Blogiversary and Catching Up

 

It's my Blogiversary today, marking 13 years that I've been doing this blogging thing.  I kind of slacked off/flaked out on it last year.  2020 was not my favorite year.  Was it anyone's??  I doubt it.  It seemed to be a year of nothing but bad news.  I'm glad it's over!  2021 seems more promising. *fingers crossed*

But on to more fun topics!  Quilts!

Let's see, what have I been working on?  

I've made more Urban Chicken blocks (link to pattern click here),but not enough for a whole quilt yet.  This is the latest photo I have, but I actually have more blocks made than this.  These blocks are fun to make.  I'm limiting myself to only using fat quarters for the blocks and I'm using up some random white-on-white fabrics for the backgrounds for the flying geese, that I call the "chicken beaks."  It's been slow going for some reason.  Other projects are calling me louder than these blocks are.

  

I was really in the mood for some Improv quilting.  This block, from Rayna Gillman's book "Create Your Own Improv Quilts" was my inspiration.  I was really in love with her cover quilt and wanted to make my own.    Above was my first four blocks.

I played with some other layouts, just for fun.

This is the finished top.  I apologize for the crappy lighting.  We have terrible light here in the Pacific Northwest during the winter, as the weather is usually dark and raining.  I promise I'll get a better picture when I can.

I don't know if you can tell, but I actually ended up using two different shades of the grey background, (which looks more tan in this photo).  I thought the two greys were the same fabric when they were on my cutting table.  I decided to just go with it.  More improv-y!   Hee hee!

This is a detail photo with a little better light so hopefully you can see the colors better.

  

I had a lot of fun making this little quilt.  I used all scraps for the solid colors.  And I had a lot of the black&white fabrics to choose from.  I really like the pop the b&w's give!

Last week both my husband and myself got cataract surgery, on both eyes. (different eyes on different days)  It was kind of a stressful week that we're both still recovering from.  It was a shock to see the difference on the day after the first surgery, when one eye had been fixed and the other hadn't yet had the surgery!  It was like comparing a regular incandescent light bulb with an LED light bulb!  With the "old" eye, the world looked like photos from the 1970's , all yellow and kind of sepia-toned.  The "new" eye had a very blue cast to it.  A week later, my eyes (and brain) are finally getting adjusted to the new look.  

This may make a big difference to my quilt making now, or at least how I pick out colors.  I'm not doing any fabric choosing for about another week, just in case!  This has been quite an experience. However, I'm really glad I had the surgery done.

I'll be back with more quilting adventures soon!

Playing with Projects and a Flimsy

Well, I finally have a "first finish"!  This quilt top is now a flimsy. This is the Rail Fence pattern from Sujata Shah's book "Cultural Fusion Quilts".

Rail Fence quilt
56 inches square

I started this quilt way back in April of 2016.   You can read about it here.  This project got put on the back burner a few times since 2016, but I finally decided it's time was now and got it put together.  The i-sew-lation is at least good for getting some projects done.  I am very happy to get it to this stage.

one block to show you the fabrics, but each block is different.

It took me quite a while to decide what fabric I wanted to use for this quilt.  I finally decided on the indigo prints (shweshew) from DaGama Fabrics in South Africa because I love indigo and I love blue & white quilts too. I collected these fabrics over a span of time (maybe 10 years?).  I bought a few of them at a time at Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara every year.  I lived about 10 miles from where the Festival is held, so it was a yearly trip with my friends. ( I sure miss going).  The fabrics were fun to collect and to use.

 I used both the 3 Cats and 3 Leopards lines for the indigos and I used 1800's reproduction prints for the whites.  Quite the cultural fusion, eh?  I think I used up most all of my Da Gama fabrics making this.  You can see the logo that is printed on the backs of the fabrics in the pictures below.  There is also some of the fabric print showing, so you can see how different it is.

#1

#2

#3
This one is almost reversible!

#4

I made sure I got these photos because there wasn't any other way to preserve the logo otherwise, since I had to cut the fabric.  And I think it's pretty cool.

in process on the "design floor"

This quilt was a little math challenge for me, as the DaGama fabrics are only 35 inches wide, not 42.  I had to do math and shrink the blocks to 14 inches instead of 16 inches.  But it worked out really well!

There is lots of ways to lay out these blocks, but I didn't even play with them.  I knew this was the layout that appealed to me for these colors.  Maybe another time I'd do a different layout.  I'm so happy to finally have this done!  Now I need to decide if I'm quilting it myself or sending it out to the LA quilter.

