Spring has sprung!

Yesterday was sunny, warm, and lightly breezy, with trees beginning to flower.  We opened up windows for the first time since fall, cooked outside on the grill, and planted annuals.  What a day!  We're hoping for another today and, if we're lucky, tomorrow, too.  The many colors of green are wonderful to see on our lovely Green Mountains.

Chris came over to help me with some planting and, while I had a tall person around, I took a picture of the quilt I finished last week, It's made with scrappy Kaffe Fasset fabrics and a few other colorful prints and will be going to Bags of Love for kids going into foster care.  I quilted it very simply using fusible batting (which I don't like much but keep trying to work with as it does make it easier to baste together).

Today I'll do a little more weeding and may go out to buy another hose and a longer extension cord so Chris can trim the bushes.  While at the hardware store I may also get a few more plants although there is still a slight danger of frost.  We always waited until after Memorial Day to plant tomatoes and other things, but in recent years, with climate change, we can often plant a little sooner.

This is going to be a busy week with a hair appointment for me and dental cleaning for Paul, quilt guild meeting, lunch and dinner out with various friends, and the opera - Cinderella - on Saturday.  In between I'll peck away at Dear Jane and the gardens.

Playing catch up

Merry Christmas!  Yes, I'm still around, but until the beginning of this week I've been spending a lot of time at our public library working on Light Up the Library.  It was a success, with 67 items in the raffle, including whole Christmas trees and lots of gift certificates to local businesses.  It seemed like every day we had some emergency (theft, late entries, etc.).  But now the Friends of the Library's coffers are a little fuller and able to fund some fun programs.  Our next project will be sponsoring minigolf in the stacks during February school vacation.  That should draw quite a few kids and their parents to the library.

Meanwhile, back at home, I've been chipping away at projects in the sewing room, and I'm pleased that I was able to finish two little quilts this week.  Both will go to Bags of Love.  The first was made of orphan blocks from the pizza box marked "year's end."  At first, I really didn't like it, but now that it's done, it's grown on me.  There's certainly a lot to look at.  I quilted it in irregular vertical lines which was somewhat tedious.  Guess it's good to have some mindless sewing during the busy holiday season. 

The second quilt top was made of flannels that came from Sylvia's mother who is now in a nursing home.  Sylvia brought me four large tubs of fabric which I used, took to the free table at guild meetings, and gave to the ReStore.  These flannels all seemed to go together, so I made a 40" x 40" rail fence quilt.  I've never made a top out of flannel before, and, while it's soft, it was difficult to cut and sew precisely.   My even feed foot was a god-send.

That leaves only two more tops to quilt in the closet and a third that Marie will be quilting soon.  I'd like to get at least one more top quilted before I start anything else new.  I have three future quilts on my mind for 2026 already, including some strings for which I plan to follow the Rainbow Scrap Challenge to use up. 

I got out the first of the two in the closet - another rail fence in whites and blues.  I won the blocks at the state quilt guild and put them together right away.  Now I see it's a little small, so I'm going to add a stop border and then do varying piano keys around the outside.  I have a lot of coordinating fabric but not enough to make one or two the final border.  

To make my Christmas even nicer, I sold a bed-sized quilt, the Exploding Heart, to a friend of Chris' who was so entranced she wants to buy another for her daughter.  I will dig into my stash of finished quilts and give her a choice.  Then another friend of his wants one that's currently on display in the library.  I have to figure out what to charge for each quilt but I am happy to free up storage for whatever I make in 2026.  Happy New Year!

Feeling productive

 It's amazing that finishing small projects can lift my spirits on a gloomy day.  After weeks of wonderful, sunny days, it has turned gloomy most days lately. but inside, bright things are happening.  I finished a few potholders yesterday.  Two will be raffled off during Light Up the Library in December, and one will be given away to the friends for whom I made the Christmas tree skirt.

I still have some of that Snowflake Bentley panel left to make a few table runners, but I'm not sure I'll have time to do so before Christmas.  That's OK - I like to sew with holiday fabrics during the holiday season.

Next, I made a raffle block for the upcoming state quilt guild meeting.  It's a rail fence using wintry snow flake fabric.  Hope I win the raffle!  I like the positioning of the rails which, when put together will zig zag a bit.  

I'm looking forward to the meeting as it will be my first since I stepped down as president or secretary, jobs I've held for close to 20 years.  I am dragging my feet as historian but hope to make that my winter project.  I want to get everything organized so that it can be archived at the state historical society library.  Anyway, it will be fun not to have any real responsibilities for the meeting!

