Okay, maybe by Valentine's Day

Well, I finally got the amaryllis planted. I think I'll name it Valentine......'cause I think that is when it will be blooming! It's supposed to be deep red, according to the package, so I think the name is just right.

Blessings, Cathi

The saga of the Amaryllis

A couple of weeks ago, Leann over at You would even say it glows posted about her amaryllis. I thought this would be a neat thing to do. Mine would only be a week behind. I figured if I got it started that next weekend, it would bloom the week before Christmas......perfect! Well, a week went by before I even bought the thing. Now five days after that I have decided to show you how mine looks. Here it is........



.......still in the box. Stay tuned.

Blessings, Cathi

I'm not a quiltmaker, I'm a top maker.

As you can see on my sidebar, I have a list of UFO's (unfinished objects). Please DO NOT think that this very short list is the only UFO's I have on my quilting list. I just needed to start somewhere. One of these days soon, I will put the entire list up there. Almost my entire UFO list is just the quilting....hence the title of this post. I love making tops. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have finished quilts but I just haven't taken the time to practice my free-motion quilting. And I can't really afford to pay someone to finish them. But I did manage to finish one little table runner that I started not too long ago. Maybe there is hope for me.

Thimbleberries Fall table runner made with not so many Thimbleberries fabrics. But it's cute!

Blessings, Cathi

FYI - Never volunteer to fix an old quilt *sigh*

A co-worker of mine asked if I would mind fixing a quilt that was made by some long ago relative. His daughter always sleeps with it (so he says). It is well loved (ie: they didn't take real good care of it). And all the black fabrics have started to disintegrate. I thought sure why not. It is a log cabin pattern. I thought it would be as simple as appliquing new logs over the damaged black logs. But when I got into it, the batting was also gone behind those logs. So I had to take some quilting out to get the remaining batting out of the damaged areas. But there were two kinds of quilting. One was hand quilting done with cotton string. You read right, string. With the knots on the outside. The other quilting was machine quilting that must have been set at 25 stitch per inch. The only plus to that is that the tension was so off, that I could go on the back, pull the bobbin thread and 24" would come out. Then when I really looked at the back, I noticed that the backing was starting to wear thin in some areas showing the batting inside. What started out as a quick log applique has become a pretty big ordeal. To keep from going insane, I am just going to take out the quilting, fix the top, layer with new batting and backing and machine quilt.

I could just fix the bad logs and give it back but it wouldn't make it through another washing. At least I know it will be fixed to last for several more decades. Long ago relative's top will still look the same for the most part and I will have salvaged part of their family's heritage. But unless it's part of MY family heritage, I won't offer to do it again.

Blessings, Cathi