So, I haven't had a chance to sew recently - and it's starting to eat me up. I've been getting a lot of writing done - trying to maintain a 3,000 word a day word count. And, I just had to move and don't have a huge workroom solely dedicated to fabric and quilting... but, I know that most people don't have that, so I'll stop whining.
My boss has asked me to make her recently deceased mother's dress into a bed runner. As with any project that I don't think up myself, I'm frozen. I completely and totally overthink these things. Then after months of having complicated patterns running through my head, I end up doing something simple and it works out. It's time for me to do the simple thing and stop procrastinating. I'm thinking of just making stripes with the wool of the dress and an off-white cotton and then hand appliquéing the ornate pieces onto the off-white somehow. If anyone has any ideas - I'd love to hear them.
Also, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased my simple little layer cake pattern! I now have the third highest selling quilt pattern on Craftsy! At $2 a pop, it's raking in much more pride and gratefulness than money - but there are times when satisfaction is more important than money. Thank you all so very much!
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Tangled Up in Blues
I have always feared blues... not blues as in sadness, the actual color. Matching blues is all hard and stuff. There are so many different undertones and shades that finding complimentary blues is a headache. But, I decided to confront my fears and designed a throw that would incorporate five different blues.
I was getting ready to take a hand appliqué class at my local quilt shop, so I came up with this quilt and went in for fabric help. Usually I can stand in the doorway of a fabric shop, scan, and see exactly what I need (and then I buy an extra $100 worth... because obviously I'm going to need it later), but since blues were involved, I asked the nice ladies for help.
I should stop here and say that I've been in quilt shops that have treated me like dirt. Being a guy who quilts has given me a pretty good taste of what women have had to deal with when they take their cars to less than enlightened mechanics. However, the women at Cambridge Quilt Shop have always been wonderful.
I found five great blues and a very black black for the appliqué. Then the appliqué class was canceled because I was the only one who signed up. I could have just learned it from youtube but I was annoyed enough that I just set the project aside for a while (read that as "about a year").
By the time I got back around to it, I had already made a few patterns to sell and realized that the 32 pages it would take to make the appliqué pattern probably wouldn't fly. I also realized that a bed quilt pattern would sell better than a throw, so I ditched part of my original design and increased the size to make it a double quilt.
I was getting ready to take a hand appliqué class at my local quilt shop, so I came up with this quilt and went in for fabric help. Usually I can stand in the doorway of a fabric shop, scan, and see exactly what I need (and then I buy an extra $100 worth... because obviously I'm going to need it later), but since blues were involved, I asked the nice ladies for help.
I should stop here and say that I've been in quilt shops that have treated me like dirt. Being a guy who quilts has given me a pretty good taste of what women have had to deal with when they take their cars to less than enlightened mechanics. However, the women at Cambridge Quilt Shop have always been wonderful.
I found five great blues and a very black black for the appliqué. Then the appliqué class was canceled because I was the only one who signed up. I could have just learned it from youtube but I was annoyed enough that I just set the project aside for a while (read that as "about a year").
By the time I got back around to it, I had already made a few patterns to sell and realized that the 32 pages it would take to make the appliqué pattern probably wouldn't fly. I also realized that a bed quilt pattern would sell better than a throw, so I ditched part of my original design and increased the size to make it a double quilt.
Since I bought quite a few cones of white thread at my last quilt show, I went ahead and did heavy quilting in all of the white areas. And, apparently my recent aversion to borders also applies to bindings because the only way I could see this was with a white binding. I didn't want the pattern to be blocked in, but to look like it goes on and on.
Location:
Boston, MA 02110, USA
Monday, June 16, 2014
Diaries: Aug/Nov 1911 - Pickin' Cotton
This summer has been a very
uneventful one in my life. There has but very few things happened of any
importance or out of the ordinary. I get tired some times of the daily routine
of keeping house and long for a whole summer of vacation and rest.
I had planned all winter to go on a
visit to my Uncle’s this summer but won’t get to go.
