Snow Day, Sew Day

Another snowy day in New England means another sewing day for me.

It was a nice. lazy day.  DH ran a few errands in the morning before the snow got too bad, then we spent the rest of the day indulging in hobbies.  We both did some reading.  DH spend some quality time on the laptop entering interesting places to visit.  I machine quilted the heart scroll table runner and got the binding stitched.  DH brewed some beer and I baked red velvet brownies (alas, without red food coloring).

I'm very happy with the table runner.  It's about 36" x 13" and fits the table just fine.

The rest of the week I finished up a few smaller projects.  I enlarged the pattern for the little pouch and made a sample.  I like that size a lot better.

It's small, but large enough to hold my nail supplies.  I still wanted something to hold a hand piecing project for the road.  I won't have a lot of extra room in my bags on the bike when we go south this summer, but I like to have a stitching project with me.  I've been wanting to make these bird applique's for some time now.  I've made the chickadee a few times but have gifted them.  They are the right size for this little bag.

I guess the bag could have been slightly bigger.  It's pretty stuffed with the spool patches I have cut out so far.

The other accomplishment this week was ripping and resewing the green background for the frog quilt.  When I showed it to DH, he said it looked skewed, and indeed it was.  The problem came from sewing all those long strips from the same edge.  Being off by even 1/32 of a inch meant that sewing all those strips made one edge 1/2" longer than the other.  I took off 7 strips and resewed them making sure the top and bottom edge were even.  It resulted in a better finish.  Now it's time for frogs.

Real Snow Day Activity

Yesterday we had a real snow day.  It was snowing when I woke up and snowed most of the day.  We got about a foot of the really light, fluffy snow.  We (and by we I mean DH) cleared most of it late yesterday afternoon and we (and by we I mean both of us) finished the job today.

But, while it was snowing, I used the excuse to spend a good part of the day sewing.

I started the day with this little bag.  I saw the pattern offered here and stored it away because I thought they were cute.  They are adorable.  I was looking for a little bag that I can use as my portable bag for the spools.  I want something about 8" square to fit the fabric, a few needles, a small pair of scissors, a thimble and some thread.  This bag is only about 8" x 3 1/3".  I need to find something larger to fit my needs.

This heart scroll is all hand applique'd and will be a table runner for us.  I would like to have this completed before St. Valentine's day.  I expect to complete the applique this week and am planning to machine quilt it, so the deadline seams reasonable.

This green quilt will be a gift for the newest grand nephew who is expected in March.  This will have colorful frogs applique'd onto it.  I'm probably going to do machine applique to make it more durable, but after the heart scroll, I don't have an applique project planned, so hand stitching the frogs sounds appealing.

And these 9-patches are the next round in the 9-patch exchange for my guild.  This has been going on since October.  I should have over 100 by the end of the guild year calendar and I will do some sort of scrappy quilt, but I don't know exactly what yet.  That's pretty far down on the to-do list.

Yep, four projects.  That seams to be a comfortable number for me.

Snow Day Activity on a non-Snow Day

I expected to have a snow day yesterday, so I was mentally preparing for a lazy day of sewing and watching the weather from the safe, warm confines of my sewing room.  But, the 4-8 inches of white, fluffy snow the weather forecasters predicted for my area turned out to be about 1/2" which all fell before dawn.  So, I have no excuse to sit inside and sew.

But, then I remembered that I'm retired and I don't need weather as an excuse.  So, after making a couple of needed phone calls and doing one chore that was on my to-do list, I spend the most of the rest of the day sewing, ironing and sewing some more.  I nearly finished all of the latest steps to Scrapitude.

I was looking at the pieces as I sewed them together thinking that I had lots of really unattractive fabrics in this quilt.  I feared that all this work was going to make a really ugly quilt.  But, each of the blocks are nice.  The uglies just blend together.  I'm looking forward to seeing this top completed.

Happy New Year

I start with a finish.  I feel like I've been working on this forever.  In the grand scheme of things, it's probably only been 1 1/2 years since I bought the templates.  I made one star and stopped because I found it difficult.  But, I convinced myself that I should make something, and rather than aim for a full sized bed quilt, I thought a smaller piece would make a good purse.

I'm very pleased with the result.  Each of the steps was difficult, but the result is terrific.

Finishing the bag left me with a void in hand work.  I still have the spools that I've been playing with.  I spend a few evenings hand piecing a few more.  I spent an evening going through my scrap bucket and choosing new fabrics to cut.  My goal for this project is to make it a "charm" quilt.  This quilt will not fit into the strict definition of charm quilt because I'm using duplicates on the background pieces and each of the three pieces of the actual spool will be the same fabric.  I'm calling a charm quilt because I am using different fabrics for each of the spools.  Each spool is 3" square (I think.)

Last week, DH found that there was heavy solar activity that may product vivid northern lights as far south as Boston.  It's been on his bucket list to see northern lights and since we're retired and looking for new adventures, we headed north to Presque Isle, ME to see what we could see.  The best time for viewing the lights (at least for this time) were predicted between midnight and 4AM.  So, we left the hotel in Presque Isle at headed north to Madawaska - the northern most town on Route 1.  Madawaska at 2AM was pretty quiet.  And cold.  The thermometer in the car read -9 degrees F.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any lights.  It was overcast and the forecast for the lights changed while we were on our way.