This is what 50 pounds of flour looks like!  We were never able to find any flour in the grocery stores, because of the pandemic panic buying and hoarding, so we ended up ordering the flour directly from King Arthur Flour.  My husband has made almost all of the bread we use for the last 2 years, as well as hot dog and hamburger buns, biscuits etc.  Finding yeast was another adventure.  But now we're set for a while! Yay!

I was in the mood for finishing some things after I cleaned up the quilt studio and found a bunch of half-done projects. So, this was some blocks from an exchange I was in.  These blocks are so pastel they don't fit color-wise with the other blocks, so I decided they needed to be a table runner.  The 3 blocks made it just the right size.  I can't tell you how long this was waiting to be put together.  Kinda silly, right? My working theory is that no project is done before it's time - it needs to age properly!  Like a fine wine.

12 inch Urban Chicken blocks

Rather then basting and quilting the baby quilts that I'm supposed to working on, I started working on another project that I had been stalling on.  As in, I had the pattern and some fabric pieces were cut.  But I was inspired when I saw someone's quilt they were working on, and decided no time like the present for working on this.  Maybe it's my quarantine quilt?

Anywho, these are Urban Chicken blocks.  I fell in love with this pattern when the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild used this block for the Block of the Month one time.  Here is the pattern from Cath at Wombat Quilts.  It's a very easy block to make and fun for using up scraps.  Cath shows this quilt done in a couple of different color schemes here and here, and I like them both.  I haven't decided if I'm using a limited color scheme (blues, greens and maybe purple) or if I'm going to go with rainbow colors.  I think rainbow, as I've wanted to do a rainbow quilt for a few years now.  Anyway, these 12 inch blocks are a lot of fun to make.  The chicken "beaks" are done with a wonky improv process and are so easy to do.  So easy that mine aren't being quite as wonky as I'd like them to be!  I have decided that the blue block needed more contrast in it.  It reads all the same color.  Lesson learned, I hope!

When I was trying to photo the blocks, the Quilt Inspector (Shade) came to see if he approved them.

Here he's complaining at me that they're not snuggle-worthy yet.

I think he got over it!  Now he's just being a little grumpy. 

Here is what I call the Washington state flower, as there are millions and trillions of these around here.  Whole pastures just full of them!  

And I found, when I wandered around the yard, that my trilliums are blooming and starting to spread!   The deer don't come through our yard anymore due to a new house and fence in the neighborhood and I miss seeing them but the trillium are happy about that.  The deer were nibbling them down to nothing. Sadly, they're also not eating the ivy that wants to take over everything on one side of our yard. Oh well.  I had never seen trillium before we moved to the Pacific Northwest.

It's been almost 70 days that we've been staying home.  Well, I have. My husband and my son keep going to the store for necessities, and I'm so glad they're going.  They both say that those trips are pretty stressful, even though most everyone is being so careful to do the social distance thing.  I had to take my son to the dentist last week, but it wasn't bad.  They were doing emergency appointments only, so the waiting room was empty.  I had to go get a blood draw yesterday and it was also empty.  And I wear my mask all the time I'm out.  For Mother's Day we all went for a drive.  I was getting antsy and ready to see something else.  So we just drove around in the country and never stopped anywhere.  It was a nice trip, but it was surprising how many people were out at the river!  Because we were having our first heat wave of the year.  

Then DH and I had to go for a drive the other night.  The battery in my car pooped out (after sitting in the driveway for 2 months!) and after 2 days of not starting very well (but still sitting in the driveway), we went for another drive to get it charged up good.  So another nice diversion that was a no-contact trip.  It's helping me to not be too antsy.  I miss going to guild meetings and seeing my friends!  

How are you doing?  Are you going out?  Are you wearing a mask?  I was so glad for the mask yesterday because the cottonwood trees are now spewing their "cotton" everywhere and it really aggravates my allergies.  Having the mask on really helps with the allergies.  Who knew?

That's all the news for now.  I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

Happy quilting!

Staying Home and Staying Safe

We have been staying home for 57 days today.  The days are starting to blur together.  I have to look at my smart phone almost every day to find out the day of the week and the date!  And if I wasn't doing a kind-of-bullet journal I wouldn't remember how many days it's been since we started staying home.  I've only been out of the house once, to pick up our completed taxes, last month I think.  The Potter and The Kid have both been out numerous times, mostly for food and other supplies.  I haven't been missing going out too much.  I am an introvert, and frankly, I already have all of my toys right here at home. So, I decided I should quit reading the news and stressing out and worrying and start playing!  That's much better for my mental health!

