Stitching Together

Sunday has become a day that my daughter comes home to visit and spend the day with me.  Sally pulled out her Churn Dash quilt top not long ago and has been quilting on it.  She tried it with the hoop, but that didn't work for her...neither has thimbles, she went through about 4 yesterday before just giving up on the idea completely.

Adam joined us (he's been a little under the weather) and we pulled up some Netflix on the computer and got Sally hooked on Life on Mars.  I think we watched 5 episodes yesterday afternoon.  The "lady" beside Adam is Sally's mannequin that we picked up at at yard sale.  (The black hat...I made for my mother to wear after the chemo treatments started making her hair too thin to go out in the cold.  She loved it.)  I finally gave Adam one of my sewing machines and a screwdriver and he went to work seeing how they work and cleaning it for me.

He decided to count the sewing machines we have...as you can see from these two pictures...we have several.  Between me and Sally (who took a few with her when she moved) we counted 17 machines.  Okay...I know that sounds like a lot and I'm not really sure that is accurate, and not all of them are housed in my house....and not all of them are functional.  However....we love sewing machines.  I am proud to say that I have my great-grandmothers, my grandmothers, and my mothers sewing machines.

I've started quilting on one of my mother's quilt tops.  It was really hard to finally put needle to her work.  This pattern is a sailboat pattern, turned to make a square.  I love the image that the sails make when they come together.  I guess I got a little sentimental quilting this top.  I dug into my mother's last piecing project and pulled out her thimble, needle and thread.  The center was quilted with the thread that my mother had threaded and placed in her pin cushion.

I also worked on an Iris Grandmother's Dutch Doll block that will be added to one of the contrasting blocks in my green nine patch.  The dress is tacked down and the rest is pined for tacking today at lunch.  She's made with some of Mother's stash.  The block she is on is a 14 inch block.

Now....how observant are you?   From the first two pictures...how many sewing machines can you find?