Thimble UP!

Quote for the Day:

"If the only tool you have is a hammer,

 you tend to see every problem as a nail."

~Abraham Maslow 

Scrap quilt designer extraordinaire, Bonnie Hunter over at www.quiltville.com has asked her readers who are bloggers to write about their thimbles and to link up to her blog.  How could one resist an invitation like that, I ask you???  :)

Anybody who has ever started a new hobby or job knows that they learn what they need and works for them only after a lot of trial and error.

When I started hand quilting back in the mid 1990's, I purchased what I was told I would "need".  Over the years, when those items didn't work for me, I gradually learned what *did* work for me.  

One of those things that I've worked my way through is THIMBLES!  :)  I have since gotten rid of all the ones that DIDN'T work for me, so I don't have that long linage to share with you, so I'll just show you what I currently use day in and day out!  :) 

After trying...and buying... just about every thimble on the market, except for the Roxanne thimble which I found I couldn't use when I tried it at the store, I have finally found one that I LOVE!  It is a "raised edge" thimble and costs about $8.00.  

Since I use the tip of my finger to push the needle through, the high edge around the top keeps the needle from slipping off of the thimble.  :)

As you can see, I also wear a finger cot on my index finger to help pull the needle through.  I found that without wearing one of these, the needle just slides through my fingers, causing me to have to keep trying to pull the needle through repeatedly, making my fingers sore.  :(   

For quilting AWAY from my body, after much trial and error with leather thumb thimbles, I finally found Ted's Thumb Thimble.   It is an adjustable thimble that fits on your thumb and has a large "dimple" to hold the needle.  

In the top picture, you can actually see the spot where my needle always hits because it creates a little indention there over time.  This is actually my second Ted's Thumb Thimble because my needle did, eventually, wear the hole all the way through my last one.  That meant that every time I used it the needle went straight through to my thumb.  OUCH!  


I thought I'd go ahead and show you the rest of my hand quilting tools...

This little thread and thimble holder was made for me by a friend that does woodworking.  I had asked for something to hold a thimble and 2 spools of thread (since sometimes I've been known to use 2 different colors of thread on a quilt).  When I'm not using the second spool holder for thread, I use it to hold my second thimble.  :) 

The plastic dish on the left is to collect my thread snippets.  The silver tray in the middle holds various stuff...extra needles, thread wax, marking pencils, liquid bandage (for my underneath finger when it starts getting too sore), and the Splenda container holds my discarded bent/broken needles so they don't go in the trash unprotected.  :)   Simply hold the container upside down and push the lever to open the "bottom"...and insert the needle!  When it gets full, I just toss it!  And, of course, the pin cushion on the right is self explanatory...I think!  LOL
 

We can't forget the reading glasses :), the snipping scissors, or the ever important...REMOTE CONTROL!!!  LOL   I wouldn't get too far without any of these!  :O
 

And last, but not least...my adjustable chair, Ott-lite (for these poor old eyes) and my 3-roll floor frame that tilts and adjusts to just the right ergonomic position for me!
 

Hope you've enjoyed this visit to my sewing room and maybe, just maybe, I've given you some good information about tools that you can try in your own hand quilting adventure!  :)

Loretta

Addendum...

I need to amend my previous Valentine's Day post...

At lunch, Andy came home with these...

...a Valentine's bouquet for moi!  :)

See...even after 31 years he can still keep me guessing!  ;)

Loretta

Happy Valentine's Day!

Quote for the Day:

“I don’t understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine’s Day. 

 When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind 

is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.”

~author unknown

Today is the day we celebrate LOVE!  Hope you all have a GREAT day today with the people in your life that you love!  :)

Andy & I don't do a lot of exchanging of presents on any holiday, including Valentine's Day, but that doesn't mean we don't love each other very much!  Oh yes, we've had our share of gift fiascos over the 31 years we been together.   (Maybe sometime I'll tell you about the power drill he gave me for Valentine's Day when we'd been married 13 years!!)   But mainly we don't do gifts because we are at the point in our lives where we just don't "need" anything...and if we need or want something, we go out and buy it.  We aren't into spending money just to buy something as a gift because it is "expected" or "protocol for the holiday".  End of story.

Andy reads my blog, so I'm going to give this shout out to him here:

After 31 years, you are still the love of my life!  Thank you for picking me up in the "Jack of Diamonds" all those years ago.  :)   Happy Valentine's Day, Andy!  I love you very much!!

(Yes, we met in a bar!  But that's a story for another day, too!  LOL)

Loretta

Book Reviews and Quilting Update...

Quote for the Day:

"Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, 

there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom."

~Ecclesiastes 9:10, Holy Bible, New Living Translation

Happy Sunday to all.  Hope your new week is starting out great!

