I'm Back In The Saddle Again

Wow!  It doesn't feel like I took over a week off from blogging, but that's exactly what I did.  Had a lovely time with my daughter and her boyfriend, even though everyone except me wound up getting sick with a nasty head cold.  One right after the other ... first the daughter, then her boyfriend, then my husband.  How I've managed not to come down with it will probably remain one of the mysteries of life, but I'm sure glad of it.

After the kids left, I got to work on another of those old quilt tops.  This one another interlocking rings, only a different setting.  The quilting is done, a simple spiral from the center using my walking foot, and all that's left to do is bury the ends and sew down the binding.  There's another quilt that's at these finishing stages too.  I thought I had gotten a photo of it, but I guess not.  I'll try for tomorrow. A bit of Netflix tonight while Paul watches football and I should be able to complete the first one get some work completed on the second.

I had plans to concentrate on the cross stitch paisley pumpkin for my October table topper, but Paul sent me an email he received at work about donating handmade items to a charity.  I checked out Mikaya's Grace, and was moved to participate.

Yesterday, while he watched football, I made enough Bento Box squares to complete 2 boy, and 2 girl quilts.  This afternoon I will work on adding sashing and borders.  Tomorrow should see the quilting started on these.

I am also crocheting blankets, and have some flannel that I will add a crochet border to.  I might get some fabric and sew some gowns too, as those should work up quickly.

Even with the extra charity crafting I'm doing, I did manage to get my Civil War Sampler blocks completed.  I really like the blue and green one.

And, I also managed to finish the last of the BOM from hell blocks.  Again, the background fabric for this block measured less than the 12 1/2" the package says the block will finish to.  Sigh.  These will be set aside for awhile, but I'm hoping to decide how I want to border them and have the top finished before the end of the year.

I also got some work done on an afghan I am knitting for my niece, who has just started her first year of college.  I love the way this pattern is working up!  It looks much more complicated than it is.  Only 4 rows to memorize, worked 3 times, then shifted ... rinse, repeat.

I'm Walking On Sunshine

 Yesterday I finished up two more of the BOM blocks.  Both went together without issue.  Only one more to go, and I've gotten a good start on it.

Sunshine and shadows was probably the most tedious of all the blocks so far.  Even the ones that had size issues weren't as tedious as sewing together this many 1 1/2" squares.  I love how it turned out though!  A quilt made using just these blocks would be beautiful in the right fabrics.

The flying geese block was not one of my favorites.  I doubt I'll ever be making a whole quilt with these.

The block I'm working on now is being hand stitched.  It will probably take a few days to complete.  I'll work on it in the evenings when I'm watching the boob tube.  It should be done when I blog next, which probably won't be until after the holiday.  My daughter and her boyfriend are visiting over the long weekend, and I won't be wasting time on the computer during the visit.

You Got To Know When To Hold Em

Last night I worked a bit more on the BOM from hell block kits.  Lo and behold, the card tricks block went together without a hitch.  No pieces too big, or too small.  It was refreshing to be able to just sew it together and not have to worry.

Since I had no problems with that one, I pulled out another and put it together too.  The fan block had no problems with the sewing, but again, the base piece for the applique was too small.  I'm going to have to add a border to all of these blocks before adding sashing so I can get them all to the same size.  Only three more of these blocks to go.

I also had time to square up all the Framed quilt blocks.  Here they all are lying on the bed.  I'll adjust placement a bit on some of them, but then it's ready to be sewn together.  I'm debating whether to add white borders so this can be used on the bed, or leave it as a large throw.  I think I'm leaning towards using the fabric I bought for the back to add additional length and width, and getting more of the turquoise to use as the back.

I was able to get a bit better photo of the paisley pumpkin this morning.  This is working up pretty quickly, so I think I'll have plenty of time to create a table topper to be used in October.  It seemed bigger than I thought it would be, so I double checked my fabric.  What I thought was 25 count is actually 22 count, so yep, it's going to be bigger than the one in the magazine.  Still small enough to use in a quilted topper though, so no major worries.  What is it with size and my projects lately?

Back On The Chain Gang

Finished!  Yay!  This poor quilt top has been put together since 1997.  I made it in my other life, when I first started quilting.  I don't think I had any kind of pattern, just winged it.  That's pretty apparent here, since it's a mish mash of a bunch of stuff all thrown together.  It's a franken-Irish Chain I supposed.  I started hand quilting this, then it got put away when I broke ties with that other life, and wasn't looked at again until we had a minor flood incident in our last house.  When I looked at it, I was reminded that it was made to go on a different bed, and I just didn't want it anymore, but who wants to throw out that much work?

I asked one of the boys if he would like it if I finished it.  He said he thought his lady would like it, so I started looking for the thread and template I was using for the quilting.  Not much work was completed, and that was three years ago.

I recently pulled it back out, and since I'm doing some machine quilting now, and not much of this was done, I ripped out the hand quilting, and prepared to start over.

I used my walking foot to do the straight line quilting, and then I tried my hand at some free motion quilting for the hearts.

The free motion quilting is a bit wobbly in some areas, and I didn't always cross in the center at the exact same spot, but all in all, it turned out nice for a first effort.  I'm sure Adrian and Sandra will get some use out of this.

Also finished up another block for the Civil War Sampler quilt.  Again, half square triangles, sigh.  I should be really good at these once this quilt is finished!

And, a bit of work completed on the paisley pumpkin.  Excuse the weird photo.  I haven't figured out yet how to get photos of cross stitch to show up nicely.  The fabric always looks strangely pixelated, and that makes the stitching look odd too.  One day I shall figure out what settings to use to fix this!

Put It In A Bottle And Ship It On Down The Line

Stomp, stomp them grapes ... and make that wine.

