Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Anne and the Lightbulb


So it's one of those ideas where we all went, "Well of course!" Okay, to be honest I did stop and think about it for a minute or two because, well, I can be a control freak sometimes. My family can stop laughing now.

Anne discovered that if she programmed her Bernina 1260 just right, she could add a space between the asterisk stitches, and they would look like the individual beads and french knots we have putting in our blocks! Thanks Anne!

On a 1260, the stitch is number 27. Hit number 27, memory, and then straight stitch, memory, and you should be good to go. The stitch is a little bigger than the beads and knots have been, and I am guessing that a spiral is going to be the best design to get all 212 stitches on the block.

Don't have a Bernina 1260? As long as you are able to program a stitch in between an asterisk stitch * * * , so they maintain their individuality, I say go for it. I don't want a running together of stitches ***** that don't have any distinction. This is after all, about remembering the individuals who have died.

If you have other sewing machine makes that have a similar tight stitch on them and you think you want to try it, let me know. St Cloud has dealers for every major brand of sewing machine and I can go test drive it to make sure it clears my inner control freak.

I like how there will be a nice mix of beads and hand stitching and machine stitching in the project. A bit of everything. And we may actually get it done! Now if Anne can figure something out for the soldiers and our government leaders we'll be set to finish the damn war too.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Cold Cold Day






Here they are in their sweaters and hats. Thanks to everyone who came out in the frigid, frigid weather on Saturday! We completed another 25 blocks and had a great afternoon hanging out together.

I had six panels along with me, and I left them at the Hjemkomst Center to become part of a exhibit on compassion. If you're near the Fargo / Moorhead area stop in.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Momentum

A big Hello and ThankYou to Carol from Giraffe Dreams and everyone who has been following her link here! It's great to have more folks supporting the project!!

I am getting ready to work on the project with folks up in Fargo/Moorhead this weekend. There will be a day of compassionate workshops at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead from 1 - 4pm. I have 6 ( YES 6!) more panels to display, and we will be working on putting more knots and beads on even more blocks. I'll post some pictures early next week.

Come join us on Saturday, or check out the display at WBUUC - It comes down Sunday afternoon.

* That makes 17 completed panels of 30 blocks each, or, 510 Americans, 108,120 Iraqis.