Cotton education adventures cont.: the Combine

Mississippi has very hot summer days. Moving from cool rainy Seattle to sweltering heat made our first summer here almost unbearable for me. The kids and I arrived ready to start our Mississippi lives right smack in the hottest days of summer in 2014. To add to our discomfort, the AC in our rental home was broken.... lol, I can laugh about it now ;)!

Since I mention the first summer, I might as well talk a little bit about the first winter.  It wasn't until around the second week in January that I went looking for the box our heavy winter coats were packed in. The ladies at Maple Street charity quilting would comment in wonder how I could still be wearing short pants and sleeveless shirts well into December... That was the first year... 

But with such a drastic change in temperature, getting acclimated happens quickly! The next summer, though it still required living mostly indoors with AC, was much more bearable. And this year I saw more of the outdoors and even enjoyed working in the yard early in the mornings (but also experienced more of the blood sucking insects that summer brings :(... not a pleasant experience at all!! I did considered getting stock in Deep Woods insect repellent spray!) 

It's mid November now and the cool mornings have us putting an extra layer of clothing on.  I think we are fully acclimated to Mississippi weather, lol :).

But back to the cotton. 

Despite the heat, Mississippi summer days are gorgeous!! I love that beautiful blue sky in all my pics. The clouds on this day seemed to have been provided just for us. A perfect field of fluffy clouds to go with the field of fluffy white cotton. 

In my previous blog post, Cotton Education...: the fields, I tried to express how very fortunate I have been to meet some wonderful women through quilting. It's amazing that with all the diverse lifestyles we connect through our love of quilting. I am truly blessed to have found such a wonderful group.

Julia Graber graciously continued our cotton education. I got a text one morning that she had a cousin visiting from WA for a week. That even though the fields weren't quite ready yet, she was taking her cousins out to the fields to show how they pick the cotton, and wanted to invite me and Karen along. 

The ideal spacing for cotton is 30 inches apart.
These fields are planted in skip rows, meaning 2 rows together then a space.
I think it's for a higher yield and maybe easier maintaining.

By the time I arrived at the field the cousins were already taking a ride. The combines are quite impressive machines. 

A module is finished and ready to drop off the back side.

It's already started the next module.

.....and MASSIVE!

I'm already two ladder steps up. When I stand on the ground the tires stand higher than my head!

LOL, I was just like a little girl, I saw more ladders and I had to climb all the way to the top :).

Julia's son explained all the workings. How the cotton is picked. How the combine senses how much and wraps each bale. How the bale is rolled up and dropped out the back. That the yellow wrapper cost about $35 each so they make sure to make full bales. He answered question after question. I'm sorry, I don't remember much of the technical information. My emotions were in overdrive. I'm not sure why... I hadn't wanted to ride the combine, rather was happy with just watching it work. But Julia persisted and convinced me to experience it. I am so grateful she insisted <3!!
Thank goodness for google :)... National Cotton Council of America has a great page of Frequently asked questions!

The combine is a two seater...

...Karen and I had to balance ourselves and snuggle on the passenger seat.

Looking down from inside the combine.
The combine was adjusted for the row spacing. It's so perfectly aligned!

A yellow wrapped cotton module holds about 13 - 15 bales of cotton. It is very tightly packed. I hope Karen doesn't mind me using her picture :p.
You can sort of see some cotton is left behind. This is what Karen and I had hoped to glean when we first inquired about the cotton.


Julia was going to take her cousins to the cotton gin right after this. The gin is only a 10 minute drive from here. We were invited to go along. My schedule prevented me form continuing on this day. The MQA Fall Gathering was fast approaching and I still needed to finish Beholder's Beauty. Somehow, in the excitement of the moment, Karen suddenly thought to arrange a cotton table at the MQA meeting. She would like to start a fiber arts group and this could generate interest.
LOL, I was a bit noncommittal at this time :p. My mind was only on Beholder's Beauty! But once I was home and as I continued to stitch racing the clock, I started to embrace the cotton table idea. Planning in my head what items I could bring and which pics to print for the display board.

