Wounded Warrior Quilt

The Gateway Quilters' Guild sponsored quilts for the Blue Star Mothers of America "Quilts for Wounded" program. Here is the link that explains the purpose for these quilts:  http://www.bluestarsouthbayla.org/?q=node%2F254.

My quilt I named "Wounded Warrior" (not very original, I know) because not only is it destined for a service man or woman wounded in the line of duty, it has one block that is "wounded."

In other words, I messed up. And, unfortunately, I didn't catch it until after I took the picture.

Overall, except for that one little sign of individual "uniqueness," I was pleased with how my quilt blocks turned out.


I started with the fabric design I used as the backing. I also used it for the block centers and strips on either side of my blocks in front.




 

My original plan was to use this beautiful gold star on dark red fabric as the outside border with the inside border/sashing in the coordinating gold star on dark blue fabric. Then I realized the symbolism of the gold stars. Starting in World War II, women who had lost sons in combat were called "Gold Star Mothers" and displayed a gold star in their windows.

NO! NO! NO! That fabric would not do for quilts intended for wounded warriors. So, I searched for other patriotic fabric.

The quilts are 48" x 78" gurney quilts and designed to go with the wounded serviceman or servicewoman along with the coordinated pillowcase to the hospital bed.We were told to use bright, patriotic colors. No camouflage -- active service personnel get plenty of camouflage and tend to get sick of it.

This is my coordinating pillowcase. The body is of the same fabric as the quilt backing.

I quilted the layers together with white thread because I did not want to detract from the white star on white fabric in the squares. The rest of the quilt was so busy that I went with a plain navy blue binding. The following pictures show how I sewed on the binding. Even though I used a two-inch strip for my binding, I felt my machine finished binding turned out pretty well. A big part of the secret was that I used a quality cotton fabric.

First, I stitched the folded fabric to the front of the quilt using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

 I pressed the binding flat on the front, then turned the quilt over, folded over the binding and pressed it in place on the back.

Next I pinned the binding on the front of the quilt so that, looking from the back, the pins barely caught the folded outside edge of the binding.

From the front, the pins were about 1/16 to 1/32 inch from the seam of the binding. It was just wide enough for the machine needle to stitch between the pin and the binding. I used both ball-head pins and butterfly pins. One nice thing about butterfly pins is that I can sew up to the bottom of the pin-head and easily grasp the butterfly wing with my fingernail to pull the pin out.

I have this nifty little presser foot with a quarter inch seam guide. The prongs also extend out front longer than most quarter inch presser feet which helps "grab" the next block as well as holds the fabric to the bottom gripper teeth. I use it to assemble my quilt blocks. It also worked well to help keep the binding from slipping out from under the presser foot while stitching. It was a pricy little item, but well worth it to me.

My finished binding. I like a narrow binding on most quilts. I was very happy with the straight seam that finished it.

I understand the theme for the Gateway Quilt Guild's quilt show next year is going to be based on veterans. I look forward to doing another gurney quilt for the Blue Star Mothers of America program. I also hope to put together a Civil War theme quilt although we no longer have veterans from that war still living.

Stupid Human Tricks

Kids, don't try this at home.....

I wanted some honey. My honey was in the refrigerator because we had an ant problem several months ago. So, I stuck my "honey bear" bottle in the microwave. What I should have done is set it for 10% or 20% power for only a few seconds until it softened. Instead, I put it on auto-defrost, thinking that surely that would be at a low setting. Guess again.

I opened the microwave after several seconds and my honey was bubbling. Okay, hotter than I wanted, but time to get it out. Just as I reached for the bottle, Honey Bear blew his top. Boiling honey spewed all over my shirt, all across the kitchen floor with the back of my right hand bearing the brunt of the eruption.

The microwave was a mess (This picture is post-clean-up.), the kitchen floor spattered and me coated better than a honey-glazed ham. But, I had the presence of mind to tip-toe through the hot honey drops on the floor and stick my hand under cold water for several minutes before I did anything else. Last night the hand was red and burned, but tolerable, thanks to several smear-ons of cortisone with aloe vera cream. This morning it was only pink with minimal pain, although I sported several large blisters. I spared you, dear readers, a picture of the blisters because it was not a pretty sight.

