I got new visitors!

Welcome, welcome!  Love having you visit with me awhile!  Who am I?  What are my 3 blogs about?  Well, sit a spell and let me tell you about me.  Ok, I'm a couple of days behind putting this welcome post on my blog.  I had something happen a couple of days ago to stress me out so much I couldn't concentrate on anything else.  I wrote about it on my other blog.  Now that my nerves have settled down, I can visit with you for awhile. 

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So that my regular readers know where the new visitors are coming from, let me explain.  Earlier this year, I took an online class with Margaret Bucklew to learn about making portrait quilt patterns.  Margaret designs quilt patterns and several other things.  I really love her photo poetry section.  Margaret also has a monthly newsletter about quilting that she sends through email.  It's very informative and includes an interview with a quilter each month.  Margaret recently asked me to do an online interview for one of her newsletters and I said ok.  Those of you who like reading about my Grandma Mama, part of my interview answers were about her.

If you have not visited Margaret's website I highly recommend that you do.  Sign up for the newsletter to read about different quilters and their work.  Margaret is on facebook as well.  I don't have a facebook account so I visit her blog. 

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Ok, back to telling you about me.

This blog you are now reading is where I post most often about the things I wish to teach other people.  My first blog started out as a way for my customers to keep up with my day to day activities.  It was a way for the customers to know what the heck was taking me so darned long to finish their quilts.  Then I realized I was getting lots of questions from new machine quilters (newbies) wanting to know how to handle "issues" they encountered with their own customers.  So I started this second blog where anyone could find helpful hints about handling the problems of issue quilts.

Then I started getting questions about other things, which I started posting tutorials about too.  I try my best to include many photos of step by step instructions in order for others to understand me.  When I discovered a way to make all my tutorial posts "print friendly" I included that on my blog too.

A couple of questions I get a lot are "Why are you so willing to give away your knowledge?  Wouldn't it be better to earn money from it by teaching classes or writing a book?"  Well.... hmm... those are good questions.  Let me ask you a couple of questions.  Have you ever gone to a funeral and seen a moving van (filled with the possessions of the deceased) in the funeral line waiting for burial with the deceased?  Me neither.  Have you ever seen a deceased person hooked up to a computer that's downloading all that person's knowledge before burial?  Me neither.

We can't take our possessions with us.  We can't leave our knowledge behind for anyone.... unless we've entrusted our memories and knowledge to someone else. 

My blogs are my way of leaving my memories behind for the future generations.  I'm entrusting all the memories and knowledge I'm able to write about to those who stumble across my blogs.  Just think how you would feel if you happened to find the journal of someone that lived through the great depression or perhaps the journal of a quilter during the civil war.  Wouldn't you believe you had found a great treasure?  So would I. 

My hope is that somehow my blog information far outlasts me and is found by someone a few generations from now.  It might be interesting for that person to know what life was like for us in these economic times.  If my blogs don't last that long then at least some of what is learned here may be passed on to younger generations.

I have finally started writing a book.  Margaret and my friend Kathi have convinced me to write one.  It won't get written fast but it certainly is a goal. 

Oh yes, I was telling you about who I am?  Sorry, I tend to be a true senior and ramble at times.  On my blog I type-talk about the strange things I find.... like this black mushroom.  I've never seen a black mushroom before.  Someone has stepped on it and it's peeling it's bark away.  Anyone know what it is?

I type-talk about my attempts to build a box garden in my yard.  I'm doing ok with it so far. 

I type-talk about what I call "backward piecing" or "10 to ?" quilts.  I start with squares of fabric in different colors, make one identical cut on all the squares, mix them up, sew back together.  Make another cut on all the squares, mix them up, sew back together.  When the last cut is made and everything is sewn back together you have a finished pieced block.  Like this wonky star block.  The points are not supposed to connect on this one.

I type-talk about my adventures with my grand daughter.  I call her Ladybug.  I call her that because when she was very tiny her mother brought her over and there were ladybugs all over her.  She had ladybug barrettes, and ladybugs on her shoes, and ladybugs on her dress.  Ladybug is my biggest quilting fan.  I spend more time with her because she's the only grand child who lives close enough to visit really often.  This photo was taken one day when I allowed her to sit in Na Na's quilting chair.  Wheeeeee..... look how fast it moves Na Na!

I started a third blog when I happened to post about the cardboard furniture I was making.  Others were interested in how it was made.  That required me to think of a way to include tutorials about that but in a separate location.  These are actual, usable, pieces of furniture.  I admit I don't spend nearly enough time creating with cardboard as I should.  

I type-talk about how to take scraps of things (normally thrown away) to make something useful from them.  Like this potty rug I made with scrap pieces of flannel left over from making Ladybug some pajamas.  The pieces could have been used for a quilt but I really needed a potty rug so that's what I made.

I often make memory quilts for people out of their t-shirts.  The logos are cut off the t-shirts to make the quilt top.  What is left over is the back, the sleeves, and often a lot of the front.  T-shirt fabric lasts just about forever.  Sometimes I pull out the leftovers and make rugs from them.  Then again.... sometimes I need new bras and undies.  I make me some new ones from the t-shirt scraps.  I get a perfect fit because I make them myself.  These will nearly last forever because they are made from t-shirt fabric.

I am a hoarder.  I go on organizing and cleaning out my house frenzies to get the STUFF out of my house.

I get completely empty rooms only to realize that STUFF does the nasty thing and multiplies itself when I'm not looking.  Before I know it.... it's all back again.  My biggest hoarding problem is that I see value in just about everything.  I'm not talking about a money value or a sentimental value.  What I mean is that something useful can be made from just about everything normally thrown away.  That's why STUFF finds a way of sticking around for awhile.  My intentions are good when I save the stuff.  I just can't work fast enough to use it all.  Eventually I have to get rid of everything to start all over again.

I sometimes type-talk stories about my life living with my Grandmother when my own mother was too ill to take care of children.  My Grandmother was the major influence on my life.  I actually called her Mama when I was growing up but for clarity on my blogs I call her Grandma Moma.  Grandma Mama taught me the things she learned as a child in the late 1800s and as a young married woman in the early 1900s. 

I type-talk about food left by the food fairies.  Food is left on my porch when I'm not looking.  I don't throw food away so I tell of my adventures in using some really unusual foods.  Oh, and I find lots of bargains at the grocery too.  What are these things in the photo you ask?  Clementine orange peelings that I turned into clementine powder to flavor cakes and cookies. 

Fabric fairies leave me bundles, and bags, and boxes of fabrics on my porch.  As often as I can work on them, the fabrics get turned into quilts for nursing homes, animal shelter raffle quilts, teen age mother's baby quilts, or other charity quilts. 

Now that I've learned how to create portrait quilt patterns, there's a whole passel of grand kids to create portrait quilts for.... eventually. 

Sometimes I tend to ramble on and on.  It's a senior memory thing.  I like to think of my fingers as the connection between my brain and the computer.  My fingers are downloading my memory as fast as I can type-talk.  I'm trying to type well over a half century (plus a couple of decades) worth of memories and knowledge into a few blog posts.  My grammar and spelling are not that great but I do manage to get my meaning across..... most of the time. 

Since I've rambled on long enough for today.... go ahead and have a look-see around my blogs.  If you haven't read this post yet, please read it before you leave.  It's a post about my thoughts on how insulation works.  The bottom part of that post is the most interesting part.

Please come back to visit me as often as you can.  When you leave a comment, I don't always have time to reply, but I do read and appreciated every one of them.