Not too bad for a quick display!! I even demoed a little bit of my spinning talents during the meeting. And quickly learned spinning cotton is definitely not same as spinning wool. I still have some learning to do. Still, I'm proud of what we set up!

Ok, enough for today, the next part of my Cotton Education Adventure will be the Cotton Gin! Hope to see you soon!

Cotton education adventure. The fields!

It started with the curiosity - how is cotton spun?

I learned how to hand spin wool fibers using a drop spindle about 6 years ago at a LYS (Local Yarn Shop) in Kent, WA (it has since closed). I love the process-- spin the spindle on my leg, draw fiber from the roving,,,

 spin, 

draw,

wrap the length of yarn around spindle stick, 

spin,

draw,

  spin, draw, wrap, spin, draw, spin....

 the repeat movements are hypnotizing and relaxing..

My spinning instructor (I am sorry I don't remember her name) had told us that wool is easiest to spin because it is a long staple fiber, unlike cotton, which is very short staple. The short fibers make it difficult to hold the twist, and so difficult to spin continuous lengths of yarn.

Honestly, it sounded like a challenge to me!

And how perfect is it for me that I now live in a cotton state! 

(Here's some other Mississippi State facts. I especially like #24 because MSMS (Mississippi School for Math and Science) does a reenactment of the event every year during their Tales of the Crypt  production. But, it's off subject...)

So, I've lived here two years. I hadn't had the courage to seek out a cotton farmer to see his farm. Heh, I am a bit timid about that kind of stuff for myself. Looking back now, I guess I could have easily googled cotton gins near me and learned all I wanted, but that's not how my adventure goes :).

Luckily, last year I met fiber artist Karen Arzamendi, who moved here from Texas. She is an accomplished quilter, has several self published patterns, weaves, and is a member of SAQA (a group for art quilters). These are some of the things I know she does but I'm sure there's much much more. She became a member of the Possum Town Quilters, that's where we met, and then I invited her to come to the Starkville Hoopers with me. I mention all this to tell you that we both have a love for fiber and quilting. She uses fibers for art and I use fibers for traditional needle crafts.  

As an added bonus our husbands both work for the same company, different jobs, but it's another connection she and I have. With so much in common it was very easy to become fast friends. 

The Starkville Hooper's quilt meeting is in the next town from me and a 30 minute drive. Karen lives right at the midpoint of my trip, so we often ride together. Well, last year was when I told her my curiosity with cotton as we passed the fields MSU maintains as part of their agriculture studies. LOL it pleased me so much when she dared to drive up to the field and have a closer look at the plants with me. I have a picture of me during that trip somewhere....

MSU agriculture cotton field.
Oct 2015
The only thing we took were pictures, we didn't pick any cotton!

Recently, I happened to be dropping off a PTQ friend, Julia Graber, at her house after a day at the Old Man River Quilt Show. Julia specializes in art quilts, a member of SAQA, and this year's Mississippi's Quilt Association president. All this along with being an involved wife, mother, and grandmother! I am in awe with her!

Across the road from her house was a cotton field just starting to bloom!  I asked if she thought the farmer would mind if I stepped closer to the plants to get some pictures of the cotton blooms and plants. Come to find out, it's her family growing the cotton!!

The flower matures and falls off leaving the pod to grow.
The green pod is the cotton boll where the fibers are starting to
push out of the seeds.

Look at those beautifully shaped 5 point leaves!

Karen and I start talking during our ride to the next Hooper's meeting. Both of us are super curious about spinning cotton. Neither of us have had this experience. We wondered if Julia's family would allow us to glean what's left of the cotton after it's been harvested so we can give spinning it a try. The best part is that now that I have someone else interested with me, I have the courage to ask!

And Julia says, "I'll tell you when the cotton is ready." And a couple weeks later she texted me. She thought it would be easier if we picked the cotton BEFORE it was harvested!

And our cotton education adventure began...

Julia took the time to personally take us to the prepared field. Her enthusiasm to share with us her knowledge how her husband and son grow the cotton amazes me. I think she was just as thrilled to find out our genuine interest. 

These fields are planted in a skip 2 row, meaning 2 rows are planted together then a space between.