Last night, after changing all my clothes, I mopped the floor three times. This morning, my shoes still stuck to the tile. Let's hope the lesson sticks in my brain so I do not repeat this stupid human trick.

Blog Your Life

Today for the Salida Ward Relief Society Super Saturday I gave a presentation on blogging. No, I do not live in Salida. My daughter does. She was on the committee. When they said that some of the women wanted to learn more about blogging and they needed a teacher, guess who she called?

This is my little class. Sorry you missed it, T. Also, Susan, sorry to hear you suffered a re-injury recently and were unable to come.

As part of my training, I set up an entirely new blog while they watched. I tried out this background and really like it even though I am not a pink person. I liked it so well, you may note that I changed my wallpaper on Robyn's Echo to the orange version.

A few minutes ago when I went into this site to capture the image, I was going to delete the site afterwards. Then I noticed that I have had eight views. Eight views in only five hours? Maybe I will leave it up there and make something of it. The link is robynecholsstuff.blogspot.com.

I put a pdf file of my PowerPoint presentation on my website under the PRESENTATIONS page. I will leave it there until at least November 1, 2012. The web address for that is www.robynechols.com/testimonials.

I did pull some images from other blogs to use for examples. I apologize to any of those bloggers who feel I infringed on your copyright. I hope that with the understanding that this presentation was developed for non-commercial use that you will consider my using a portion of your blog as a form of free promotion for you and your site.

Crunchy Chili Beans

After both Buck and I had our gastric bypass surgery, we ate a lot of chili. One cup was a meal and left us feeling satisfied for a long time. I made a big batch of chili in the slow cooker about every week to ten days and we ate it one to two times a day.

That all changed when I managed to get hold of the crunchy chili beans. I was buying my pinto beans at Costco--25 pound bags at a time--then filling every empty food storage container I could find. I tried to keep two bags ahead, part of that food storage thing. However, one bag I bought was full of beans that would not soften when cooked. Even after twelve hours of cooking, when everything else that made up the chili was cooked to death, the beans were chewy.

Buck does not like the crunchy beans. He kept telling me to cook them longer. It made no difference. Then he  insisted that they were too old and I need to throw them out. I was tempted to do that until I made a batch of chili with beans I found hidden far back in my cabinet that were marked as having been purchased months earlier than the crunchy beans. Those beans cooked up nice and soft in no time at all.

I made chili a month ago and the beans were crunchy. Dang! Thought I already used up all those crunchy beans! After the first night, Buck wouldn't touch the chili. I ended up eating the rest of the batch by myself.

Monday I pulled out beans to soak, thinking Hooray! now all the old beans are gone for sure because I used the last of them a month ago. Buck looked at the beans and announced that they were awful dark. Must be too old. He wanted me to throw them out. I retrieved another container of beans. They were less dark and were dated for three months earlier. The more I thought about it, the "too old" theory did not add up for me. I insisted that the beans were not crunchy because they were too old but because we got a bad batch of beans. Maybe they were harvested too soon or something.

Besides, I was pretty sure I already used up the last of the crunchy beans. Then again, maybe this last jug of crunchy beans escaped my notice last month and had since jumped to the front of my cupboard. To appease Buck, I put the less dark but older beans on to soak.

Buck didn't like the idea of using the older beans. He was sure I was soaking more crunchy beans. He proposed a contest. He suggested I take two cups from the darker beans that are dated more recently and put them on to soak, too, and cook up two batches of chili at the same time.

Throughout the day, the beans from the newer, darker in color batch, the ones I suspected just might be the last holdouts from the crunchy beans, soaked up to double their size. The other beans, not so much. Buck was sure the ones that swelled up the most were non-crunchy beans. I suspected just the opposite. I wanted the opposite to be true because I found about 10-12 pounds of those beans tucked away in the back of another cupboard.

Yesterday I cooked both batches of beans into chili. The older beans, the ones I still have lots of, cooked up nice and soft within 5-6 hours. The newer, darker beans I cooked and cooked and cooked ad nauseum.  

The good news is, the bulk of the beans I have left cook up to be soft. The bad news is, I won the contest by demonstrating that it was not because the beans were too old; they were just destined to be CRUNCHY!!! --the bad news part being that I have a choice of throwing out that batch of chili or, once again, eating it all by myself.