One of the Granbury College boys
-Claude W.- came to see me the first Sunday in August (Aug 6) He came on Sat
eve and we all went to a neighbors house that night and made ice cream. We had
a delightful time while he was here talking about old school days. And w-e-ll -
that wasn’t all we talked about either, cause we decided we would marry
some of these times and set that some time for next June.
I’ve been engaged lots of times
before, but it never did mean anything to me for I didn’t really aim to marry
and would set the time so far off that I thought we would quit before the time
came.
I’ve never really loved but one boy
before. But there is one other boy in this old wide world that I really did
love, and do love yet, and always will love I guess. He was my first real Sweet
Heart. He began going with me when I was fifteen and the last time I saw him I
was eighteen. He thought equally as much of me as I did of him.
I don’t guess there ever will be a
boy care any more for me than he did for he has proved in numberless of
different ways the true love he had in his heart for me. The last time I heard
from him was the first of last May about 4 months ago now. We won’t marry
because Papa is so bitterly opposed to it and I guess he isn’t just the boy
that would suit me best, but he won my first love and I’ll always have a great
regard for him.
I never will forget the night he
first ask me to marry him. We went to preaching about three miles from home us
and some other couples. I wore a blue lilly in my hair that night and I still
have it yet. I have him my hand on it that I would marry him. I was fifteen and
he was eighteen then. Yes I know we were quite young. Well I’m getting of off
the subject I started on but I couldn’t be so untrue to my old love as to say I
never loved a boy before.
But there has a new love come into
my life and as the days go by I am tending to forget the old S.H.
I think Claude is a grand old boy
and I think as much or more, of him as I ever did of anyone. I am now wearing
his ring as a token of our love and engagement and intend to marry him when the
time comes.
Claude did so cute when he went to
tell me good bye it made me care more for him. He took my hand and holding it
he looked me straight in the face and said; “I hate so bad to leave you. I want
you to be good to your self and write to me often.” He looked so deeply in
earnest it made me love him better.
He wore a rainbow colored tie one
day while he was here that I have him for a birthday present and when he came I
had on a stick pin that he had given me as an xmas gift. (August 21, 1911 )
Mr Thompson came down on the evening
train Sunday evening (Sept 10) and spent the evening and till late bed time
with me and then went back home on the night train. I never had gone to the
station to meet him when he came in, and at the picnic he said he guessed if I
lived just across the street from the depot I wouldn’t step over then to meet
him, and I told him the next time he came I would go to meet him.
So when he wrote me he was coming he
reminded me of my promise to meet him. There was no one at home but Papa and me
and he was fevering some. I went to meet him and there sure was a crowd at the
depot as there usually is on Sunday. We had a very enjoyable time. We walked
down to the church which is just a few yards from our house, to the young
peoples League at 4 oclock as I was on the program to read a paper on “How
should we exercise our spiritual lives.” Sunday night we went to preaching at
the Baptist church as there was not going to be any preaching at the Methodist
church. By the way he is a strong Baptist. I always have more Baptist fellows
than Methodist any way. Bro has been gone to Evandale to Uncle Ladells for a
few weeks, he will spend the fall there picking cotton with them. Grandma has
also been to <Erath Co> on a visit, so I’ve been by myself quite a good
deal lately as Papa isn’t at home much in day time. (Sept 13, 1911 )
I felt real lonesome when I started
to leave and they all seemed to hate to see me leave. I’ve heard lots of good
things that they’ve said about me. I felt flattered a little when I first came
down here, I heard of so many nice compliments passed on me. I am vain enough,
like the most of humanity, to like to hear all the good things said about me.
I’ve picked cotton about three weeks
for a Mr Bud Burgess and enjoyed my stay there too. Mrs Burgess gave me a real
pretty Geranium plant it is in bloom now. I don’t guess there is any one that
likes flowers better than I do.
