Catching Up.....

Hello Friends.....

   Well guess this has not been my year for getting my quilting goals accomplished. I have been sick and down in the back for just about the entire year. I have started feeling alot better although my back is still not real good and I have bursitis in my hip. Hoping that goes away soon.

   I had alot of quilting goals I wanted to accomplish this year but will not dwell on that since there is no catching up at this point. I will just be happy to be sewing and quilting again. I have been in bad need of a new chair in my sewing room. I have been using my Mothers old swivel chair she used when she worked at the bank years ago. It has a date on the bottom of 1962! I believe we used it beyond it's years for sure.

   It has contributed to making my back hurt when I was sewing. Hubby took me over on the coast and we found an Office Depot that had a sale on office chairs. They also have a great selection of their chairs assembled so I was actually able to sit and try them out and see what one was going to work for me. We bought a really nice chair for $99.00.

   Yesterday I tried out my new chair for the first time and it was very comfortable. One of the quilts I had planned to make this year is a memory quilt in remembrance of my Dad. He was a musician all his life and played many different instruments.

 I have fond memories of him playing music and singing. The quilt I plan to make will have a photo of him when he was very young with his trumpet and machine embroidered instruments thruout the quilt that he has played over the years. The trumpet of course and the accordian, piano, drums, guitar and harmonica.

   I got a start yesterday on embroidering a few of the instruments. I have been collecting embroidery designs and music themed fabrics for several years to make this quilt.

   I found some really nice musical themed designs at Embroidery Library. I buy alot of my designs from that web site on the internet. I used a gold mettalic thread when I embroidered the trumpet and it turned out real nice.

   My Dad started playing the trimpet when he was about 4 yrs old. I think of all the instruments he played it was my favorite other than when he sang. Sometimes when listening to the radio or occassionally on TV I will hear one of the songs my Dad sang back years ago and it brings tears to my eyes. The song "Georgia" sung by Willie Nelson and the song "For the Good Times" always make me cry.

   When my Dad passed away, my Mother gave me his accoustic guitar. I had never played one before but I have learned to play it a little bit.

   My Dad played the accordian many years ago when I was real young. Back when the Polka was really popular and he played songs like Beer Barrel Polka and my family would all jump up and be dancing around the livingroom.  What great memories!

   So this is going to be the start of Dad's quilt. I will add more photos of the embroidery as I get them completed. I am researching printing photos on fabric so I can have Dad's photo on the quilt.

   When this quilt is done I will use it to snuggle up on the couch on a cold winter evening as I watch TV. So drop by once in a while and follow the progress of my Dad's quilt.  I am open to suggestions if you have done a project like this before, I have done embroidery on a quilt before but the photo on fabric is going to be new for me. 

 Catch ya later quilting friends!
 August 24, 2012
 Corry Geissinger


 

I'm back.....

     So sorry for my absence the past few months. I have been very ill the past several months. I am hoping the rest of 2012 is much better than the first few months for me. I am really late getting into my quilting projects I wanted to accomplish for this year although while I was under the weather I have been working on a Christmas quilt I have been hand quilting for the past year. It will be given to my daughter, Christi and I am really hoping to have it completed before the holidays this year. I will try and post a photo of it later today.
    One chilly night, Christi stayed over night with us and was sleeping on the couch and woke up feeling chilly. She told me she was tempted to get her quilt that was laying on my sewing table and snuggleing up in it although it wasn't finished....but she saw all the safety pins holding the batting, backing and quilt top together and thought perhaps it was not such a good idea...lol.
    Since I have it all quilted except the last outer border so it won't be long now. I figure by the end of summer to have it finished. This last border is very wide and has a snowy Christmas scene of horses, ponies, kitties and other farm animals. I am hand quilting around all the animals and scenery so it is very time consuming but will be very nice, I think. Stop back later and see some pics of this quilt.....

It's a New Year.....

Yes, it's a new year and I am late in getting started. I have set a few goals for myself for this year and one of those is to cultivate my Free Motion Quilting skills. I want to participate in the 2012 FMQ Challange and Leah Day's FMQ Project for 2012.

I have often been frustrated with my FMQ attempts and after watching Leah Day's 1st Quilt Along Blog I see perhaps why I have not had much success. I plan to practice Leah's teachings from this first blog so that I can learn to successfully make these simple shapes before moving on to trying to make leaf shapes we are to do in the January tutorial for the 2012 Challenge.
I really think I would struggle to make these leaves when I haven't mastered nice curves in stippling yet.

I am more excited about this now and looking forward to taking these tiny steps to get started. The link to Leah's first blog on this is here...if you want to see what I am talking about.
Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project Blog 1

My Christmas Tradition

This is my Christmas Tradition.....It is kind of long to read but it may just be what you or someone you know may need to get thru the holidays...

Christmas time for most of us is our favorite time of year but for many it becomes a very sad and difficult time to struggle thru after you have lost a loved one. Please read what I have to share with you so that you may find your Christmas spirit again. Perhaps you have not lost a loved one...Well then maybe you can share this with some one that has and make a big difference in their holiday.

I lost my Dad 15 yrs ago and found that Christmas had a whole different meaning now. Instead of the the warm holiday spirit that my family always enjoyed with a great passion it was replaced with such a huge sadness and painful emptiness that was unbearable and seemed to grow worse when each holiday rolled around.

