by Karen on April 23, 2008
in quilts
One of the things that most quilters do not like is basting a quilt once the top is finished. Basting a quilt takes work — you have to have a surface large enough (which most of the time means moving furniture to make space) to spread out the backing, then the batting on top of that and then the quilt top on the very top. What I do is pin my layers down to the carpet, it holds it in place while I sit on it for hours on end with a long needle and thread and get down to work basting all three layers together so it will stay together until I get done quilting it. Most of the time for large quilts I do not need to do this because of my big 3 roller quilting frame, I only do this for smaller quilts normally. BUT – I have a large quilt on that quilting frame and I have made too many tops like usual so I need to do this one on my smaller frame. It is a twin size quilt and it is for my granddaughter for Christmas this year. I finished my grandson’s quilt last month – also for Xmas. I want to get these both done and out of the way in plenty of time — I do not want any stress in my life and do not wait until the last minute! Here are a pictures of me basting — this is a 2 or 3 day process as I only work for about 30 to 40 minutes at a time and then stretch out my back and do something else, then come back to it and work some more. I should be finished with it tonight or tomorrow! Thank goodness. I did have one quilt machine basted once but did not like how it was done, the stitches are very long and my wedding ring set kept getting caught in the thread. (and yes in the photo there is a coffee mug sitting on the quilt — this doesn’t have liquid in it but the T-pins needed to pin the quilt to the carpet)
Here is a site that was mentioned on one of the mailing lists that I am on. It has some handy tips http://rockymountainquiltworks.storesecured.com/tipsntricks.asp the shop is located in northern Montana near Glacier National Park in the town of Whitefish. I have never stopped here as first found the site, it will be on my list next time I am in that area. If you are in that area and check it out let me know how you like it. The on-line store has quite a bit on it and I will need to look at it futher.
I do quite a bit of applique and I find it relaxing. I pretty much taught myself how to do it from looking at photo’s and books, watching people ect. I found this site and bought an instructional dvd from the site and really like the method that Pearl P. Pereira uses. Here is a link to her site. http://www.p3designs.com/index.php I watched the dvd but have not tried out the way she does it as of yet but I plan to sometime down the road. It takes awhile to prepare all the pieces before you get started with the actual applique but because of it, it looks like your work will go more smoothly and the end results would be worth it.
Call me crazy but I miss not working on my Dear Jane quilt now that the top is finished. I decided that I will work on two difficult quilts at the sametime — I will make the Dutch Treat quilt that I mentioned last month and I will do another Dear Jane quilt at the sametime!! The first Dear Jane I named “Insanity” the second will be “Insanity Revisited” I expect it will take another 3 or 4 years before I complete both of these but it will be worth it. There are so many quilts out there to make and just not enough time to make them all. The new DJ will be in two colors for something different. It is going to be in a really pretty red batik and a pretty very, very, pale yellow batik. I’ll post pictures of the progress of both quilts as I do them. Two friends of mine are also going to be making the DJ while I am making mine. I will take photo’s of their progress periodically as well (if they let me that is:) )
by Karen on April 6, 2008
in animals
We have a delightful walking trail about 12 miles from our house the trail is in the town of Russellville on the outskirts of the city and is a animal & bird refuge. About 3 years ago an article in the paper said that an alligator had been spotted at the Bona Dea Nature Trail in the swampy area in the back of the park. There was a photo of the gator in the paper. Every since then my daughter and I and tons of other people I’m sure have wanted to spot the gator. Well on Saturday my daughter was home for the weekend and as we often do the two of us ended up taking a walk – she hadn’t been to the trails in sometime as she now lives in Little Rock. We were half way around the longest trail back in the swamp lands and low and behold the alligator was about 70-100 feet (I am guesstamating — is that a word? I am not good on judging distances) off shore sunning himself and maybe anticipating lunch? Those turtles are very close!! We gazed at him for about 10 minutes or longer and my daughter luckily had her camera along and was snapping one photo after another — how I wish I had brought the binnoculars with me!! But we saw him and that is what counts!! Alligators normally are not this far north in Arkansas, it is felt by officials that the gator had been someones pet until he grew and then they “dumped” him at the park where maybe they felt he could fend for himself and make due? he has been out there some time over 4 years now as the corp of engineers who maintain the park knew he was there about a year at least before the general population in the area did.
Springtime is such a pretty time of year. We have two bird feeders out year round to attract all the beautiful birds. I used to have two bird feeders that were squirrel proof with little cages that drop down to protect the seed from the squirrels — I like squirrels – I just don’t want them to get the bird food! One of my feeders broke at the beginning of winter so I picked up a new one that can convert to a thistle seed feeder for the finches of which we have many. But right now I ran out of thistle seed and just have the sun flower seeds so I turned the little gadgets on the feeder that changes size for the seed to come out. Well of course after I did that the squirrels caught on that bigger seed was coming out and have been bound and determined to figure out how to get to the seed. I had the feeder hanging in one tree and moved it to the swing in the front of the yard thinking maybe they wouldn’t notice it for awhile — wrong! they discovered within days – here are some photo’s of the pesky little critters eating to their hearts content this morning before I got mad and moved the feeder once again, this time with a long wire hanging from a branch thinking maybe they can’t get down the wire to the feeder — we will see what happens.
Spring — the grass is getting green, the trees are leaving out and others are in blossom. The dogwood tree in the yard has green buds on it and will be turning white soon. The tulips are budding, it looks wonderful. Now if we could just have a few sunny days to enjoy it!!
On the other hand I have been getting some quilting done and designing a new small quilt that will have applique flowers and maybe some butterflies on it? Something very springtime. I ordered fabric for the Dutch Treat quilt. I could not find what I wanted at the shops. One of the fabrics will be on back order and come hopefully by the end of the month and the other will arrive any day now. I wanted to be able to start right away, but there you go – other things will occupy my time in the meantime.
I will try to propagate some of my hydrangea’s, beautiful plants with lovely big blue flower clusters on them, but I think the prices in the garden stores are a little high and if I have luck it won’t cost me anything. I will give it a try and see how it goes. I want to plant them in a new flower bed on the far side of the yard. I cut two cuttings and will try them in water, if it doesn’t seem to work then I will try another method I read about.
