The Beast

      Life contains beasts in our lives.  Feelings, situations, and objects in our life that hold difficulty.  I have a number of them circling around me.  One beast obviously is the beast of mourning my son.  This beast and a few others I am not ready to discuss.  Feelings and situations are tough to talk about; I will leave those for another day.  Instead, I will talk about an object.

When my mother died, she left  four sewing machines.  A friend asked for her ancient machine which I was happy to give to her.  One we put in the rummage sale.  No one bought it.  My cousin asked about it, so I gave it to her.  The machine was almost ancient.  The other two I kept for myself.  The first, an inexpensive, lightweight Singer, is the machine I have been using for the past couple of months.  There are no bells and whistles on this machine, straightforward and very simple.  The last machine, well let’s just say, I have been avoiding the beast.  One look at the price tag scared the crap out of me.  This thing has a computer in it.  Uff da.

 

In November, I brought the beast out of the closet to look at and contemplate.  When Michel died, I put it back in the writing room to get it out of the way of all the company that came in waves.  Well, two weeks ago, my left arm ached when I woke up.  Tying knots in quilts flared my autoimmune issues.  I needed to rest for a day and not tie so many knots.  The time off from projects was the perfect opportunity to learn about the machine.

I couldn’t find many YouTube videos about the Elna Pro Quilter’s Dream.  One woman did have a video on her regular Elna that gave me the courage to turn mine on.  I grabbed the instruction manual and took a good thirty minutes just figuring out all the feet for the bloody beast.  Finally, I grabbed some strips of fabric and began sewing.  Oh, what a dream!!!  The fabric stays straight.  There is a speed control on the foot pedal.  Amazing.  I hummed away for a good couple of days just sewing fabric together.

This last week, I became braver.  I started playing with the embroidery options.  I grabbed the first quilt square I ever sewed and decided to quilt that into a wall hanging on the beast.  What fun.  I programmed the machine to sew little flowers.  I also used one of the vine leaf options to put a little more detail into the project.  I had fun.

 

Now, to use up all of Mom’s pieces and parts, I have a lot of big quilts that I will need to either quilt or tie.  I like the tying options for a lot of reasons.  First, the distance between the knots keeps the quilt fluffy instead of stiff.  Also, trying to maneuver all that fabric around in a sewing machine is complicated and bulky.  If I go to a long arm shop, I will be spending a lot of money to rent a machine.  I mean, I don’t mind on a special project, but the majority of what I will be doing is scrap quilts.  I needed a solution.  I found one.  On my second twin block quilt, I embroidered little designs where I would have put a knot.  I made a few mistakes and I chose a design that went crazy from time to time, but I like the results just the same. 

 

I will continue to work on this technique along with the stitch in the ditch on strip quilts.  I learned a lot in the last two weeks about the beast.  I have a bunch more to learn, but we have begun the taming process.  I am excited to continue with all the projects set before me.  Together the beast and I will carry on a long family tradition.  Well, at least I know Grandma Nixon, Jerry’s Grandma Richard, Aunt Ellen, and Mom have done quilting.  I will continue.

Experience

 

Over the weekend, I met with two friends.  As we were talking, I about quilting, one of them asked about my experience at quilting.  She was wondering how I could just jump into all these projects of my mom’s and get stuff done so quickly.  I told her in some instances most of the work was already done.  I laughed when she gave me her look.  She tends to think I don’t give myself enough credit.  That might be a discussion for another day.  At any rate, I realized I probably hadn’t mentioned my past experience here in the blog.

I don’t remember my mother even not having a sewing project.  She may not have sat down to the sewing machine for days on end or finished a project on time, but she had projects galore.  When I was little, she didn’t have the patience to teach me.  In junior high, our home economics teacher taught a unit in sewing.  I was so excited.  We went to the Eureka Mercantile to pick out fabric and a pattern for a simple blouse.  I chose a flowered lavender print.  The fun ended there.

