A REAL Quilt in the Making

I think I told you that when I wandered into that quilt shop earlier in the summer that I fell in love with a quilt in their back room and that it was the source of inspiration for me to finally learn how to quilt.  It was so different and so beautiful.  It also looked easy since much of the design was top stitched onto the blocks.  It made me believe I could actually make a quilt.  It has a bit of a rugged visual feel to it because of the casualness of the top stitching and how the edges fray a little bit.

So I signed right up for my beginning quilting class and have been learning how it's done.  My heart wasn't really in my first project...maybe that's another reason for my many, shall we say, "imperfections" with it.  What I really wanted all along was to start a quilt in the pattern of my inspiration.

I've started!  I've decided to do it in all batiks. They are so gorgeous that I want to go right for the gusto.  I chose my color scheme - turquoises, purples and greens - and I bought a bunch of "fat quarters" (quarter yard pieces cut in a "fat" rectangle instead of the traditional quarter yard strip). 


Here they are, in all their glory....

Closer looks.....

And closer still.....

Yes, I'm going to show you them ALL! 

They're just too pretty not to.

Seeing them close-up and in their detail, it makes it appear like they couldn't possibly go together.  So here's the general view again to boost your confidence in me.  Still pretty wild, though, eh?

I'll put up another post soon and show you what I'm going to do with them!

Quilted Quilt

I really should have called this post:  DOH!

Since the Log Cabin pattern doesn't really lend itself to fancy quiting patterns, or diagonals, I decided I should use the Stitch In The Ditch method.  It's where you stitch in between certain selected seams, the idea being that it won't really show.  Unless you're me.  Then it shows.

DOH!

I wasn't sure what color thread to use.  If I used a rust colored then it might look funny on the blues.  If I used blues, it might look funny on the backing which is rust.  So I defaulted to using a basic off-white and hoped I'd be a good ditch stitcher.  But....

DOH!

 

Lovely precision sewing.  NOT!

 

DOH!

 

Oh, and puckers.  Not supposed to have them.  DOH!

 

Bobbin Blobs are always nice.....Doh!

 

And the best Doh!,

 the worst Doh!,

 the funniest Doh!,

the final, saving-the-best-for-last Doh!,

the Double Doh!..........

DOH!   DOH!

I've just got to laugh.  It's pretty funny.  Maybe I'm not cut out to be a quilter.  Maybe I don't have the patience for the precision required.  Or, maybe, it's just my first quilt.  I think might be a matter of both. 

But I do plan on attempting a monster "real" quilt after I (if I ever) get done with this little one.  It's a scrappy looking quilt with lots of top stitching and frayed edges.  When I start cutting out pieces I'll begin letting you in on the progress.

One thing that's exciting to me with this little project is that it FEELS like a quilt now.  When I was examining all my goof-ups, it FELT like a quilt in my hands and on my lap.  THAT's a neat feeling.

White Picket Fence Header Photo

I love this white picket fence!

 I took the picture in Ninilchik, Alaska a few years ago.  The Fisherman was working and I headed out on a short road trip by myself.  I was aiming for the town of Homer which is a very artsy community with lots of galleries and artist studios.  As I was driving down the highway I caught such a grand view of Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna that I realized I needed to stop and take some pictures.   A gorgeous clear day in not easy to come by in Alaska so I had to take the opportunity to stop.

First I took some photos of the volcanoes across the water  and also the sign that describes them. 

To my left was Iliamna  ( ill-ee-ahm-na)

In the middle was the sign

And to my right was Redoubt

The first time we drove to Homer, way back in 1998, we were treated to a clear view of these two giants standing over 10,000 above the water.  There are taller peaks in the world, but the thing about these two is that you see ALL 10,000 feet of them because they are at sea level.  They're not in the middle of a mountain range with lower peaks all around.  You see them from the ground to the peak.  It's spectacular.  You can see Redoubt from the town of Soldotna when it's clear enough.  Just look straight up K-Beach Rd. (Kalifornsky Beach Rd.) and it'll be there.   If you're ever in Alaska driving to Homer, (which, if you're ever in Alaska, I highly recommend you doing) make sure you look out the passenger window and keep a watch out for Redoubt and Iliamna.  They will take your breath away.

