Over the years I have tried just about every quilting thimble there is. I do not like to wear a thimble due to some medical problems that I have I have had trouble with rashes over the years I have some small scarring on my fingers here and there which wearing a thimble can irritate over time. I tried for a time not to wear a thimble and I used my thumbnail a lot — so much that I wore a hole through the nail! Now that was a sight, a needle right through my nail. After that I tried leather thimbles that go over your finger, leather patches that are round disc that you stick on your finger . My favorite thimble is called a hand held thimble or as I refer to it a “paddle thimble” it can be found at House of Quilting 
There are instructions on how to use this thimble at the link I put in. It works great once you get the hang of it. It does take a little practice but for anyone who has trouble with a metal thimble over the fingertip this one works great. It also works good for people with joint pain. I have 3 of these thimbles 
just in case I loose one I have a back up. I use this for all of my hand quilting. I have been using this thimble for about 8 years or more.
Another thimble that I have is the Roxanne Thimble. I thought I would be able to use it and my husband bought it for me one Christmas. It doesn’t quite fit my finger right and slides off a lot, it is heavy also. It is a very good thimble though and I occasionally use it for short periods of time It comes in different sizes and different kinds of metal:
It can be found at the Roxanne product site, Roxanne thimbles are expensive though so if you have the opportunity to try one on at a quilt show vendors booth please do so. You might find like I did that it is a bit heavy.
There are so many thimbles sold from so many places that if you are searching for a thimble that you think you will want to use see if you can try it on at the store. Some places will let you do that. Sometimes they will have them on display. At the Quilt Bus site there is a whole page on thimbles, here are some of them, look for notions and thimbles:
this is a coin thimble
jelly roll thimbles all colors and sizes they are soft rubber type of item
this one is called “my favorite thimble” it is metal covered with a rubber substance which is supposed to grip the needle.
And here we have “Ted’s Thumb Thimble” – Ted won the 1st place prize with her quilt at Paducah, Kentucky quilt show this year. It is beautiful.
this is my favorite thimble it is simply called an Open Sided Thimble to use when I am doing applique, it is a little longer than some metal thimbles so it doesn’t seem to bother the scarring from my rashes on my fingers around the knuckles, it is open ended so your fingernail will not feel cramped. You can find it at Keepsake Quilting
There are so many thimbles to chose from, remember try them on if possible at the store for fit and comfort. There is nothing wrong with having more than one thimble if you get tired of one try another. Thimbles range from very expensive to cheap as dirt! Most of the thimbles pictured here are in the $5.00 to $15.00 range.
I have had a number of new quilters and then not so new quilters ask me about what kind of needles and other quilting notions do I use so I thought I would talk about needles today.
I use Roxanne #11 betweens for all of my quilting needs – and by that I mean piecing, quilting and applique. A lot of people use different size needles for different projects but that has not worked for me. Straw needles – very long as the name indicates are what a lot of quilters use for needle turn applique which is the kind of applique that I do — if I use that needle I tend to prick my the front of my thumb for some reason – I guess maybe it is the way I hold the fabric and the needle? I don’t know but I find a shorter needle works for me. Here is a photo of the Rebecca needles from their web site: the picture is of the number 10 needle but like I say I use the size 11 it is slightly shorter.
These needles come in a little glass tube with a stopper that has a tiny shell on it there are 50 needles in the container. Occasionally I have trouble with needles bending but not often. Of course when you order on line sometimes the shipping and handling cost more than the product does itself, so when I do order my needles as I can not find them locally I usually check the web site and see what else I could possibly use or need and usually end up ordering a few other things to make myself feel it was worth the s&h fees. Normally I will order two of the little tubes of needles- a hundred needles will last me a long time and then I am not paying shipping and handling again for while.
Sometimes I have a hard time pulling such a short needle through the 3 layers of quilting and I use what I refer to as a needle puller, here is a photo of that:
they are little rubber disc’s, you can order those from this site: or many other on line stores, or purchase them at Hobby Lobby and/or Hancocks. Maybe if you have a local quilt shop they carry them also. They last a long time, you might even have something around your house that you could use.
