To: Anonymous (MJ)

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What's up lately?":

Morning. With all your quilting expertise can you tell me if there is something other than the Silicone sheet to help with free motion quilting on a home machine that doesn't cost $25.00. There is a spray also that is suppose to help. Do you know which would be better???Thanks for your help. I love reading your blog. MJ


You have it set up so that I can't reply to your comment question so I'll put it here.

The thing that comes to mind first is possibly parchment paper or Reynolds anti-stick foil. Both are supposedly non-stick so your quilt sandwich should slide easily over them. Since nothing sticks to the parchement paper I don't know how you could get it to stay in place on your machine. The foil could at least be folded to stay put.

Another thing you might try is furniture polish on the bed of your machine. If you've ever used spray polish (like pledge) to clean then you know how slick the furniture feels after. I use furniture polish to clean the rails and wheels on my quilting machine. Really makes them glide easily..... wheeeeee. Like duck crap on glass. If you know anything about ducks, that's supper slippery.

Sick again

Wondering where I've been?

I've been sick with bronchitis for the last several days. I spent a couple of days in the hospital..... again. I'm on an antibiotic called a Z pack which is 30 times stronger than a normal dose. The doctors have me on bed rest until I can get this infection cleared up. I'm slowly gaining strength and out of bed for longer periods of time. I'm staying away from people for the time being. I don't want to get other people sick and I don't want them to get me sick again either.

I won't be doing any quilting until I can get my health issues under control. My retirement has come a few months earlier than I had planned.

I'm unable to talk (due to loosing my voice and severe coughing) so I'm not making very many phone calls. As soon as I can talk I'll be contacting the customers on my waiting list to let them know I can't do their quilts. My health is much more important than my income.

I'll still be doing my blogs and showing the work I do.... just from a different perspective and on a different timeline. Without the pressures of customer deadlines and staying on schedule I can concentrate on my health first...... the art of quilting next.

Forced early retirment is scary and at the same time exciting. I'll have to watch every purchase very carefully; but, I'll be able to concentrate on the art for whatever time it takes to get the design from my mind into the fabric. If I finish in one day.... fine. If I finish in a month or six months.... that's fine too.

Ok, I'm feeling weak again so I'm headed back to bed.

Moving right along.... and proud of it

I'm still working on this one. I took my SIL shopping on Friday, helped her for awhile, then came home to get back on the machine. Yesterday, instead of going to the Thunder Over Louisville show..... I worked. This is some of the quilting. That's a four inch border.

I did get to see the big blue planes as they flew over yesterday during the air show. I really love those planes! Wow are they loud when they go over my house. I tried to get a video but they moved much too fast for me to follow. This is the best photo I could get out of about 3 dozen.

I read an email this morning that really made my day. It was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits! It was a reminder to me of what my quilting is all about. Pride. Pride in my work. I have to tell you the story behind this.

Last year a friend (Elizabeth) told me she wouldn't enter a quilt contest because she felt she would never be good enough. I encouraged her to enter anyway. Last year I sent her a nice long email of encouragement to enter this year. Then I forgot about that email over the course of time. Well she entered after all and feels good that she did.

Also, lately I've been really bummed out hearing my customers tell me about getting ready to go to Paducah or on vacation while I'm going to be stuck at home quilting their quilts. Asking me if I could please have their quilt finished by the time they get home from their trip. Being so very far behind schedule means giving up lots of ME time to get the quilts done as quickly as possible. Geeze, I want to go on vacation too!





The next thing that bummed me out was seeing, once again, that I didn't win a ribbon at MQX. I've been entering MQX and MQS for many years. Never won a ribbon. This year I really, really, really thought I had a winner this time. It's this one. I called it "I love you too"














A close up of the girl.








A close up of the puppy.

Elizabeth's email came just in time to remind me...... entering contests is not about the ribbons.... it's about the pride we have in our work or our profession. It's about giving it our best and feeling good about it. Then showing the world how hard we tried by seeing it hanging in a show. Sort of like the last person crossing the finish line in a race. The last person will have pride just knowing they crossed the finish line.... even if it was in last place.

