What's Up

I've been busy around here. November is a crazy month for us here.  There are 3 family birthdays in one week - me and both of my kids!  We've had major windstorms and power outages, unseasonably freezing weather (twice in November!) and we also do Turkey Day.  And my dear husband was gone for 2 weeks to China on business, arriving home the day before T-Day.  Whew!

I think I'm finally recovered from hosting Thanksgiving!  We had the whole family here, except for my niece, who's in Vermont.  10 people.  It was crazy but fun, and all the food was soooo good.  Probably too good, if you know what I mean.  But, the house is cleaned up, most of the food is gone/eaten and I'm rested up - now I get to sew!

Here's what I've been working on:

One Big-O block

My first Block Lotto block for the December Lotto drawing.  Easy-peasy and fun.  I made a mistake in measuring a pillowcase and had to cut some off.  This was made from what I cut off.  Now to make 11 more!  Dark background (in this case black) and quilter's choice for the other fabric.

9 Easy X blocks

Here are my blocks I made for the November Block Lotto drawing.  I didn't win. *pout*  But that's OK.  There's always the next month!  These were also easy and fun.  Jewel tones and black.  I always love that combo.

I finally got around to finishing a couple of pillowcases for my youngest son's host "mom" in Spain.  It was taken me an embarassingly long time to get these done.  There was internets research and learning opportunities involved in this process.  It turns out that Spanish bed pillows are quite different from what we have here in the U.S.A.  And they're different sizes depending on the bed they are on too.  And, it also involved translating centimeters to inches.  (Maths)  So I had to guess, especially when I misplaced my measuring tape.  Then when I found it I discovered that there is centimeters on the "other" side!  Which is why I ended up cutting off some fabric - one pillowcase came out way longer that the other one.  Now they're the same.  Not saying they're the right size - but they are consistent.  The host mom really got a kick out of my son's pillowcases he took with him (we both travel with our own pillows and I make all his pillowcases in fun fabrics), so I thought she might like a couple too.  This ended up being much more involved than I ever would have guessed, but I really hope they fit and that she likes them!

B's Scrappy Trips

This past summer, I taught a workshop on Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips pattern to my guild.  They had a lot of fun doing those blocks!  Some of the ladies actually got their quilt finished in time for our quilt show this year.  (not me, though)  So I thought you might like to see how well they did.  I think the quilts came out great!

B's quilt is so bright and cheery!  I love blue and yellow together.

J's Scrappy Trips

J. used a Jelly Roll of Minick and Simpson fabrics.  I love all those rich reds!

M's Scrappy Trips

M. used a jelly roll.  She chose to use black sashing in her quilt.

Right now I'm in the midst of working on a mystery quilt from the year 2000.  I think it may have aged enough by now to get finished.  It's going to be a twin size, and hoo boy, it's taking me a while.  There are about a million units to this one!  No real block, per se, just lots of units to form an over-all design.  Yes, I cheated and looked at the last clue already.  I started running out of fabric and had to substitute, so I wanted to know if that would work.  Fortunately, I started this out doing scrappy so throwing in another couple of fabrics isn't the end of the world.  I'm on Step 4 of 6.  No photos yet.  Soon, hopefully.  Next up is sewing a few thousand flying geese units.  Well, it feels like a few thousand of them!

The cats were playing the other night, and I tried to take a photo of them because they were so cute.  But, the flash didn't come out like I thought it would.  

Cat headlights.  Dunkel has his regular beams on and Shade has his high beams on!  hee hee!

Hooray!

My first REAL blog post of 2014!  I hope I can keep up more frequently this year.  My poor blog was so neglected last year.

We got through the holidays just fine this year.  No one got sick, which is a nice change from last year when DH and I both had a nasty virus.  DH was on a business trip to China for most of the month of December, so guess who did most of the shopping?  (I LOVE shopping on-line!  It's way too easy.)  He arrived home one week before Christmas, and managed to be mostly awake for all the festivities.  Jet lag is so terrible, but fortunately it didn't bother him too badly until Christmas was over.

I didn't get much sewing done, but did manage to get 8 pillowcases made for presents!

These are the ones for K. (who is A.'s mom), my dear DIL A. and DS #1.  

Here is a close-up of DIL A.'s pillowcase.  I found this fabric with names of places in Paris and knew it would be perfect.  A. has been to Paris 4 or 5 times (they were stationed in Germany) and Paris is her favorite city in the world.  

