The Maiden Voyage

Tonight I finally sat down at the sewing machine that I've inherited--Mom's Janome MemoryCraft 6600 Professional. The "professional" simply means, in this case, "more machine than Sandy can handle." It's a little intimidating. My other machine--my former only machine--was also a Janome; I am, after all, Shirley's daughter and she was a Janome girl so I became a Janome girl. But mine was slightly-better-than-purely-functional. It's computerized, it's got a few fancy stitches and nifty do-jobbers and thingies, but it's a pretty straightforward machine. I really like my usual machine; I was quite ready to use it for several more years. At least until we finish paying college tuition, anyway.

But now I've got one of Mom's machines and my former machine has become my portable-take-to-class machine, tucked away in a corner with its dust cover. I guess it's earned a bit of a vacation.

I've had the 6600 installed in my sewing cabinet for about a week now, the new plastic insert in place, the knee lift inserted...but it took me awhile to get up the courage to sit down and start playing. Part of it is emotional, of course. But part of it is also hearing my Mom's voice every time any of us got near her machine when we were kids..."Be careful! That's not a toy!" For years, any time an offspring used her sewing machine, we'd manage to jam it. Mom got understandably a bit gun-shy about us coming within breathing distance of them. Even after I had been quilting for years, I maintained a bit of a fear-factor when it came to Mom's machines. I've known she had some pretty cool new machines for some time, but I never asked her if I could try them out. What if I jammed it???

I read the manual cover-to-cover yesterday over breakfast. I reviewed it again this evening sitting at my desk. Finally, carefully, I approached my sewing cabinet, sat in my chair, opened the manual at my side, and addressed the machine. I began to familiarize myself with all the buttons, toggles, do-jobbers and thingies. Finally, I was off and running--playing with embroidery stitches, writing silly messages with the monogramming features, setting it at high speed and letting it rip just to see what happened. Yes, I could still hear Mom's quick intakes of breath as she nervously watched me messing with buttons and craning my neck to see behind the needle as the patterns developed ("Honey, be careful!"), but I could also see her smile as I figured out all the nifty new tricks this puppy does. "Isn't it great? I was really excited to get that feature when I bought it." And that very satisfying whisk and thunk of the automatic thread-cutter? Our hearts were both pounding with excitement over that one.

As I shut down the 6600 a few minutes later, figuring that I hadn't jammed anything yet and probably ought to quit while I was ahead, I felt a bit sad. This is Mom's machine, and Mom should be using it. But I also felt inspired--challenged--motivated--to work on my technique to be worthy of having it.

Global Warming...Contributing to Climate Change

I'm thinking I'm pretty close to creating a micro-environment in my sewing room with all the steam my iron is kicking out these days. I'm still pressing fabric from Mom's stash, working my way through by color family. Neutrals? Check. Reds? Check. Between all my task lights, the computers that live in the same room, and the steam iron, my sewing room/home office is a good ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and my hair takes on a rather unattractive frizzy curl when I walk in the door from the hallway.

Every time someone opens the door to come in, I half expect a tornado to develop in the region of my ceiling light.

Ah, but the visual comparison of sloppy, casually folded stacks of fabric laying in waitful repose next to the regimented, ready-for-action measured fabric soldiers awaiting my next command makes it worth it. I would almost think that there was a light compulsive gene that ran in my family but after going through Mom's stash, I know I'm much more anal about these things than she was. Even my collection of 2 1/2" strips from scraps is neatly folded in a bin. Mom's? Well, not so much. Although we all have our own personal compulsions. Mine is for as scrupulously organized a work space as possible. Mom's was quite clearly for gadgets. I'm not sure those two compulsions play well together.

