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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!