Pillowcases for the granddaughters.  The older one is really into ballet (3rd year of classes), and the younger one loves kitties and puppies.  She got kitties last year, so this year it had to be puppies.  *grin*

I somehow managed to NOT get a photo of the pillowcase I made for DS #2.  Bad Mom/blogger.

And these are the pillowcases for my DH, The Potter, and myself.  I'll bet you can guess whose is whose!

I also made some Winnie The Pooh potholders for my DIL's birthday, which she LOVED!  It used up the very last of my Pooh Bear fabric.  And I managed to NOT get photos of those either.  But at least I got them done in time!  Now I need to make some for myself (not Pooh Bear though).  I somehow managed to lose my selvage potholders, and am missing them.  Since I have an abundance of selvages, it shouldn't be too hard to do.  

I also managed to make some blocks for the Block Lotto.

These are the December blocks, called "Stripes".   It was surprisingly difficult to be 100% accurate on these.  Maybe I was distracted??

blocks finish at 7 inches by 14 inches

And these are the Chevron blocks for January.  Sophie had a fun, new-to-me technique to make the HST's for these.  You just cut one big square (9 inches in this case) from the background and the featured fabric for each chevron, and based on how you sew and cut that square, you get 8 HST's.  You can see her directions here.  Because you're cutting slightly larger than you need, you then trim to an accurate size (4 inches in this case, 3 1/2 inches finished size) and they're so accurate that everything goes together just slick as a wink.  Easy-peasy!  I love when I find a new technique that is easy and accurate!

I haven't had a lot of time to sew the last couple of weeks, and am trying to decide what I want to work on first.  Finish a quilt that is in-progress, work on a charity quilt or start a new quilt??  Of course, I could clean the quilt studio first, but that's not as much fun.  *wink*  

Have a creative weekend! 

My First Finish of the Year!

Finally, I have something a finish to post!  And it's still the first half of January.  I'll take that as a good omen for the year.

I got DH's pillowcase done in time to give it to him for Christmas, but I hadn't finished my own yet.  Now it's done.  I'm betting you can tell which pillowcase is for which of us.  *grin*  I actually bought the fabric for mine last year (2011) but never got around to doing it.  A very bad case of procrastination!

Here is my first Treasure Bag - completed!  (You can see my first post about this here.) This looks rather hairy because there is fuzzy yarn in here, as well as eyelash yarn.  I haven't decided yet if I like that or not.  But I'm not keeping this one.  It's to be a gift. I don't have a measurement for this one, but my smart phone fits in here.  The handle is long enough to wear the bag over one shoulder or across your body.

Here's my second Treasure Bag - also done!  The first one was so much fun, I had to make another one.  And I can't seem to stop . . . I have 2 more in process!  This one is smaller - meant to fit a flip phone.  I still need to make a loop and add a button for a closure to be totally finished.  I actually had to buy a crochet hook, as I can't find the ones I used to have!  I had a lot of fun picking out the beads to go on these bags.  

Now I'm making one for myself.  I started it, then decided I didn't like the main yarn color and went and bought something I like better, so now I get to undo what was done and start over.  Fortunately, I wasn't too far along yet, so not too painful a process.  

We had a possibility of snow today, and had flurries off and on, but nothing stuck.  Tomorrow is supposed to be clear and cold, and then maybe more snow on Saturday.  I'm hoping for snow.  We missed the first snowfall when we were in California last month.  I have no where to go and I have food in the house, so I'm all prepared for it.  Crossing my fingers.....

New Year, New Start

Wow, another long blogging break for me.  I hope to post more often this year.  Last year, I sadly neglected my blog too often.

Dunkel says "Happy New Year!"

 
Anywho, I hope all my readers had a wonderful holiday season and are off to a good start on the New Year.

I want to thank everyone for their words of sympathy on the loss of my father-in-law.  His death was completely unexpected and quite a shock.  We went to California the week before Christmas for a memorial service for him.  It was a hurried and difficult trip.  And the worst was that DH came down with a nasty virus just as we were leaving Seattle.  But there were a couple of high points.  We had gorgeous weather, which was unusual for the Central Valley in Dec.  Blue skies and bright sunshine.  It was so nice to have some sunshine!  And I think we had the world's best beef enchiladas at a little taqueria - out of this world!

So, needless to say, our Christmas preparations were rushed and our celebration a little low-key.  But, in spite of DH being so sick and miserable and me fighting it off as well, we had a nice holiday.  Went to dinner and to see The Hobbit with friends on Christmas Eve (I LOVED the movie!), spent the day at our oldest son's house on Christmas, then we (me, DH and The Kid) had our Christmas on Boxing Day.

