A Note to My Children

Hey kids!

 

 

Yeah, you guys!  Only you are all grown up now!

 

Just wanted to tell you how much I have loved being your mom!

 

You were funny, quirky, sometimes scheming, mostly obedient and most of all fun to be around most of the time.

 

I wanted to do everything to make your lives better, more fun and to protect you from all evil.

 

Sometimes I did a good job, some times -- not so much.

 

I am proud you have all chosen to be Christians.  I was proud of your choices most of the time. 

 

 

I likes most of your friends -- some better than others.  I didn't even object to most of your clothing choices -- except when those choices came from my closet and you forgot to return them.

 

There were advantages to you being so close in age -- you were going through the same stages at the same time. And, there were never more than two of you in diapers at the same time. WHEW!

 

There were disadvantages to you being so close in age -- you were going through the same stages at the same time.  You all wanted to use the car the same day and I was odd man out with no car!

 

 

There were times you disappointed me.  There were times I disappointed you.

 

I should have said "no" sometimes and didn't.  But, sometimes being a good mom also meant being the "bad guy" especially when your dad was out of town and there was just me.  I never liked that part -- the disciplining part, especially when it was hard to keep from laughing at what you did, but you needed to know it could be dangerous. And, yes, I did know you piled the mattresses at the bottom of the stairs so you could jump on them.  Not such a good idea, but none of you broke your necks, so I guess you had fun doing it.

 

I love you guys more than you can know.  Well, maybe you can since you all have kids of your own now.  I laugh when I hear my words coming out of your mouth when you are talking to your kids.

 

Well, just wanted you to know that for me, Mother's Day is a day to say "Thank you for making me a mom!"  I have loved the journey.

 

And to the grand kids, I want to say, "You are Perfect just the way you are no matter what your parents tell you!" 

 

Love you all!

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois a.k.a. Mom

 



Nancy's Pillows

My friend, Nancy, is married to the Senior Pastor at our church.  Nancy and I have been friends now for 25 years.  I know this because her husband is celebrating 25 years as the Senior Pastor this month.  He is a great pastor and they are good friends.  At one time, the church staff consisted of Roger as Pastor, Nancy as Administrative Assistant and me as the Director of Children's Ministries.  We had a great time working together and have many happy memories from the past 25 years. And the church staff now consists of enough Pastors and support people to serve a congregation with a weekly attendance of between 2,500 and 3,000. Quite a change from the 100 or so of 25 years ago!

Right now Nancy and Roger are in Hawaii to celebrate their 25 years.  On one of their last visits to Hawaii, Nancy picked up some fabric and asked me to make a couple of pillows for her.

I have not seen the pillows in their home yet, but photographed them before giving them to her.

 

Don't you just love the vintage feel of the palms on this fabric?  It reminds me of the bark cloth from the 1940's that I have seen in old photos.

 

The pillows are cut from different locations on the fabric so that they are not identical.  I do like the random placement of the palm fronds on the pillows.

 

 

 

 

The best part is that Nancy loves them!  It is so much fun doing something like this for someone who does not sew. Pillows are really simple to make, but don't tell Nancy!

 

Maybe Nancy will visit the fabric shops again and bring more wonderful, tropical fabric home.  I'm hoping that they are having a wonderful, relaxing time seeing the sites and lounging on the beach.  Thank you Nancy and Roger for 25 wonderful years of ministry!

 

 

Until next time,

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 





Back Art Revisited

My mother often used a sheet as the back of a quilt.  At that time, there was no fabric 108" wide specifically made for quilt backs. She bought the sheets because she thought they were less expensive and they were big enough for the back.  I really don't know her little fingers could quilt through the layers as a sheet is quite dense and my mother always hand quilted her quilts.

When I started quilting, I was advised to always buy either 7 yards of fabric or 3 yards because with 7 yards, you could always use it for a back and 3 yards was enough for borders.  I followed that advise for a lot of years.  The result?  A huge stash of fabric!  After moving the stash across country a couple of times, I decided to ditch that advice.  I started buying only fat quarters except when I knew exactly what the fabric would be used for.  In fact, I called a moratorium on fabric purchases 5 years ago and with rare exceptions, have bought very little.  However, in the meantime, I've made several quilt tops from the stash trying to use a lot of it up!

For backs, I decided to follow my friend, Joyce's example and start piecing fabric together to make the back.  I've done it various ways, but here is how I did the latest back for a quilt I am making. You can see a couple of other backs I made here.