I’m having a nice time on my cotton
picking “spree” and it is the first I have picked in about four years and the
last I guess I’ll pick in a good while. (Oct 18,1911 )
Friday, June 13, 2014
Diary May/ July 1911: a right smart of damage
We moved from Duster back near
DeLeon last Monday, and my! What a week of work this has been (this is Sat)
I’m so sore from head to foot I
can’t hardly move. The 11th of last month was my 20th
birthday. Grandma surprised me by giving me a quilt top, I’de been wishing for
pieced out of <colars>. It’s the prarie flower design and is real pretty.
One of the boys sent me a pair of white silk elbow gloves. Those were the most
important things I got. (May
6, 1911 )
Last Friday a week ago June 16, we
had a pretty bad storm and hail. The old settlers said that it is the worst
that has been here in several years. I guess it lasted for at least an hour,
raining in almost a torrant all that time.
Our old cellar wasn’t very good any
way so it couldn’t resist such hard rain, and the water ran in at the door. We
stayed in there till the water was nearly knee deep - Papa, Grandma, and me.
Bro was away from home. We got out of the cellar and as we came in the house at
the back, the front door blew down. Papa caught it and put it back in place and
we held it there till the storm was over. It wasn’t easy to hold either with
the wind against it. We thought every minute that the house would go the next
and it would have I guess if we hadn’t held the door up. From some cause or
another we didn’t seem to be much frightened. We went on the plan that we had
as well laugh as to cry, so we talked and laughed about it all during the
storm. I was really surprised at my self at not getting frightened our of my
wits. After the storm was over almost every thing in the house was wet as the
water leaked and blowed in so in places. Several pictures blowed down and the
stove pipe blowed down inside and out. Things were us set generally but no
serious damage done.
We got off lighter than most of our
neighbors as some of their houses blowed off of the blocks some wind mills
blowed down and a right smart of damage done.
The crops through here were almost
completely destroyed. There was nothing but <strins> left of the cotton
where it wasn’t completely washed away. But that’s enough about the storm.
To day was 22 years ago Papa
was at a State Teachers Association at Galveston .
Papa taught ten years before he married. He began teaching when he was 18
years old. (June 25,
1911 )
Last Wednesday and Thursday, June 28
and 29th - There was a big picnic and prohabition rally at DeLeon.
There was hundreds of people here and every body seemed to enjoy them selves.
There was a farris wheel,
merry-go-round, a fine band from Walnut Springs and all kinds of stands most on
the ground. We had about three speeches a day, all on prohabition. They were
sure fine too.
Mr Thompson from Carlton came down on Thurs and we had a nice
time. We stayed on the picnic grounds Thurs night till after eleven oclock and
they hadn’t broken up then. That is the first time he has been down to see me
since last summer. To day is a year ago I was at the S.
Normal at Ft.
Worth and went to lake Como .
(July 3, 1911 )
The Methodist protracted meeting has
been going on for two weeks, and Sunday evening July 23rd Bro
Bickley, our pastor, preached to the men and boys at the Tabernacle and Bro
Sherrod, the Baptist pastor, preached to the ladies and girls at the baptist
church. Every one seemed to enjoy the sermon so much. He preached about knowing
God and being well aquainted with him. He spoke of some people having the
summer religion, and then he talked of the great influence young ladies have
over young men. He dwelt on young people so often spending their energy on
frivolous worldly things, and of what a power they could be for God if they
would. He said a Christian aught to spend at least one hour a day in reading
the Bible and prayer.
I began to realize as I never did
before the importance of a person having a set time to read and pray every day,
in order to be a true Christian all the year round. I resolved while he was
reaching that from then on, every day of my life I would spend at least an hour
a day in prayer and reading the Bible and other good religious books. (July 24, 1911 )
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Diaries Dec 1910/April 1911: Men were quite pushy, even then.
I have to admit that the last entry made me feel a twinge of guilt about doing this little project - but her concern elicited sympathy and understanding (from me anyway) and I didn't see anything she needed to be embarrassed about. Like I said earlier, her mother had passed, her grandmother was getting up there in years, and she had to pick up a lot of the slack. I can't blame her for wanting a way out every now and then.