Mom's quilty-friends came out to the homestead yesterday, at my invitation, to go through Mom's quilty stuff and take whatever they wanted. At first they were hesitant; I don't know if they were worried I'd burst into tears or that I'd leap off my stool and say, "Hey, I didn't see that one before! Mine mine mine!" I reassured them that, as for #1, I found it quite comforting to know that Mom would be so happy that people she'd loved and quilted with for so many years would be using her things; as for #2, although I did ultimately take one additional piece of fabric that everyone else had passed over but still tugged at my aesthetic center, I was very much aware of the stacks and piles awaiting me back home that I had yet to find space for. I already have everything I needed and wanted, and I was glad to be able to share the bounty. As I had suspected, sitting and listening to Mom's long-time compatriots and watching their joy in being able to take physical remembrances of their friendship with Mom was at times healing, at times a hoot. I hope I can someday look back at 30-year-quilty-friendships and know that, in that way as well, I had turned into my mother.

Thankfully, they made a nice dent in what was left after my sister and I both went through it. Now all that remains to be done is to clean out my Mom's summer sewing studio up at our family cottage near the Thousand Islands and combine it with what's at home, and then set up the quilter's garage sale. "All that remains...." A smallish phrase for a rather daunting task.

On the docket for tomorrow night? I do believe I'm feeling a teal mood coming on. Watch the Weather Channel for news about unusual weather patterns forming in Western NY.

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep...

So here I am, in the middle of the rather daunting process of adding what I took from Mom's stash to my own. I decided to wash all of it, which then means my way-too-persnickety eye for detail kicks in (to put it crudely, I can get anal about certain things) and I end up wanting to iron most of it, so that it will look "just right" when it's finally on the shelf. So it's taking me for-freakin'-ever.

The first two photos at right are most of the fabric waiting to be pressed and folded, sitting on my cutting table and on the side of my sewing table. And this isn't all of it. When I took these pictures a couple of days ago, I'd already worked my way through part of one stack, and some of it was still in the laundry.Picture #3 is sort of a "before and after" shot. I needed to get at my cutting table and sewing machine so I emptied off my storage shelves and moved the fabric-in-waiting, so now you can get a feel for the neat, tidy, organized stacks of fabric it will eventually turn into. Note, however, the distinct lack of enough shelf space for my new stash. Picture #4 is folded and labeled (by size), but in the midst of being sorted and reshelved. I'm going to have to do some reconfiguring of my sewing space to fit it all in.

Once-upon-a-time, my stash was small enough that I kept it sorted by size--1/2 yard stack, 1 yard stack, etc. With what I took from Mom's stash, I have at least doubled my stash, if not tripled it. I was going to be careful about what I took, but a good friend and fellow quilter told me I'd be sorry, and just to go for it. So I took her at her word. I may also be taking her name in vain as I try to figure out how I'm going to store all of this! In any case, it now seems to make more sense to organize my fabric by color now. Using this folding method, it's pretty easy to tell at a glance a ballpark of how much of each fabric I have anyway, just by the size of the folded piece. Plus I label it anyway.

In picture #3, you can see that one area of Mom's stash that I decided to take full advantage of was her neutrals/background fabric. Just a few weeks ago, I'd been thinking that my small, well controlled stash was actually somewhat difficult to work with--trying to make a quilt only from my stash was virtually impossible, because I didn't have the right mix of fabrics. I found that going through Mom's stash was a real learning process for me--I paid close attention to the types of fabrics she had, what she tended to buy larger quantities of versus what were relatively small cuts, and so forth. I'm also keeping in mind how she had it organized as I reorganize mine. I guess, since I can't ask her for advice anymore, I have to learn by observing. Not quite as good, and certainly not as satisfying, but she's still passing on her wisdom to me, so I'll take it.By the way, even though about 75% of the fabric in these pictures is from Mom, my sister also took at least the same amount of fabric as I did, and there's still a TON left. Mom's quilty-friends are coming by this week to go through and take "remembrance pieces" for themselves (yes, you do grow to associate certain types of fabric with people), and then my afore-mentioned friend will be helping me put the rest in a quilter's garage sale.

Mom always laughed at me when I told her I was determined to keep my stash small. Now she's getting the last laugh.

I'm pausing in my stash-action in order to get a binding put on one of Mom's quilts--the first of her UFOs I'm tackling. I imagine that might be my next post.

When You Can See It Coming...

What is it about us as human beings that makes us sometimes completely unable to stop ourselves from doing something we just know is going to end badly?

