What's On Your Bed?

I picked up this challenge from Paula at Colorado Quilter. I think it's fun to see what quilters

dress their beds with. Actually, the folded quilt at the foot of my bed is not one I made; I bought it on eBay a few years ago. I've never made a full size quilt, only crib, lap and journal type quilts. Most of the quilts I've made have been for other people. I am planning on making a full size quilt from my Women of the Bible blocks for myself, but I don't want to put it on my bed, because all three cats would mess it up quickly, I'm afraid. The vintage kitchen table next to the bed is what I use as a cutting table.

You can see that I also have needlepoint pillows, sheep, and a lion at the head of my bed. Two of the sheep are Shari Lewis' Lamb Chop stuffed toys and the Lyons Lion was made for me about 30 years ago by one of the little old ladies at the Boulder County Housing Authority's first project, Bloomfield Place, for senior citizens in the town of Lyons, north of Boulder. (One of the highways to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park runs through Lyons. ) This is when I worked for the Boulder County H. A. and assisted in the development of the project and then was in charge of property management. And now I are one of the little old ladies.

Here is a photo of my design wall (doors) with the WOTB and Names of Jesus blocks that I've finished so far. Too bad I didn't start quiltmaking when I was younger and could accomplish a lot more in much less time than it now takes me. But, I'm so glad that I finally did start; it has enriched my life so much, both in the creation, and in the quilters I've met.

The folded quilts on the shelf with my stash boxes are family quilts. The Butterfly quilt was made by Joe's Mom, Elsie, (from the pattern and fabrics, probably in the sixties) and the Depression Era Dresden Plate quilt was made by my Granny many years ago. I still have some unused Dresden Plate circles and strips of the pie shaped edging pieces that she had left over. One of the pieced circles is hanging around the shade of my reading lamp on the head board. I love those old fabrics.

Broderie Perse

As you can see I got that messy cutting table cleaned off and now have a new project going there; my October 12 x12. After working on this I have a greater appreciation of what Debra S. has been doing with the flower Broderie Perse that she has been doing on her Tree of Life. Debra, what kind of scissors did you use? These leaves have a lot of little zig zags that have to trimmed in and out, and I have discovered that I need a pair of sharper, more precise scissors to do this with.


I worked on cutting this out while watching the Rockies win their third playoff game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Luckily it was not a close, bite your fingernails, kind of game. The cats all wanted to get on my lap, which is whatever happens when I sit in my recliner, trying to do anything. Precision scissor work does not mix with cats in laps. Tigger is currently sleeping on the dest next to my left arm, ocassionally he moves and hits the keys on my adding machine. It's especially funny when he lays on the feed key and the tape keeps rolling out. As long as he doesn't try to walk on the computer keyboard I can deal with it.

While it poured rain during the game in Denver, we only got cool, cloudy, windy weather here. We could sure appreciate some rain, there was a forest fire at Rye in the Wet Mountains near us because after all the spring and summer moisture there hasn't been any rain for over a month; along with the hot weather and heavy winds everything dries out and we are in high fire alert again.

True Confessions

I have a terrible secret that I feel I need to confess about my stash. When I discovered my online Quilty Buddies about 4 years ago, I didn't have a stash, except for the scraps leftover from my few projects, because I didn't know about stashes. I thought I would just go out and buy fabric for each new project. Then I learned that a quilt artist needs to have a stash, just as a painter needs a collection of paints. So I began picking up a lot of pieces of batik, in all colors, because I loved them, and then I added more batiks, washed with gold to use for my Women of the Bible blocks. Finally, I realized that I needed much more variety in pattern and color, so last year I joined the fat quarter bundle of the month club at Grandma's Attic Quilts online. Then this year I added Grandma's monthly African Indigo fabrics bundle of the month and a Flower of the Month half yard bundle program from Quilts Online. Somewhere along the way I also collected a lot of pieces of the State Birds fabrics (I am a birdwatcher), and a few large pieces for backings and borders for WIPs.


Now for the horrible confession; each month as these fabrics arrived, I oohed and aahed over them, then washed, dried and folded them and (gulp) stacked them in a basket on top of the basket hamper in the laundry room and thought, "some day I need to press these fabrics and organize them in my bedroom studio area." Now, my laundry room is really just a wide corridor from the back door into the kitchen; and as the stack grew higher and higher, I was afraid it might avalanche down on top of anyone who passed through (in the rural tradition of SE Colorado, most of my visitors come in by way of the back door into the sunporch, rather than through the front door.)

For the past few weeks I have been organizing my bedroom/quilt studio, getting rid of stuff that collects, even though no longer needed, digging out my also piled under sewing table, moving a chair that was also piled under, and replacing it with a set of plastic drawers and tubs so that the fabric and WIPs had a home other than the chair and sewing table. [I've also been cleaning and organizing the living room and office, but that story is not as entertaining.] So this became the perfect time to start pressing those fabrics that now had a place to move to. I've never liked ironing, but pressing small pieces of fabric for quilts is rather enjoyable, if done in small increments. So each evening I have been pressing a set or two off this Himalaya of fabrics and placing them in tubs. It's now more the size of Pikes Peak (see top photo), and will soon become a scandalous memory, and I can now riffle through the tubs to find the fabrics I need for a project, without having to stop and iron the darn things first.


The assemblage of hexagons on the table is my June 12 x 12, still a work in progress (another shameful confession.) Now that I am organized, I have no more excuse for not finishing it.


This is almost as satisfying a project as pulling nasty weeds and elm seedlings from the garden. I feel so good when it is done and I can see the difference.


My stash is being admired by Qwilty Cat, made from a cutter vintage quilt, that I found at a friend's antique shop back in the days when I only dreamed about making quilts.

The next object of organization is my cutting table which is hidden under Women of the Bible and Names of Jesus pattern notebooks and tracing paper PP templates, scraps from previous projects, fabrics that I am auditioning for Names of Jesus blocks, recently purchased glues of various types, and heaven knows what else. By the time I get this place organized it will be time to start all over again.

Shelf Project in Studio/Bedroom Completed

In WIP Wednesday, last week, one of my projects was adding a new 4 shelf unit to the bookcases in my bedroom/quilt studio. It didn't take me nearly as long as I expected to assemble the basic shelf unit (see photo). Tee hee! Since this unit had to go beneath the existing 3 shelf unit, the major time and effort went into moving all the books and needlepoint yarn drawers from the affected sections, restacking the units (I had male help with the higher units), and then replacing the books and drawers; not to mention the stuffed animals and doll.





Books are heavy, and I find it daunting to climb up and down stepladders (even short ones) these days. My oxygen tubing has been added since I painted the walls in this house, before we moved in 4 years ago. It's amazing how often that tubing gets under or around my feet, or snags on something. My monkey muscles have gone downhill, also. Since I've been falling down on flat ground recently, my daughter, Kat, told me I should wear a football helmet while doing this project. Unfortunately, I never played football and don't have a helmet. I used to have a white Strategic Air Command pilot's helmet, given to me by a former secretary who had been married to a SAC pilot, but I gave it to my pilot son to decorate his plane hangar. I also didn't have enough bubble wrap to fit me, so I did the job without safety equipment, very carefully.

I finished the job about 9:30 tonight and am I glad; sore but glad! Most of the east wall of my bedroom/studio is now floor to ceiling bookcases and I have a convenient place for all the quiltmaking related books I've purchased the last couple of years. Four additional 2 foot shelves make a big difference.





I've always been a bookworm and my virtual house has walls and walls of bookcases, the walls that aren't bookcases are floor to ceiling glass in the form of windows and french doors onto decks and courtyard gardens. Well, there have to be a few walls for hanging stuff, such as art, collectibles and quilts. My virtual house is in a virtual world where the weather is always just right for indoor/outdoor living. I think my virtual house is probably located where there are streets of gold. I'm also thinking of adding a hot tub and a live-in masseuse to my virtual house plans.