Elizabeth reminded me of the reason I'm willing to stay home and quilt when my customers are away at Paducah or Florida or Australia. It's about the pride I have in creating a finished quilt that the owner can be proud of too.

I won't know what the judges found wrong with this quilt until it gets home to me. The judges may not think it's worth a ribbon; but for me, this quilt will always be a winner. I had thought this would be my last contest quilt. One more ME project about to fall by the wayside as I rush to finish other people's quilts. My reasoning for no more contest quilts was a matter of getting rid of stressors in my life.... not discouragement about contest ribbons.

I will probably try again, and again, and again.... even if I never win a ribbon. Winning a ribbon in a contest is sort of like playing the lottery. We buy a ticket, don't win anything, yet... we go out and buy another ticket to try again.

My quilts will not be quilted so heavily that they can stand up by themselves. My contest quilts will not have perfectly even outlines or cross hatching or stitch in the ditch. My quilting is in real world time. In the real world there is not enough time to stitch a quilt within an inch of its life and still earn a living. In the real world quilts are meant to be used and loved and washed many times.... not so heavily quilted or embellished that they can't be cuddled under with someone you love.

I will get judges comments like.... strive to keep your stitches uniform in size. (I have a Gammill stitch regulated machine but I still get this on the comment sheet.) Or comments like... tension should be evenly balanced. (With mono thread it's better to have the stitches pull to the back to prevent constant breaking.) I wonder if the judges use magnifying glasses to look at the stitching? I look but I can't see the problems they see.

When my customers get home from their trips I can give them a finished quilt that I know is good. It compliments their work.... not showcases mine. I put my heart into every top that I make into a finished quilt. I'm just as proud of the wonky lonestar quilt as I am proud of the girl and dog quilt or the one I'm quilting now.

With this said..... I'm headed back to my quilting machine with a new attitude today. I want this customer to have her quilts when she gets home from Paducah next Sunday. Thank you Elizabeth. You helped me remember something I had forgotten. I'll try entering again next year..... if you will.

Now.... if only.... I could make blogger stop messing with the spacing of paragraphs in my posts!

Special message to Louisville and Kentucky residents about their newest energy bills

I'm taking a short break from quilting to make my local readers aware of a potential problem with their utility bills. I hope everyone just naturally looks their bill over to check for errors before mailing the check. But, if you are in the habit of just making a payment without looking over what you are paying; then you could be over charged this month.

It seems that due to the power outages some payments didn't get posted on time. The new bills that just came out are including a late fee because the payments were not posted on time. It's not your fault if the staff didn't get your payment posted on time because they didn't have any power. Call LGE to get this $13.50 fee waived. My payment was one of those that didn't get posted on time. If you have automatic payments taken from your account; you may not be aware of the added fee until after it's already taken out.

I called WAVE 3 news to report this potential problem but the reporter wasn't interested. I guess it's not a big enough problem when only one person calls.

Ok, back to quilting.....

Thank you



I appreciate the kind comments from everyone. Gudrun said it best..... we can agree to disagree.



Does anyone know how to put an email link on a blog as a side bar feature? If you do, would you mind sending me an email with easy directions? I want to put a link on here so it will be easier for people to contact me privately instead of just as comments. At the same time, I don't want to open myself up to anymore junk emails than I'm already getting. Geeze, how many emails must we weed through each day to get rid of "I find you very se y, can we get to know each other" or "male enh ncement" messages before getting to the real messages?



I'm putting my email address here but it won't be a working link. I'm sure you can figure out how it's really written.



estes anita / bellsouth net



The next few days are going to be very busy for me. I may do very little posting. I want to see how many quilts I can get finished this week by staying away from my computer. I'm switching to overdrive and plan to work 16 hours instead of only 12 each day this week. I'm hoping it will help me get back on schedule and give me next weekend off to play with some cardboard.

