starter quilt

I could hear the yellow double wedding ring quilt top pleading to get out of the musty cardboard box. I finally responded and released it from captivity. Ahhh fresh air! Sunshine!  But wait, it was still an unfinished quilt top, a vintage UFO made by Buddy's grandmother. I had just finished 4 quilts left from Ms. Thomas when she passed, is there a pattern here? Sewing for ghosts? I see dead people…

Anyway, my idea for the yellow DWR was to give it to Michelle, great-granddaughter of the quilt maker. I ran the idea by family members (do not assume, always ask) and everyone was fine with it. I showed it to Michelle to see if she wanted it and she said that yellow was her favorite color. So the process had started, but who will quilt it? Me?  I don't know, the size of 102 x 90 was overwhelming to me.

If only my favorite quilter lady was still here. But I have just retired and there is really no excuse for me not to JustDoIt. I was still agonizing over how to attempt such a big project, when overnight I had a light bulb moment - cut the quilt in half or quarters and quilt the smaller pieces then sew them back together. I ran this by Buddy, explaining that it is an acceptable way of making quilts, called 'quilt as you go' which means you could quilt a block at a time then sew them together, albeit may not encompass cutting up a perfectly fine large vintage hand stitched quilt top… but it would turn out fine I am sure.  Buddy also had an overnight idea - why not take off a row or two, making a smaller quilt and one easier to handle, incorporating the other 'rings' into another quilt or more than one, like using something old to make something new. He said kind of like that recipe that was going around for a while, something about a starter? Sour dough starter? Yes like that.

I really liked that idea! I asked Michelle what size her bed is - full size - so that helped my decision to cut it down. It started out 5 rings wide x 6 rings long, I cut off 2 rows, now it is 4 rings wide x 5 rings long, 72 x 90. I had some poly batting 72 x 90, and had a sheet for the backing (frugal quilter = use what you have).  The DWR top was so puckered, I tried to stretch and pull, but never did get it to lie flat. So I just did some straight lines through the rings and let the curved pieces be free to fall where they may. Maybe I should have taken it to a professional?  But it is out of the cardboard box and will soon be into the hands of family, for Michelle made by her great-grandmother, Two Mama.

"Better finished than perfect."

When we first showed the unfinished quilt top to Michelle, it was mentioned that it was a double wedding ring pattern, and Michelle said, "Well, I will never have a wedding ring :)" So I decided to name it something else. Just because it started out in Two Mama's mind as a DWR doesn’t mean it has to stay that. (I also did this for Jenny's lavender one  - called it the Circle of Life.)

Anyway this one is The Yellow Quilt Road with this for a label (Michelle recently moved back to the old homeplace to help care for her dad):

It just came out of the wash and it doesn't look too bad! The puckers look more puffy now, and puffy is good for a quilt! Whew! Check that one off the list. One more thing out of my sewing room and into the hands of family. And hopefully I will stop hearing voices...

askew

I love to knit these little dishcloths, to start out at one corner and end up at the opposite one. To watch it be all askew looking and then magically turn into a square when finished.

I love to use up the little bits of yarn left from a roll, piecing them together, it reminds me of patchwork quilting :)

I still use the pattern from Exuberant Color in 2013, thanks Wanda!

granmas smart quilt

Our second great-grandbaby is on the way thanks to grandson Kyle and Allison!  I decided to try my first I-Spy quilt, so much fun to make and hopefully fun for the baby too.

Granma's Smart Quilt

 the beginning of a lifetime of

exploration and discovery

 made by 'great-grandma'

Susan Tidwell

 2019

  

a software blanket for

you to drag and drop along the way

a hotspot for cold days, your default address

your personal domain for a crash or a quick reboot

a fun chatroom, or a picnic surface for a byte of cookies

surf this cuddly browser, YOU are the driver of this search engine

scroll and find the patch of a cloud or spyware or red phish/blue phish

Ideas of things to do with the Smart Quilt 

(for the baby at an older age, or for Kyle):

FIND something with eyes

FIND something red

FIND something that starts with Z

FIND something that is in the sky

FIND something with wheels

FIND something to eat

ring around the Posey

Granddaughter Sarah and Matthew have been together since that first prom date way back in May 2010. This April they are getting married! Congratulations go to the happy couple, along with the traditional gifts of wedding quilt from Granma Susan and the handcrafted Chef Helper from Granpa Buddy! We hope you enjoy many many years of happiness!

making rings

The Making of... wedding quilt for Sarah and Matthew!

