Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thanks

I want to say thanks to everyone that sent birthday greetings. It is nice to know I'm not the Lone Ranger here -- there's quite a few of us in my age group! vbg It's kind of funny that over the 12 years I've been "talking" to quilters online, I always think of everyone as being my age -- even though I know that there are many, many that are literally decades younger. It's that common denominator of quilting that ties us all together and makes us ageless!



A few days ago I had a dilemma of what to work on next. I solved the problem today. I pinned a practice piece on the longarm and played with that for an hour; then I dug out my hand quilting project that I've been dying to work on and played with that for about a half an hour; then I worked on my hand applique project for an hour; I still have the Twinklers quilt on the design wall, but haven't decided how I'm going to quilt it yet -- that's what I'm practicing on the longarm; and I received 32 string blocks from guild and I'm waiting on some that Sue is sending me from Heartstrings and that will be the priority project -- putting together another Heartstrings quilt or two. And then I got my Kansas Troubles Quarterly in the mail, so there's another project I can think about (but won't start till I have a few finished!).

Here's a pic of the KTQ stuff (it's a newsletter and 4 fq of her latest line of fabrics -- the winter one.)





I've been itching to hand quilt since I hurt my finger months ago. And two new friends, Bren and Sue spend part of every day handquilting. I think they both handquilt exclusively. With a longarm, I'm definitely not going to handquilt exclusively, but I do miss it a lot. So, today I took out the project I was working on when I hurt my finger, which happens to be the class project for Nancy Chong's Quilt University Class. I actually used a piece of hand dyed fabric that was dyed by Nancy's sister Janice Baehr. When I finish it, I'll give it to my granddaughter, Briana as a wall hanging for her room. I tried to use a device called a Quiltmate (I think) to push up the fabric underneath, but couldn't get the rhythm going and it hurt my hand, so went back to using my finger, but used my index finger instead of the middle finger which hurts still. I didn't quilt for very long -- just two rows, but I loved every minute of it. I'm going to try to find time to hand quilt a little every day -- maybe only 15 minutes, but I find it so peaceful, that I want to make time for it. Here's the project - just a feathered heart with crosshatching inside and out.


Now I need to try to read some of your blogs -- it only takes a day to get way behind!

Gratitudes:

A nice lunch with a quilt friend. She just lost her sister and we haven't had much of a chance to get together with all that was going on. We're planning a quilt store junket on Sunday -- patriotic sale going on at Sew Many Antiques!

The heat has broken again along with the humidity -- it was a beautiful day.


7 comments :

Mary Johnson said...

That's so funny - I always picture other bloggers my age too (unless of course I see photos of them) and they rarely are.

Melanie said...

Love the KT fabrics. Don't forget the Prim Garden blocks. I'm back on'em now. I think block 5 is my favorite. I can 't wait to see the finished project.

sewprimitive karen said...

I'm beginning to realize there aren't all that many people older than I am lol. I don't picture it that way either. Your hand quilting is soooo pretty.

Carol E. said...

The hand quilting is great! Wish I could do it so well. As for age, it's too hard to define and guess. I'm almost 55 but feel like I'm 35 inside. If only this body would cooperate with me like it used to back then!

Dona said...

A very happy belated Birthday greeting to you JT!!!!

ForestJane said...

The only time I notice blogger's ages is when they start talking about their childhoods... things like when they first got color tv or (older) when they first got electricity... lol

But you're right, I do tend to notice grammar and spelling if it's wrong, but age I don't think of.

Cher said...

quite a belated happy birthday wish to you! Age is such a state of mind, I hardly think about it-until I try to do something and the body just doesn't go there! Nice to catch up with you-the hand quilting is gorgeous-I am longing to get back to it as well-you may be my inspiration!