A short post to let my friends know there isn't anything wrong. I'm just staying with my machine to finish up the last of the Christmas quilts this week.... hopefully. Also, my computer is running extremely slow for some reason. Which means no post is quick. I'll post pictures again the end of this week.

I haven't been quilting the last couple of days due to a death in my family. It was a very special aunt. She took me into her family and cared for me many times when my mother was hospitalized due to her mental illness. Her name was Vondalene (Flener) Hill of Butler County, Kentucky.



This aunt was very dear to my heart. She was married to my mother's brother. They married when she was 15 and he was 16 and they were married for 62 years.


Today at the wake I saw many cousins and relatives I haven't seen in several years because everyone grew up and moved to other places. The funeral is tomorrow so I will be unavailable until Tuesday.



It's been very hard the last couple of days. I will miss her a lot.

State fair complaints

...

How would you interpret the following statement? I should explain that this description is written as a class description..... not listed in the textile department rules.

Professional Quilter classes

Professional - For the purposes of the state fair is defined as one who engages in an activity for monitary profit such as hand or machine quilting, teaching or instruction, or engages in retail or wholesale of products pertaining to the art of quilting.

Entry into this department will be an acknowledgement of professional status and will prohibit entry in other classes. Entries in these classes will not win points toward sweepstakes.

Did you read it as anyone who quilts professionally MUST enter that catagory? Or did you read it as anyone who WANTS to enter that catagory should declare themself a professional?

My own personal interpretation of the statement was that if a person WANTED to enter that catagory they had to declare themself a professional and prove it by indicating they earned money from quilting.

The textile people read it differently. They read it as anyone who earns money even remotely from quilting MUST enter that catagory only.

So it boils down to a WANT or MUST interpretation.

It hurt my feelings because I was stripped of all my ribbons this year. All because of how it could be interpreted. I think I'm all over the hurt now and I want to do something to improve the fair for next year.

The catagories I entered.... original design and art/pictorial were not a part of the professional division. I entered the way I thought I should for the catagories. So now that I'm being forced to enter the professional class I can't enter those type quilts anymore. I must either start making quilts to fit that catagory or stop entering.

If I don't enter anymore what will I be saying to the quilters who like the fair? Did I stop entering because I was hurt and upset? Will anyone realize I stopped entering because the quilts I create can't be entered anymore? I love the fair!! I've always encouraged others to get their entries in so we could have a mini quilt show right here in this area. I would love to see more participation.... not less.

There is another problem with the professional catagory.... one that will eventually cause even more problems if it hasn't already. They lumped the professional hand quilters in the same class as professional machine quilters. They also require a person who runs a quilt shop to be professional too. Even if the shop owner does not make quilts for a living. I see a dozen different problems that are about to arise from this professional status catagory.

I was also given a challenge...... "If you think you can rewrite the rules and catagories to make everyone happy..... without increasing the number of classes.... and without increasing the number of problems.... we will consider using it next year." It was not an official challenge. Just one given to me by someone involved with the fair.

Now THAT'S a real challenge!

I'm very much willing to take that challenge and give it a try even if it wasn't official. Hmmm.... just how would I go about making the fair a really nice event to enter? I haven't a clue at this point. I've never been involved with writing catagory or class descriptions. In fact I've never done anything for the fair textile department other than enter quilts myself and encourage others to enter too.

I've thought about this challenge and I realize I can't fix it.... if I don't know what's broken. No problem can be resolved until someone knows what the problem is in the first place.

I'm asking for your help. Send me your fair complaints!

Here's your chance to grouch and complain to your heart's content about the fair textile department! Let it loose! Tell me absolutely everything that causes a problem for you at your own fair and how you would change it if you could.

You can send me emails either publicly or privately... with or without your name. A name and contact information would be nice.... just in case I don't understand what you tell me. You can send your complaints to me through snail mail too if you want. Email me and I will give you my snail mail address. I simply want to know what every complaint or problem is from as many people as I can possibly contact.

Once I get those complaints and problems in my hands I can begin to condense everything into one useable guideline. Am I making my idea understandable? I'm never sure how what I write comes across to others.