For this back, I looked to the fabric to guide me.  I had some pieces that had been cut from the back of a previous quilt and they were about 6" wide.  I also found some pieces that were 9" wide and cut rectangles from these pieces.  The rest of the fabric was wide enough to cut 10" strips or rectangles from them.

Next, I started laying the pieces out on the floor in the loft as the back needed to measure 106" inches approximately which is way bigger than my design board.  I laid out all the pieces before I started sewing the rectangles together into rows.  I measured, but not precisely each strip as it was sewn.  When joining the strips together, I just made sure that the top edges were even.  Since the back is quite a bit larger than the quilt top, the uneven edges can be trimmed as I square the quilt.

Part of the fun is using those fabrics that are sort of unique.  The horse fabric above was actually bought when I needed to applique some "hair" on angels and all the manes worked great for that.  There were a few pieces left, so they were incorporated into the back for the autumn colored quilt top.

Pardon the telescope effect from taking the photo from this angle.  I could not back up any further or stand any higher.  I was already on the top step of the step stool and there wasn't enough room for the 6 ft ladder so I could get higher.

This is the back completely stitched together.  You can see that all of the strips were not precisely 106" long, but they are close.

Do you piece your backs or do you buy fabric especially for the back of your quilts?  I figure I get two for one if I piece the back as the back is more interesting than boring plain fabric.  Let me know what you think!

Hope you have an amazing weekend!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

Prom Dress 2013

Last week my daughter, Beth, asked me if I could shorten a prom dress for my grandson's girlfriend. Sounded simple enough, so, of course, I said I would. After all, I've sewn for years even making flower girls dresses, bridesmaids dresses, and altering a couple of wedding gowns.

Never assume!  The dress had a lined underskirt and two layers of organza with a specialty hem.  Not quite what I was expecting.  The underskirt didn't phase me, but those two layers of organza -- whoa!

After inspecting the hem, I determined that there was nylon cord inside the rolled serged edges.  I'd never done that before, but I DO love a challenge!

The only way to achieve that flirty skirt was to enclose the nylon cord as I shortened the dress, it just wouldn't have looked right laying limp at the bottom of the skirt.

My serger is OLD, I mean really OLD!  Since it is usually just used to finish seams and not to sew garments, I just never replaced it.  It does, however, with a couple of adjustments do a very nice rolled serged edge.  The issue with a serger is there is a blade to cut the edge.  The trick was to get the nylon cord inserted close to the edge without managing to cut it!

 

Just to the right of the presser foot is the blade, so the cord had to be held very carefully in order to serge over it without cutting it.  To be honest, I did cut it once, but was able to get the cord lined up so there was not a break in the hem.

 

Did I mention that each of those layers was 170 inches around the bottom?  That was a lot of concentrated serging, but the above is the result.

 

Isn't the back pretty?

 

 

And here is the lovely girlfriend, Miranda.  She absolutely did not want her face to show in this photo because she had not "done" her makeup.  But, she struck such a cute pose, I could not resist including the whole photo instead of cropping it so that just the dress would be seen.

 

Don't you just love a happy ending?  Colton will escort this beauty to the prom this coming weekend and they will dance the night away!

 

The End!

 

Until next time!

 

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 



Being Published

Life has been quite busy for a while -- sorry for the lack of posts.  I'm hoping things will slow down a bit after Easter.  I doubt it, but I can hope!

A lot of years ago, the first article about quilts with me in it was in the West Allis Star newspaper.  At the time, I certainly would never have classified myself as a quilter, but our ladies group at church decided to make a few charity quilts.  The newspaper somehow found out about it and decided to come take photos.  I was in my late teens or maybe 20 at the time and I appeared in the photos with my sewing machine working on piecing the quilt top.  I tried to find the article, but I've misplaced it.  We had fun and there were two lovely ladies who knew how to quilt and instructed the rest of us. I'd love to show you the article and I will if it turns up.

The next time was in this publication.

 

A group of us decided to do an Amish Challenge and the American Quilter's Society decided it worthy of publication in their magazine, The American Quilter.

 

 

I am the one on the left in the first row.  My quilt is on the right on the same page.  You might recognize a couple of people in the photo.  Bonnie Browning is in the upper left and several years later was hired as the Executive Show Director by the American Quilter's Society.  Also in the photo is Lorinda Lie who wrote Heartfelt Quilts.

 

Several of my quilts have been published in various magazines and books over the years.  It's a lot of fun to have someone call you to ask if it is okay to publish a photo of your quilt!

 

Lorinda isn't the only one who became an author out of our little group.  Bonnie has a number of books published and I also am the author of Pine Tree Quilts.

