Miss Tina's Forth of July Quilt

[BrokenolMarine]

I think I put a pic up of Miss T's new Quilting Machine, we went down and picked it up several months ago. I don't mind as she uses it a LOT... and she is very good with it. Just like one of our first projects was her "She Shed," she lives in it.

The She Shed:

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The new Quilter is about 12 feet long in this pic, but she has removed the extensions to make it 12 feet long to allow for King Size Quilts. It is now just 10 feet long. The machine rides on tracks to quilt from one end to the other. The Quilt is rolled on the one roller, then passed to the other roller as you quilt from one end to the other, and back, binding the layers together with complicated patterns. Women used to hold quilting parties and do this by hand with the quilts in giant frames.

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Here is her 2022 Forth of July Quilt... beautiful. Still a lot of work as it's a lot of squares and patterns sewn together, filler and backing sewn on, then quilted. I love it.

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She's back there somewhere.

[cooperhawk]

Wow! Pretty darn nice. Happy wife, happy life.

[BrokenolMarine]

Yup, keep her happy, she doesn't beat me in my sleep!

[BigAl52]

Very nice Marine. My sister has one of those machines also. She makes alot of quilts

[BrokenolMarine]

Tina has been making quilts for a while, and was doing the quilting part on her bernina...

Then she found a lady up the road a bit that had a quilter (as old as the 80 year old woman) that did it, fifty bucks per quilt. Worth every penny, but she was always backed up. You left them, she called when she was done. Six weeks, eight. Whenever.

She took one of her machines to the "Bernina Guy" for service and an older one for repair and they started talking "Quilters." Next thing you know.

[fortyshooter]

Wow that is nice work and a great piece of equipment there! Has she tried a Henry themed quilt yet? Might sell a bunch of those!

[BrokenolMarine]

Wow that is nice work and a great piece of equipment there! Has she tried a Henry themed quilt yet? Might sell a bunch of those!

She hasn't sold a single quilt yet. So far, she hasn't tried here. We went to a craft show and when she put quilts up, they balked at the price. We were in the wrong show, I guess. Handmade quilts require a huge amount of work and folks at that craft show were looking for cheapo items. The booth next to her were selling pieces of barn board, unfinished, with sloppily painted , really sloppily painted slogans on them, for fifteen and twenty dollars. "Welcome to our kitchen" "The Cook's Rules" "Bless This House"

They were selling as fast as the old gal could slop the paint on them. They were painting them on old barn siding and flooring scraps.
Miss T had homemade all natural soaps for $5 a bar, LARGE bars. Various scents. She had made small samples of the various scents, People were trying to take four and five of the samples they liked, SHE had to put the samples behind the table... In town, in the retail setting, all natural soap in bars her size were selling for $7 to $15 a bar.

She had the quilts at $100 to $125 each. Didn't sell one. One lady "loved" one quilt, came by three times and offered $50. Then $75. Tina had more than $75 in materials in the quilt. In the larger craft shows the quilts run from $200 to $400 depending on size and the details in the pattern. Some of the really detailed quilts go for double that.

Her quilts have either gone as gifts, or are on the back of the furniture or on our beds, laps, or gone to charity auctions. She just finished a spiderman themed quilt for a granddaughter... If she did make a Henry Quilt... I think I know who would claim it. I'd find a place to put it.

[markiver54]

Kudos to Tina!! That is some mighty fine work!

[graywolf]

I showed my wife the pictures. She’s never quilted on anything like that but said are really nice. They used to have quilting bees here. The women would take turns quilting at each other’s houses. All hand made. Sadly though, my wife is last one, and misses all family and friends that used to quilt. She hasn’t made one in a long time. Post a picture of her quilts all along so I can show her. She knows how much time and work your wife puts in making them.

[North Country Gal]

I have a neighbor friend who has her whole basement set up with quilting machines. She belongs to a local club and they are very active and she travels to quilting shows in the area. Not sure what she actually sells, but she quilts for the love of it, same as I bike and shoot and play music out of love. As a friend once told me, the quickest way to kill a hobby is to try to make money from it.

[BrokenolMarine]

I have a neighbor friend who has her whole basement set up with quilting machines. She belongs to a local club and they are very active and she travels to quilting shows in the area. Not sure what she actually sells, but she quilts for the love of it, same as I bike and shoot and play music out of love. As a friend once told me, the quickest way to kill a hobby is to try to make money from it.

I fully agree. I have shared exactly this sentiment before. When I was teaching firearms, the private classes were never about the money. I turned down about 80% of prospective students, sending them to other instructors.

[BrokenolMarine]

I showed my wife the pictures. She’s never quilted on anything like that but said are really nice. They used to have quilting bees here. The women would take turns quilting at each other’s houses. All hand made. Sadly though, my wife is last one, and misses all family and friends that used to quilt. She hasn’t made one in a long time. Post a picture of her quilts all along so I can show her. She knows how much time and work your wife puts in making them.

Here are a few more of the quilts. Some are complete, most are in progress pics so you can see the work involved. She has a special cloth thingee that hangs on the wall, where she can press the pieces in place to lay out the pattern. Then she pins the various pieces together to form to quilt. She'll pull pieces down and sew the blocks together to form bigger blocks, then sew the bigger blocks or strips together depending on the design. Eventually she ends up with the quilt, and it goes on the quilting machine. Before that, it was sewn together on the machine or sent out to the woman as noted above.

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I have some others, but you can see the amount of work that goes into them. Some take her a couple weeks, others much longer. Often she sews the boarders on after quilting by hand, she likes the look of that type of boarder and it can't be machine sewn.