What I am doing is simply accepting the responsibility of gathering information and putting it into a useable and easily readable format to present to the fair board. So instead of the board members having to read 1000 complaints about one single topic.... I will have the topic written once and tell them there were 1000 people who said the same thing. Maybe if the fair board is not overwhelmed with soooo many things to read or screening sooo many phone calls they will be more open to changes. Get the idea?

How will I use the complaints about other fairs? Well, the idea is to put those into a condensed version of potential problems. Things that might happen because they have happend in other places.

Ok, I think I've stated my project and how you can help me. I'll end this post and hopefully get lots of replies over the next few weeks. I think the deadline for sending me your thoughts should be October 5th. This will give me plenty of time to get it all read and condensed before the deadline to present it to the fair board.

Thank you to all who are willing to help me with my project. I look forward to reading what you write.

I thought I would show you what I'm doing with the quilt on the machine. I finished the feathers in the solid blocks. To give a little perspective I put a dime in the center. These are 8 inch blocks with freehand feathers.

I marked the circles with a plastic template and wash out marker before doing the feathers. I really don't like marking a top with anything. It always worries me that the marks won't come out. I tested this quilt before marking the whole top. The marks came out nicely with a little water.

I still have the lines in the rings to do on the other blocks. Then I'll start working on the pieced blocks. That's what I'll be working on today. I didn't mark the lines in this ring, just freehanded them. I'll try marking one ring to see if I get the lines a little more evenely spaced. If it doesn't help to mark those then I'll just keep freehanding.

I've got several of these 40 to 60 hour quilts waiting for time on the machine. Is it any wonder I get stressed out about being behind on my work? A friend tried to convince me to get one of the Statler Stitchers for my machine. She said I could finish a quilt like this in one afternoon. It's very tempting but I can't see myself going into debt several thousand dollars the way the economy is going.

Yesterday, I got to thinking about the automated machines that are being bought today. There was a time.... only a few years ago.... sometime in the late 80's or early 90's..... when no respectible machine quilter would even consider using an automated machine. We were waging a campaign just to get machine quilting accepted among toppers.

The most common phrase we heard was..... "I don't want my quilt to have mattress pad quilting and looking like it came from a factory." What they were referring to was the large open pantographs much like those used on mattresses. That was all the designs we had back then.

So, the machine quiters started making the designs more freehand and imitating the hand quilting designs. The ones who came up with new techniques taught other machine quilters. The pantograph designs improved and a very nice look could be achieved. Finally we were holding our own in the quilt world. Toppers everywhere started flooding the machine quilters with work.

Now days it seems that more and more toppers are buying automated machines to do their own quilts at home. The toppers are using the very thing they were against only a few years ago. More and more machine quilters are upgrading their machines to automated. New machine owners are opting for the automated.

Am I worried about the newer automated machines? Not at all. I'm sure the hand quilters may have contemplated the quilting machines taking work from them..... back in the day..... yet there is still plenty of work around for hand quilters today. My work is a bit old fashioned and not quite as accurate..... but my customers know that. The people who bring me tops to quilt know it will take more time to complete and won't be as accurate.... but they are still loyal.

THANK YOU TO ALL MY CUSTOMERS!!!

I swear.... I did put spaces between my paragraphs! Blogger keeps taking them out when I publish the post. If it's hard to read I appologize. I did my best and blogger says no way.

Special message to my local customers and friends:

I'm in the process of cleaning out one of my quilting storage rooms to make a bedroom for visiting grandkids this summer. There used to be some customers who would pick up boxes of scrap batting to be used in charity quilts. I think it was called the Cuddle Quilt Project or something similar. I do remember the group was in another county. I can't remember who it was that would pick up the batting though.

If any of my local customers are reading this blog and knows the contact person for that group or any other group willing to use this scrap batting please contact me. It would have to be someone willing to pick it up since I don't have a car.

Some of it has been pieced together and some is large enough for crib size quilts but mostly it's still long strips. I have far more than I can piece together and use myself.