Clocks, Clocks and more Clocks!!!

A couple of years ago, DH decided to take a clock repair class at the local community college. He was looking for something to piddle on during the long winter evenings when it gets too dark to work outside. Little did I know what a path this would lead us down.

First, we had to find an old, dirty antique clock that he could take to class. I really liked this part. We spent the entire day wondering around in antique shops. I LOVE antique shops. I just had to re-train my eyes to look for clocks instead of quilts, quilt books, sewing machines or oil lamps. (Another of my favorite things) He finally found a clock that he liked at a price we could afford. It helped that the clock didn't work! This is the clock. Isn't it beautiful?




During the class, I learned all sorts of new terms and saw the need for new tools coming through the house. Very tiny little tools. He set up shop on his work desk in the basement. The kids were not allowed to go near the clock or the parts. One big sneeze and the little screws and washers would go flying!

Clock fixed and now rest on top of our entertainment center. It keeps good time and has a beautiful chime.

Next on the list of clocks to fix was a Cuckoo clock that had been my Great Aunts. I have no idea how old the clock is, there was no date in the back or on the works. I just know that it is at least 65 years old. It hadn't worked in 30 years that I know of. As a child I remembered the clock on the wall at my Great Aunt's house. I would sit and stare waiting on the little bird to come out and bob his head.



Anyway, 30 years in a box does take it's toll. The clock was dirty. Layers of dust, dirt and the nicotine from a smokers house made the little clock a big job. DH was up for the challenge. He spent endless hours in the basement cleaning and repairing this clock. The hands and numbers changed from the brown that I knew into a pretty creamy white. The wood from dull to shiny and clean. Now, my son has taken on the job of pulling the chains to wind the clock twice a day.

We now have 3 clocks in the family room. We found another at an auction that DH had to have. All going off each hour. We have gotten so used to them, we don't' hear them anymore.



What a wonderful path we have traveled down together.

Loving the old stuff,
Heritage Quilter

Will it ever be finished?

My mom taught me to quilt about 20 years ago. She started by teaching me to hand quilt before teaching me to hand piece. I'm glad she did. The project was finished and I had a nice wallhanging for my bedroom. This is mom handquilting a baby quilt for my cousin.

After learning to hand quilt the wall hanging, I made several baby quilts out of panels that I could just quilt by hand and give as gifts. If she had started with hand piecing, I still wouldn't have a quilt. Soon, I was ready to tackle piecing. Mom had several quilting magazines and books laying around for me to find the perfect quilt. And wouldn't you know it, as a newbi, I would pick a very labor intensive pattern. Pieced hearts and diamonds set on point with half diamonds all the way around the border. Each heart block has 39 patches and there are 20 of them. Each diamond has 22 patches and there are 12 of those. Then you add in the setting half diamonds. There are about 1400 patches in this quilt. This is one of the hearts.

Want to talk about a UFO, this is my big one! After about 15 years, I have completed all 20 of the heart blocks and 2 of the diamonds. But, I'm still working on it. I don't even like the fabric anymore. But when I need something to do that is portable that I can work on with my hands, this is still the one I reach for when I have nothing else going on.

Why don't I just let it go you ask? I don't even know the answer to that. I guess it is because it was my first attempt at picking a pattern, first attempt at picking out fabric and first attempt at hand piecing. NONE of which were very good back then. But I'll still try to make it right. Maybe in another 15 years, I'll get around to quilting it.

Post Op and $5 BOM

4 weeks ago today, I was released from the hospital after surgery. Everything went fine, just taking longer to recover than I expected. The doctor told me it would take weeks, but I thought I would be different. I'm not apparently. It took two weeks for me to even make it down the steps to the quilt cave. Talk about motivation. To keep a quilter away from her fabric is unthinkable. Even then, I couldn't stay for more than about an hour. A little cutting time, then a little time at the machine. I'm down there everyday now.

The first thing that I worked on was the $5 BOM from Sew Original in Winston Salem. This year, you could choose from 2 of 3 different color choices; black, blue or red. All are with white. Since I already have a black, white and red quilt (which you can see is my profile pic) I went with blue and red. But instead of a blue/white quilt and a red/white quilt, why not 2 red/white/blue quilts. One for each of my kids.

By switching just one fabric out of each kit, I will have one mostly blue quilt and one mostly red quilt. Here is a peek at the first months blocks. What do you think?

The Family Tree

My mother-in-law has traced her mother's, father's, and husband's family tree back as far as she can possibly go. This was her hobby until she just didn't have any more graveyards or court houses to visit. She had a dear friend who went with her on all of these excursions. They even found out that they were related when they searched old birth and death records. She spent years researching and documenting. The result is a very well put together book that gets updated every couple of years with each birth, death and marriage. Looking back at the old pictures and copies of the documents is like looking back in time.

What does all of this have to do with quilting you ask? Well, knowing my mother-in-laws love for family and documentation, what better way to honor her than with a quilt documenting her family.

The idea came about two years ago when my father-in-law became pretty ill. He's better now, back to 100%. Well as he got better and other quilts were circling in my head, it got moved to the back burner. The spark ignited again with the realization that my husband's brother was diagnoses with a terminal disease. I was afraid that I would loose a valuable piece of this quilt with the loose of a family member and my mother-in-law's quilt wouldn't be complete.

Each member of the family had a piece in this family tree quilt, their hand. A real life sized hand, traced onto fusible web. These hands are the leaves on the family tree. Each leaf also has the name of the owner in the palm to document who is who. In the quilting below the tree, my in-laws names are quilted with the year 2008.