Other needles that some quilters use are John James, and of course there are many other brands. I feel that I have tried so many and I keep coming back to the Rebecca needles so that is what I only use now, no sense in me trying out other brands when they do not work for me. You might feel that Rebecca needles aren’t right for you – we all have our likes and dislikes and whatever you use just make sure you like it and that it works for you.
Tomorrow or sometime this week I will show you my thimble collection and what kind I use and where you can purchase some of them.
I have been having a little trouble with my blog server so if you have trouble reaching me at times that is why, usually if you check back it will be here.
The Christmas season is really coming up fast now. I have done very little baking and do not plan to this year. Sometimes I think we find the Christmas season a reason to stuff ourselves with baked goods that our bodies really do not need — we want it of course but we do not need it. We are having very little company and for two people – it is an excuse to pig out! I will bake just a tiny bit. We will not have a white Christmas this year, we rarely do. It is supposed to get very cold though tonight and tomorrow. Our blast of winter I suppose. One of our daughters and her family live in Wisconsin and here is a photo of winter up there – our grandson laying next to the mailbox that is almost covered in snow he looks a little tuckered out from playing so hard:
Now that is some snow isn’t it! In a way I miss the snow living here in the south we really do not get it real often, but when you think of all that cold weather then I’m kind of satisfied with a short winter.
The Mariners Compass quilt is now on the bed. It fits really well and we both love it.
by Karen on December 18, 2008
in quilts
My sewing room is small, it is slightly less than 10 feet wide by almost 16 feet long. A narrow room. My quilting frame takes up 12 feet in length and about 3 1/2 feet wide, that does not leave a lot of room for anything else. The last couple of days I have been making a new quilt top, not a complicated top but I am machine piecing it which means I needed to get my sewing table back out and the sewing machine set up – also I needed to extend the leaf on my cutting table for more work space. Once I get those set up the space I have is like this:
My cutting table also turns into an ironing board with the small version that I made from a piece of wood cut 12 x 18 inches and padded with quilting batting and covered in muslin. The table also has a cutting mat on it for trimming up blocks as I go along. As you can see the quilting frame with the quilt top that is in the process of being quilted turns into a design wall (table?) you have to make use of the space you have after all.
Now I did not mention that I share this room with my husband! He has a tiny area on the opposite end of the room:
Even though I take up the majority of the room he has the closet for all of his research books. He doesn’t keep his side neat like I do much to my dismay 
but seeing as he only takes up about 5 feet x 5 feet of space it’s ok with me.
Our daughters shared this room for about 12 years and they didn’t kill each other
I went to the quilt guild party today and want to share a picture of Joanne’s kitchen floor – it is special. Her son re-did the tile on her floor and surprised her with this design in the center of the floor – wasn’t that nice of him, it appears he sure knows his mama and what she likes to do with her spare time, a quilting block design right on her floor!
Yesterday morning started off with ice pellets and sleet, later in the day it continued, more sleet, frozen rain, ice whatever you want to call it we had it lightly all day into the evening. This morning it was still 25 degrees and it had continued lightly all night. The roads have a thin layer of ice on them — my car a heavier coating of ice — I’m not going anywhere today. I got out a package of fabric that I bought in Wisconsin at Millhouse Quilt shop in September – maybe today is the right day to figure out what to use this package for. I bought 2 fat quarter packages of the same colors with six fat quarters in each package – totally 6 half yard pieces. I decided to cut them into squares and rectangles and will combine in some sort of combination. I am cutting the pieces now, I have a photo in this days posting of the fabric.
Here are some photos of icy Arkansas from my deck:
My Car:
My birds:
My last rose bud of the year, frozen on the deck railing:
the Icy deck:
the start of todays quilt project on the work table in the process of cutting, if you note closely you will of course see chocolate handy – purchased yesterday on sale :
I love to bake bread but I have not had good luck with it in recent years. I think I finally realized that I am not a good baker with a bread machine – the technique just doesn’t seem to work for me. The loaf of bread almost always collapses before the baking is finished. Today I decided to go back to the old fashion method of baking and kneading bread – by hand. After all if I have good luck with my quilting by hand why not try the by hand method for baking bread. I also like baking with whole grains – the healthier the better and I always like changing recipes somewhat to include things that I like. Here is a recipe I made up after looking at a recipe and decided it needed a lot of changes!
