Quilting fun

We had left too early for our vacation to get my Saturday garage sale fix, but as the sun warmed the day I caught a quick glimpse of a church rummage sale in the parking lot behind a gas station.
“Turn left here!” I commanded. “There’s a rummage sale.”
My husband did a weird left turn all around the front of the gas pumps before he finally came to a halt between the gas station and the church.
“How did you see that sale?” he asked.
I did not bother to explain. Ever alert for yard sales and garage sales, I see them when he is busy looking at the gas prices I never consider.
“I won’t take long,” I promised as I hopped out of the van and dashed over for a quick look.
I scanned the lot, ignoring the piles and racks of clothes. I looked for cool toys, crafts and anything related to sewing.
I spotted a plain cardboard box with fabric half hidden under a table. “How much is this?”
“Two dollars.”
And then I saw a plastic bag with brilliantly colored fabric and picked it up. “How much is this?”
“50 cents.”
“Okay, I’ll take both of them.”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out my velcro change purse. Just opening it up, it screeches like a Scotch man complaining about spending. I only had $2.25 in the purse.
“Will you take $2.25?”
“Sure.”
I hopped back in the car to gloat over my newfound treasures. Quilt scraps in plaid, quilt blocks of brilliant, girly fabric that someone had obviously begun to sew into a quilt. There were three experimental blocks for a quilt-as-you-go project, 18 blocks of squares and triangles and a heap of coordinating pieces and strips. Add to that the box filled with darker, less outstanding fabrics and I had hit the jackpot.
I gloated over my find the rest of the trip, arranging and re-arranging the pieces, counting the strips, making the find mine and beginning to consider how I might arrange them into a sampler quilt with a variety of blocks made from the same fabrics.
I researched “orphan block” quilts to figure out just how to use and arrange the blocks and concluded I could just have fun and put them together, but aim to build blocks of the same size to assemble into rows.
And then – I put it all aside as I plunged ahead to complete quilts I had started that year for three grandchildren.
Fifteen months later, just before another trip, I tossed the brilliantly colored quilt blocks into my tub of “maybe we will sew” projects.
We did sew and the trainee of the day sorted through projects, “I want this one,” she said, holding up the fluorescent quilt blocks and coordinating fabrics I had added to complete it.
“Have you ever sewn before?” I asked.
“No.”
“Okay,” I picked up a piece of lined paper, took the thread out of the machine and said, “Sew on the lines.”
The machine punched lines of holes in the paper. She handed the completed page to me.
“Now we will work on the seams for quilt blocks, and chain stitching the blocks,” I said sitting at the machine to demonstrate the technique.
“Let’s press the seams on these blocks with a hot iron,” I picked up the chain of blocks to iron.
She copied my motions and swept the seams to the darkest side. It looked okay, but then I saw that I had forgotten how easily fabric folds under and looks deceptively neat until you pick it up.
“You will need to press these again to get rid of the folds over the seams,” I said.
She re-ironed blocks while her sister and I sewed similar blocks into rows.
We did not finish assembling the quilt that day. At nine o’clock, I declared quitting time. I needed to refresh my brain. I said I would finish the quilt top later.
I thought it would take at the most a weekend.
It didn’t. It took a couple of weekends and several nights.
I trimmed. I added cross stitch pieces. I sewed deeper seams. With tape measure in hand, I worked to make each row a 65-inch long, straight, neat strip.
I showed my husband one lay-out.
“What if we move this row here and this there,” he picked up strips of quilt blocks and re-grouped them to calm down the blast of color.
Last week I finished assembling the quilt top and added stabilizing borders.
Then I just sat and stared at it for a long time – remembering the sunny day when I discovered a box of quilt scraps under a table. I smiled at the memory of the studied expression on the girls’ faces as they developed new skills.
I reveled at how completed cross stitch pieces I had gathered over the years had perfectly matched the wild colors and size of the rows of the quilt top.
I left it out for the simple pleasure of enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done – all that for just a couple dollars and a lot of hours at the sewing machine.

Please join us as we celebrate the success of these students!

For more information about the AAIMS program at Smackover High School, please click on the link below.

The goals of Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science, Inc. are both ambitious and achievable. They are intended to bring to life a viable statewide initiative for increasing the mathematics and science pipeline from middle school through college admission and retention.

The guiding purpose of Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science, Inc. is (1) To improve mathematics and science education in Arkansas, and (2) to increase college retention/graduation rates in STEM disciplines.

The goals are:

* To increase enrollments, including low-income students, in AP mathematics, science and English courses in 10 AAIMS, Inc. school
* To increase the numbers of AP mathematics, science, and English test scores of 3, 4, and 5 in AAIMS schools by 25 percent annually.
* To provide sustained professional development and targeted graduate level teacher preparation for Pre-AP and AP mathematics, science and English teachers in AAIMS schools.
* To build a cadre of AP teacher-leader content specialists in mathematics, science and English statewide.
* To track students from AAIMS schools from middle school (gain schools) and high school (launch schools) through college admission, retention and graduation milestones.
* To institutionalize the AAIMS organization at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

The structure of AAIMS, Inc. replicates APS, Inc. in Texas an established a not-for-profit entity, identifies the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as the primary supporting partner, and includes the collaboration of the Arkansas Department of Education, and the office of the Governor of the State of Arkansas. AAIMS, Inc. is lead by a president and includes a financial officer, an administrative assistant, AP content specialists in Mathematics, Science, and English, a dedicated College Advisor and a liaison instructor with Arkansas Advanced Placement Professional Development Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.


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