Easter Staycation

Easter sunrise

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and what an odd one it was for sure. We got dressed at 6:45 and walked down to Sunflowers Point to watch the sunrise. It was lovely, and the only sun we saw that day as storms rolled through the area later in the day. It was a beautiful spot to sit and contemplate the significance of the day.

We decided to have our Easter meal at noontime, because why not? For us the traditional meal is ham, baked beans and scalloped potatoes. Usually there are rolls as well, but since COVID-19 hit you cannot find frozen bread of any kind in the stores. I would make my own, but there is no yeast to be had either. It was okay, because Jim made a lemon pound cake for dessert so we really didn't need any additional bread with the meal.

Easter dinner

During the afternoon we watched the Pope celebrating mass in Rome, then Andrea Bocelli performing at the Duomo Cathedral in Milan, Italy. There was an organist with him, but otherwise the church was empty as were the streets surrounding it. This whole situation is quite surreal, but his music was just the uplifting note that I needed. From there we switched gears to the broadway performance of Jesus Christ, Superstar. Talk about a divergence in musical styles! This new production takes great liberties with the staging of the original show, as do a lot of productions these days. The cast wore modern clothes and used cell phones and iPads. It was interesting, but I prefer the original.

I got a couple more masks made before the big storms hit here. We were under a tornado watch, so I decided not to be on the second floor of the house in case one hit. As it ended up, we only got lots of rain and some high winds. I had no idea I did not leave tornadoes behind in Missouri! Here are the new masks for the neighbors a couple doors down.

face masks

One of the many things that has been hard with having to stay home is getting enough exercise. We walk when the weather is good, and Jim has been biking nearly every day with a couple of the other guys. I've been doing some online yoga classes. This morning we went to YouTube for a low impact aerobics class. It was challenging but doable. Just one of the many ways our lives have changed due to the virus.

But we are healthy and happy, and I know we have a lot to be grateful for so I try not to complain. As Scarlett from Gone with the Wind said "after all, tomorrow is another day."

The Masks Go On

To date I have made around 20 masks for family and neighbors. They go rather quickly now that I have my system down, and am using elastic instead of having to make cloth ties. It has been fun to try and personalize the fabric for the wearer, such as my neighbors who have a golden retriever. I just so happened to have that pattern on some fabric, so they each got a doggy mask. Here is a sample of some of the additional masks that have been completed so far.

face masks

We were able to check out a small local farmer's store in a nearby town a couple days ago. It is newly opened, so we thought it would be safe to shop there to pick up some fresh produce. Did they ever have some beautiful strawberries! I picked up a couple gallon containers, one for us and one for a neighbor. We also got some nice looking tomatoes and some bacon to go with them. BLTs and strawberry jam occupied my day yesterday.

strawberry jam

community garden plot

Our little community garden plot is coming along nicely. It was a little cold last night, so we were worried about how the new plants would do. But we stopped by there today to water the bed, and things are coming along quite nicely.

In terms of the new normal, we continue to stay in our neighborhood with the exception of going to get food or water the garden. Knock on wood, there are still no cases of the virus in our community of Imagery. In fact, there are only 6 known cases in our township. I'm quite aware that these numbers are very deceiving. Most people cannot get tested for the virus even if they have all the symptoms if they can't answer a few key questions in the affirmative. One example in North Carolina is that you must have come into close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 14 days. In other states, you must have recently traveled to a location that is a hotspot for the virus. So we know that many people have the virus but just don't show up on the statistics due to a lack of testing. There are also people who are asymptomatic yet have the virus. Until an antibody test is developed which will show if a person has had the virus or not, the numbers will be very inaccurate.

In the meantime, tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Our state, it its infinite wisdom, is allowing religious gatherings. While I can hope that people will worship from home, I don't think that will be the case. I predict that in the next two weeks we will see a surge in cases as people who attended services contract and spread the virus.

However, the beauty of this area surrounds me, and lifts my heart when this world situation threatens to drag me down with it.

sunrise on Mountain Island Lake

Making Face Masks

sewing face masks

While the US government still has yet to specifically state that we should all wear face masks when we are out in public, that day may be soon coming. It also just makes sense to do so. While any mask short of the N-95 worn by health care workers will not protect you from getting COVID-19, wearing a mask will aid in preventing you from spreading it (and other germs) to others in case you have the virus and just don't realize it. Wearing a mask also prevents you from touching your nose and mouth, two of the three entry points for the virus. (The third being your eyes.)

Jim's mask

On Saturday I began researching homemade face masks. There are a lot of free patterns on the web, and I found a reliable source for a pattern. The only modification I made to it was to add a layer of quilt batting to the middle. Three layers of protection should be better than two, right? Using a fun fabric of 100%, tightly woven cotton, I made Jim's mask first. It took about five hours, which was disheartening even if it did look pretty good. After I finished I then read that you shouldn't make a mask that has a seam up the center as that allows more hole points for the virus to enter. Ugh! I think Jim's will be safe because of the thick layer of batting, but I searched for a different style for future masks.