Next I saw the sign for the old Russian Orthodox Church in Ninilchik (Ne-nil-chik).  I decided to stop there, too.  It was a beautiful setting against the bright blue sky.  I stayed about an hour taking photos.  Everything was white: the church, the fencing, the graveyard crosses.  It was beautiful.  This is where I took the white picket fence header photo I just switched to. 

Here are some of the photos I took.

I know I posted this photo before. 

I remember explaining the unique cross the Russian Orthodox Church uses. I'll tell you again for convenience sake. I asked a  woman who tends to the chapel about the unusual cross. She explained that there is the traditional cross representing the cross to which Jesus was nailed. The small bar across the top represents the plaque above Jesus' head which Pilate ordered to be inscribed with the words "King of the Jews". The bar on the bottom represents the two thieves crucified on either side of Jesus. One mocked and scorned Jesus to the end. He is represented by the side that leans down. The thief on the other side of Jesus came to belief while they hung on their crosses. This is evidenced by his request that Jesus remember him when He entered into His Kingdom, and Jesus' reply, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." This believing thief is represented by the upward tilting side of the bottom bar. The directions of the bar represent the eternal destinations of each thief, the believing thief going up to heaven and the unbelieving thief going down to hell.

On with some more photos....

There's Iliamna in the background.  A photograph simply does not capture the magnitude of what the eye sees when standing at this spot.

A closer shot starts to give you the impact, but still pales in comparison to standing there drinking it all in live.

I took this next photo with this crop in mind.  There was much more sky and much more grass in the original.  I liked how the church barely peeked out from behind the Queen Anne's Lace.

I love this shot of the enclosed yard, the different angles of the fence, the huge Queen Anne's Lace towering over the fencing at the back, and the splash of purple in the foreground.

There's nothing quite like a white picket fence with flowers in front of it, is there?

One parting shot

I turned around for another shot of the church and graveyard after  I had worked my way in a circle around the church and headed back to my van.  In case you're curious, the photos of Iliamna were taken from the back side of the church toward the right side of the property.  The church sits high on a grassy cliff overlooking the water of The Cook Inlet/Gulf of Alaska.   

 It wasn't really worth my continuing on to Homer since I'd spent so much time enjoying the beauty along the way.  I decided to go on anyway and once I got there I only had an hour and a half to visit the galleries along Pioneer Rd. Still, I enjoyed my rushed visit to Homer and went back another day when I had more time.  The highlight of the trip, though, was definitely my stops along the way.  Proof that it's not all about the destination but that some of the best parts of life are along the journey!

A New Blog

I've been rather timid about this post.  Feeling a bit vulnerable and afraid.  You see I've started a new blog.  It's different than this one.  Given the fact that I just said I've been afraid to tell you about it, you'll laugh when I tell you what my new blog is about.  It's about fear.  (Told ya you'd laugh.)

I've struggled with fear pretty much all of my life.  When I became a Christian at age 14, my fears didn't go away.  If anything, they began to go underground and took on different tones as I grew older.  God has been faithful to love me and help me work through the myriad of ways fear can and has taken expression in my life.  And it's time I start sharing some of that journey with the rest of the world.  There are other Christians out there doing battle with fear and perhaps feeling alone in it.  Perhaps feeling ashamed that, after all, we have the power of the God of the universe living inside of us, right?  How can I be so faithless that fear still plagues me?

