Catching Up

A lot has gone on since I last blogged. This being retired stuff is exhausting.  I have no idea how I ever found the time to go to work.

First off, I finished the baby quilt I started at the quilt retreat.  It will be delivered on Sunday to the mother-to-be.  It was at my guild's show this weekend.

And, since the last time I wrote a blog post we took a trip to Fall River MA to Battleship Cove.

We went to two Red Sox games, including opening day where the players were presented their world series rings from 2013 and players from the Celtics and Patriots came out with their trophies.

A trip to Delaware and Pennsylvania to visit family and our alma mater (University of Delaware).  We visited Maine with some of our riding buddies and took a beautiful ride along the coast.

Took a trip to Cape Cod and visited a few more lighthouses in Eastham.

Celebrated my birthday.  Visited the home of the Yankee Siege trebuchet (winner of the adult trebuchet division in the 2013 Punkin Chunkin world championship).

And finished a pair of socks.

And then there was a ton of yard work, a visit to an air museum with a motorcycle show, a bunch of visits with friends, a Kentucky Derby Party, a showing of SpamALot and general life.

I think this pretty much catches everybody up to my life so far.  I'm tired.  I think I'll take a nap.

Quilting Retreat!

I love quilting retreats!  My guild sets up 3 or 4 of them every year (probably more that I'm not aware of) and I can usually manage to get to one a year.  I love being in a room full of people indulging in their craft.  Seeing all the projects, all the colors, all the ideas and beautiful workmanship is very inspiring.  I always bring much more with me than I can ever complete in the time frame, but I always manage to do more than I really expect.  This weekend was no exception.

I had a delay in getting to the event, but once I was there I went straight to work.  I brought all the blocks I had completed for Scrapitude.  I don't really have the space at home to set up a design wall, so this is the perfect venue to try different designs (the Franciscan Guest House supplies tables, irons and ironing boards and design walls.)  I set everything up and stitched it all together.

This is the lay-out prior to stitching is all together.  I put them up at random and only had one block that got moved around.  I still have to decide on borders once I figure out the size I want.  I was afraid that some of the reds I chose would stand out too much, but I have to agree with Charlotte that all the scraps just go together.




My next project was a baby quilt for a friend.  I had won most of the blocks from a guild block of the month, but had to make 10 or so to make the top this size.  I didn't take a picture of this, but will once it is quilted (in the next week or so.)

Then I moved on to some very old UFOs.  My quilting 'resolution' for this year was to do something with three particularly old UFOs.  The first is a fractured landscape design.  This was a project from a class I took probably close to 20 years ago.  It's been sitting in a bag in the closet for that long.  My goal was to get it out and decide whether to finish, donate or chuck it.  I got all the blocks ironed and took a close look at what I had done.  The entire piece is probably 30" wide by 26" tall.  In order to make this a usable piece I would have to add a lot more sky pieces at the top (it's supposed to be sort of a forest scene and have a lightening bolt appliqued down the center.)  Many of the women around me were trying to convince me to save it - it does have quite a bit of work in it already.  I decided not to finish the piece.  Then they tried to convince me to donate it as a project in the next UFO auction.  But, I decided to toss the project and here's why.  The one thing I learned from this is that I do not enjoy putting things up on a design wall and forever fiddling with it.  I would much rather put a design on paper and execute once I have it all decided upon.  Moving fabric around, stepping back and moving more pieces has absolutely no appeal to me.  Once I get to the fabric part, I want  it to be a sewing project, not a design project.  That's why one reason I decided not to finish this myself.  Then, when I looked at the blocks, I thought they were not very well constructed.  And that's why I decided to let this one go.  Not every project deserves to take up space in my closet or my head.  I learned what I learned from it and let it go.

And, on to the next.  This curved star pattern was also started decades ago.  It was a hand project I carried with me to softball games, gymnastic classes and many evenings of stitching on a winter's night.  I think I got the top completed a year or so ago and put it into that seemingly endless closet to rest while I figured out what to do next.  This weekend my goal for the top was to get borders basted on so I can hand applique the curved pieces at the edges.   I like the top a lot more with the squared edges and will start the applique once I get the socks I'm knitting completed.

This last project I worked on that weekend will be a charity quilt for my guild.  One of our members must have a die cut machine and she makes up packets of cut fabrics for members to take home and sew.  This is another project that has been sitting in my sewing room for a while (months, not years) and I've been putting off working on it because I don't have a design wall, and because (as I've just learned) I don't like tinkering on a design wall.  So I pulled in a friend and we both played with it for a while.  I did learn her process  of arranging a scrappy quilt; how she approaches it and her thoughts.   I have to admit, working on the arrangement with a friend was actually enjoyable. I guess in a social setting, I could get used to using a design wall.

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.