Category Archives: Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Bibliophiles Raising More Bibliophiles

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My husband has a PhD.  He has been a researcher and bibliophile for many, many years.  In fact, when the traveling salesmen were going door to door, his folks bought him and his sister a set of encyclopedias.  My MIL still has those books – and when we sometimes feel nostalgic, we get them out and have a big ole giggle at the pages where he underlined things, wrote in the margins, etc. all before the age of five.  At this stage in his life, his reading and research has a much more theological slant but he also enjoys reading how to live off the land and be sustainable.  Nonfiction reader, unless it’s a good J. Frank Dobie book he hasn’t read before – and we think he’s read all of those.

Then he met me.  I, too, have always been a bibliophile.  Except I prefer fiction and get a little anxious when I am reading the last book that I have in my iPad library- wondering all the while what the next book I will be buying and hopefully having enough money to buy more than one so I can read a book without worrying about what is next!  Reading is now, with this MS blessing in my life, one way for me to calm the dizziness down that I get most days.  It has become a necessary part of my MS life.

Enter a couple of bibliophiles who have four children.  These four kids are ours were each blessed with Nooks for Christmas last year by a very special angel on earth.  They read like there’s no tomorrow – every single one of them.  Every day.  Any way they can squeeze another five minutes of reading, they will try it out on us.  Hiding in their rooms before family prayers and bedtime – just in case we adults forget to call them for prayers so they can read more.  They still love to go to the library but if they have books on their Nooks, that will suit all of them just fine.

But, THIS one takes the (banana) cake!  When only one or two kids are home for supper, I allow them to read at the table with their meals.  They talk if they want to but at least with a book, they do not jam their mouths with food and then talk with food in their mouths.  LOL  Last night, only two daughters at the table.  I come to say grace with them and realize they both have books…except this middle daughter of ours has created her very own Nook holder:

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And I, obviously, don’t have to ask her if she wants fries with that because they are right there on her plate!

Stash Buster Project Organization

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I will be the first to admit that I break training when it comes to keeping my fabric stash organized.  I have a high cutting table (built especially for my height so as not to strain my back) and I am forever piling projects or papers on it – instead of using it for its intended purpose.  Part of my reasoning is that half of the table is out of my reach because my sewing room is the smallest room in the house.  The other part of my reasoning is that I am quite forgetful (thank you MS) and by having my projects right in front of me, I can remember what I need to work on next, after I finish a project.

During the summer, our middle daughter and I had to make a run to a dollar store for some items to get the kids ready for summer camps and I found baskets that I thought would fit perfectly on my sewing room shelves.  Once the baskets were in my sewing room, middle daughter wanted to help me with my organization of fabrics – I also think she was searching for fabric that she may want to use for a project 🙂

Baskets

The dollar store that we went to wasn’t actually a “Dollar Store” as the products were anywhere from a dollar and up.  We purchased six medium sized baskets and two smaller baskets – they were $2 each.  Later, on another of my dollar store trips, I *did* find the same size baskets for $1 and snatched up six more of them as my DD had to overfill some baskets because I had more stash on that one shelf than I imagined (blush).

As my fellow quilters know, there are just some quilts and quilted projects (table runners, table toppers, etc.) that are just meant to be made from scraps.  The stash speaks to us, just as a pile of new fabric speaks to us.  Okay, I am going out on a limb with saying that – MY fabric speaks to ME – you don’t have to admit that yours does, too 😀

Here is the fabric I picked out of my stash for a fun quilt project:

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Now comes my long overdue revelation – those one dollar baskets?  They are PERFECT for holding the fabric for the next quilt or quilt project on my to-do list.  And I can organize them by placing one inside the other with the most pressing projects in the top basket!

It’s a shame I am so slow in understanding how important it is to organize my fabric stash – but, it’s downright embarrassing to say that may of you may already be organizing your projects with some type of basket.  I have done well in keeping my stash organized throughout the summer.  Although, I have to admit that once I cleaned off my cutting table, I had to start piling finished projects or works in progress projects there – there just isn’t room for a larger basket and my shelves are all full to brimming over!

Quilted Lovies

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As I was searching through my stash baskets this past week, I ran into the fabric that a first cousin of mine had requested a number of years ago, to be used to make her a tote bag.  As far back as I can remember, this cousin loved the Spanish style – her sofa was an antique and covered in a red plush fabric.  Her dining table and chairs were the heavy, dark woods associated with a Spanish style.  Her house was even Spanish style, from what I remember.  Needless to say, when she asked me for a tote bag, she wanted it to be be in black and red fabrics!  I completed the ‘bones’ of the tote bag (shown below) but then she asked me to add a zipper so it was still a work in progress.