I call the blog "From Fear to Eternity".  If you're interested, or know someone who might benefit from the sharing of the journey from fear to faith,  it is located at www.fear2eternity.blogspot.com.  I plan to develop lots of resources for the blog: scripture categories, book links, encouraging songs, quotes, etc.  As yet, it's still new and I'm developing as I go.  I wanted to have it fully developed and many posts written in advance (something I've since learned is the RIGHT way to launch such a help centered blog), but that just wasn't happening.  Guess what...I was afraid to dive in and start writing.  I did some planning and researching, (the online scripture searches I mentioned in a previous post here), and wrote lots of notes about topics and experiences.  But I just wasn't getting articles written.  Eventually, I just dove in.  I think I had to.  Now that it's up, I'm writing.  But I sure feel behind now that I have a couple people who have expressed interest in it! 

What I've learned over the years is that there are a lot of "me's" out there. I want to speak to them with some of the things God has shown me and taught me (and has to frequently remind me of) on this journey toward freedom. I guess I'll let one of my first posts to this new blog speak as an introduction to you:

From Fear to Eternity
Friday, June 25, 2010
Why This Blog

This is a blog for fearful Christians. Christians who are afraid. If you are not a Christian, or don't know for sure if you are, I invite you to stick around. We could all use a little company as we look at our fear.


I write about fear not because I'm an expert at being brave or choosing faith over fear. I don't write because I'm a counselor, or a pastor, or a psychologist, or have some other such declaration of authority. I write because I know fear. I write because God, throughout my whole life, has been patiently and lovingly committed to drawing me out of slavery to fear.


I write because I know there are others of you out there who are, to varying degrees, slaves to fear. I write because I believe you're like me in that you long for freedom. You long for the life you've been missing. You long for that abundant life Jesus came to give you. I write because enough is enough, we are tired of all that fear continues to cost us and all that we've missed because fear has robbed us. I write because, despite the fact that I still deal with fear, God has been working in me regarding the fear in my life.


One of the ways God teaches me is through other people's lives. I learn from other people's stories. I believe we are to share our stories with each other. So I believe God can use the story and experiences of my personal journey from fear to faith, "from fear to eternity", to bless and encourage others. I write because of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

The purpose and vision of this blog on fear is to strengthen the knees that are weak, which is for some reason how Hebrews 12:12 got locked into my brain, though it actually says, "Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble." It is to "Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble, Say to those with anxious heart 'Take courage, fear not.'" (Isaiah 35:3-4a). It is my desire to comfort, encourage, instill hope and spur you to press on in your personal journey From Fear to Eternity.

These I Have Loved

A warm and breezy desert night.

The sound a quail makes.  The sight of 10 little fuzzy babies running in a line after their parents.

The way the forest looks after a rain and a sliver of sunlight breaks through the cloud cover.

The full moon reflecting on mountain lakes seen from the air on a midnight flight leaving Alaska.

My Dad's spontaneous little back rubs while sitting next to me at a dinner.

The sound of the water parting and the exhale of a small pod of Orca whales as they glided through the calm water toward a boat full of 25 people struck silent by their awe.

These I have loved.
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.
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I would really like to get a hold of the address of my 7th Grade English teacher, Mr. Winzler. I want to write and thank him.  I think I always liked to write but I didn't really recognize it until one day in his class. I distinctly remember my desk being right up by his at this particular time in the school year. Most of my memories of his class are of when I sat way on the other side of the room. But this time, I sat right under him, it seemed, as he stood in front of his desk and introduced us to our next assignment. He read us a piece written by a woman; it was titled, "These I Have Loved". It was merely a list of things that brought her pleasure. The only one I remember was something about sneaking into the kitchen at midnight for a bowl of ice cream when everyone else was asleep.

I sat there, looking up, listening to him read this beautiful list of ordinary things being glorified into meaningfulness, and I LOVED it. I was captivated.  Moved.  I could feel excitement wakening and building inside me.  I couldn't wait to do the assignment.

Oh, how I wish I still had that paper. I would love to know what I wrote.  But I can't remember a single thing.  All I know is that it started my love for putting things into words.

I loved that assignment. When I was in High School I wrote a second one of my own initiative. Thinking about it recently I realize it's something I'd like to do more often. Because of this assignment way back in 7th grade, I frequently find myself thinking of things I have loved. Little things. Sights, sounds, smells, moments, feelings, interactions.  That assignment taught me to savor things.  I want to do that more, savor things.

