Tuesday's Orts--May 15, 2012

Tuesday's Orts--bits and scraps of thoughts and events that land here...

• Son Nick swapped out big and bulky furniture for more compact pieces for his new digs, including a dresser I offered which has been my stash storage for a few years. However, the plastic bins which were perfect for that dresser don't fit in the big and bulky furniture as I assumed they would.  Oops!
• I just realized yesterday afternoon that the egg dish I made for Mother's Day Sunday brunch was lacking the diced ham I specifically purchased for it.  Oops again!
• Traffic Rant:  Knuckleheads who have 70 empty parking spaces to choose from in the lot but pull into the ONE spot left open between your vehicle and another. 
• Lunchtime quote from Barb, regarding fashion trends:  "You can't call it Retro if you were there and wore it the first time". 
• The games in London are coming up fast.  Our local Ralph's grocery store is in the spirit:

I couldn't resist the Olympic rings! 

Design Wall Monday--May 14, 2012

Wow, middle of May already!  Better get cracking on my UFO of the month that I showed last week.  No progress was made on that project, since I left town on Wednesday, got back late Friday night, played catchup with paying work and we shopped and cleaned all day Saturday, and had 13 guests for Mother's Day brunch yesterday.  But I did have some time with needle and thread on my out of town trip:

This wool penny mat from Primitive Gatherings was purchased and started on last year's trip to the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati.  See the X in the center of the smaller squares?  While sewing on the plane, the ride was so rough my pieces were bouncing around so I tacked them down in place until I could get the buttonhole stitching done.  I actually like that big X as a design feature too, and may leave it in.  This is a pretty small mat, only about 12 inches across.  Aren't all the plaid wools great?  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Desert Delivery

My quick trip to the Arizona desert was good!  DD Erica drove and even provided "Mom-friendly" music, as she put it, via her i-Pod.  We approached downtown Phoenix just as a terrific storm blew in. 

Erica thought at first that it might be a haboob, or massive dust storm, but with the wind came rain, thunder and lightning.  "Welcome to sunny Phoenix!", said Erica.

It was fast moving and lent a beautiful tinge to the sunset as we headed out to dinner at a favorite local Italian restaurant called Andreoli's, where we celebrated her best friend and roommate Christy's birthday.

I met Lucy, Erica's very friendly 8 month old kitten.  This is one of her favorite perches, among many, including the top of the refrigerator, and Erica's shoulder.   

Lucy found the plastic bag holding my handwork very interesting as well.

My brother Ted and sister in law Laura are in the middle of having a house remodeled and led me on a tour.  This is the great room, which is open to the kitchen.  French doors on the left and right walls will open to the front courtyard and the back patio, respectively.  The wood beams were stained very dark and give a Spanish feel to the two rooms.  Travertine floors keep it light and bright and I just love all the arches.  They added a partial second story with a balcony off their master suite with amazing views of the surrounding desert valley and mountains of Scottsdale.

The house's original living room got a beautiful coved ceiling and is such an inviting room with all of its windows and light.  It may become the formal dining room but that has yet to be decided.   While I was in town the outside of the house was painted, hence the plastic covering the many windows and doors.  Ted was impressed with how cool the house felt with the new double glazed windows and insulated walls.  Though it was about 95 degrees outside, the house was comfortable without any air conditioning.  They should be able to move in by July, and Ted said, "But no one will want to visit then because of the heat!" 

Palo verde tree and blooming ocotillo outside the restaurant we lunched at yesterday, where Laura was kind enough to invite me to join her and her friends Barb and Ellen.  They have regular crafting days together and will soon get to enjoy the views from the Lady Cave studio upstairs at the new house.

My brother Ted posing with his flannel-backed quilt in 99 degree weather. The coffee beans quilted into it were roasting!

And an Indian blanket style pose.  He loved the quilt and I'm glad I delivered it in person.  

Lucy liked it too! 

Design Wall Monday--May 7, 2012

On my design floor today is the UFO Challenge pick of the month, #2, which in my case is a quilt I'm calling Caramel Blues.

These nine patches were from a swap I participated in over a year ago (two?).  The pattern is Carefree Romance, from Quilt Sampler magazine, Spring/Summer 2010.  I like how the hourglass blocks frame the nine patches and am happy with my color and fabric choices pulling the blocks together. 