We met our "new" grand-dog.  This is Hannah and she's 11.  My oldest son is so happy to have a dog again, and she seems to adore him too. A big dog with a great big "woof!" which she is demonstrating here.  She's a sweetheart.

I managed to hold off the worst of the virus until we got through those 3 days, then it had me down for the rest of December and into the new year.  Ugh.  I seem to be over the worst of it now, but I'm still on medications and still coughing, and DH is still not feeling well either.  He actually went to the Dr. (we were afraid he had strep throat because his throat hurt so severely for so long), but it's just a virus - not even the flu.  It's a tough one though.  We're still taking it easy around here.

A. and her fleece pillowcase

L. and her kitty pillowcase

I did manage to get my Christmas sewing done.  I made everyone a new pillowcase again this year.  Mine isn't finished yet, though.  And I still have one more present to finish for the The Kid.  It won't take long, when I can get into the quilt studio.  I have managed to sew 5 blocks on my Low Volume quilt since Christmas.  That's it . . . all the sewing I have accomplished.  I'm hoping to get in there this week to do a little more.

Just wanted to mention . . . my sister has started an Etsy shop.  She doesn't have much in there yet, but is planning on more soon.  Pop over and take a look.  She hasn't started a blog yet, but I'm trying to get her to do that soon.  She's a very creative person and has a lot to share.

Lack of Focus

No, not the picture.  My brain!

I love these fall colors!  I think it's a wonder that they are all on one bush.

Here is where I found them - in my Japanese Maple in the front yard.  Of course, the sun went away right before I got out there, so it doesn't glow as much as in the sunshine, but still, I think it's beautiful.  This bush just up and changed overnight about 2 days ago.  Amazing.

I've actually managed to get myself into the quilt studio the last few days.  I don't have any particular project that I'm focused on.  Mainly I'm just putzing with a lot of different ones.  These are my house exchange blocks that my friends in California are doing, and were nice enough to include me in the exchange.  This is about 2/3 of what I need - we're supposed to make 12 blocks, enough to make a table runner.  But it seems I always have to do something different, so I'm making 16 blocks to make a wallhanging. 

Here are the other 8 blocks, all ready for me to do the stitching on them.  We don't have to have these done until January, but I'm hoping to have them done before Thanksgiving, if not sooner.  *fingers crossed*

Yesterday when I was trying to get some fabrics cut, Shade was "helping" by dancing right in the middle of it all.  So, rather than cut something that shouldn't be cut, whether fabric or feline, I decided I'd better sit down and do some stitching.  Shade likes to lay on the desk next to me when I'm sewing on the machine.  So, when I sat down, he calmed down.  Not having anything in particular to do, I decided to pull out the crumbs and work on some of that.  I always leave some blocks started, so that there's a starting point when I want to sit and stitch for a few minutes.  It eliminates the "brain strain" that could happen if I have to think about it too much!  *grin*  I got a few more blocks finished.  So, I decided to see how many blocks I had.  I had 57!  The ones that I finished brought it to 60.  They're all trimmed to 6 inches and will finish to 5 1/2 inches.  So, I started playing on the design wall.

I had been thinking of adding sashing, but decided that was more work than I wanted to do for a charity quilt.  Then I thought of putting them on point.  I think I like this.  I can't seem to be able to make up my mind about which fabric to use for the alternate squares, so I think I'll just use plain white.  A nice clean look.  So, now I'm back to cutting more fabric!  But this one should be done quickly.

Guess what?  I still have 40 crumb blocks left!  Quilt seeds!  To be played with and decided on another day.  I need to sort my bin of crumb fabrics too.  I've got too many itsy-bitsy pieces in there, and not enough of the larger pieces.

Last Friday I went to a Quilts of Valor sew-in.  I got one quilt trimmed and ready for binding, but forgot my walking foot. so then I got a kit and started piecing.  This will become a Disappearing 9-Patch.  I've got all the strips sewn and now need to cut for the next step. 

And lastly, I've spent two evenings picking out fabrics for pillowcases for Christmas presents for the family.  I see more fabric cutting in my future!  I hope Shade will cooperate!