Ok, so we didn't stomp them, and we didn't make wine.  Paul, however, did harvest all these bad boys the other day.  Then he removed them all from their stems and gave them a nice soak.

We wound up with a haul of just over 30 pounds of Concord grapes.  30 pounds!

 What do you do when you have 30 pounds of grapes?  Spend all day making jam, that's what!  This was just the first batch, which used about 10 pounds.  When all was said and done, we had 16- 1/2 pint jelly jars, and 10- 1 pint jars full of grape jam.  Good thing most of our neighbors have kids, because there's no way we can eat that much jam.

Last week I finished up the quilting on another of those nearly 2 decade old tops.  I never showed a photo of it because it looks really strange with all those blue marks on it.  I did some free motion quilting on this one.  It's a bit wobbly, but not too bad for a first effort.  I will hopefully have the binding completed today, then it can go in the wash, and have its picture taken for tomorrow's blog post.

I pulled out another of those old tops and got fabric for another border and backing/binding.  I think this one will be quilted in a spiral with the walking foot, like I did with the other interlocking rings top.  If all goes as planned, I should have this finished by the weekend, and another of these old quilts will be off the to-do shelf.

The next of the JoAnn BOM kit blocks went together without a problem, so I now have a cute little schoolhouse block to add to the pile.

The log cabin block, however ....

I was merrily sewing strips, when all of a sudden, my next strip was too long.  I checked the pattern, yep, this was the strip I was supposed to be using.  I double checked the photo on the package, yep, this was the strip I was supposed to be using.  Then I noticed that the strip I should sew after this one appeared to be the size I needed.  When I went back to the pattern, I noticed that in two spots on one side only, the order you sew the strips on was changed.

So, what you get in the bottom left corner is some kind of non-staggering weirdness.

And then, the best part, is that the final strip has this horrible defect.  I will have to trim this last round of strips down by almost 1/2" due to this.  This is what happens when we rely too much on machinery and take out human quality control.  Five more blocks to go.  I can't wait to see what they have in store for me! LOL

I Hear You Knockin', But You Can't Come In

 I was telling someone the other day that we hadn't had much luck with our garden this year.  The flower gardens that the previous owner put in (and they are numerous) are overgrown, but the veggies we planted haven't done much.  There just hasn't been enough rain this summer for them to flourish.

We did get one cucumber and a handful of baby carrots that I used in a pasta salad.  The cherry tomatoes that Paul put in a hanging planter did okay.  I've made a pasta salad of some sort every week and haven't had to buy tomatoes for them, so that's a plus.  We got a few small beefsteak tomatoes, and I used them in a tomato cream pasta sauce the other night.  Yummy.

The only thing that is doing well is the gourd.  And OMGsh is it doing well.  It's a bit creepy truth to tell.  It has completely taken over the side garden, has pushed it's way through the privacy fence to the front garden, is climbing the chain link to get into the neighbor's yard, and is covering my living room window.  I swear it knocks on that window at night begging to be let in from the cold.  It's like something from a bad scifi movie.  I hope the gourds it produced fare well through this early chill at night.  I really want some cute birdhouses for the yard next year.

I am such a serial starter!  I can't help it.  I see something; decide it would look great here, there, somewhere; and have to get supplies to start it.  Seriously, it's like a mental disorder.  If I don't start it right away, I get antsy, distracted, and sometimes even grumpy.  I lose interest in the other projects I have started and make life generally unpleasant for the guys in the house.  Poor Paul, Sebastian, and Digit.

So, to save them grief, when I spied this while flipping through cross stitch magazines, I didn't even try to stop myself beginning to stitch.

This really shouldn't take that long to stitch up.  No back stitching, no filling in, just some swirly curls in 2 colors of orange.  A nice soothing piece to work on while watching the boob tube in the evenings.  I'm planning to add quilted borders to this and use it as a table topper.

Now that the loom is put back to rights, I was able to get a tad bit of weaving done the other day.  I can see waffles!!!  I need to figure out something for this.  I was planning to work on it on the enclosed porch, but Sebastian is horrible out there, and he's definitely a velcro dog and feels he needs to be stuck to me 24/7.  I might need to move the loom to the spare room after Jenn visits and work on this up there under the Ott light.

Another Framed block completed yesterday.  I've been doing some chain piecing on this and believe that I can have the rest of the blocks finished tomorrow.  I'll be putting it aside when they are done because I really need to get another top quilted before getting this one ready.

Also finished the too small applique block I was working on for the lap quilt.  I can't believe the base fabric was 1/2" too small in this kit.  I'll have to add some kind of border to this to fix that.

On Pins And Needles

I worked a bit on the Shaker Sewing Set yesterday afternoon.  Once I got started, it didn't take long to get the pieces all assembled.

The pincushion box only needed a running stitch added to the stitched piece to cinch it to the foamy cushion, then some craft glue to hold it to the lid.  I love it!  Now if I can just keep Digit from knocking it off the table as he is wont to do.

The needle book took the most time to put together, but still didn't take long at all.  Getting cardboard cut to the right size and glued in the right place for the cover was fiddly, but worth it in the end.

I used some beautiful felted wool as the pages.  Now I only need to add the trim and this is done.

The scissor fob took all of about 3 minutes to get to this point.  Just needed to add some interfacing to the stitched piece, then sew it to a backing and stuff.  As with the needle book, all that's left is to add the trim.

After getting those half square triangles cut down to their proper size, the bear claw square went together easily.  I pulled out the next square to work on and discovered that it, too, has size issues.  Only this time, the piece is too small and not too big.  A bit hard to create an applique square that is 12 1/2" x 12 1/2" finished, when the base piece is only 12" x 12" to begin with.  I won't be tempted to buy JoAnn BOM kits again.

 Finished another block for the Framed quilt too.