Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[Sunshine]

Beckums, I found the tablecloth my grandmother crocheted. It has turned a bit yellow. I don't want to bleach it. But I would like to make it a bit whiter. Do you have any suggestion on how to whiten something that old. It is older than me. Which is pretty damn old.

I'm not afraid to put it in my washer because I have a front loader. Can wash the most delicate things with no worry.


BTW, my yellow butterfly came back today, but my camera was in the car! Sheesh.

Lay it out in the sun, that's the way people used to bleach things in the old days.

Probably will have to wait until summer to do it.

For sure here! It's rainy today. I've been entering photos in a contest and they can't be enhanced or have anything done other than cropping. Color saturation is better when the sun is not out. So, I'm taking a stab at it today. Prolly won't see any wildlife, though.

 

[koshergrl]

I live in a place where clover, buttercups, daisies, lillies and even tiny orchids grow wild.

Clover, I learned this year when I purchased a community garden spot that I have yet to touch, is a great winter cover for raised beds as it enriches the soil with nitrogen! Who knew!

 

[koshergrl]

Ladyslipper:

Native Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian Rockies: Three Native Orchids in the Northern California Siskiyous

 

[freedombecki]

Another year, no trick or treaters. We're just too far out in the sticks and live too far off the road. This is our 5th Halloween, not one.

Well, this year, we didn't buy candy, either.

Today was spent shopping for soup. We're going to start eating soup at lunch instead of going out.

Also, a new Hobby Lobby opened, so I went to check out its embroidery department to see what was new. They had a nice quilt department, but there's no need for fabric in this household!

I bought plastic flat bobbins for winding embroidery thread on loosely. I purchased some on ebay that were already on bobbins. They were wound so tightly, they made little angles at 1.25" intevals, so I was careful to wind stuff this morning very loosely so that won't happen, and Hobby Lobby had very reasonably priced box containers to put my collection in.

Well, Good night to all. Hope everybody had a fun Halloween!

​

May God's angels watch over the children, and may everyone's loved ones be well and have a safe and happy winter as Old Man Winter visits the USA. Be careful on ice if you live in cold country!

​

 

[BDBoop]

Another year, no trick or treaters. We're just too far out in the sticks and live too far off the road. This is our 5th Halloween, not one.

Well, this year, we didn't buy candy, either.

Today was spent shopping for soup. We're going to start eating soup at lunch instead of going out.

Also, a new Hobby Lobby opened, so I went to check out its embroidery department to see what was new. They had a nice quilt department, but there's no need for fabric in this household!

I bought plastic flat bobbins for winding embroidery thread on loosely. I purchased some on ebay that were already on bobbins. They were wound so tightly, they made little angles at 1.25" intevals, so I was careful to wind stuff this morning very loosely so that won't happen, and Hobby Lobby had very reasonably priced box containers to put my collection in.

Well, Good night to all. Hope everybody had a fun Halloween!

​

May God's angels watch over the children, and may everyone's loved ones be well and have a safe and happy winter as Old Man Winter visits the USA. Be careful on ice if you live in cold country!

​

My best friend can't go anywhere near those places. She says there's some vacuum thing that sucks her in the door and all the money out of her pockets. Then it throws her out on the sidewalk with two bags, and no recollection of the past three hours.

She believes they are alien in origin.

 

[freedombecki]

Well, I usually have a list that serves as "shopper's blinders" if used well. The bad deal about that was that instead of getting to see the whole store, I only got to see the small areas they avail to the art of embroidery. I did find a dozen Jack Dempsy quilt squares of sunbonnet girls, but don't know when I'll have the time to do them. The reason I will never go back to this particular Hobby Lobby is because they don't give you the discount their signs say, and I didn't find it out until I left. If it happens on your first experience, that's all you'll ever get out of those people. Their thread prices on DMC thread is noncompetitive as well. Too bad! The exercise was good. I slept like a rock last night. I'm cured of shopping, though. It's flu season, and restaurants and big stores are where you get it after your children are grown and gone.

 

[freedombecki]

Ladyslipper:

Native Orchids of the Pacific Northwest and the Canadian Rockies: Three Native Orchids in the Northern California Siskiyous

Those are totally fabulous, koshergrl! What fun it must be to walk in the places where wildflowers grow and get to see things few people ever get to see. Thanks for sharing.

I have to confess, though--being able to do those French knots right with your instruction has helped me not dread doing Lazy Daisies. My own mistakes taught me not to add extras, either, but I have to throughout the next 6 butterfly blocks I will be doing in the near future. I'm almost done with the squares for the weird little quilt that arrived with miscellaneous blocks repeated 3 times, and one set of only one kind. There will be twelve, but they won't make sense. The lady either used pastel embroidery thread provided for her or by instructions that were separated from her work before she gave it up. While I love pastels, working them drives me up a wall. I have to have a few hues thrown in. Color should be a celebration, and it's fun to make it that way with quilts.

Hope everyone has a blessed day as Nov. 1 is All Saints' Day (aka All Hallows).