But, we had a good adventure, went to someplace I had never visited before, went further north than I had ever been before, and got a great view of Mt. Katahdin on the way home.

Lastly, I got a FitBit for Christmas.  I'm trying to more more and get back in shape.  If you have one, too and would like to link up and offer each other encouragement, let me know.  I'd love to be your cheerleader.

Merry Christmas!

It's the morning of Christmas Eve and I'm spending the day just puttering and relaxing.  I made cookie dough yesterday for peanut butter blossoms (peanut butter cookies with a Hershey's kiss on top) and sugar cookies.  I baked some of the peanut butter cookies, but the dough was too soft and the cookies expanded too much.  So both dough batches went into the fridge overnight.

Apparently this poor guy got into a nasty fight.

Now I'm back down to 3 projects in progress.  I finished the wedding quilt for John and Regina and presented it to them Saturday night.  

They were both excited by the gift.  It seems, though, that they were expecting something much smaller.  Regina commented that this would not fit on a wall.  I told them it was theirs to do with as they like.  I've never had a quilt recipient look over a quilt as closely as they did.  It made me a little nervous.

I guess I'm out of practice in machine quilting because this quilt gave me all kinds of problems on the  free motion quilting - needles breaking, thread breaking, thread bunching up.  I have one large quilt that I will machine quilt in the coming year, so I guess I will get more practice there.  Perhaps I need to plan a smaller quilt to do free motion quilting on before tackling a larger quilt so I can get practiced up.

I also finished the socks for DD for Christmas.

This was a more complicated patter than I usually do, but again, once I was practiced on the stitches, it went OK.  I love the texture and will probably make a pair for me in the future.

I still am working on Scrapitude, the hand piecing for my purse and hand quilting the charity quilt.  So, I guess I'm down to 3 projects.  I won the block of the month block at my guild in December.  I really like he pattern and was hoping to win these.

It will make a really bright and cheery quilt.  I just found out that a family friend is expecting, so I think this will turn into a baby quilt for her.  That is project #4 right now.

Merry Christmas!  I hope this finds you all happy, healthy and enjoying the day.

Did I Say Limiting to Four Projects?

Shortly after my last post, I found myself without any sort of mindless sewing to do.  I've finished the wedding top and am waiting for the backing I ordered to arrive.  I've finished the latest Scrapitude clue and won't get another until January.  I have a few blocks to make to keep up with my guild's block of the month and 9-patch exchange, but they will only take an hour or two to complete both.  I wanted something I could pick up and sew on without much thought.

My only complaint about this quilt is that either the person who marked the quilt has much better eyesight or lighting than I do.  I have to darken all the markings before stitching because I can barely see them.  but, remarking is easier than doing it the first time.

So, My current project list has been increased to 5, and we'll see if I can hold there.

Productivity

My quilty life has been pretty productive lately.  This is what I've been working on ...

Wedding Quilt for John and Regina

They were married last year the weekend between Christmas and New Year.  I offered to make them a quilt and asked for a general color scheme and a mattress size.  Since they were 'savoring' opening their gifts, I didn't hear anything from either of them until August.  She wanted something very neutral, leaning towards sage green.  It took me another month or so to get my head around what I wanted to do with these colors (not my normal palate).  Since this photo I've put on three plain borders and ordered a solid backing material. Once that arrives, I'll machine quilt it.  I think I have a good idea for the borders, but not the body of the quilt yet.  I may just go with something geometric.

Socks for DD

My daughter made some suggestion that she may like some hand knit socks at some point.  I've been knitting socks for me, but haven't ventured out to give as gifts because not all people like hand knit socks.  This was a pattern that looked interesting to me, would be a bit of a challenge and came from a book that DD gave me as a gift.  They were turning out OK until I got to 1 row before the heel gusset.  I somehow lost a stitch.  I figured out where the mistake was and carefully ripped back, tried a repair and started back with the pattern.  Then I found there were 3 missing stitches.  I tried to fix it a number of times and eventually frogged the whole thing and started over.  Two rows into the pattern I found that I was missing a stitch somewhere.  I decided to just create a new stitch and be done with it.  I can't find the extra increase in the pattern.  Lesson learned ...

New Summer Purse

This little tea leaf pattern are made from Ardco aluminum patterns that I found at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  I made one flower and thought that was too difficult, so put it away.  I've been wanting a summery purse and have a pattern.  I think I have to make 10 complete flowers and some fill-ins around the edges to make the front and back panels.  One panel in nearly complete and the other has most of it's components done.  This is all hand sewn.  This is what one panel looks like so far:

Scrapitude

This is part 3 of the Scrapitude project going on in Sandy's Blog .  I still need to trim the blocks.  I'm enjoying pressing blocks more (it was job I never used to enjoy and skipped) but I still dislike the trimming part.  I know I get better results when things are nicely trimmed and I try to make the process more enjoyable by listening to podcasts.  Perhaps I will tackle that this afternoon.

Well, there they are - two machine projects and two hand projects.  I've got a bunch more things lined up to do, but I am limiting myself to these four projects at the moment. When one finishes I will pick up the next thing that strikes my fancy.