My Home Town

Yes, this is a picture of my home town, Chenango Forks, NY. The picture was taken on the Fourth of July in the early 1900s. The location is Rt. 12. The second building on the left background is now an antique shop Extra Buttons.
It's hard to imagine a sack race on what is now a heavily traveled road from Binghamton to Norwich.
Chenango Forks was once described by a regional author as the 'longest small town (hamlet) in New York State. It runs thru the Towns of Barker, Chenango and Fenton in Broome County and the Town of Greene in Chenango County.
The area was settled by John Barker and Simeon Rogers from CT in the late 1700s. It was once a canal town when the Chenango Canal was in operation. Later it became the home of railroaders . Now we are a bedroom community to people working in Greene, Binghamton and the Triple Cities.
We are going to try to put in the air conditioning
units today. The living room AC has been bumped down the stairs and is awaiting my pleasure of putting it in the window and fixing the plexiglass above it. First I had to move stuff in the sewing room to get to the AC.
I need to go bake a cake. I'm going to try Paula Deen's Blueberry Crush Cake. One day I watched her make this on her show. It sounds yummy.
I'll leave a piece for SweetOldBob and take the rest to Donna Lee's covered dish supper tonight.
This morning I cut more 5" squares for my Nickel
Brick Quilt. I decided to make this quilt queen size.

Garden Maze

The raffle quilt is finished. One picture shows a corner after the binding was sewn on. The other picture was taken Thursday after it was layered and tied and before the binding was applied. Now to sell lots of tickets.

I couldn't think of a name for this quilt...maybe Garden Maze or Don't Step on the Posies.

It's been another busy day finishing with my grandson Aaron's 21st birthday party. His birthday is on the 20th. Seems like it wasn't long ago since his 1st birthday party.

But I've Been Busy

Wow, 12 days since I last posted. I have been busy.
The raffle quilt is together and I am sewing down the binding. The quilt was layered and tied on Thursday at the Willet Fire Station where friend June goes each Thursday to sew with some women up there. We had lots of room to set up her frame and later to put the quilt on the big tables to machine sew the binding.
This quilt is done in the Disappearing Nine Patch using floral fabrics and a lovely yellow as the center block. The binding is the same yellow. It was made by the Campfire Girls, Ella Mae, June, Jeanie, Pat, Lois Ann and myself to be raffled to benefit a friend who lost her young husband last fall.
After I cut the binding, sewed the strips together and pressed it, I wound the binding on a toilet paper core and put a narrow strip of scrap fabric thru it and fastened the ends of the strip with a safety pin. When I was ready to sew on the binding I just put the loop around my neck and the binding rolled off the core as I sewed. No more puddles of tangled binding around my feet. I anchored the beginning of the binding to the core with a pin and used a pin at the end to fasten the binding until I was ready to sew.
Do you use a lint roller when you sew? Whisk it over your clothing, cutting mat, sewing table and your quilt. I keep one near my sewing machine. In addition I had to try Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom blocks. I did two, one in low contrast fabric scraps and the second with black for the center square and triangles.
Yesterday I drove Bob to the VA Medical Center in Syracuse. He had to see a dermatologist for the lesions on his wrists and back. The doctor said it is not skin cancer but from exposure to sun for many years. (Sounds like pre-cancer to me.) The doctor treated these spots and prescribed a cream to be applied twice a day for a month. Bob was a red head, very fair skinned and always worked outside as a brick mason. So Nurse Ratchett will be doing the home treatments. When we left the VA Bob's mood was greatly improved.
I just wanted to mention PTSD. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) Bob is a Korean War veteran. He has PTSD and has nightmares every night. It is hard to imagine living with this since the early fifties. He has done that and hasn't had a good quality of life because of PTSD.
PTSD has been around for many years. It is a new name given to shell shock, battle fatigue and other names. Others have PTSD from other traumas in their lives, accidents, fires, sexual molestation and deaths of loved ones to mention just a few causes.
I'm awake early today and can hear the birds already singing. Thank you, Lord, for these small blessings in our lives.
Chris

All From One

This beautiful quilt was exhibited at the Common Threads Guild's show on May 1 and 2 at the Hawleyton Methodist Church. The top was made from one fabric, cleverly pieced together. Some blocks were done using the 4 Patch Posey method.

This was another good show by this guild, lots of appliqued quilts, a display of antique quilts and vendors from our local quilt shops.

Best of Show was won by Marilyn Belford for her Medea and Sons.

Lazy Days of Spring

In appreciation of ten years of quilt retreats at Casowasco Grace McQueen and others made this wall hanging for the new dining hall. Some of the blocks are painted and others are pieced. Several are photos transfered to fabric. There is a big label on the back signed by all of us at this April 2009 retreat.

This April we had different accomodations because Emmaus Commons is being renovated, rebuilt and enlarged in order for 400 campers to dine at one time. We sewed in Bethany Lodge's lounge area instead of Foster, which was used as a dining area. We slept in Bethany's bedrooms. It worked out very well for all of us.

Casowasco has a new food director. He delighted us with a wonderful Butternut Squash Bisque for Saturday lunch. I could have licked my bowl clean. It was delicious. On Saturday night we had Apple Smoked Pork Loin. That was another treat.

The weather was beautiful. We all declared that this was the best April retreat we've been to.

The second picture shows Grace's innovation in making a One Block Wonder Quilt. She said she only had a small amount of fabric so she used red blocks to complete the wall hanging. Grace is an artist and also sews clothing. Her clothing show her creativity.

One time she told us about many years ago she had two brown bags on the counter. She was going off to teach a class to make bras and panties. Her husband went out the door with his lunch. He was greatly surprised at lunch time to find his bag contained a red bra and panties she was using for a model.

Tomorrow I'm going out to the Hawleyton Methodist Church for a quilt show by Common Threads Guild. I get so excited about going to quilt shows. They don't have to be big ones. I love guild shows. I am always amazed at the talent we have locally.

Looking forward to being amazed again,

Chris