It's finally done!

My quilt is finally finished. Sorry if you were expecting something with some intricate pattern but I just did triangles. I hand-quilted it, though. If you look at the middle picture close enough you can see that I went all Harry Potter geek on it and made it the Deathly Hallows sign. The last picture shows some of the more detailed quilting. Otherwise I mainly just did loopy little meandering lines all over it.  I like the quilt, Tommy claims it as his own, and I can't wait to start the next one, whatever it may be.

Another quilt post; just skip it

I know I'm talking this to death and no one who reads this blog is interested, but even fewer people in my real life are interested so it seems better to type it out here where you can skip reading it than to talk someones ear off about mitered corners vs rounded and half square triangles vs 9 patch blocks.
 
Apparently the word quilt is not nearly as descriptive as I always thought.  I'm reading up on quilts and quilting and I'm looking at photos of quilts by the thousands as well as lurking on message boards reading up on tips, and there are a lot of quilts out there I just don't consider quilts.  Or at least, they aren't what comes to mind when I think of quilts.  To me, quilts are blankets made out of a bunch of pieces of fabric sewn together.  Just about any pattern or design, but many pieces making one blanket. In its most basic form, this:

But there are applique quilts, where you just take one big sheet of fabric and then sew other little ones onto it to make a pattern, or make your blocks out of identical pieces of fabric with different little pieced on pictured in them, like this:

And embroidery quilts are the same as applique quilts except instead of piecing on little shapes you embroider them on.  So it's one sheet of fabric (or blocks of the same fabric) with embroidered pictured on it, like this:

And finally there are whole cloth quilts, where you take 2 full sheets of plain fabric, put the batting in between them, and then the actual quilting- the sewing of the layers together- is the art. And people will get really intricate with this, with swirls and butterflies and flowers and everything, just sewn into these sheets, sometimes in the same color thread as the sheets are so that you can hardly see it.  Like this:

I think my quilts will be all patchwork, probably all in plain patterns of squares or triangles, or maybe stripes if I feel fancy enough.  And while I've been looking around the net at zillions of quilts, I've come to realize that I like faded fabrics, muted colors.  I can't really afford to buy fabric (it's $10/yard here in town and $5/yard if I want to spend $30 in gas to go to a fabric store) so I think I will just look for clothes and sheets to tear apart at garage sales.  And if anyone out there has any hideous old sheets or whatever that they want to mail me, I think most of you have my address to ship them to. If nothing else, I can always use them for the back of the quilt, since it's hard to even buy anything wide enough to do a big quilt.

Sewing room obsession, continued

I'm really getting into this sewing room project, and it's all in my head.  Someday some shrink will tell me that this habit of mine of jumping into hobbies or projects is the manic side of manic depression or something but I don't care.  It's not like I blow tons of money on them or anything.

I told Tom to figure out where he wants to put the playroom in the basement and then I'll find my corner and have him clear his stuff out of it.  I want to put paneling on the walls (nothing sturdy, just nail some 2x4s into the ceiling/floor joists and then screw the paneling into them to cover the cement walls, and then I have an old formica table I can use for a cutting table, and an old laminate kitchen table I could put my sewing machine on.  Then I could use the room while I let garage sales and auctions get me my shelves and drawers for material.  I like tearing apart old clothes for fabric so I might put a closet rod up in there, too.  And I'd hang curtains or shower curtains or something to block off Tom's storage shelves (if I get the corner I have my eye on) and then over time replace them with quilts on curtain hoops.

I think every wife should have a sewing room, even if she doesn't sew.  A few years ago all the talk was about Man Caves, and how men should fill their garages and basements with neon beer signs, pool tables, and flat screen TVs.  But what about the women?  Whether it's scrapbooking, sewing, collecting teddy bears, whatever the hobby, a woman needs a room to sit quietly in.  And no, floral curtains in the living room do not mean she already has her own room, not as long as you're going to go tramping through and eating Fritos on the sofa!

My grandma used to have a sewing room.  it was this tiny little walk-in closet off the bathroom but it was where her fabric could sit undisturbed and no grandkids would stomp on the pedal of her sewing machine or unwind her thread spools.  I envy her that little room. I hope to get one myself here very soon.

Sew near, yet Sew far away.

I've started quilting.  I can generally scrounge a few hours a week to sit at the sewing machine, or kneel on the floor to cut fabric, or iron in the narrow space between the closet and the bed.  I wish I had a sewing room.

I've always made curtains, and Halloween costumes, and the occasional pillow for my kids.  I like to sew and it makes me feel all June Cleaver to be able to give the kids something that not just anyone with a Walmart gift card can pick up.  But keeping my scissors and thread and other little things in the drawers of what's basically supposed to be a hall table to toss your keys on, and all my fabric in plastic storage totes in the basement gets old.  I really want a sewing room, and I know how to get one.  If I can move enough storage stuff out of the way I could set all my stuff up in the basement.  Then I'd just need a cutting table and a sewing table, and maybe dressers and shelves from garage sales.  I get so impatient when I can visualize a goal.  I want to start looking for tables and shelves now, and setting everything up.  Unfortunately, Tom has the corner I've picked full of baby clothes for next year's garage sale, all laid out on sawhorse tables.  So I am going to drop endless not at all subtle hints that a sewing room is what I want for Xmas this year.  I don't care if it has walls, just give me a space I don't have to arrange around a king size bed.

It's just not worth the payback

I went shopping with my friend on Friday.  I shouldn't have. I should have remembered that this is the same woman who takes her 2 year old with her when she goes shopping and doesn't get home until after 10:00. We exist on different schedules and I should have remembered that before leaving at 2:00pm, but I didn't. I got home at 9:00pm.
Tom went golfing on Saturday morning.  He always golfs one weekend morning and then I get to sleep in the other morning. He told me that he had to make the painful decision to actually turn down golf (insert mock pain here) when some guy was looking to set up a game on Sunday and Tom had to say no, his wife only lets him golf once a week. I made the comment that I'd almost be willing to let him go again if he gave me some time to work on my quilt in return. Part of the joke was a sincere desire for free time to sew, and part was me just not liking the whole "My wife won't let me" comment.  Either way, we went back to watching TV.
Tommy went down for his nap at the usual time and I started working on something here at the desk, in the living room.  I printed out Ryan's name in huge font, cut the letters out, and was pinning them to fabric, to iron and sew as appliques, when Tom told me to just go ahead and go back to the bedroom (where my sewing machine is) and do it without the distraction of Danny reaching for the scissors and pins.  I probably got 2 hours to do stuff, with the boys banging on the bedroom door, before Danny started crying for me and I gave up and came out.
So last night, at 11:00pm right before bed, he says, "So since I gave you time for your quilt, I get to play golf in the morning again, right?"  I got 2 hours of listening to my children cry and bang on the door while their father ignored them and for that I have to give up my only day to sleep in all week?  But again, I'm not his mother and I kind of resent the implication that I have to "let him" do things.  I just told him to do whatever, that if he was gone when the boys woke up in the morning that I'd get up with them.  So sure enough, he left before 7:00 am, and the boys woke up not long after.
I'm not going shopping any more. Or working on quilts. Or doing just about anything else that's fun and just for me.  It's not worth the price.  Anything I get, or get to do, comes back to bite me in the ass because I have to pay for it, later, at a cost I never agreed to in the first place.  Tom has his golf, and his wood working, and his 12 hours a week of televised football all fall and winter, and I'd just like to be able to leave the house without screaming children, and piece together old t shirts and sheets for fun (can't afford to buy fabric), and it turns out that a hobby is too much to ask for.