Mason’s Quilt

All my nieces and nephews get quilts. Eventually. Sometimes their mothers need to help by learning to piece the tops, but they all get quilts.

Mason has been very patient.

His quilt is a take-off on the quilt we do in my String Quilting workshop. Just snowball the set fabric. (Don’t worry, I’ll show you!)

As with some of the other quilts I’ve made recently for children, I’ve substituted fleece for the batting and lining. It makes the quilt super soft and the quilting shows up surprisingly well. I bind it just as if it were three layers.  (Click the image to make it larger.)

All the feathers were machine free-motion quilted. I attempted to add to my feather repertoire . It was a great project for experimentation. Mason’s name is quilted in one of the patches. He’s pointing to it below.

As I said, Mason has been very patient. He gave me a big hug and a heartfelt “thank-you” which is what every quilter wants to receive when gifting a quilt.

I’m just glad I got it finished before he graduated from high school.

Aunt Ami

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Airplane Yo-Yos

I can’t leave the house on a teaching trip unless I have something to sew. It just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t matter if I ever pull it out of my carry-on, just knowing I could amuse myself at any moment with needle and thread is comforting.

It takes my mind off the age of the plane and the youth of the pilot.

This past week I packed yo-yos to sew. Itty-bitty ones. Before I took off on the first leg of my journey to Salt Lake City and the Home Machine Quilting Show I FaceBooked and asked how many yo-yos my friends thought I could sew from Flint, Michigan to Minneapolis.

Even with a maintenance delay I wasn’t as fast as they thought I was. I got 12 done.

I stitched on all three flights on the way home for a grand total of 48 yo-yos on the 13-hour trip home.

I do have a use for them. I’m just not ready to reveal exactly what that is yet. ;)

As for sewing on airplanes, needles, pins, and SHORT pointy scissors are “TSA OK.” Read what’s allowed at www.tsa.gov.

Travel Tip: if you want the armrest, use long thread. Your seat mate backs off pretty quick if they think your #10 between might connect with a body part oozing into your personal air space.

If you’d like to try making a mini yo-yo, the fold line is a 1-3/16″ cirle.

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Funky Fabric

There’s nothing wrong with a wild border. I love ‘em.

This junk food fabric was the perfect ending to Buttons and Bows, a quilt featured in, “Picture Play Quilts.”  I just wish I still had more fabric.

Apparently adults like funky fabric too. Several years ago, this quilt was selected by the US Ambassador to Dakar, Senegal and his wife to hang in their home. The Art in Embassies program facilitated the loan.

Buttons and Bows is one of 15 patterns in Picture Play Quilts. They’re all based on squares and rectangles and come with step-by-step instructions.

Best of all, there are a dozen games to play with the quilts you make that teach language skills, encourage creativity, and build self-esteem.

Since half the fun of making quilts with conversational fabric is the collecting, and collecting with a buddy is a blast, take advantage of my momentary insanity. I’m offering a “two-fer.”

Picture Play Quilts normally sells for $22.95. Now you can get TWO copies for $20. Go! Quickly! This offer ends May 14th.

Here’s that link again: http://www.amisimms.com/blog.html

Picture Play Quilts makes a wonderful gift. (Hint, hint.)

Russian Cream

I don’t cook, but I look at this recipe for Russian Cream nearly every day.

My mother framed it and gave it to me.  It was written by her mother, my Gramma Jennie.  Some day it will belong to my daughter, her namesake.

On the back of the frame it says “circa 1945 shower gift card”  in my mom’s handwriting.

Along the left hand side is the recipe. It was written in pencil. The paper has darkened with age and the pencil lines have faded, making it very hard to read. I can’t quite make out the very last part.

On the right side, opposite the ingredients and instructions my grandmother wrote “annotations” in ink. Rather than transcribe them, I’ll let you read them as she wrote them. (Click on the pictures to make them larger.)

Heat in double boiler
1 pt sweet cream
3/4 cup sugar

Add
3 tbsp gelatine (Knox flavorless) dissolved in 1 cup cold water

Cook in double boiler 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

Cool.
Fold in 1 pt sour cream. Add 1 tsp vanilla, serve with preserved fruit.

My grandmother signed the recipe card this way: “Live life fully and enjoy your many blessings.”

I totally agree!

Happy Mother’s Day!
Ami Simms

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Beam N Read Contest Winners Announced

Congratulations to everyone who entered.  All the comments were enLIGHTening.

It was amazing to see all the BRIGHT IDEAS you came up with for using a Beam N Read hands-free light!

