So, I guess I left some of you in the dark after my post about my recent Australia trip. Jet lag had taken over and I was up at 3 am when I received an email message from a neighbor hoping all was okay at our house because she saw three police cars going onto our property. Being halfway around the world, that is a little disconcerting. Knowing my husband never checks email, I sent a message to the shop and asked if they could find out what was going on.
We have some outside landscaping projects going on and the contractor was digging a hole for a footer when he dug up some bones. By law they have to contact the police whenever bones are found.
We live in a 275-year-old farm house and we have never definitively pinpointed where the old family graveyard is. We have a couple of tombstones that were preserved over the years in one of our chimneys. When one end of the house was added onto, that chimney now became part of the master bedroom. (Yes, I have tombstones in my bedroom!) My first thought was that the bones might be part of the cemetery.
Bottom line, after five more police cars came (they were all interested in seeing the old house that they didn’t even know was here) along with a forensic pathologist, the determination was that the bones belonged to a horse or cow.
A short time after returning from Australia, I was off to Quilt Market in Minneapolis and am now back home for a while. It is a glorious spring day with my vegetable garden thriving and already producing onions, a variety of greens, peas, rhubarb and strawberries. The tomato plants are flourishing and the potatoes, as always this time of the year, look healthy and make quite a splash in the garden. This is also the time when so many spring flowers are blooming. Last spring, I was consumed with designing the Block of the Month for Craftsy and preparing for the taping. I felt as though I missed the entire gardening season. I was determined that this year I would take the time to literally “stop and smell the roses.” Sometimes you just have to take time off from quilting to enjoy the beauty of the seasons.
I like the way you reused the stones.
We saw that in recent trip to Coatia, where this has gone on for centuries. Glad that it was a cow or horse!
My grandmother’s house was actually built on an old cemetery that my grandfather had purchased from the Presbyterian Church. I have the original paperwork from the early 1900s and a list of the graves that were moved to the local cemetery. There was a vault on the property with the most beautiful peonies growing there, and the stepping stones walks were white marble. . .my father always assured me that they were not made from actual headstones, which were presumably all moved with the graves.
The story about the bones is really hard to top. The closest I can think of is when I found a bone on one of the footpaths on the William and Mary campus. It could easily have been mistaken for a twig, but it had these little gnaw marks on it. It felt like a bone. I reported it to the campus police who were pretty nonchalant about it when I reported it. Even I wasn’t too concerned. There hadn’t been any reports on the news of missing college students – but a bone 12″ long is a bone. Then, I got a phone call asking me to come back and show them where it was (even though my directions were really clear. The cops were a little concerned they might have a crime scene. I never heard anything more about it – but I think it was probably a bone from a deer.
Anyway, I hope you are well and enjoying this beautiful spring Memorial Day weekend, wherever you are. Best,
Good morning,
What needles and length do you use and how many stitches to the inch should I strive for? I am sewing a tumbling block quilt by hand, (new quilter too) and can use all the help I can get!
Thank you for your help and would like information on any instructional classes you may have.
Cheers, Lindsey
We here at the Studio like size 10 or 11 betweens or quilting needles. The brand we prefer is John James Gold ‘n Glide. As far as size of stitches–just try for small, even stitches and don’t fret too much. Over time, your stitches will become better and better. We have great tips and videos on our tips and lessons page. You’ll find Jinny’s book, Quiltmaking by Hand, to be an invaluable tool and her classes are listed on our website: http://www.jinnybeyer.com.