Farewell to 2009

I, for one, am glad to see the end of this year. It wasn't my best year. Not my worst either, but still. . . So I'm looking forward to a better year in 2010.

With two major(ish) injuries this year (the tenosyovitis in my right thumb in the spring and then the broken arm in the fall), I didn't even come close to getting as many quilt projects done as I had hoped to. It's been a frustrating year for me. I had high hopes for finishing many of my UFO's. I got a few done, and also created some others. But my overall output was pretty low. I'm thinking that next year has got to be an improvement!

I'm afraid this is kind of a "catch-up" post today. I'm going to show all the stuff I didn't get to yet this month. Or most of it, anyway.

Above is one side of one of the placemats (she made 4) that my sister made for me for my birthday. (My birthday was in November, but that's not a problem for me. We're both notoriously slow at gift-giving - it's a tradition now!) I think these are fantastic! I love them! I couldn't wait to get the Christmas placemats off the table so that I could start using these!

This is the flip-side of the same placemat. They're all two-sided. I usually only have 2 placemats on the table at a time, because it's just DH and me, so I've put his placemat with one side facing up and my placemat with the flip-side facing up, so I can enjoy both sides at the same time. Clever, non?

My sister actually "shopped" in my quilt studio for fabrics for these. We figured that if I had already bought the fabrics, they're probably ones I like. I honestly can't tell which ones were mine and which ones she added. They all work together so well, and they're just what I wanted! Ya just can't beat that, can ya?

Here's my birthday present from my friend Karen. We went to the local quilt shop when I visited her in Oregon earlier this month, and she let me pick out what I wanted. This is the charm square pack of Authentic by Sweet Water for Moda, plus a yard of the black fabric from this line. I just love this line of fabric, which rarely happens for me. I usually only like a few fabrics from a line. I have no idea what I'll be making with this, but I just had to have it.

Here's what else I bought. And it was all on sale! The fat quarters in the front are shot cottons and I'm envisioning a small quilt done with them and the half-yard of blue/purple graphic fabric. And I can't pass up a polka dot that's on sale - heck, I can hardly pass up a polka dot anytime!

Here's a photo of a quilt that was hanging in the health food store we visited. I was glad I remembered the camera! There was no information on who made it, unfortunately.

Here's a closeup shot. You can kind-of see the quilting.

Here's a banner that was in the Unitarian Universalist church that I thought was very clever. Colorful and eye-catching. I like the idea of the "mosaic". Bumble Beans is making some tile blocks that are similar - you can see them here. I think hers are all hand-stitched down, where these appear to be done with fusible.

Here's a closeup so you can see the interesting fabric the maker used.

DH and I are staying home and having a quiet evening tonight. Just the two of us, with beef barley soup and homemade oatmeal bread. Lots of Christmas cookies too. We'll be watching the movie "Up!" for our entertainment. Nothing too exciting here! I'm also doing laundry and finishing up some putting away of Christmas and other chores so tomorrow I can pack my suitcase, as Saturday I'm off to Nevada for two weeks to visit my daughter.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and creative New Year. And a big Thank You to all my bloggy friends and everyone who visits my blog.

Happy 2010!

Old Friends

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We had a wonderful time. We had no drama getting to and from the airport this year (last year was tons of snow and ice and much drama). Went out to a wonderful Chinese restaurant for Christmas Eve, and discovered some new yummy dishes we'd never tried.

Christmas Day we went to DS's house for the day. Had a beautiful turkey dinner prepared by my DIL and a great 3-layer chocolate cake that she made for the first time! Got to play a little with the granddaughters and their new Wii game, and did OK. (I could play for hours with that! I want one now - it was so much fun.)

After dinner, DS, DH, FIL and I went out to see the movie Avatar in 3D. It was awesome! The 3D was the best I'd ever experienced. And the special effects were incredible - and seamless. On the way home from the movie, I had a good chat with my sister. It was a wonderful day.

I managed to get into the quilt studio for a little while the other day. I'm starting a new project, but no photos yet. It's still in too many pieces! But soon....

In the meantime, here's some "old friends" that I got to revisit on my recent trip to Oregon.


