Working on this and that

 This morning's roads were icy-looking so I decided not to go to aerobic walking.  Naturally, the sun came out later and melted everything, but I wasn't taking any chances.  I ended up working hard in the sewing room.   I sandwiched and pin basted the Lily quilt, which I started quilting after lunch.  Before lunch, however, I made two blocks of the month for the Optimism quilt designed by Aby Dolinger.  They are all 15" finished so the quilt will go together pretty quickly in the fall.  I'm shopping my stash (as some say, "inventory") for this one.

My last quilting thing today was cutting up my brother Axel's green and cream shoo fly quilt that I made him in 2005.  It was beautifully quilted by my friend Mary with feathers throughout.  When we visited him in Wisconsin a year and a half ago, I took it home to see if I could repair it.  Alas, it has too much damage - I think he sat on and washed it a lot.  So I cut it apart and will make him some placemats.  I thought I could salvage the center, but it is too far gone.  The center looked salvageable, but it has some very weak spots.

I have made Axel two other quilts, so I don't feel that bad.  One he has on his bed, and the other is in his storage closet, protecting a painting he moved three years ago.  I hope it's OK.  If (when?) we go to visit him again this summer, I'll see if I can find it.  Meanwhile, I'll make miles of binding and bind off sections of the green quilt and mail the "new" placemats to him.

Another finished top

This isn't the best photo, but I'm so happy it's finished!  This little quilt measures 39" square, and I put it together yesterday.  I really like the way it turned out, especially because I started it at the beginning of August.   I'll take a better picture once it's done.  I plan to quilt it with my walking foot, very simply.

The paper pieced threaded star blocks were fun to make although I still am not a fan of taking the paper out.   I still have lots of snippets of fabric left and, because I have so much, I am keeping it in a baggie all together for now rather than dividing it up by color.  This is the second quilt I've made using the same fat quarter bundle plus a charm pack and two yards of the large floral.  I do love the soft colors.

After putting the quilt together, I went down to Joann Fabrics for some batting (Warm and White).  The store was fairly quiet and all the stock seemed to be there, even though rumor has it that it's closing in the middle of the month.  I guess I'll be going to Walmart for notions after it closes because I refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby.  Or I'll buy things I can't get at my local quilt shop (e.g., Guterman thread, insul-bright) online.   I will miss the people who work there and hope they can find other jobs, too.  Since it reopened after the 2023 flood, they've been very service-oriented.    

At the checkout, I ran into a woman who used to come to our yoga class and to the state quilt guild meetings.  It was good to see Dolinda again.  We were just beginning to become friends when she stopped coming.   I was reminded once again how nice it is to live in a relatively small community, "where everybody knows your name."

Truly the "frozen north"

We've been on a roller coaster of weather lately - warm and snowy vs. bitter cold and sunny.  Today, apparently, we'll have a little of both.  Paul is heading out for lunch with a friend, and I will be sewing away on the threaded star blocks.  I have five left to make for the border of the lily block.  

Yesterday, I took a break and puttered around the house.  I worked on Friends of the Library paperwork, sent sympathy cards, knitted while watching Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting, and read a new mystery.  A neighbor stopped by late in the day, and we even had leftovers for dinner.  Everyone needs a "no agenda" day.

While taken a year or so ago, looking out our front door, this is what it looks like almost every day - pretty but very cold.  I watch people walking their dogs, and all are bundled up, even the dogs.  Today I  a cream-colored standard poodle (or maybe a labradoodle) had on a red coat with red booties on.  Very colorful!  Rather than walk outside, I've been rowing in the basement, and on Tuesdays, weather permitting, I head down to the library for aerobic walking and on Wednesdays, yoga.   Spring can't come soon enough.

Keeping up with BOMs and UFOs

Over the weekend, I worked on some guild blocks of the month.  I generally make one to enter into the lottery and the rest for me in a colorway of my choice.  This year's personal colorway is various shades of orange with a black background.  I have half a bolt of the polka dots so it figures prominently.

The green and purple block will go in the guild lottery.  I often don't enter because I don't want another UFO to worry about.  But I usually bring a block anyway.  The second row is another block of the month designed by Kristin Laura.   I don't know who she is, but our co-leader asked for permission to share them with the guild, so I'm doing them, too.  I may combine the guild and Kristin Laura blocks into one quilt.  Or I may make two quilts.  I'll decide this summer.