 

[freedombecki]

Today was a boring day. I filled the remainder of the box of embroidery bobbins with more winding for the whole day. It probably took all day just to wind 30 or so bobbins, too tired to go back and count. Tomorrow, will start on another box. Ho hummity hum! I have to do this. It's just crazy trying to keep threads in order if you have no system, and up until yesterday it wasn't an issue. Today, I can actually see my makeshift serger-table-converted-to-computer-table top. It's brown woodgrain, even!

Prayers up for Sunshine for getting through her medical stuff today. It takes a lot of rest afterwards, I know. My sweetie helped do dishes today. He works well under constant supervision, but if I had his problems, I probably would too. He helps me not pity him sometimes by maintaining a brave front. If I forget to persuade him to help, life isn't very much fun at our house, so I try to find reasons to get him to do anything at all, even if I have to stop everything and just work him through every move, and reminding him what he's doing about 4 times a minute, and that is no exaggeration. Dementia is a cruel partner for a man to have strapped on him. I pray for all those who have gone through this with any of their loved ones.

I would like to wind up my winding bee tomorrow, but from the look at that pile of threads, I'm looking at probably 3 days of full-time winding plus another day to sort out and deal with at least a hundred loose threads from the butterflies project and this children's one I'm on the 12th square. There will be 4 squares left, and I think I will use those squares to remind myself how to do embroidery with the sewing machine. My Pfaff had basic and elaborate stitches. I loved doing redwork on it with a double Holbein stitch, or a machine-made stem stitch that looks like hand done. That's why I loved that machine so. If you didn't like the way perfect looked, you could program in human short and long stitches that make you look like a novice, but a determined novice, and it really does look hand-done.

Winding down for the evening. God bless you every one.

 

[freedombecki]

No winding yet today, although I was readying when I noticed the one block that had been sitting there, the doggie's clown hat unfinished for 2 or 3 days. The work took the lion's share of time today, and it is yet to be finished. So here's the block that someone else did (first, and below is the progress made on the clown doggie square.

Also, the day after Sunshine said she saw a yellow butterfly flitting about, one flew by the fence here so all that was to be had was a glimpse. Ours seemed even more bright than this one (3rd picture):

 

[freedombecki]

Thinking of @Mr. H. ~

I wonder, Mr. H. Did you ever go after that quilt at the antique place? ~ Not a clairvoyant here ~

 

[freedombecki]

Wow, it's a soft sunrise this morning, and a small lake cloud is edging its way north on something like Carl Sandburg's little cat's feet. Very lovely. *sigh*

 

[freedombecki]

I now have in my possession 12 completed children squares, even though 4 of them are repetitions, to make a toddler quilt. I will have to intersperse my dark ones between the original pink-and-purple-pastel embroideries and try to separate the same blocks. Not sure what this will look like, maybe just little colorful 1.25" finished postage stamps would look best to decorate the sash areas of the quilt to make it slightly larger so it will last through the child's toddler years. This may not be the best child's embroidered quilt ever made...

But I learned a few things about embroidering, although that may not show up for a couple of quilts.

Here's the final square:

 

[Sunshine]

No winding yet today, although I was readying when I noticed the one block that had been sitting there, the doggie's clown hat unfinished for 2 or 3 days. The work took the lion's share of time today, and it is yet to be finished. So here's the block that someone else did (first, and below is the progress made on the clown doggie square.

Also, the day after Sunshine said she saw a yellow butterfly flitting about, one flew by the fence here so all that was to be had was a glimpse. Ours seemed even more bright than this one (3rd picture):

Thanks. The yellow butterfly came back and I tried to get a pic. But never really got a new one. I do have some of those geese I will post for you later. One of them may inspire you for a quilt.

 

[Sunshine]

Here you go as promised:


The baby geese were all over the lake where I was shooting. I could only get them in 'clumps.'



And here are the grown ones. The dock is only about half mile away, I may go back
this evening.

 

[BDBoop]

You're both hovering at ending in '98.' This irks me.

 

[freedombecki]

Here you go as promised:


The baby geese were all over the lake where I was shooting. I could only get them in 'clumps.'



And here are the grown ones. The dock is only about half mile away, I may go back
this evening.

Oh, my goodness are those cute babies or what?

The parents are nice, too! No wonder they're so demanding! They know they're movie star material and deserve obeisance!

 

[Sunshine]

You're both hovering at ending in '98.' This irks me.

Someone bumped me up. But I can't bump becki up because I'm shut down for the day, I think.

 

[BDBoop]

You're both hovering at ending in '98.' This irks me.

Someone bumped me up. But I can't bump becki up because I'm shut down for the day, I think.

Same. Oh well. I'm half relieved.

 

[freedombecki]

You're both hovering at ending in '98.' This irks me.

Someone bumped me up. But I can't bump becki up because I'm shut down for the day, I think.

Same. Oh well. I'm half relieved.

Don't worry, girls. A real dreamboat guy just bumped me.

Uh, that didn't sound just right... I meant, hmm...

 

[BDBoop]

Someone bumped me up. But I can't bump becki up because I'm shut down for the day, I think.

Same. Oh well. I'm half relieved.

Don't worry, girls. A real dreamboat guy just bumped me.

Uh, that didn't sound just right... I meant, hmm...

Uh-huh.