Busy but Stalled

I've been missing in action around these parts lately. I accompanied DH on a business trip last week to Skamania Lodge in the Columbia River Gorge. (we were there last September too - see this post) I had a wonderful vacation. . . while DH worked! All the wives that were there did some sightseeing together, and had a good time. However, I hardly touched a computer the whole week. I was just too busy. On the way home we stopped for a short overnight visit with my sister. That was fun, but way too short.

Since getting home, I've been trying to catch up on things, including sleep. We both got over-tired last week. "Too much fun", as DH says. Ha! Is there such a thing? And the kitties are very needy right now. . .they're always traumatized after a week in the kennel, especially Shade. (The lady at the kennel said she never saw him outside of his carry-crate.) So I have to spend a lot of time with them right now. And the allergies this year are really getting to me.

But I do have some things to show. I managed to get some sewing done before I left.

First is a charity quilt that I made. My guild is making quilts for seniors in wheelchairs, so the quilts don't have to be real big. My friend in CA sent me some patterns that she had gotten as free handouts from a speaker at her guild (Pat Fryer of Villa Rosa Designs), and this one was just exactly the right size. I tried to use only stash for this one (it calls for fat quarters), and did pretty good. But, I forgot to make sure I had enough for the border and the binding. I managed to use one of the fat quarters (that was really a regular quarter yard) for the border (without piecing it!), and I found something at the LQS that works great for the binding. So, this one cost me $4 and change! Woo hoo! I'll be making the back and binding, and then passing this on to someone else to quilt, as lots of the ladies in the guild have long- or mid-arms.

I made some very-belated Christmas presents for my sister. I haven't seen her since last October, so this was our first chance to exchange our presents. (We're always running a little behind) Anyway, this is the Humbug Bag. This is the largest size. I decided to use batiks, inside and out, because she loves them. I left her ribbons long so that she can add some beads to the zipper pull. These are fun. I hope you can tell from the photo that these are a fun shape and really easy to do. They're flat in one direction on one end, and flat in the other direction on the other end. Nice and roomy inside for storing things too.

This is the smaller Humbug Bag (hand included for size comparison). It fits inside the larger Humbag bag. I used some Asian-style fabric for this one, 'cuz she loves anything Asian. This one has an "antique" zipper that I found in my stash of zips. It's an "Invisible" zipper . . . can you even find these anymore?? I had a few technical problems with this (don't have the correct foot anymore), but it finally worked. I wouldn't recommend using the Invisible zipper for this again.

I made some pillowcases for my granddaughters' birthday presents. I was thrilled to find the "Brown Bear" fabric, as it had been the oldest girl's favorite book for a while. I'm not sure they were as thrilled with it as I was. I didn't use the trim piece this time, but used some rickrack instead. I think it's fun!

These pillowcases were supposed to be Christmas presents, but I couldn't make them after my accident. So, they became birthday presents instead. I had to pay attention to the fact that the designs on these fabrics ran lengthwise, so had to cut lengthwise instead of widthwise. After almost 30 years of sewing, I'm finally learning to recognize this!

When I visited my daughter in January, I discovered that she was using some potholders that were probably older than her! And they weren't very effective either. So, I had to make her some new ones. I found these garlic and mushroom fabrics on a field trip, and they were perfect as they're her favorite ingredients!

I made three potholders for her. One is the garlic with the rusty dot fabric, one is the mushrooms with the brown square-dot fabric and the last one is garlic on one side with mushrooms on the other. So, I had to show all the permutations.

Hopefully she won't be burning her fingers now!

Finally, I am slowly making progress with my Liberated Amish Challenge quilt. I've gotten all the 9-patches made. I got wonkier as I went, which was really fun.

This was a photo to help me decide which fabric to use for the alternate squares. The 9-patches are just kind of thrown up on the fabric to test the color. The final configuration will be a little different. This is a Cherrywood fabric in midnight blue. I have 2 yards of it, which would be enough if I were doing a straight set, but I think I'm going to set my blocks on point. After much painful math (never my strong suit), I've determined that 2 yards isn't enough for the center and the border. So the border will be something different. But I'm liking how this is shaping up. Now I get to play with my 9-patches and figure out my layout for them.

Hopefully this will happen soon! I've only got about a month to get this one done. Then I have a challenge quilt for my guild that needs to be done by July. Because I took a week and more off, I'm feeling behind. I went into the quilt studio last night, and couldn't even decide what to do. So all I managed to do was to trim some crumb blocks down to size. That's not even an active project. It didn't help that Studio Cat wanted to be in my face the whole time. So, I've got to get focused. Sheesh.