I'd also like to write another These I Have Loved piece. I've found that, after so many years of living, I have much to write. There are just so many things I have loved. I'm not sure how I'll whittle it down to a meaningful piece of writing.  There is quite an eclectic mixture of things I'd like to include, too.  What I wrote above is just what came to me off the top of my head.  There are many ordinary things I would include as well.  Things like: 

Hugging a warm towel fresh out of the dryer.
Seeing someone's birthday cards all standing up displayed on a table, signs that they are loved.
A cat waking up with a huge yawn and a big stretch.
The smell of a pipe.

I invite you to write a "These I Have Loved" piece of your own. It's a wonderful tool for opening your eyes to some of the beauties of life you may ordinarily pass quickly over. Taking on an "assignment" makes us stop and ponder, makes us take a look at our everyday life and magnify some of the beauty that is so easily overlooked. I would love for you to share your list with me - the whole thing, selected highlights, or just one line.  Just copy it into a Comment. Or if you have your own blog, post it there and link to it in a Comment on this post.

I think this little assignment for ourselves has great potential.  I think it would be a great idea to do every year.  These I Have Loved About 2010.  Truly the list could be miles long if we stop to magnify the small glories of 365 days.  I'm thinking this would even be a great exercise to do every night before bed.  These I Have Loved About This Day.   I know I could use this kind of cultivating of a thankful heart.  I think I'll try and start a new habit.  I'll start tonight.

Cool Lamp

On a whim, I thought I'd post some photos of my friends totally cool lamp in her cabin.  It was in "my" room when we had a girls weekend there last year.  This unusual lamp was on the nightstand next to the bed in this peaceful second floor room that made me feel like I was in a tree fort. An exquisite tree fort.

It's all branchy, and viney, and drapie.  I love drapie things.  And, of course, I love branchy things.

I like how the light bulb hangs down just a little below the glass.

And what a totally cool and SIMPLE design for the glass.  Just wrinkle some folds in it and drape it in half!

Sometimes I am amazed at the simplicity of people's creativity!

PASS!

Yeah!  EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS to 25 Acres are now up and running!  Both my husband and I got an email this morning notifying us that my blog had been updated!  Guess this new Email Subscription thing works after all. Whew! That was a test of my patience!

So...(drum roll)...if you would like to receive an email notification when I've updated the blog, you can click on the subscription link in the sidebar and sign up.  It's not a real time notice.  Emails go out once a day. So if I happen to post several times in one day, you won't be flooded with emails every time I post.   

I'm having trouble deciding what 2 hour block of time to schedule the delivery of email notifications.  Any thoughts?  Would you rather be notified first thing in the morning about yesterday's posts?  Or would you rather be notified sometime in the evening about today's posts?

Speaking of computer impatience, isn't it amazing how impatient we've become as a society when our computers don't do something instantly.  We are so used to them actually doing things instantly, that when we have to wait a couple days for something to activate it's almost unbearable.  I have an email account with one of those free online sites. Because I flit around between desktop and laptop and from city to city I frequently send myself emails of important documents or photos that I want to make sure I have access to.  In this age of so much instantaneous effect, I get frustrated when an email to myself doesn't show up for a couple minutes.  Heck, I even get impatient when a page on the internet takes over 10 seconds to load!

If I'm a common example --and I think I just may be-- we are a fortunate and spoiled techno-people.  But what a tremendous gift this computer age has been to us!  Thank You, God, for computers, the internet, blogs, and email subscriptions.  Oh, and... uh, sorry for my impatience in the face of this amazing gift.

Quilt Report

Just a quick quilt report.   I have it all layered and pinned (rather than basted). 

I remembered to buy the pins in town after church Sunday.  I came home and set about doing this phase.  I actually found my iron.  It was in the basement on a shelf behind a bunch of other stuff.  I made sure there was a full charge in our batteries and that the sun was shining to boot.  And I turned it off every time I thought I was done.  Notice that I said ...every time I thought I was done.  I must have turned that thing on and off about 6 times.

