Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Done!

Fractured is now finished and added to the list of 2014 finishes.





(Pre-quilting photo, just to show the top.)




The quilting was done by Cathy Peters of Longarm Quilting . The pattern is fractured, from the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. I'm very pleased with this quilt. Now it will go live at Cinnamons Quilt Shoppe for awhile as a shop sample. No plans for it's forever-home yet. 

Nothing else to report today because I spent all day yesterday with my sewing group, then in front of the mindless TV so I could finish the binding.  

Oh - one final fabric binge for the year. I'm going to try - try - to not buy any new fabric in 2015 (I hear you laughing!), so I had that one last indulgence before the freeze. Sort of like that last big meal before the diet, only with fabric. Pics tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!




Monday, December 29, 2014

More Finishes for 2014

I've added two more quilts to things I've finished this year.  

This is a basic log cab, but all scrapped up with no light and dark side.  The fabric is from a bundle I purchased a few years back (oh, that never happens) from a store no longer open. It's not my usual color choice, but I went through a phase where soft colors were appealing  to me.  I really like this quilt. It's going into the guest bedroom/fabric room that is somehow becoming very girly. Hmmm. 


The backing is this fabulous floral. Giant flowers! If you sometime find that you love a fabric but don't know what to do with it, put it on the back so the back can make its own statement!

I didn't take a detail pic of the quilting (done by Lynne Graham Long Arm Quilting).



This is another Cheech and Chong, pattern designed by Lynn Provencher of Country Crossroads Quilt store (one of our local shops). The fabric almost qualifies for "ancient" status, but it's still just as cute as can be. 


It has a giant 4-patch for a back, but you can only see three of the fabrics here.


A closer look shows the colors more accurately.


There's a lot of fruit on this fabric. The quilter (Cathy Peters, of Lynne Graham Long Arm Quilting) chose an adorable cherry motif for the quilting. Perfect!





My morning walk was a bit foggy. Just a bit. This is fairly common for this time of year, when the weather cannot decide if it should be 80 or 50.  I often wonder what might be in that fog?


This is one of my favorite trees, so I could not pass up the opportunity to catch it drenched in fog.


When I got home, I found this little guy hiding in my staghorn fern pot. He stayed nice and still for his photo op,


This is my current binding project. I have this and one more I'd like to finish before the year changes. I think I can make it!


Thanks so much for stopping by!


Friday, December 19, 2014

On the Sewing Machine

This is just long strips of fabric, with just a pit of "piecing" in one of the borders, but the fabrics are great! 

The light solid is linen, and some of the blue stripes are almost linen in their feel.  The dark blue borders are a chambray.  There are still a few more borders to go. Very nautical looking, yes? A good "guy" quilt, or for a beach house. It will most likely be a sample for awhile before going to its forever home.  

The backing will be a great bark cloth I found on eBay about 10 years ago, but I have to check with the long-armers first to be sure that much heft of fabric will work.  The previous quilt (the brown/neutral one in my last post) was a challenge for them because the quilt was a mix of batiks and straight cottons, and the thread I wanted used was slippery (think almost rayon) and variegated. Long-arms can sometimes be fussy about both those things.  Will they ban me from bringing quilts in the future if I bring them bark cloth backing with a heavy linen front? Maybe. But probably not. 

The holiday season marches on and so do I.  Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The holiday season! Yay!

In no particular order, here's what I've been doing this holiday season.

This top (Fractured) got finished. It's also already been quilted, so I'll be able to show a finished quilt as soon as I get the binding on.

I put up a Florida wire tree with flamingoes and vintage ornaments (and I gave no idea why this font is red and underlined. It just happened. Computer magic, and I can't change it - at least not on the iPad.)

I made a bunch of stilettos for some sewing peeps I know. (Clueless why this ISNT red! Magic!)


And I finished the last of the pincushions. They were sitting around, stuffed, just waiting to be sewn shut and stacked. All done!


That's it for me. Time to bake now!  

Thanks for stopping by.


Friday, December 5, 2014

More Progress

It's been a productive few days. 

I've finally finished the last of the stacked pincushions. They'll also be in The Etsy shop soon. One is sold already.