Here is a challenge quilt from quite awhile ago. It lives with my friend Karen at her home in Oregon. This was a project that we collaborated on.

The challenge was posed by our quilt guild in California, probably in the late 80's or early 90's. (I'm not entirely sure anymore!) We were given a set of 5 fabrics to work with. Those are the fabrics in the top, middle and bottom trees plus the two trees that are both touching the top and middle trees, if my memory serves. They were very traditional fabrics and who would've thought that the tropical fabric in the border worked the best with them! But the colors were perfect, so that's what we went with. It sure was out of our comfort zone at that time!

We also had to figure out this pattern by ourselves. We saw a quilt done with these trees at the local quilt store, but the store was all out of that particular pattern. So we did a quick sketch, then went home and figured it out. We also discovered that even though we had the same sewing machine and the same 1/4 inch foot, we had different-sized seam allowances! Another challenge. But in the end, it came out pretty well.

Karen did all the quilting by hand, because that's her favorite part. She didn't do tons of quilting, because we had a time deadline, and we were running out of time. Of course!

Here's another "old friend" that lives with Karen in Oregon. This was a Debbie Mumm pattern that I made for Karen for her birthday one year. It's all done with fusible, and I was inspired by the veggie fabric in the border and that Karen likes to garden. It's held up pretty well - only one fabric faded enough to notice. I still like this one!

If you like antique quilts, Laura at Pine Ridge Quilter, has been showing some wonderful antique red and green quilts on her blog. They're beautiful - go check them out!

I hope to spend a little more time in the quilt studio this week, inbetween the putting away of Christmas and getting ready for my trip to Nevada this weekend. I haven't had enough sewing time this month, and I need my fix!

Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho!
May your holiday be filled with all your favorite things!

Another One Finished!

Here's my latest finish! This is one I've been working on for awhile. I posted about this one previously in this post. (I also show some of the blocks in closeup.) I've named this quilt "Carrie's Quilt". That was my grandmother's name, and this quilt reminds me of some of the quilts that she made. These are authentic 1930's fabrics (except the blue solid), and that was the time period that she was making quilts for her family. So, I thought that was fitting. This one won't get used a whole lot, as some of these fabrics are a little fragile.

I had the top all done, and sent it off to my long-arm quilter (Hi Shari!). It came home right around the time I broke my arm, so I wasn't able to get the binding done.


When my sister came to visit in October, she offered eagerly to take it home with her and put on a binding for me. I didn't even have any fabric picked out for the binding, but she seemed to have a plan. I just got this back from her last weekend. She did a wonderful scrappy binding, and I love it! Thanks, Sal! I think it "fits" just right!

My long-armer did an awesome job on the quilting. She did an over-all Baptist fan pattern that we agreed suited the quilt.

I've had kind of an extended absence here lately. I was visiting friends in Oregon last week, and now that I'm home, it's hectic to get ready for Christmas and my father-in-law visiting for the holiday from out of state. Plus, now I have a sinus infection that is slowing me down.

Fortunately, I'm mostly done shopping and I'm not the hostess for the big day. So, now I just have to wrap the presents, clean the house some (nothing too strenuous!) and bake cookies. No sweat, right? hee hee! I'm doing much better with the arm and am finally able to do some of the work around here.

The cats were traumatized with the stay at the kennel, so I have little "Klingons" to deal with. Lots of love required! Slows me down some, but I'm also enjoying the attention. It seems like every time I sit down, one of them wants to be picked up and loved (Shade) or played with (Dunkel).

Well, back to work! I'll hopefully be posting more often now. I've got lots more to show you!

D9P Stage 2 in Progress

I have all my 9-Patches sewn now, and I got some of them cut up into quarters last night. I had to lay them out on the floor this morning! I think I'm liking this better now. Of course, the sunshine today helped! Now I can't wait to get the rest of the blocks cut.

A Little Progress and a New Toy

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a nice family celebration, except that my poor DH was not feeling well, so he didn't come. We all missed him. I brought home some turkey dinner for him, but it's just not the same, I'm afraid. Poor guy, he's still not feeling so good.

