Birthdays and Shopping, Sewing

Last of August, hard to believe the month has finally come to an end!  It is a very full one for our family, three birthdays, the last two celebrated together.  Our son and his son have birthdays a week apart, so they celebrated them together last weekend. Here's Dane with his sack, hunting for toy dinosaurs hidden around the yard, with his younger cousin watching with his other Grandma and Aunties. 

Mama hid a lot of toy dinos in the flowerbeds, there was even digging needed.  The boys all had a great time on the hunt. Pin the tail on the Dino, there in the background on the house, was popular as well.  

Here's Dane looking pensive before singing and cake being served.  I didn't get any photos of him smiling, but plenty of video.  Just after he got his mini bundt cake, he pretended to let a plastic dino toy take the first bite, so cute. 

And here's the adult birthday celebrator, Nick, hanging out with his nephews and sisters.  It was a fun party and great to be able to get together for pizza and cake, presents and family time. 

Daughter Elaine finally found a spot to squeeze me in for a haircut and color--much needed /overdue.  I went downtown early and did some thrift store shopping. I was sad to see that my favorite Salvation Army thrift store closed or moved, but there were plenty of other shops. Of course I always look for fabric and most of the shops did have some. One nicely packaged trio of cuts was $1.99 and I snapped it up. 

This Egyptian print was just over a yard of fabric, very nice quality and unwashed.

Being that well-aged, it is even 45" wide. I've never heard of this company, though.  The other two conversation prints were over two yards each. 

Asian tigers in a rich  print...

and Asian figures and flowers on the other.  These also appear never to have been washed.  They will make great backings.  

Some sewing did happen recently, more work on the bookshelf quilt. 

I decided to add more detail to the bookends I made a couple of weeks ago, aiming for a "brass" detail at the base.  I also grouped two books in a tilted block setting. 

Directions are from the Fabric at Work Bookshelf Quilt Pattern.  

I was happy with the way these turned out.  Lots more sewing to do and detail decisions to be made!  

Slow Sunday Stitching--Flowers

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more lovely works in progress on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I continue to add more stitches here and there to the DMC Winter Bouquet project.  There was a big stall-out after ripping a bunch, but I finally got the green centered flower on the left upper area right, fingers crossed!

I have started adding white to the flower center on the lower left.  One more large flower will then be added to the upper right.  Lots of outlining and detail over-stitching to add after all that!  It will likely BE Winter by the time I finish this :)  No matter, I pick it up infrequently and in no hurry to finish.

Kids went back in school this week--our school-aged grandsons started 1st and 3rd grade, and youngest grandson turned 2.  Time flies!  We are having a lot of hot muggy weather.  Our new windows do help with keeping the house cooler but don't do much for the moisture. Someday, I guess when our 30+ year old heater dies --we will put in AC :)

Design Wall Monday--August 22, 2022

 Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

Not much stitching going on here--I am stalled out on the bookshelf quilt.  As an alternate project, I sewed more rows for my setting of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Breezy blocks--last year's leader-ender.  

I chose to set mine with a rectangular 3.5 x 6.5" light print.  So far, I am liking it.  My plan is 8x13 Easy Breezy blocks, so six more rows are needed--this will be a big quilt.  To fit our Cal King bed (72x84), borders will be needed. 

This stuffed toy was a Fair Prize our daughter's boyfriend won for our grandson--it's a GHOST Pepper,  So silly! It's about 20 inches tall in real life :)

Youngest grandson Dane corralled and rearranged all the objects on the coffee table for us when he was here recently.  He turned 2 and there will be a party next weekend.  

Another great sunset from a few days ago.  Love these late summer days. 

Ventura County Fair 2022

Hi, I'm still here, just haven't had much to blog about sewing-wise, as I haven't turned on my machine in awhile. Hubby and I chose the last concert night to attend our local Fair.  Parking was awful as usual but I was smart and headed for the furthest rows, where the earlier attendees might have already exited, and was rewarded by a nice, close slot.  Hubby does not walk distances very well, due to chronic back issues, so we stopped frequently so he could sit down for a few minutes.  We headed to the Home Arts building after eating some fish tacos for dinner. I went inside while Grant enjoyed a beer.