Yes, I kept the crunchy chili separate from the chili with the soft beans, and yes, I will end up eating the crunchy chili all by myself because I am too cheap to toss something that, other than being a little chewy, is perfectly good food. However, I think the rest of the beans that cook up crunchy are going to go into homemade heating pads for my back and neck.

Going Batty

No, I am not referring to my mental state. Nor am I gearing up for Halloween.

Last Monday the Gateway Quilter's Guild hosted Denise Mullenix from Fremont as our guest speaker. Her topic was quilt batting. I took copious notes, but hope the other member who said she would write a recap of the information for our next "Threads That Bind" newsletter comes through, because I know there were a few details I missed.

One issue Denise covered was shrinkage after washing. Her research shows that the Warm & Natural and Warm & White that is 80% cotton-20% polyester averages 3% shrinkage. A 100% cotton bat averages 5%.

With that news about the shrinkage, I started sweating bullets about the bat I have already cut for the quilt I am making for the wounded soldiers project the guild is sponsoring. The dimensions are to be 48" by 68" to fit a gurney or hospital bed. I already preshrunk some of the fabric I plan to use and I already cut out a section of the Pellon 100% cotton batting 50 inches wide because I know that the quilting process often takes up the width and height by about a half-inch to an inch. So, if there was going to be 5% shrinkage in that cotton batting, my width might end up only being 47-1/2 inches and my finished quilted width even less.

Denise quoted the "manufacturer's recommended" instructions for pre-washing batting that included putting it in a bathtub with hot water, gently wringing it out and then laying it flat to dry. She also mentioned that a wet king-size bed quilt batting is a lot of weight to wring out plus she personally has no place in her house big enough to lay flat something that size. (Join the club, Denise.) She uses a commercial steamer-pressing machine she purchased to shrink her batting. I can't help but wonder how much space that baby takes up.

A guild member who has been quilting for years spoke up to say that she pre-washes her quilt batting in the washing machine on gentle and then drys it on gentle and they turn out fine.

To find out if my batting would shrink and be too small for this project, I washed it. In the washing machine. Actually, I let it soak for five minutes in hot water, let it wring out, and skipped the rinse cycle. While I was at it, I also threw in the rest of the cotton batting which is enough for two more large quilts. Then I dried it all in the dryer on warm/hot for about 55 minutes. There were a few damp spots where the bat clumped together, so I loosely folded the big piece in quarters and the small piece in half and left them on top of my bed (on a clean sheet to protect them from any Archie fur that may be on my bedspread) to finish drying.

And the final results were -- drum roll, please -- no shrinkage that I could tell on either piece. I make no claims, and pre-washing batting may produce different results for others. But all I got out of the exercise was slightly softer batting and two nice little piles of the softest, whitest fluff balls that you would ever want to see from my dryer lint trap.

So, my 50 inch wide piece is back with the fabric I am collecting for the wounded warrior quilt and the rest of the fabric that I pre-washed today is sitting on my sewing table next to the gigantic tote bag I threw together the other night which is currently holding the rest of the washed quilt batting. Now that I have the batting situation worked out, it is time to get that fabric pressed, folded and ready for cutting.

Sharon's Sweet Summer and Cheerful Quilts

My friend Sharon keeps busy taking care of her household as well as being involved in helping others. Although she is just barely on the south side of eighty years old, she goes to the rest home in Turlock once a week to sing for the old people. She had been doing this for forty odd years.

Sharon also makes lap quilts for the rest home residents. She uses fabric scraps of all kinds and stretches her quilting budget by buying cotton sheets to use as backing. She and another friend Celeste, who considers Sharon to be a second mom, get together once a week to pool resources and sew either baby quilts for the new mothers in Atwater First Ward or lap quilts for the rest home. I do not meet with them as often, but I occasionally offer fabric and batting. Now that I have the Brother on the quilt frame, using that to quilt the layers on some of the quilts is starting to be part of my contribution.

Sharon asked me to machine-stitch two quilts she has put together. We pinned them together two weeks ago and I brought them home. Friday I set up my two six foot tables, putting one table on risers to  turn it into a pressing table by covering it with an old mattress pad and a heavy beach towel. I pressed the quilt I have named Sweet Summer (blues & pinks, etc.) with the pins in, using the second table to hold the weight and keep it from sliding off the pressing surface.