__________________________________________________________________________
I refrain most of the time from
wrighting about the little troubles and difficulties, I have to meet with all
along. But it seems to me they are many. Life is such a struggle it seems like
some times. And then things you work so hard at and are so anxious about are so
often failures. It is sure hard on a girl to keep things straight at home when
she is the only on to do. When I came home they had been moved to the community
where Papa and I were going to teach school; several days and the house is just
an old thing with three rooms and not sealed over head. The rooms had been
papered with news paper and they were soiled and torn up badly but this was the
only house vacant. Well there hadn’t been any body to straighten things up much
after moving, as Grandma wasn’t able and Papa was studying for examination and
didn’t have time. So the rooms were to paper and scour and the pictures to put
up, books to unpack and arrange in the bookcase and straightening generally to
do. Well I’ve been at work the hardest kind for about two weeks, and am about
to get things looking decent at least. (Dec 12, 1910 )
I spent my first day in the
school room teaching Jan 2,
1911 . I’ll not forget soon. how cold it was that day either, I
had been looking forward to the time when I could begin teaching for quite a
while. I have had a very nice time so far, as I haven’t had the least bit of
trouble. But teaching is sure tiresome. I have enrolled 31 up to date. (Jan 14, 1911 )
Today is the first day of Feb. I
made our my first monthly report and as teachers have to swear to their reports
Papa and I went down to the <P.G.> with them this evening and was sworn.
That was the first time ever was sworn
about anything. That finished up my first months teaching.
We’ve been reading a continued story
(not a love story) in the “Youth’s Companion” and we got the paper that
continued the last chapter of it today. The title of the story was “Five Miles
Out,” and it sure was fine. Papa enjoyed it as much as we did. He read the last
chapter aloud this evening the first thing he did when he got back from school.
He very often reads the continued stories in the Youth Companion and he always
enjoys them as they are usually fine. This last on thoe I believe is the best
we have had. (Feb 1, 1911 )
To day was such a lovely day; the
birds have been singing, the sunshine is so warm and every thing seems to say
Spring has come. Our co superintendent was at our school to day and he made the
pupils a nice talk. In the evening I had the exam for the fourth grade and that
sure is tiresome on a teacher. I came home almost too tired to move. I’m always
glad when Fri evening comes for that means too days of rest. Or at least it
means too days out of the school room but I usually have enough work at home to
do to keep me busy. (March 3,
1911 )
I have hung another picture in the
picture gallery of my mind, and have enrolled another name to my list of
“Fellows” or Sweet Hearts which ever you would rather call it. The name is
Homer Ross. He is just a boy two years my junior. He is only 18 years old. He
is a little taller than myself, has light hair, gray eyes and is light
complected. Homer is the first by to go with me younger than myself. He has
been with me every Sunday for the last three Sunday’s. Last Sunday he tried to
get me to kiss him good bye and said he wouldn’t have a girl who wouldn’t kiss
him before they married. He kept begging me to kiss him and finally he said
“Well if you don’t think enough of me to kiss me good bye, we had as well
quit,” and I told him alright. He talked on a while and then said, “no I don’t
want you to kiss me now, I was just trying you to see if you would.” I’ve had
boys try to get me to kiss them good bye “To prove my love” but I don’t prove
my love that way. We went to Turkey Creek yesterday evening to singing and had
a very nice time but when we got home they were just coming out of the dining
room and we had missed our supper but we went in and ate some any way and when
we got through I washed the dishes and he dried them. (April 10, 1911 )
I guess I’m supposed to tell this
old diary every thing that happens in my life, of any importance but often I’m
just a little bashful, for fear some one else will know it besides my dear old
diary some time.
Occasionally when some thing comes
up at home that I don’t like (I don’t mean just any little thing) I will (to
myself) declare I will marry the next chance I get. Well one of those
times came when a while back when Papa mentioned his intentions of moving back
to DeLeon soon. That was on Saturday and I thought to my self; “I’ll marry the
next chance I get and quit moving so much.”
