Friday, July 27, 2007

Swedish Weave and Meanderings

I haven't had time to work on the Memorial Quilt. I think that will have to take a back seat for a little. This has been a bad week for Karl and he spent some time in the hospital getting a blood transfusion. So I'm working on a Swedish Weave blanket. Swedish weave is great because it keeps your hands busy and your mind just enough so you can't think too hard. I will post a picture later showing the blanket.
As I'm working on this I'm thinking about one of my daughter's, husband's, grandmother. She had done all sorts of hand work and stashed it away in a hope chest. And when there was a wedding she would invite the bride to her house to come choose some pieces from the hope chest. I thought this was just a wonderful idea. I would love to do that, but first I would need a hope chest, or as my Mother would say "A hopeless chest."
The other meandering is: On the way home from the hospital with Karl yesterday, he asked for
a Coke, so I pulled into Mickey D's and had a sip myself. I don't usually drink Coke, I'm a Dr. Pepper person. Anyway, when I took that sip I instantly thought of a Chocolate covered Donut.
When I was in high school we took the bus home and there was a little donut shop across the street. We would go over and for 15 cents we could have a donut and a coke. So back I went to high school days. It's funny how something like a taste, smell or sound can take you back to another time.
I'm sorry I don't have any eye candy for you today. But I will try to post a picture of the blanket in a few days. Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Fan


Here's my fan. It's a little lopsided, but then so am I. Don't quite know how I will incorporate this into the quilt, but we will see. I think maybe it's a little to much, but I guess it will be ok. It's kind of hard to keep things simple after taking Sharon B's encrusted class.
After I finished this I found a tutorial at http://www.wyldwmn.com/fanblock1/htm That explains how to do a fan, by placing your first fan blade in the center of the fan base. DUH!! Maybe then it wouldn't be so lopesided. It really does look worse in person than in the photo.
My next step will be to put this onto the block and attach that to the quilt.
My oldest daughter, Wendy, was down a couple of weekends ago and she brought the block she was working on. She's doing a wonderful job. Her stitches are so nice and even. She's not even marking her fabric. Someone must have taught better then they taught her mother.
I hope you like what I have done. Am thinking about the sashing for around the outside of the quilt. Maybe I'll work on that a little also.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

End of June

Whoops!! I didn't mean the end of me, although I think that is coming pretty soon. No It's the end of the month of June. Half way through this year. Not too long ago I was wondering what this year would bring.

I have some more pictures today of my progress on the memorial quilt. I hope you won't get bored with what I'm doing, as I'll be working on this for some time. One is of a dresser scarf that my Grandmother, Mary Weiss did somewhere around the early 1930's. I never thought I would be using these precious pieces in this way. But, anyway, I made a copy of one of the motifs and put it on a patch for the Memorial Quilt. I had a heck of a time trying to find the right color of fibers to use. I wound up with Needle and Neccesities (Orange) and DMC for the green. I have not really worked with #5 perle that much, but that is what was used on the scarf, so I wanted to keep it as close to the original as I could. I think the orange is a little dark, but then I guess you have to take in consideration fading over the years.

After I do some more seam treatments I want to do a fan. that should be interesting. anyway, let's see where these pictures turn up in this blog. I hope at the end. I need to find out how to place the pictures where you want them. Another project.