Stolen Quilts

Recently two traveling quilt teachers had quilts stolen from their cars when traveling to teach.  I get angry when I think that someone took the quilts that were lovingly made by someone to have as their own or try to sell or worse yet to discard in a dumpster .  Hopefully with spreading the news on the internet and among quilters in general plus to have quilters keep their eyes open at yard sales, flea markets, eBay or other times when they are just out and about in their community they might spot some of these works of art.  What the thieves probably don’t know is that these are not just run of the mill quilts but highly recognizable works of art recognized by many people.

Karen Combs had her car broken into over the weekend.  This is one of her stolen quilts.

  Patsy Thompson had quilts and works in progress and other items stolen from her car the last of February.  This is one of her stolen quilts. If you spot any of these well know and recognizable quilts please let the authorities and the makers know immediately.  Sadly to say there are many others from famous and not so famous quilters on the Lost Quilts web page.  All the missing quilts cause a heartache for everyone though no matter if they are famous or not.

When you have a little time peruse this web page for other quilts that have been lost or stolen.  I was amazed at how many there are listed.  I do wish everyone would post a photo of their lost or stolen quilts as it makes it easier to ID if you happen to see them.  That is also a reminder to all quilters to TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR WORK.  We sometimes forget or don’t think it is important but if they do get lost or stolen you can pass the photo on for easier identification.

We all need to label our quilts but those labels can be removed if they are just stitched to the back after it is quilted.  I have heard that you should attach the label before quilting and also go a step further and enclose  a label inside the quilt sandwich near one corner where you can remove the binding and find it for further identification.  All good ideas.  Do any of you have any better ideas of how to protect your quilts from being lost or stolen?  Check out the information on Lost Quilts for more information they have listed under Protecting Quilts.

Another thing I noticed was that several quilts have been stolen from big shows as well as little shows or during shipping.  I was amazed at how many quilts disappeared when the shows were dismantled and the quilts waiting to be shipped home.  Security of some sort needs to be stepped up in these areas too.  What steps should a person take to protect their quilts in these situations?

I guess we all need to be watchful when at quilt shows/displays or if we are helping with them for those sneaky people that are taking what does not belong to them.  It is a horrible thing to think we can not trust our fellow man/woman and be suspicious of them but these situations remind us this is the case. 

Lynn

No - I am not lost, no - I am not ill, no - I have not stopped blogging

How is that for a title?  I have been doing a little sewing for gifts so can’t show them yet but even then I have not gotten to spend as much time at the machine as I would have like to.  I usually type my blog posts up in the evening and most evenings I am just too tired so sit in my chair and watch TV instead.  I know, lazy old me!

Today is the first day of Spring and this year it really feels like spring on March 20th.  Normally we are still having cold weather and snow storms occasionally.  Nebraska like other areas of the Midwest is experiencing a warmer than normal winter and now it really feels like spring.  Flowering trees are blooming and everything is at least a month ahead of where it usually is so that means that I needed to get out in the yard and clean out last year’s growth of dead flowers, etc.  I have worked a couple of days but we had rain yesterday so it is just too damp out right now.  My jonquils/daffodils are blooming now as are the hyacinths.

I had help from one my daughters when she and the boys (our grandsons ages 6 and 9) came to help me clean out the storage room in the basement a little over a week ago when they had spring break from school.  John built these wonderful shelves in that room before we moved in and they are great and hold lots of boxes….but….over the seven and a half years we have lived here this room had gotten to be a real mess.  I thought about taking a before photo but was too embarrassed to show you my mess. 

Things have been carried down to this room to keep over the years and besides I had not sorted through a lot of stuff before we moved it over either.  Boxes had been taken off the shelves to retrieve an item and not gotten put back so needless to say it was a real mess.  Why, why, why do I keep so much stuff?

Our daughter S is a good one to come help me as she is good at telling me to get rid of things when no longer needed or wanted when I have tendency to put the stuff back in boxes on the shelves.  She keeps her storage areas in her home so organized and gets rid of stuff she doesn’t need or want right away.  Of course she wanted to get rid of some stuff I said no to also – she would cock her head and ask me why and sometimes I would keep it and sometimes not.  We went through boxes and boxes and filled bags to take to Goodwill Industries.  When we finished that room we started on cleaning a few of the closets upstairs.  Lots of storage in your home is good but can also be bad when you tend to be a pack rat like me.

She was here 3 and a half days and we worked and worked and boy did we make a difference, even though I need to work on other areas of my house like the kitchen sometime soon too.  We had so much stuff to donate we loaded it all in the stock trailer and John and I  took it to Hastings Goodwill right away. I sure didn’t want to change my mind and start bringing it all back into the house! 

It was more than would comfortably fit in the back of the pickup and we didn’t want to make more than one trip so just took the trailer.  When we pulled in to unload I am sure the people at Goodwill were thinking it was clear full and would be a big job to unload but since it was just part of the floor it wasn’t bad.
  
That was a job I have been wanting to do for a while and it was good to have someone else here to help, especially to help me get rid of things.  The boys had fun playing outside and checked in once in a while to see how we were doing.  The little one kept asking me if I was going to sell something or other that was in the Goodwill boxes and bags, then he would say, “I will take it Grandma”.  His mother was not thrilled and talked him out of taking my junk home to their house.  He had his eye on drinking glasses, old stuffed toys, extra electrical cables from who knows what old TV or computer, etc.


