A Finish and a Start

Good morning, my friends. As I peered out the window just now, I noticed blue sky and a slight breeze. It rained hard for pretty much the whole live-long day yesterday. We got a piece of Seattle's "bomb cyclone." And, as I've already said, I think the weather people are just making stuff up now. Today I'll get outside to fill the birdfeeders for a few minutes at least. Also, I'll take a walk on the treadmill, but then it will be sewing, sewing, and more sewing.

The "Mosaic" piece is finished now. Here's your final peek. We won't speak of this again until next year.

We had grocery shopping to do yesterday. I'm hoping we won't need to go again before Thanksgiving. Yesterday's trip allowed us to collect a free turkey from our local Fred Meyer grocery store. Erik and Mae are cooking this year, so our turkey will go into the freezer for another time. 

When we arrived home and everything was put away, we had lunch and naps. After that, I got started on a new baby quilt for Sue's first grandchild. You might remember this quilt from last summer I called "Counting Sheep." I made this one for the first child of our CSA farmers.

This is a free quilt pattern from the American Quilter's Society. I chose it because it looked like something I could finish quickly. As I told my friend, Kate, this morning, baby quilts can't wait if you want to get them to the baby before they head off to college. When I made the quilt above, it was finished in five days from start to finish.

And so, in the interest of speed, I decided to make it again. I'd already picked out some fabrics. Taking a second look, they left me feeling a little meh. I had a second choice, and so I inquired of the Retired Resident Engineer what he thought. He chose this combination, and so I went to work cutting out the pieces I'd need.

The first step was to make 24 half square triangles. These were trimmed to 6-1/2 inches.

And then, I needed 16 four-patches.

And then, I could lay out the blocks. I'll sew these together today. All the fabrics are from my stash. I even have a backing fabric I can use.

So, I expect to get that sewn together today and sandwiched for quilting. If there's time, I'll get a start on the quilting too. Since I've already quilted this pattern once before, I know just what to do.

Before we left for the grocery store yesterday, I stitched enough of the first snowman to decide to move my hoop down and to the right.

I'll pick it up here this morning.

So, my Wednesday is planned. I'm hoping to get the baby quilt well along today. Right now, I'll make some breakfast and then get to work on my slow-stitching. Have a good day, Everybody. Try to stay warm.

Lucky Finds

Good morning, my friends. It's a grocery shopping day, but there's no rush. As I'm writing it's still dark as night outside. We'll at least wait for the sun to come up.

It was a lucky day of sewing yesterday. It was my day to add the thread work to the "Mosaic" quilt. My hope was that the thread work would bring definition to the main subject of my quilt, and in that, I was successful. It worked out better than expected. And how could I go wrong when I had so many kitty helpers. Smitty took the high road.

Sadie, fresh off her kill of the feather toy behind her, took the low road. She needed to rest after her epic battle.

It was time to sandwich the Mosaic quilt. I decided to add the back from the get-go. Here's where I got lucky. I'd pulled a backing fabric the day before. When I opened it up, I found a scrap exactly the size I needed for my quilt back. And then, I opened up my bin of scrap batting. Right on top was a piece exactly the size I needed. How many times in a year does that happen? So...ready to go. 

Using the photograph as a guide, I drew in lines to demarcate the sections of the main subject. It was a pretty quick task since I was sewing to the edges of the quilt and could cut threads without the need to bury them. When it was finished, I was happy with what I'd done. It still needed squaring up. While it was tempting to cut those corners off prior to quilting, the book I was working from suggested leaving them until the end. If I'd cut them, I would have been working with bias edges, and those would be prone to stretching.

Then I squared it up. Here's your peek.

I found a perfect binding in my bag of scrap bindings. It was only about half the length I needed, but I found some more of the same fabric in one of my smaller scrap bins. I always love it when I can use one of those cut-off ends of bindings from an earlier quilt.

Now, it's clipped and ready for me to go to work hand-sewing it. I don't expect that will take very long. It ends up at 12 x 18 inches.

By rights, I should be moving on to my list of WIPs today, starting with Block 3 for the Merry, Merry Snowmen.

