Driving Miss Stacey

My Summer so far

Not much sewing or quilting going on around here this summer.

I have spent most of my time in the kitchen.

Summer Bounty at my local farmers market

Each week I give myself $25 bucks to ~~blow~~ spend at my local farmer's market. So far this summer I have made about 10 quarts of pickles. Lots salsa and lots of green smoothies. It's a fun personal challenge to see how much $25 can buy. I go twice a week. Nothing tastes better than a fresh field grown tomato.

Or sippin' smoothies in my porch on my Easy Street Quilt

Flooded boardwalk after 2 months of almost solid rain

Some Gave All

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze;
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform,
So young, so tall, so proud;
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought… how many men like him
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?

How many pilots’ planes shot down
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves
No, Freedom is not Free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still;
I listened to the bugler play,
And felt a sudden chill;

I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant “Amen”
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend;

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No. Freedom is not Free!

(By Kelly Strong)

We cannot forget them

Friday Finish

Circa 1991

Happy Mother's Day! Big Hugs!

Vintage Sewing Machine Eye Candy

"No pictures are allowed" I was told.
I didn't know.

Oops!!

What a waste of sewing machines. This was in New York City when I was there last summer. So far I have been to three cities where these stores have hundreds of machines lining the walls.

There is probably one for each Stashbuster Member. If we could only have saved them.

That's my husband under a sign that bears his name. BTW, we don't own a shoe store. LOL

The Quilted floor, Apollo and an Orange Crush Quilt

Hi All - Greetings from the UK

I wanted to share with you my daughters entry floor. And Apollo!

She lives in a house that is 145 years old in England.

This floor reminds me of my Orange Crush quilt that I made from a Bonnie Hunter mystery a few years back.

Ohhhh it is so very cold on the feet. OF course the day that I arrived the high temperature was 32 degrees and snowing. I had to do some research on these types of floors and it is interesting. They are called Minton tiles.

My Orange Crush Top

Minton's Ltd, was a major ceramics manufacturing company, originated with Thomas Minton (1765-1836) the founder of "Thomas Minton and Sons", who established his pottery factory in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England, in 1793, producing earthenware and from 1798 bone china.

(source: wikipedia)

Victorian era geometric floor tiles are based on the patterns found in medieval churches and cathedrals (think Westminster Abbey). Some have put this influence down to the rising middle classes of the Industrial Revolution attempting to add 'class' to their houses by imitating the houses of the aristocracy that only master-craftsmen were able to create.

During the Victorian era, it was common to tightly pack tiles together without any grout lines. This was related to the ongoing development and availability of cement. Because of the lack of grout lines, it was beneficial to a tiled floor's stability for the tiles to interlock and hold each other in place.

Later tile patterns from the Art Deco period show tiles arranged with differing shades to create an isometric projection on the floor.

The neat thing about these tiles was that the homeowner got to design or personalize their own floor or pick out a pre-fabed one. Look at this assortment of centers.

They are also used in many government buildings in the United States in Washington DC

source MAW & company

Out and about in Suffolk, England

Crooked Houses in Lavenham

Shadows in the Snow

We get so excited to have snow in the Carolinas.

Right under our little dusting are my bulbs peeking up.

My Work In Progress

I told myself that I was going to use my AccuQuilt Cutter more this year. I went through all my shirtings and cut a zillion HST's and scraps with it.

I started putting my blocks together to make a certain quilt pattern that I have had on hand for years. As I put them on my design wall, I realized that I did not like the pattern at all. I was so mad at my self for wasting so much fabric.

I re-thought the pattern and arranged them a bit differently and this is the pattern that I came up with. No waste. Huge 24 inch blocks.

2 1/2 blocks done and 6 more to go.

Easy Street Top All Done

Whoops! Wrong Way Blocks

Just four of them.

I need new glasses. I swear it all looked fine until I took a picture and a good hard look. Yep, I had 4-patches placed in the wrong direction. It really does help to take a picture and study it for a bit. Then "pop" I found 'em.

IF you see any more, tell me.

Here is my corrected top.

While I was waiting for each Easy Street clue each Friday, I started a leader and ender quilt with my leftovers from another quilt. What I usually do is keep all my left overs from one project in a plastic tub. I find a new pattern that I have been wanting to make, and then just about exhaust every scrap of that color scheme from the previous quilt. This time I used just about all of my pink and brown strips and squares.

I always start out with good intentions of making it a leader and ender quilt. But I get so engrossed with the new project that I just go ahead and make the darn thing. Start to finish.

Here you can see I reverted back to my old habits.