Multi-Grain Squash Bread
Ingredients:
1 cup mashed squash (I used acorn squash, leftover from when I baked it) ( canned sweet potato or canned pumpkin could be substituted but make sure to drain all liquid)
4 tablespoons Buttermilk powder ( I use buttermilk powder as I rarely have milk in the house)
1 cup of water
3 tablespoons butter, cut into several pieces
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup unbleached white spelt flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups to 2 cups white flour (use 1 1/2 cups first, add the remaining 1/2 cup if dough is too sticky)
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1 tablespoon yeast
Put all ingredients in a heavy duty mixing bowl, lock in place and mix slowly until moist, if you have a kitchen aide type of mixer like I do beat on medium for about 5 minutes or longer. Tip out of bowl onto a floured surface and knead the dough for about 5 minutes longer – do not knead in too much flour – this dough was not sticky but nearly. Grease a large bowl and put dough in the bowl letting the bottom get greased, turn over so the other side is greased also.
Let dough rise in a warm area (I let mine rise in the oven – do not turn heat on – what I do is boil some water on the stove top and pour water into a large shallow bowl and place on the bottom rack of the oven – this keeps the oven warm and the dough rises nicely). Let the dough rise for about 1 hour or until double in bulk. Punch the dough down and shape into a loaf – I just do a round circle and place on a cookie sheet – you could do regular loaves if you want. Let the dough rise until nearly doubled and bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped on the underside.
My bread (with a couple slices taken off of one end I forgot to take a photo immediately).
The other day I was telling you all about the bomb threats in our local small town area. I think we finished a 10 day period with 3 bomb threats at the local Wal-Mart, one at the court house, one at a neighboring small town Wal-Mart and one at their junior high school. So far no one knows who did it. I was talking to my mother about the bomb threats at Wal-Mart and she brought up a subject that I had not thought of before. She thought of it because she gets her hair cut and permed at her local Wal-Mart in the hair salon. What happens when you are in a beauty shop that is part of a store like Wal-Mart and the store needs to be evacuated? Of course you have to leave BUT what happens to your hair if you are in the process of hair dye and/or perming. Timing is essential!! Chemicals have to be rinsed or shampooed out of your hair after a certain period of time. I must say the day I was at the store I never even glanced over to the beauty shop so I didn’t notice any women (or men) running out of the store with hair dye dripping down their faces or perm solution and little curlers all over the place. But really what do you do? Hair dye has to stay in for a certain period of time in order for it to process correctly – if rinsed out too early you might be left with orange hair (ask me how I know this! ) I’m not sure about perm solution, maybe if rinsed out too early you just don’t have a perm. Anyway this got me curious about the whole situation.
So what do you think happens? Do salons have an agreement with other beauty shops in the area for situations like this – emergency – please help my customer? Or do you have to run home and try to take care of it yourself?
What do you think happens or should happen?
by Karen on December 12, 2008
in quilts
Finally finished the Mariners Compass quilt that I designed and hand quilted. It is 107 inches square. At times I didn’t think I was ever going to finish it while working on too many other projects. It was on the quilting frame for 11 months! The whole quilt from piecing to quilting took about 220 hours. Here I am with my quilt, my friend Julie hid behind the quilt so as not to get her photo taken
(I just now tried to take a close up photo of the quilting stitches but couldn’t get one because of the black quilt, the red stitches won’t show up on a photo, I guess I do not have a good enough camera. The quilting is not fancy stitch design, mainly just straight lines in all the borders)
We were out of town most of the day so I didn’t get a chance to do any sewing until this evening and I got the binding finished on the big Mariner’s Compass!! what a job, I think it took about six to seven hours from start to finish putting that binding on over the last couple of days. I am so glad the last stitch was taken on that quilt – lets see about 10 minutes ago I will wash it tomorrow to get all the chalk marks out of it and then see about getting a decent photo on Friday at the quilt group when I can have someone help hold it up and another to take a photo.
