1/12/15

All in a day’s chores

Well, the weather outside was frightful, which doesn’t happen very often in Texas.  On my drive to bee on Saturday, there was significant ice buildup on the sides of the car.  Nothing to people that have that all the time, but it might be the only time I’ve ever had to drive when ice could build up on the sides of the Prius. 

Rob and Sydney spent the weekend rearranging the furniture in her room.  She’s been asking for a year or more.  But, it’s hard to do favors for a kid that you’re hounding to do her chores and her schoolwork.  Anyway, Rob agreed, so she stayed up most of Friday night packing all her stuff and I suspect most of Saturday night, unpacking it.  I think she likes it better, but it’s going to take time to be sure.

I sewed.  You saw my blockapalooza from yesterday, and I also pin basted these two quilts.

100_7758 100_7759

Tim Latimer posted the other day about how few pins he puts into a quilt, and it made me pause.  I use a LOT more pins than that.  But, then I looked at the differences in what we are doing.  He is hand quilting, so he has the benefit of a hoop.  I’m machine quilting and my hands are my hoop and the extent that I can spread them is the dimension of my machine bed.  I need more pins because of that.  But, I also thought about when I’m hand quilting.  I’ve never tried using pins to baste a hand quilting project.  I do thread basting so I don’t have to remove basting to put the quilt in the hoop.  Do I need to be worried about that?  More to come because I want to experiment with that a little.

I also made a lasagna and a big pot of jambalaya and an old fashioned coffeecake with crumb topping.  And, I hung up all my coats…that’s the only thing I don’t like about winter.  I like to wear the half dozen warm jackets I own, but the season is so short that I might not get to wear them but once.  So, I end up with all of them pulled out and at some point, I can’t stand it anymore and have to put them all away again.

Have a great Monday.  Imagine what I could accomplish if I didn’t have to go to that pesky job.  That thing gets in the way of so much fun. 

And, then I remind myself that without the job, I wouldn’t be able to afford to have fun.

See ya’.

Lane

4 comments:

Lakegaldonna said...

Well said Lane, without the job you wouldn't get to do many of those fun things!
I still think you accomplish so much with your time not at work, bravo quilting friend.

lw said...

I shared a room with two sisters and we rearranged it about once every six months. It helps with keeping everything clean and finding lost stuff.

The two small quilts are really cute!

I found and read Tim's article about pinning; I'm sticking with more pins for machine quilting. I hadn't considered basting the hand quilted one I'm working on, but if the pins are in the way, I may back track.

Rebecca Grace said...

Hi, Lane! Like you, I've thread basted for hand quilting and just used the pins for FMQ. I hate all basting, so much so that I find myself day dreaming of long arm machines with lovely gigantic frames, no basting required... then I remind myself that I don't know how to operate one of those machines, and don't have an extra $2Ok burning a hole in my pocket, either! :-)

I think it's amazing that you work full time and yet you still manage to turn out one beautiful quilt after another! I'll bet your brain is working on quilting designs "in the background" the whole time you're on the job.

Barb H said...

In a class several years ago, I mentioned that no matter how carefully I pin basted my quilts, I always had tucks and ruffles in the back, especially at the borders. Teacher's response: Use more pins! I've done that ever since and have had far fewer ruffles on the back! I guess there's a big difference in basting for hand quilting and for machine quilting.