Design Wall Monday--Sept 12, 2011

On my Design Surface today is a partly finished object of another kind--actual clothing!

I'm making the skirt that is orange in the illustration.  The pattern claims it is a 2-hour skirt.  I say, yeah--not so much.  I'm not sure what step they start on but obviously they skip fabric prep, finding the pattern pieces in the tissue packet, then laying out and cutting the pieces for the skirt--all before sewing even begins.

This rayon challis has been in my stash for a very very long time.  It doesn't look like much here, but the 8 gore skirt is cute on, and comes to just below the knee.  It will be great for work.  I have some adjustments to make to the hip area and then can finish all the seams, turn down the top for the waistband and add the elastic and finally hem the skirt.  That will take more than 2 hours too!  Anyway, I've sewn enough that I knew that was a false estimate :)

The top to a Quilts for Kids kit was also completed over the weekend.  I added the corner triangles for some additional interest.  See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Remembering 9/11

As I stitched airplane fabric into a charity quilt, I could not help but recall the events of that awful day 10 years ago involving hijacked jetliners.  It was not our habit to watch television in the mornings so it was a neighbor who called to tell us what was happening.  We watched as the north tower burned and newscasters relayed what little information was available.  The kids left for school and Grant for work.  I happened to be off work that day on vacation and spent it watching in horror and disbelief, as did the rest of the country and world, as the second tower was hit and then both fell, the Pentagon was struck and burning, and the obliterated wreckage of Flight 93 was shown, followed by the sickening images of extremists in Iraq celebrating.  The safety of our country as we knew it changed forever that day.  But not the American spirit.  People lined up to give blood, money, comfort, any aid they could.  Rescue crews from all over the nation immediately headed to help.  The stories of those lost began to be told, the heroes honored, and survivors cherished.  America received the support from its many friends around the world, and was grateful.  Many non-Americans were killed in these attacks, but we felt they were "us" and not "them" and treated them as our own.  September 11, 2001 will forever be remembered and marked as a dark day for all nations.  People everywhere should fight extremists of every kind, foreign or domestic, for they are the true evil in the world.  We are one race, the human race, and live only on one world, Earth.  Let us never forget that.

X, Y & Z

So many days I head to work expecting I am going to do "X", and then when I get there Y & Z have happened and X goes out the window.  That's true about quilting too.  Last night I intended to get the UFO box of witches out of the Hoosier cabinet,  but when I was moving stuff around in my sewing area to get to it (a la archaeological dig), I unburied a plastic baggie from Quilts For Kids.  I knew a kit I'd ordered had come in a while back, but felt really terrible to see that June 17th was on the packing slip, far beyond the 4-6 week return request.  So a couple of hours of Y & Z later, I had this:

As usual, the kit contained 6.5" print squares, 3.5" strips to construct 4-patches with, plus border fabrics.  I decided to add some scraps of my own to change up the basic kit.

I dug around in my 2.5" scrap bin for black prints and cut squares.  Since the airplane print is directional with a lot of repeats, I thought the addition of the corner triangles would add a nice framing effect.  Want to help bring cheer to cancer patients?  Order a kit from Quilts for Kids!  They come with precut pieces for the top along with  backing and a label.  Just add batting and binding.   They are small with easy patterns.  I enjoyed  putting together one last year and ordered another free kit.  Now to get it finished and sent off!

Tuesday's Orts--Sept 6, 2011

And the Orts go on...

