Monday, April 27, 2020

Sew what

Can I sew? Let's break that down a bit, can we? I can get a machine threaded, provided it has arrows showing me the route, and the eye of the needle is large enough. If you want to talk about how the machine actually works, I am not your gal. Tension sounds bad to me, and I will always assume it should be less to fix the problem. I am not really sure what the numbers on the dial even mean, nor which situation calls for what. Patterns are good, but all of my good scissors have been used by other people to cut paper and are rather dull. Directions have to be simple for me to be able to follow, which most likely means the project itself cannot be too complex. The best answer I can give to the question of whether I can sew is that I can stitch straight lines.

Now have I let my limitations hold me back? Well of course I have, but not completely. For one thing, I am especially good at buying fabric. (You have recently seen the amount of thought and planning I put into how much I purchase for any given project.) I used to make fabric covered boxes. No sewing, just a lot of ironing and hot gluing and...coordinating materials. My favorite reason to peruse bolt after bolt of fabric, running my hand over the spines as though they were books, was in search of quilt fixin's. The colors, the themes...joy by the quarter yard! Yes, you can make a quilt by stitching in straight lines and using some elementary level math. 

What did all of this amount to? Two big tubs of fabric in the basement. How much free time do we have these days? Plenty. My friend started making masks and was saying words like "easy" and offering actual measurements...and the stitches were in straight lines! Was it possible that I could make myself useful? Was this the rainy day week month a fabric hoarder had been waiting for? I handed over yards of fabric for projects I never tackled to my friend to sew, since ideas that hadn't materialized (see what I did there?) were easy for me to relinquish. This left me plenty to work with both literally and figuratively as memories burst from each layer I flipped through.

Nearly all of the quilts I have made were for babies...pure joy! There was the pink spider web with purple spiders fabric I used for a neighbor years ago. She was pregnant with a baby girl and we had spent a few years taking delight in watching her two sons playing outside in a variety of superhero costumes. I wanted something that honored the small spiderman brothers, but was clearly girly. There were stars and moons leftover from the "From our babies to yours" quilt we gae my son's first grade teacher when she was expecting. Each square had a baby photo of her students from that class. 

There was Barbie, leftover from making a quilt pattern type pillowcase for my niece.
There was some fabric from a quilt I made for a dear teacher friend when she was expecting her first grandchild...
...and then peace, love and rainbows for her second grandchild...
Left to right...The bees and ladybugs were the drapes and crib bumpers that awaited our firstborn. The stars were used for some fourth of July table linens over twenty years ago. The last was a three time mask chooser's favorite...
...leftover from the quilt I made for a baby who is now four years old. He calls me sometimes and asks me to tell him everything I want to tell him.
I know I bought the strawberry fabric because it reminded me of all the years we picked fresh berries in my grandparents' garden. I had about two yards of Bills fabric that were clearly destined to be something fabulous for my husband. Those chili peppers were leftovers from a small quilt, like a wall hanging size, I made for a friend over twenty years ago. The SU fabric was lugged to the cutting counter because, why not!
This was the first full batch...
...and this was the second...
A request came in from a friend out of town, and I was able to eek out one Harry Potter mask with the leftovers from this wedding gift that highlighted the bride and groom's shared interests.
And when she requested a smaller one in the event that her youngest needed to leave the house any time later this spring, of course I had a little something left from the quilt I sent that "baby" just over five years ago.
I am down to one bin of fabric now, and yes, there are still pieces far too small to amount to anything other than a memory and a smile.


**Update: I  just placed a small fabric order for curbside pickup. I will be making masks for a special occasion coming up next week...stay tuned...

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Grab a seat (part two)

It appears that the number of folks out there reading my posts is less than half of what it was before the great March comeback. It gives me such a boost of confidence to know that people have found better things to do, with nowhere to go, than hang out here. Maybe this is just a fine example of quality over quantity. In other words...YOU ARE AWESOME!!! Now let's get you off that cliff I left you on last time.

The standards have been set fairly low around here, as you know, so look out that you don't trip over them. I have already already shown how to plan for projects with those dining room chairs, as well as that other time I asserted my DIY prowess. (Wouldn't be a quarantine post without a link to use up some more time entertain you further, right?)

Why don't you pull up a chair?
I really do like that chair. It has good bones as they say, plus I take a bit of pride in the fact that I own a piece of cream colored furniture that has been perched upon and still looks new. Now maybe you're thinking that drapery looks familiar. You are correct because we are at the other end of the room, and that fabric made me so happy that it landed on these windows as well. So now we have a chair I like, next to drapes that I love, but the overall pairing in the scene was bringing me down. 