Yesterday, I started quilting the little Blue Ocean quilt in a vertical/horizontal grid.  In this picture, I'm using green painters' tape to help me create the straight lines for the quilt.  It's a pretty small quilt - 40" x 40" - so by the afternoon, it was pretty much quilted, and today I hope to get the binding on.  I'll eventually give it to "Bags of Love" for kids going into foster care.  

First, however, I want to sandwich and quilt another little red and cream quilt that's hanging in the closet.  I'll probably do the same grid-like quilting pattern on it.  I heard that there's a need for things for babies and toddlers right now, so I hope these little quilts will help.  I'll post a picture of the finished quilt when it's done and (hopefully) the sun comes out.

Aging and the aged

This week we were busy helping friends who are just a few years older than we are.  One is in a nursing home after breaking a hip.  He'd like to come home, but after taking him and his wife (who is fine) out for lunch, we realized that he can't go home.  His physical and mental faculties have declined.  Is the latter due to being in the nursing home with very little stimulation?  Perhaps it's due to his declining hearing? 

A few days later, we had lunch with a friend who passed out at the restaurant, requiring an ambulance to the hospital.  We stayed with her in the ER until it was decided to insert a pacemaker at the university hospital in Burlington, about 45 minutes away.  Paul drove her car to our house, and two days later, we picked her up and took her home, along with her cute yellow car.  She was very perky by that time, but now we hear she has had another episode.  Perhaps the problem is more complex than the need for a pacemaker?

It all makes me very glad that I am still walking, talking, writing, reading, sewing!   My A1c and weight are both down, and the doctor has reduced my diabetes med.  She promised that it may be removed all together if I continue on this downward trajectory.  My visiting sister-in-law noticed the difference which is nice to hear.   She and my brother are visiting from New Jersey - early leaf peepers!  The fall colors are beginning, but it will be a few more weeks until peak foliage.  Still, visitors, including busloads, are arriving.

All this activity has slowed down my sewing, but I did manage to make a few blocks for Row K of Dear Jane.  Just two more full rows after that, and the center will be done.  I'm now thinking about a modern border instead of the triangles.  What would Jane have done?

I finished a sweet little burgundy hat for "Bags of Love," which makes three for kids going into foster care.  The picot edge on that hat will look cute on a little girl.  I have some variegated green yarn to make another hat, but it will have to wait.  I just started a striped sweater for myself.  Not sure i like the yarn, but if not, I'll make a few scarves and more hats.

3 blocks to go!

If I've counted right, I only have three more paper pieced Double Date blocks to go before I can put the quilt together on point with triangles (as yet uncut).  I'm not sure whether I'll attempt to put the quilt together now or wait until I get back into the sewing room.  I have plenty of UFOs to keep me busy, including Dear Jane which I haven't touched in months.

Pat is still here, but yesterday we talked a bit about her next steps.  There will be a smaller condo coming on the market in our neighborhood eventually.  But when?  Or can she move to an apartment owned by a friend a few miles from us?  Our discussion was a good start, and we'll try to be patient as she continues to feel better.  

Today we have errands to run - post office, bank, haircuts for us both.  Tomorrow I'll be going to aerobic walking at the library following by a pedicure and a monthly chat fest with my friend Debb.  

I started another toddler hat a day or two ago and will continue with that while watching the news tonight.  Yesterday, I sewed up the latest hat made of scrap yarn.  I'm not wild about the beige so added a bit of purple to the mix.  It's will go to Bags of Love when I finish a couple more hats.  The ones I had been making were way too big, and these smaller versions are really quick to do.  With quilting stalled a bit, these finishes are a good boost.

Cooking and planning

We had a very nice day yesterday, but it didn't involve any sewing at all, unfortunately.  We did some grocery shopping very early so that I could spend time cooking for today's Indonesian dinner with Pauline and Bob.  It's actually a lunch so this morning I'll be doing last minute cleaning and cooking.  They are bringing their two little dogs, which should be interesting.  It should be nice weather, so maybe we'll take them for a walk after dinner.

After some intense work in the kitchen, Paul and I went out to lunch at Azteca, a new Mexican restaurant, with four friends, Bill & Diane and Fiona & Chico, for Chico's birthday.  At Bill's urging, our group tradition has become that the birthday person tells a little biography, and Chico's is quite interesting since his family left Cuba when he was a boy and the Castro regime was just beginning to take hold.  He knows firsthand what an authoritarian government is like.  The waitstaff sang a Mexican Happy Birthday which was quite fun, too.  The food was great and plentiful, so we had a snack for dinner.  Our weather has been super

Tomorrow, I hope to get back to sewing, including making a couple of blocks for the Pat Sloan March block-a-day project.  The blocks are easy and great leftover scrap busters - 12" quarter log cabin blocks.  I'm using the same black fabric for the beginning 4.5" locks and dipping deeply into my string basket.  30 blocks will make a nice quilt for Bags of Love.  When we get back from Virginia, I want to start back on my modern Dear Jane quilt.  I have quite a few rows (six?) left to make.  I also have some smaller projects to work on, including a small duffle bag.  I don't enjoy making three dimensional items, but it's nice to have a project that gets finished sooner than my usual bed quilts.