I finished the last of the 16 patches.  I had only made half as many as I needed, which meant making the second half was not fun! But they're done, so now I can lay out this quilt and get it together.


I've finished sewing the blocks for the Fractured quilt and have started putting the rows together.


This was a lesson in perseverance. When I got the first row put together and on the design wall, my heart fell. I thought "oh no, I don't like this at all!"  But the blocks were made so I wasn't about to give up. When I got the second row on the design wall. I started to like it a lot.  Now I love it.  Perseverance!

This quilt needs discernible contrast, but not terribly stark throughout. The middle blocks need to be strong and stand out so that your eye immediately picks up the pattern.  You can see that in my row centers. I think lesser-contrast blocks are adding a bunch of visual interest to this piece, however, so mix it up!

I'm road-tripping today, so probably no progress in the sewing room will be made - but there's always tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Time for an update

I've been working, thus not keeping up with the blog.

I've made 48 of these blocks now.  I need 56, and hope to be finished with them tomorrow. Then I can start putting the top together. I can't wait to see how this one turns out!


I finished a few more wristlets that will go into my Etsy shop (grand opening coming soon. Watch this space.)


Redecorating the house continues. I'm using chalk paint to change some of the items that are around the house.

Before

After

It's a bit plain, so I'll be adding to this. Not sure what yet, so I'll experiment till I get something I like.  It's paint. 

Thanksgiving presented me with a person to load my Etsy store. You never know what life is going to put out there for you! I hope to be stocked this week, because the wristlets and pincushions make great Christmas gifts!

Back to work! Thanks for stopping by.






Thursday, November 20, 2014

I got nuthin'

I'm not blogging because there's nothing to update. Not sewing-wise anyway.

The days are spent getting my house in order. Furniture is arriving, new pieces are being shopped for, decorating items are added as they are found, returned, exchanged, found again. I can't take pics of the house yet because everything is still in such disarray. But it's getting there. Stay tuned. Really.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Sewing Again - I Think!

I think I'm finally back to some kind of routine. It always takes a bit of time to settle back In once I've been gone a long while.

I bought this driftwood bowl during my travels through Bandon, Oregon. I have a "thing" for organic non-bowl bowls. I suspect I have a "collection" started now. That's not a bad thing to collect. The one made from kelp holds onions, but I think I'm going to empty is and move it to this table. It's really too beautiful to hold onions for the rest of its life, but the air flows through that bowl, keeping the onions fresh for much longer than normal in this humid climate. 



I got all my 16-patches made for the checker board quilt. 60 of these babies.....




......only to discover I've only done half as many as I need. A slight calculation error, there! I have the fabric to do another 60, so I'll get started on that today.  Come to think of it, maybe it's a good thing that I made this mistake. I think I might have been too overwhelmed to begin if I had seen a huge, giant stack of stripsets needing recutting and sewing back together again.

Rather than head right upstairs to cut more fabric for the checkerboard, I tackled more half-square triangle units. 



My guild recently completed a hst exchange, and I had cut a lot of extra pieces so I could build up my own stash of them.  I haven't decided yet what I'll do with them, but there sure are a lot of ideas out there! Pinterest is full of eye candy using half-square triangles.

I'm back to exercising again, and pretty much watching the food intake. I need to re-lose a few pounds. Drat! The good news is that I actually missed the exercising! I never thought that would happen to me!

I think that makes it all-in-all a good day.  Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Back Home and Settled in

Vacations are great, but it is always good to get back home. I was away for 18 days: I couldn't wait to get inside, hug my sewing machine, and pet my fabric. 

Not a lot got done, though. I got the "two-sies" made for the checkerboard quilt.

(And maybe a little wine to go along with the process.)

I went to the Monday sewing group and worked on a binding. The quilters had another 4 quilts ready for me, so I'm waaaaay back-logged on bindings again. I think I have 8 waiting. Oh well! At least I'm getting quilts made.

All my goodies from the trip arrived yesterday. Yay, fabric! It was fun open all the boxes (4 boxes and an envelope) and rediscover the goodies I'd found at PIQF.  Hopefully I'll get in lots of sewing time over the next few weeks. I don't have any Christmas (sewing) commitments; I just want to play with fabric. We'll see!

