Free of high school

In celebration of our youngest child graduating from high school last night, the first thing I did this morning was delete the school’s attendance line number from my phone’s contact list. So happy to be free of all the Mickey Mouse associated with school.

Here are some pictures of our graduate:

Ross and another drum line/percussion player await their cue from the band director in their final performance with the band at graduation.

Ross was one of 483 seniors to graduate last night.

Lots of other stuff going on here. Between Saturday night and Monday afternoon, we got nine inches of snow.

Here is a view of the snow covered mountains on a Tuesday morning in May:

Yesterday our TSA group met with most of us busy piecing at the sewing machine. Here’s Debbie working on a rag quilt for the car when she has her grandchildren:

Terry showed us her adorable strippy Christmas top which consists of rail fence, cobblestone and hourglass blocks.

Here are the next ten 1930s snowball blocks:

Stripping at (not for) the TSA

At our Tuesday Sewing Association meeting this week, we spent the day stripping—minus the body scanners and wands.

When we arrived at Jo-Anne’s house, she had neatly tied bundles of 2½” strips (the equivalent of a jelly roll) ready and waiting on her dining room table. Each of us chose a bundle and listened as Jo-Anne explained the first step. I was a bit nervous about keeping up with the others, being a pokey sewer who loves pins—and marking tools when they’re called for.

Today, however, this sort of accuracy-meticulousness-OCD nonsense was forbidden; the instructions were clear: down and dirty, no pinning, no marking, no clipping threads—pedal to the metal, git’er done! It was charity quilt making day where quantity takes precedence over quality, and my brain was struggling to process the no-pinning, no-marking mandates for creating 30-plus 45-degree seams.

Oh boy….

Many of us had to rip out our very first bias seam because we sewed it in the wrong direction, but after that, the hum of eight sewing machines filled the kitchen and living room. It’s a wonder we didn’t burn down Jo-Anne’s house with all the sewing machines running and half a dozen irons going all day long.

We first made a looooong ribbon of pieced strips, sewn together with 45-degree angled seams, which were pressed to one side—unless you picked a flannel bundle, in which case the seams were pressed open.

Next, we cut 18″ from the first strip in the bundle. Doing this staggers the 45-degree seams at random intervals across the top.

The next step was to bring the end of the first strip (the part not cut from the ribbon) to the end of the last strip you added to the ribbon,

put right sides together, aligning raw edges, and sew all the way down the edge using a ¼” seam allowance. When close to the end, cut along the fold and sew off the edge. Press the seam. You will have created the first two rows which measure half the length of your original ribbon.

Repeat this process four more times.

Match the ends of the ribbon, right sides together, aligning raw edges and sew the entire length. Cut at the fold.

The first repeat yields a shorter ribbon with four rows.

The second repeat yields a ribbon with eight rows.

The third repeat yields a ribbon width of 16 rows.

The result is a quilt top which roughly measures 50″ x 60″, photos of which follow.

Joyce was our floater/helper. Here she is clipping apart Jo-Anne’s ribbon chain.

From left: Sharon, Marge and Susan.

Marge presses her diagonal seams after creating her ribbon.

Sharon presses the seams in her ribbon.

Jo-Anne offers a helpful tip to Susan and Joyce about pressing the seams open for a flannel top.

Annlee came prepared. I was thankful for sitting across from her so I could borrow one of her pins (don’t tell Jo-Anne!) to hold the strips in place when stitching the 45-degree seams.

Here’s Debbie pressing after her second pass of the ribbon through the machine.

Annlee pressing her flannel seams open. Those in the group who chose flannel bundles spent more time pressing than those of us who chose regular cotton.

Here’s a pretty batik top Jo-Anne pieced prior to our meeting.

Annlee’s flannel top.

Debbie’s top with fun kid prints.

Susan’s flannel top with more kid prints.

Here’s the top I pieced.

Once we found our rhythm, the piecing went pretty quickly. Jo-Anne has the hard part of quilting all of them on her long arm and binding.

All the quilts will be donated to a non-profit organization called Imagine!, which assists people with developmental, cognitive and physical disabilities.

It was a fun day.

Fun at the TSA

Today was our third TSA (Tuesday Sewing Association) meeting and it was loads of fun with lots of projects and creativity concentrated in one place.

Annlee showed us this bright, colorful, intricately pieced quilt that needed some TLC.

She said the owner, whose grandmother made the quilt in 1979, wants the torn patches repaired so she can continue to use it on her bed. As we examined those fragile diamonds, Jo-Anne pointed out that this quilt would be a finger-in-the-dike effort. You fix one area, and soon you’re fixing another, then another—with no ending. My recommendation was to get the owner’s permission to attach a hanging sleeve so she could display it and therefore preserve it in its current condition, which is still good, rather than continuing to use it as a bed cover. Whatever the outcome, I had to take some close-up photos of our favorite blocks:

At our last meeting, Annlee brought 12 gentleman’s fancy blocks made in her favorite blue and white vintage reproduction fabrics.

She made them 10 years ago but never did anything with them because she wasn’t sure how to set them into a quilt.

We laid them out on Jo-Anne’s design wall to start brainstorming, starting with Jo-Anne’s bold suggestion to try cheddar colored sashings.

In no time at all, we had firmed up enough details for me to plug everything into Electric Quilt and come up with a potential layout:

Turns out, she liked it and is going forward with it. In the meantime, it’s been a lot of fun collaborating with her on it. I can’t wait to see it finished and may end making a version for myself—probably scrappy. Before that happens, though, I’ll be leaning on Annlee for advice on how best to combine these special prints and colors.

The TSA

It’s not what you think. There are no airports, we don’t work for the government and we’re not unionized. No, way more fun than that. We’re the Tuesday Sewing Association.

Three years ago, my friend Jo-Anne and I discussed forming a small group of quilters who would meet monthly to sew, visit and share projects. We attempted to do it a couple of times, but teens, aging parents and life seemed to get in the way. Three years later, some of those life forces have eased, and yesterday, on a beautiful fall day,

Jo-Anne’s backyard tree.

we had our first gathering—ten of us—and it was a LOT of fun.

Jo-Anne named our group the Tuesday Sewing Association, which will meet the second Tuesday of the month. With meetings already scheduled for the rest of the year and on everyone’s calendar, we hope to gain the traction necessary to make it a regular occurrence.

Working her magic, Jo-Anne transformed her lovely home into a high end quilt shop classroom: the kitchen island became a cutting table, two side counters were ironing stations, with the kitchen table and portable tables set up in her living room for sewing machines, complete with plenty of folding chairs, extension cords, power strips and cute little painted buckets for tossing scraps and stray threads.

From left: Debbie, Kim, Annlee, Jo-Anne, me.

Two in the group finished three pillowcases, but for the rest of us, the day consisted mostly of talking, getting to know new people, checking out projects, and yes, even some gossip. Hey, we’re women; it’s what we do. Sometimes. A little bit.

Debbie and Joyce.

Annlee’s roasted butternut squash soup was a hit at lunchtime, and everything else just easily fell into place. Yours truly sewed a grand total of five seams, but it wasn’t entirely about the sewing, if you know what I mean.

Annlee and Kim.

It was great spending the day at Jo-Anne’s house where we could forget about kids, elderly parents and obligations for a few hours and just enjoy quilting and connecting with others.

From left: Sharon, Jo-Anne, Annlee, Joyce, Marge, Debbie and Barkley the beagle.

Jo-Anne patiently explained how her levitating iron works when Marge asked, “How does it know?”