Rainy Day Business
When I did take a peek this morning, I saw and then I heard the rain. I did decide to sleep in a bit longer. Here we are at four in the afternoon and it is thundering and . . . still raining.
Any and every color or print that can be imagined.
Not all projects out of my sewing studio are fussy. Just plain old comfort blankets can come in very handy. The plan was for straight stitching two and a half inch square over the top of this scrappy pieced quilt. Trying out a fairly simple attachment allowed for very tidy looking squares and it went quite quickly. My next plan is to use the embroidery hoop and put some fall leaves on the borders. I can tell you that this evening after supper, I will be hecking out some YouTube videos to find the best method. I have free lessons at Bird Island Bernina any time I want. It is so much easier to pull up a video; watch it, back it up, watch it again until I feel comfortable. It is very assuring that both Al and Karen are just a phone call away if something comes up on the display that looks like a bit more than I can understand; “Error 1010, machine is out of sync. Please restart your machine.” After several tries, Al can talk you through most items.
Right now I have an aunt that has made all the “high utility” quilts that her family may need. Lorraine is now making quilts that I can only classify as heirloom. The piecing is intricate and when I say I don’t do fussy, her pieces make one sixteenth of an inch look sloppy. I admire them and know that the time involved in them is extreme. I also know human nature. Perhaps those beauties will be used in a bedroom that is aired out once a year, or the recipient has no comprehension of quilt care and will see the laundry often. The third option . . . being stored because they were “too good” to use.
Dennis gave the stitching on the back of this fall looking scrappy quilt the “O.K.”.
To date, I have made no finished quilt that cannot take day in and day out use and be laundered. The secret to laundering them is to use a commercial size for the adequate whish, whish with a reasonable amount, and opting for less than more, of laundry soap. Using enough drier time to leave the quilt a bit damp and then hung over furniture or a clothesline. Leaving them very wet over a clothesline puts too much stress on the seams. As my Mom taught me; hang them over an expanse of two or three clotheslines or tenting them over the kitchen chairs. It never hurt us kids to have our lunch on the house steps if the chairs were otherwise occupied.
When I think of the poor quality of the feed sacks that were used in so many quilts that are still out there and being used today, I know the quilt store fabric used in quilts will be around long enough to get them to the Antique Road Shows in the future.