My cousin then asked me to make her a baby quilt for her new grandson, who was to be born soon.  Unfortunately, she unexpectedly passed away before the baby was born and even before the quilt was done.  But, while she was in the hospital recuperating from a hip replacement…and then when she was at home recovering…we chatted often via Facebook.  As she felt weaker and weaker and had a premonition that she was going to have to go back to the hospital, she still visited with me when she was able.  She told me that if something happened to her, she wanted me to finish the tote bag for her oldest daughter, finish the quilt for her soon-to-be youngest grandson and to try to be available online in case her middle daughter needed a supportive ear or a virtual hug.

I tried very hard to keep my promises that I made to her.  The tote bag was finished and went to her oldest daughter.  The baby quilt went to her grandson when he was born and then I made another quilt (same pattern, different fabrics, additional borders) for the baby’s older brother – children of her youngest daughter.  I also made a lap quilt for her middle daughter, so she could wrap herself in the quilted love that had the fabrics that were near and dear to her mother’s heart.  I then offered to make small quilts for her oldest daughter’s three children.

Of course, disaster struck me before I pursued the last three projects – my dreaded MS diagnosis I received in December 2010.

I have not forgotten my promise, however, and that leads us back to searching through that stash of mine.  Since I’m feeling a bit better and have some of my quilt mojo back, it’s time to get that to-do list better organized.  Once I recovered all of the leftover fabrics that my cousin had picked out from my stash, I had a bit more than I expected – but not enough to make three child-sized quilts.  What I decided to do was to make three quilted lovies.  These will probably be about 24″ square but will include a heart in them, made with my cousin’s red fabrics and then I will use the black fabrics as the borders.  Perhaps they will look something like this:

Lovies

Of course, my biggest hope is that I am once again able to create some quilted love from fabrics that their grandma had chosen – and they can love on their lovies to help them through good times and bad.

 

Robots, Inc. Quilt

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I have already mentioned the story behind the current quilt I am working on here.  As with all things these days, I continue to tackle quilts one part at a time for 15 to 30 minutes at a time.  Then I have to rest or focus on something else until I feel I can piece a few more things at a time.  This horizontal row quilt was a perfect quilt for me to make since it is in clearly defined steps.  Fussy-cut the robots, sew the red or blue fabric around each robot, square up the sets of robots, build the rows of robots with sashing as needed, etc. etc.

Once I was to the point of piecing the rows together, my goal was one row a day.  As with any goals, I was easily able to comply with my goal some days and had to skip a day or two here or there for either health or busy summer schedule reasons.  This weekend, I actually made up for my missed row days by sewing four of the remaining red rows together!

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And now I nearly have a quilt!  I also took this photo to remind me of how I set the quilt rows out as I will use that as a reference while putting them together.  As you see it on my king-size bed, it takes up the entire space…which means it’s about 75″ long and 69″ wide.  I will add white sashing between the rows and then use white for the border fabric, too.  My goal is to make it long enough and wide enough to cover the recipient but also to be used on a college extra long twin bed.  I have no schedule for putting the rows together just yet though I will start out cutting the white sashing and border fabrics to size.  Once I have them ready, I’ll set a goal for completing the quilt top.

Lots of robot fun for this quilter!

Photographing Quilts and Quilting

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While I never profess to being anything more than an amateur photographer, I do enjoy photography, and photographing my quilts has become a necessary part of my personal quilting process.  People with MS usually have issues with short- and long-term memory…and I’m one of the lucky ones who definitely have issues with my memory!  You can tell me something and five minutes later, I will ask the same question because I have lost the memory of asking it the first time.  Hence with photos of my quilt projects, I can attach a name to the file image so I can remember what quilt I made and gifted to someone or sold to someone!

You should also know, if you’ve forgotten or are new to by blog, that my kids call me the “Quilt Designing Computer Geek”.  Quilting is my passion and I have enjoyed it since I was 19-years-old.  The Internet has been my bread and butter work for nearly 15 years.  Because of that geek part, I have a number of image programs on my computers that I can use to manipulate photographs that I take and that need a few adjustments.

I was recently asked to create a long-arm quilting website for a dear friend.  She sent me some photos of her quilts.  Just by looking at the photos, you cannot see the quilted stitches very well.  But, if you are using even a very basic program (Windows Live Photo Gallery), you can zoom in on a photo of a quilt to get a new photo that shows off the quilting!

Here’s an example:

PeytynPyleQuilt2 (450x450)
This is the original quilt photograph.  Although you can see the quilt stitches, they are not completely visible.

PeytynPyleQuilt2 (440x450)

This is the same quilt that has been cropped – see the quilt stitches better?

Without all of my geeky programs, I am able to take an image, zoom in on it (if necessary) and am able to truly show off the quilt stitches – which is my goal!