Ready or Not . . .

. . . the holidays are coming!  Are you ready?  I think I'm mostly ready.  Well, except for wrapping the presents, finishing the few Christmas cards left and baking two batches of cookies.  That's close though, don't you think?  I'm trying to maintain serenity.  (Yeah, right.)

Christmas Spools
17 x 21 inches

Just to add some Christmas cheer to my blog, here's an "oldie but a goodie" that I've put up every year since I made it.  This was made sometime between 1986 and 1990.  (Bad quilter - didn't put on a label)  It definitely has '80's fabrics in there!  I was inspired to make this by a sample in the window of my favorite quilt shop at that time "Going to Pieces" in Pleasanton, California.  I just fell in love with that little quilt, so I went home and copied it from memory.  No pattern.  And I made mitered corners on those spools!   And hand-quilted.  I still love it!

Here is the first half of the flying geese I need to make for the mystery quilt I'm working on.  I couldn't even get them all in the photo!  And sorry for the crummy picture - it doesn't work too well to take pix at night.  I need to make this many again, only in different colors.  I'm not sure how big these units are, but over on the left there are 2 of my Block Lotto blocks for this month and they are 7 inch blocks.

Here are some more mystery quilt units that I've been working on.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but that is a rusty red and a black-ish brown.  This quilt will be autumn colors.  Nothing is hard sewing, but there is lots and lots of pieces and units.

I bought the Paperweights pattern from Karen Griska (of the Selvage Blog) on her Etsy store.  I'm making a little test sample quiltlet to see how well the fusible I'm using will work.  I think this will be cute!  

We had a deer visitor again yesterday.  This deer used to come around with his mama and sibling, and now he's on his own.  (really, I don't know if it's a "he" - I just call him that).  He's still young.  This spring's baby, I think.  But there he was lying in the yard, and he stayed that way for at least 20 minutes.  My picture-taking (through the kitchen window) didn't seem to bother him at all.  He watched me as much as I watched him!  Then he just got up and sauntered off.

Good luck with your last-minute holiday preparations!  I hope you get a few minutes to do some sewing or quilting.  I'm going to go sew with friends this afternoon!

The Lazy Blogger Strikes Again . . .

There is a little bit of all kinds of things in this blog post. I have no rhyme or reason to this today.  This is to disguise the fact that little actual sewing/quilting has occurred in this vicinity lately.  In my defense, I was dutifully visiting as many blogs as possible for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  We won't talk about all the hours I've wasted on Facebook or Pinterest, OK? 

Isn't this a fun scrappy Double Irish Chain?  I don't think I've ever seen a scrappy one like this!  Donna brought this to share at our little sewing get-together a few weeks ago.  This is a quilt that her grandmother made for her and is the reason she's a quilter today.  

It's hard to tell in the photos, but the background of this is a very pale pink.  The scraps are pieces of family clothing, etc.  I love the lime-y green!  And I like that the pink is not so strong that it competes with the other fabrics.  Not sure how much this has faded over the years, though.

There are some fun fabrics in this quilt!

Here is Dunkel "helping" me with a project that I had laid out.  He always wants to get under the fabric but just ends up wadding it up.  More on this one later.

Here is the word I made for Carol of Giraffe Dreams blog, who is making a quilt of verbs to celebrate her 60th birthday.   It took me about 3 tries to get going on this, as I'm out of practice.  I'm still not completely happy with the C or the R, both of which could be a little bigger, but all in all, I like it.  I used a batik for the hot pink, because it was bright and has dots!

Here is Dunkel, again, helping you get an idea of how big this turned out.  He's such a helpful kitty!

Here is the lovely flower I found in my yard last week.  I hate having these in my lawn, but they are really pretty.  So far, this is about all the flowers I've managed this spring.  It's raining too much to get out and do much yard work.  I don't know if that is good or bad, but it sure makes it easier to be in the quilt studio without guilt!

When I was taking out the trash tonight, I found we had some visitors in our driveway.  They were enjoying the big puddle near when this shot was taken. (I thought you'd probably enjoy seeing their cute little ducky faces rather than their tail feathers!)  I have no idea why they've wandered away from their usual hangout at the lake.  I think they were looking for a hand-out.  They waddled over pretty fast when I "quacked" at them!  LOL

And here they are leaving after our photo shoot - heading away from the lake! And because I was taking pictures of the ducks instead of putting out the garbage cans, I missed my window of opportunity, so to speak, and got drenched when it started raining right after this!  Some days ya just gotta laugh!

An Eagle, Some Corduroy and a Smug Cat

My DH took these photos of the bald eagle yesterday, while I was out visiting the Doctor.  The eagle possibly looks better than I do.

Good news, though.  I have a diagnosis (bronchitis) and some antibiotics, so I should be feeling better in a few days.  When I called the Doctor's office Monday, I actually looked at the calendar and counted how long I've been sick.  I was shocked when I realized it's been 7 weeks.  *sigh*  No wonder I'm tired of it!