It's thought to be the best spacing for maximum yield potential. 

Once the plants have matured, they were treated with a defoliator to speed up the opening process. It dries the plants, making the leaves fall off and the bolls burst open.

Each boll has 5 sections, kind of star shaped. Each of those sections contains a fluff of cotton.

as we hand picked, I could feel the fluffs clinging to the base of the boll with a popping sensation as I pulled it away from the plant. 

It was a very warm day, not a hot Mississippi day. But 15-20 minutes was long enough. I could not imagine whole days out there hand picking cotton. Thank goodness it's harvested by machines now.

The fluff of cotton reminds me of a pussy willow that just burst. Or cotton candy :)!

Each fluff of cotton contains 5 to 10 seeds. That would make up to 50+ seeds per boll!!

a cotton boll that hasn't opened yet. It reminds me of the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors!

"Feed me Seymour, feed me now!"

"It's so FLUFFY!"

The scenery is beautiful!

too many of the bolls haven't opened. Have to wait a few more days before harvesting with the combine. 

Lol, Julia made sure both Karen and I left the field with 2 grocery bags packed bursting full of raw cotton! Karen and I still had a small problem... Now we have all this fiber, but we still didn't know how to spin cotton!!

Karen went home and started looking up youtube videos about spinning cotton. She texted me several links. Isn't it cool how much we have at our fingertips these days!!

However, the deadline for Beholder's Beauty was fast approaching. Spinning was going to have to wait for me.

Next post will be about our experience on the combine!
Please have a look at Julia Graber's blog and Karen Arzamendi's website!

Eye of the Beholder

My Heartbeat and I try to spend as much time with family as we can. It's not always easy due to being busy with kids schedules and our different work schedules. In 2013, I was working in retail which meant working many weekends. Schedules seldom matched up, but when there was an opportunity we would pack ourselves up into the car and make the 5 hour drive to visit with my Heartbeat's family. Usually, we'd stay a couple nights at his dad's place and dedicate one afternoon to visit with Dad's family.

Grandma Perry was most certainly the matriarch. Whenever we would visit, the aunts would start coming over to say hi. And before we knew it lunch would be served and several of the cousins would arrive too. I'd watch and listen in awe as memories were recounted for us. We heard stories from past and present all about the family. Some of my favorites were the stories of the uncles youthful adventures that would shock grandma at the dangerous tricks they played, and yet not really shocking her because she knew her boys well. Uncle Max, the youngest, would have a twinkle in his eyes as he relived crazy moments. Always giving a quick grin in Grandma's direction and watching for her reaction. And she would shake her head at him in a mock scold, but he was her baby and could do no wrong. I will forever hold in my heart the unconditional love I witnessed between Grandma Perry and Uncle Max. (Both have passed on, may they rest in peace.)

Mind you, the special bond between mother and youngest child does not lessen the bond with any of the other children. The Perrys are a very close knit family. When one is hurt, they all hurt. When one is blessed, they all celebrate. When I married my Heartbeat, I was welcomed into the family like I had always been there. Being on the receiving end of that family bond during our visits was amazing!

So, it happened that this visit in Aug 2013, Aunt Charlie wasn't able to come see us at Grandma's house. Instead, she reached out with a phone call to apologize and let us know she was helping with an estate sale of a SIL's late mother. As it happened, they were actually in the direction we would be travelling back home. So, we went to see Aunt Charlie. 

We arrived at the house, grabbed some seats and a drink and settled down for a short visit. But I don't know anyone that can resist looking at a yardsale, certainly not ME! esp. not when the kids start poking around. The crafter in me zeroed in on the craft filled boxes. I didn't see much I didn't already have, besides, our car was packed to the max. Anything extra would have to sit on my lap during the 5 hours home. 

I resisted very well, until my eyes rested upon a pile of fabric.... 

"I don't need more fabric" I told myself... but I allowed my hands riffle through the pile... (lol, maybe two or three times).. 

And I saw this...

A large quilt top in bright red and that 70's sage green, all hand pieced!!

