Blood Sweat and Tears

In August I began a love affair with old barbed wire.  I've continued playing with wire.  There are several different kinds here.  It's amazing when you think about it.  These patents, these entrepreneurs, were instrumental in changing a way of life.

This was one of the ways (I'm not sure of the date) barbed wire was wound for sale.  You bought it by the roll but I now sell it by the wreath.

I removed the old wire...I use every piece.  A friend of mine shared an idea.  I decided to try to run with it so this became my base.

As with most of my "creations" messy hands are happy hands.

You have to be careful.  Not only are the barbs super sharp, tearing my skin, but when bending and wrapping things can be caught, in this case my finger.  Ouch! 

Can you see it?

It's going to be a bird's nest complete with babies.

A little more bird like weaving and I will call it complete.

I Detest Hand Sewing...

That may come as a great surprise to many but give me a machine and I will sew up a storm.  The hand work can go to someone else.

I was trained as a child to embroider and piece quilts but never liked it.  My stitches were like a drunken path.  I did discover crochet and made rugs,scarves and afghans.  There is where the joy lay, it moved faster and I did not have to thread a needle.

I have sewn many things in my lifetime including my finger with an old treadle sewing machine.  When the girls were small I would lay them down on material and cut around them to make a pattern.  It worked well.  I have made Halloween costumes, play costumes and even sewed some hunting items that hubby would see in a magazine and ask me to make...just from the picture.  I did it.  I have sewn Pioneer Dresses for our yearly contest, I have made curtains and dog clothes.  All with a machine.

Quilting was also something I was trained to do and the beauty of them was amazing but not when I did it.  My goal was to enlarge the pattern and make fewer blocks, all by machine.  I have hand quilted on a quilting frame and hand tacked many quilts.  Not something I do to relax.

Now give me a pattern or not, it doesn't really matter and I will whip out a quilt top in a day...and it will be artistic and interesting and one of a kind.  I made five home made quilts one year for my daughter's friends when they graduated high school. I also made all "new" seat covers for my daughter's car using old jeans.  I make purses and yard quilts from old jeans with out one hand stitch.

Neither one of my girls sew.  They have shown me pictures of curtains, balloon valances and drapes and asked me to make them...I did...all by machine.

Tonight I had to sew by hand, ugh, but it was a good thing.  A patch has been hand sewn for the daughter that is training in the nursing field.  I could not find a thimble, I could not see well to thread the needle, I believe I was bleeding when I finished but the patch in on.  I must teach them to sew!

Sewing was a different thing for Mom and Grandma.  They had such great pleasure piecing  a quilt and such beautiful quilts they were.  All their stitches were perfect, all the same length and in a perfectly straight line.  Amazing.  Mom sewed all my dresses from the flour sacks when I was small and I still remember how proud I was of them. Grandma's patching should be in a museum!

All three of us, my sisters and I, sewed our own clothes for school.  In fact, I remember sewing some elephant leg pants with a sailor top, complete with tie the night they first walked on the moon.

Give me a glue gun, staple gun, duct tape and I can build anything but please, don't make me hand sew one single item.

I don't sew much any more.  It is not a real joy of mine but it is a good talent to have.

I will paint, I will write, I will draw, I will sew by machine, I will crochet and create with saws, hammers, drills, and dremils but please, never make me sew.

...and all this came out because I sewed one patch by hand.