're often unable to purchase it later. It's nice when you know they are close by and can always find an item when funds aren't quite so tight.

You're probably getting tired of quilts, but I think you'll find tomorrow's post very heartwarming.

Kid Friendly Quilts at Expo

Raleigh Sew & Quilt Expo Post #2:

One of the four quilt exhibits was an international competition. All the quilts were to be shaped like a house and had to do with the theme of home. They quilts were going to be auctioned off at some point as some fundraiser (sorry, I didn't read all the details). Besides being impressed with the wide variety of interpretations of the theme, I kept wishing all my kid friends were with me to see some of the entries. So I took pictures for them instead:

Based on the movie Up

This one was definitely 3D!

My favorite of the three mice houses.

And I included this one just because I like the old lady, and it's about quilting. :)

The black outline doesn't show up on the black showcurtain too well,  but it' s earth and the sun.This one reminded me of my artist friend Sara Mincy because she makes those little circle things (can't remember what they're called at the moment) as well as folds fabric/paper. Very creative!

Even though I lived in an apartment building for 4 years and a dorm for 4 years, I seldom think of a cityscape when I think of a place to live.

And last from my favorites of the housing exhibit: a barn!

And while this last quilt was part of the McCall's favorite patterns Exhibit, it made me laugh, and I thought all my young (and young at heart) blog readers would like it. :)

Raleigh Sew & Quilt Expo

From the Raleigh Convention Center, last week, Post One:

Overlooking Exhibit Hall A where the expo was held:

 The Gammill classroom where I took 2 classes.
Maybe one day I'll actually own one of these machines!

 Part of the Fons & Porter Quilt Exhibit:

and a close-up of the quilt above. :) Even the best quilters don't always get their pieces totally lined up correctly!

 I've seen a similar version of this quilt (but with diamonds, not stars) and one day hope to try it.
The coolest thing was the quilting below, which is one of the patterns covered in a class I took.

And another quilt that I thought was absolutely stunning:

 The coolest thing? It's simply sqaures, lines and triangles. Even the quilting is simple with straight and diagonal lines. :)

Tomorrow: Kid Friendly Quilts ;)

moving forward

Has it only been a week since the robbery? It seems like much, much longer than that.
But yesterday, as we contemplated the day, I made the comment to Bobby that while I didn't want to head back to the gym, I knew every day I didn't was another day I voluntarily surrendered to those guys. I decided I would attend the 2nd class (which was a wise move as the pool is still not working) and do some yard work outside. At one point I headed back inside for string to tie up a tomato plant, and realized I had locked myelf out. Yes, locking ALL the doors and windows clearly has a disadvantage. I figured I would finish up what yard work I could, then walk to my mother-in-law's for her spare key. As I was heading toward the shed, this car with two young men cames down the road, STOPS when it sees me, and slowly starts backing up. At this point my heart is absolutely racing. I have no keys, no cell phone, no camera, nothing to write with, no mace....nothing. They pull in the 2nd driveway, and I fear they're going to turn around and I hesitantly started toward them. I WAS getting a tag # this time! Then this tall fellow gets out, and my heart goes to my toes and I start laughing! It was Zach Younge and Brett Hanks, two teens from church, who were filling in for the Burns (two teen brothers who normally cut our grass). Brett gave me a ride to my mother-in-law's house for the spare key. I can't begin to tell you how thankful I was to see a face I KNEW by name and not as a blurry memory!

We've begun the process of making some modifcations to the house, and I hope to visit several pawn shops today. I've talked with a few gold buyers on the phone, and I've truly come to appreciate owners of shops like Arrow Pawn in Garner who keep an inventory of gold they buy and go an extra step of asking for descriptions of your class ring as well as all related contact info (I typed criminal case #, but that reads too weird). It's nice to meet honest and caring people after encountering lying thieves.

And in the midst of a week of paperwork...we lost the hard-drive on our computer. So once we finally get it back and I'm not hopping to a family member's house to surf the net, I'll hopefully update on straw bale gardening and chickens, as well as the Raleigh Quilter's Expo. Life doesn't slow down, not even when you throw an extra amount of work on it. And sometimes that's probably a good thing.

irony

Irony (besides the opposite of wrinkly)

• asking 2 young men "Can I help you?" only to find out a few minutes later they were robbing your house
• being told by a deputy "don't touch anything" while you have to sit and wait for 2 hrs and all you can see is housework that needs doing. (Do you know how many cobwebs are on my front porch?)
• police asking a colorblind person what color truck the men were driving
• a man having to reach across the book "Choosing Gratitude" to steal my jewelry box
• being asked to describe one of the expensive rings I had, and the first word that came to my mind was "heinous"
• having your house photographed for criminal files when you left it for the gym with dirty laundry sorted into piles on the floor, an unmade bed, and breakfast dishes still on the table
• our "mean" rooster (everyone asks us if he's mean) taking all the grown hens into hiding in the field when the robbers came
• laughter - Bobby and I giggling at the reaction those young men probably had upon coming in our huge house and seeing 2 televisions both over 20 years old and a 5 year old worn computer with cords running everywhere.  We're still dumbfounded they didn't steal any of the hundreds of books we have. (We said that to some relatives, and I think they thought we were serious. But seriously, you want to hit us where it hurts, take our books.) They didn't take any of the teddy bears, Granny's quilts, none of our bluegrass, Country, or Christian CDs, his 25 year old stereo, my 13 yr old sewing machine nor my huge fabric stash. Those boys obviously had no idea of what it takes to make life pleasing.

We did lose some things that hurt. His grandmother had some cheap bead necklaces. After her death a relative made them into beaded bracelets for all the grandchildren. There's no monetary value on it at all, but it meant the world to me. It's one of the few bracelets I actually wore. A cheap athlete's foot track pin means nothing to anyone else, but my now paralyzed husband won that one year in track and field. The pretty cuff links that weren't real gold or real stone? Those belonged to my father-in-law, who is now in heaven. A child's metal bracelet with the initials BB? That won't mean anything to anyone other than us. And who on earth wants a Cordova High School Class of 1991 class ring?

After the shock of what happened wore off, and the reality sunk in that they were holding my husband's loaded rifle when I pulled up (which they left in the garage... so thankful I didn't know that at the time!), all I could think was "Wood, hay, stubble" and how God is our protector and provider. I know that even if I had not come home from the gym early and they had trashed the place and taken every single item, God would still provide our needs. Even if they had hurt me instead of just fleeing, God would still be the protector of my soul and spirit. There are some things money can't buy and thieves can't steal. I've had to constantly remind myself of that fact since Monday as I hesitate to leave the house for fear they'll come back (the investigator says not likely since I can somewhat ID them and their vehicle) or resist the urge to check out every pickup that passes on the road. I have to focus on today and tomorrow, and not replay Monday morning at 10am in my head. I can't change anything; can't do anything any differently.

But I'm thankful more than ever for my husband/best friend. He truly makes an awesome teammate.