My husband Bob just shook and head and said I was nuts. Now this is a scenario that plays out quite regularly in our house. I come up with some goofy, yet creative idea, and he gives me that look. Despite the fact that I am putting this in print, I will categorically deny ever having agreed with him on any topic, especially this one. I am a quilter and a knitter. Dabbling in the fiber arts has brought me much peace over the years and I thought I should pass the craft on to my granddaughters, Angela, 10 and Suzie, 8. So this Christmas the only thing Suzie had on her Santa list was a sewing machine. A real sewing machine. So Santa being the stud that he is, brought Suzie a Brother machine (reasonably priced to sell at WalMart). Santa brought Angela a new bike but her sister's sewing machine was a lot more "shiny" than the bike because that's what she's gravitated to ever since that fateful day. Not to mention the 16" of snow on the ground for the past 10 days that just might deter a person from trying her first ride on a 'big girl' bike. So my husband the skeptic enabler, found another Brother machine at Overstock.com and it's on its way from the north pole, albeit a little late for the actual celebration day.
I have saved a lot of scraps from quilting these past 10 years and I handed over some, not all, to Suzie to just sew, sew sew. She made pockets for all her friends, chopstick holders for when carrying your own make all the difference in the meal, and has tried everyone of the 20 or so stitches that came with the machine. So of course, we now need to go to the fabric store and spend, spend, spend. Now this is where Grammy got smart. They have to buy their own fabric and they get money from me only when they really work for it (but Papa and I usually have to help out in some fashion). We did our pre-New Year's room cleaning! $25.00 for a spotless room, including drawers cleaned and straightened, outgrown clothes rooted out and old books and toys ready to donate. It's hard for me to put in print all the evidence discovered of our over-indulgance of these two girls but there was also a lot of plain old garbage which I had nothing to do with!! But when all was said and done, the rooms look fabulous and they earned their money for a trip to Joanne's and Aunt Mary's Quilt Shop.
We're focusing on one project at a time (I hear you all chuckling about how long that's gonna last) and so we selected a 2 yard theme fabric and 3 fat quarters for each of them. We then designed two lovely quilt tops on EQ6, each one very simple but pleasing to the eye. Today we cut Suzie's (Ang's machine is still en route). I did the cutting and of course I messed up a measurement so I had to show how to fix it when one chokes on the pressure of accurate cutting....but that's another time, another story. I got the 1/4" seam guide in place so our seams would be perfecto. That step bored her out of her mind but we survived. She spent about an hour sewing 3 rails to be cut to 16 for a rail fence. In-between every 20 stitches or so, she'd stop and dance in her chair, sing to her pins, croon "I Wanna Be a Rock Star" ala Hannah Montana, make Smiley Faces out of the pins in her purple tomato....Thank goodness I had bamboo knitting needles in my hands -- they kept my temper in check and since they aren't really pointy, I didn't have to fear physical damage to the singing sewer. Now I am into this adventure 100% because I do love and respect the fiber arts but since we're starting so young, I will either need to knit a lot faster and tighter or enjoy a martini or six while we're making this quilt. It's only 36" square....how drunk could I get?
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Yay, one more post before the end of the year! I remember trying to teach Evan to sew when he was about that age. The interest was there but the attention span...!Since I was just baby-sitting occasionally, we didn't get very far.
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