Next, I started working on some paper pieced threaded stars to serve as a border for the lily block I made last fall.  It's a UFO that has been on my mind for quite a while.  The block on point measures 20", so I will need to add a plain coping strip around it before adding the 6" blocks.  

I bought the papers from the Fat Quarter Shop, and I can see that it will take me quite some time to make the 20 I need.  I have lots of scraps from the Dresden Plate quilt I made with the fat quarter bundle a few months ago.  I hope I can squeeze out all the blocks I need for the border, but if not, I will add some matching fabric from my stash.

Taking the papers out of the back is my least favorite quilting job, especially in winter when static electricity makes it very difficult.  I'm going to try to rub the paper with a dryer sheet to see if that helps.  I usually do this annoying project while watching TV in the evenings. 

Organizing the fabrics (labeling them A, B, C, D) and marking the papers really helps me keep them straight.  These little blocks sure are cute!  I will end this small quilt with a plain border - perhaps the same dark floral one I used for the Dresden Plate quilt.

Quilts for Bags of Love

 Monday was a difficult day for me.  I avoided the news and the inauguration hoopla by staying in my sewing room with my old ipod turned on to favorite songs of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  And I made a little quilt for a child going into foster care.

I used some strings from my seemingly endless basket of strings for the center strips and cut a partial charm square set diagonally.  I trimmed the result to 5 inches and arranged them.  I added two plain borders and pieced some batting left over from the Bigfoot quilt.  I used a piece of very bright fabric I didn't know what to do with for the back.

After show and tell at guild on Tuesday night, I gave this quilt and the little purple rail fence quilt to Marie to take to Bags of Love.

Today I'm going to work on some blocks of the month for guild.  Some of us are working on a BOM designed by Kristin Laura and brought those to guild for show and tell also.  Mine are on the bottom row.

The colors are a little "off" here - the top row's blocks (Diane's) have deep red accents although on my computer they look brown.  I see Marie shared my idea of using orange.  I like the black background I chose and look forward to making more of these blocks.

Hanging at the library

This summer, our public library displayed a section of the AIDS quilt.  A lot of people came and really were moved by it.  In order to hang the quilt, the library had to install two sturdy rods on what used to be the outside brick of the building.  There's a relatively new two story addition with a balcony on the second floor over the circulation area.  Luckily, a volunteer handyman stepped forward to install the rod.  Miche isn't afraid of climbing tall ladders because he repairs chimneys all over the area.  In fact, he inspected ours a few summers ago.

After the AIDS quilt moved on to another site in the USA, the spot looked very empty, and the library staff asked me if I knew of any quilter who might have two quilts to hang in that spot.  Did I know any quilters?!?  I said I would be happy to hang some quilts, but I found that of my bed-sized quilts only one had a hanging sleeve.  I added a sleeve to another favorite and took them to the library where they were hung last weekend.  They look great although they are difficult to photograph from below or above.  Paul went down to the library yesterday with the camera as I thought my phone wouldn't do a good job.

Both quilts were made around 2000-2001 and graced beds in our B&B over the nine years we ran it.  

The purple one started with a pattern from a book called Stars in the Garden by Piece o' Cake Designs.  I liked it but didn't want to make any more appliqued blocks of that size, so I added borders in various purples.  I asked a long arm quilter in a town about an hour east of us to quilt it.  I never minded the drive back and forth because she did such a great job.  At that time machine quilting was mostly free motion.  Mary used to quilt all of my quilts, but then she started the Machine Quilters Expo and got way too busy.  

At any rate, after she finished quilting this, Mary encouraged me to enter it into a quilt show in her area.  It was the first show I ever entered, but I couldn't attend because we were very busy with fall foliage guests.  On Sunday night, after the show ended, Mary called to say that she noticed I hadn't come.   "I would have liked to have seen your face when your quilt won the Viewers Choice Award," she said.  I remember hopping all around the kitchen in amazement!