It was a pretty sad showing overall for Home Arts for the first Fair after the pandemic, which I attribute mostly to the change in submitting entries to ONLY online, but lots of guild members won ribbons.  

Lots of variety.  As usual, the lighting in this building is terrible, and I wish they had hung more quilts from the ceiling where you could see the entire quilt. 

There was a good variety to enjoy, both modern and traditional.  

Judy got ribbons for all her entries.  She hand quilts most of her quilts. 

I like this pretty bee quilt. Love the pollen on the bee's leg :)

Cute embroidered pillow and knitting.

Christmas beauties.  Love the big star and cardinal quilt, and the cabin in the woods with Santa.

Chris is another guild member who did well.  First on this small geometric...

..and on a really large quilt.  We had a class for this a couple of years ago and mine remains unfinished.  I really like Chris's setting. 

More beachy items in a booth. The seagulls in the quilt on the floor are cute. 

There was plenty of cross-stitch and embroidery too. This is so pretty and obviously took many hours of needle and thread time. 

The Jar embroidery quilt caught my eye, as I had entered a quilt with the top left embroidery design a few years ago!

Cute Easter themed stitcheries. 

Loved the colors in this sweet heart wallhanging.

We had a little time to wander around before the concert.  The usual beautiful landscaping and garden and animal exhibits were thin and the whole place looked bare.  Hope next year is better.  We made our way to the Grandstand for the concert as the sun was setting. 

I captured not one, but TWO different sunflares in the clouds.  

The second was faint, but still visible. 

We were far away from the top fans at the foot of the concert stage, but had a great view on the large screen.  The sunset seemed to last forever. 

Wider scene showing the crowd.  Lots of great music and we enjoyed the 1 hour show, free with Fair Entry.  The rodeo took over the Grandstand Arena for the rest of the Fair Days. 

We enjoyed our time but missed a lot of our favorite vendors and exhibits that were absent.  Hopefully next year's Fair will be further recovered and more popular than ever.  I will definitely enter something next year!

Some Sewing and Scenery

I've been spending little time in the sewing room lately, sewing a few blocks and rows together here and there, but not making much progress on any to-do list. 

The strawberry blocks I showed a few posts ago were sewn into a mini quilt top of my own design.  I need to decide on borders and finishing.  I had a lot of fun picking out the prints from scraps and fat quarters for the strawberries.  Keeping the "tops" all the same fabric worked out well. The hardest part was figuring out the right size setting triangles to put them on point.

These 6" finished blocks are from AP&Q magazine, which I subscribe to, but they have a free pattern here for the  strawberry.   https://www.allpeoplequilt.com/bags-pillows-gifts/gifts/berry-good-pot-holder

Last Christmas I had to order online for my one-and-only collection of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments. This year I went to my local store and found it on the shelf.  2022's Mischievous Kitten has knocked over a hedgehog planter and spilled dirt.  So cute.

We've lately had hot and muggy summer weather in our beach town.  The sunsets have been pretty, though.  This one was last week, looking West.

This was tonight's view to the southeast, with the moon rising.  I'm hoping the fog stays away from the coast when we visit the Ventura County Fair tomorrow night. I've heard there is lots of good food and music to enjoy--we will take a turn through the Home Arts building, of course.  Well, I will, anyway-- Grant will probably watch a band and have a beer :) 

Design Wall Monday--August 1

Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I spent some pleasant piecing time with the Plaid-ish2 project.  I need 20 of these A blocks and had 10 made already.  The  project box contained all the precut scraps cut into sizes for the biggest block in the free pattern by Kitchen Table Quilting.

 It was warm and humid this week so I opted to use a seam roller instead of setting up the ironing board.  It was easy to roll as I added each row to the "A" block.  

I somehow managed to pick the same square for the top row's center slot for these two blocks.  No matter, they will not touch each other in the final layout.  I need to make a bunch more of the B blocks, too, and have not started any of the C blocks.  It was nice to just sit and piece at the sewing machine. 

Some slow stitching also happened on the weekend. 

DMC Winter Bouquet kit.  I added more pink and green/yellow-green details.  I am getting closer to finishing most of the detail work before adding the white blossoms to this bouquet. Lots of surface stitching will be done after all the cross-stitching is complete. 

Happy August!