Quilting In These Modern Times

Back in the day, when the day was about 9 years ago, which is when the oldest grandgirl was born, my dearest sis and I embarked on the tradition of making the grands quilts. I had learned to quilt in 1978, and was all about the scissors and templates, hoops and hand quilting. That stuck until the the fifth quilt. A few things happened.  The quilts started stacking up.  DSis bought a Bernina, helped found the Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, and subsequently retired.

I will be honest here.  I didn't know modern from schmodern. Quilts are quilts are quilts...and are mostly for covering up with. So anyway, back to DSis retiring and leaving Las Vegas and moving into the hot bed of America's quilting heartland. Her mad skilz took off like a rocket, and she was all...maybe we should look at some of the more recent innovations in the quilting industry.  I was all...this was how I learned to make quilts and this is how I am going to die making quilts.

Variation of Card Trick with 30's reproduction prints

And then I got laid off again, and picked up a part time job at a LYS that was opening an fabric side. I needed to let go of the past, all be it kicking and screaming, and let myself get dragged into these modern times. I had fun for the few months I sewed for a living. My mother's legacy lives on, and I am truly grateful for the life skills she taught me. Also, I honed those rotary cutting and chain piecing skills!

"Sisters" with 30's reproduction prints

Grandgirl's six and seven quilts were cranked out lickety split! I even machined quilted, although it was simply quilting in the ditch.  The intricacies of free motion still elude me, but as many things, I am sure it's just a process of learning.

16-patches from FCMQG block bee and hour glass block

I still sew with my mid-century Singer (the Rocketeer) but I bought myself a Janome, too.  (By the way, save yourself embarrassment.  Jay No Me.  I asked the man in the store about the Jaynoms.  Oops.) I joined the local MQG.  I even met DSis at QuiltCon in Austin for fun, amusement, and education in what the heck Modern Quilting is.

The photos are of a few of my recently completed quilt tops.  The top two are throw sizes, the bottom is now larger than the photo shows, more of an oversized queen. I cranked these out in the last week.  Fast as lightening! Quick as winks! Goodbye to the olden days!

I am not starting by making excuses. Life changes. Life happens. Life evolves.

I have updated the layout.  I haven't been reading any blogs for a while so deleted all the 'what I have been reading'. Maybe I will add some back, if that changes. Seems since retirement, I have been doing more and more, and on the computer less.  Somehow there is this pull to the blog, and I am not sure what that is about. So I am going to give it a go and see where it takes me.  That is all.

First things first.  I am retired, for over a year. Work is done and that is that.  It is good to done with work and that is that. I love having my time be my time. I do whatever I want when I want to do it. Like I haven't EVER. I spend my time in the yard, creating fibery things, trying to stay fit, traveling a bit, with the grandgirls (which number seven now) and with the husband (who is still a wonderful guy).

Right now I have a pair of socks, a pair of mittens on the needles. I also have 3 quilts in process.
I am loving life.

I won Reserve Champion at the Estes Park Wool Market for some llama.

Hello Again

I might be back...

What's Goin' On

A few interviews...
A couple never made it past the HR screening phone interview, but I made it to the third elimination round for one position. I am not too disappointed.  It was for third shift.  Yes, I am applying for just about anything that  comes close to fitting the bill.
Is it close? Does it come close to paying what I made? Is the position halfway close to what I have done? Is it permanent and regular hours?  75% gets an application...

Knocking down the to-do list...
The house is cleaned like I haven't cleaned it since we started using cleaning people.  I have been baking bread and cooking most meals at home. The home inventory is juuuusssst about wrapped up.  I have gone through and sorted out for the upcoming community garage sale.  My baskets have been dusted (don't laugh, that is no small matter!). My basement has been cleaned.

Spinning...
The Estes Park Wool Market released the hand spun skein contest rules, and one of the surrounding counties has already put out their county fair rules, so I am spinning to that end, keeping in mind that I am also practicing for Sheep To Shawl.

Merino/Alpaca, 50:50. The dark is the merino and the white is alpaca.  I spun the singles randomly on one bobbin. The next bobbin, I tried to sort of stagger the colors opposite.  Turned out sort of crazy and pretty cool.

50:50 camel and silk.  This is really sleek.  Only 145 yards.

Knitting...
I have finished up a couple of requests from Middle Daughter and Precious Niece., a pair of slippers (my family goes through slippers like Sherman went through Georgia!) and a circular scarf (out of my handspun, which was nice as it was a choice on her part).

On the upside of not working, while Spring took a backseat to 22 inches of snow this past week, I could take my mornings easy, and stay inside.

Spinny Stuff

I made mentioned back aways that after my handspun fair entries did (amazingly) well, that I was asked to be on a Sheep to Shawl team at the Estes Park Wool Market this year.

Briefly put, a team of five take a clean fleece, and from 9-2:30, card the fleece, spin and ply it into yarn, and weave the yarn into a shawl, take the shawl off the loom, give it a quickie rinse, towel dry it, and let it be judged. And also interact with the looky-loos.

The loom will be set up with the warp (the longish bits).  We have already carded, spun and plied that part so the weaver will have that set up. Only the weft (the crosswise parts) will be what is woven the day of the contest.

It's doable, but we will be busy for that five hours...or so I am told.  I have never really seen this sort of thing happen.  Turns out I am the least experienced on this team.  I listen to the conversations of my fellow team members and find out they have taken classes with some big names and gone to some highly acclaimed retreats.  Our alternate has previously JUDGED Sheep to Shawl contests.  Pretty humbling.

So far, as I mentioned, we have washed the fleece.  We met and sort of test spun to establish what we wanted to spin our singles to so we would be spinning consistently. We have carded what is going to be used for the warp, and we each took about 2 oz to spin into singles.  We brought those singles together last Saturday and we traded off plying parts of each others bobbins, so the warp yarn would consist of every one's singles plied with everyone else's.

I was very surprised at how consistent the yarn turned out. It was really pretty cool. I am going to learn so much from these people, not to mention getting to know the women themselves.