2/17/14

ninety-five cents well spent

It was my birthday over the weekend.  We’re pretty low key around here around Valentine’s and my day.  On Friday night, Rob and I went out for dinner.  I love Italian.  He’s kinda “egh, whatever” about it.  So, he asked me for Italian.  We had appetizers and a humongous pizza.  We were back home in an hour and it was a very special hour, indeed.  We each brought up work, once, but neither of us wanted to talk work.  We talked about kid for a second, but neither of us wanted to talk about her, either.  So, we talked about us.  And, that was very nice. 

On Saturday, we went antiquing.  Rob and I like this very much and usually choose it as our go-to activity for special days.  Sydney goes along.  She brought her camera and I saw her several times out taking pictures of the countryside.  And, there were several things she picked out that I paid for. 

We weren’t in the mood to buy things, tho.  We shopped and we had a very “bad for us” lunch in a country cafe, but we didn’t really bring many things home.

One of the things I brought home was a tiny placemat in homespun fabrics.  It cost me ninety-five cents.  And, it was a red hot mess.  No points matched.  Some blocks were squares, some were rectangles.  And, it had white spray paint or flocking or something in a section of it. 

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I ended up taking it completely apart and re-cutting the hst’s and putting the whole thing back together on the two spool machine.  And, then I free motion quilted it on that machine, using a bent paper clip as a foot (okay, I’ll tell more about that later) and it did pretty good.  I have some changes to make in how it is set up in the cabinet.  But, once that’s done, I can see me doing bigger things on it. 

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Anyway, I added the border to make it the original size (yes, I cut a lot of it away to get evenly sized blocks) and re-used the poly batting and blue cotton back and even the binding.  So, the only thing I added was the border, and that was a piece of binding left from another quilt I made. 

I also made a boatload of spool pin doilies.

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Different patterns, one I made up and will be keeping.  I’m going to feel a fool if the guild doesn’t want to sell these.  I think I should reach out to that lady, pretty quick. 

And, I bought this terrible little bag to carry all my supplies in.

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It’s made from a table cloth and some rickrack and has a button.  Like a pajama bag, I guess. 

It’s so cheerful.  And, so out of character for me. 

Lane

5 comments:

lw said...

Happy belated birthday!

I like your re-done little placemat. I'd have repurposed it into a doll quilt, I think.

I love the fabric on your "terrible" bag. My mom had a tablecloth like that when I was little. It reminds me of pot luck suppers with the extended family, and the apple pie Mom used to make in a long, flat, rectangular baking pan-- thin layers of crust, canned apple filling, and a drizzle of vanilla frosting on the top.

Nancy said...

Lane, happy belated birthday. What dagte? Mine was yesterday!

Kath said...

belated happy birthday Lane, I love what you did with that little mat. I had to smile tho, cos that's the sort of thing I would do. Mr Dad said I just liked making order out of chaos :-)

Lakegaldonna said...

Happy belated BD!

Wow, that was a good 95 cents well spent. So much entertainment value there for it. A little time with a seam ripper and re-engineering, sew, sew, and there you have it. Something rescued that will now bring a smile to your face when you see it. You will always remember when you found it, who was with you and it's mini journey to now grace your table.

Thanks for the story Lane.

Elizabeth said...

Happy (very belated) birthday! Glad you had an enjoyable evening out!

Your spool pin doilies are pretty!

xo -E