Once I settled on a new pattern I began to cut fabric for my own mask. In the meantime a friend in the neighborhood whose husband is very ill asked if I could make five masks for family members so that they could wear them to keep her husband safe from any germs they may be carrying. Of course I was willing to help out, and I made her one with the new pattern so she could try it our for size and comfort.

first mask for my friend 

mask with elastic straps

I discovered that the most time consuming part came from making the straps. Elastic is a quicker method, but that is as hard to find as toilet paper right now. However, this same friend happened to have a few packs of elastic, which she gave to me. What a difference from a time standpoint! I made her second mask with the elastic, and then asked her which strap option she preferred. She liked the elastic, so I was able to quickly finish up her five, then make my own. I prefer the straps, so that is what I made for my own.

masks for my friend

my mask

I have since made three additional masks for my next door neighbors and their daughter. They are fortunate enough to have some medical masks which were ordered before the pandemic struck. So I left an opening in their masks where they can place the medical version inside and then replace as needed.

Others out of town have asked about me making masks to send to them. So far I have not committed because how will I mail them? I do not want to be anywhere near a post office or UPS store right now. Perhaps that makes me selfish, and I do feel a little bad about it. I will check into buying postage online because I do have envelopes here I can use. If I just put one in an envelope I believe it will slide into the outgoing mail slots we have here onsite.

Who could have ever imagined that the first time I would use my sewing machine after moving would be to sew masks to help fight a pandemic?

Measure Twice, Cut Once

That was an old adage my mom used to throw out when I was learning to sew. I've gotten a lot of mileage (or should I say yardage?) out of it over the years. Over the weekend I came up with a modification of mom's words of wisdom. Measure twice, buy once. I have been working on the graduation quilt I am making for my friend's son. She helped me pick out 26 of the fabrics initially, though I need 73 different fabrics all together. I finished shopping on my own. I have all 70 squares cut and sewn with their borders attached. The next step is a purple fabric for the sashings, which is what joins the squares together. Diane had helped me select this particular fabric, and it quickly became clear to me on Sunday that I was not going to have enough to do all the squares. Crap!

Knowing that Jackman's was having a Super Bowl sale, I rushed up there hoping to be able to buy 3 more yards of the fabric. They only had 2 yards left. Double crap! I made an executive decision to change to a different purple, one that has a suggestion of tie-dye effect to it. I think it will mesh nicely with the 70 different novelty prints in the quilt, and it blends with the purple border already around each square. (Purple is the graduate's favorite color, in case you couldn't tell.) Now I get to cut 280 strips 9" x 2". Yippee! My least favorite part of quilting is all the cutting. My wrist hurts thinking about it. Maybe if I had a decent layout table it would help. Instead I am either hunched over on the floor cutting, or bending over a table that is too short.

Maybe my retirement home will have the perfect craft room???

That Old Sew and Sew

I had a bit of a sewing set back. Actually it was a cutting remark that caused all the problems. My 70 different squares of fabric are all cut, so this afternoon I began cutting the purple fabric that will surround each novelty piece of fabric. It readily became clear to me that I did not have enough of the purple fabric to cut into 280 pieces. I quickly gathered up a piece of the purple and one of my squares and dashed off to Jackman's Fabrics, offering up a prayer to the fabric saint that more of the purple remained in the store.

I found the proper color on the shelf, eying it with the sinking feeling that there were not 3 yards remaining on the bolt. Once at the counter I had the clerk go over the numbers with me to see how much more fabric was required for my squares. Math is totally not my thing, so to try to calculate the yardage needed to cut 140 5 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles plus an additional 140 9 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles was a challenge for me. But I thought 3 yards would do it. As the clerk measured my sample square, she said "You do know that your square is 5 3/4" and not 5 1/2", don't you?" Huh? I know I looked at her like she was crazy. I explained that I use a quilting ruler, and I am very accurate with my cuts. She explained that some of the rulers have an extra 1/4" in them. WTH!!! Why would anyone think that was a good idea?

At any rate she confirmed that 3 yards would do the trick, and as luck would have it that is exactly what remained on the bolt. Whew, crisis diverted. But when I got home and looked at my ruler, sure enough it has the extra 1/4" on it. So the rest of the afternoon I cut that amount off of each of the 70 squares plus all the purple strips I had already prepared. Like I don't already have enough cutting to do! First I threw the stupid ruler and its three larger sized brothers in the recycle bin. Maybe I should rethink that and throw them in the trash. Or else some poor woman who shops at Goodwill is going to be cussing this old sew and sew!

