My Rainy Day

Today is a dreary, rainy day. Maybe to others, but not to me. I love watching out the window at the rain falling while I sit and quilt or crochet or read. The only trouble is we're getting too much which is causing flooding problems in certain areas. We definately needed some rain, though. I know our farmers needed it. So, I got my rainy day, but today's not my day off. Rats! I have to wait till tomorrow. My husband, Gary, and I have had our own business for over 30 years so that's where I'm off to after I finish this. We are a home appliance retail store and I do mostly the bookkeeping. I'm hidden away back in the office away from all the customers-which I'm very happy about. But I don't have any windows, so I can't sit and watch the rain. Sometimes I can listen to it on the roof when its really coming down. I'd love to be home but workings not bad. Both of my sons and my daughter work with us so I see them every day. And we all get along great, 99% of the time. Every family has to have their squabbles once in a while and we're no different.

I thought this was going to be a blog about my life with fabric and yarn. Mainly because I never saw myself as being any kind of writer. When I was a teenager so many of my friends were keeping journals. That was back in the dark ages before PCs. They actually use spiral notebooks and pens. I was amazed that they were able to put their thoughts down on paper. I tried but I just wasn't good at it. Now when blogging comes along I think "Oh,I should be able to put pictures of quilts and crochet on my blog with some sort of description. And after reading so many of the blogs, I see how the simplest things can become important to us and maybe interesting to others. I just joined Carolas "Crochet-Along" and found out she has another blog called "My Living Room" where she just talks about here daily life. She lives in sweden and her first post had a really neat photo of convent, probably a very old building. She, along with others have given me the courage to try.

I took a couple of pictures of this rainy morning in my front yard but can't post them yet. I'm still trying to figure out how to use my Kodak Easy-Share camera and printing system that my kids got me for my birthday. So far I've just been scanning from photographs into my computer. Maybe I'll have time to figure it out tomorrow, on my nice day off. I just heard the weather report, and a little more rain is forcast possibly for tomorrow. I might just get myself a rainy day off after all.

MY VERY FIRST QUILT

(This is a recent picture and that's my cat Cotton)

This is the first quilt I ever made. It was started somewhere between 1974-1975 when I was being inspired by Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons television shows. I didn't know the first thing about quilting but I wanted to make quilts. I wanted to learn how to make do and use whatever I had on hand, like the pioneer women. But I surely don't think I could survive that life. I am stong when it comes to some things, but I can be a real wus about others. What a combination. Quilting like the pioneer women with fabrics like those. The fabrics are all scraps from cloths I sewed for myself. They look pretty wild but that's what was on the bolts for clothing back then. It's hard to believe, they actually made up into cute dresses. I had a simple A-line style pattern that I made so many dresses-from square neck, round neck, long or short sleeve. One type of fabric I used a lot was called Kettlecloth, a blend of cotton with a little polyester. In the 60's and 70's we were still wearing only dresses, two piece skirt and jacket outfits, etc., to school or work, but never slacks or trousers. So my quilt is a remeberance of a whole era, and the way we dressed. I can look at most of the fabrics and remember what I made from them. I used some simple curtains the I had made during that time for the backing. They were 100% cotton calico and when I wasn't able to use them in my new house I couldn't get rid of them. I thought I might need them some day(I'm a big saver of things)and I did-30 years later. I was always going to hand quilt it but finally decided I'd never do it. Instead I had it machine quilted by one of my quilting friends who does that for a living. She does beautiful work so I've decided that I'll have her do all the quilts I make frome now on and those quilt tops that are already made but sitting on the shelf just waiting. I wan't more time to crochet and do other things. Hand quilting large quilts it just too time consuming. I am learning how to do sewing machine applique and piecing. It takes a fraction of the time as by hand and the quality of the work can be really good when you practice and have patience. I think my work is decent enough so I'll start posting pics of different things I'm doing. And I hopefully be finishing more crochet items. And then there are some other different crafts I enjoy. This will give me a good way to document all the different projects I have already done and everthing in the future.

I START BLOGGING TODAY

Today I have decided to make my first post. I've been lurking (the word I've seen others use) around this blogging world for the past couple of week trying to figure out what it's all about and how it works. All the wonderful sites with so much to see and read. I had found blogging quite by chance. I was searching for granny square patterns on the internet when I happened upon the Granny-Along and The No-End-In-Sight-Ripple-Along blogs. I am a basic crocheter and these blogs really caught my interest.
As everyone knows, the more blogs we look at, the more we find. As I started visiting different blogs I started seeing the word quilt. I went immediately to those blogs. What a treasure of quilt show and tell. There was no doubt, I had to start blogging, even though I didn't know the first thing about setting up a blog or posting. I have spent the last week or so setting up my blog and learning about blogging through trial and error. And I'm finally there.
Now back to quilting. I have been thinking about what I could put on my blog. The first thing that has come to mind is a diary of my quilting life. Many quilters keep journals with info on all the quilts they've made. I'm not one of them. All the records are in my head and thats not good. I've wanted to document all my quilts so maybe this is the way to go. So in future posts I'll be showing my oldest projects and some of the new ones, too. As time goes by maybe I'll have some other thoughts or ideas.