Category: Quilting in South Carolina

AND, today there is an early morning haircut with a recommended person who cuts CURLY hair.

But, I’ll backtrack to Sunday night–where there was a family celebration for three birthdays in close proximity in my oldest son’s family. There were happy people, lovely presents, a lovely meal, and I spent the night. We stumbled on to the Super Bowl after dinner and presents and cake as there were two of the birthday folks who follow football–and we watched the whole thing to the sad end for the Eagles supporters.

That halftime show…didn’t hit my amusement or delight range. Strange, to say the least. Maybe it is a generational thing? And I have no idea what the words to the song were. They all looked like desert people who had lost their tents and were adrift in the sand. With a killer storm coming. And high ground wasn’t going to help. And they knew it.

I realized when I went to bed that I had forgotten my new hearing aid charger. These days new hearing aids don’t use batteries unless one demands them. When I got up Monday, both aids were totally dead, so there was nothing to do but go home and charge them up as I am profoundly deaf without them. So no nice early coffee morning interlude with my DIL and son.

I had the old hearing aids for the 3 hours it took to charge the new ones. It’s always good to have back-ups. These new aids are beyond awesome–the bluetooth technology now is so amazing. I can talk on the phone (once I answer it) or listen to an audio book with the phone even in another room. And the sound quality is so, so good. I can control the volume on my phone, too, rather than trying to push the tiny volume buttons on the back of the aids. I feel so lucky.

I had defrosted lamb chops for my main meal, which I eat in the middle of the day. (Costco has reasonably priced lamb, which is harder to get here than in Maine.) I had half of a small cabbage in the refrigerator, and I do like to slice cabbage thin, add salt and olive oil and some herbs (fresh dill this time), and eat it like a salad. The cabbage gets soft in a bit and exudes juices–this would be the begining step of fermenting cabbage to make a sauerkraut actually. But I can’t eat fermented foods with my Histamine Intolerance. The next thing I knew, I was adding other fresh veggies to the cabbage while the chops cooked and was putting some water on the stove to cook some buckwheat noodles.

Delicious!

Here’s are the quilt rows I have completed now–laid out on the upstairs rug. I’m stuck until more fabric arrives. I love this project, which has color changes within each row, some more subtle than others. The Windham Artisan cottons (shot cottons) just…glow.

The longarm is not arriving on Thursday. Both Judy and Rob are down with bad colds–so Judy is projecting arrival for next week. Hopefully.

Already I have two quilts backed up to quilt, and the Traverse project will need to be quilted. And I have a whole stack of super cute Churn Dash blocks that will make a quilt. So what to work on while I wait for the longarm?

The EPP project (English Paper Piecing) from hell is the sad answer–it’s the unfinished 36 Ring Circus quilt. It has 6 rows: three are done and attached and one is finished and waiting for the remaining two unfinished rows. There is also an outer border that could be added–I have all the paper pieces for it.

So, yesterday, I sat quietly upstairs in my new chair, with my view to the street from the window available. I was surrounded by light and with the iron close at hand. And, I hand sewed. I have all the middle parts of the remaining 12 blocks glued (all Cotton+Steel fabrics) and ready to go. And all the outer ring parts are glued as well.

Here are the three completed rows and part of the fourth row–a picture I took way back in March 2022. I don’t even want to think how long I’ve been working on this quilt. The rings are boring to sew, and the piecing of the rings and rows is difficult going with all the curves.

OK, I’ll stop whining now. But this quilt won’t be a big one in the end. It’s way to much work for a baby quilt, and I don’t know about it for a wall hanging either. BUT, I have NEVER abandoned a quilt project this far along, and I’m not going to stop now.

So many hours already… The glueing alone…

Yesterday I put the adorable little office chair out on the curb late afternoon as Tuesday is trash pickup day. It was gone by nightfall when I put out the big trash bin.

Happy travels, little chair.

But rain is coming later in the morning. I don’t mind–it means I don’t have to worry about watering any of the dormant grass–assuming I can even manage to undo the tight hose bolts the movers closed on BOTH ends of two hoses by linking them into a big circle so there would be no loose ends.

I have to say I like solving problems like this hose problem though. Maybe two sets of pliers? Maybe a son or grandson…

Here’s a problem I could not solve though. My DIL was replacing this chair, and I asked her for it. Isn’t it the cutest, sweetest little chair–one just meant for my sewing room?

My DIL warned me that the chair was not holding its height and would gradually slide down to its lowest level.

Maybe that low level would be ok?

Nope.

Maybe I could fix it?

I went online and discovered that chairs with hydraulics gradually lose their air over time and will slide down to their lowest level. Who knew? The first, easier, fix involved tape for traction and a hose clamp to prevent the chair from sliding down.

Nope. The whole shaft would have to be taped with a hose clamp at either end maybe.

The next fix involved taking off the wheel apparatus and placing a metal or PCP pipe over the shaft–centered on the pipe with washers if the overlaid pipe had too much play on the chair shaft. The chair would then hold in a permanent height–set by the overlaid pipe. That would have worked–but I had no way to cut a metal or PCP. So…

Nope.

I ordered a new chair from Amazon as I could not find one locally for a price I would consider. Sewing chairs at JoAnne’s were $300 plus!!! And office chairs at Staples were also expensive and so…”officey.” This chair was $138 with tax!!!! Lovely. But it had to be put together. So I spent a quite lovely hour doing that task while sitting on the upstairs rug under a good light.

And now I’m very happy! The chair is very comfortable, the arms can be slid up and out of the way, there is lumbar support for a lower back, AND I had fun putting the chair together.

I am really enjoying having my machine facing this outside window. It is easy to open the shutters, which swing open into the room, to open a window to let a breeze inside. And in the late afternoon, a time when I mostly sew, I can see families out walking with children and dogs and visiting with others they see along the way. There are a lot of dogs and children here, too.

The Traverse quilt is coming along–here are two sections on what was my temporary design wall.

Now these sections are on the rug out in the big room as I will soon have other sections to joint these two.

The final 4 rows and batches of fabric for Traverse will arrive from Sewtopia in a few weeks now. And while I wait, the longarm will come next week, and I’ll quilt the two quilts that are waiting for it–and trim and bind them.

I so looking forward to diving into all the saved projects I have acquired.