I began what I call my Christmas tradition that has helped me find my Christmas spirit and with each year it has grown and once again I am able to enjoy the holidays. It all began a few years after I lost my Dad......I still had to go thru the motions of Christmas because I had two little girls and so tried very hard to hide my pain. I used to love Christmas but now had grown to hate this time of year. I had to shop for Christmas gifts for the children but avoided the Christmas department with all the decorations and such like they were selling the plague! And then they would play that Christmas music thru out the store that was sure to have me standing in the middle of Walmart crying my eyes out. Sound familiar, or perhaps It's just me.

It is kind of hard to buy wrapping paper with out entering the dreaded Christmas department so I intended to make this quick. As I made my way back down the aisle with paper in hand a little gold trumpet caught my eye, not that I was looking for anything but it kind of jumped out at me and said, DAD! My father was a musician and among the many intstruments he played the trumpet was what he had played since he was a young boy. Tears welled up in my eyes and felt the urge to just flee out of the store but instead I picked up the little trumpet and wept in the middle of Walmart yet again.

I bought the ornament and hung it on my tree that year. I still had many episodes of tears thru out that holiday but each time I looked at Dad's trumpet hanging on the tree I felt as though in a way he was with me that year. The little gold trumpet is a tribute to his memory and began the healing of my Christmas spirit. I have since each year bought an ornament or some sort of decoration in memory of my Dad.

I can't tell you how much that has helped me and brings a warm and happy feeling to my heart each year. I am doing something with that grief and have found a way to still include my Dad's memory in my holiday celebration! He would not have wanted me to let my holiday spirit die with him.


I since have lost my Mother as well and each year I buy an angel in memory of her. Many others have adopted my tradition the past couple years and found that this has helped them as well and with each year their hearts and Christmas spirit heals a little more with each holiday. In addition to our 7 ft tree with all the trimmings I now have a tree especially for all those "tradition ornaments" that I call my tribute tree. It is a little not quite 3 ft artificial tree that I sit on the end of my dining room table that sits in front of the window. It takes me about 3 hours to decorate it each year with the many ornaments I have collected for Dad, Mom and a few other loved ones. It does not make me sad but is decorated with love and great memories of each person and pet.

Yes....I even have ornaments in memory of my horse Cherokee and "Gumpy" my cat.

Hey, what ever helps us thru a difficult time, I say, do it! Our pets become as family members and is painful to lose as well. Gumpy had a favorite green bulb he would steal off the tree. He is no longer with us but his favorite bulb is still hung on the tree inspite of all the scratches on it. I wrote his name with Elmers Glue on the bulb and sprinkled glitter on it so it now bears his name.

I know that you are probably thinking nothing could help the dreadful pain you are feeling with each day as the holidays approach but believe me you would be surprised how a tiny symbol of your love and memory of your loved one will give you just the little shove you need to begin to heal. My Aunt Mary loved Cardinals so my cousin Judy buys something with cardinals each Christmas. Think of something that reminds you of that person and go buy that ornament today. I know that I can not be the only person that has stood in a department store during the holidays with tears in her eyes.


Share this post with anyone you like. My hope is that my tradition will help others this holiday. If you would like to contact me about my
tradition email me at mycherokee@earthlink.net

p.s. I have shared my tradition every year for about 12years and have heard back from so many people that decided to join in my Christmas Tradition and found it very helpful thus it became my Tradition.....


Love
Corry Geissinger

Been a While.....

Well I know it has been a while since I have posted on my blog. The last I wrote I was starting to quilt the Antique Car quilt I have been working on over the summer. I had hoped to have it done long ago but...Well it took much longer than planned. I really took my time with the quilting as it was the first time I actually have quilted a quilt with the exception of the Sun Bonnet Sue which was done only with "stitch in the ditch".

I had a few health issues over the summer that held me up quite a bit on my sewing but that is all behind me and I completed the quilting and the binding. Monday I made a quilt label and hope to put that on the quilt today and the Antique Car quilt will be done.

I am going to create a tab for this quilt in the right hand column of my blog. I hope you will take the time to click on over to the page for this quilt and check out the photos of the completed quilt.

I am so glad I decided to quilt it myself although I was extremely nerveous to begin with. I was afraid to start because of my lack of experience and did not want to ruin all my work. It turned out well and I learned alot and have alot more confidence now. I am still not ready to stipple but there will come a day when I will conquer that fear and perfect that technique.

Not sure what my next project will be yet but for now will publish a page for the Antique Car quilt....don't forget to check it out.

Corry

Quilting Today....

I started quilting the Antique Car quilt that I have been working on yesterday.

This quilt has machine embroidered antique cars in the blocks and will be given to my Father in Law when finished. I have been putting off the quilting of this quilt for a while. I don't have alot of experience doing the quilting myself but I have to start somewhere don't I. I so far am doing stitch in the ditch. This is going good so far.

I ordered some templets a few weeks ago to use on the outer borders. The background quilting inside the block is what I am not comfortable with. I have been practicing but not getting the hang of it so far. My stippling looks pretty sad but I am going to still work at it. I heard somewhere to practice on paper doing the design and then it will come easier when I am using the machine. I plan to try that and see if it helps....will let ya know.
When I get this quilt done I will take some photos and let ya'll take a peek before I give it to Pop.

My Design Wall this Monday....

The past week I have been working on some blocks that I needed to make for an exchange in the Quilters Board. I have gotten behind on my blocks and need to get caught up on this.

The first blocks I made are a bird theme. I found my block designs at the quilters Cache on the internet. These two blocks are called Squares and Stars

This block was also from quilters Cache and is called Lovers Knot. I like the way this one turned out.

This last one was paper pieced and is from the Carol Doak web site. The design is called Laced Star Variation.

I really enjoy doing paper piecing although these blocks are more time consuming but they turn out nice. One more block to make tomorrow and then I am back to work on the Antique car quilt.