Friday Night Sew In!

Heidi, of Handmade by fame is again hosting the Friday Night Sew In, and she picked my birthday to have it.  Well, okay it's always the 3rd Friday of the month.  I've been able to join in the fun several times, and tomorrow . . . I'll be busy but I've been sewing several evenings this week, so I'm counting myself in.  My birthday present to me.

So.  I've signed up for my first 'craft' sale.  Our little village is having an Arts Show and I'm going to take a few things over and BadAmy is providing some of her good stuff.  Her stock is a little on the low side this year, since she's been so busy with her sock clubs.  I'm working on some mellow relaxer packs, and have the inner packs done and now am working on the outer bags.  The pattern I found needs some tweaking, so a-tweaking I will go.  I want to give them a quilted feel, hence the tweaking.

I did get lots of little dolly quilts and fleece blankies made this week. My virtual friend, the Impera Magna, found a quilter who was working with some wood workers who are working on dolly cradles, which need little quilts.  My little quilts will go to Church for the ChristChild boxes we make for kids.  And since my camera upload cord is still hiding somewhere I can't post the pics.  Sheesh.  When I find the dang thing I'll do a post of just pics.  One of the little quilts turned out really nicely--just the look I was looking for, because of its similarity to a doll quilt my Grandmother made for me, 6 nine patches set in sashing and self-bound.  I'll be giving this to one of my little great-nieces for Christmas this year.


I also dug all of my Christmas stash out and drooled all over it again.  I found a pattern I like for a couch size quilt, but naturally I was 4 fabrics short.  No problem, I had a huge fist full of coupons, so off I went to HoAnne's.  Didn't pay more than 60% on the full price of anything.  Dang, I'm good. In my stash,  I also found some pre-printed stocking and tags fabric that I got for free last year on quilt shop hop.  I've got the tags nearly done as mug rugs and the stockings cut out.  The reason it was free was that candle wax dripped all over into a basket of fabric during the shop hop--too many crazed women crammed into a small space, ya know.  Somebody knocked it in the basket.  Rather than try to salvage it themselves, the owners just put it out and said if you want it, take it.  I spent a long time going thru the basket and picked up some winning fabric.  Sweet.

So for the daytime/night time sew in, I'll be finishing some snowman pre-printed placemats I found last winter, and the stockings, and the relaxer dealies.  That will keep me busy.  Then next week, I need to finish up the Green Hats pink pajama bottoms, so they'll be ready for our party.

But the big news is that I've decided to have FTD's log cabin quilt bound by someone else.  I think I can get the binding machine sewed on, but I want it hand bound.  No can do, so I'll see if the LAQ in Whitehouse can do it for me.  It deserves to be done properly.

Whew.  Lots to do.  And that doesn't include DD's train club activities.  More on that later.

Kind Hearted Lady Lives Here

I love folklore and train folklore is right up there for me. My Grandfather, whom I don't really remember, worked for the B&O in the Toledo yards. (Toledo currently has the 5th largest train yard in the country, down from the third largest in pre-interstate days. Just thought you'd want to know.) And oddly, the annual hobo convention is still held in Britt, Iowa~~and Britt is my maiden name. (Do-dee-do-do, do-de-do-do~~that's me singing the Twilight Zone theme music.)

Anywho, my Dad had HO model trains, and now our son DD has O scale trains. We thought FTD would be the train guy, but it turns out to be DD. I'm making him a quilt based on hobo signs that were left as messages in the jungles all across the country. I found a book in the Greybull, Wyoming Big Horn Quilt Shop by Debra G. Henninger for inspiration. On a quilt shop hop last fall, I found fabric that reminds me of old man shirts, so I bought several fat quarters, raided my stash, and viola, quilt makins'. (By the by, to use this book, you need a pretty good knowledge of quilty stuff. I changed several blocks, so as to not have to make itty, bitty triangles, or to make some of the blocks more closely resemble the actual signs. A couple of the blocks are repeated, which makes me think the editorial staff nodded off at some point. Must not hae been quilters.)

Nearly everyone's favorite sign is a kitty cat. If this was scrawled near your house it meant, "Kind hearted lady lives here." That Kind Lady would be likely to give you a sandwich and water or milk, maybe an old, worn out shirt, and always a kind word. Did those Kind Ladies have sons and brothers who were riding the rails? Boyfriends looking for a new life and job? Classmates searching for adventure? Goofballs just hangin' with their peeps? Who knows.

But I do know lots of Kind Hearted Ladies. Those of you who live nearby, turn your computer off now. I don't want you to peek at your valentine gift from me.



















The rest of you, send me your favorite colors and your address...... or your Kind Hearted Lady's favorite colors. . . .