A quilt's tale

About two years ago I started a quilt for my granddaughter. Because she was a girl, which we had been really hoping for since girls are so rare in our family, and because she was being born in Hawaii, I planned a Hawaiian quilt. On my first trip there, while my daughter was pregnant, I purchased a book of traditional designs, and some great Hawaiian print fabrics.

Once I got home I poured over my book and chose designs: an octopus, a turtle, a pineapple and various flowers. I worked the copier hard getting them copied at just the right size. I realized the turtle wouldn’t work for what I had planned and ended up having to come up with my own design. I got the fabric fused, then pinned the designs and cut them out.

At this point I realized I needed to develop my appliqué sewing skills. Up to this point in my life I have only used a very old straight stitch Singer sewing machine from the 1930’s. I found a new machine with a lot of bells and whistles, and an appliqué stitch at a garage sale that worked, but now I needed to learn how to use it. That has been a bit daunting. Since my granddaughter has been living in Hawaii, where it is always in the 80’s I haven’t felt a big need to get this little project finished. Of course now that her family is moving to northern Kansas in December, I’m felling the need to get this done. Not to mention that with the new baby due in March, I’ll need to get a second one planned and completed as well. The pressure!!

So, this weekend I took up the quilt project again. Now I have to tell you that I usually find things like sewing, operating machines, and being creative come pretty easy for me. So it’s been a frustrating weekend trying to get the hang of a satin stitch with a sewing machine. In my youth, when my eyes were superior, I had a great hand for this and didn’t need no stinking machine! Now the eyes are not so good and I really need the machine, but even more I need to figure out a technique that will work for me. Sad to say, I’m not quite there yet. In fact, I’ve had to place the quilt pieces in room separate from the sewing machine because I’m afraid all the cussing will somehow leave bad karma on the finished quilt if it’s too near. It would be a bad thing if my sweet little granddaughter started cussing like a sailor for no apparent reason. Worse, I might get blamed!

Tonight is will start basting the designs onto the squares, and maybe by the weekend I will have progressed the point where I feel my skill level is good enough to actually apply the sewing machine needle the pieces. Hopefully the blue haze around my house will be less then expected and thing will go smoothly. Wish me luck!!