The Bed

One of the things widows do is make changes, generally slowly. In February 2012 I was forced to get rid of the king sized bed and replace it. The mattress had just worn out. I bought what we used to call a double and what they call a full sized bed now. I bought new sheets for the bed. And I turned two pillow tops that had been finished for years, and even decades into pillows. The two pictures had been three when the bed was larger, but that was all I managed. The blanket was a single blanket in a quilt cover (aka duvet cover).

In early March I finished the RIME quilt. This was another project that had been sitting around for decades. RIME was a pre-Internet echoed net. You got to it through a local bulletin board. One of the conferences was a stitching conference and we decided to exchange friendship blocks. Most of the blocks were signed in 1994 and 1995. It was machine pieced and hand quilted. The hand quilting didn't get started until 2010 and didn't get finished until just before this photo was taken. I was working through my UFOs and getting some older stuff done.




In April I got the quilt on the wall above the bed. I also located the cross stitch fan I'd finished up some time in the late '90s when I was living in California. And now the bed had 3 pillows.











I started making a bed scarf in late May. I like the look of something at the bottom of the bed. I quilt so I wanted something quilted on the bed, but not a full scale quilt. I've never slept under an American style quilt. This is the first block that got finished. And pieces of two more.

This is actually just a mock up. The bed scarf top was completed when this picture was taken except for the borders. I just laid the blocks down on the fabric the borders would be made out of to take this picture in late May.

In July I was doing stitch in the ditch to stabilize the bed scarf, but I put it away while I learned how to free motion quilt.

I made some pillows. I worked on a couple of practice quilts and I finally took the bed scarf out and quilted it.

And then it sat again because I needed to learn how to bind quilts properly. It is still sitting and waiting, but I will be getting to it soon.

In the meantime there have been some other changes. And this is the widow thing. I've always slept European style. That means with a quilt cover over a blanket. My quilt covers are sheeting and they take the place of the top sheet. They get washed along with the bottom sheet every week just the way a top sheet would. My mother made the decision about how a bed was made when I was a baby. It was the way she always made beds. My husband made the decision when we got married. He was from Europe and it was the only way he knew.

During the aftermath of Sandy, while I was without power and heat for 6 days, I bought flannel sheets to stay warm at night. Those shrank and I no longer could use them so I bought some good quality fleece sheets right afterward.

Those fleece sheets (from QVC) were like sleeping on a cloud, and I began to wonder what it would feel like to use the top sheet instead of the quilt cover.

It has been 3 weeks now. I LIKE top sheets, but there is a problem. The single blanket that worked perfectly in a quilt cover doesn't work as well with a top sheet. It is too narrow. I've ordered a new full size blanket from Kohl's. Stay tuned.

There is the bed scarf waiting for its binding in the last photo. I'm also considering a real quilt, maybe for the summer.

Hum...