Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Postcards

Another week-end....more snow. What's new! But this time it affected us quite a bit. Shawn and Emily flew home for the week-end. Their bridal party had organized a big party at the local Community Center. A few hundred tickets had been sold and everything was a go, till Saturday morning. It started to snow and it never let up. By supper time hubby decided to blow snow again and I would do the chores. Problem number one: The door handle to the barn was frozen, but nothing that some hot water could not take care of. Problem number 2: once inside I closed the door, so when the chores were done, the lock was frozen again. Laurence was still blowing snow and even if he came home, I could not be sure he would notice my absence. For all he knew I was upstairs, sewing. But there was this small side door. I got it open and faced over 4 feet of snow. It seemed most of it ended up either in my boots or under my clothes. But I did get out and closed the door. More hot water opened the door again. This time I kept the door open ,while I checked things out one more time.
The road was very bad, but we did decide to go to the party, at least for a while. But I was prepared. We took the 4 wheel drive truck and I took an extra coat, snow pants ,socks, and hat along, just in case.About 200 people showed up. When we left (early) it was funny to see the parking lot, full of big pickup trucks. And yes, we made it home. Sunday was better, although I had counted on 12 for dinner ( 4 birthdays the previous week) and ended up with only 4. So lots of left-overs. By Sunday afternoon things had turned back to normal and we got the kids back at the airport in time for their flight to Calgary. Next time home will be for their wedding in July.
Back to quilting. I have been working on this quilt for MCC. I want it to be a two-sided quilt ,so both side of the cards can be seen. The problem was, how to make it strong enough. I came up with the following. First 2 cards were sewn togheter with a zigzag stitch. I cut 1 inch wide strips of dark blue fabric and ironed them double.
I sewed a strip on each side with a narrow seam. Both strips were folded over and ironed. The loose ends were sewn down with a narrow blanket stitch The cards were all supposed to be 4 by 6 inches, but some were wider, some narrower and that made it harder to get them all in a straight row. But I did get them all together and pinned around the center. And oh boy....it all fitted just right.
The next step will be to sew the long inside strips. I will have to set up a few tables and ironing boards to get a big flat area for that. The size right now is about 45 by 60 inches. My idea is to put another 12 inch wide strip around this, again in the trip around the world pattern, with a few Mariner Compasses and some silhouettes.And now it is back to knitting sock number 2. And I did find out that 5 rows is all I should do or my shoulders start to complain.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, Reske! How beautiful! I can't imagine how this idea came to you, or if the quilt in front of you is the one you saw in your head, but it is just wonderful.

    I love to see new posts on your blog - I live in Vermont now, moved here 8 years ago from Waterloo. Seeing a new post from you is a little like a letter from home.

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  2. Awesome quilt! Great idea! Impressive collection. Love the Trip Around the World piecing behing the world applique.

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  3. Like they said...WOW. I clicked to enlarge the picture to really see the postcards, fun!

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