First I got it all pinned and realized I forgot to tape down the backing fabric.  You're supposed to tape it down taut so it won't move and there won't be wrinkles in it as you pin.  You don't want to go sewing your final project only to turn it over when done and discover a bunch of tucks and folds you've sewn in!

So, I had to re-do it and move the whole process to the floor so I wouldn't gouge our dining room table with pins in the process.

I'm not even sure I can do the actual quilting on my old black Singer Featherweight sewing machine.  I'm told I need a "walking foot" attachment that helps feed the material from the top along with the built in bottom feeder (sounds like a fish to me).  There is a generic walking foot that I hope will work for me.  Otherwise, I just might be in for buying that $156 model at the shop or the $150 model at Wal-Mart.

I'm bummed that I won't be able to work on it for a couple days.  :-(  But I'll be sure keep you posted when I get at it again!

Fail!

Well, I still haven't received any email notification - via the Email Subscription feature I just added in the sidebar - telling me I updated the blog with the last two updates.  I've been messing around with it a little bit so I'll hang in there. 

Emails only go out once a day in a two hour window of my choosing.  I've been messing with the times trying to accelerate the testing period.  (There goes my impatience again!)

If anyone wants to subscribe and keep an eye out for update notifications in your email inbox that would help me.  Wait a day or so and then leave a comment on one of theses Testing posts as to whether you had any problems with the subscription process or if you ever got any updates.  I'll make sure to post something every day for the next three days.   Thanks!

Another Test

I discovered an automatically activated feature that was set to deliver emails to subscribers only between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m. Go figure why they would set that as a default.  I deactivated that and suddenly my two subscribers showed up: myself and my husband.  With this post, we'll see if emails are sent out every time a post is posted.  Or what...  I have no idea but frankly, I'm prepared for it NOT to work! 

Trying to be patient...and persevering.

Testing, Testing

I added a Subscribe by Email feature!  I've been wanting to do this forever but just didn't know how.  I finally committed some time tonight to boldly go where lots of people seemed to have gone...with much more internet and blogging savvy than I!

After a very looooong time, I think I've got it.  However, I'm a bit concerned because while searching the help forums I encountered several people exclaiming that the email subscriptions were not coming through.  It allowed you to go through the whole process but people weren't getting the email  notifications.


Sooooo...I'm typing this post not only to let you know about it but also to test it and see if my own self-subscription works and I actually get an email about this post.

I'll let you know....

First Quilt - Progress Report

I've learned a lot in my two beginning quilting classes. For instance, here's some quilting terminology.  There's piecing, which is the sewing together of all the various little pieces that make up your quilt top.  Then there's the batting, the fluffy stuff in between your top and your backing.  Putting all these three layers together and safety pinning them together is called layering.  This is preliminary to the actual quilting, which is the sewing of all three together in any one of about a million different patterns.  Quilting is what gives your quilt it's puffy dimension.

In the process of making my first little quilt project I also learned that...I'm a lazy and sloppy piecer. Better add impatient in there, too.  Having a particularly weak solar system right now, I tried to get away with piecing my first quilt with only "finger pressing" after each fabric addition.  I think I mentioned in another post that we're pretty cautious and conservative with our power.  Especially since we're down to only six batteries.  (We're going to replace them all with 12 new batteries in the fall!  Can't wait!)  So, I didn't want to use my iron.  In fact, I have no idea where my iron is.  I know I've used it in the last 12 years since we moved up here.  So, about the finger pressing:  niave and arrogant, I thought, "oh, this will work". 

Well, it caused all kinds of problems.  Because my presses weren't precise, my edges weren't precise. Without precise edges, the next piece I added wasn't sewn on precisely.  Each piece attaches to the last one, and for this Log Cabin pattern, you keep adding bars around the square. If your seams aren't perfectly pressed along the way, the problem just compounds with every bar you add.