The ducks that live on our pond were scarce yesterday.  No one was taking any chances with that hungry eagle flying around.  But apparently the one seagull that comes here in the winter was chasing the eagle in the air.  This crazy seagull comes to visit when the diving ducks come in the winter.  He harasses them and tries to take the fish that the ducks catch.  When the diving ducks leave, the seagull goes back to the grocery store parking lot where the rest of his relatives live.

I finally pulled out my poor neglected Gee's Bend-ish corduroy quilt made for National Corduroy Day back on 11-11-11.  *blush*   You can read about the making of it here.   I think it's "marinated" long enough and it's time to get serious about finishing this.  I'm tying this with black Perle cotton, and it's tedious and boring. 

one block finished

Last time I was working on this, I was putting it on the kitchen counter to tie it, (it's the right height for me to work at), but I got tired of standing.  So, for the Super Bowl, I pulled out the card table and started using that, so I can tie while seated in my chair.  It's working!  

I've decided to spend at least half an hour a day working on this, and I'm starting to see progress! I haven't gotten to this every single day, but I do more days than not, and I'm happy with that. I haven't trimmed any threads yet.  I'm waiting until I'm done, mostly because I haven't decided how long I want them to be.

The smug cat

Dunkel found himself a cozy spot the other evening.  He found the quilt I'd been using and decided he was claiming it.  Oh dear, I'm a little embarrassed for him.  It's not a very flattering shot.  He's gotten quite portly, hasn't he?  Poor baby.  I won't tell him if you won't.

A Quilt and The Great Outdoors

I have another finish to show!

This one has been a long time coming.  I guess I have to admit it's not my favorite.  I used a couple of charm packs for this, with more fabric from the same line.  I believe it was "Vienna Nights" by 3 Sisters.  I made the top at a retreat a few years ago and then it sat quite a while until I finally sent it to my long-armer last year.  I forgot where I had put the binding I'd made for this and ended up making something else to use.  (I've since found that binding)  And it's taken months to actually finish the hand-stitching of the binding.  My sister was working on it in October, and I took the last stitch last night.  Whew!  That was a tough one.  And I don't love it.  I like it, but I'm not in LOVE.  But the best part is it's DONE!

By the way, sorry for the poor lighting in these pictures.  It's a dark, gloomy day and that makes it hard to get a true color photo.

I made simple 4-patches with the charm squares, then set them together with a single alternate fabric.  I made sure that it went all ways so there's no real "up" or "down" to the quilt.

Here's a closeup of the quilting that Shari did.

The border fabric and quilting.

And I found some fabric at JoAnn's that coordinates with the top pretty well.  You can see that my binding fabric isn't an exact match, but it coordinates well also.

I think my problem with not loving this quilt is - the fabrics are all matchy-matchy!  I've really taken scrap quilting to heart, I guess!  But, never fear . . . I will find someone who LOVES this quilt!

We've been having fun looking out our window the last few days.  Yesterday we had some deer come to visit our yard - a mama and her baby from last spring.

They were feasting on the ivy.  They can have all they want!  I got a lot of pix of deer bums or very blurry pix.

Ah, finally mama shows us her good side.

Last night we had freezing fog, and this is what the yard looked like when we woke up.  At first I though we'd gotten snow, but the ground wasn't white, just the trees and bushes.  In this photo you can see some of the fog.

The trees were so pretty all frosted.

This photo shows some of the pond too.  It's been frozen for about 10 days now.  The fog never went away completely today.  We're supposed to have freezing fog for the next 3 nights and our high temp today was a whopping 34* f!  

It is nice to live somewhere with seasons again.  There's no doubt that it's winter here! The last ten days have been cold, but the sun was shining and that was really quite nice.  

A Winner and Some Other Stuff

My hollyhocks are finally blooming!  The purple flowers in the background are some of the foxgloves that are blooming now - and they're everywhere in my yard!  


As promised, Random Number Generator picked a winner for the giveaway today.

And the winner is Audrey of Quilty Folk blog!  I'll be contacting you for your snail mail address and will get the book in the mail to you as soon as possible, Audrey!

Recently my DH took a business trip to Taiwan.  When he asked me what I'd like him to bring back for me, guess what I answered?  Fabric, of course!  Well, little did I know that it would be a big adventure for him!  Long story short, it involved many stores, finding people that could speak some English (DH doesn't know Chinese), taxis and a lot of trust in strangers!  Here are the directions he received from a shop owner to give to a taxi driver to get to where there was fabric to purchase:

And here is the beautiful fabric that he brought home:

There is a yard of each fabric!

Look at the cool selvage!

And look at the fun, dotty plastic bag it came in:

full

empty

What an awesome gift!  He's definitely a keeper. *grin*

Some other sights around my yard:

Last year's (or possibly farther back than that) hanging basket got put on the side yard, hanging from the fence.  Whatever was in the basket died over the winter, and I hadn't gotten around to tossing the basket yet.  Today I discovered that it's now a fern nursery!  Yay!  I love ferns.  Now I have to find their permanent homes in my yard.

