Seams

I mentioned the lovely seam work on the recent RR blocks and that I wanted to try some... I already tried this one is by Jeanne in Switzerland and imagine my delight when my "Miss Carole" templates fit perfectly... She must have a set also... But what I wanted to point out, because I didn't notice it at first, is she used two quite different weights of thread in the daisy stitches... By putting the heavier weight on the middle chain, the outer chain stitches tucked in so neatly... Combining different weights threads to achieve a look isn't something I had given too much thought to...but will now.

Below are seams on Helina's (Finland) block. The 3 seams on the right are all stitches I want to try on my suffagette quilt.. I loved the jaunty angles in the top right seam.. The bottom right will be perfect for a very short seam and I have lots of those... It makes an impact with just 4 stitches.. The center treatment was new to me... She did a buttonhole circle and then surrounded it with bullions. A very different look for a flower...

I love the combination of the fan and fly stitch on the left and will file that under "really wide seam treatments." But since I promised myself not to use fly stitches on this project (I use them toooooooooo much) I will keep it for the next time I need a wide seam treament.

This was a great RR and lots of thought and effort put in by this team... I appreciate getting to fondle and really look at the work first hand.. I always see things that I miss on a computer screen.

Mystery solved.....

I knew somewhere in the darker areas of my brain there was something I associated with my mystery thingy that was perfect for hanging scissors.... I sent pictures of it to wire suppliers, jewlery suppliers and several other places to no avail.. Then today it came to me..... FISHING

It has the highly technical name of "snap" and there are a zillion varieties and sizes of them... A snap is used to attach fishing lures, etc to the swivels and whatever... Obviously I'm not a fisherman but my son is and downstairs at the lodge there is this fabulous work center for the guy who ties flies and is in charge of tackle... He has the coolest scissors, pliers, clamps, etc..... and, I'm sure, snaps in large numbers... probably where I got it in the first place.

Of course in the meantime I have found a better option for my scissor holders but at least if I ever need this thingy and, I am sure I will.....I know the name!!!!!

Back to the Suffragette quilt and decisions

Last night was the first night for about a month that I worked on it because I was busy finishing the AAQ quilt... I worked on seams across the bottom and after one more evening I should be as far as I can go without adding the images... Seams like the ones with arrows are ones I will embellish more after the images...

I am so glad I did the AAQ quilt first because it was the same fabrics and there were many things I would have changed on the way I finished it if I hadn't been trying to meet a deadline... First..... too many images so on the large quilt I will probably use larger images and fewer of them.... But in my defense I was trying to tell the whole story on one block. Now I have nine blocks to work with.

Second....I was REALLY unhappy with the lace I dyed to frame the images for both projects .. The colors simply did not work... So all that lace will go into a baggie for another project. Now the key words for my color scheme for the large quilt will be "sepia tones."

I have cancelled most everything on my March calendar, put my answering machine on, and will focus on getting everything caught up and preparing for CT.. DH will be gone on tours for 2 long weekends (maybe three) so I will have lots of uninterrupted time....

To Ruby about Andy: Thanks for your words of caution and I DO always carry a big wooden crook. When he lowers his head to position himself to ram I whack him on his nose... Now if he start to lower his head and I raise the crook, his head pops right up....innocent as the lovable lamb he once was so long ago... I fully realize how dangerous he can be protecting his ewes... I was truly scared and smart enough to know I didn't want to handle him alone... so the first thing I did was run to call for help... That testosterone is a powerful force...that's why we have wars, violent sports and monster trucks bashing into each other... certainly not a woman's cup of tea......and while I'm rambling there is a large plot of woods not all that far from us that is used for "paint gun battles" Grown men dressed in military camoflague run around in the woods and shoot each other with balls of paint ... better than real bullets but definitely a testosterone thing.

Randy Andy and the Ethiopians

And what's not to love... It's hard to believe that as a lamb he was so timid and when someone said "Boo!" he ran to hide behind me... Of course since then I learned the you never make a pet of a ram lamb as they'll never take you seriously..

Once all that testosterone kicked in I never turned my back on him because he'd lower his head and knock me down... and what does he do when I'm down... he runs over and nuzzles my hair and expects his chin scratched.... To him it's all a game... He's so heavy now that he can push me over by leaning against me to get his ears scratched.

But last week he really scared me... I put him in a small gated area while I moved the ewes to the old greenhouse for lambing (like every spring). Suddenly Andy is loose and ramming the door of the greenhouse and is enraged at being separated...ramming everything including walls and benches.. I ran to the house to call for help to get him corralled again.. By the time Wil came Andy had broken open the greenhouse door and destroyed the gate inside the greenhouse and had all the ewes back with him in the pasture... It took the better part of the morning to get everyone sorted but he had destroyed part of a fence, 4 gates and two 4x4 posts. Wil helped me with repairs.

Not many people in this country even like lamb and no one I know eats mutton but the Ethiopians here in Spokane do.. They will gladly come and slaughter an older sheep, butcher it and use every bit of it.. So now when I feed him in the morning I remind him I can easily get the phone numbers of the Ethiopians and he'd better behave.

"Seams Only" blocks return....

My own blocks from this RR returned during the preparations for Cathy's visit and the envelope just went into the mail basket. Finally today I got around to emptying the basket and opening the envelope...This block was done by Cathy Labath and she did motifs generally oriented towards a seam... It's delightful and I'll do something special with it... I kept turning and couldn't decide which side was up but it perfect on point and I'll use it that way...Thank you Cathy for all the special work you put into this block... and daffodils and hummingbirds are my very favorite.

My plan in the beginning was to use these blocks on a jacket to wear to CT but that was before all the button-painting stuff... The other "Seams Only" blocks were actually "seams only" and extraordinary seams at that... I can hardly wait to try some of these now that I'm in my seam mode... In fact I'll use them as samplers to try the seams on my suffrage blocks.

These blocks were done by (starting on the left) Jeanne Gagnaux, Ritva Peltola, and Helina Penttinen. All these ladies are "seamers" I greatly admire and I'm about to start another RR with Ritva and Helina.

Maire Courtney used to be active in RRs and I haven't seen her name for a while but Ritva's seams remind me of Maire's....so delicate, almost ephemeral. I've decided I'll stitch a few floral motifs in these blocks at some point...