The Super Bolt Sale

Every year on Super Bowl Sunday Maetha and the ladies at Tiny Stitches suit up and prepare their best defense against throngs of sale crazed shoppers. In the end it's a win-win situation.

Preferred shoppers at Tiny Stitches are called "Bag Ladies" and they are invited to start shopping two hours before anyone else is allowed in the store on Super Bolt Sunday. These dedicated Bag Ladies are waiting patiently for the doors to open.

Everything in the main store is 25% off. I was there when the doors opened and by the time I got to the notions area there were no more multi-packs of rotary cutter blades left because others were also stocking up on consumables, but I really can't complain. There wasn't a lot I needed to buy and I got most of it at a great discount.

If that were all I had to talk about it would already be a great sale, but there's the classroom sale, too. In the classroom Maetha piles up tables with bolts she's ready to be rid of. Tables are arranged according to price. You buy whatever is on the bolt for a fixed price, from $5 to $30. I've bought plenty of fabrics for quilt backs in that room over the years.

My haul for the day.

So what did I get? Well, I picked up more green for the borders and back of my chain quilt. Also some blue for a charity quilt Jan and I are making together. I also picked up two jelly rolls from Moda's Lily & Will (green) which I felt fortunate to find still sitting there after passing them up a few days ago when I was in the shop, a travel size bottle of gloves in a bottle, a new Clover marking pen, some safety pins (because I have so many quilts ready to sandwich I might use up all the pins I owned already), some needles and an oversized applique pressing sheet.

The best part? This sale happens at Tiny Stitches, my favorite quilt shop with my favorite people. Even with all the crazy shoppers the lovely ladies at Tiny Stitches are friendly and helpful.

Quilts I Dream of Making

There is, somewhere in the neural pathways of my brain, a collection of quilts yet to be born. Some of them are thoughts, well conceived and just waiting for the breath of inspiration to get underway. Others are just "tho.....". Ideas or beginnings of ideas that have yet to come together fully. Here are some of the quilts I want to make someday, some of these have been on my wishlist for many, many years. The last one is a obviously a very recent add.

• Bear Paw quilt, preferably in greens and purples
• Amish Diamond quilt (My quilting is going to have to improve dramatically) for me to want to do this)
• Feathered Star Medallion quilt
• a portrait quilt (I have a picture of Melinda and myself that really speaks to me, but there are others, too)
• French Braid
• Pickle Dish (I've included a picture of a beautiful one from Show & Tell at the ECQG meeting last week.)
• Double Wedding Ring
• Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll (Have you seen these yet? Bonnie Hunter's mystery project that began last year is starting to bear beautiful fruit all over the blog world.)

I'm sure there are more wishful thinking items buried deep in the cortex of my mind and they'll come to surface as soon as I hit the "publish" button.

Baby, Baby

I have been wanting a Featherweight off and on for years and years. A black one. With a scroll plate face. That's what I wanted and nothing else would do. How do I know nothing else would do? Because I already owned a Featherweight, a tan one. It's a bit complicated, but here it is. When my father died my sisters and I cleaned out the attic and found my mother's old sewing machine which had been mouldering for years, she had to have stored it there when she got a new machine back when I was 9 or 10 years old.



By the time this machine was found the storage box had rotted through on the bottom and was no good at all. The machine itself needed cleaning, oiling, and a new belt, it had some rust on the bottom plate and a chip in the chrome knob of the wheel, but it's a great little machine. In the time after my dad's death it was a comfort to me to own it, but it wasn't the Featherweight I had always dreamed of owning. I named her Alice after my mother. During the ECQG quilt show in 2009 one of our vendors was selling replica Featherweight boxes and I bought one (I think it cost me $20). It was black, but it was good to have a box for Alice, much better than the alternative!

So for years I would sometimes look on eBay at the glossy black beauties for sale. I'd bid occasionally but I never won. It's hard to be competitive about buying a machine when you have a perfectly good machine sitting in the closet. I'm far too pragmatic for that. But at the Tiny Stitches retreat there were several ladies using Featherweight machines and it made me wonder why I didn't bring mine. It certainly would have been more convenient than hauling my Bernina to the mountains.

I found myself looking at eBay again. Try very hard to imagine my surprise when I found a black scroll face plate machine up for auction that came with a brown and tan box. Hmmm. The man selling it knows nothing about these machines except that they are "valuable" and after finding one he was trying to flip it for a profit. He didn't have a lot of pictures posted, but from what he had there it was clear it was showing some wear. He had no idea if it would stitch but the motor ran and the light worked. What we had here, ladies and gentlemen was a bargain, maybe. Nobody had bid on it and there were only six hours left before the sale was done. I put in a lowball bid and walked away. I realized the machine might need a fair bit of work before it was good for sewing but I thought it was a sign that it came with the box I needed for Alice. Fifteen minutes before the auction ended I checked in to see I had been outbid but it was still well below my upper limit, I began to think I really had a chance. Sure enough, I won it! Well, then the stress began. What if it was awful? A bargain that costs hundreds of dollars to set right is no bargain, right?




The transaction went very smoothly. She arrived yesterday, the man who sold it to me packed it wonderfully and didn't gouge me on shipping charges. Could it really be that easy? Yes, in fact, it was. I took it out of the box, inserted a needle and threaded her up. She sews a fine stitch. This morning I took her to Ashby's for cleaning and oiling before I really take her for a spin, but I am very excited about my new baby, I've named her Betsy. The bonus, she came with half a dozen feet, the original manuals and the brown and tan box which needs some tender attention but is a perfect home for Alice.

Pixie's Carrot Ginger Soup

This delicious and easy to make soup has become a staple for me since I first made it in December. I hope you enjoy it!