1. Reading in bed
2. Seeing more clearly
3. Helping tired eyes
4. Quilting
5. Reading
6. Sewing (binding)
7. Stitching
8. Embroidery
9. Knitting
10. Tatting
11. Crocheting
12. Correcting school papers
13. Avoiding pets (and pet presents) during nocturnal visits to the bathroom
14. Clipping toenails (human and otherwise)
15. Longarm quilting
16. Cross-stitching
17. Crossword puzzles
18. Sewing in airplanes
19. As aid for low vision/diminished vision
20. Help for macular degeneration
21. Paper piecing
22. When the power goes out
23. To keep from disturbing nursing home roommate
24. Instead of static-creating Ott light which interferes with TV headphones
25. Finding freshly laid bird eggs
26. Sewing with family in otherwise darkened room
27. Beading
28. Improve dim overhead light
29. Walking dog at night
30. After cataract surgery
31. Much better gift than a dead possum (easier to wrap too)
32. Checking for hotel bed bugs (eeew!)
33. Reading directions
34. Letting pets out at night
35. Applique
36. Seeing  things up close (comes with magnifying glass)
37. Threading needles
38. Making toy horses out of mops
39. Sewing in cars at night (with optional DC adapter)
40. For house guests in darkened homes
41. Handwork
42. Camping
43. Sewing in dimly lit hotel rooms (beats packing your own lightbulb)
44. Identifying medications
45. Hand piecing
46. Walking/hiking at night
47. Reading a Kindle
48. Reading the newspaper
49. Checking for fleas
50. Avoiding rattlesnakes

Based on the contest criteria of “creativity and practical applications” I have selected TWO winners. Yes, TWO! Yvette and Miss Daisy have purchased the second Beam N Read light to award.  What a wonderful thing to do! (They did this in the last contest, if you’ll remember!)

The two winning comments are:

1. My mom is writing this for me cause I don’t do computers…it’s not a horse thing. I am mom’s oldest (and finest, just ask me) show horse. She definitely needs a Beam n Read to stay safe here on the farm. Oh, she sees fine in the house with one of those special lamps where she sits on the couch to applique but when she goes out to make a check on the barn at night, it can be pretty spooky.

The night she had to help deliver my last foal, darling little Erin, she really had to HELP and needed both hands and a light. Not easy to hold a flashlight and birth a big baby horse! Course, it’s just not too safe to go wandering around at night here as we get the occasional rattlesnake and other varmits….light is a matter of safety. I miss hearing about Madison too. Horses and dogs just go together. Please choose a deserving person, er, horse for the special light…
Irish Creme, dressage horse

2.
Yo;
Frances Bartholomew Mercer III here, but youze kin jist call me “Frankie the Fist”, cuz dats what all my pals call me. I hoid youze was having a contest ta see who you was gonna give dat Beam-n-Read” flashlight thing, to, an I wanted ta tell you my Muddah kin sure use it.

See, Mom knits all these-here hats and scarves and stuff for the troops overseas, but she turned 75 last week, and fer a while now, her eyes ain’t been doin too good. She needs ta use a lotta light when she knits dem things, and also to make presents for me and my cell mate Blinky. (I woulda got sent overseas too – but when I tried to enlist in the Marines, they said I was too violent!)

Mom also’s been doing Quilting for almost twenny years now, and she positively loves that junk. Believe it or not, she does it the old fashioned way, all by hand – she don’t use no sewing machine. Mom says she kin spot machine made stuff a mile away, cuz she says the stitches are too perfect if it didn’t get done by hand. She uses these real tiny little needles, and also thread so small, I swear she could probably sew up a gnats belly button! Says it makes her happy to do stuff all by hand, even if it does take her a lot longer to finish it, now that she needs extra light to see good. If it wuz me, I’d just give it to my girlfriend “Bubbles” ta do, cuz I ain’t got no patience for that kinda thing!

Anyways, I would like you should give that light to Mom, cuz she sure could use it . And also, if she ever decided to quit Quilting (which is about as likely as me gettin an honest job!) she could send da light to me. See, Blinky an me almost got our tunnel done, and when we decide to split, we could sure use a good flashlight, cuz its pretty dark, and we keep bumping into each other when we do our practice runs. And a Beam-n-Read would be especially great cuz its got that red filter on it. See,when we come up outside the wall it’ll be dark, and the red filter would help preserve our night vision so’s we kin make an easier getaway.

I hope you decide to take my “suggestion”, because I sure wouldn’t want nuthin to happen to youze if you don’t. I got lots of friends on the outside who owe me favors – if you know what I mean! So sleep tight, and don’t worry about that guy standing on the corner outside your house tonight.

Sincerely
“Frankey the Fist”
Cell block 2, level 3, cell 28 – top bunk.
Up-State Penitentiary

Congratulations to everyone!

Thank you!
Ami :)