A Saturday Work Day
- Several hours were spent this morning backing up the desktop computer, the external hard drive and the laptop. Hours. I should not have left it so long. I also copied all the PDF documents and PDF books onto the laptop so I can read them. What a concept. I tried reading them on the Kindle but it was so frustrating because I had to enlarge the font and then scroll to the right to finish the sentence and then back to the left and down for the next sentence was downright maddening.
- I was running low on laundry detergent so I made up a batch of this homemade version per Elaine's recommendation. You can't beat the price. I had an empty 5 gallon paint bucket that is now for laundry soap, it is a bit of overkill is you make a single batch, but if you make a double batch, believe me, you will need one.
- With the new, deeper mattress I have some cotton sheets that no longer fit and I am considering using them for the backs of quilts. Has anyone done this?
- Speaking of bedding, the quilt pictured at the top of this post is one I made Auntie in 1988. When she went into assisted living I regained ownership. This was the first queen sized quilt that I made and I made a sampler quilt because I wanted to try all these different blocks. I kept running out of reds and in the 1980's, 100% cotton was not readily available so this quilt has a lot of blends. It is interesting to note that the 100% cottons that ARE there have faded a lot. Each over-sized block (finished at 16.5") was separately lap-quilted ala Georgia Bonesteel. This is the first time I realized the value of a striped fabric: it makes it look pieced when it really isn't. The hand quilting has hearts and cables through a polyester batt.
- This weekend's sewing is to put together a Messenger Bag. I bought a kit for this at the Denver Quilt Festival last year from Sew Batik and I thought it was time to make it. Everything but the bag fastenings are in the kit, I just need to do it.
My friend just purchased a Kindle and was telling me some of the features she read about in the manual. She explained that she can email pdfs to her Kindle account and have them converted to a format the Kindle can read. Have you heard of that or considered trying it?
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful quilt - I love red and white quilts and especially samplers even though I've never attempted to make one. I have a Kindle but I don't have to have the font that large to read it. Even with glasses you have to do that? blessings, marlene
ReplyDeleteI have always heard not to use bed sheets for quilt backs because the thread count is too dense. Interesting about the red cotton fading. I keep hoping that todays fabrics are more resistant to fading. You are in the groove with that red and white quilt!
ReplyDeleteYour link took me to Elaines wonderfukl blog, but I could not locate her recipe for laundry detergent. Help!
ReplyDeleteBed sheets work fine if you're machine quilting. They're BIG so you don't have to piece the back. But the higher thread count is really hard on the fingers if you're planning to hand quilt.
ReplyDeleteJeanne
Red and white quilts are my favorites! The colors never look dated!
ReplyDeleteHow do you backup the harddrive? Are you using CDs?
ReplyDeleteIt is a beautiful quilt - the stripes do add a lot. My mother uses sheets for backings - it looked just fine at first glance, and my brother has had the quilt for at least a couple of years. I haven't heard any complaints about it. <y mother hand quilted, but I would highly recommend machine quilting.
Love the red quilt. Only one comment about the sheets - if you are going to hand quilt, sometimes they can be difficult to pull the thread through.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the laundry detergent. I was just going to search for one.
ReplyDeleteThe quilt is so pretty. I love the simple colors!
I laughed when you mentioned Georgia Bonesteel. That was my first quilting book, and I made one of those quilt as you go quilts!
Vicki
Hey Paula -thanks for the plug, and for mentioning Georgia Bonesteel. I have a great affection for her as she was the first quilting person I ever saw on TV - I lived in Tennessee at the time. She really turned me on to Quilting! I made several of her Quilt as you Go quilts, and she encouraged me (thru TV) to try machine quilting waaaaay back then. It worked just fine! Glad that some folks are still using that method.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the photo of your red and white quilt. It's neat that you made it for your Aunt and that it eventually made its way back to you.
ReplyDeleteAnother red and white quilt!! What a treat it is seeing all these beautiful red and white quilts popping up all over the blogs!
ReplyDeleteThere's been lots of buzz about red and white quilts lately with the show hanging in NY. Yours is absolutely striking; I love it! I have used sheets for quilt backs at church; we tie them, not quilt them, but if you were machine quilting it wouldn't matter... the weave is too tight for hand quilting. I love old sheets as they are so comfortably soft and broken in, nothing better!
ReplyDeleteThat quilt could be in the NY show!
ReplyDeleteLove your work on this! I do Audio books while quilting but if ever I get DOWN time! I'll try te kindle:)
ReplyDeleteNice blog, Deargina
http://gina-deargina.blogspot.com/
If you hand quilt, the sheet backing will wear you out. Nice sheets are much too densely woven to hand stitch. Mom used to use them but quit - she used to break her quilting needles on them. And wear out thimbles PUSHING sooo hard on the needle. On the other hand, for machine quilting they're probably fine. And, what a lovely red and white quilt.
ReplyDelete