I'll get to that soon enough, but I have a baby quilt on my agenda today. My friend Sue's oldest son presented her with her first grandchild this month, a boy. His name is Corbin. I've been perusing my baby quilt patterns, considering what I could make for little Corbin. When we get home today, I'll start looking into my fabrics to see what might work best. No decisions are made yet, but I expect I'll have something in the works by this afternoon. 

That's all I have for you today. The day holds a finish and a start for me. No rest for the weary. But then...quilts. Whoever gets weary from making quilts?

Making Progress

Good morning, my friends. Just as I wrote those words, I looked out the window to see snow falling in wet, fat flakes. 

Looks like a good day to stay at home, and that's exactly what I'll be doing. It'll be just like yesterday, only Monday-er. Here's how old I am: I look forward to Mondays and a new round of crossword puzzles in my email. I like the ones from the New Yorker. Monday's is always the hardest, and they get easier through the week...which tricks me into thinking I'm getting smarter. Then, Monday comes around again for a more humbling crossword experience. 

So what happened yesterday, you ask. Or maybe you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I took the first stitches on the Snow Happens table runner. I'm going to like working with the perle cotton. It has a good heft.

There was one housekeeping chore on yesterday's list of to-do's. I did that, but I gave myself a day off from any kind of exercise. I'll get back to it today. When I made my way to the sewing room, I found Smitty there ready and eager to help.

Together, we finished off the last "tiles" for the Mosaic quilt. It was pinned to the foam core board, and I set it up vertically for this picture. Here's your peek.

Smitty had some good advice for sewing it together. I pixelated the area where he's lying. No peeking.

With all the applique finished for that, I could return the sewing machine to its "regular" sewing ways, changing the needle, and rethreading with some cotton thread. I wasn't quite in the right head space to start sewing the tiles together, and so I went to work making a hanging sleeve for the Beach Bum ladies. I had just a little bit left from that backing fabric. There was a strip just the right length cut off from the edge when I squared it up.

If this quilt were being entered in a show, I'd want the hanging sleeve to be 4 inches wide. I only had about 4-1/2 inches of width, and so this one is only about 2 inches wide. It'll easily accommodate a half-inch dowel rod. We're doing our grocery shopping tomorrow (assuming this snow doesn't turn into something bigger). We'll pick up a dowel rod then, and the Beach Bums will be on their way to a permanent home on one of our bedroom walls.

From there, it was time to pull up my big girl panties and sew those mosaic tiles together. Sadie helped me clean up the mess in the sewing room. (I find it difficult to work when chaos surrounds me.)

And then we sewed the whole thing together. That was pretty easy. One piece was rotated 90°, but that was an easy fix. Here's your peek.

As expected, the subject of the photo isn't clearly defined. I believe I'll be able to make it work with plenty of thread outlining. I'll use a black thread for that. Going back and forth about it, I'm thinking I'll do the thread work with the backing fabric in place. If I were doing thread "painting," I would do it just through the batting, and then add the backing later. With this, I believe it will work as quilting, and so I'll probably add the back from the get-go. Unless I change my mind. And I might. 

Okay, so I'll have to get back to my workouts today, and I need to make up a grocery shopping list. We'll plan on doing that tomorrow. Aside from that, it'll be all sewing all the time. And, while the snow is welcome, it should hold off until we stock up on supplies tomorrow. Just now, I'm heading outside to shout out my preferences. That should work, right?

And as I wrote those words, Mike yelled to me from downstairs, "It's sticking!" And so it is. 

It's going to make my snow measuring device (red arrow) very happy. It could turn into an interesting day.

Sew Business

Good morning, my friends. It's looking like rain for the next week or so. There's going to be lots of sewing time, I'm afraid. I have a couple of outings planned for the coming week. Mainly, I'll be hanging out in the sewing room with the kitties.

Yesterday, I finished up the 7th of seven small stitcheries for the Girls' Getaway quilt.

From there, I studied the pattern so that I could trim all of them to size. It wasn't easy since I couldn't see any place where the pattern gave specific instructions for cutting the stitcheries. They will be part of pieced blocks, and so I had to study the instructions and figure where the stitchery went in the various pieces of the whole block. This required some math. It might have broken my brain save for my calculator. Smitty sat on the pieces and held them down while I did my figuring.