The teacher taught me one way of sewing.  Then my mother would rant and rave about the terrible techniques and made me fix everything.  By the time I finished that project, I hated it with a passion.  I also hated sewing.  I went back to being a daddy’s girl and chopped wood.  I didn’t take another sewing class in school.  I was never going to be a sewer.  Kind of funny when I look back at the whole situation.

Moving forward, I believe my mother-in-law gave me her old machine when the boys were little.  I was interested in quilting.  I loved the artistry of quilting.  I love shapes and colors.  I went home the next summer and my mom taught me the basic fundamentals of sewing a straight line and cutting fabric.  I am not sure what year this was, but I do know that when we moved to Helena, I did start sewing with a purpose.

From about 1998 to 2002, I sewed when I had time.  Of course, being a mom of two busy boys, working fulltime, and Guard weekends, I didn’t have a lot of time, but I would spend an entire weekend here and there doing nothing but sewing.  I loved it.  The problem is I never learned how to finish a quilt.  I also didn’t learn how to do the quilting part to any real extent.  I played with a little free motion stitching and stitch in a ditch on scraps.  In 2001, my sister-in-law was expecting her first baby.  I was so excited.  A baby quilt was the exact thing I needed to learn how to do everything.  The quilt is in my closet only partially done.  Little Eric only lived for a few minutes after being born early.  Soon after that, I found myself expecting.  I gave my sewing room to Madelle and packed everything away until this past summer.  I had accomplished one quilt face, numerous quilt blocks, a millennial quilt kit, and Eric’s unfinished quilt.  That was it.

Once I learned how to put on a binding and knot a quilt on Youtube this summer, I was able to fly with all of the projects.  Of course, the learning curve took me a bit through September.  Once I finished my first quilt, I have quite a lot of confidence in the simple quilting.  I don’t know how long it would take me to have to cut fabric into the right pieces and do an entire quilt from start to finish.  I do know that with Mom’s cut fabric and all the work she has done on so many, for this first little while, I will be able to get projects done rather quickly.  Well, until spring when I spend a lot of time playing outside.

So that is my experience and background. And here is my next finished project.  I found 50 sewn blocks in Mom’s stash.  I laid them out on the bed.  To use all 50, the quilt would have been enormous.  Instead, I decided to make two lap quilts out of the blocks.  Here is the first one.  I tied the quilt, so it went rather quickly.  I will do a different technique on the second one and discuss that when it is finished.

 

I am also excited that I have accomplished my list for January.  I was hoping to get two wall hangings and two quilts done.  Yay, I did it.  Anything else I accomplish will be binding on the quilt.

A Map of Misadventures

 

Every now and then, a gift of epic proportions is given.  Yesterday, Clay came home to visit.  He tends to order Christmas presents a couple days before an occasion and they come in afterwards.  When he told me he was bringing presents, I thought he got me a cool new cribbage board because he said we had talked about the gift before.  Nope, I was so surprised to receive a map of the world with pushpins to put in the places I have traveled.  I have always thought this was a fun idea, but I never wanted to spend money on such a thing, so what a perfect gift.  Of course, now all I can think of is traveling.

Last year, my sister and I talked about going to South Carolina.  I also planned to travel to New Mexico to see the White Sands for a book project.  This year, I planned to travel to Ireland with family in June.  Instead, my mother died and COVID shut down travel.  I don’t see Ireland anything opening anytime soon.  Ugh.  We do have a contingent plan to go to San Antonio for Madelle’s trip.

I look at my new map and wonder when I will be able to add another pin.  This fall I want to go to South Carolina, but will our country even be ready for such an adventure?  I still want to see the White Sands in New Mexico.  Well, I want to see all sorts of stuff, but these areas are the next on my list.  We still want to go to Ireland.  Italy and Norway are calling for me to visit.  I am getting impatient to go, go, go.

I just had a thought.  How obnoxious will it be to travel when the authorities open the flood gates?  The tourist places are going to be packed even more than normal.  Heavy sigh!  I won’t let that stop me.  As soon as COVID doesn’t run our lives, I will book flights for at least me and Madelle for Ireland.  My 54^th or 55^th birthday will be spent in Italy.  This year I will at least go to the Grand Tetons.  I will see something new!  Okay, maybe I will only make it to Garnet Ghost Town.