But first I have to tell you a little story.  Before all the COVID-19 stuff started, I met my neighbor, I'll call her J., one day by the mailboxes.  She is a quilter and is also elderly.  She told me about how she had gotten a quilt back from the long armer but cannot do a binding on her quilt anymore, due to a bad shoulder and having had a stroke.  So I told her I would do the binding for her.  (It's still waiting at the moment)  So when I went in her house to retrieve the quilt, I saw this quilt hanging on the wall.  She gave permission for me to take some pictures and told me the story of the quilt. 

When J. was a little girl, her mother made this quilt for her.  Her mom passed away when J. was only 10, so this is especially dear to her.  I think this was made probably in the late 1930's to the 1940's.

This is a little yo-yo vest that J's mother made for J's little sister.  It looked like it would fit a child about 4 or 5.  Those yo-yos are about 1 1/2  or 2 inches across.  So sweet! 

the mess in my quilt studio

Before I could get started playing with my quilting, I decided I really couldn't deal with the disaster area that my studio had become any longer and started cleaning up the mess some.  I had started last year but got overwhelmed and then sick and quit after doing only part of the room.  Here is some of what I was dealing with.  I was still a little overwhelmed, but I just stuck to it.  It took me quite a few days but I finally ended up with some organization.

I compiled, combined, listed and labeled a lot of projects in these bins.  It's not perfect, as you can see it's partially blocking my armoire which is full of fat quarters.  And directly to the right is the closet where I keep my quilt book library. I've had my design wall there in front of the closet doors, but I couldn't get to the books, or even use the design wall because of all the mess in the floor in front of it.  Sigh.  So I took down the design wall temporarily.  I'm not ready to put it back up yet.

When I could get to the closet door on the left side of the closet, I found all kinds of things I haven't found in years.  And I found a big pile of new kitchen towels!  Score!  I have no idea when I bought those.  Most of those have been washed and put to work in the kitchen.  A few will get some decorative things added to them, eventually.  But I just closed the door on the rest and will deal with it at a later date.

I also got rid of quite a few things that I'm not interested in anymore.  So, progress.  But more work is still needed as I still have more messes to sort and organize.  I have the smallest bedroom in the house for my quilt studio, and it's a constant struggle to keep the "stuff" under control.

So the first thing I wanted to sew turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated.  I want to make a baby quilt for my hairdresser, who is about to have her 2nd baby.  And I happened to find some exchange blocks from an exchange with my friends in California from a few years ago.   And they were almost enough for a baby quilt!  I had originally envisioned a big quilt, but the baby quilt was a better idea as that saved me a bunch of time.  By laying this on the design (living room) floor,  I found I had only 3 blocks to make!  

Ta Da!  Making those extra 3 blocks was fun and easy.  This pattern is called "The Future's So Bright" from the Crazy Mom Quilts blog.  But it's so easy as it's just a block that I call a "belly button" plus double 4-patch blocks.  Everything is made with 4 1/2 inch and 2 1/2 inch squares and strips.  Now to get it basted and quilted.  How to quilt it is always a painful decision for me.  But the baby is almost due, so I've not got too much time to waffle on it.

masks cut out to sew

I made a dozen masks for some of the local nurses, using the pattern that they requested.  I would have liked to do more, but I found I was really struggling with not only the pattern but just with making the masks and I just couldn't do any more.

I have made some masks for me and my family.  The pattern I used and really liked was a tutorial from Beebe's.  It doesn't have the seam up the front and I think it fits better.  Just in case you want to make some masks!  I still have to make some extra masks for us, for when the first ones are in the laundry.  

Oh, and just a note here about masks.  The Kid has mentioned that he wears his mask when he's walking the dog and it's really helping him with the allergies!  Yay for that!

I also found some projects that have been neglected for awhile that I want to work on now.  It's time to get some things finished!  I really want to start a new quilt, but I'm trying to scratch that itch by working on some of my neglected projects.  But I will save something to tell you later.  

Mr. Bunny Long-Legs says to be sure to wear your mask and wash your hands!  We want you to stay safe and healthy!

Happy quilting til next time!