When they were all trimmed to size, I was able to get a picture of all of them together.

Finishing all seven stitcheries was my goal for November's

so I'll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month.

And so that brought me to a Stitching 911 situation. It was imperative that I make something for this morning's stitching. Fortunately, I have all I need to get started on the Snow Happens table runner. I brought all my tracing equipment upstairs to the dining room table where I could sit beside the window while I traced.

When it was all done, I pressed it and added some iron-on stabilizer. Then it was hooped up and ready for stitching. There's my errant ball of floss there. It cannot escape my needle of doom.

Also, look closely at that background fabric. It's snowing! It was some I had left over from when I made the I Believe in Snowmen quilt shown below.

That was a lucky find from my stash. I believe I have enough to use it in other parts of the table runner too.

After that was ready to go, I went for a walk on the treadmill, and then got to work on the Mosaic piece. Sadie has been my helper cat for this all along, but she remains horrified at the mess in the sewing room. A cat would never allow this to happen.

I was able to finish the row I'd started the day before, and then the next row. Here's your peek.

It was tempting to continue on and finish it, but I was more interested in finishing the binding for the Beach Bums. And now...that's a finished quilt! It finishes at 33 x 43 inches. And I really love this quilt. There's a blank wall in our bedroom where I want to hang it.

Here's how it looks from the back.

I have enough of that backing fabric to make a hanging sleeve for it, and that will be on today's agenda.

We've already had our Sunday morning pancakes, and so I'll get busy stitching the left-most snowman for Snow Happens. After that, I'll get back to the Mosaic piece. These are the only "tiles" I have left. Except for the two to the left (blurred...no peeking!), they're all just solid pieces. It shouldn't take long to finish the rest, and then I can start sewing it together.

So I have plenty of sewing for my rainy day inside. Time to get to it. What's on your to-do list for today?

Lotsa Sewing

Good morning, my friends. We're moving into "Sew Season," not to be confused with "Snow Season." We do get snow here, but mostly, we get rain. And, thus, "sew season." I had a couple of other things to do yesterday too. In spite of the grown-up stuff, I still had a good sewing day.

When I arrived home from my voyage into town a couple of days ago, I was dazzled by this holdout of our Autumn trees. This one is on the south side of the house. At this time of year, the sun is low on our horizon, and so it gets sunshine (when the sun shines) for most of the day. It's always the last to lose its leaves.

My first stop yesterday was to get in a Bowflex workout. After that, the butter was soft enough to get to work making our favorite Gingerbread Biscotti. This turned out great this year...just the right amount of crunch. I'm a terrible "drizzler," but I managed to do the drizzling without flinging it all over the kitchen this time around. Biscotti is a cookie with a process. It's in and out of the oven several times before it's finished. While I monitored that, I did my one small housekeeping chore.

From there is was smooth sailing sewing-wise. Sadie was my helper cat for the day, but she's getting bored with this mosaic project. She'll be happy when we do something else. And she's appalled at the mess.

I'm on square number 47 of 58 mosaic "tiles" for this project. Probably I'll do one more row today, and then finish all the tiles by tomorrow. After that, I'll be sewing all the pieces together, and then readying it for top-stitching. Here's your peek.

With that finished, I spent some time hand-sewing the binding for the Beach Bums. I'd just barely turned the third corner when I stopped. I'll finish this today.

Also today, I'll finish up the 7th of seven stitcheries for the Girls' Getaway quilt. With that coming to a close, I'm ready to trace the design for "Snow Happens."

Happily, the missing blue perle cotton floss showed up yesterday. Mike uses the ATV to ride out to the mailbox (a distance of about a quarter mile). When he got on the ATV yesterday, he found the package with the floss sitting on the ATV running board. Apparently, he'd dropped it the day before. So I'll be able to start on this as soon as I have the design traced. I have some great fabrics in my stash for finishing it off too.

Except for taking a walk on the treadmill this morning, there's nothing else on my agenda. So it'll be an NBS day. Here's the to-do list: 

1. Finish Girls' Getaway

2. Trace Snow Happens

3. Another row for Mosaic

4. Finish Beach Bums

5. Begin making way through WIPs list.

Sounds like a good day, doesn't it? I'm going to get started right now.

