The Festival of Broken Needles

Since I have been not really feeling so great this week and got totally nothing done, I am going to share with you the photos from the River City Guild class on Stack and Whack last night.

I did the program on Machine Needles and Mary followed me with a program on hand sewing needles.  She told the story of the ladies in Japan who save all their damaged, broken and dull needles through the year and attend a temple festival called Hari-Kuyo on every February 8.  The Festival of Broken Needles.  The Shinto and  Buddhist priests collect the needles in a cake of tofu and float them out into the ocean.

For centuries women would sit and sew garments and items for the home to care for their families.  As they sew their concerns would be for their children and husbands, mothers and fathers.  And when they prick their fingers, they leave a part of themselves on their needles.  This festival is to honor the women and their tools, however small.

That was so cool!

To see the Stack and Whack class they had click:         HERE

I did not have a dog in the hunt, as they say.

glen

Green Stack and Whack Calla Lily Quilt is Quilted

Chips the 22 lb mean cat!

Cali helping with a quilt

I loved that story about the kitty waiting for the litter!  Sounds just  like a cat, too!  I miss not having kitty feet in the house.  We always had two or three at one time and they lived to ripe old ages of close to 20.  We lost the last one 2 years ago, Cali, my little tiny calico who was 21 and still catching lizards until the end!




The Calla Lily Stack and Whack quilt is now quilted and needs a binding.  I have to decide what to put as a binding and get that done so I will have a finish for May, at least!

I wanted to do a pantograph on the back table since the long arm is still pulled out from the wall for when the film guy was here.  I got everything set up and realized we never did put the handles on the rear of the machine!  So much for that!

So I resorted to working from the camera, but I couldn't figure out where to put one of the wires that turned the whole thing on!  I gave up and just did a free motion leaf and swirl.  It worked out well.

Now it just needs a binding!

And to show you just how much Frank is loved:

the snoring from all three is deafening!

Stack And Whack

From the Flower Expert

I really love this green calla lily fabric.  My grandmother loved calla lilies!  So it had a special meaning from the beginning.  When I cut the blocks, my mother had come to visit me from the ramshackle building she and her second husband called home.

Don't get me started on that.  I was never in favor of the arrangement.  I hated my mother there with those people.  She just couldn't be alone, and my father had not been the type of man who encouraged a woman to speak from her own mind.  But don't get me started on that either.  My father, were he still alive, would most likely have deteriorated into his own mind by then and I would have had both of them on my doorstep. 

My mother was already in the throes of Alzheimers and the only way I could get her to a doctor was to get her husband to let her come visit.  I have no idea if she told him I took her there.  If she did, he most likely thought she was speaking nonsense.

That night, I cut the blocks and lined them up for her to sew.  I have 8 more blocks I put together this afternoon thinking I would put them on the back, but I didn't think to do that until I had just a portion of the back left to fill.  So I put them away for another quilt top.

I did use up a lot of scraps.  And I like the way the top came together.  I am still not totally enamored of the light border.  I generally use darker borders rather than lighter.  I wish I would have had more of that brown to use as the outer border.  I tested several browns but none worked well enough with the brown already there.

And I don't use green very often, so this is a quilt unique unto itself!


Here is what the top looked like last night.  SOMEONE took the green fabric I was using for that last border and I was unable to finish it.  Luckily I found it this morning, damp with dew from the morning.



Here is the finished top.

                                          And the backing.


And now I need to find the perfect name for it.

Tripping Through Life Hurts

So we hooked up the dogs last nghht after Castle was over, and headed out for our 3/4 mile walk.  Chloe decided she wanted to walk opposite our usual way, so the Boyz and I crossed the street.  Not everything in Louisiana is flat.   In front of Dale's house, the street is uneven.

Yes, you guessed it.  I tripped. 

Frank says he looked over at me and there I was...... laying flat out in the middle of the street.  The dogs were quite fascinated that I was all of a sudden there on the ground with them.  I was able to turn and not fall on my surgery knee.  So I have a brush burn on my left knee, my left hip is sore, my right lower back hurts. 

But the worst of it is my right wrist.   I don't think it is broken, but it hurts in various places.  I will make a decision later today or tomorrow if i need to get it x-rayed. 

I get angry with myself because I have so much to do with these Colorado boys Quilts.  I have one more to quilt and 1 1/2 sides on a skateboard quilt to finish binding. Everything else is done.  Thank goodness.

So today I am gong to work on clearing out another corner of the quilt room.  And maybe I will go out for lunch.  Making a sandwich might hurt.




Look what I found yesterday. This was a stack and whack I did one time with my mother.  she was into the throes of Alzheimers but she could still sew a straight line.  So I would cut and set out and she would sew.  After she went into the nursing home.  It got put away under some stuff, under some other stuff.  You know. 



 And I had tossed out these scraps.  But I dug them out and made a strip.  And added sides.  And now it is a baby quilt.  Just like that.  Modern is wonderful sometimes.