Our desktop computer crashed last week too – with the age of it we didn’t want to invest in having it fixed so I had to shop for a new one.  Since we were getting a new desktop we decided to get a new lap top too so they could both be Windows 7 and I would not have to go back and forth between Vista and Windows 7.  This laptop works just fine and John is going to take it to the shop.  He needs something to use out there too.   In recent years all the repair manuals have been coming as DVDs instead of the paper copies of the past. 

Great to get a new computer but I hate to take the time to get them set up like I want, load all my programs and learn a new system.  We did loose a few things but I have saved a lot of the things on this laptop too thank goodness.

Another thing taking some time from my day is that I am learning Tai Chi.  The local office on aging is doing classes in town on Tai Chi for Better Balance so I decided to go since there was no requirement that you be retirement age to attend.  It is for 12 weeks and we are nearing the end with only 2 or 3 weeks left.  I do feel young in this class, think another gal my age and I are the youngest as most of the attendees are in their 70s and up.  One very spry gal celebrated her 91 birthday recently and I would never have guessed she was that old.  I do like doing Tai Chi and it feels so good to move, breath and stretch a little but have to practice and do it at home to remember the moves for each form we learn.  I am hoping I will achieve better balance as the ankle I broke almost 2 years ago is still very stiff and causes me balance problems at times.

These are only a few things that have been taking my time lately and keeping me from stitching.  Hopefully things will slow down a little soon but with the advent of spring and summer I will have a lot of yard work to do too.  Our cows are just starting to have their calves so will get out with my camera soon and post some of the cute faces of the new calves soon.

Lynn

Free Quilt Shows

Just a quick blog post to let you all know in case you have not heard about this.  The QuiltShow.com  is having a free weekend of 100 of their past internet TV shows in honor of International Quilt Day.  The following is what they say about this weekend.

Join us March 16 - 18, 2012, at TQS as we celebrate all things quilting!
Visit TheQuiltShow.com community for FREE and watch more than 100 shows hosted by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims and featuring the top quilting teachers in the world.
Explore classrooms, unique tutorials, inspiring slideshows, and much more.
Enter the contest to win amazing prizes from companies you know and love. Since last weekend, even more prizes have been added.

It is easy to sign and there are no strings attached, plus you can sign up to win a new Bernina sewing machine and other prizes. 


Think I will be carrying my laptop computer where ever I am working or playing this weekend so I can see as many shows as possible.

Until later,
Lynn

Nature–Migration

Since I can’t write about what I am working on right now with my quilting/sewing, my blog posts have been very sparse to say the least and no quilting/sewing stuff at all.  Sorry, this is another post about what is going on outside in the fresh air here in Nebraska so if you don’t want to read about it you can just move on to something else.  A week ago I took these photos of the spring migration of geese through central Nebraska.  It is kind of funny that most of the different types of geese stick together with their own kind and this group is mostly all snow geese.  We get millions of snow geese migrating through Nebraska plus Canada geese and a few other kinds that I can't think of right now.  It seems early to have migration in February when we could still get snow storms but that is when they start coming through on their way north to Arctic breeding areas.  As you can see from the above photo of this small lake it is almost completely covered with snow geese.This small lake is close to I-80 near the town where my mother lives.  If you have ever driven through Nebraska on the interstate going east/west there is usually a small lake wherever there is an overpass as the dirt for the overpass was removed to build them and since the water table is so close to the surface they fill with water creating rectangular lakes.  We get the large groups of geese here where we live too but I never seem to have my camera with me when I see them in the fields eating.  Here we see then mostly in the cornfields and soybean fields (last years leftovers that still have some grain that they can find.)  The day we saw these we had driven west 2 1/2 hours to where I grew up and took my mother out to eat at a fast food restaurant near the interstate for lunch.  After lunch we drove close to the lake so she could see them.  (By the way my mother loves to eat at fast food restaurants when we go out as she never gets a freshly made hamburger and especially hot French fries at the place she lives so we try to treat her when we can.)We sat in the car for some time just watching the thousands of birds in the lake and the thousands of the birds flying overhead with the car windows open so we could hear them honking and calling to each other as they really are noisy!  My 90 year old mother lives in an assistant living facility and doesn’t drive so doesn’t get a chance to see things like this.  She said she could see some flying overhead when she looked out her windows that week at times but nothing close up so was as enthralled as John and I were watching them.You may have noticed that all the geese in the photos are not all white.  Snow geese are not all white, some are mostly white with black tips on their wings and some are called “blues’ and immature ones are more like the blues.  You can read more about them on this Wikipedia web page.  Of course there are lots of other webpages out there I am sure that give information about these geese too.Each season brings new and different things to see, hear and smell out here on the farm.  I never get tired of appreciating mother nature and all the wonders of this world and am so glad I got to grow up on a farm with parents who pointed out the constant changes around us.  Now I have lived on a farm with my husband for 40 years and still am amazed at what I can see if I only pay attention.

Until Later – Lynn