Truth or Consequences

Hello?  knock, knock, knock. 

Can you hear me? 

I’ve had laryngitis - can you hear me now?  Actually, that’s a big, fat lie.  I don’t have laryngitis.  So why haven’t I been talking to you?  Sadly, I broke all 10 of my fingers and have been unable to type.  Oops, another big, fat lie.  I am on a roll.  How about this one – Joe Mauer FINALLY called and I’ve had front row seats to all the baseball games.  You’re not believing that one either are  you?  Whatever.  I’m just trying to share with you and all I get is disbelief!

Life has been busy down on the farm.  Do  you remember how much whining I did last fall because it wouldn’t quit raining and we were digging machinery out of the fields on a daily basis?  OK, that’s another sorta lie because when I say “we”, I don’t mean that I, myself, actually had anything to do with the digging.  Ya see?  I did the watching and they did the digging in the mud.  That translates into “we”. 

OK, moving on, it’s now Spring in farm country and aren’t we happy about that?  Not only because we are happy to say goodbye to Mr. Winter, but because maybe all my previous whining has done some good.  It’s been an early spring and a dry one which makes all the Mr. & Mrs. Farmer’s around here happy little farmers. And believe me, farmers are almost never happy.  It’s either too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold.  And then there’s the price of wheat – which is what hubs will mention when I want to buy a new pair of shoes…………………But many of the crops are in the ground and some are peeking up making the black fields look kinda fuzzy green.  It’s a good thing.

So, on to the good stuff.  Pictures.  It’s been so long that I can barely remember what I’ve done or who I’ve done it with.  (get your mind out of the gutter, it sounded better in my head than it did after I wrote it.  Honestly, I have neither done anything nor done anything with anyone.  Huh?)  I’m talking about Loose Threads and Woolies.  See, that’s part of the problem – there are 2 groups of really wonderful, talented women that I hang with (I am so BLESSED) and there are a couple gals who are in both groups.  This causes me to get all confused about which group I did what with.  I can’t help it, I’m really old (please don’t tell Joe!  Ok, this “Joe business” is getting really old.  I’m going to quit it now ‘cuz it’s not funny any more.  You knew it was funny, right?)

Did I mention pictures?  We had Loose Threads at Marlene’s house.  We had arranged to have some Quilts of Valor quilts on hand that needed to have bindings sewn on.  Here are some of the finished ones:

This one above with the flags was designed by one of those talented friends I mentioned – Ms. Denise.   

Oh, silly me the one above is a Ms. Denise pattern too.  It was the striped fabric that made it really cute and my picture doesn’t do it justice.

Ms. D “might have” designed the above also but on the other hand, maybe not.  Sorry, senior moment.

 

 

Aren’t these great?  These are quilts that go to emotionally or physically wounded veterans.  It’s a wonderful story chock-full of wonderful people on both ends of the giving/receiving process.  Our local group leaves on Monday for Ft. Knox and I will give you their blog address then so you can read all about it.  I’m so proud of all the QOV women – 600 quilts are headed for Kentucky!  Just AMAZING!!

We had some great show & tell at Threads too so let me share some of that too:

Carole made a darling quilt from a children’s panel.  Have any of you noticed that when working with those panels that they are not square nor do they leave any extra space so that you have room for a seam allowance?  Ah, just a little pet peeve.  It was really cute Carole:

Connie was gone part of the winter but just look at what she finished.  Well, kind of……these 2 little miniature tops are done & ready to quilt.  Don’t you love em?  Did you notice the binding-stitcher in the background just furiously working?  (Ms. Judy) 

Little quilts are very labor intensive, but take a gander at this “little labor intensive labor of love”……

Yes, it’s the dreaded king-sized quilt!  Was it 9 yards of fabric for the back, Connie?  It was gorgeous and again, my picture does not do it justice.

Well, lookee-see.  More bindings being sewn down – Carole & Lori.

 This is the last one.  Judy’s mother is doing the embroidery for a quilt hanging that Judy will put together.  Her mother is well into her 80’s and look what a wonderful job she does with a needle.  I want to be like her when I grow up! 

By the way, did you notice the new picture I put up on the blog header?  I told you it’s been an early spring – don’t my flowers look great? 

Oh, you caught me, that’s another big, fat lie.  Those flowers are from last summer. 

This is now:

Well, I’m off to look for my bottle of “truth serum”.  Not that I have a problem…………….

Ms. Faye

A Child of 5

Last week I was finishing up a quilt top at home for Quilts of Valor.  It is their tradition that a matching pillowcase is made that will hold the finished quilt.  It makes a great presentation. 

I have been a sewer all my life.  I got my 1st sewing machine at age 9. 

 

It was a Singer, made to attach to a table with a clamp and it made a simple chain stitch by turning the crank.  It was a great machine even tho it was pretty hard to go fast – you needed to make one revolution of the crank for every stitch made.  That was a LOT of little circles.  Maybe I should use that machine more – good exercise for the arms that want to flap in the breeze.  Ahem.  Anyway, my 1st project was an apron.  By the time I was a teenager, I was sewing most of my clothes then sewed for my home and for our children.  I’m just sayin’.  This old gal has been around the block when it comes to sewing.