I fell in love! I dug it out from the pile and hugged it to me. I continued walking around the rest of the sale. I was trying to convince myself I didn't need another project to finish. (I was already 14 months into working on Nancy's '55 Dogwoods). 

I must have looked like a little girl with a kitten she just couldn't put down! Aunt Charlie mentioned to the SIL my quilting passion. The SIL gave the quilt top to me without a second thought!! GAVE it to me, no charge!

And, yes, it rode the whole five hours home in my lap!

I love the story of this quilt and how it came about. Thankfully, I posted updates of the whole process in Facebook. Having the ability to look back at those posts now is awesome. I never considered documenting the process. But it's wonderful to have each stage right there. I'd like to start documenting all my work from now on.

I will be using my FB comments. They will be in quotations and purple lettering, like this next paragraph:

"At home, I draped it on the stair rail. I needed inspiration to decide on a quilting design. As it was hanging there, I noticed that 4 of the blocks down the left side are pieced in mirrored fashion, causing chevron arrows where the blocks come together instead of alternating red stripe and green. I concluded that maybe someone else was helping her piece and did these backwards. Perhaps Mrs. Johnson didn't have the heart to correct their mistake? Lol, I like imagining the story of this top before it came to me."   

"And then closer inspection reveals that 1 of those 4 blocks was all machine pieced and another one was started by machine piecing but finished with hand piecing.... It adds more mystery to the top :). Did Hellen Johnson start with machine piecing and decide she didn't care to piece that way? or was it that someone else picked up her work and was trying to finish what she started?"

This red, green, and white quilt top was hand pieced by the late Hellen Johnson of Newman Lake, WA.
given to me by her daughter in July/Aug 2013. The year this was pieced is unknown.

"I haven't decided how to quilt it yet. when I look at the pictures I see a pinwheel effect going on. I wasn't very thrilled about the blue border and considered replacing it. But I didn't want to change too much of what Hellen Johnson put together.

Lol, funny how things like this have you wondering about what the person was thinking when she worked on this... "Who did she intend it for? Why did she pick blue for the border? Did she pick it for the quilt or did she use it because it was in her stash and didn't want to wait to go shopping?"

Then Barb helped me out after work one day and we came up with trimming the blue border and adding a red. And I was gonna put a green backing but then that makes it feel too Christmassy to me. so I purchased a tone-on-tone cream. Prewashing the backing now :)"

After trimming the border and adding a red border, I still felt that I had to bring that blue into the center of the quilt. The 4" strips I had trimmed off would work perfectly for applique. I had been using the Clover Yo-yo makers in a different project and so circles seemed a perfect choice. 

Yes! this brought the blue in very nicely, but there still seems to be too much negative space. 

I wasn't too fond of covering up the Hellen's seams, I wanted to keep her work as visible as possible, but a green leaf shape seemed appropriate way to fill in the negative space... 

First, I had to find a green that matched. Greens and blues seem to be the most difficult when it comes to finding the perfect match. 

I auditioned many layouts to see which I liked best. I posted pics on Sept 7, 2013 to get help and ideas from my friends.

My Sweetling picked this one as her favorite. 

First I sewed on all the blue circles. It looked pretty good, I was tempted to leave it just like this...

Sept 19, 2013

Oct 2, 2013. all the leaves appliqued. I decided to wait until after the quilting was done to attach the center yo-yos.

"Let the basting begin!! Much easier on the tables at work than on my carpeted floor at home :-)" Oct 4, 2013

"Simple stitching 1/4" from seams. I'm ok with it so far, but might go back and quilt a smaller square in the squares, maybe 1/2" from quilt line." Dec 2013

"I love walking into the room and this is the first thing I see :) Wish I could really capture the beauty with my phone camera." Dec 2, 2013

Around this time, we decided to move from Washington state to Mississippi! With getting the house ready to sell, packing for the move, AND getting a stubborn senior boy graduated from high school, I didn't have much time for quilting. 

Once we were settled in MS there was very little progress on this quilt. I got distracted with machine quilting. I machine pieced and quilted several other quilts. Occasionally hand quilting on this one. I remember being so pleased to have finally reached the first corner :).

