Quilt #5 Winning the War on WIPs

Now in Year Two of my War on WIP, this da'hlin is quilted and had its own day in the sunshine under the lens! Saturday was a lovely day in the low country with the temperatures back up where they belong in the 70's for February in Forsyth Park. 

This post celebrates the fabric I could afford in 1996!  

Children, this is what quilts looked like before the Internet!

In 1996, I was pregnant. Two heart beats? Are you sure? Not sure, could be an echo... And an echo it was.  However, in the weeks between ultrasounds, two quilts started. Twins. After the echo was confirmed, the twin quilts joined seams and became one quilt. 

But back then I didn't have any idea how to quilt. I was getting pretty good at piecing tops but was not yet a quilter.

My only quilting reference was Mary Ellen Hopkin's Its OK if You Sit On My Quilt.

What an awesome book to have as one's only reference!  Every traditional half square triangle combination you could imagine, along with the greatest tutorial ever for making mass quantities of identical HST's! 

You owe it to yourself to see this method!

The internet was new and my dial up modem only made calls to a chat room for first time mom's due in early summer.  The top was bundled away in the storage box with my other hobbies that were to take a break while I was a mom at home for a year, then a working not at home mom for the next 17 years. 

Fast forward to 2010. The storage box unpacked as I rediscovered my love of quilting. This darling top needed to become a warm snuggly, not a UFO.  



















Fraying seams repaired, cheap fluffy batting inserted, bright red 14 year old binding tape found in the craft box and backing with a green sheet I actually took right off the guest room bed in a fit to finish this by tying with embroidery floss.

Fast forward once more to 2015.  I'm a quilter in training.  

Perhaps will always be in training!   <insert abashed grin here>  

<once upon a time, we had to use these <brackets> for emoji!> 

The broken floss removed, top washed, loose threads snipped, a proper cotton batting and scrap busting backing with scrap busting binding has my baby's quilt finished just in time - for graduation! 

BTW - those Summer Mom's '97  and I still are in touch with our Facebook page!

WIP Wednesday

Home late today, but working on projects in progress is a needed stress reliever! 


I'm going to even link up to other WIP Wednesday blogs if I can discover how to do that in time for this to still be Wednesday. 

It is rather fitting that I link to Lee at
Freshly Pieced  for WIP Wed.  She inspired the Monster Swooning Tire Track! (below)






Left over HST's are happily lining themselves up to be joined during quilting breaks of TMSTT (see below) and then moving themselves onto the guest room idea wall.  Guest Room Idea Wall is a new addition.

 This is a quilting HOUSE, not something hidden in a single room.  

The Monster Swooning Tire Tracks is pinned.  After working out a dozen places where it was so poorly joined it didn't lie flat.  

Happy WIP Wednesday!

Swoon Quilt with Tire Tracks

Out of the Closet With Love

What can you say to the grieving parent or widow?

How do you greet the unloved neighbor when she walks into the party?

What do you say about the quilt you find ugly?

There are good words.  I just don't have the gift for such words. Nor do most folks I know.

I'll just make a quilt to take the place of words.  






A quilt top was made from my fabric hoard as I felt a need to take what was on hand to create something that resembles the expensive quilts produced by the cool blogger kids. 

I wanted to be like the artistic lady I knew who was making Swoon Blocks, so that I too might feel artistic and current.  








I took on all ideas, for reasons valid and invalid to create the quilt top from hell.

It grew to be HUGE.  In part, it grew because everyone wants a King Sized quilt. In part because there are so many ideas to put together. In part it grew with the huge number of things pulling at my soul. The quilt top grew and grew and grew to be so large it scared me.  

I cannot quilt this beast!!!  Can I?  Maybe...  I'll take another on line class to improve...OH NO, this monster is going into the guestroom closet of shame! I cannot manage to quilt it as it deserves to be quilted. I'm not skilled, artistic or talented enough without a cheerleader to tell me I can.



To make matters worse (and better), I shared the quilt top on Facebook.  Big mistake, Big Score - Both. Someone I've never met from the Arty Quilty Police chided me for using such cheap, no name fabric and acting proud of my creation.    


Yet the same quilt top caught someone's eye while she was in raw pain.  She loved the colors, the cheer, the spirit.  She saw a connection with me of those fun times years ago and a connection with grief we share.

But the top was already cast aside.

Grief continues on its own timeline and my brain knows the top lingers in the closest deserving to get up to Long Island.  Even with the no name fabric, it might let someone special to me, who shared the fun of being young know that I'm down here, thinking of her, loving her in her loss. 


Tonight I created a back for this top.  Friday night blues battled by sewing yet again. I hope to pin the whole thing this weekend at a venue I've found which forces me to interact with people.  A place that is an opportunity to interact with people only if they want to meet me.  I don't have to force anything there.  It is for crafters and loners like me.  

Still don't have words but I do say - Finish it!  Share it!  Be proud, even if there is a section that will not lie flat, perhaps due to the no name brand fabric chosen as background pointed out by  Ms. Arty Arrogant.

