Starting the holdiay season

Dear Mary,

I am producing blocks regularly, though I am still fighting with the camera. Sigh. Once I get it figured out, I will post more photos.

In the meanwhile, here's one of you. Look at that tomato!! It makes me feel ready for lunch.

We had a funeral yesterday, so I saw a lot of family, which was very nice. I saw a couple of cousins I hadn't seen in 35 years! (I'm so antisocial!) And my sister came from California, so not much sewing going on right now.

Plust we are having out Thanksgiving this Saturday. There will be three babies in the house, how will I stand it? I won't know which one to squeeze first. IF I can get the camera running, I will get a picture to show off with...

Hope you and Bob are well...

New Skills: digital cameras and inserting photos

Dear Mary,

Well, I have been at this for a few days now and am having mixed results. My daughter-in-law, Christine, gave me a Kodak camera when they got a newer model and it takes decent pictures and the price was right! However, it uses AA batteries and I can't seem to keep them charged. Sigh. I just want to make a quilt!

But like I said there were mixed results and I did have some small successes. Here are photos of the first 12 blocks.

Notes: I roughly sorted all the blocks by their degree of difficulty and am starting with the easiest. If you notice that some of the edges look uneven, that's because I'm piecing by hand and my seam allowances are estimated. It will all come out in the wash, I hope! My goal is to finish in one year, which may be a bit crazy on my part. We'll see if I need to adjust my timetable when I get to the harder blocks! By the way, the edge blocks are almost all hard. Isn't it bad enough that they're triangle shaped? Do they also have to have 35 teeny tiny pieces cut on the bias?

Christine wanted a flannel quilt for the new baby, so I said I would whip that up for her. I got that done this week, also. It has piecing on the front and back and about drove me crazy trying to arrange the squares. I finally gave up and let the back pieces fall where they may. I don't think the baby will notice, but she might notice if her grandma was crazy!!

Getting started

Dear Mary,

When I visited earlier this month, I didn't realize that I'd come home with a new quilt project. Like I need any new projects, right!? But this one seems like it might be fun, and it definitely will be with each of us working on our own versions.

The best part about shared projects is the sharing, but with 4 1/2 hours between us (on a good day!) the sharing part is going to be a little neglected. Nowadays I immediately think "email", but that wouldn't be a very good way to keep everything together and I am notoriously bad at getting emails mailed, let alone sending attachments. So even though I am inept at this sort of thing, I decided that a blog would be just the ticket. It's like a journal with pictures that you can share, right? I just have to figure out how to start - which I did - and how to proceed - which I am.

Anyway, for posterity and in case anyone else stumbles on this, our project is from the Dear Jane book. I plan on making the whole thing, 256 blocks, (silly me) and have you decided what your plan is yet? Besides picking out over 150 fabrics, I mean. I still can't believe you picked out that many, I get like three picked and then I have to sew something!!

I think I have 9 blocks done so far. Next time I will try pictures...

Love,
suzie