Both Sweetie and Prince love snuggling when I'm working, but somehow it's Prince that I photograph :).

"I only worked on it a few minutes every so often over the last couple years. well, seems I haven't had the heart to sit at the sewing machine for a couple months. I only care to hand quilt in the living room a couple hrs every night. Now, I'm seeing some progress and closer to done!! I decided not to put the yo-yos in the center of the applique blocks. I'm liking the quilting a lot :)"  May 5, 2016

I find it amazing how things work out. I became immersed in hand quilting again...

"I've been quilting 2 - 3 hrs every day, And because I haven't managed  to learn to use a thimble, I've worn a hole through my thumb nail...But I don't dare take a break now that the progress is going so well.. It'll take days for the nail to grow out!

... soooo, I've super glued a piece of plastic straw to the back of my nail! So far so good, it's working! *giggle*"  May 9, 2016.

after a few minutes the plastic fell off. But the super glue filled in hole and I was able to continue, lol.

Some one in the Celebrating Hand Quilting FB group pointed me in the direction of a thumbnail thimble. I love it!!

"I found a sweet thumbnail thimble. I love it and would wear it as jewelry! Hearts are my favorite :) <3.
And the company Small Wonders that makes these is located in my Heartbeat's hometown!! Perfect!" June 2016

(Edit: it's actually called the Fingernail Stitcher's tool from Small Wonders. They also make regular thimbles, thimble cages, charms, and things.)

I hit a wall when the outline quilting was done. I had no idea how I was going to quilt the borders. I was really struggling. I've been wanting to try out a Baptist Fan quilting pattern for a long time, but when I started marking it on the border it felt flat. I then considered a double trellis pattern, but again it didn't appeal to me as much as I thought. 

Looking at my work from the back side of the quilt is what inspired me. I traced the stitching of the motif onto parchment paper and placed it on the border and was pleasantly surprised that it was the perfect size! I didn't even have to enlarge or shrink at all!

As added motivation to continue my quilting pace, the guild I'm in, Possum Town Quilters, was hosting the MQA Fall Gathering meeting this year. And we were asked to provide quilts to hang over the balcony of the convention center. 

This year the MQA motto is: 

Circle quilt by Lawana Shultz of Columbus, MS.

To me, this red, green, and white quilt was perfect. It's traditional and I'm integrating my own personality to it. 

"I've set a deadline to have this finished for our Fall Gathering quilt show in Oct. It takes about 2 hours to stitch one motif... 36 motifs all around the border... I have 32 more to stitch..
I'm feeling a time crunch to get this done :). But I do best with deadlines!!" Aug 30, 2016

"The quilting part is done! Finished with my signature hidden heart :). I'm thinking I'll name it "Beholder's Beauty" or "Quilter's Treasure"... what do  you think? I still have to trim and attach binding and hand turn binding... so another 10 hrs or so... I better get busy!!" Oct 18, 2016

Beholder's Beauty! Hand-pieced by the late Hellen Johnson of Newman Lake, WA.
Embellished with applique and quilted by Naomi Hernandez Perry.
completed Oct. 2016

Beholder's Beauty displayed at the MQA Fall Gathering
Oct 21 and 22, 2016

And for the cherry on top....
I got one of the best compliments ever. It was so unexpected.
"Your quilt is awesome. My favorite of all hanging."
And her next comment is a picture of my quilt to prove her compliment." 
FB comment Oct. 23, 2016

Marilyn was interested in the pattern. I haven't found any like it on the internet. I might try drafting one up in the near future and add it to my pattern files. 

And that is the whole story of how Beholder's Beauty came to be. My mother didn't quilt much and as far as I know, neither of my grandmother's quilted. They did sew, but there aren't quilts that have been passed down from generation to generation... as far as I know.... I think being able to say: "my husband's aunt's sister-in-law's mother, Hellen Johnson..." gives me a bit of a sense of a family connection. It's that connection and the fact that all the imperfections tell it's story and that's what makes this quilt beautiful. Imagine my pleasure when a stranger picked it out among hundreds of quilts displayed as her favorite! Perhaps it's not only in the eye of this Beholder's Beauty...