Sew Be It

Two years ago when my friend Diane purchased the quilt I had donated to the school auction for her daughter Lauren, she cautioned that she would need quilts for for Tommy and Courtney when they graduated as well. At the time I wasn't sure if she was serious, and anyway Tommy wouldn't graduate until 2011 and that was a long way off. Well, Diane was serious and it is now 2011!

Last week the two of us went to Jackman's Fabrics to begin looking at material. Tommy wants a quilt just like Lauren's except that he wants purple as the main color and not Mountain Dew green. So the good news is that I know what pattern I am doing, the bad news is that the quilt has 70 squares of novelty fabric, each representing something of the past or present. That's right - I need 70 different fabrics. We found 26 at Jackman's, as well as three different purples for my borders. I came up with 18 additional fabrics I had a home that will work, leaving me with 26 additional fabrics to locate.

I love shopping online as I can enter what I'm looking for, say Harry Potter fabric, and I can usually find something that will work. The trick is to make sure it will look okay with purple! I located the lady I have purchased from in the past, and I'll be able to make up the rest of the squares from her I think. She is looking for a few things I could not find, such as something to represent a trip to Germany/Austria. Castles, perhaps? It will be fun to see what she comes up with. Last time she sent me a whole bag of scrap materials to dig through, and she wouldn't let me pay her anything for them since I was donating the quilt.

Last night I cut the 44 pieces of fabric I already have into 5 1/2" squares. Lauren's were only 4 1/2", but Tommy is quite a bit taller than her for one thing. The fabrics we located also have larger patterns on them, so I wanted the extra inch to capture more of the detail. While I am waiting for the other fabrics to arrive I'll begin cutting the purple strips which will border each of the squares. All the cutting is the most time consuming and least rewarding part of quilting, in my opinion. I like seeing all the squares come together as I sew. Oh well, off to the cutting board!

That Old Sew and Sew

My daughter's graduation quilt consists of 5" x 7" prints of photos from her travels, arranged to look like filmstrips. Considering this was a new pattern for me, things were moving along pretty smoothly. Unfortunately the pattern is designed to be a wall quilt, and Katie wants a quilt that will cover her bed at college. I emailed the pattern's creator to ask her how to make the modifications, and her reply was that I could easily make the quilt longer by adding another filmstrip, but in order to make it wider she would have to rewrite the whole pattern. Okay, then...there was no way I was going to tackle the math on adjusting the pattern pieces. I made the filmstrips as the pattern suggested, and added an additional row of photos. Then I made the inner and outer borders larger than suggested, and even added another small strip of the fabric that makes the sprockets of the filmstrip. Then I had Katie take a look at it. She thought it needed to be larger, and I agreed.

I went back to my favorite fabric store where we had purchased all the fabric a few weeks ago, thinking I could easily add an additional 5" black border to balance the quilt. After looking at all 8 bolts of black fabric. I determined that none of them matched exactly. As the blacks would be right up against each other, this is a problem. Looking at various solutions, I decided to buy more of the striped fabric and make another thin row of that to separate the blacks. I was able to get the striped fabric as well as two sides of the additional black borders sewn on last night. I have to say, I am pleased with the end result. It looks like it was always planned to have the extra borders.

But I can't believe I forgot to pick up the batting while I was at the fabric store. Guess I'll be making another trip!

Spring Has Sprung

I had to run to the fabric store tonight since I was a little short on the fabric I needed for the main squares on the graduation quilt. I about had a heart attack when I arrived at the shop and noticed there was no more of the necessary fabric on the shelf. I have 57 of the required 70 squares complete, so changing the design at this stage of the game would be a huge problem. But then I spied the fabric on a clearance table. The good news is that it was now only $4.99/yard. The bad news is that there was 1 1/3 yards folded on the table and you had to take the whole thing. I only need 1/3 yard, but I was so excited to find it that I took it all. As we quilters say, there's no such thing as too large of a fabric stash. I'll find a use for the remainder later on. I mention all of this because my favorite fabric store happens to be located near my favorite ice cream store - Ted Drewe's Frozen Custard. This custard is so rich that you consume all of your daily calories in one concrete or sundae. We only go a couple of times a year, usually when company is in town. But today was so beautiful, and the temperature was still 63 degrees. So my husband rode along with me, even braving the female dominated fabric store first - that's how much he loves his TDs. When we arrived at the custard stand, I couldn't believe my eyes. You would have thought George Clooney was there or something. (He is in town filming a new movie.) The place was packed! There were at least 15 people lined up in front of each of the windows. But what a great place to people watch. Families, lovers, high school and college students, dog lovers with dogs in tow, motorcyle enthusiasts...you name it, you'll find it in line at TDs. The wait never seems long as it is so fascinating to look and listen. And the wait doesn't matter anyway - it is always worth it!