But I couldn’t figure out the directions for how to sew the pillowcase.  I read it, re-read it and read it again.  I tried doing it step by step and still I couldn’t make it work for me.  Now of course I could sew a pillowcase, but I did want to make it like their others have been made. 

IT WAS ONLY A STUPID PILLOWCASE!!!   A child of 5 could plainly understand this.  I needed to send for a child of 5.  I couldn’t find one.  So, I had to bite the bullet and ask Ms. Penny to show me how it’s done.  (I told her my friend wanted to know…………can’t let her know I’m that stupid……)  Well, the light bulb came on and it could hardly have been easier.  Obviously I wasn’t reading the directions in the same language in which they were written! 

I have a winner for the little spring pillow:

I asked Mr. Picket Fence to choose a number between 1 and 19 and he came up with #9 and that’s Marie in North Carolina.  If you email me your address Marie, I will put the pillow right in the mail to you. 

Happy Spring to All!

Ms. Faye

Do YOU have a plan???

I plan to discuss the Wooly Girls “meeting”.  As I’ve told you before, I use the term “meeting” very, very loosely.  When people get together and talk, it’s a meeting, isn’t it?  Let’s go with that. 

We had a productive Wooly meeting yesterday.  We’re not always productive but we have made a resolution to become more so.  We sewed bindings yesterday for QOV.  Let me give you some background. 

QOV is Quilts of Valor.  It is a national organization committed to presenting our wounded soldiers with a quilt upon their return from war.   One of the 3 organizers of our local chapter is one of the Wooly Girls!  Miss Penny is our hero (as are non-Wooly Girls Ms. Gail and Ms. Paulette).  They meet once a month at the local mall where they have been given space to set up shop and leave their equipment all the time.    Ladies just drop in as they wish and can cut or sew or press or sew bindings – whatever.  But those 3 gals keep everything organized. 

Grab a Kleenex ‘cuz this will touch  you – one of our friends has a son who returned from the war and was given a quilt.  A short time later, our friend asked him where his quilt was.  Well, a soldier buddy of his had also returned and not yet received a quilt so he gave him his quilt “because, Mom, he needed it more than I do.”  This is the part where we all grabbed the Kleenex – we were all bawling like babies.  (He will be receiving another quilt!!!)

Continuing with the story – our local chapter of QOV as well as a neighboring town have been invited to take a bus  in May along with 400 of their finished quilts to Ft. Knox where they will have the opportunity to present some of those quilts to wounded soldiers on an individual basis.  Do you think there will be any dry eyes?  

So now you know the QOV story (condensed version) and now it should make sense to  you why we were sewing bindings yesterday at Wooly Girls.   We were able to finish up 3 quilt bindings.  In order to help the gals reach their goal of 400, we’ll be sewing at my house in 2 weeks for an all-day session.  I can’t wait.

A little show & tell to report – darn little really.  We (some of us anyway) are in a slump.  But Mrs. Farmhouse was working on a couple stitcheries that are just too dang cute!!

And our ever versatile Ms. Jean showed us a really darling sweater vest with a hood that she knit for a niece.  How cute is that?

Ms. Penny put us to shame with a quilt she made just because she wanted to.  Didn’t know we could make & keep!  Or, wait, maybe she’ll be giving it to me for some reason.  No??? 

This morning the trees in our yard looked like this: 

 

Once the sun came out, it was a great day.  We went over 20 degrees F. and you could just feel spring in the air.  I’m not kidding you southern people – it felt balmy.  It’ll be quite a while before spring actually arrives but at least we now have HOPE. 

Just had to throw in a shot of Mr. Baxter helping Mr. Picket Fence blow snow from the driveway.  He’s awfully good help – & I’m awfully glad to get them both  out of the house.

 

Now I’m going to tell you my “plan”.  The Mr. & I will pop over to Florida next Month to watch some spring training baseball games featuring “our” team, the Minnesota Twins.  In a previous blog, I told you about the (non)relationship I have with my favorite player on the Twins roster – Joe Mauer.  Here’s a picture of Joe’s reaction last summer when I waved my hanky and hello’d him.

What do you mean, you can’t see his reaction?  Well, you weren’t there and I saw what I saw.  Maybe it was, I saw what I wanted to see.  In any case, the stadium in Florida only seats 7,500.  Very intimate.  So I’m  hoping to resume my relationship with Joe.  I did mention to Mr. Picket Fence that maybe I have a couple too many years and a couple too many pounds on me to do a good job of attracting Joe’s attention or any of the other ball players.  How am I going to make this work, I asked him?  He solemnly replied, “get him drunk”.  Well, dang.  Why didn’t I   think of that?  Now I have a plan. 

Wish me luck.

Ms. Faye