We've been having snow and a cold snap since Friday here in West Virginia.  At our house we've only had 3-4" accumulation of snow, but some higher elevations have had more like 6-8".  The temperatures have only been in the low 20's F during the daytime and 5-10 degrees F at night.   BRRRRR!

We can't complain too much, though, because we have had a very mild winter so far...which suits me just fine!  :)   (Helps keep the heating bills down, too...which is a "good thing"!)

In January, I loaded the daffodil quilt top into the hand quilting frame and thought you might want to see what a block of it looks like quilted...

I'm really liking the way the quilting helps bring the flower and stems to life and give them dimension.  However, there is a LOT more quilting involved in this quilt than I thought there was going to be, so I don't think I'll be getting it done in 3 months like I had originally thought.  I would guess it will take more like 6 months.

I wanted to share a book review/recommendation, too...

"Perfection:  A memoir of betrayal and renewal" by Julie Metz is an EXCELLENT book!

• Julie Metz had seemingly the perfect life—an adoring husband, a happy, spirited daughter, a lovely old house in a quaint suburban town—but it was all a lie.
  Julie Metz's life changed forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapsed on the kitchen floor and died in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old became the young widow in her bucolic small town. But that was only the beginning. Seven months after Henry's death, just when Julie thought she was emerging from the worst of it, came the rest of it: She discovered that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.
  Perfection is the story of Metz's journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and for her young daughter. It is the story of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood, of rebirth and happiness—if not perfection. 
  
  Warning:  Don't start reading this book in the evening.  I was unable to put it down for the first 1/2 of the book!  If you start late in the evening, you will be up half the night reading it!  You've been warned!   :)
  
  Loretta

  

Where In the World is Loretta???

Quote for the Day:

“Never any weary traveler complained that he

came too soon to his journey's end.”
Thomas Fuller

I know, I know...I've been MIA ("missing in action") lately. 

Well...not technically "missing"...because *I* knew where I was!  :)   Andy & I took our yearly sojourn to Florida for 5 days and even took a side-trip up to Georgia to see the kiddos...Paul, Trinity, and Andrew III.  :)

A few years ago, we got in the habit of going to Florida for an albeit brief escape from the cold West Virginia winters.  However, since the weather has been very mild so far this winter, it really made this trip to Florida seem strange....going from semi-warm weather to REALLY warm weather!  LOL  The last couple of years, the weather in Florida had been "cool", by normal standards.  Not this year!  HOT HOT HOT!!!  I had to keep reminding myself that what season we were in because it felt like August weather to us!  ("Tourist season" in most areas of the United States is during the summer months, May through September.  But in Florida, the "tourist season" is January through March.) 

Here are some pictures from our side trip to Georgia to visit with Paul, Trinity & Andrew:

Our son and daughter-in-law, Paul & Trinity...

Andrew LOVES to draw and carries a little notebook and crayon around with him most of the time (like they do on "Blues Clues")!!  

Here he is intently watching what Aunt Mary Ellen is drawing in his notebook...

Whenever I get the chance, I like to take pictures of "The Three Andrews" together...Andrew, Sr., Andrew "Paul" II, and Andrew III...

Playing outside quickly turned from this...

...to this...

...to this...

All I can say is I'm glad those Little Tyke toys are made to be sturdy!  LOL


On Sunday, we tried out a new restaurant that Paul knew about...Mongo's, in Valdosta.   (BTW...HIGHLY recommend it if you are ever in the area.  It is a Mongolian barbeque.)  
After lunch, we took Andrew to the park to play for a while.

As soon as Andrew saw a swing become available, he headed straight for it...and then promptly fell asleep in it for about 10 minutes while his mom pushed him in it...

Anybody who knows little Andrew knows he has a special love for his Grandpa Andrew.  They are inseparable when we visit!  Andrew will forsake even his mother's arms when Grandpa is around!  LOL

We had a great trip, both in Georgia and Florida!  Lord willing, we'll do it all again next year, too!  :)

Loretta

Book Reviews...

Quote for the Day:

"Anyone who says they have only one life to live 

must not know how to read a book."

 ~Author Unknown

I have come to the conclusion that I will need to live several lifetimes to read all the books that I want to read!  

I have a list going all the time.  I used to hand-write it and keep in by the computer and would scratch off the books as I read them.  Usually, only about 1/10 of the books were scratched off because for every one I scratched off, I would add 3-4 to the list!  

