So Far this November

Things are busy around here, but not as much in the sewing room as I'd like.  My sister and I have reupped for local guild positions, I'll be secretary again and she's sharing the communications position with another member.  We're hoping to have a fun year with a new board and a chance to introduce new ideas.  My sister bought an IPadPro and is letting me use this to type up the notes at meetings.  This should save me some time since I've been handwriting everything so far and rarely get to the computer timely to get the notes typed up and then uploaded much in advance of the next meetings.  

Last month's guild challenge was free motion quilting on a small handmade item to donate to the guild that could later be sold for fundraising.  I pulled out my "small UFO" box and found a block I made last year.  Eureka!

I was originally in this pic I stole from Flickr, but looking half-asleep so I cropped myself out!  I'd say the little spools are about 5" tall.  So happy to have this off the list of unfinished objects crowding my sewing room.

All the blocks got done for the Starcrossed quilt for DD Erica.  I went to her house to layout the quilt, lacking floor space for these 16" blocks.  Her cat Lucy provided QC.  I'm hoping to get some stitching time to get the top together soon.  I have two small projects to finish first, though, for my nieces.  Another turkey is laid out on the cutting table to assemble, this one is Hannah's. 

Hannah went more brown on her turkey and more creamy with the background.  If I could get to my sewing machine, I'd start sewing those squares and triangles together. However, my sewing room is currently crammed with furniture as we finally got baseboards in our living room, a gift from my kids and husband for my birthday.  We had the 16' long baseboards delivered and they were lying in the living room, stacked about 7 inches high.  I managed to nearly kill myself tripping over the stack and smacking into the tile floor.  I will blame this on the fabric I was carrying, hurrying to the washer!  I fortunately got my hands up fast enough to break my fall, but my left shin took a hard hit on the baseboard edge and my lower leg has been swollen and numb for 10 days.  My left shoulder isn't very happy either.   We immediately moved the baseboards to the garage, but bending over to the floor to paint them was no picnic either, can you say hamstrings too tight? Not too pleasant painting in record heat, either. Anyway, they are now installed by a handyman and the unfinished part of the wall is nicely trimmed, four years after we had laminate installed  in the living/dining room.  Sheesh. 

Here's Grandson Hunter in some fall leaves.  He and his big brother, mom and dad had a weekend away at Bass Lake with friends recently.  What a happy little guy :) He generously shared his cold with me at my birthday brunch last weekend, but I'm glad it's this week and not next.  We'll have about 21 for Thanksgiving dinner this year and enjoy gathering all together in our newly baseboard-enhanced room! I have a 5 day weekend planned and hope to get stitching time then. 

Design Wall Monday--10/31/16 Happy Halloween

Design Wall Monday again.  Well, another week passed quickly, with not too much time in the sewing room.  However, some of it was spent with my grown niece, Emma, making Thomas. 

The photo is a bit overexposed, but you can tell what a sophisticated turkey he is.  Emma picked through my precut scraps and we pulled larger pieces and fat quarters for more choices.  Though I gave away the pattern for this mini quilt a few years ago, I had the one I made for  myself to go by.  Emma enjoyed using the Accuquilt GO cutter to chop up the scraps to the 2.5 width, then we crosscut them with the cutter for squares.  It was a fun couple of hours.  Thomas now has a pieced backing and I'll get the quilting done soon and have Emma choose her binding fabric. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

 

 I kept the GO cutter out to lower the volume of this scrap bin. 

 So great to get a new pile of light scraps in the 2.5" precut drawer.

 

Other tasks last week included getting a new kitchen faucet, thanks to son Nick,  a plumber who got us a great overstock deal AND installed it, and DH Grant who put up these pretty new patio lights.  We had our house painted this gray blue-green a couple of months ago and the 25+ year old builder grade lights had to go. The first two new lights went up just fine but the third one had to be partially disassembled to change the too-long mounting screws.  Naturally there was a trip to the Home Center involved to complete the project, but only to buy clear caulk to seal the backplates from rain.  We actually did get some of that wet stuff here in SoCalif, just about 1/2 inch to kick off our rainy season, enough to ease the fire danger some.  Fingers crossed there will be more rain in the next 3-5 months.

Our Halloween was pretty light, only about 80 trick or treaters--in the past we have had a few hundred, but that's to be expected on a school night.   We played favorites with the grandsons to close out the evening.