We have been monitoring the weather, and we shouldn't run into snow going south or returning, so we'll leave here on Wednesday and make it to Harrisonburg on Thursday.  Friday morning we'll visit the new Virginia Quilt Museum and then continue on to Staunton for two plays and a backstage tour at Blackfriar's Theater.  Even though our snow here is melting, we'll surely get a little more before winter is truly over.  It will be nice to have a bit of a break from it all.

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!

A couple of finishes and some frustration

Thursday I picked up two quilts made of miscellaneous blocks from Marie, the long arm quilter.  Both will go to "Bags of Love," which puts together bags with toiletries, a book, a stuffed animal, a quilt, and more for kids going into foster care.  I bound both quilts over the weekend and feel so good to have two UFOs done.   I'll get them back to Marie this week or next, I hope.

The first quilt is made of orphan blocks that didn't really go with any other orphans in my growing pizza box.  I liked the setting I found on a pattern that I've had for a long time.

The second quilt is mostly made of blocks of the month I made in 2023 in my various guilds.  The two tulips were leftover from another quilt.

This was the first time using the walking foot on my little Brother, and, while noisy, it did a fine job.  I do miss the smoothness of the Elna's dual feed foot, but the end result is a binding on.  I always machine sew both sides of the binding on charity quilts and those going to children so that they wear well.

With those quilts out of the way, I sandwiched the first three rows of Dear Jane and started quilting it.  That should keep me busy most of the week.   I want to take my time working on each individual block with the walking foot.  I am definitely missing the large harp on the Elna, though.

My Fly with Me pattern arrived in the mail over the weekend.  I bought it because I was intrigued by its various sizes and shapes of flying geese.   I thought it would make a nice scrap quilt.  When I opened it, I was dismayed to find no foundation sheets or templates.  These all needed to be acquired by scanning a QR code which I did with my phone.  How to get the resulting information onto my computer in order to print the pattern pieces led to an afternoon's frustration.  

After I wrote to the designer in Germany and got no response, I wrote to the shop owner who sold me the pattern, Phyllis.  She had the same problem and also got no reply from the designer.  Now I don't feel so dumb, but neither of us can still use the pattern.  What a boondoggle!   

Phyllis says she is no longer going to stock any Zen Chic patterns without assurance that the pieces are included with the pattern, and she very kindly refunded my money.  She removed it from her website, too.  I started drafting the pattern with graph paper, but the blocks are all 12" and my graph paper is only 8.5" wide.   So I am making my pattern 6" square.  I could have done this to begin with but don't feel good about simply copying a design seen online.   Getting to know Phyllis was a good thing to come out of this.  I needed more backing fabric for Dear Jane, so I bought it online at Phyllis' shop.   She's very speedy at filling orders, and my fabric is already on its way.

Taking a breather

The best laid plans go awry, don't they?  I've only sewn down 1/4 of the binding on the hankie quilt and set it aside Friday so I could put the binding on the cakes on stands quilt.  It's done!  There was a spot that didn't quilt right on the long arm that I had to fix with my Elna; I did that before sewing the binding on.  

It is ready now to give to "Bags of Love" along with three knitted hats.  I have more yarn for more hats, but I'm working on a scarf right now.  It's a TV watching project.

I wanted a break from big projects, so yesterday I got out the Lazy Girl "Lily" pattern and made a small purse - in just 5 hours!  It felt so good to accomplish something on the same day I started it.  I used some fabric from a big fat quarter bundle Mom and Jenny gave me for Christmas so all the parts coordinated.  

I'm thinking of making another one now that I am comfortable with this pattern which is quite detailed and written for someone who has never sewn garments before.  The pleats and darts were no big deal for me, having made clothes since age 12.  I made the necessary pattern pieces out of freezer paper so I can use them over again as I do more cutting.  I need more interfacing for another bag and would normally buy it at Joann Fabrics.  

Unfortunately, the shop was flooded along with others in the shopping center (and many other places) on July 10.  They are still mucking it out and rumor has it, they aren't reopening.  My alternatives are Walmart, the evil Hobby Lobby (anti-gay, Christian nationalist), Joann.com, or Amazon.com.   Paul had things to buy so we went to Walmart, and it wasn't too busy.

Today I hope to gather the fabric needed for bag #2 and maybe work on a nametag to wear at various guild meetings.  I saw a cute one that uses selvages, and I have lots of those.  Small projects are so gratifying!