The heart quilt was part of a swap with an online group.  Each person put together a batch of fabric and told what theme she'd like blocks to be.  Then the blocks and fabric went from person to person around the country until they returned to me.  I had chosen red and pink fabrics and asked for heart blocks of any size.  When they all came back to me, I put the blocks together, adding other blocks and strips as needed.  I love the background fabric of this quilt; it has little hearts on a cream background.  

The way Mary quilted this freehand is just unbelievable.  Here and there she wrote words like "love" and "be mine."  It's very sweet.  My favorite block is the one in the upper right which I did in broderie perse, cutting out red cherries and arranging them in a heart shape.

I don't know how long the quilts will hang at the library, but I of course have several more than can go in their places!

Nearly finished

I quilted the two string table runners on Monday and then turned my attention to quilting a baby-sized rail fence quilt made of strips I found on the "free" table at guild.

When finished, this will go to Bags of Love along with the red hat I'm almost finished knitting.  I'm quilting straight lines in variegated purple thread on either side of the blocks, going both vertically and horizontally.  This leaves nice squares and makes the quilt secure for what will most likely receive a lot of machine washing/drying.  In putting the top together, I didn't do a whole lot of precision measuring or arranging.  Now that it's almost done, I see things I should have done a little differently, but oh well!

The back of the quilt is white flannel with medium blue stars, so I will need to find a binding fabric that goes with all the colors, probably a light cream solid.  I pieced the batting, too, so this quilt did not cost me anything.  All through these last few days when I've finished quite a bit, I thought about what I want to work on next.  Will it be the Exploding Heart or more Dear Jane blocks?  The former is purple, too, so I'm inclined to take a breather with Jane,  But first Bigfoot's Forest needs a binding.  As they say, so many quilts, so little time!

Blocks and strings

 I made a few blocks of the month on Friday and also worked with string triangles.  Basically, just refreshing my "sew-jo" after finishing the Bigfoot top and before starting a real project.

Here's the guild December block of the month, a nice Ohio Star.  I'll take it to guild to enter into a lottery.  Maybe I'll even win the batch.

Then there are the first two Optimism blocks for the quilt along devised by Aby Dolinger.  I'm using colors she suggests in her very clear instructions.

I also made a bunch of triangles out of my seemingly endless string basket and then created two table runners.  These are both basted and ready for quilting.

Both are 12" x about 20".  I'll take them down to the florist's to sell and take any Christmas items that haven't sold home this week.  Luckily, we are having "seasonal" temperatures in the 20s but with little bursts of snow daily.  The snow plow guys are probably happily getting overtime.

A long stretch of dreary weather

It has been snowing off and on for over a week now.  The sky has been mostly gray/white, and I'm glad not to be working on a temperature quilt this year.   January's blocks would almost all be the same.   It's beeni in the single digits and the snowplow guys seem to be working overtime.  Thank goodness for them!  We have been able to get out most days if we want to.  Friday we stocked up on groceries and yesterday I even went to sew with one of my guilds although only three of us came.

Now that Bigfoot's Forest is at the quilter's, I've been working with my string basket the last few days.  At some point this fall, I sorted them all by color before paper piecing 6" high triangles with them.  Now I have two table runners to quilt and a lot of varied triangles still to work with.  Today I'll spend some time with a batch of purple strips that I found on the free table at guild.  They belonged to Kathy T, who told me she was sick of them.  I don't know why - they are beautiful and will make a nice little Rail Fence quilt for Bags of Love.

Other than sewing somewhat mindlessly lately, I've been baking bread a lot.  Other baked goods are off the table as I'm trying to reduce my sugar intake these days.  I use my bread machine to mix, knead, and rise the dough which I then shape and rise to bake in the oven.  This is a plain white sourdough bread using starter I've been nursing for a few months.  It makes wonderful toast and sandwiches.

To avoid cabin fever, which can set in during these cold, gloomy days, we've been trying to gather with friends and neighbors more.  Last night friends down the street came over to play cards.  It was fun.  Next, they said, we should learn to play "Rummy Cube."  I have no idea what that entails, but we'll be doing it soon.

First finish

Bigfoot's Forest is all together and ready for quilting!  Measuring about 65" x 72", it will be a nice size for Chris, and I hope to get it to Marie for long arming tomorrow.  She is fairly speedy, but I am sure it won't be ready for his birthday next week.  I made him a card which I'll give him along with an Amazon gift card ("One size fits all," he always says). 