Slow Progress

It's been a slow month around here.  Just hobbling around, trying to heal up the ankle I broke.  I have finally graduated from the cast and crutches to a walking boot.  It's big and clunky, but at least I can get a shower now!  I've had it for 2 weeks now, and another 2 weeks still for sure.  After that, I get re-checked.  I hope it will be healed then!

We had about 12 inches of snow over a 2 week period (which is a tremendous amount for here) and I didn't go outside for quite a while.  I wasn't going out there with crutches and bare-naked toes!  I was very happy to stay in and sew.  My dear hubby did all the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping.  What a nice vacation for me!  He got grumpy because he didn't have time to go make pottery.  I just smiled.

We moved some of my sewing supplies and my travel machine downstairs so that I could sew.

Real Life is messy

This is "supposed" to be the dining room, but we were using it for a lounge/music room, as my piano is in here too.  But our DS needed some room for his art and writing space, so now that's what the room is.  So he's sharing with me.  I cut fabric and sewed at the table, and then I had the iron and small ironing tray to iron on across the room.  It was quite a process to get to the iron on the Kneelie-Wheelie or the crutches, but I managed it.

I was trying to do some sewing so I didn't go completely nuts with the forced inactivity.  I couldn't sew too long at a time, but I got a surprising amount done in-between elevating my foot!

The first few blocks I made.

And then there were more.

And today when I laid the blocks out on the bed. I now have 41 Plus blocks.  I need to make one more and then I can start putting the blocks together into a top that should be 60 x 70 inches..  That lump in the upper left hand corner of the bed is Shade sleeping under the covers - his favorite day-time sleeping spot. It sure makes laying out the blocks a little challenging.  Hee hee!

I sent my son to Ben Franklin's to find some handwork for me to do.  He brought me some plastic canvas and cotton yarn, and so we both made coasters. The old ones I have are about 20 years old and boring.  I'm sick of looking at them, so this was fun.  I made the 4 on the bottom, DS made the 5 on the top.  I have one more to do, and I'm thinking of what I want to do for the last one.  These are way more fun to use than the old coasters!

Another thing I did was to finally finish the weaving on this little woven bag I started 2 or 3 years ago.  I got disgusted with it and didn't really like what I was doing.  I think I don't care that much for the colors.  This is the side that was the outside on the loom.  You can see all my starts and stops.   

And then I turned it inside out.  It looks better!  I still don't like it much though.  I still need to finish the top edge, but that involves going in the quilt studio and I can't do that yet because we moved a bunch of stuff from the bedroom into the quilt studio so I could get around in the bedroom with the crutches. So now the studio's full of stuff that I can't maneuver this boot around.  Sigh.  I'll get in there eventually.  When I can get around without the boot, I'm going to clean my quilt studio.  It desperately needs it!  And I need to be back in there, sewing!

Happy quilting!

Just Poking Along

Still not much going on around here, but I did manage to get some sewing accomplished.  Yay for me!

My quilt guild was having a workshop on the Falling Charms quilt (which I first saw on Crazy Mom Quilts blog here, and then found out that Missouri Star's Jenny also has a tutorial here), so I decided to play along.  After some consideration, I realized that I didn't have 2 packs of charm squares that weren't already spoken for, so I decided to use my 40 Crumb Blocks that have been languishing for a few years.  At 6 inches, they were an inch bigger than the pattern calls for, but if you know me, you know that I don't do well at following patterns anyway!  So, after some quilt math and a few adjustments, I knew what I was doing and was hard at work getting fabric ready for the workshop!

Here are some of my blocks - just easy peasy!

Needless to say, I didn't complete my project at the workshop ( I just don't sew that fast!), but I kept working when I got home and eventually I completed the top.  I have to say, as easy as the blocks were. it was surprisingly difficult to get the blocks in the right position!  Suzanne, who led the workshop, gave us the tip that the white on the blocks should be "L"'s and "7"s.  That tip saved me some grief!

At that point I started thinking about borders.  I also had some 8 inch Crumb Blocks that I thought I should use up too.  They're not my favorites somehow.  So I considered how best to use them.
   

First I thought of slicing them into rectangles.  Ok, but not what I wanted.

Then I thought of cutting them into smaller squares.  Better, but not quite IT either.  But I like those crumb blocks once they're cut smaller! *grin*

Eventually, after looking at all of this laying on my "design floor" (the living room) for a few days, I got the idea to offset the squares some, just like in the body of the quilt.  That was IT!  More math was involved and I figured out how I wanted to accomplish that effect.  I'm no math whiz but for some reason, I can usually do quilt math!

