Friday, January 23, 2009

MORE QUILTING TOYS

Here's my
new toys.
Clover's
Quick
Yo-Yo
Maker
in 2 sizes.







I selected sizes Small & Extra Large Yo Yo Makers. This afternoon I sat and made most of these.
The yo yo maker comes in 2 pieces, the plate and the disk. I snapped the small size apart to show you. Easy peasy to make yo yos this way.
The fabrics in the background are Cottage Rose by Alex Anderson for P & B Textiles and Fruit Basket by Robert Kaufman.
We're having a heat wave here in NY today. Temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Back to snow and rain tonight.
The other day I read a tip in one of my quilting magazines that I have to implement. The writer told us she buys a lot of rulers. Because the instructions often get lost, she makes a copy of the instructions and put them in a notebook. She keeps the original with the ruler.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Baby it's cold outside

Hi there, We've been like most of the country, shivering. Cousin Ella Mae reported -8 on her hill outside of Chenango Forks. Early this afternoon we had greatly diminished water pressure. So I called the emergency phone number for our townhouses. The maintenance man called right back to tell me that the Town of Chenango had a broken water main on Kattelville Road so the water was shut off. Water was restored by 5 p.m.
Today I cut 5" squares and 2 1/2" strips from scraps. I'm well over half way done sewing the Nickel Bricks. Now I need to cut more 1 1/2" black strips. I think I'll make that quilt larger than the book Loose Change shows.
If I keep making small quilts, I'll have a wardrobe of them when they send me off to the nursing home. Can't you picture it now. "Ms Chris, which laprobe will it be today. But it's not Christmas. How about the pink one?" They'll test my mind by which quilt I order for the week.
I'm happy to report I have been working on a new genealogy. Nearly two weeks ago I had a call from a woman in California with questions about the Hurlbut family who lived in Barker. I did know that family and even better, Dad worked for one of the family for a few years at the time I was born.
So far I have traced the line to 1610 in England. I am working specifically on the branch that settled in Barker in late 1700s or very early 1800s. John Hurlbut is reputed to have come up the Tioughnioga River is a dugout canoe. Now that I have found that he had nine children, I wonder how the rest of the family got to the place where they settled just above Halfway Brook. Perhaps they came in a bit later. The farm is still owned by the family.
Stay warm and safe in this wintery weather.