Since I get most of my recommendations in print, one way or the other...in emails from people (namely my sister, Mary Ellen, who likes to read memoirs as much as I do!!), or from an email book list I belong to, or now, from browsing the Barnes & Noble book site looking at what books they offer for the Nook reader...I have now started "copying & pasting" the book title and author onto the "notepad" function of the computer and saving the list on my computer's desktop!  So much easier and neater than handwriting the info on a paper, or more likely, on a post-it note that then gets lost on the desk. 

This is what my current list looks like (before I started putting the list on my computer...which just started today, by the way!  LOL)   So there's another 6 books or so on the computerized list, in addition to this list!  :) 

 FRONT of list...

BACK of list... 

And this doesn't count the books I've already downloaded onto my MP3 player or Nook reader!  See...it will take me several lifetimes to read everything I want to read because the list just keeps growing!

But on to the book reviews...

First up is "The End of Normal:  A Wife's Anguish, A Widow's New Life" by Stephanie Madoff Mack.  

• When the news of Bernard Madoff 's Ponzi scheme broke, Americans were shocked and outraged, perhaps none more so than the unsuspecting members of his own family. After learning that their father's legendarily successful wealth management company was "all just one big lie," Mark and Andrew Madoff turned their father in and cut off all communication with both parents. Mark and his wife, Stephanie, strove to make a fresh start for the sake of their two young children, but Mark could not overcome his sense of betrayal and shame-he and other family members were sued for $200 million in October of 2009. He hung himself on the two-year anniversary of his father's arrest. Left to raise her children as a single mother, Stephanie wrote this memoir to give them a sense of who their father really was, defend his innocence, and put her personal statement on record once and for all. In this candid insider account, she talks about her idyllic wedding to Mark on Nantucket, what it was really like to be a part of the Madoff family, the build-up to Bernard's confession, and the media frenzy that followed. It is about the loss of the fairytale life she knew, adjusting to life with a man she hardly recognized anymore, and the tragic and final loss of her husband.  

I listened to it on audiobook and it was read by the author herself.  This book was written and read less than one year after her husband's suicide and you can tell when she gets to the raw parts because you could hear the emotion in her voice like she was about to cry.  It was very moving.  Yes, there are parts where she talks about the "house at Nantucket" and other things known only to the rich.  But overall I found the book riveting!  I highly recommend this book!

Next up is  "The Girl's Guide to Homelessness" by BriannaKarp.  

• Brianna Karp entered the workforce at age ten, supporting her mother and sister throughout her teen years in Southern California. Although her young life was scarred by violence and abuse, Karp stayed focused on her dream of a steady job and a home of her own. By age twenty-two her dream became reality. Karp loved her job as an executive assistant and signed the lease on a tiny cottage near the beach.And then the Great Recession hit. Karp, like millions of others, lost her job. In the six months between the day she was laid off and the day she was forced out onto the street, Karp scrambled for temp work and filed hundreds of job applications, only to find all doors closed. When she inherited a thirty-foot travel trailer after her father's suicide, Karp parked it in a Walmart parking lot and began to blog about her search for work and a way back. 

Though this book is written by a young girl who has made some bad choices, I still found it interesting and it definitely held my attention.   I would give it 4 stars (out of 5).  :)

Remember...the advice is always free on this blog...and you get what you pay for!  :)


Loretta

Feed Sack Quilt Finished!

Quote for the Day:

"Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand."
~Euripides

Tonight I finished the binding and then labeled the Feed Sack Quilt.   It has now been washed and is currently in the dryer as I type this post.  :)

I picked up this vintage quilt top at an estate auction for a mere $2.00 back in 2007.  It didn't lay flat, but I "nipped & tucked" it into submission and got it to lay fairly flat before quilting it.  I was then able to "quilt out" what I wasn't able to "nip & tuck" into flatness!   (is "flatness" a word?) 

 

I added the cream calico print border to make it large enough to fit comfortably on a full-sized bed.  (Most older quilts are smaller than today's quilts because our beds are bigger now than they used to be.)

Here's a side view of the quilt that shows the border better...

I used a thrift store-purchased sheet for the backing.  However, the stripes were brighter than I really wanted for this subdued quilt, so I used the WRONG side of the sheet for the backing and put the RIGHT side of the sheet to the inside of the quilt!  :)   (I always browse the sheet section of thrift stores because you can pick up a king-sized flat sheet for $3.00-4.00...much cheaper than backing fabric!  HOWEVER...DON'T use a sheet on a quilt you are going to HAND quilt!  It is nearly impossible to needle through a well-made sheet by hand!  I only use them when I am going to machine quilt a quilt.)

Out of all of the different blocks, I think this aqua fabric is my favorite!  :)  It is such a "happy" color!  :)  

And here's the label...

 
All in all, I'm quite pleased with the way the quilt turned out and I would hope that the original quilter who made the top would feel I did it justice.  :)




Loretta