the brew*crew adventure

Finally! This last weekend T and I finished the binding on our first ever quilt, which is a pinwheel quilt that we made with the wonderful help of Randi's most excellently laid-out lessons found here. So, without further adieu, here it is in its new home, hanging-up on our breezeway wall (which has also recently been finished -Chris put up drywall over thr block walls- then textured and I painted it "sea green", which sets off the pine ceiling beautifully, we think!). Perfect spot for it, dont'cha think?!

I received this book, The Hope Chest: A Legacy of Love in the mail a couple of days ago, as a gift from Rebekah Wilson. It was beautifully wrapped and packaged with a lovely bookmark and some quaint little recipe cards. I'd planned to take a picture of it still in its wrapping, but my dd was entirely too anxious to open it, and so I allowed her to do so before I'd gotten around to setting up a worthy shot.

Once I sat down with it the next evening, I ended up reading the first half of it in one sitting! It's brimming with inspirational advice, ideas and testimonial stories and examples. This book and all that it encompasses has been such a timely gift to me, as I've been considering the legacy concept alot lately, on quite a few different levels, both literal (heirlooms) and figuratively, as in spiritual legacy leaving.

As I've mentioned, T and I have been working on our first quilt. It's coming along... though due to a very busy past few weeks, it had been put on the backburner, and we're just now beginning the hand-stitching/quilting of it now. Here's a picture of it sandwiched, and pinned, with the border now sewn on.

As we've been working on it, we've already found ourselves planning our next projects (they are many!). There's something preciously invaluable about heirlooms... they're unique to every family, irreplaceable and treasured by those to whom they belong. They serve as soul anchors somehow, tangible reflections of often elusive memories, abstract emotions and something vastly important within us, offering connectedness, remembrances of belonging... a heritage.And so, I have been pondering these ideas, about handing down traditions and memories in a haptic, literal sense, as well as invisibly... as we store away treasures in heaven, and on earth. I am enjoying learning new work to do with my hands, alongside my son and daughter. I never learned to sew the basic handsewing stitches as a child, nor crochet any more than a chain, etc. But I am learning these lessons now, and my daughter and I thrill over the constructive time we're spending together doing these little things. Chris and I are going to begin a Hope Chest for her, and a Heritage Chest for our son. He is as excited about my making a memory quilt for him, as T is about my making hers. In her book, Rebekah shares about her practice of working on one block at a time, over many years, for a memory quilt she plans to give each of her children as a gift upon their marriage, or growing up... I think it would be fun to teach T embroidery stitches as we make a crazy quilt together too. We have dreams anyways...Quilts ~ Masterpieces of the Heart by Marlene Parkin

Here, the pinwheel squares have been sewn into rows...
T literally squealed with delight when she saw them joined.
I wanted to, and then she fell upon them affectionately...
Yes, it's been a labor of love.
My little helper, with our handiwork...Now, we've still got to sew on the border , and I've yet to decide upon which quilting method we'll be doing for our work of art here... I'm thinking the ties. NO! Not because they're the easiest method... well... maybe, but for T's sake, not mine... HONEST! LOL If we do the ties, then she'll be able to do more stitching, right? Or, maybe she'd like to try one of the other methods? Hmmm... that's it, I'll let her choose. Afterall, I've put all of the other hard decisions to her thusfar (including final choices of fabric) and she's come through beautifully!
She is so much more decisive than I am!
Anyways, here's a peek fer ya.
It's coming along nicely.
Don't ya think?

Last night, right after I'd just finished sewing all of my pinwheels squares and was trimphantly laying them out together I realized to my great horror that I'd accidentally pieced some in the wrong direction (like half of them!!), and so the pinwheels wouldn't all match up right: white (background) to pinwheel (color)/white to color... ARRRRGGGHHH!!! I couldn't believe it... and I quite calmly crossed over to the dark side of quilting. Oh, I was seething deep on the inside, and I'm certain that my eyes were glowing as I calmly put the defective pieces aside to work on this morning.

Yes, I had to de-thread every single one of those pinwheels, all the way down to the little squares and re-do them completely!! But... it's done now, JOY! And I'm about to go and sew my rows all together.:^) Darth Beth has now receded and the flowers are in bloom again! hehehehe
I'll post a picture of my quilt top soon, and share some more about how very therapeutic this whole project/process has been for me (besides the maddening part!)...

Well, T and I have finished Lesson #1 of our quilting class, and here's a picture of what we've accomplished. T is really enjoying helping me. She's helped with the cutting, the sewing (controlling the machine with the foot pedal thrills her every time), and then she sat with me and cut the corners off while we watched Masterpiece Theatre's rendition of Bleak House, by Dickens. T kept leaning over and kissing me as we worked... I think we're both enjoying sharing this first experience. She exuberantly exclaimed, "Now I'll know what to do with my daughter!":^)

We now have 80 dual colored quilting squares which we will be piecing together into pinwheels this week, as we'll be starting on Lesson #2, which looks a bit daunting... By the end of lesson #2 our quilt's top should be finished!! That is, if my dinosaur of an old sewing machine will stick it out with us! It was just a squealin' and a squakin' as I sewed yesterday, sounded like a train wreck! And that's even after I'd dismantled it for a thorough cleaning, and oiled it too...?

I was so giddy as I excitedly went to WalMart with my list of supplies I needed for the pinwheel quilt that Tabitha and I will be making together. Randi (aka. "Cheek Mama"~love that name!) is hosting a quilting class over at her place, which any one is welcome to join. This is just what I've needed, a *private* tutor to walk me through the process of making my very first quilt, thank YOU Randi!

So, yesterday I copied down my list of supplies, all of which I needed to pick up. I must say that I am a wee bit disappointed that there's no sewing/fabric store (that I know of, nor could find listed in our phone book) in our little town, and I wasn't about to drive over to Johnson City for 2 yds. of fabric... so Wally world it was for me. But Taba and I did find some pretty fabrics, despite our limited selection from which we had to choose, and I DID get a great deal $-wise, which is good because we are "PO" right now! LOL! I'm thrilled that Chris even agreed to my spending ANY $ on this right now...

Here's a picture of the Pinwheel Quilt that we'll be making...

Here's a picture of the fabrics that Tabitha and I picked out yesterday.

What do you think? We're going for a bright look that says "Spring"! Notice the green grass, blue skies and flowers, yellow sunshine, blue raindrops, and pink flowery colors (in Spring the trees around here explode with pink blooms!)...

Initially, I hesitated to join this *quilting circle* because we are so tight budget-wise right now, AND because I don't have a *sewing place* set up right now either. So, as soon as I finish up with this post, I'm going to convert my current "scrapbooking desk" - which is a large architects' drawing table, and hasn't been used for much scrapbooking, and is crammed against the wall in our bedroom and topped with tons of books, a puzzle and numerouls childrens' items - into my official *sewing table*. It will be our new project's holding place, and our dining room table will also double nicely as a sewing table, when need be...Here's my list of what I bought, and how much it cost me... Yes, I think that I did rather well!Having never quilted before, I needed a quilting ruler, which I found for $6.96 and a rotary cutter, which I bought for $7.96 (though I may take that back and exchange it for the larger one, having just seen that Randi recommends the larger one over the smaller one).

I bought a package of 45"x 60" worth of quilter's crib batting for $3.17.

And I bought ALL of my material (including my white backing) for a grand total of $9.70!!

So, altogether, tools and fabric have so far cost me only: $27.79

I already have a self-healing cutting mat that I use for my scrapbooking, so fortunately didn't need to buy that too.