I was trying to think what would be interesting to post and my husband reminded me of two things that have happened in the last couple days. So here goes. On Monday I was shopping at Wal-Mart and had my cart half full when the intercom announced for everyone to leave the store promptly, leave your cart where it was and get out of the store, at the same time the store workers were going up and down the rows of the store telling people the same thing. Well I didn’t ask questions, I left my cart where it was and got out of the store, police cars were all over the place telling people to leave the area so I headed to my car and left. I could see people still standing around talking and knew that parking lot was going to be a mess by time all those people decided or were told to leave at the same time. I drove by later to see if anything was going on (this was after I went to a different grocery store to get my grocery’s) the roads leading to the store were blocked off and police were directing everyone away from the store. Here I will mention that a week before there had been a bomb threat at the store and it was closed for 2 hours while the police investigated – no bomb was found. The next day a bomb threat was at the court house and the bank across the street was robbed. In a neighboring town 25 miles to the west a bomb threat at the Wal-Mart there. Now today I read in the newspaper that it was indeed another bomb threat the day I was at the store and yesterday I believe a bomb threat at the junior high school in the other town! Wow – I think someone doesn’t like Wal-Mart – it has not been determined if the bomb threat at the junior high and at the court house are related incidents and do not know if the bank robbery was a coincidence or part of it.
Let me state that I wasn’t the least bit worried or afraid when asked to leave the store, I guess I assumed it was another bomb threat like the previous as I had heard about it. I really didn’t think there was one. This is a small town and really I don’t think someone would really plant a bomb here – I hope not anyhow – but I followed the rules and got out — now some other people you wouldn’t believe the conversations I was overhearing on my way out of the store – several people close up to the cash registers were all but demanding to be checked out as they were ready to buy their items – what if there really had been a bomb, they wouldn’t have just been putting their own lifes on the line but the workers they were arguing with as well!
Before all this happened I had been at the customer service area making a return of an item my husband had purchased a day or two before that hadn’t worked out. I was standing in line and it was a bit of a wait, there was a very old lady at the head of the line and she was trying to return something without a reciept. In this store there is a rule I guess that you are only allowed a certain amount of returns without a reciept and she was over the amount. She was trying very hard to get them to change their minds, she must have been 80 years old or more, very hunched over, skinny as could be, old clothes, hardly looked like she had a dime to her name, she just about had tears coming down her face. We could all overhear the conversion. I was really feeling sorry for her and was getting my wallet out to check and see how much cash I had as I was about ready to offer her the money she needed to get the correct item she needed (I will tell you I am not usually a sucker for sob stories!) she was telling them she had no more money for the month, well they continued to tell her sorry but rules were rules – when boy did she change – she straightened up, no longer had tears in her eyes and this helpless old lady turned into a vicious witch (I was going to say a word starting with a B but I will be nice in case it offends anyone ) before my eyes!!! LOL you would not have believed the change in this old lady – I put my wallet away as she was calling the store workers every dirty name in the book. I have a feeling this was a scam she has tried numerous times to get money and most likely the item she was trying to return was not even bought in this store and if not she really didn’t need to be so foul mouthed as the store workers were only following their rules – they work there they do not run the place!
Can you believe this is the Christmas season – whatever happened to peace and harmony!
Four days ago I placed an order with an on-line store that is going out of business, I mentioned it a couple days ago. Here is link to the store. I got my fabric already – very fast service. http://www.gonequilting.com/ Here is a picture of what I got (the yellow fabric was already in my stash but is the same fabric line and will be used with these two large pieces and that is way it is placed with them) – the total price for all this fabric ( I think it was 8 yards total) was $20.00!!!
Here is an interesting new blog – in my opinion – it is from my sister in law and her mom. http://emz-pineypost.blogspot.com/ It is new. It has to do with all sorts of things pertaining to history, cooking ect. they are both quilters so maybe a little of that subject will come into play as well. You might want to check it out if you have time. I have added it to my blogroll on the side bar.