And in the back of the house, on the corner, is a bird's nest.  She's not too happy when we're out on the back deck.  I can't see her well enough to tell what kind of bird she is.  We think perhaps some kind of sparrow.  I have no idea if there are eggs or babies in there.  Time will tell.

the photo is straight, I can't pin things to the design wall straight!

Here's what I'm working on lately.  This is my Witch's Pantry from waaay back, when Lazy Gal Tonya was having the House, Home or Pantry Quilt Together.  You can see my beginning on this here and here.  I think this has "marinated" long enough.  I finally now know what I want to do with this.  I was thinking of what to do, and I had a sudden flash of what it could look like.  I love when that happens!  I want to get it finished, so it'll be ready for the quilt show in early October.  I made some more jars because I thought I needed more variety in the jar shapes/types and also the lids to the jars.  Then I edited the jars to a number that will work for what I want and decided on the layout, so now I'm ready to sew it together.  Photos soon!

Happy quilting!

Snow and Visitors

Snow!

Oh my gosh, two posts in two days!

Here's a weather update.  I got my wish.  We did get snow. We received about 3 to 5 inches last night, and it's been snowing all afternoon today.  I did an errand this morning, and was going to go out again this afternoon, but decided that it could wait.  The temperature is falling and so is the snow.  The roads in my housing development aren't plowed.  The highway was good, but getting there was a bit dodgy. And I don't have snow tires or chains.  If I don't need to go, I'm not going.   We're supposed to be down in the teens tonight.  Brrrr!  I'm real happy staying home.  I guess I can't really say it's a Snow Day since I actually went out. . . .how about 'Snow Afternoon'?  Think that would work??  It doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?  *grin*

We had some visitors today.  They came about 4 different times.  Apparently we have the tastiest foliage in the neighborhood.  They can have all the ivy they want!  We had 2 does and one baby come to visit. 

Oh, and to give credit where it's due, DH did all the photography today, except for the photo at the top of the post.

 



The baby





And here's the wildlife that lives inside the house!  Dunkel thought the deer were quite interesting.

OK, maybe the next post will have more quilt-y content!

Not Much Happening. . .

. . . around Haus Indigo lately.  I haven't done much sewing to speak of for a while.  I've been working on my exchange blocks, and I'm about half done with them.  I'll be showing them soon. 

I did manage to finish this little quilt:

This is Boo! # 4 - and the last one.  I think I still have some pumpkin fabric left, but I'm done making these.  I made one for my DDGs, one for my DD, and I gave an unfinished one to Purple Pam a few years ago (in trade for some fabrics, I think).  This one is for me.  I didn't stress over the quilting on this one - I just wanted it done! 

I think I quilted too unevenly.  Now that I have this up in the hallway, it's obvious that it doesn't hang straight at all.  Ooops!
 

Here is one of the visitors to our bird feeder lately.  This is an Evening Grosbeak.  We've had three of them here in the last few days.  They like to sit in the feeder and hog all the sunflower seeds.  As a matter of fact, the  WhatBird website says these birds have been observed eating 96 sunflower seeds in five minutes.  I believe this, because they are definitely greedy guts birds!  I don't know if they're passing through on their way South, or if they'll be staying the winter.  That may depend on how quickly I keep the feeder refilled!

I've been out in the yard trimming plants and cleaning up.  We had a dry spell for a few days and I thought I'd better take advantage of it.  Here is probably my last geranium bloom for this year.  We've been close to freezing lately, and the geraniums will croak when it does freeze.

I trimmed the hydrangeas back severely, as they were too leggy and were just kind of laying on the ground.  The one outside the kitchen window was over my head and blocking the view from inside the house.  They are mere shadows of themselves now.  I did save this one last blossom.  It was just starting to open.  I think it got confused by the weather.  I also had one blossom pop out on my azalea.  Crazy.

Now that we've had some close-to-freezing temps overnight for a few days and a little rain the last day or so, the trees and bushes are finally starting to show some color.  We'd been just kind of fading into fall - leaves just turning brown and falling.  I think a Fall like that is kind of sad.  So I'm very happy to see the colors.  It always puts me in a good mood.  I love a colorful Fall.  I'm going to try to get some photos in the next few days - when it stops raining, hopefully!

Speaking of colorful . . . 

A week ago I taught a fabric-dyeing workshop for my guild.  I didn't get a large turnout - only 5 people.  But I'm more comfortable with fewer people anyway.  It was kind of difficult, as we were outside and the wind kept getting stronger and stronger.  The paint containers (paper cups) kept blowing over.  (We couldn't find any rocks to put in the cups either.)  I was so excited/nervous to do this workshop that I never got the camera out of my bag, so I have no photos to show you.  But this piece (photo above) is the last piece of fabric we dyed.  It's about a fat quarter in size, more or less, and was a white-on-white.  I just took the last of the dyes and poured them onto the plastic-covered table and started smooshing the fabric on top.  When we used all that up, then we smooshed the paint brushes into the fabric too.  It was a ton of fun, and I think this piece came out the best!  I liked this so much, I think I'll just do this at the beginning the next time I dye!

p.s.  Yay! for the Texas Rangers!  And Go Giants!