Not to mention the fact that I started on a machine at the quilt shop and then continued on my machine at home.  I guess you're not supposed to do that.  Start and finish with the same machine is what they say.  Once home I mistakenly sewed my seams too wide because the little piece of tape marking the seam width on my machine was NOT at 1/4" but more like 3/8".  (Enter 'lazy' and 'impatient' into the scenario.  Guess who didn't bother to measure it to make sure before she started sewing. *sigh*)  My squares were too small because my seams were too big.  So.... nearly finished with all my blocks, I started completely over.  Cut all the fabric over and sewed the Log Cabin blocks all over again.

And still they were off measurement - because of the finger pressing, my laziness-sloppiness-impatience.  At class last week I was all set to sew my blocks together and hopefully add my border fabric.  But my squares were so inconsistent I had to cut them down to the largest measurment of perfect square-ness.  Which made my outer bars much thinner than the inner bars.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  My teacher was right in that once I sewed them all together it's not immediately noticeable.  At a glance, it looks fine.  But if you look closely you can see that it's actually horrible! 

Tonight I sewed the border on and....................

TaDaaaa!

Go ahead, enlarge the photos and see how skinny some strips are and how fat some others are!  Again, oh well.

I'm all set to "layer" it now, making a sandwich out of the backing, batting, and (horrible but not immediately noticeable) top.

Here's my layered quilt all ready to be safety pinned together. ( I knew I forgot something while in town today at the 4th of July Arts Fair! Note to self:  Get large safety pins after church tomorrow.)

Here's a better picture of the backing fabric.

And a closeup. 

This backing fabric will also be my binding which is a 1/2" of fabric sandwiching and finishing off the edges.



You may have noticed my sewing machine in the first photo.  It's an old antique Singer. 

It's the machine I learned on in Mrs. Saylor's sewing class in her home back when I was in grade school. It's all I've ever really sewn on, except for the occasional borrowed machine amounting to about 3 hours of sewing in the last 35 years. It was my mom's. It was the sewing machine of our household. I don't know when she got it and have no idea how old it is. I would love to know, though. I don't know if it was my Nana's before Mom. Since Mom didn't sew except for mending, I'm thinking it might have been Nana's first.  I'll have to get online and do some research about when this style was made. 

The sewing machine service man at the quilt shop came up to me in class with a grin on his face wanting to look more closely at it.  Fellow classmates looked at it and said, "Are you making your quilt on that??"  They all have "new" machines, of course.  Sewing machines nowadays are incredible!  They have computers in them, for cryin' out loud!  I went to a "beginning machine quilting" week before last.  Machine quilting is where you sew your quilting pattern on your 'sandwich' with a machine as opposed to by hand.  When I went to this class, I brought my machine but ended up using one of the shop's machines.  It was the Bernina Quilter's Edition.  Price?  Three THOUSAND dollars!  This thing did everything!  It had about 50 embroidery stitches and who knows what all else.  If I were to spring for a new machine, I have my eye on the $156 model in the shop!  Even that I can't justify because, hey, without easy ironing I may not be able to make quilting a real hobby!  I think all machines have computers in them now, even the cheap ones.  If so, then I'm sure my old Singer uses much less power anyway.

I'll try to post more progress reports as I work to finish my quilt.

New Drawer Handles

Yesterday I put on our new drawer handles.  Actually, I bought them a long time ago but we forgot about them.  When I went to Phoenix to care for my mom for three years, they got put in a cabinet and forgotten about.  I installed them myself to surprise my husband. 

I absolutely LOVE them!  They are so "me."

What do you think?  Aren't they cute?  Especially for a cabin in the woods!

Here's a closer look.

I love the combination of verticals and horizontals.  Vertical for the cabinet doors and horizontal for the drawers.

I've seen this kind before but haven't seen them in years.  We got them at Target years ago when they were being discontinued.  I think I got them for $3.50 each which was a smokin' deal even then.

I just smile whenever I see them on our cabinets!

As a side note:  Today is my Dad's birthday.  I'm trying not to be sad.