Specs:

Pattern: Metro Hoops by Sew Kind of Wonderful

Size: King 105" x 120"

Fabric: 64 batik Jelly Roll strips 2-1/2" x 42" made into 224 arcs

5 yards gray print and 5 yards white solid for background

3-5/8 yards navy solid for corner squares and binding

4 yards 108" wide quilt backing

King size white poly batting 

Quilting by Amelia Broussard

Lavonia

passing through small towns we often have to stop and take it all in, 

the little quilt shop, the murals, and of course the quilt squares! 

Lavonia, Georgia

here's your sign

peacelovequilt

When your kids ask what you want for Christmas and you give them specifics - “a sign like this one on Etsy but too much $ maybe you could make one and here is what I want it to say and look like, and two generations come together to make it happen! #heresyoursign #patchwork #diy #teamwork

AND while planning this sign - the kids/grandkids asked Grandpa Buddy to cut a piece of wood for it, and can you cut 2 just in case?  Someone apparently remembered way back in the summer when Buddy said he wanted to put up a sign on the property 'Tidwell Forest'.

Great job everyone - 1) to remember that and file it away, 2) to get him to cut out his own sign, 3) painting and personalizing the sign, it is just what he had in mind!

greatgrandbaby quilt

We are excited to welcome our first greatgrandchild soon. 

A quilt needs to be made to mark the occasion. Young mothers have very specific ideas as to what they want, nursery design, theme, colors, etc. So when I asked Racheal, what kind of baby quilt she wanted, she said, "Woodland theme, a tree and a fox and leaves, a geometric look..."

so this soon to be GREAT granma gathered ideas from the internet :)

found this shared graph drawing of a tree and leaves, using triangles and squares and decided it was time I learned to make half-square triangles

and gathered fabrics from different stores, Joanns, Walmart, Fabric.com

played around with ideas, found a cute fox peeping from behind the tree - picture found online also 

added a little hand embroidery

sewed together in vertical strips, adjusting the strips up or down so the leaves would not be in straight rows - to look more natural, but really so I wouldn't have to line up all those seams :)

after I was pleased with the alignment, trimmed the strips to length, then added fox to go behind the tree trunk, and added a few borders to bring it all together

used my machine large zig-zag for quilting, another first, it went fast, just did vertical rows of stitching lining up with the vertical strips of fabric

and the requisite quilt label - another baby quilt done!

The Sewing Machine

The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie

A extraordinary story about an ordinary object, a sewing machine. What can be said about a sewing machine that would make a good story? Natalie Fergie answers this question overwhelmingly with her story of the little Singer machine, from the time it was being made in the factory, through 100 years of use, and handed down through generations. This is the story of the women and men that used this machine, the way they are all connected and intertwined seemingly by the threads of the machine.

My favorite part was the journals kept by the people sewing/mending/creating projects, one page in a small book dedicated to each project, a line of sewing on the page with a small scrap of the fabric and notes as to what was made, for who, etc.  I actually got choked up visualizing this, notes in little books going back 100 years.

2016 - Fred is cleaning out his grandparents house, opens up the old Singer case, discovering a bundle stuffed inside containing 16 small notebooks which he discovers go back 100 years.

"Some have homemade covers cut from scrap paper. Fred can see that one has been made from a road atlas, and another has a picture of sweet peas on a page from a seed catalogue. There is a school jotter and an old cash book. At the bottom of the pile, the final notebook is covered with a familiar wallpaper with cars on it. ‘My bedroom,’ he says softly.

He opens one of the books. Each page has a line of stitching running vertically near the outer edge. Yellow stitches on the first page, then white, blue, black. And caught in the seam every time is a scrap of cloth, maybe two inches by one. The pages have writing on them too and he catches his breath; it’s the same as the handwriting on the first six of the birthday cards in his treasure box, and on the jam jars in the larder."

I thought what a wonderful idea, a good idea for the history of one sewing machine, but also a good idea for the documentation of one person's sewing history even on different machines. What if I had done this? The school dresses, mini skirts from the 70s, baby clothes, bridesmaid dresses, prom dresses, quilts, my wedding dress c.1973… what a history…

The Sewing Machine is a new favorite book of mine, a reminder of the importance of family, of passing down through generations the tools and skills and stories that make up each family's history. 

following the quil trail

School House quilt block, Hanson, KY

Mosaic Star block, State Route 70, Central City, KY

Star of Bethlehem, Muhlenberg County Extension Office, KY

Following the Pennyrile Quilt Trail through Western Kentucky.

wedding quilt

Congratulations Kyle and Allison!

a variation on the traditional Log Cabin pattern: A Formal Affair by Fons and Porter

whooo's the baby

baby quilt for little niece Lilianna Rose due in February!

'baby woodland animals' theme 

Quilt finished in September and the hardest part is waiting to give it to them, which happened this weekend at her baby shower. Congratulations to the upcoming parents! Can't wait to meet the new member of our family.