So I've been sewing.  I went to my sister's and did more sewing there!  No photo yet, but soon!  I'd like to have one border on before my quilt guild meeting this Friday.  And then I can show you my progress. *fingers crossed*

Right now we're having a terrible heatwave and I cannot sew up in my quilt studio as we don't have A/C.  It's just too hot to sew anywhere at the moment! I'm crossing my fingers that the heatwave will break soon, hopefully on Wednesday, and then I can do some more sewing.

Recently my DH traveled to Israel for work.  He brought back some candy bars for us to enjoy.  We've eaten two of them and they were both excellent!  A little different from American candy, more like European candy but not quite the same either.

What was really interesting, to me at least, was the contents labeling on the back.  If the flap is folded one way you can read the Hebrew words.

But if you turn the flap the other way, you can read the label in Arabic.  Very clever!  It's always interesting to see how other countries are just so similar and yet different from Americans.  And bonus!  The candy is yummy!

Long Time Gone

I haven't blogged since February.  Wow, time flies.  I hardly know where to start.

 It's been a very long 6 months.  I mentioned in my last post that our son was ill and had surgery.  Well, his recovery took way longer than we thought.  He finally came out of it by May/June.  During that time, my husband was traveling a lot.  And when he was home, he was sick.  (one of the joys of flying these days)  I got something too, that took me too long to recover from.  Like I said, not a good 6 months.  And I was so busy and/or sick, I couldn't get any sewing in, or blogging or anything to blog about.  So, I was quite frustrated.

However, in May I took the trip of a quilter's lifetime!  I took a trip with my California friends and guess where we went?

Yup, we went to Missouri to visit Missouri Star Quilt Company, and about 6 or 7 other quilt shops, some in Missouri and a few in Kansas.  OMG, that was sooo fun!  Needless to say, I've shot my fabric budget for the year!

This was one of our 1st stops.  Harpers Fabric & Quilt Company, in Overland Park, Kansas.  This was a great shop and we all bought fabric here.  Actually we all bought at least something in every shop we visited!  I love the quilt on the bed.

I think our last stop on Thursday was Angela Walters' shop Quilting Is My Therapy in Liberty, Missouri.  If you've seen The Midnight Quilt Show, you've seen Angela.  We were hoping to get to meet Angela in person, but sadly, she was at Quilt Market at the time.   

This was our group at breakfast on Friday as we were about to go to Missouri Star.  I think you can tell how excited we were!

When you first walk into the main building of MSQC in Hamilton, MO, this is what you see.  A display of the latest weekly tutorial from Jenny, as well as any Daily Deals.

And this was the new display on Saturday.  We were hoping to meet Jenny while we were there, but again, she was at Quilt Market.  Bummer!

This was the stairs up to one of the shops in another of the MSQC buildings.  I thought it was real cute.

By the way, we found out that JC Penney grew up in Hamilton.  His childhood home was just down the street a little ways from MSQC's main building.

We stayed at a hotel in St.Joseph, MO.  We learned that it is the home of the Pony Express.  It ran from St. Joe all the way to Sacramento, Calif.  This is a mural across the street from the museum.  The museum was fun and also educational.  Just down the street from here was Jesse James' childhood home.  We didn't get to see that, as we had to head back to the airport.

If you ever get the chance to go to Missouri Star, I urge you to go!  It was so fun, everyone was so nice and Missouri is a beautiful state!

I know I mentioned in my last blog post that I was doing an on-line swap of wonky stars.  This is just about half of the stars I received.  Aren't these fun?  I haven't yet gotten a photo of all of them together.  I've got two quilts to finish and then I want to start working on this.

I mentioned on my last blog post another swap I was going to do this spring, the 6 inch Churn Dash block swap with Barb of Fun with Barb blog.  

Here are my 4 different fabric runs for the blocks made for the Modern group.  We had to use at least 2 different fabric pairings.  

After lots of cutting and sewing, here are all 54 of my Churn Dash blocks ready to swap!  

If you're interested in making some 6 inch Churn Blocks for yourself, here is the link to Barb's tutorial for them.  Actually, the tutorials for all the blocks for all the swaps are on this page.  The Churn Dash blocks are at the bottom of the page.

Here are all of the blocks I received in the swap, laid out in color order.  Aren't they wonderful?  Rainbow order always makes me happy!  A huge Thank You to my swap buddies!

I plan on being back soon, as I still have more to share with you.  Have a creative week!