Busier Than a One-Armed Paper Hanger

I've always loved that euphemism!  It really describes what life's been like lately.  Remember I posted the design photo of the Christmas stocking for my DIL?  Well, I got a start on it.

Lisa's Christmas Stocking

And I wanted to show you what the others look like.

All together

Mine

My husband's

My youngest son's

This is a detail of the Mrs. Claus' Top Soil that I designed on mine to replace a stool in the garden shed.  It was my first foray into cross-stitch design. You can also see that I put a bunch of junk beads onto the tree as decoration.



So, that's what's up with that whole stocking thing.  I can't find my oldest son's stocking, so when I do, I'll put a pic of it up.

Got the call from my son yesterday after the sonogram - It's a BOY!!!  They will be receiving their little bundle of joy sometime in late winter - February/March???  But, I was right!  I've already picked out the Birth Announcement needlework I'm going to do and got a yard of fabric that is going to be the jumping off point for the quilt I'm going to make.  AND - last week when we had no power I started crocheting a little baby hat - in blue cotton!   Now you see where the Busier Than a . . . . comes in.  I've got more things to do than I know what to do with!  Yikes!

Now, I've checked with everyone in the family and they don't mind if I do this . . . I have this quilt that no longer goes with my decor.  It's a wall quilt - about 3 and a half feet by 2 feet.  It has a rod pocket on the back.  It is machine pieced and hand quilted.  It is called Roadtrip!, made by me.  Stitched in the open blocks are things that you'd see on a roadtrip along Route 66.  I am selling it for a $75 Nordic Needle online gift certificate.  Below is the overall picture of it.  Click on the tab at the top to go to the Windy Ridge Designs page and see detailed pictures of the block stitching and even a picture of the rod pocket on the back.  Email me if you're interested.  It would make a great guy gift for Christmas!  Shipping is on me!  Hope you enjoyed!

Roadtrip!

Addendum to Last AotH Update

Ugh - DUH!  I really have not been operating on all four wheels lately!  First, thanks to all of you who posted compliments on the block and commiseration on our car situation.  Husband is out right now shopping for a new car.  Son is still alive.  All good.

Now, to refresh your memories, I'd told you that at the bottom of the November block, I'd put my great grandfather's initials and that he'd served in the 116th Illinois Volunteers in the Civil War.

What I forgot to put in the post was the wonderful picture that we have of him and his wife, Cyntha Virginia Smith Cothren. 

Cornelius Piet Cothren was born May 27, 1845 in Ramsay township, Fayette County, Illinois.  His mother was Margaret D. Harris and his father was Calvin Cothran.  Margaret and Calvin were divorced when Cornelius was still a toddler.  Margaret later married George Washington Guthrie and they migrated to Cedar Vale, Chatauqua County, Kansas between 1860 and 1870.  In the meantime, the war was upon them and Cornelius signed up with the Illinois Infantry, mustering in on August 14, 1862 at Decatur, Illinois.  In this photo, he is wearing lapel pins that have his company number and another number.  I believe that he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic - a Union veteran's organization that formed after the war.   Because of the regalia he is wearing and the flag pin on Cyntha's shirtfront, I like to think that they had this picture made on the 4th of July.  Cornelius is buried at the Wadsworth Cemetery in Leavenworth, Kansas.  Hope you enjoyed!

Oh, What A Week I've Had - and AotH Update!

Snoses

First it was the OcSNOWber storm.  Our power was cut off for four days.  I've decided that while I CAN survive, I am not a pioneer woman.  I like my electronics way too much.  I LOVE my power company for getting us back up and running ahead of schedule!  In these pictures you can see my Windy Ridge walnut tree in the snow and the following day you can see how the snow was hanging onto the ridges and fall was back.

That got us to Tuesday.  Fast forward to Thursday, my son had an accident with probably the best made mailbox this side of the moon and sheared off the passenger mirror and both door handles on my mini van.  You cannot open the doors (from the outside) on that side of the car.  In orbit around the moon was about where I was five seconds after seeing my car.  Nuf said.