I've made a little more progress in the quilt studio. I've gotten enough stuff cleared and put away that I can now get to the sewing machine . . . Yay! I still can't access my cutting table, even though I've moved some stuff. But I just needed to sit and sew for a few days. I have a small cutting station on part of the desk that the sewing machine is on, so that helps. Maybe this week I can get the cutting table all cleared off.

Here is what I've been sewing. I was making 9-Patches with the charm-like squares I showed in the previous post. I have 22 9-Patches now. Enough, I think, to make a small throw.

I'm not so sure I actually like this. The colors are too dark to my mind, but that may just be the dark, gloomy weather we're having. I may like it better after I've sliced and diced it into the Disappearing 9-Patch. If I don't like it any better, I'll probably donate it to charity.

Notice my little helper in the bottom left corner in that photo. Dunkel was deciding if he liked my layout. . . . I guess he didn't, because he re-arranged it later! Cats . . . they're such critics! hee hee!

This bright image and the one at the top of my post are from a cool on-line widget that my DearDaughter told me about. It's lots of fun to play with. Be sure you scroll down to see the different "brushes" you can use. You have to guess which brush does what, and you have no control (that I can tell, anyway) over the colors. Just hold down the left mouse button to drag the brush and see what you get!

I'll show you a few more screen shots (because a post without pretty pictures is just boring):

You can even use different brushes on the same canvas and combine effects. Too much fun!

A Big Mess!

This is what my quilt studio looked like this morning. . . . like a bomb went off in here! Yikes!

For my birthday, my DH finally made me some more shelves to go in my armoires, for storing fabric, and I've been in the process of transferring fat quarters around. The armoires only had 2 shelves each and it was a big waste of space for what I needed them to do. So, one more shelf per armoire solved my problem!


This is where I've been storing many of my fat quarters. Not very easy or convenient to access, as I'm not 6 foot tall, and those bins are heavy. Not to mention that there's stuff in front of the shelves most of the time, like the ironing board. So, most of the time, I just didn't bother to get the bins down to use the FQ's. Kind of defeats the purpose of having them, doesn't it?

So, I've been working on this for a few days, and in the process have turned the quilt studio into a complete mess. I had stuff in the armoires and on the floor in front of the armoires, and stuff in the little plastic shoeboxes that I had purchased to put the FQ's in. It's been a process, let me tell you! Especially with one arm not functioning too well. I over-did the first day and had a lot of pain that night. I tried to go easier on it today, and we'll see how it feels tonight. I'm trying to pace myself, but what I really want to do is SEW, so I'm kind of pushing myself to get this done enough that I can clear a place to sew again. Never mind cutting! I still have a bunch of stuff that needs to be put away. Ugh.

Finally, all the fat quarters are transferred to their new homes! This is Armoire #1. I decided to leave the hand-dyes and marbled fabrics in stacks, because it's too hard to tell what they look like when they're bundled like the FQ's. I shuffle through them often, and I don't want to have to re-fold them all the time. So, it looks messy, but it suits my methods.

And this is Armoire #2. And yes, all the drawers in both armoires are full of FQ's too. (Have I ever mentioned how buying FQ's is like buying penny candy?? Especially when this vendor was at every quilt show I went to for years??) I even have a tiny bit of room left in the drawers . I'm really trying to not buy any more fat quarters ever again! Rarely, I'll buy one if that's all there is available and I love the fabric. But, I don't think I need any more!

I had no idea how many fat quarters I had until we moved into this house and I started storing the FQ's separately from yardage. Wow, they're not all that easy to store. I've been using this book to help me set up my studio, and she doesn't address this issue well enough for my amount of FQ's. (Otherwise, I love the book - it's been incredibly helpful.) And, that may be a hint that perhaps I have too many FQ's!

So, how do you store your FQ's? Please share with me!

Anyway, now that I have them more easily available, hopefully they'll start getting used up. I've been collecting patterns for FQ quilts lately, with that goal in mind. If I could quit injuring myself, maybe I could get more sewing done . . . . I need to remember this!!