Cove requested to be a ghost and Mama made him this costume from some gauze, draping it over his cute leggings and long sleeved shirt.  Clever and simple, perfect for a 2 3/4 year old.  Baby brother Hunter sported some bones :)   Too cute!

Design Wall Monday 10/24/16

On my design surface is the Starcrossed quilt (pattern by Corey Yoder in APQ mag April 2016) I've been working on for DD Erica.    All the pieces are now cut for the two different blocks I'm making, 10 of each, and subsections ready to go.

The plum print on the lower left is a shot cotton in plum and black with a gold ginkgo print.  Unfortunately I don't recall the maker, and my local fabric store doesn't have point-of-sale info on their receipts.  Next trip I'll check the bolt!

Photographing purples is sure a challenge, especially at night!  The leaves are not large but the spray is so pretty.  I love ginkgo trees and leaves, and we have quite a few in our neighborhood. 

This closeup shows the shot cotton base in the 4.5" square I cut for a feature block. 

Unpicking of the inner corner chain was necessary to add the ginkgo print for this cross block; it is kind of a signature thing I often do, one block different as the "heart" of  my quilts.  I'll be happily piecing and pressing away on these big blocks for the next week when I have time. 

Last week our MQG had a sew-in for philanthropy.  I'm so glad my suggestion to have weeknight sew-ins has worked out--the Masonic Lodge building manager is very generous in letting us come in when the room is not being used for one of their events.  We worked on assembling some donated blocks and I had help from two members in marking and sewing pieces for houndstooth block kits I had cut from fabric purchased by the board.  

The Guild president picked this blue and gray and I think it looks great so far.  All the pieced blocks got made and I managed to get a few squared up to demonstrate the layout.  For the guild blocks, I started with 10" and 5" squares for the pieced blocks so precuts could be used.  The solid alternate block is 9.5".  It is really simple construction and there are so many ways to change it up.  I have another kit to sew up as well before handing off to another guild member at the next sew-in in a few weeks. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

On my design surface today is a new project, since UFOs closed up in boxes can't speak!

This is the first block for a couch quilt for DD Erica.  She wanted something simple to go with a gorgeous Persian rug.  I used my GO! Cutter and 2.5" strip die a lot for this project.

 

For the cross blocks, I pulled from stash this gorgeous hand-dyed yard of fabric I have been hoarding.  This is a Ricky Tims fabric purchased at one of his seminars I went to with my sister in 2006--so it is well aged and I'm happy to have it stay in the family, lol. 

 

 

Erica liked this quilt by Corey Yoder from the April 2016 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting, but she wanted it to be less busy.  I modified the star block to a simple chain for the alternate block.

The green is a Dimples fabric DD Erica chose.  Backing and binding fabric is a gorgeous plum with a printed spray of ginkgo leaves in gold--I don't have a pic of that yet.   I've had many hours of happy cutting and piecing so far, although I did spend several hours mistakenly making star point sections for the green chain block :(  However, all was not lost; I whacked off 2.5 x 4.5" strips of the background Kona cotton from them to use for the corner chain sections.  Nine more blocks to go of each color before setting together for the smaller size quilt I'm making from the pattern.  I have something special planned for one block.     

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

And now for some baby spam....

 

  

Grandson Hunter is closing in on 8 months and is army crawling everywhere, likes to jump when you hold him and is a smiley happy boy (--except when he's not, his Mama says!).  This was his first bath in the big tub. 

Grandson and big brother Cove looks giant in this pic, but is 2 years almost 8 months, potty-trained already, and still as busy and chatty as ever.  We're always happy to spend time with these little loves and are ever grateful they live close by. 

Speeding By

Time is the thing that is speeding by--here it is already mid October.  Glad this is a long month! 

 I waited until the first day of Fall before setting out any decorations.  These pumpkins made from an APQ magazine pattern so many years ago still make me happy. 

I love decorating this shelf at the end of my kitchen cupboard as I have no wall space at all.  I ran right out when the Pioneer Woman's new line debuted recently to get the measuring cup set, though I see by the reviews I just looked up that I may have gotten gypped out of the measuring bowls supposedly included in a set.  Hmm, will have to check my receipt.

Finished piecing the Geese quilt top a couple of weeks ago.  I'd like to use stash for the backing and am pondering a quilting plan.  I adore how Rita of Red Pepper Quilts always does a lot of ditch stitching and I'm thinking that would be a good way to go. 