Share it, because speaking and quilting of grief may make others be uncomfortable in the moment, but when they too walk the path, perhaps they then will find the words - " Hey there!!  I'm listening!!!  I love you!

Peace,love and understanding - thanks Elvis...

For you, Ellen and for Jossie.  NOT for the Arty Quilty Police!

20 year old HST

Baggies of Treasure!

Cleaning up meant sorting scraps of previous projects.  Another clean up effort meant moving the scraps to baggies. Baggies into boxes, boxes into moving trucks...Another year, another clean up meant moving the baggies from bins to another bin.  Then drawer...

And this weekend the baggies came out of a drawer, sparking, glowing with desire, guiding the way to be part of a new quilt!!!!!



There are different sizes of HST.  Some are in the scrap baggies because they are not really square.  I don't care.  There is a way they will work together. I am creative!  I will find the way.



Honestly, I still don't know where this is going, but it is going rather well on this mystery path!  Some of these square are from recent quilts. The calico's were leftovers from a quilt I made in Lake Charles in 1993. 

I love white background quilts.  I love scraps.  I love scraps on white back grounds.  I love Half Square Triangles.  What more could I ask for?  I love blue and green and purple!  Most of my quilts have at least two of those colors featured.  

Oh, I hear it now..."OMG those are chain store prints!!"

"Those are PRINTS, not solids!  

"eeeewweh - how, how, NOT modern!!!"  

"How, how...old!  How last month!!!! "  

"There isn't a major designer fabric in all that horrible mess!!!  Just chunk in it in the bin, lady and move on!!!  Get with the program here!  Send it off to the wannabe quilters. "

Smirk - it makes me happy.  You don't.  Go your way, I'll go mine! 

So here I go, following shiny sparks of HST for a new quilt of greens and blue and purples!  


Loving the calico's of 1990 cozying up with the retro prints of 2014 all keeping me warm and crafting in 2015. And a drawer of scrap baggies is empty!

Flash Back 1990 and Quilt 50.

Meet Quilt Number 1 & 2   - from 1990

Today, February 1, 2015,  I think I finished quilt number 50.  Wel,l I know I finished it - but the counting is cloudy.  It is tumbling around in the dryer as I type.

1990's Yuppies

I had so much fun creating quilt Number One in 1990. Scott was an awesome cheerleader. That Christmas, he gave me a sewing machine. He said it was a thank you for all the pants I had hemmed for him.  I had no quilt books or patterns.  There was not even an Internet!  We didn't get a computer until the next Christmas and no internet until years later...with a dial up modem!  I made up this quilt out of my own little head!  I bought binding tape at the fabric store as I didn't even know I could make it for myself!

1980's Babies In Love

Scott knew I needed to express myself with something creative.  He played guitar so beautifully.  He reached me so deeply with his music.   He made so many connections with wonderful people through his music - people we treasured as friends in so many cities, so many years.     

He worked hard at his job and was a talented engineer and manager...yet when he came home he relaxed by letting the other half of his brain reign! 

And he was a guilty party to what I recall as the 'piano fiasco'.  The previous Christmas, he leased a piano for me to explore.  I practiced for hours and hours to produce frustration, but no music. In one hour, he figured out at least three tunes, with all chords in place, never having touched a piano before.  

And so, the sewing machine appeared next, in bright paper and ribbons, under a tree decorated while wearing shorts and mixing cocktails for friends and neighbors.  Encouragements to 'drive home by that fabric store!' Raves and rapture at every block completed. No rapproachement about the sewing mess on the table for weeks. Therefore - Quilt Number 2 happened as I discovered the public library had more than novels. 
 I still honestly love calicos.

I have only these three pictures of quilts 1 & 2.  I believe each of these ladies each deserve her day in downtown Savannah under the lens. Actually, they should have their day in Carmichael, California. Maybe I should plan a trip back to the American River and snap the pics at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center as I spent most of my time there while making these two!  Quilt 2 is the quilt I sleep under.  We slept under.  Quilt 1 has been our couch quilt for almost 25 years.  

So today, I'm thanking my dearest Scott for yet another gift his love gave my soul. 

April 2009 goofing on the computer and life was good!

When I first spoke of 'sewing for my healing' I didn't realize then he even gave me the tools I needed to mourn for him.  

I appreciate if you have read my voice this far as I grieve so publicly.  Until you have deeply experienced such grief, it is awkward to listen to one who grieves. And when you find yourself there, remember...awkward is ok...just listen. 

Now, I need to pick myself up and move a bit along this trail left to me to explore alone.  Remembering I love to walk, practice yoga,  remembering I love to sew, remembering that I am entitled to be angry sometimes, to laugh as much as I want to and I am capable of more than I think I am some days.  Remembering what it is to love with passion and care and make more quilts!

James Scott Kavanaugh  

January 12, 1961 - May 6, 2009.  

Married me July 14, 1985.