Sorry there's no quilt-y content this post. I did manage to get about 3 or 4 9-patches sewn before the mess happened, but I haven't taken any pictures. Hopefully soon.

As I was working in the quilt studio this afternoon, I happened to notice this happening out in the street. This dastardly duo was enticing the ducks away from the pond, out of the park and down the street with bread crumbs. It looks like their bag has a LOT of bread in it! And these are our resident ducks, who are big greedy guts.

Sorry this picture is so fuzzy. I tried to get another one, but my camera battery died. While I was gone to get more batteries, they all disappeared. I have no idea what those boys had in mind to do with the ducks. . . maybe they were gonna be dinner!

By the way, just FYI, it's very hard to type with the cat's head resting on top of one's hand! I wonder if he wants some attention??

Dullsville

There's not much happening around here right now. I haven't posted in so long simply because there is nothing blog-worthy occuring. I'm just hanging out healing, for the most part. And things are getting better on that front, but still nothing exciting to blog about!

I did manage to get out to lunch and then to the meeting with my quilt guild. That was so nice. I had to be careful to order something that didn't need to be cut up! I'm pretty helpless with a knife still, and I really didn't want to have to ask someone to cut up my meal for me!

We had a one-day pottery sale at a local church's holiday boutique on the 7th, which went well. Our friend K came to help DH. I just hung around and talked to customers. It poured rain that day, but the boutique had an excellent turn-out, which was great.

I had a birthday last Wednesday, and it was pretty low-key this year, which was just fine with me! My new age ends with a 9, and the thought of entering another decade next year is kind of daunting. I told DS that now we're both middle-aged (just different ends of that spectrum), and I don't think he found it as amusing as I did! *grin* DS's birthday is the day before mine, and DD's birthday is the day after mine. I missed celebrating with her this year, but we'll do that when we visit her next.

Last Saturday we went to the Seattle Aquarium with DS and the DGDs to celebrate our birthdays. That was fun. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun, and we all really enjoyed seeing all the fish, and otters, and so on.

I'm progressing on the healing. The doctor is happy with my progress and has sent me to physical therapy, starting this past Monday. And I drove my car for the first time since my accident! My left arm doesn't help too much, so parking was a little challenging. The hardest parts are getting the seat belt on, the door closed, and then getting out of the car. But I did it, so that makes both me and DH happy. Before you know it, I'll be going grocery shopping all by myself. That will be a happy, happy day for my poor DH!

Here's a sneak peek of the selvage project I've started. It's not going anywhere soon though. . . I learned that there's more precision sewing involved than I can handle at the moment. So, it's on the shelf waiting for me to heal some more. Right now it's difficult to get my left arm up to the level of my sewing machine, but it is getting easier. Just not good enough for precision sewing yet.

Because the selvage project wasn't working for me, I thought and thought about what I could do. I finally went through some of my many boxes of projects already in-progress to see if I could find anything I could do. I knew I had to have something!

Well, I found a quilt kit all ready to put together! I forgot I had this. I had put this kit together to take to a quilt retreat with me last year. The 4-patches are already made, and the alternate blocks, borders and even binding are already cut and ready to go. Sweet!

But I kept looking. . . .


Then I found these. These are packets of 4 inch squares from Mr. B's Preview Pack Club (from Benartex) from a few? - God only knows how many - years ago. These are from before charm squares! (By the way, they're making them 5" now) So, I'm planning on making 9-patches with them to make into a Disappearing 9-Patch quilt. I've already made one 9-patch. I discovered that these are really cut at 4 1/4 inches squares, except for a few that aren't quite that big. So, this may be challenging.

I did some math and determined that I don't have enough squares to be quite big enough, so I tried cutting some scraps to go with the squares. It went pretty well! My arm is getting stronger, and my cutting table is a good height for my arm. I didn't do a lot at one time (I learned the hard way that I need to pace myself right now), but it seems like it's going to work alright.

Happiness!! I'm so happy that I have some things that I can work on, and that will work with my "broken wing". And the cats were very happy to have me back in the quilt studio. As a matter of fact, Shade is still in there sleeping!