[cooperhawk]

Those are very nice indeed. When I was younger my Mother and her Ladies Aid at the Church
would hold quilting bees and donate the money they made to veteran's charities. They made
some very nice quilts. I used to purchase for or five a year and give them as wedding gifts,
ect. City folks treasured them but country folks just took them for granted. We still have
one or two here at the house that we use from time to time.

[BrokenolMarine]

Tina made me several, one stays with my recliner as poor circulation keeps my legs cold when sitting. The other travels with the wheelchair, as many buildings are kept way too cold. One stays in each truck for the same reason. She has quilted and crocheted for most of the family.

One of our paras in the veterans charity saw the chair blanket and admired it, so... Then his buddy saw his and...

She made a heavy quilt for my dad after his brain cancer surgery years ago, because he claimed he could never get warm. My step mom says half the time you could only see his bald dome peeking out the top. She enjoys making them, and they bring joy and comfort... The classic win/win.

[Hatchdog]

I have to say that there sure is a lot of craftsmanship in your home. Very nice.

My cousin’s wife was very active in quilting with a group of ladies. Sadly she passed from cancer way too soon. At her service there was a nice display of her quilts. A very nice tribute to her.

[BrokenolMarine]

I'm sorry for your loss. Although Miss T and I are far from wealthy, I worked hard, and we can pay our way, for which I'm grateful. We don't sell the things we make often, though we have been known to barter. We believe in paying it forward. I remember a number of times in my life when friends held out a hand to help or offered kind words at just the right time. We have tried to do the same. "Thought you could use this," could be the nicest thing ever said. Whether the words accompany a bottle of cold water, or a desperately needed hug.

[clovishound]

My wife used to be into quilting. Boxes and boxes of quilt blocks. Even went to a couple quilting conventions. She spent a whole lot of time and money and energy on quilting.

Total number of finished quilts after several years in the hobby.

1

I never complained. I have my own hobbies and output from the hobby is not a major consideration. I played around with woodworking hand tools for years. Going to flea markets, forging a closer relationship with my brother, rehabbing lots of old tools, some over 100 years old.

I never made a whole lot with those tools, but I had fun, and still have most of them in my shop. A rather old, large chisel came in real handy when the guy was installing the new shower base a couple months ago. The studs needed a little taken off in a couple spots. I went to the shop and brought back a monster chisel (a slick) which made short work of removing some wood in a corner. I didn't even complain that he ran it through a nail. I'll have to spend some time getting that huge nick honed out, but the shower got installed for my wife.

[graywolf]

The time and work involved, you have to love doing it. The quilts my wife and her mom made were mostly for special occasions, like births, bridal showers. Most wouldn’t use them. Put in cedar chest and save. Show them off thru the years. Each pattern had a name.

[BrokenolMarine]

My wife used to be into quilting. Boxes and boxes of quilt blocks. Even went to a couple quilting conventions. She spent a whole lot of time and money and energy on quilting.

Total number of finished quilts after several years in the hobby.

1

I never complained. I have my own hobbies and output from the hobby is not a major consideration. I played around with woodworking hand tools for years. Going to flea markets, forging a closer relationship with my brother, rehabbing lots of old tools, some over 100 years old.

I never made a whole lot with those tools, but I had fun, and still have most of them in my shop. A rather old, large chisel came in real handy when the guy was installing the new shower base a couple months ago. The studs needed a little taken off in a couple spots. I went to the shop and brought back a monster chisel (a slick) which made short work of removing some wood in a corner. I didn't even complain that he ran it through a nail. I'll have to spend some time getting that huge nick honed out, but the shower got installed for my wife.

Shortly after we moved here, we met an older gentleman, well into his 80s. He was moving a hutch onto a trailer in front of his house and Tina wanted to stop and see if it was for sale. HE was actually taking it to the dump. We bought it. I repaired the water damaged bottom and removed the doors, remade the shelves and refinished a few things here and there and Tina painted it. It stands in her She Shed to this day. She stores all kinds of things in the cabinet. We invited the old fella over to see the transformation and had a friendship with him since.

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He admired the work that Tina had done over the first six months in the new sewing shop, and asked if she would be interested in a bunch of material and stuff his wife had left behind when she passed. He would make her a fair price on the collection. She went over to look. He had FIFTY rubbermaid tubs of material, crotchet needles, threads, yarn, etc. In one tub, lovingly packaged in ziploc gallon bags, were the blocks for a large quilt. "For my daughter," he said. She never got to make it.

Tina went thru the tubs and tossed what was dry rotted from the heat in the metal storage building, sorted the things for him to take to yard sale / flea markets and made an offer on the things that she and my daughter could use. He asked if she would be interested in turning those blocks into a quilt so he could give it to his daughter for Christmas that year... from her mother. They bought the various things needed, deciding on colors and styles for the border and backing, and she put it together, quilted it, and he had a quilt for the daughter in time for Christmas.

I didn't know I was up to bat next. I ended up making a shadowbox to display his original little league uniform he wore for an entire season, complete with the stockings. It was to be a gift for his son, a huge baseball fan. It turned out very well. Interesting projects both, and the look in his eyes when he saw them, was worth all the work. I put together the shadowbox from oak, with a plexiglass front with a thick foam background. He wanted the Uniform Jersey, pants and Stockings displayed as shown. Tina embroidered his name and number on the background, since you couldn't see the back of his shirt in the display.

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Both kids were thrilled.

[daytime dave]

Marine, please tell Tina her quilts are beautiful. Her prices are extremely reasonable.