The youngest was about 6 months old when I traced his hand, the oldest is fifty six. All are the descendants of my mother and father-in-law. Kids, grand kids and great-grand kids. She loved the quilt when she received it on Christmas Eve. I hope you enjoy it too.

Heritage Quilter

Christ is Born

A belated Merry Christmas to you all. What a busy time of year. In all of the hustle, bustle, shopping, eating and engagements, it is all too often easy to forget what we are actually celebrating. The truth that God loves us so much to give us his only son as a way to show us an example of what being a servant to God is all about.


Without Christ example, would we really understand the depth of God's love? Would we understand what it really means to be a giver? Would we really understand grace?

My life has truly been blessed by God. I have come to know love, happiness, contentment, faith and joy with what I have. My Christmas prayer for anyone reading this blog is that you find the same blessings in your life.

In Jesus Christ holy name, Amen




Heritage Quilter

Santa's Coming!!!

Jolly Ole Saint Nick is on the way. He was also the last of my Christmas decorations to make it this year.

I've had the Santa's Coming kit for about 3 years and this year it made it out of the closet. When I saw this wall hanging on the cover of Quilting for Christmas 2005, I had to have it. So, I placed my order from Quakertown Quilts. The kit was great. It even included all of the buttons and jingle bells to embellish the quilt.

Since this is one of those quilts that I'm sure is the beginning of a family tradition and could possibly become one of those treasured family memories, I decided to quilt this one by hand.

The ornaments are fused to a heavy felt. You then hot glue some floss to them to form the little hanging loop.

The 24 ornaments help us count down the days to Christmas. Each day of Advent, you move one ornament from the boarder of the quilt to the "Charlie Brown" tree that Santa is holding. My son has taken on the job of moving the ornaments each day.

Enjoy

Merry Christmas.....Heritage Quilter

Tagged

I've been tagged by A Passion for Applique. Here's the game, once tagged, you go to your picture files. Pick the 4th picture in the 4th folder and publish it. Well, here goes. Let's hope it is a good one.

This photo was taken recently. This is a close up of some of my quilting with my new friend Maxine (my longarm). The quilt belongs to one of my customers. This was the first time using this pantograph and I wanted a close up of the design. It is called Hears and Daisy's and it is so much fun to quilt. I've used it a couple of times since this first one. I also love the variegated thread on batiks.

Now to tag 4 others. (Most of my buddies have already been tagged, so this could be hard) I guess I'm tagging anybody who wants to play...

Here are the rules:

1. Go to the fourth photo file on your computer.

2. Choose the fourth picture in that file.

3. Post it and explain.

4. Tag four people to do the same

Go or it.....Heritage Quilter

Camo Cards

My 8 year old son wanted a camouflage quilt. Well, I haven't seen much camo in my local quilt shop. So, I've been putting him off for a couple of years.

Now, there is nothing like a deadline to get you motivated. In my husband's family, we draw names each your on New Years Day for the next Christmas. This is great for a quilter. You have all year to make and plan for your gifts. This year, I made one of my sister's in law a quilt. Not too big, just a small lap throw in her favorite color. It also happened to be one of my favorite patterns, Card Tricks.



The only problem with the Card Tricks block is the number of triangles in each block. It just makes the piecing a little trickier. Too make the block easier, I decided to use all squares and rectangles. This really speeds up the piecing! You gotta love that.



When the ladies at the quilt shop saw it at a "Show and Tell", they asked me to teach the class. Not a problem until I realized that I will have already given the quilt as a gift before the class. Now I have to have a sample for the shop.



This is where the Camo come in...It's time to make a quilt for my son. His patience is wearing thin. The closest thing to Camo that I could find were some brown and green batiks. Brown with spots and green with oak leaves. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I have to say, my son loves it. I hope you do too.



Here is a close up of the quilting. Maxine did a great job too.






Heritage Quilter

Interpolated Image

The dictionary defines interpolation as the insertion of something foreign or new. Now, apply that to a quilt and you have an interpolated image. I know, the first time I heard it, I couldn't figure it out either.

In September, my quilting buddies and I went to a quilt show a little over an hour away from home. There we saw the most amazing wall hangings. In this show, there were about 4 or 5 wall hangings and they all had "interpolation" or "interpolated" in the name. After asking one of the "white glove" ladies of the local guild, we discovered that the class for this quilt was taught at a local shop called the "Overall Quilter".

Now being a quilter for going on 20 years now, I'm not baffled on the construction of many quilts, but this one got the better of me. The flowers on the fabric seemed to explode right before your eyes. My quilt buddies couldn't figure this one out either. So, there was nothing left to do but take the class. I had to know how to make my fabric do that!

The ladies at Overall Quilter were extremely gracious. When I asked about the class and told them that there were at least 3 and maybe every 5 of us from "home" that were willing to drive the hour plus to come to the shop just to take the class, they scheduled one just for us!

Are you ready to see the results?

This is MC and our teacher, Debbie showing us how to "find" our image on the fabric.

Here is LB cutting up her image. You can see that she has part of it on the design wall already.

BW is putting hers on the design wall.

This one is mine on the design wall. I'm ready to start the sewing.

Finished and borders added. I'm afraid the pictures really don't do the quilt justice. It just looks fuzzy here.

Anyway, I love the technique so much, I've bought 4 other fabrics to make more floral explosions!

Heritage Quilter