Pixie's Carrot Ginger Soup

2 T. butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 lbs. carrots peeled and cut into quarters
2 T. grated fresh ginger
6 c. low sodium chicken broth
1 c. heavy cream
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
salt and pepper

Sautee the onion in the melted butter until it becomes translucent. Add the carrots, ginger, thyme and chicken broth. Cover and simmer for one hour, the carrots should be thoroughly cooked and quite soft. Use tongs to transfer the carrots to a blender or food processor, or use an immersion blender (my personal choice) and process until very smooth. Add remaining chicken broth and heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper as desired. Serve with a loaf of crusty bread.

Dagnabbit!!!!

I sewed through my middle finger. It hurts like a son of a gun. I guess I'm lucky it didn't go through my fingernail, instead piercing the cuticle and coming straight through and emerging through the pad of my finger. There was a lot of blood initially. I think I got the whole needle out of my finger (it was in two pieces, three if you count the part that was still attached to the machine) washed it with hydrogen peroxide, got the bleeding stopped, (managed to not get any blood on my quilt blocks, that's a ray of sunshine in this mess), used neosporin and a band-aid and now I hope I'm going to be fine. Ice and elevation to keep down the swelling, blah, blah, blah.


I thought you might prefer to see a picture of the weapon, rather than the flesh wound.

Finally I got back to the machine, inserted a new needle, rethreaded and tried it out. No stitch. It's not catching the bobbin thread. Remove the bobbin assembly, no stray threads, reassemble it and try again, now it works. Test and get a fine stitch. Start sewing and now I'm skipping stitches. Grrrr.

I was due for a cleaning anyway but I'd hate to think I ruined something. On the other hand, I have a surprise coming, hopefully this week. If it works out I won't miss this machine quite as much as I would otherwise.

Monthly Accounting and a Word About Batting

So, it's been a long time since I've made a list like this. I'm glad to say that most of the items from my last monthly accounting are truly finished, although one still sits waiting to be quilted.

Quilts tops that need basting, quilting and finishing:

Chocolate Covered Cherries (shown with its red backing fabric)

Sherwood Forest Romance

Briners' Picnic (yes, still)


WIPS that need piecing:

Hunter's Star (I pieced together the blocks I'd made and I love it but it needs to be bigger.

Green and white chain quilt (chain blocks are made, I need to cut the white blocks and piece them together)


It's not as big a list as usual. Maybe I've gotten better at narrowing my focus? I have other unfinished things that have been in a holding pattern for a while. But since I have no plan for them they don't make the list. Obviously there's a lot of quilting in my future.

I have the batting and backing for Chocolate Covered Cherries and Briners' Picnic so there's no reason I couldn't get serious about layering them this month. When I get the chain quilt pieced its going to make it to the top of the list since I"m making it as a gift for a friend. I don't know yet how big it's going to finish. Once I know for sure I'll be ordering the battings I need. I used a wool batting in Flying Rose and I love it! It's more expensive than the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 which is what I have been using for the past several years but wool is LOVELY to work with and the finished quilt feels wonderful. As hubby says, $20 more per batting is a really a small fraction of the cost of the quilt. Sometimes I really love how he thinks

Quilts at the Capitol

Quilt guilds in Georgia were invited by the Georgia Quilt Council to make quilts to benefit the quilt museum. Today those quilts were displayed at the state capitol so of course the Mavens planned a field trip. Eventually they will be the opening collection for the museum and then they will be auctioned off. It was wonderful to see the quilts, so many of them were truly creative expressions of the guilds that made them. Here are some of my favorites:
















Various officials and Mrs. Deal (our governor's wife) were on hand to meet their constituents and so I got to have my picture taken with State Senator Chip Rogers in front of the ECQG quilt.

Mystery Solved: Sherwood Forest Romance

I finished applying the borders for my mystery quilt. This quilt is BIG (83 x 110) so big in fact that I had trouble finding a floor space large enough to lay it down on, you can see the borders are bunched up a bit in the picture. I think I might cut it down some in the end. I think there is too much green dwarfing the center of the quilt. If it were a light border as the original mystery called for and it could be quilted with a design to compliment the center design it would be wonderful to have a 10" border to work with but as things stand I think 8" might be sufficient. I'm going to put it aside in my pile of things to be quilted and make that call when I come to it again.

Putting this Debbie Caffrey mystery together was great fun. Thanks to Melinda and Maetha at Tiny Stitches for planning the mystery tour.

It's a Mystery

Last weekend I participated in the Tiny Stitches mystery project at Amicalola Falls. It was great, even though it's taken me all week to recover from it! Once again Maetha and Melinda chose a wonderful pattern from Debbie Caffrey. The green fabric really grabbed me when I was browsing the quilt shop. It dawned on me that although green is one of my favorite colors I've never done a quilt for myself that was predominantly green. The mystery clues called for a light background but I decided to make this fabric my background choice and I worked backwards from there. As I kept looking around the shop I was taken with a collection of florals featuring violets. I've always liked the way green and purple play together but I had an "aha" moment and remembered that I had yards and yards of a pretty floral at home that might work with the green. So, I bought a half yard of the green to come home and check against my stash. Sure enough the floral I had bought and hoarded worked beautifully.

Back to the quilt store to buy more green plus the red and cream fabrics. There was also plenty of homework, cutting the fabric and placing each "clue" into its own ziplock baggie. I have to say this kind of work really appeals to my sense of crazy.

I'm almost done with the quilt top, one more border to go. I'll show you the whole thing when it's finished.

Flying Rose, Finally!

She is finally finished! I'll be entering her in the ECQG show scheduled for this September.

I have gotten quite a few UFOs off my conscience in the past year and a half. I've also started a handful of other projects, of course. I've missed blogging and often thought of returning to it. I hope you enjoy seeing some of what I've been up to.