The next day one of my fellows came
to see me and actually proposed to me. So I told myself; “Now here is
your chance if you want to marry and try a new life.” but I was over my
vexation of the day before and couldn’t think of marrying then. And that’s the way
I usually am (April 1911)
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Diary Nov 1910: a girl can’t have two or three real sweethearts at once
Granbury Texas We (dormitory girls) always look
forward to the Literary Society night with a great deal of pleasure, as they
let us have a few minutes social after the society and we are allowed to talk
to the boys a while. Last night when my chum and myself went in two of the boys
came around and sit down by us and stayed all during the society. We were a
little afraid we would get a scolding, but we didn’t. It was real funny three
of us girls were in the parlor playing on the piano and singing and one of the
dormitory boys came in. He hadn’t been in there long till we thought we heard
one of the teachers step up on the front gallery. The young man hid behind the
piano and sure enough it was Prof Russel. After a while us girls went to our
rooms and turned out the light in the parlor and hall so he could slip out with
out the teacher seeing him. We have lots of fun at our meanness once in a while
but some of the other girls have gotten into trouble occasionally too. But
fortunately for my room mate and me we have escaped so far. (Nov 22, 1910 )
Granbury Texas There
is one thing sure a girl can’t have two or three real sweethearts at once,
especially if they all live in the same community. I’ve been receiving and
returning a little attention to three different boys here at school. Not real
sweet hearts of course but just to have a nice time and I find it causes me
more real trouble than any thing else. It wasn’t so much trouble till this
week, but as I’m going home Saturday each one tries to talk to me every good
chance he gets, not so much, I guess because he likes me so well but to spite
the other fellow. Now at the literary society one of them was there talking to
me and another one came up and spoke and began to talk too, and after a while
the other one happened by and spoke. Well well they were all three there talking
to the crowd as there was several of us standing there talking. But I tried to
stand so I wouldn’t have my back to any of them and I was perfectly miserable.
To day as one of the girls and
myself were going up to the college at noon there was five or six boys standing
on the gallery and one of them came running to meet us, for meanness and said;
Cland and Charlie were quarrelling about me and he told them he would tell me
to speak to the one I liked best. Oh I was so mortified I didn’t know what to do.
I never felt so hateful. I went across that gallery quicker than I had in a
good while and didn’t even look at any of them. The boys were just talking in
fun and didn’t think about that silly boy telling me what he said he would. But
it sure did make me feel bad the rest of the evening and showed me how silly it
was to pay attention to more than one. (Nov 22, 1910 )
I came home from Granbury College
on Nov 26. We had a nice time there on Thanksgiving (Nov 24). We had a nice
dinner at the dormitory and a few friends were invited to take dinner with us.
Our president suspended the rules that day and we went to services at the
church in the morning and walked around in the evening. My room mate and my
self and our beaus stayed together almost all evening. One of the preacher boys
going to school there (Ozier Hightower) was with me. I think he is simply the
finest young man out. You can draw from his conversations that he has such high
ideals and ambitions. We had several Kodaks taken during the after noon . The next day, in the evening
before I was to start home in the night, so many of the students came around to
tell me good bye, and wish me well, and saying they would miss me so much, it
made me real lonesome. I thought a great deal of all of the students going
there. You sure do miss school mates after leaving school. I hated to stop to
teach so bad, but my school was soon to begin and I had to stop. (Nov 29, 1910 )
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Diary Oct/Nov 1910: train tracks and beaus
So Prof Russel and the girls all
came in and we that knew it were so tickled we couldn’t keep quiet. Finally,
the Prof and the rest of the girls begin to ask us what we were so tickled
about. Some said they didn’t see any thing to laugh at, but finally we got
quiet without having to tell. After the prayer meeting was over and the Prof
gone, Jeff came out of the pantry amid a room of laughter and declared that was
the longest 15 minutes he ever saw pass. (Oct 6, 1910 )
Granbury Texas A
young man, Mr Parrell, who is here leading sing for the protracted meeting was
at the college to day and made the school a talk at chapel. He was very
handsome and well educated and sure did make a good talk. He said he had the
greatest admiration for a boy that could not go to school other wise who would
work their way through. He had worked his way through. He took an A.M. degree
from the Chicago University and then spent 4 years in a
medical school. Now he say’s he is just beginning to see how ignorant he is. He
said a man had better spend thirty nine years in preparation for life and then,
just live one, than spend one year in preparation and live 39. (Oct 13, 1910 )
A crowd of us young folks had been
planning to go to Comanche
Peak ; Some small mts
about 8 miles from here. So the matron asked the president if he would suspend
the rules and take us and he said he would as it would be Haloween. So we got
up early yesterday morning to cook our dinner to take with us. There was 20 of
us in all that went, counting the Matron, the President, and a married man that
keeps the dormitory and his wife. The boy’s hired a common size waggon and put
some hay in it and we all gor started by 10 oclock. My! How we wee packed, and
jammed, and crammed in that waggon for there was 15 rode in it. We sure did
have the fun thoe and by the time we got there it was dinner time so we spread
our dinner and ate the first thing.