 

 

It was my intent to do another book shortly after this one, but we moved a couple of times across country and, though many of the quilts were made for the book, I just didn't get it written.

 

As a result of being an AQS author, I was asked to make a quilt to be published in honor of those who died on 9/11/2001.  The book was called United We Quilt.

 

 

I've shown you the quilt that I made to commemorate that day.

 

 

These quilts traveled for 3 years across the country as they were exhibited in galleries in remembrance of that fateful day.



 

Lately, though, I've had several articles published in the Quilting Quarterly which is the National Quilting Association magazine for it's members.

 

 

The first article was the pattern for my quilt Blue Skies and Sunshine, which appeared in the magazine on the left above.  The next 2 articles are a series I'm currently writing called "Does It Work".  In these articles I test various products to see if they live up to their promise.  The middle and right magazines above show the first two of those articles.  Number 3 is coming out any day and the editor has number 4.  I am also working on another quilt that will be published later in the year with it's pattern.  I showed you the beginnings of it, but now it's under wraps until the article comes out this Fall.

 

Deadlines keep us on our toes when we write!  I have 2 articles due the same week, so I will have to carve the time out to get both done, hopefully before the deadline gets too close!

 

Hope you've enjoyed reading about my adventures in publishing. It is something I love to do and making the quilts or projects to go along with the articles is a lot of fun, too.

 

 

Until next time!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois





 

A Little Bit Irish

Are you Irish?  Hmmm, does Scots Irish count?  If it does, then yes, maybe we are a little bit Irish.  Dear hubby is about half Irish -- his mother was a Bailey.  My mother's last name was  Mc name so probably more a Scottish name than Irish.  I always forget if a Scots Irish person is a Scot living in Ireland or the other way around.

Since everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, I decided to make some Irish Soda Bread to celebrate.  Well, it is kind of like me -- maybe a little bit Irish.  Since I didn't want to go somewhere to buy any ingredients, I used what I had.  I had only whole wheat flour instead of white, so used that.  I did have raisins and dried cranberries, but no currents so I went with the dried cranberries.  I like those better, anyway.  The recipe called for Irish Whiskey - hmm fresh out of that, we'll just leave that out and add a bit more buttermilk.  Oops, no buttermilk either.  No problem, just add white vinegar to milk and you have buttermilk, sort of.

The result?

 

It at lease looks like some of the pictures of Irish Soda Bread I found.

 

 

The recipe was from a very old bread book.  I may try another recipe as there are several variations.

 

 

It would go well with a little Irish Breakfast tea.

 

 

The green Depression glass was given to me when I was a little girl.

 

 

The silver was in a bag and VERY tarnished when I found it.  The tag said it was from about 1929, so just perfect for the Depression glass place setting. All the pieces are not the same pattern. I don't mind.

 

 

A St. Patty's Day tea?

 

 

The flowers were the birthday flowers Dear Hubby brought to my office as a surprise.

 

 

Hope you are having a Fabulous Friday!

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Paper Quilt for a Birthday Surprise

Last week I was privileged to travel to San Diego to attend the Children's Pastors Conference with our Children's Pastor and our Director of Elementary Ministries.  My "title"  Director of Nursery Ministries.  My joy is being able to plan lessons and staff volunteers for the children birth through 3.  It's fun, the volunteers are great and the kids are precious!

When we returned from San Diego, I brought back good memories, a lot of fresh new ideas, a bag full of books and information, a ton of notes and a cold.  The last I would have rather left in California!

On Friday when I returned to work, my office had been made over.  Friday happened to be my birthday, so while I was gone, our Administrative Assistant, Director of Early Childhood and Director of Kingdom Kids redecorated my desk.

I looked like this when I walked in.

 

Pardon the flash in the center of the paper quilt. We keep our offices cozy by using lamps instead of the fluorescent overhead lights that are so "officey". And, we have no windows!

 

 

Someone blew up a lot of balloons,\ -- they were all over the place!

 

 

The best and permanent part was the paper quilt they constructed for over my desk.  When I moved into the office, my position was an interim position so I had not really decorated the area for what was to be a few months.  I just left the art work that was already there.  It has turned into more than that, so my wonderful co-workers created and framed a paper quilt since they know quilting is what I do when I'm not working with them and the kids.

 

I am blessed to work with a great team who pull together to make the Children's experience at Chandler Christian Church the best possible.  And the bonus is, they are great friends as well!

 

Hope you have had a marvelous Monday.

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois