I had no intention of taking so long before writing again, but time slipped away, and here it is, April. Our roses were blooming so beautifully the other day. The bushes were absolutely covered, and the air was heavy with the scent of them. So I thought I ought to preserve the moment. Unfortunately, the light wasn’t quite right at the time, and my camera was downstairs, so I thought I’d do it the next day. When I went out the next morning to take a photo, this is what I saw.
As you can see, the little bit of wind we had the day before really did a number on them. They shattered and covered the ground with layers of petals. We don’t normally have pink grass. You can hardly see that the grass is green at all! Well, I just have to be a little quicker on the draw next time, I guess.
Fabric Postcards
Some weeks ago Marcia and I were discussing fabric postcards and how to go about mailing them. The topic dropped, and we went on to discuss other things. It wasn’t long after that that I got one in the mail from her. I can’t tell you what a surprise it was, and how much that card means to me. Here is her cheerful little postcard.
I loved the way she did her card. I’ve always loved the idea of the House on the Hill. First, her colors were bright and happy. What a good idea to use colors like that. Color can do so much to make your day better. Second, the way she did her trees was especially good, I thought. I’ve played a lot with the stitches in the machine, and it never dawned on me to make a tree like that, but it works really well. The fabric she used for the house and roof was perfect, and I thought the checked border just finished the design off. I can tell you for a fact that getting that postcard brightened things up considerably for me.
It also put me under the gun! Once I got that from her, I had to return the favor, so I sent her this little postcard.
Making the postcard was nothing but fun. However, I found the experience of mailing a fabric postcard a little daunting. I took the postcard in and asked the clerk to hand cancel it, and she picked it up between two fingers like it was something nasty and looked it over. She didn’t object to it or make a single comment, but the expression on her face showed her displeasure. She cancelled the stamp, and shoved it under her desk. (I wondered if she’d put it in a trash can!) I hope if you mail a fabric postcard you get a friendlier clerk than I did.
I stitched this one on my old Pfaff 7550–I use it for all the feed dog type designs and regular sewing I do. Some of it is applique, and some of it is made from stitches in the machine. If you want to know how I did the postcard in more detail, you can click on Sunbonnet Fabric Postcard on the right. I tried to explain a little more there how I went about this.
Crazy Quilts
I have been playing with my sewing machine a little more lately. I’m stitching some designs out that I plan to use on a crazy quilt. I know; there are those who fuss about using sewing machines on crazy quilts, but those same people snatch up fabrics that are embroidered and even put purchased appliques on their quilts, so I see nothing wrong with using my sewing machine to sew whatever I want on my crazy quilt. I say, if you have it, use it. I think machine embroidery is more acceptable than painting or strewing metal objects over the top of your crazy quilt. I used to belong to a crazy quilt list, and the women on it were very upset about machine stitching. They were adamant that in their swaps they shouldn’t have anything machine stitched. Now, I see they’ve changed their tune. I guess it finally dawned on them that it wasn’t a bad thing.
I do draw the line at using canned quilt blocks on the embroidery machine, though. A crazy quilt is supposed to be varied and new–everywhere you look on it. I think that includes the positioning of the block pieces. I always cringe a bit when I see someone posting a pattern for a crazy quilt block. Okay, maybe that posted block is better than mine according to someone else, but I like mine, and I’m only doing this to suit myself. I don’t think you need to follow someone else’s prescription for crazy quilting or for the stitches used on them. If you want to get creative, go ahead. This is supposed to be fun, after all.
Spring Weather
At the moment my husband and I are suffering from some colds. The spring weather has been terrible here. One day it will be in the 80’s, and the next it will be in the 60’s. Even the cats haven’t recognized our voices so clogged up have we been. Lucky usually flies off in the opposite direction when someone sneezes or coughs, but he’s gotten so used to it, it doesn’t bother him now. John is beginning to feel a little better at long last. In fact, in the past few days he’s gone back to running again. Since I got sick after he did, I do well to breathe yet.