Our guild is working on charity quilts and I am making up a couple of kits of houndstooth blocks.  These will start from 10" and 5" squares so are easy to cut and piece from precuts if desired.  We'll have a sew-in soon and I'll need to get some more cutting done.  I've been re-elected to be Secretary next year and my sister Kathy and another member will be sharing the communications job.  It's been a bit of a rough year for our little guild but we're planning more fun activities to get members more involved.  Here's a picture of our Opportunity Quilt--Kathy and I sold tickets at a local show recently and it was very well received.  

Modern take on a Sawtooth Star block.  I ended up making about 7 blocks total for this quilt, which  we will give to the winner drawn next February.  We're already encouraging members to start on ideas for the next Opportunity Quilt. Now off to bed, tomorrow's going to be very busy at work with three hospital follow ups and three physicals scheduled in the morning alone! 

Design Wall Monday--A High Cotton Finish

After another unexpected blog break, I'm pleased to return to DWM and show a finished quilt.  This is High Cotton, a Kim Diehl design from her Simple Comforts book series, and is lap sized, 54"x 66".  I started this quilt far too long ago and am thrilled to have put the last stitch in the binding this morning, two years later. 

I'm pleased with my efforts to emulate Kim's mix of muted and bright CW repros and included a few zingers. There are more green prints than any other, as green is my favorite color, but I don't think its too much green.

 

Slightly blurry pic but shows the quilting detail well.  I wanted lots of curves to complement all the straight lines.  So happy my LQS now has longarm quilting services.  I chose a tan thread and like how it turned out. 

 

 

The warm gray Paisley print binding I'm happy with too, though it was hard to cut up and dedicate to that end, I love the print so much.  You can see one pieced block in the Paisley fabric peeking out in the bottom center of the pic. 

Similarly, stash was harvested for the quilt backing.  Being a scrappy quilter, I seldom buy large lengths of fabric so pieced backs are common in my quilts. 

The curvy blossoms show up well on this dark green Thimbleberries print I bought on clearance at a local fabric store years ago.  As this quilt is for ME, I'll get to enjoy it for years to come in my own home.  Better get a label made!  See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Tuesday's Orts

Tuesday's Orts--bits and bobs of thoughts and events that land here occasionally

• A month went by during which I thought about blogging roughly daily but never seemed to get myself to the computer.  Life has been very busy and it is apparent that is likely to remain so!  We are spending a lot of time dealing with my husband's 97 year old mother's needs and difficulties with worsening dementia, including a number of emergency room visits for falls, fortunately without any significant injuries.  She has caregivers to help now but we still worry a lot.
• I got back the Mystery Quilt from the longarmer and love the Baptist Fan quilting.  Binding I made about two years ago is waiting to be applied.  I need a new name for this quilt!

 I took another quilt in to be done and can't wait to see how High Cotton will look.

• Our MQG Opportunity Quilt is finished.  I volunteered to take over the binding from another member.  This is the first time I have ever finished someone else's binding and it was an odd exercise.  If I had been thinking better, I would have machine finished the darn thing, but instead persevered with hand binding and attaching a hanging sleeve.  Since the hanging sleeve was an afterthought I ended up taking out the stitching I had already done as well as nearly  two sides done by another guild member.  Thankfully it is all done now, has been handed off for photography, and tickets are being sold. 
•  There were more work hours this past month as I filled in some shifts for another employee who was off taking the MCAT for medical school entry.  That is one gnarly test and only the cream of the crop are even asked back for an interview after top tier scoring.  My co-worker was asked back after taking the test last year, but as there are literally thousands of applicants for few openings, he didn't get into a school.  Therefore he decided to retake the test to improve his score and studied intensely again for months.  It will be a while before his results are back and that can't be easy to bear. 
• Quilting-wise, my continuous attempts at focus and progress have upped a tick, with the use of a visual aid: 

I found this at a school supply store, it is magnetic as well as being a white board and came with two types of hangers and some easel thingies so it can stand up.  I'm happy to report that, yes, I did indeed finish all the goals for August.  They only slightly spilled over into September as I finished the backing to Cocoa Baskets on Saturday.  Still need to choose September goals.

• Baby Spam!

This is a photo from last month, when the quilt Mimi made grandson Hunter was at the County Fair (it got a 2nd place!) so he was posed on a different quilt for his monthly update.  Hunter is now 6 months old; a happy, smiley little one and more mellow than his very active older brother. We love them so!