Then there was Friday morning - about 7 AM when my husband called.  You know it's going to be bad when the first words out of their mouth are "I'm O.K."  But, the car was totaled.  His car this time, not mine.  But, he's O.K.  and I really am very grateful for that.  His chest is still really sore from where the airbag deployed into it, apparently trying to make it out the other side, but he'll be fine.  The car, not-so-much.  Fortunately, we've got good insurance and I'll pick up the rental car tomorrow. We will have to get him a new-to-him car and we were already talking about getting a new car for me.  We'll have to spend quite a bit of time sorting it all out.

But, this morning I put the tahdah on the November piece of Anniversaries of the Heart.; so not everything is coming up crappy.

This month's featured female ancestor is Barbara Grove.  She is one of my oldest American born female ancestors, being one of my 4th great grandmothers.  She was born November 1, 1743 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  That's the Norristown/King of Prussia area.  Barbie's parents were Jacob Graf (alternatively spelled Groff) and Maria Ledrach Graf.  They were presumably from Germany, but I haven't worked those lines back far enough to know.  Barbara married Joseph Warner in the Old Goshenhoppen Church located in Upper Salford Township (Montgomery County) in 1774. I just love that name Goshenhoppen.  Joseph owned and operated a fulling mill in Cumru Township, Berks County, PA.  You can read about fulling mills and how they finished cloth here.  

If you read about the fulling process you'll read about TENTERING  and tenterhooks.  I think it's funny, being on tenterhooks was a phrase my mom used often.  I wonder if that phrase worked down through her family to her from Barbara's family.  I mean we use funny words that our parents used, right?  Joseph was from Chelsea which is a suburb of London, England.  Chelsea is on the shores of the Thames and if you look at old maps, you can see symbols that look like the Tentering Racks mentioned in the write up.  Joseph came to America in 1767/68 and learned the fulling process from his Graf/Grove in-laws.  Family tradition holds that Joseph produced linen cloth in his mill that was used to make uniforms for the Continental troops of George Washington.  One thing is for sure, if her husband operated a fulling mill, Barbara had access to cloth and was probably a heck of a seamstress and needleworker.  They had five children.  Barbara died in Adams County, Pennsylvania in 1831, probably living with one of her adult children.  But, she was buried with her husband in the Sinking Spring Cemetery near Mohnsville, PA

You'll also notice another line below Barbara's name - CPC 116th ILL. Vol. - represents Cornelius Piet Cothren, one of my great grandfather's.  "Corny" fought in the Civil War serving at Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Stone Mountain (among others) and finally Sherman's March to the Sea.  Only one third of his regiment survived to muster out in Washington on June 7, 1865 - 23 days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  As a man from Illinois I'm sure that was a very sad time for Corny.  His wounds and diseases (he was stricken with typhoid, chronic diarrhea, and piles; he lost the use of his left thumb due to an improperly tended fracture and had an unhealing wound on his foot that was two toes wide.  Poor Corny died on November 20, 1925 at Fort Leavenworth.  No, he wasn't there for punishment - he was at the VA Hospital.

With regard to the November block, I decided to omit the trees that went up the side of the house.  It started off that I didn't like the color and then I decided I wanted more "white space".  I substituted for all the Crescent Colors flosses.  On the house I used all the called for flosses and ended up not being able to see the window surrounds.  I was disappointed by that.  I ran a backstitch in the door color all around the window surrounds to make them stand out a bit more.  Doing it all over again, I would do the window surrounds in the door color.  However, I am very happy with the final results of my block.

Here you can see that November completes the first Anniversaries of the Heart panel.  December and the final Bonus Chart will complete panel two next month.  Then I'll have to work out the border in 2012. 

Now I'm moving on to Opus Magnusson, but I have been working on the Christmas Stocking for my daughter in law and hope to show you all the progress soon.  Hope you enjoyed!

Virginia Quilt Talk Upcoming

At the historical society we received a press release from the Handley Library this week.  They're announcing that Paula Golden will be there at the Bowman Library Meeting Room in the Handley (Winchester, VA) on Tuesday evening, November 15 at 6:30PM.

Paula Golden is a co-author of the book Quilts of Virginia 1607-1899 The birth of America Through the Eye of a Needle.  She will give a presentation on the quilts in the book.  Interestingly it turns out that I purchased this book at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley when I went to see the Daughters of the Stars exhibit last week.  Many of the quilts that are in the exhibit are in the book - but there are so many more in the book!