 

Sweet Summer being pressed

The second quilt had a lot of uneven seams and puckers when Sharon and I pinned it together. I took it apart and pressed and trimmed the backing and top separately. It still is a little uneven, but was much easier to quilt with a minimum of puckers once I pressed the quilt top on the big table.

Sharon claims she deliberately does not make her quilts really pretty because the pretty ones often get stolen by the staff or family members. However, I think these two are beautiful scrap quilts. Sharon has an excellent eye for color and balances her light and dark blocks to be visually pleasing.

Cheerful

Sharon says she likes to use cheerful colors for the lap quilts intended for the rest home. The one quilt with a lot of yellows and pinks is definitely uplifting, which is why I named it Cheerful.

These two quilts are larger than lap quilts and are to go on twin beds. Sharon is making them ahead for Christmas. She knows there are always a few rest home residents who do not get a gift or a visit at Christmastime. She plans to present these quilts to some of those residents.

After pressing Cheerful, I removed the risers so the tabletops were even. I clamped the backing fabric to the two tables pushed together to keep the fabric from puckering and bunching up when I added the batting and the top. I used safety pins to baste the pieces together and to hold the edges in place. Then I used the flat butterfly pins to attach the top to the leader for the quilt frame.

Cheerful on the quilt frame

Since I had my smaller leader already in the quilt frame, I attached my lap quilt, "Dogs and Cats at the Beach" (more later on that quilt when I finish the binding) and stitched it first. After all, it was the first quilt in the queue to be stitched. Then I did three rows of Sweet Summer before calling it quits last Saturday.

This morning, starting at about 7:00a.m., I worked to finish Sweet Summer. Sharon gave me her pink thread -- cheap stuff from Walmart -- and never again. What a mess! I had at least one break each row, broke two needles and fought to remove at least two major rat's nests (and countless minor ones). Fortunately, I used light blue Gutermann's for the bobbin thread, so I was okay there.

Because Sharon used a 100% polyester batting, I used a loose freehand meandering pattern to help bring out the loft.

Sweet Summer with meandering quilt stitch

After a break, I put Cheerful on the quilt frame and  completed that. I used some of the Coats & Clark polyester wrapped polyester thread that I had left from an earlier project for both the top and bottom. I had a couple of breaks and one rat's nest, but much better. I used a combination of freehand meandering plus a lot of loop-de-loop on Cheerful.

When I use cotton batting, I do not usually need to secure the bottom edge until the very end. However, the polyester batting is not as heavy. In order to keep these quilts as straight and smooth as possible to avoid puckering, I used claw clamps (lined with strips of batting) to secure the fourth side.

I finished both quilts by 5:00p.m. Keep in mind the temperature rose to about 108 degrees today. Although I ran the air conditioning unit in the studio, it still was in the eighties inside most of the day. By 5:00 o'clock, I was hot and tired, but finished.

Cheerful finished with meandering loop-de-loop stitch

Okay, not quite. Later in the evening I tied off loose ends and clipped threads. But, now Sweet Summer and Cheerful can go back to Sharon so she can trim the edges and add the binding.

Christmas in August is always fun.

Leaves

 Can you see the kitty in the garden hiding under the leaves of my overgrown broccoli plants? This is where she chose to hide out from our triple-digit heat days, especially the one where it got to 106 degrees. She got mad every time the sprinklers came on.

We tried to explain that the water in the ground was what helped her stay cool. She was not buying it.

 Finally finished with the redo of the hall bath -- such as it is. I designed a valance to coordinate with the leaf design in the shower curtain.

 The back, showing how I stitched in the vein design for the leaves.

 Ta-dah!

 I am glad I swapped out the old aqua blinds for these white blinds.

 Not my favorite color palate, but fun. I like how these colors brighten up all that white.

 I unloaded the contents of the old sink cabinet into this office box when we started the project. Since I have not yet purchased a new cabinet for the side of the new pedestal sink, I put the box in the corner. At least it is color-coordinated. Precious thought we did it just for her. This is where she hid out during our two triple-digit heat spells, although she moved to the bathtub two days ago.

My sister gets the credit for this idea. She suggested converting our "You might be a redneck if..." photo to black and white to hang in the bathroom. I gave this to Buck for his birthday. He loved it. If anything in the bathroom draws a comment, it is this picture!