Jacob's Train Quilt

Back in December our son and daughter-in-law told us to expect a new grandson in early May. I immediately found this Fons and Porter quilt pattern and ordered the kit. In January, I received an email message saying the kit was back-ordered. In February, March, and April, I received the same message. I was getting frustrated with waiting, but I really wanted those fabrics for this quilt. Well, on the night that my daughter-in-law went into the hospital to deliver Jacob, I received the email message saying that the kit had been sent. While I would have liked to have finished the quilt before Jacob's birth, I did finish it in time for his baptism. Tracy thought it was worth waiting for, since it came out so beautiful.

I really am pleased with the final result. I have enough leftover fabric to almost make another one. I think all I'll need to get is fabric for the background panels. Maybe I'll make another one and donate it to our church dinner auction.

Tea Dye Fabric

I've been collecting 100% cotton shirts to make some scrap quilts ala Bonnie Hunter. I find that many of the white shirts are just too white, so I've been reading about tea dying and decided to give it a try. I dyed 3 shirts by letting each one rest in the tea for a different amount of time. You can see the results in the picture to the left. The shirt that I left in the tea for 3 hours turned out a dark tan. The middle fabric was in the tea for about a half hour, and it is a nice off white. The 3rd shirt was in the tea for about an hour, and it is a nice light tan. I am very happy with the results of my first experience with tea dying.

To make the dye, I boiled 2 quarts of water and put in 10 tea bags. I put one of the shirts in a dish pan and poured the hot tea solution, including the tea bags, over the shirt. I added a bit more water to make enough solution to completely cover the shirt. When the water cooled, I gently massaged the fabric to be sure that the solution was completely saturating the fabric. Then I just left the fabric in the solution until I liked the color.
When all three shirts were dyed, I put them in my washing machine and ran a small warm cycle to wash out any excess tea dye. Then I dried them in my electric clothes dryer.

5K Training

When I was in my 30's, I was an avid runner. I faithfully ran every other day for about 8 years. In order to keep myself motivated, I kept a mileage journal. I found that I was running about 2000 miles a year. No wonder I kept wearing out my running shoes!
Then in the spring of 1989, I slipped on some ice and injured my back. This injury kept me out of commission for about 2 months. After my back healed, I simply couldn't get motivated to get back into my running routine. I tried off and on, but just wasn't consistent.
Last year I found myself becoming quite overweight, so I made up my mind to do something about it. I started by changing my eating habits. I cut out the between meal snacks and started eating half portions of my meals. At the gym I began working out much harder. I started pushing myself to increase my strength and endurance. Slowly the weight came off - about a pound a week. By the first of January, I had lost 35 lbs.
My goal for this year was to get back into shape so that I could run the Popeye 5K in September. At age 60 this is not so easily done. I've been running on the treadmill, and about once a week, I run through the neighborhood about 3 miles. My endurance has increased, but my speed is still not so good. Currently I can run 3 miles in about 34 minutes. My goal is to run the Popeye race in about 30 minutes. At this point I don't know if that is possible, but it remains as my goal.

Bonnie Hunter Quilts

I really, really love Bonnie Hunter's quilt patterns. She has so many great ones on her website: www.quiltville.com . I plan to make many of these. I recently finished making a Cathedral Stars quilt to use in our RV. I love to snuggle up in this quilt while watching TV.
This is the first full size quilt that I've quilted on my new Elna sewing machine. It came out great!

I've also recently finished piecing Bonnie's Virginia Bound quilt which is found in her new book "Scraps and Shirttails". I made it from recycled men's 100% cotton shirts. I mainly used the collars and cuffs of these shirts; therefore, I call my quilt "Collars and Cuffs". I haven't done the quilting on it, yet, but hope to begin that process next week.

Little Fabric Baskets

I love these little fabric baskets! I found the pattern online. I need to go back and find the blog where I found the pattern (found it - Pink Penguin) so I can put a link to it here. I made these 5 baskets as Christmas gifts for the women on my list. They all seemed to love them!

I've been going through my smallest crumbs and making quilted coasters. This is an absolutely mindless endeavor. I love it! The coasters finish at 4". They are perfect to use in our RV and to give to our RVing friends.

It's Been a While

I have not been very good at keeping up regularly with this blog. It's not that I haven't been quilting; I have! In fact I have completed all of the blocks for my Quilting the Psalms. Here are the final 2 blocks. All of the blocks can be found at my webshots site. http://community.webshots.com/user/lfegge