Let's back up for a moment and talk about the time in the before times, when my mother and I went to the fabric store in search of an answer to my table runner conundrum. Long story short, we found fabric that we loved, she made me a runner for my dining room table that I am not showing you because it would spoil the surprise. Maybe make a mental note though that my ambition for sewing on most days does not even include a rectangle shaped final product. My sense is that it involved both measuring and ironing, and that is where I draw the line. We headed back to the fabric store to buy more fabric, not a set amount mind you, just some more fabric. Mom and I convinced each other that this project was certainly one we could take on. There should be more emphasis on the WE. Mom was using words like iron and template and measure, so I would certainly let her do those things...and then we were sent to our respective homes to hunker down...and the chair and fabric were here with me.

I don't recall exactly how many days went by before the allure of rearranging kitchen cupboards and dusting weren't cutting it for me. Let's do this!
Now let's pause because that beer was not going to be a value added benefit for this project.

The next day...
...I tackled the part I was most comfortable with since it was somewhat similar to doing the dining room chairs,  but with slightly more daunting corners...
...but I persevered!
There! A tuffet! Now just let it sit there, and don't turn it...
...over. I swear it was centered when I started. I thought I took more photos of what came next, in between phone calls and texts to my mom, and f-bombs. On second thought, I didn't really have enough hands for what I had going on, let alone to document the process. So here we are...
...until such time that my mom can measure and iron and plan...
...and help me finish this! 

Oh, now you can see the runner with the dining room fabric roundup!

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Grab a seat (part one)

Let me tell you about the many lives of our dining room chairs...unless you have somewhere to go? You probably don't, and that laundry will gladly wait a little bit longer to be rotated. Grab a seat, but choose your pattern wisely.

Our dining room furniture belonged to my grandfather's parents, and still fills me with joy every time I look at it. (Here is a little story I posted ten years ago about one of the adventures the set and I have had together.) The first order of business when the furniture came out of my grandparents' basement and arrived at our first home, almost twenty-five years ago, was to recover the seats with some new fabric. I apparently come from a long line of rule followers who did not remove tags that were supposed to stay put...
...and my great-grandmother documented her recovering of the chairs with a fabric swatch...
...as well as the date she did her work...
I remember how seeing that notation on the bottom of that one chair made me feel as I had already pulled that golden yellow fabric off some of the others. The thought that I was taking apart my great-grandmother's work seemed so wrong. I told my mother how badly I felt, but she assured me that Great-gramma would not have wanted me to have an outdated look. Obviously she took matters into her own, capable hands when the original striped fabric needed some sprucing up. 

To follow the life of these seats (and one of the chairs they belong on)...
...the top right is the original (clearly well worn), then she did the golden yellow. Next up is the bottom left, which I did with the same tiny nails she had used. The next time I went about as dull, but practical as I could with the lower right, and tried my hand with a staple gun. I did my usual "good enough" job.

Years went by before I was looking for my next low budget upgrade. I happened to be at the store when my gaze landed on fabric that made me swoon. I am not usually much for draperies, seeing them more as a necessary evil, but there I was, falling in love! Sure some things were going to have to change, but after painting our living and dining rooms dark blue a few years ago, it was about time to do that color some justice. The drapes came home, and those practical bland cushions made an audible sigh. "Get to the fabric store!" It was hard enough for me to settle on a pattern, so I certainly wasn't going to take extra time to actually figure out what an appropriate amount to purchase might be. Also, there was only x amount left on the bolt, so that was the amount I bought. Let's see, I had six chairs, so...
...perfect?! Obviously my great-gramma was watching over me again with this furniture. She even made sure I didn't make a complete disaster with the stripes.
I think it ended up costing $22 to once again breathe new life into these antiques.
Tune in next time to see what is happening with the chair, that was trying to mind its own business, at the other end of the room. (Quite the cliffhanger, I know.)

Well now hang on a second...I realize that I should include a photo of my great-grandparents. I also know that a lot of us are looking for the next diversion, and since this post only had one link, here is one that will take you to a tale about my other great-grandmotheras well as some photos. Yes, I had the great fortune to spend just over seven years of my life having three great-grandparents, and lost the last of them when I was in college. Incredible. That is all I can say...well there is more I could say, but that would obviously launch us into an entirely new post, and it is nearly my bedtime...ramble o'clock!