Meanwhile, back to the gym, the reasonable eating, and less spending. Reality. Sigh.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Lazy Day

No news today. We are resting from the trip, and Kathy was battling a 24-hour bug. I have two days of catching up on email, Instagram, Facebook, and do-lists.

I realized it's seldom that we give ourselves the time we actually need to deal with all the clutter in our heads. With Kathy being sick yesterday and at work today, I have had the opportunity to do just that. It's like a bonus. With that said, today's post is really this brief with nothing else to report.

I'm going back to mental cleansing!

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Day 10 Batavia, NY to Norfolk, MA

We've arrived!

We've reached the end of our cross-country trip and have arrived in Kathy's new home in Norfolk, MA. We traveled 4110 miles (because we didn't take a direct route), saw some amazing scenery, visited with family, and have wonderful memories of the trip.

Kathy drove the entire way and can now say she has driven across the country. Yay! Industrial strength Dramamine handle all the mountains and winding roads, so I was able to take in all the scenery and get lots of pictures of this amazingly beautiful country.

The stop in Niagara Falls was a great topper for the trip. It really is quite something, and although the foliage colors were past peak, there was still a lot of incredible color.

The last day was through upstate NY via I-90, so we saw more fall color. Again, we were too late for the reds, but there is still plenty of gold and yellow left on those mountains! (Hills?)

Both of us commented on the heighth of the trees here vs. west coast. Although both sets of mountains are covered in trees, they are short here on the east coast. The trees in the Pacific Northwest and in western Montana are huge!!! I would definitely recommend seeing them with your own eyes to appreciate their grandeur. 

It has been quite the trip! Now we will rest, unpack, and probably continue to eat too much until I head back to the southland (and heat - ugh) on Satuday.

A few random shots from our travels:














Thanks for stopping by!






Monday, October 27, 2014

Day 9 Cuyahoga Falls, OH to Batavia, NY

Today was mostly an "unplanned" day. Our first stop was Cuyahoga Falls National Park (who knew?), where we did a quick drive-thru and got our National Parks Passports stamped.  (Note, if you don't already know: if you are at least 62, you pay a one-time fee of $10 to get your senior pass, then get into all the parks for free for the rest of your life.) (also, contribute to the park system by buying a passport to keep track of where you've been.) 

Then we decided to go here:









It's quite impressive, indeed! After 8 days of mostly sitting on our keisters in the car, we actually got in a bunch of walking. It was cold and, of course, misty, but we enjoyed the visit tremendously. A great way to (almost) end the drive across the country.  Today is our last day of driving. We will arrive at Kathy's new home in Norfolk, MA.  Quite a change for her after living a bunch of years in the California climate. I expect to eat lots of "lobstah" before I fly home on Saturday. Hopefully my clothes will still fit when I'm ready to board!

What a country! Everything you could possibly imagine is here to see and discover. Beautiful! Treat yourself to a drive from coast to coast one day. You won't be disappointed!

Thanks for stopping by!


Sunday, October 26, 2014

Day 8 Northbrook, IL to Cuyahoga Falls, OH


We stopped here for a visit with Kathy's parents. The terrain is not as flat, although there are still vast amounts of corn. Everywhere. Corn. Who knew? We've seen corn fields across multiple states now.  Miles and miles of it. It is being harvested as we pass through. Even though I realize how many people there are in the world, it's still hard to fathom that much corn actually being used. Corn starch, corn syrup, feed, corn meal, corn as corn (what a concept!). It's mind boggling.

The last two stops have been visits with family, but today we will be heading to an adventure other than the road trip itself. We are seeing some fall color, still mostly gold with a bit of red, but we are about a week late for the Big Fall Show. It's all good!  The weather has been In the high 60s/low 70s, but that will change today. Time to bundle up a bit!


A couple of color shots


The place where we had breakfast (Georgey V's) had an art display  from one of the local schools (can't remember if it was high school or junior high). I was intrigued by the masks, but all their art is great. So glad to see this being encouraged!





And again we're off! Tune in tomorrow to find out where it is that we had to bundle up.

 Thanks for stopping by!