We had a Kodak along and we took a
view of the dinner spread on the table cloth and us sitting around it. After
dinner we all went up on one of the peaks and had some Kodaks made.
A we were coming back, the boy that
was with me and myself played “Hull Gull” and “Even or Odd” with cedar balls.
Nearly all of us girls were sunburned or blistered by the time we got home. But
we sure did have a nice day of it. Yes and last Sat night a crowd of young
folks gathered here at the Dormitory and made candy and when we got through
with the candy we gathered in the parlor and had some music. We sure had a nice
time that night. But such times as these don’t come to us very often while we
are in college. (Nov 1, 1910 )
Granbury Texas Last Sunday was my last Sunday here
so I was wishing we could have a nice time, but my roommate and I came up to
our room after dinner Sunday, without any hopes for any thing but a long
lonesome Sunday evening.
As we usually have to come up to our
rooms and sit around all evening on Sundays that is the time we get homesick
and lonesome.
So we came in and my roommate (Eva
Crews) went to wrighting and I fell over across the bed to try to sleep. In a
few minutes Mrs Kidd came in and said she wished we could walk over to the
reunion grounds. So we decided to ask our matron if she wouldn’t let us go with
Mrs Kidd and she said we could. We hadn’t been over there very long till two of
the dormitory boys came over there. All the other girls just happened to have
company and we saw them leave the dormitory going walking.
So the boys went with us and we
walked about a mile to the railroad trussel across the river. We decided, after
the boys insisting, that we would walk the trussel as far as the edge of the
water anyway, which was about 50 yards. Us girls were scared of course but as
the boys held our arms we walked very well. One of the couples stopped before
we got to the edge of the water and started back, but we said we wouldn’t
“Pike” so we went on and just as we got to the water’s edge we heard a train
whistle in the distance.
There we were out in the middle of
that trussel and it was so far from the ground to jump off would near sure
death.
It sure did scare us as there was no
way to get off the track till we got to the end of the trussel and we didn’t
know wheather we could walk it or not before the train came along. But we
started back walking as fast as we could and every body began to hollow to us
to hurry and get of the train was coming. The more they would hollow the worse
we got scared till finally when we did step off on the ground I was trembling,
I was so frightened. We had just gotten off a few minutes when the train came
dashing along.
The next day at the dinner table
they were trying to tease us about it. One of the boys began it by saying; “If
I hadn’t been for Claud helping her off the trussel, Miss Wheeler wouldn’t be
with us to day.” They kept making up things and telling till we all laughed
till we couldn’t. But it wasn’t funny to any of them while we were on the
trussel.
We sure did have a nice time that
evening if we did get into danger. As we came on home we had to pass by a negro
church as they were having services, two couples of us stopped in there a while
and that was a sight to us too. Of course the President scolded us a little for
the rules were not suspended, and we were not supposed to have company unless
they were. But as our Matron is a young woman she and one of the teachers was
with us and every dormitory girl had a beau. (Nov 21, 1910 )
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