I had intended this to be a fun post about a fun gift.  Now I just want to jump in my truck and drive.  I am so ready to play, to run away.  Last week, I took a leap and bought me and my sister tickets to the Avett Brothers concert in July.  Madelle and I agreed we will attempt Texas in June, even if we have to drive.  Clay is game for the trip too.  Sure, I have been to Missoula and San Antonio in the past, but I haven’t heard the Avett Brothers in person.  I also haven’t seen everything there is to see in San Antonio.  Besides, there is the Phil Factor.  Cousin Phil lives there, and Madelle has adored him since she was little.  We were going to go see him last year.  This year it will happen.

I am determined.  I will have fun this year!!!  On the map, Clay had engraved “the Misadventure Of The Great And Powerful Lisa Nixon Richard.”  Watch out.  The misadventures will take place.

Freezer Bag Quilt

 

After Christmas, I turned back to my quilting projects.  I have found with quilting that I like having projects at different stages.  At times I fear I am getting as obnoxious as my mom.  The jury is still out about that.  Anyway, I can’t spend an entire day tying knots because my hands hurt after a long period of time.  Thus, I have a knotting project in one room.  In the other room, I use my sewing machine on the latest project.  Since I can go from one to the other, I am making pretty good time.

 

 

This wall hanging is a bit hilarious.  When I threw it in an unfinished box, the quilting fluff was showing; yet, a sleeve had been sewn on to hang the piece.  I pulled it out to put the binding on.  I cut some black fabric that I had to buy.  I cut all the edges.  At some point during all of this, I flipped it over.  Mom had sewn a tag on the back that said it was finished in 1995.  I realized the quilt fluff was supposed to be the spider webbing.  Opps.  At this point I had already blocked it.  Jerry and Madelle didn’t like Mom’s look, so I continued to bind the edges.  I did work that didn’t need done.  Oh well.  Now it is nice and tidy. 

 

The Valentine wall hanging had me a pit nervous.  A needle and thread had been placed in the spot Mom had left off hand stitching.  When I decided I need to face my fear of hand stitching, I realized I needed to finish up the edge of two blocks and two hearts.  I knew my stitches wouldn’t look as good as Mom’s.  I turned on my music and began the job.  Low and behold, a person would have to look hard to find the differences between our stitches.  I am not that bad at hand stitching.  I won’t earn any prices, but I can hold my own.

 

 

This quilt will always make me laugh.  I call it the freezer bag quilt.  When I began unpacking and going through Mom’s unfinished projects, I was organizing cut fabric, quilt blocks, projects that needed quilted, projects that needed binding, and put the in-between throughout the mix.  Well, as my pile of cut strips of fabric grew and grew, I became extremely overwhelmed.  When I filled an entire section of my area to keep the strips, I pulled out a gallon freezer bag filled with strips.

 

 

I almost felt like burning everything right then and there.  I needed to feel I was making progress.  I opened the bag and grabbed two strips of fabric and sewed them together at the ends.  I kept adding pieces with the same technique that I used for Jerry’s quilt.  Within a couple of days, I had the entire face of the quilt.  All of it came from a freezer bag and I used all the fabric except a couple of strips of Raggedy Andy and Ann fabric.  Of course, I worried because it was crazy long. 

Well, the quilt ended up being meant for Clay.  He is 6.3 or 6.4.  At Christmas, he complained about short blankets.  The other day he came home.  He tested the newly finished quilt.  A perfect fit!  He took the quilt home to Belgrade.  I couldn’t be happier that it went to him.  Yay.  Now for my next quilt to finish.

I added Leo because he is so cute.

At the moment, I am working on twin quilts.  I am tying one and will start the other to tie soon.  I have another I am designing from scraps of strips of material.  I also have a wall hanging sitting out that I am contemplating.  Hopefully soon, I will be able to post those as finished.  Until then, I have to get back to work.