Click on the title - available at Amazon

The state of Virginia is divided in the book into areas like North, East, Central, Highlands, etc.  And quilts from these areas are featured in those particular chapters.  But again, there is SO MUCH MORE.  I can't tell you what a delight it was to open and begin perusing this book.  For example - the Northern Region featured in Chapter Two features quilts made by Martha Dandridge Custis Washington as well as pincushions made by Dolly Todd Madison.  This chapter also has photographs of a staggeringly beautiful hexi-quilt and talks about how English paper piecing papers are from newspapers dating from 1790 in some of these quilts.  Fascinating!

Photos of old homes, sewing boxes, sewing tables, and needlework accessories and tools also dot through the book.  This chapter also held a surprise for me.  There is a section about Quaker quilts.  Most of these are applique quilts and the section talks about how some of the fabrics are featured in different quilts from different Quaker communities.  One quilt, from Abram's Delight from the Hollingsworth family has a block on each corner that is called the Apple Pie Ridge Star.  Well, it just so happens I live on Apple Pie Ridge and I thought, oh, my goodness, I HAVE to make that block!  The area was settled by Quakers from Pennsylvania who planted our apple orchards.  The apples grown in the orchards along the ridge (the elevation protects the blossoms from frost in the spring) made the best Apple Pie and that's how the ridge became known as Apple Pie Ridge.  It stretches from Martinsburg down south of Winchester; and where the ridge goes, our orchards go. 

Apple trees on Apple Pie Ridge - looking across to North Mountain

I don't know exactly what the presentation is going to comprise, but I'm hoping for a slideshow and Q&A session; cause I'd sure like to know more about that block.  Oh, there is a picture of a quilt in the back of the book called Farmer's Delight/Farmer's Fancy and they have provided traceable templates to make the block and appliqued border.  It is derived from a pattern thought to have originated in the Shenandoah Valley.   Just so you know, I'm not affiliated with the book publisher or authors in any way.  I just think it's a really nice book and thought you all would like to hear about it.  Hope you enjoyed!

Museum of the Shenandoah Valley Quilt Exhibit

   Daughters of the Stars: Shenandoah Valley Star Quilts and Their Makers   opened last night at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, VA.  I was lucky enough that a friend of mine who is a member, called to ask if I'd like to be her plus-one.  I'd received an invitation myself, but it was much more fun to go with a friend!  The exhibit is beautiful.  I features about 15 quilts made in counties of the Shenandoah Valley.  I highly recommend going to see the exhibit.

I took a few pictures (using my museum/no flash setting) before an aide told me that photography was not allowed.  Sigh.  I got almost all the quilts.

I originally found out about this show this past summer when a message was left at the historical society by the curator of the exhibit.  The president called me at home and said - museum, curator, quilt - will you please call him, I know you know about these things.  So, I called.  Turned out he was putting the exhibit together and they had yet to find an example of a star quilt from Berkeley County; was I familiar with one?  I answered in the affirmative.  Told him that a couple of years ago in the exhibit I put together at our museum, we'd had a beautiful one made in 1860.  So, long story short, I hooked him up with the owner, they worked things out and this quilt (which you may remember from my post back then) was hanging in a place of prominence in the gallery.

Quilt by Mrs. Gwilliams, Berkeley Co., VA 1860

Here are some of the other pictures I took -

 I absolutely love this one and may try and reproduce it.  In the center of the four stars is a white block with a signature on it - that's in each of the four-star blocks.  I'd make it without the signature blocks.  The lighter arms of the stars are done in beiges that nearly match the background.

 This one the green fabric was really wearing thin.  It may have been made of some exotic dress fabric or the green dye may have eaten away at the fabric.  The feathers are quilted and stuffed (trapunto)

 This is a church quilt with signatures in the centers of the blocks.  It's from Newtown (now Stephens City) Virginia.

This one was made in 1870 or 1880, but the information with it said it could have been made earlier.  It thought it was an absolute stunner for its colors.  It was also quite detailed.  If you look at the block at the top of this post, you can see that there are lots of little pieces in this block.  It was all hand pieced and quilted as were most of the quilts.  Note that in the border there are half square triangles, but the quilter was very cleaver, making a half square triangle out of two triangles and a square.  It made the color variation very interesting.

Hope you enjoyed!