• I forgot a traffic rant last week!  But I can report that drivers everywhere continued to misbehave.  Yesterday not less than four cars pulled out from side streets and a driveway on a one mile stretch as I drove on a two lane road.  All of them slowed--but didn't stop--at stop signs as they glanced my direction and then pulled out in front of me anyway. Sigh.
• There are 116 days left in the year.  Of course, the kids that just started school are really only counting to the winter school break.
• My youngest brother and his family drove out from Arizona for the holiday weekend to escape the heat.  Brother Ted forgot to bring a jacket--and our low on Friday night when they arrived was to be 57 degrees, about half of what the daytime high was at their home.  He had to borrow a jacket from my dad.  It was foggy and cool in the mornings, as usual, with sun in the afternoon.  They all enjoyed the break from heat and actually having to wear long sleeves for warmth instead of for sun protection.
• Family in town always means lots of get togethers and of course lots of eating.  I was pretty good sticking to my eating plan but when Grant made oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert, I couldn't resist a cookie.  Or two.
• Someday I will add exercise to this diet. 
• There have been lots of programs on TV about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York.  It never stops giving me sickening chills when they show the planes hitting the towers, and again when the towers begin to fall.   
• I drove out to a nearby new home project, of which the sales offices were touted to be "green", since they are retrofitted shipping containers.  The containers are not impressive from the outside but the view is one of my favorites.  (click to biggify)

The foothills lead up to the Topatopa Mountains that range East to West with a peak up to 6700 feet.  I think the views of the mountains change as much as the sea and I never tire of seeing them every morning as I head to the highway onramp to go to work.

Labor Day Littles

Today has been a day of little things.  I slept in a little, read a little, did paying work for a little, blogsurfed a little, ate a little, did a little housework, and now I might take a little errand run to JoAnn's.  All in all, a very satisfying Labor Day so far!  Later a little sewing is planned.  I got a lot of work done on the wedding quilt yesterday, stitching up many pieces into their rows, while completing blocks on the leader-ender front.

The palest yellow block may not make it into the final quilt--the fabric is very very thin.  It seemed the leader-enders were taking too much time in my piecing work until I got into a rhythm.  I also improved my construction by penciling a diagonal line for the stitch-and-flip corners rather than finger pressing the squares in half and using the fold line as my guide.  Sometimes it is simply better to mark things!

A little decision making took place as well.  The UFO Challenge project for this month is #11, which on my list is a 9-patch quilt.  But I decided the witches deserve to finally be finished this year so will swap out #5 on my list.  I have two of these witch quilts, with the colors swapped of the hair and hatband in each. 

One is going to get a simple final border of black and and the eyelashes sewn on for its finish.  The other is going to have free-pieced letter names a la Tonya's book Word Play Quilts.  I have been gathering names for months--being a transcriptionist for the hospital has the benefit of running across all sorts of unusual names.  On my list are: Zenaida, Jerryl, Sherith, Ferol, Avrum, Taylan, Ralie, Prina, Trinara, Jonick, Kachan, Pagel, Lera, Jestina, Borgny, Una, and Zivana.   I have to choose four from this list.  Anyone want to help me narrow it down?

Crossing off

I do love to make lists, and even better to cross items off lists.  The Sweet Escape tablerunner I've been trying to finish for a month and a half finally did make it off the to-do list.

After stitching the last of the binding down today, I had some concerns about the unquilted print portions since they seemed too puffy, so I added more stitches.

 

Pretty uncontrolled serpentine quilting there--but it did solve my worry.  The tablerunner then got its first wash and dry.

I love the almost argyle look to the tablerunner (Sweet Escape, by Heather Mulder Peterson, On the Run pattern booklet). 

And the great texture from the all of the quilting.  

There was no bleeding from the charm squares and they didn't shrink more than expected, thankfully.

The plain white backing shows the quilting well.  I hope the recipient likes it too--this is a gift for the caterer for Elaine's wedding.  Elaine sent out all the invitations this week and RSVPs are already showing up in their mailbox.  She likes to cross items off lists too :)

Bear goes back in time

Bear* took a trip...

...all the way back to the Jurassic era, and there he found some dinosaur tracks.  You can tell he was pretty impressed with the size of those footprints.  Bear found them on Navajo land near Cameron, Arizona.  Bear got admitted for free, but his driver and two other companions were charged $15 apiece to look for dinosaur tracks on the Navajo land.  That was pretty impressive too!

*Bear is my dad's small blue companion who is ever ready for an outing and is always smiling.