And She's B-A-C-K !!

I haven’t updated this blog since January of 2016.  The year just kept creeping past without my realizing how long it had been.  Well into the year, I decided to just let it go, but then I found that I missed posting and that blogging was an excellent way for me to keep track of my donation quilts.

So, I am back in 2017 and intend to keep posting about my current projects, how I intend to organize my sewing room to streamline my creative process and perhaps some gardening and local news!

Welcome back to my small corner of the world …

 I am currently working on:

-  Finishing a New Year’s Eve Mystery.  The intended design was for a large quilt that I am breaking into two smaller (kid-size) quilts for donation.  I had to stop for a brief period when my desktop machine had to go to the sewing machine hospital, but I am making progress.  Photo soon.

- Joining in with a Double Wedding Ring challenge.  I will be working with an old UFO (unfinished object) that I never went far with after a class.

And I just sent off a “stringy thing” to add to a banner that will be given to a lady who was in a terrible car accident to cheer her up as she recovers.

January is shaping up to be a good quilting month!

Brrr! This is Florida?

We can’t believe that we’re still downright chilly - way down south as we are …

 

This is the time of year when it’s supposed to be warming up, not getting colder!  Maybe by this weekend.  But looking at other parts of the country, I'm certainly not complaining (much...).

We had a fun birthday lunch for a friend yesterday and I can now show the tote bag that I have been working on.

 

I especially liked the colors and I think my friend liked them, too.  I used a pattern by Pink Sand Beach Designs, but if I were to make another one, I think I would lengthen the straps a great deal.  And not put so many pockets in, since it's a tote not a purse.  So now I fancy myself a designer, right?!!

My Attic Windows are progressing nicely and actually starting to look like windows:

 

Here’s a closeup of the robot fabric:

 

Too cute!

National Quilting Day

Today has been designated as National Quilting Day

and the theme this year is “Celebrate America”!

I had my Quilts of Valor meeting yesterday so the day before I had to lay out some more blocks into Bonnie Hunter’s Fourth of July pattern to take for another member to sew the rows together.

Why is it that you can spot the mistakes in a photo that you didn’t see with the naked eye?  Before I picked up and numbered the rows, I did fix that 4-patch that was sewn wrong  - it had two blues and 2 reds side-by-side rather than in opposite corners (it’s in this photo wrong at the bottom left).  Always something, right?!

And I also finished up the last of the little tissue covers and took them over to my mother.  She has fifteen to give out as bingo prizes.  I hope she remembers to actually take them to the Activities Director and doesn’t plan to secretly keep them all!

I also spotted another free pattern that I might consider making as my next personal contribution to Quilts of Valor.  I like stars and I loved this design that uses 10 inch blocks and finishes at 80x80:

This quilt called “Cayuga” was designed by Michele Scott and the pattern can be found on the Fons & Porter website:

http://www.fonsandporter.com/articles/Cayuga_sixteen_point_star_block_free_quilt_pattern?bc=c

It looks great in the muted neutral colors as shown, but I think it would also look fabulously patriotic in red, white and blues.  I’m adding it to my pattern collection right now!

Daylight Savings Time Tonight

This might be my last rant on this subject … everybody knows my low opinion about Daylight  Savings time … I'm NOT in favor of it.  I think I'll just sleep an hour later like this little guy:

 

But here are a few more travel tissue covers for the bingo prizes for the senior citizens.  They’re breeding like rabbits!

Back at the Ranch

I haven’t felt like sewing since I scratched the cornea of my eye, but I finally went up there today since it's feeling better and whipped up these little travel tissue covers.

They are so quick and easy to make.  Some are quilted and some aren’t.  I used the dimensions provided by Sue’s Blog from Alderwood Quilts that has separate contrasting strips at the top opening, but there is another tutorial by Melinda Quilts that uses a larger and smaller piece of fabric so that it makes self-binding.  I think I’ll try that next.

I made these because my mother is in an assisted living facility and they always need bingo gifts.  They asked the participants if they had any extra, unwanted stuff that they wanted to donate as prizes.   My mother was adamant that she was not going to give up any of her Easter ducks and bunnies (cheap plastic junk for the most part – but then again, it’s not my stuff so who am I to judge?), so I thought I’d take over something for my mother to contribute.  These should fill the bill nicely.  I’ll make a few more in various colors and then get back to real quilting!

Here’s one last item from the Feather Princess Quilt Show last week.

Real Feathers!!

This art quilt was made by Elaine Chapman based on a pattern “Flying Owl Gypsy Soul Art” by Sue Kluber.  I’m sorry I didn’t get a better picture of the whole piece because it was amazing, but you can tell that from the detail.  It’s no wonder this owl took First Place in the art quilt category!

Sunday's Project

Just look at this fantastic weather!

This past weekend was supposed to be great – lower temperatures and considerably lower humidity than our usual 89%.  I was finally inspired to tackle that small job in the kitchen that has been bugging me since last April.

We had our appliances replaced after our dishwasher leaked and destroyed an end panel.  Since we are NOT handy-people, we hired a handyman to replace that panel.  He did a great job and while he was here I asked him to change out the middle piece in a cabinet.  It used to open like this:

That middle piece was attached to one side and was always flipping open the other side when I grabbed it.  The design was fine if you wanted to have a large opening for huge platters or pots, but I didn’t need both the high and low cabinets to have this design.  I wanted that piece to be free-standing in the lower cabinet – like this:

He did a great job on that, too, but I had to stain it to match the other cabinets – then the foot dragging started.  It’s usually so humid here that paint/stain takes much longer to dry.  I do have a dehumidifier, but I would have to drag it out and dust it off, etc, etc (the tiny violins start playing now).

I finally did that and it took all of 15 minutes to finish the project (including the finding and dragging out of the supplies that I bought back in April).  I think it looks just fine.

I also put a wooden crate that I had painted last fall in front of the dehumidifier … it never has dried correctly.

I had thought it would be great to store fat quarters and it really is.  It’s just that the drawers stick and you have to leave one extended a little in order to give it a whack to get it unstuck.  Now it’s nice and dry (finally!).  Two projects down … at least ten thousand to go …  Maybe later!

This is a small quilt that I had experimented on when I was trying out ways to machine quilt bindings.  It’s the Broken Dishes pattern.

Each side has a different stitch (blanket stitch, zig zag, & 2 decoratives) – I ended up not liking any of them.  I thought it was too weird to donate, but now I’m rethinking that. 

The comic bug print is for a younger child and I think it would be worn out before they would notice the different stitches!

So it’s going in the box to WTIL that is growing again.

Not Really Quilting

Yesterday and today I was busy reorganizing my previous quilt pictures.  I am NOT a scrapbooker and really have no creative talents in that direction, but I knew I had to do something with the many quilt pictures and memorabilia that I have collected for my Friends and Family quilts and my donation quilts.

I found several inexpensive 3-ring binders (so they can be expanded) that were made for 12 inch scrapbook papers and this is the mess I am making:

I hope to put all of these quilt pictures, fabric swatches, notes and baby pictures in order and move on to making more quilts!

And the good news on the gardening front is that I put down some new mulch this morning and now it is raining!  We really needed the rain and it looks like this will be enough to actually soak into the ground.  Good news indeed.

Happy President's Day

The third Monday in February is celebrated as President’s Day.  I hope you got to have the day off and are having a good time.  To make the day festive, you can make an edible pretzel log cabin with your kids like this one from Kaboose as a reminder of our country's history:

Or you can make the traditional log cabin quilt block like this one from TLC:

I will be making a log cabin quilt in the near future!