The pattern calls for two plain borders, one narrow and one wide.  These are my selections left to right for inner border, outer border, backing, and binding.  I will have to do some creative cutting of the yardage to get my outer borders all going the same way with the stripe, and will be piecing leftovers for the backing.  I've already done all the MATH for a cutting list and just hope my calculations are good!  What's not on my design floor is the Jewel Box quilt--I finally got all the blocks made (see yesterday's post) and the rows stacked up for assembly.  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Busy with Offspring

It's been busy around here the last four days, but a good kind of busy, involving all three offspring and some sewing.  Erica, youngest DD, drove out from Arizona on Thursday to attend a wedding.  Older DD Elaine was in said wedding, and Grant and I were invited to it.  This was the wedding of Elaine's husband's brother, for which I made the 17 lace and blue velvet ribbon tabletoppers I showed before (and I did end up steaming them all before delivery).  I had made a long satin sash for Elaine to wear with her bridesmaid's dress, and she called me in a panic on Thursday concerned that the dress was too short and too sheer when she cinched the sash.  Brainstorming, I told her I could make an underskirt/slip out of the leftover satin.  So that was Thursday night's project that lasted until after midnight since she had to come over after the wedding rehearsal dinner.  But she looked wonderful Friday evening, as did the bride, groom, and best man, our son in law Chris--there on the left (despite my camera's inability to focus properly in low light).

 The beautiful bride even wore the veil I made for Elaine's wedding, which was a sweet surprise.  It was a lovely, classic wedding and we enjoyed all the special touches the couple planned and the nice reception with lots of music and dancing.  Son Nick was at a different wedding at the exact same time, as his girlfriend's brother got married to his longtime love.  But Nick didn't stay out too late, since Saturday's big event was focused on him and required a moving van.

Mini checked out the tires on the moving van.

Doesn't that label on the left pretty much describe the contents of most moving boxes?  (on a side note, I'm proud my son knows plural from possessive in his labeling!)

And here are Nick's new digs, a small guest house tucked into the hill of our longtime friend's property.  I showed his spectacular view a few weeks ago, here.  With Erica's help on spider/web destruction patrol, and about a hundred trips up and down the steep stairs, the four of us had Nick mostly set up in just a few hours.  This is the first time he has lived completely alone and he's looking forward to the experience.

Today I turned a shower curtain into two window coverings for Nick's new place.  Then I worked on the last of the Jewel Box blocks so I can finally get this off my floor:

My boss, for whom this quilt is intended, liked the off center layout, so I'm keeping that.  However, I may take the last two rows on the right and move them to the opposite side, since I want that purple center to be the "heart" of the quilt.  I'll get these rows all stacked and pinned and move on to the final project of the weekend, putting the binding on my brother's coffee themed quilt.  I'll be heading back with Erica to Arizona in a few days and delivering the quilt in person. Busy busy busy!  

Revisiting the Past

I've got nothing new to show except a few more jewel box blocks and that is just too boring to share.  So I'm digging into the past today.  But not my past--this came from Barbara, a very dear family friend who knows I sew and quilt and has been very kind in her words about my craft. She had emailed that she had some fabrics she was not going to use and would I like to see them?  Of course I did!  She dropped off the bags while I was at work.  I had no idea what to expect, and was blown away by what I found:

Piles of vintage scrap pieces in every color!

Green, purple, pink, red, blue, yellow, orange fabrics.

With each turn of the pile, more wonderful prints surfaced...

Even an apron in this wonderful green.

I kept saying to myself, "Look at this one!"

"And this one!"

"Ooh, I love this one!"

I would have had a hard time throwing away this Chinaman scrap too.  Very 40's, I think.  To my excited email thanking her, Barbara shared that these scraps were from her mother and aunt, mostly 40's to 60's, and contained many fabrics from which they had made clothes for her. I think some fabrics might be earlier as they look like feedsack prints to me.  Won't they make a glorious scrap quilt?

Tuesday's Orts--May 1, 2012

Tuesday's Orts--bits and scraps of thoughts and happenings that land here.

• Son-in-law Chris stopped by on Sunday to pick up some items being borrowed for his brother's upcoming wedding rehearsal dinner.  He mentioned one of his friends is in five weddings this summer--which is costly.  I said there should be an official outfit for groomsmen and he replied, "There is, it's called a tuxedo, but nobody wants to have those, everybody's got to be different!", which made me laugh.
• Son Nick is preparing to move out next weekend and daughter Erica is already petitioning to have her old (larger) room back, and I want to keep the room empty until we replace the carpeting upstairs.  I win!
• Traffic Rant:  This one is about airports and passengers waiting to be picked up.  You'd think that after sitting for an hour or two (or three or four or five, etc) that it would be nice to walk a bit, yet passengers persist in exiting the terminal building and standing at the curb mere feet from its doors, which results in a long line of cars clogging the front of the terminal.  People: Just walk 30-40 steps further up the sidewalk to a clear area!  Sheesh.
• At work we are having a very hard time with Medicare.  They held our enrollment paperwork for electronic billing for six full weeks before persistent, near daily polite calls on the part of our billing clerk resulted in finally getting linked to our clearinghouse so we could submit claims for billing for the first time in four full months!  Then yesterday the claims were rejected with the reason that the clearinghouse was not approved, resulting in another round of polite but firm calls.  Sigh.
• I'm a little concerned about my frontyard tree.  Despite some rain and plenty of spring sunshine, it looks like this:

Only ONE branch has leaves.  I don't think there will be any Golden Rain tree blooms happening this June at this rate!