I was working on some "homework" from a quilt class last night and I could tell, as I was sewing the last strips on each block, that I was going to end up with whonky blocks. There were plenty of bias edges going on and I knew the strip I was attaching to the center of the block was a little too long, and that while I could certainly stretch those bias edges a little bit to make it fit, there would be a point of no return. Yet I continued to stretch and sew, and hoped for the best. After all, I'd cut and sewn everything exactly to the instructions, hadn't I? Maybe the teacher knew something I didn't and it would all work out in the end...ahem. Blocks finished, and seeing edges wave back at me, I spray starched the heck out of them, steam pressed them, and put the heaviest books on my shelves on top of them on the ironing board and left them overnight.

They're nice and flat today, but there's a clear bow in the outside edges. I either do some reverse sewing, or consign myself to grief when I try to attach all the finished blocks together at the end of the class next spring. What could've been maybe a ten or 15 minute fix yesterday before it went so far awry is now going to probably take me at least 45 minutes to an hour, if I don't end up having to recut some strips and start further back in the process.

I could see it coming. But I didn't stop myself.

Similarly, when my son woke up this morning, I gave him all of about 5 minutes before I mentioned a speeding ticket he'd gotten a couple of days ago. I wasn't yelling at him, simply mentioning to him that the only job he was going to have from me today was to fill out the information on the ticket and get it ready to stick in the mail. All in a very reasonable voice. Even so, before I even opened my mouth, I thought, "He's always cranky in the morning. Maybe I should wait an hour or so before bringing this up." But something in me (admittedly, the part still a little ticked at him for getting the ticket in the first place) just didn't want to stop myself. Yes, there was a subtext to me not stopping myself on that one that's entirely different from the subtext in the quilting incident. But both have the same basic problem--why can't I stop myself when I know something is probably going to end badly?

Fortunately, I just got a couple of eye-rolls and a bit of a snitty voice from my son. It could've been worse. And my quilt blocks can be saved--it's only fabric and a little time, after all. But it made me think of all the times we human beings make decisions we know are unhealthy, or we know will be dangerous, or we know will probably just make situations worse...and we don't stop ourselves. Although we may get some immediate benefit from our poor choices (sure, I was glad that my son was at least momentarily as annoyed about the ticket as I was, even if for different reasons), we know in the long run we'll probably regret having made whatever the decision was and may even have really dug ourselves a hole that it'll be very difficult to get out of.

And so another life lesson from quilting. Hopefully next time I'll stop myself before I sew a piece on that I just know is going to cause me grief later, and next time I'll stop myself before I say or do something I just know is going to end badly. Meanwhile, I have to go find my seam ripper.

Playing Catch-Up

It's been about a month since my last post but since I was out of town on business for two of those four weeks it doesn't quite count, does it? I took last week as vacation and intended to use it as a personal little quilt retreat at home but it didn't quite work out that way. Life tends to get in the way. My son had wisdom teeth removed, I had meetings related to my volunteer work with the Karen and Chin communities, I took my daughter and some of her friends to a local amusement park, and I had a bunch of friends over one afternoon, so I only ended up with one sewing day. But as I reminded myself, soon enough I'll be empty nesting and have all sorts of time to spend at my sewing machine so I only slightly feel bad about my lack of quilting productivity.

I did manage to finally catch up with my guild's block of the month challenge (woohoo!) and I put together the backing for a quilt that I'll be giving a niece for her bday later this week--one of those "open your present, and then hand it back to me so I can finish it!"

But today was probably the most productive--I finally managed to get my new cutting table put together! OK, so I bought it a year ago, and the box has been leaning against a wall in my sewing room, providing a convenient shelf for works in project. Now I need to find a new limbo location for my UFOs, but at least I'm no longer negotiating a warped cutting surface. The old warped cutting table is being relagated to the basement where it will find redemption as a "gift-wrapping center".

I don't have much worthy of pondering at the moment, other than the sense of satisfaction one gets when one finally finishes something that one has been tripping over for a year. I'll work on getting back in my Tessellations Game and be profound again soon enough. Time to flex my furniture-putting-together-mojo again building a desk and bookshelf for my son's room...