A Wish Comes True

Good morning, my friends. If you read yesterday's post, then you might remember when I said this: 

If I can wish for anything  today, it will be that the rain lets up at least a little bit.

Well, my friends, I'm here to tell you that wishes come true sometimes. I was out in the bright sunshine and nary a drop of rain. Even after being away from home for around four hours...no rain. Lucky me.

Before leaving home, I had plenty of time for slow-stitching. I was able to turn the first corner on the Beach Bums.

Also, I finished up the sixth of seven of these little stitcheries for the Girls' Getaway.

Just before leaving, I had time to hoop up the last one. Those pink flowers are stitched in a close buttonhole stitch, and so this one will probably take a couple of days.

From there I left for my eye exam, and then I had a couple of errands to run. When I got home, I was ready to spend some time in the sewing room. When I headed downstairs, I left these two looking as if they were settling in for naps. I wasn't expecting any kitty help.

The machine was still set up for "regular" sewing, and so I made the back for Ruth's Legacy. I really like this fabric. I used all of it on the back, but I expect to have some cut-off edges when it's all finished...if I live long enough to finish it.

About then, Miss Sadie showed up. She helped me keep the white scraps under control while I went back to work on the Mosaic piece.

It's more than halfway finished now. An alarm was set to remind me of the time because I needed to start dinner around 4:30 p.m. That gave me only about an hour to work, and I didn't quite finish the row I was working on. For today's effort, I'll finish that row and then do the next one. Here's your peek.

I've been giving this project some thought since I don't think the subject will pop out of the mosaic piecing. Some black thread outlining the design will probably make it work. Now that I've come up with a viable solution, I'm feeling better about this. I think it's going to be fine, even if it isn't exactly the way I envisioned it at the start.

So dinner was something new. I believe I'm on a sort of meatball kick right now. I think we've had meatballs at least three times in the recent past. These are Slow-Cooker Spicy Plum-Glazed Meatballs.

They were very tasty, and easy to do. The recipe suggested I'd end up with 24 one-inch meatballs. Mine are about the size of golf balls, and I ended up with 17. They're served over jasmine rice, and then I ladled some of the sauce over them. Gotta have the sauce, right? They were easy enough to make, and then loaded straight into the slow-cooker. The sauce was mixed up in a measuring cup and then poured over. Then, they cooked on high for an hour and a half. 

Mine were finished in about an hour and 15 minutes. Also, the recipe would have you strain the sauce and then return it to a skillet to be boiled and reduced to 1/3 cup. And when I poured mine into a skillet, I already had about 1/3 cup. It probably has to do with the shape and size of the slow-cooker. Mine is a large oval shape, and I think the sauce had already cooked down without needing to do anything more to it. We liked them, and this is easy enough to do in the RV. Any recipe that can be done in the RV gets bonus points in my kitchen.

Okay, and while I was waiting for the meatballs to cook, I started on the newest embroidery piece. 

It'll probably be finished no later than tomorrow, and then I'll need something new. So, on today's agenda, I'll trace out the design for my next short project...Snow Happens. Sadly, the ball of blue perle cotton I ordered for this project was supposedly delivered to our mailbox yesterday. Checking the mail...no floss. I really hate it when that happens.

I've put out a group email to our neighbors asking folks to check and see if it was delivered to them by mistake. So far, no one has fessed up. I can imagine blue embroidery floss is a valuable and popular item, and so someone might decide to hoard it and keep it for themselves. (Ya' think? 😕) One neighbor suggested it might turn up today or tomorrow. If it doesn't turn up in time for me to start my stitching, I'll drive into town for some and request a refund from the seller.

Okay, so I have one short housekeeping chore on today's agenda, and I'm going to bake some Gingerbread Biscotti. I gave Mike his choice of a new recipe for pumpkin and chocolate chip biscotti, and he chose the gingerbread. It's our favorite, so that's not surprising. And then, I'll just continue on with the rest of my hand and machine stitching. With leftovers for dinner, it should be a pretty easy-going day.