is there any more pie?

The Wild Flower Snowball quilt top is finished, as of yesterday afternoon.  Here you see a portion of it.  It’s comprised of 120 snowball blocks and ended up approximately 75″ X 90″ in size.

I like it.

What’s next?  Figuring out a backing, pin-basting on the kitchen island while watching “The Gilded Age” and then machine-quilting it on my trusty Janome machine.

I now have four–FOUR–quilt tops to make backings for, along with basting and quilting them.

Yes, I have been busy.  I call it “stress sewing”, because, well, it’s the Winter of 2022 and I am not a fan.

But when I’m sewing I think of good things, happy things, hoping to fill the quilts with joy and love as I sew them.

Banjo Man and I attended an exhibit at the Shelburne Museum, near Burlington, Vermont, in 2007 while on a mini-vacation.  It was there I saw the quilts of Rosie Lee Tompkins for the first time and I was in awe.  I read that she felt that her quilts were a form of protection for her loved ones; she prayed while sewing.

The show, “Something Pertaining to God”, was curated by her friend and devoted collector, Eli Leon.

If you have a few extra minutes and a fresh cup of coffee, here’s an article about Eli and Rosie that is quite fascinating.  Eli was a hoarder whose collection of quilts (3100 of them!) was eventually donated to the Berkeley Art Museum.

Here’s the link:

Have you ever lost something and never, ever found it again?

I guess that’s the definition of “lost”.

Sigh.

Yesterday I sat at my desk with my needles, thread and scissors to hand stitch a label onto a quilt I’d been trying to finish for a very long time.

The night before while watching football I’d finished the binding, but I’d been too tired to stitch those last five inches of the label.  Before leaving my chair I’d carefully removed my two special needles from the magnetized holder and popped them into their bag.

This is where these two expensive needles live.

I sat in my office chair with the quilt on my lap, label face up, and shook the little bag so a needle would drop out.

It did.  It dropped and bounced into the sleeve of the turtleneck I wore underneath my sweater.  I said a bad word and reached inside to retrieve it.

No needle.

It was not on the floor.  Or in my chair.  Or on the table.  I took off my turtleneck and my sweater and turned them inside out.

No needle.

I found my magnetized wand, designed for picking up pins and needles, and waved it over the floor and rug and chair.

No needle.

A few months ago daughter Nancy told us a story about one of her patients at the assisted living home who was an avid seamstress.  While sitting in her recliner and happily sewing, she lost a needle.  Days later she found it–deeply embedded in her thigh, under the skin, and of course infected.  She went to the hospital for surgery.

This story came back to me.

I didn’t want a needle wiggling its way into my body, so I took off all of my clothes.  Turned everything inside out and right side out and inside out again and shook them.  I examined my right arm.  I examined my thighs.

No needle.

I got down on my hands and knees with a flashlight and examined every inch of my carpet.

No needle.

Was it in the quilt?  I couldn’t see anything, so I hung it up in front of the windows so the sun could shine through.  Surely if there was a needle inside the quilt it would show up, right?  I examined every block.

No needle.

It was time to call in someone with much better eyesight:  Banjo Man.  I donned a fresh set of clothing and headed downstairs to ask for help.  He did his best, but neither of us could find the needle.

Surely you can get another needle on Amazon, he said, eyeing the snow-covered driveway.  I think the truck can make it in.

Um, that’s not the point.  I reminded him of the scary needle-in-the-thigh story.  He grabbed the flashlight and searched the carpet and my chair once again.

We went downstairs and looked on the carpet and in the chair just in case I only thought I put both needles in their bag and one had slipped to the floor.

We never found the damn needle.  Was I upset?  Understatement.

Banjo Man started to ask things like “Are you sure you had two needles?”

Yes.  Last night I had both needles on their little magnet holder so I wouldn’t lose them.   That’s what I always do, with any kind of needle.  I am careful like that.

He gave up and returned to work.

I had to take a time out and hike down the driveway to retrieve the car and get the mail.  I had to fix a mug of green tea and eat two Milano cookies before I tried sewing on the label again.  It didn’t help that my television, on which I was going to watch a relaxing dvr’d episode of ESCAPE TO THE COUNTRY while I stitched, had an issue with its volume–as in not having any sound– and I had to change three cords and unplug the damn thing before I could get it to work.

I did sew the label on and the quilt is officially finished.

Today I’m still twitchy about that missing needle.  I hope I don’t step on it.  I really hope I don’t sit on it.

And I hope the Quilting Gods will be kind and the needle will appear in a benign and odd place, leaving me free to get on with my life without worrying about damaging a body part as we navigate through the winter of 2022.

Thanks to OysterEnglish.com

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see flames in our propane gas fireplace again.  It heats 2/3 of the house, including the living room and kitchen.

Those rooms have been 42 degrees.  Banjo Man and I moved downstairs for eating and sleeping and tv-watching, but during the day I cranked up the electric heat in my office and worked on something that made me think of summer.

I love summer.

A snowball quilt was the perfect way to use those beautiful large print floral fabrics I’d been saving.   There are four sections, due to the small size of my design wall.

This is section 2.   I didn’t have enough of one perfect fabric to use for the corners, so I found four fabrics that worked and came up with a way to use them.

This is my very official chart and…so far so good.

Last night, with the fire burning brightly, we curled up on the living room couch and watched episode three of ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL.  I’d dvr’d it because Sunday night was the Bills/Chiefs game.  And who wouldn’t watch that football game!!!!!

Anyway…it snowed an inch or two last night.  I have Ebay sales to mail, errands to run, an annual doctor appointment and a few groceries to buy (let’s hope there is milk on the store shelves).  But as soon as that’s all done?  It’s back to my NICE WARM KITCHEN as our little world returns to normal.

How many days until Spring???