A good book…

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I recently finished “A Year of Living Biblically” by A.J. Jacobs. I very much enjoyed this book and wanted to let you know about it. Mr. Jacobs has already been on the best-seller list for his book “The Know-It-All”. In that book, he read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. 

Mr. Jacobs is of Jewish descent and an agnostic. He decided to spend a year following biblical laws as literally as he could. There are a lot of laws in the bible! He reads many versions of the bible – because they are all a bit different from each other and he’s not playing favorites. He chooses guides and teachers from different faiths to help him.

The book follows a diary format, with entries for most days. Mr. Jacobs is married and has a young son and it’s interesting to hear how this experience impacts them. I enjoyed his thought process as he tries to determine exactly what the bible is telling him to do. I found myself thinking about the way I live my own life in ways that I have not questioned before.


FYI – This book is funny!

Mr. Jacobs wonders in the beginning of the book how this experience might change him. I didn’t really wonder if reading the book would change me at all – and I’m surprised to find that it may have nudged me to be a bit better person!

What’s new…

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I’ve been working on a new quilt for a while now. It’s nowhere near ready for publication so I can’t show the whole quilt top here, but I can show a bit of it! Think of this as a bite o’ cake rather than a whole piece o’ cake.


Becky 

We have a winner….

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Thank you all for your lovely comments! I’m glad so many are enjoying our blog. A winner was randomly chosen and she is zizzybob! I’ve already sent an email to her and the block will be in the mail once I have a snail mail address.


Do keep an eye on our blog. We’ll do another door prize in a 2-3 weeks.

Happy stitching,

Becky

Blog Door Prize!

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Here it is – the first of Becky’s door prize blocks! The pattern is from the book Applique Delights. The background is 16″ x 16″ however, the block can be trimmed to as small as 12″ x 12″ finished size. Becky hand appliqued this block with her own two hands and it can be yours! 

To enter to win this lovely door prize, leave a comment on this post. Be sure to leave your name! 

On Saturday (or Sunday or Monday, depending on how the weekend goes) we’ll announce a RANDOM winner of our prize! If you post anonymously we may not be able to email you to let you know you won, so be sure to check back.

Another "celebrity interview"…

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Pat Sloan’s “celebrity” interview with Becky will be up on her blog on Thursday, November 6. Click here to read it. If you missed Linda’s interview on October 16, you can find it on Pat’s site. If you would like to read it, and other interviews, scroll down the right side of Pat’s blog and you will find the Celebrity Interviews link.

On Friday, November 7, we’re going to have another Blog Door Prize! It will be one of Becky’s found blocks (found when she cleaned out her closet!) Come back to this blog on Friday to see the block and leave a comment. We will choose a winner randomly from the pool of commenters. 

Washing fabric…

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A friend recently asked me the fabric washing question. I thought I’d share my response here on the blog… 


Linda and I ALWAYS pre-wash. As I remember it, people quit prewashing fabric back in the day when Harriet Hargrave came up with the idea that if you make your quilt with unwashed fabric, used a cotton batt, machine quilted it and then washed it, the quilt would look more antique. This is absolutely true. It helps to remember that this was back when machine quilting was not accepted in the quilt world and Harriet’s idea was a very big part of what helped machine quilting become accepted.

But, if you are not after the look of an antique quilt, we think you should still prewash because:

  • Fabric bleeds. How much it bleeds has a lot to do with the water chemistry where you are. There is a lot of variation in water chemistry.
  • Fabric shrinks – and not all at the same rate. In my opinion it’s better if fabric is shrunk before being sewn into a quilt.
  • I think prewashed fabric behaves better for both applique and piecing. And, no, I don’t add starch or sizing back into the fabric.
  • Fabric directly off the bolt has chemicals in it in addition to the sizing – formaldehyde being the one I dislike the most. There are also pesticides sprayed on merchandise as it enters the US and that may be in the fabric as well. I much prefer to wash those chemicals out of my fabric before I store it in the closet or sew with it.

So, I wash with Orvus Paste. I add a color catcher (made by Shout) if I am worried about bleeding. I also have Synthrapol and Retayne on hand (the bigger guns for controlling bleeding). I wash in the washer in cold water. I dry fabric in the dryer. I fold it and put it on the shelf until I’m ready to use it. Then I iron it.