The scrappy checkerboard border took me a long time due to the variety of greens and neutrals along with some 2" squares from the panel I cut up for the previous border.  The center figures were taken from Elizabeth Hartman's Legendary pattern.  I have enough of the green print left over for the binding once the quilt returns home.  Green has always been Chris' favorite color.

The weather here has been typically frigid (in the single digits) with blowing and drifting snow.  I haven't left the house - not even to go to the mailbox - in three days due to icy roads.  If the roads are OK, today I hope to go to the post office to mail a small package and to yoga.

The weather is supposed to moderate a bit tomorrow, and then I'll get out to the quilt shop and maybe Joann Fabrics for "notions."  We are running low on fresh vegetables here, too, so I'll probably shop for them along the way.

I always feel a little let down after finishing a quilt top, so I keep busy with blocks of the month and some scrappy string projects until I feel ready to work on something more seriously.  I have the fabric all ready to cut for an Exploding Heart quilt which I may start later this week.  Meanwhile, I will try to take a nap after yoga today and then read more of the latest Number One Ladies Detective Agency book.  Nothing much is happening, but somehow it's cozy enough for a winter's read.

Thinking about the new year

Projects!  That's what my life has always been about, whether I've been working or retired.  Projects seem to keep me going.  A member of our quilt guild posted a great worksheet for the year's planning, and I think I'll give it a whirl. 

Over the years, I have been keeping a little notebook of details about each quilt I'm working on - size, date begun/finished piecing/finished, some info about the techniques.  I can stuff the worksheet into my notebook although I doubt if I'll fill in the section called "did I sew this week?" which is totally absurd for me.  I sew almost every day!   

My main project right now is the Bigfoot quilt for Chris' birthday January 15 when I hope to have the top ready to show him.  I will ask Marie to quilt it since it's going to be bigger than I like to quilt on my Elna.  I am halfway around the scrappy checkerboard border now.  I know it's risky to add one side at a time, but I decided that, if it doesn't work out evenly on the last round, I will put an appliqued Bigfoot corner on instead of finishing the checkerboard.  Then there will be two plain borders and then I'll be finished. 

After I get the checkerboard done, I may take a day off and work on a few blocks of the month, for the first blocks of Aby's "Optimism" quilt and the guild's BOM.  After I finish the Sasquatch quilt, I will try to return to Dear Jane for a while.  I have made and quilted half of the interior rows and would like to make the other 7 by the end of the year.  There will be distractions, and that's OK.  

I watch more TV during the winter and like to knit while doing so.  I'm working on a red hat, teenage sized, for Bags of Love while I figure out what to make with the gradient bundle of fingering yarn my sister gave me for Christmas.  I would love to make a small shawl for myself, so I'll spend some time rolling these lovelies into balls while I decide what to do.

New Years 2025

 

We had a fun afternoon yesterday, ringing in the New Year with neighbors and friends.  Our second annual "First Footing" celebration was a great success.  I always feel that when people stay longer than the time you set, they are really having a good time.  And that we did.

Almost everything I set out was eaten, and several people brought additional goodies for the table.  The big box of Dutch cookies took quite a hit, which is fine with me.  Although I would have loved to have eaten every bit of it myself, I know I shouldn't.  We still have plenty left over to feed my sweet tooth for a few more weeks, I'll add some veggies and cheese to the mix instead!

Parties are always fun when our friends Bill and Diane can come, and once again Bill sang (Winter Wonderland this time), read poems, and kept the conversation going.  He showed the sombrero he had received for Christmas, and we passed it around for photos. 

Bill also asked each person what his//her New Year''s resolution or special word would be.  That was fun and interesting, especially because most people don't "do" resolutions, But they were very thoughtful about choosing words to guide the coming year.  I wish I'd been writing them down, but I do remember Rachel saying forward, and me choosing finish (relating to UFOs and family history).  One man said he would like to make his wife's life easier which we all thought was sweet.

I'm glad we have a relatively large living room that accommodates at least 16 people.  We brought in chairs from the dining room, basement, and sewing room to create a cozy circle, Dutch style.  It won't take too long to get things back to "normal" here today, but we will have plenty of nice memories to keep us going this year.