What's Been in the Works

I have been busy doing a little cutting for one Quilts of Valor Mystery – the clues will be offered on Aug 12^th.  And I have been following the clues for a second QOV Mystery – clue 1 has been posted so far:

I have quilted two of the tops I brought back with me from my fun quilting retreat in Omaha:

Floral Wave

Butterfly Enchantment

And I did a little yardwork – not too much since it has been oppressively hot and humid here.

This is our typical forecast – the lightning chases me out of the sewing room each day:

mon	tue	wed	thu	fri	sat	sun
jul 17 Scattered Thunderstorms 90° 78°	jul 18 Thunderstorms 88° 77°	jul 19 Scattered Thunderstorms 91° 78°	jul 20 Scattered Thunderstorms 91° 78°	jul 21 Scattered Thunderstorms 90° 78°	jul 22 PM Thunderstorms 91° 79°	jul 23 AM Thunderstorms 91° 78°

And this is my latest kitchen gadget purchase.  So far, I love, love, love it.  I’ve made lots of chicken, beef roasts, and these pork chops:

Several things I really like about it are that it keeps the kitchen cooler since I am not using the hot oven and it makes putting an entire meal on the table much quicker.  The roast took 40 minutes rather than 3 hours.  That’s a win!

Local Community Service Part 1

The weeks have flown by.  I had my Local Community Service Week early this month and my calendar has been jam-packed.

My Quilts of Valor (QOV) group was to have a medium-size presentation (11 quilts) and a planned large presentation (30 quilts) plus several individual presentations and we started the year with zero quilts on hand.  Everybody in our group was enthused to get busy.  I was given a lovely quilt top to quilt, but it had an issue:

Did you see the block facing the wrong way?  So, even though it had its borders on, I couldn’t leave it that way:

It wasn’t a hard fix and now its lines are all straight:

And onto the frame it went to be quilted with a panto called Stardust:

Then it got returned to the group to get its binding sewn on and a label put on by hand (I don’t do any hand sewing, but some members of my group are delighted to do that part, thank heavens!).

And, of course, I had to finish up my QOVFoundation Mystery Quilt for 2017.  This quilt was designed by Sandy Berg of Raspberry Bramble Designs who coordinated the mystery.  It was fun to sew.  The pattern is available here:  http://2017qovmystery.weebly.com/

This is a little of my progress as I waited in between receiving clues:

See those little post-it notes on the computer?  I highly recommend you label your pieces as you go as Sandy suggests ... The result is grand!

It went off to another quilter since I have only done edge-to-edge pantos so far and it is more likely to get some special quilting with another quilter.

More on my Local Community Service Week activities in tomorrow’s post.

WIP Wednesday

Today is Three King’s Day, aka Epiphany, aka the 12th Day of Christmas, and is the day celebrated in much of Orthodox Christianity as the day that the Magi delivered gifts to the Christ child and later as the day of His baptism.  In many countries, hay is left out for the camels (much like cookies for Santa Claus) and in return Christmas gifts are left for the children.  I didn’t put out hay and didn’t get gifts, but I sure can count my many Blessings of late!

And Wednesday’s are the day that I will be showing what I am currently working on.  My WIP (work in progress) for this Wednesday was on the frame until this evening when I finished quilting it.  I first showed it in pieces in this post on New Year's Day.  The digital quilt design is called Surf’s up by Karlee Porter:

The pattern was a New Year’s Eve Mystery that was originally designed by CindyCarter in 2011.  Link to the Jelly Roll Mystery:  https://carterquilter.wordpress.com/jelly-roll-mystery-quilt-2011-photos/

I especially like this pattern when the jelly roll and the background have high contrast.  Mine doesn’t since some of the jelly roll fabrics are almost identical to the background (I didn’t open the jelly roll to know that until after I had picked my background fabric).  I did substitute a few of the most egregious offenders with some of the leftover pieces of the jellyroll (rip it – rip it), and I think it is better  now.  But, as I've said before, you would certainly have to like orange!  This one is now in that ever-growing “to-be-bound” pile.

Nature shot of the day:

This guy is in a pond that I sometimes walk by.  Don’t know if he is a Koi or a giant Goldfish.  Both of those are a type of carp.  According to Wikipedia:  “In general, goldfish tend to be smaller than koi, and have a greater variety of body shapes and fin and tail configurations.  Koi varieties tend to have a common body shape, but have a greater variety of coloration and color patterns. They also have prominent barbels at the lip.”  I haven’t been close enough to this guy to see if he has barbels!

 

Goldfish that outgrow their tanks often grow larger when released into ornamental lakes.  Guiness Book listed the largest known goldfish in the world in 2003.  A fish from the Netherlands that measured 18.7 (47.4 cm).  It seems that the record still stands.  The second largest was a goldfish named Goldie that was kept as a pet in a tank in England.  That fish measured as 15 inches (38 cm) and over 2 pounds (0.91 kg).   On the other hand, Koi can reach length of about 1 meter (39 inches).  I expect this guy is really a Koi since he appears to be about 18 inches.  I like him and I’m calling him Nemo, just because …

New Year's Day 2016

I’m back and starting the New Year off right!  We played golf this morning on a new-to-me course that was in beautiful condition.  This is the clubhouse at Heritage Harbor:

And how foggy it was when we started because the temperatures have been in the 80s – yes!  even into January.

But we are expecting a chill and rain this weekend and we will be grateful for it. 

This was part of the scenic cartpath (it was actually much greener going through than the picture shows but those cypress do lose their leaves in winter):

And a few holes (including the DH teeing off):

And on the quilty front, I began a New Year’s Eve mystery yesterday, but wasn’t able to finish.  This was how I progressed:

 

these were my mystery fabrics - a jelly roll and background fabric

pieces were cut and ready to go

some blocks were made

status when I had to quit - only bottom border is ready

It is now a 2016 UFO – amazing how those things mount up!  I hope to finish it this weekend and get it into the “to-be-quilted” basket.  It sure is ORANGE.

And this is to be my philosophy for today:

Too Many UFOs?

Can there be such a thing as too many unfinished objects?  Can there be too many works-in-progress?  We have a mini guild, maybe more like a quilt club, that has begun meeting at my LQS.  They decided that we should all bring one of our UFOs to the January meeting and vow to complete it in 2014.  So I took a look at what I had piling up … NEVER do that ... you really don't want to know!  I do know what I want to take in January – more on that later.

But I did find out I have a few simultaneous projects being made into tops:

        The Dr. Seuss baby quilt

        The Mystery Quilt for Military going on now

        A Celtic Knot for Quilts of Valor

        A 5-Yard Quilt kit for a child

So I decided to finish a few quickly so they don’t qualify as UFOs in January!  This was the 5-Yard Quilt that was begun, but was turned into a strippie to get it done today:

 

Swimming with the Fishies

detail

This is the Celtic Twist that I will be getting done this week:

 

those boys like their Army green and cammo

It is from a free block offered by McCall’s Quilting.  Here’s the link.

It's all gray and raining here today and my camera is taking yellow pictures, so no more of the projects, but here’s a photo from my walk the other day - just for a change of pace:

Isn’t that little vignette cute?  It’s in front of a townhouse and they made excellent use of a small space.  Now, let me get back upstairs to get those projects done …