One down, three to go!

Sorry no post yesterday.  I was up late finishing Niecelet's Mermaid Quilt.  Which is now done, lock stock and barrel!  But I have no pictures.  And probably will not until Wonderful Husband is home during daylight hours to hold it for me to photograph.

So then I continued on to the Galaxy Quilt.  Which has stars in the sashing.  One hundred and ninety-six 1.5" squares to sew diagonally across, trim, and press.  But I got them all done, hallelujah!

And I got the six sashing rows sewn together, and a start on the seven rows of galaxy blocks.  But I discovered I cut two of the galaxy fabric pieces a tad short - not enough to notice by eye, but enough to bollocks up the piecing.  So I frogged them and now need to cut two more squares.  Fortunately, I have some extra fabric.

Going Swimmingly

Whee!  I got the mermaid quilt basted today and all the straight-line quilting done.  All I need to do tomorrow is the "artistic" free-motion quilting of waves in the border, and it's done!

Well, y'know, except for binding it and sending it through the washer and dryer....

Here's the backing, with the main fabric on the left, and the pieced center strip on the right.  I think I have enough left of the center strip fabric to make the binding.  But oh I love the main fabric... the parts that read beige in the picture are actually gold, and it looks like a sea glass mosaic to me.

When we were at Target the other day, I found this lovely lady in the Christmas ornaments section.  She was the last one left.  Since my (almost two-year-old) niece, whom this quilt is for, is reportedly enamored of Disney's The Little Mermaid, this seems appropriate to tuck in with it.

And as I took it with to Jazzy's speech therapy this morning, and worked on sewing it down while I waited in the reception area, I'm now up to half the binding done on the Autumn Colors....

A Tree!

At Wonderful Husband's urging, we put up the Christmas tree today!

It has ONE breakable ornament (a glass heart) on it.  Which I made Wonderful Husband put up high, out of Jazzy's reach.  Good thing too, as he's already pulled off a dozen of the wooden ornaments within his reach zone.

I took the Autumn Colors quilt with me to dinner at my parents' this evening and started hand-stitching the binding down on the back.

And after we came home, I pulled out Niecelet's mermaid quilt top and the fabric I had set aside for a backing... and discovered the backing fabric was 36" wide, not 42".  Argh!  So I had to cut and piece a 7" strip into the center.  But, hey, I took the opportunity to piece the label into the quilt back so it can't be removed without cutting a hole in the quilt.  And this uses up some of my "free" fabric - the (gorgeous) main backing I got at Costume College in the $5 garbage bag full sale, and the (pretty) strip came from an estate sale last weekend where I got something like 9 yards for $3.

Tomorrow, I baste the mermaid quilt, quilt it, and ponderificate binding fabric.  And take Autumn colors with me to Jazzy's speech therapy to work on there.

Ooh!  Ooh!  Ooh!  Jazzy may or may not have said his first word!  Thanksgiving day, he several times indicated he wanted an apple with either "a-pa" or "a-pu."  And he's also asked for an "ana" (banana).  Hooray for progress! *happy mummy dance*

Recovered!

Thanksgiving happened, it was awesome, nothing went wrong except the whipped cream half deflating at the end.  Que sera sera.  This year was a rather small crowd - myself, Wonderful Husband, Squiddle, Jazzy, my parents, my two cousins on my mom's side, and one cousin's boyfriend.  We put the leaf in the dining table, hauled in the long wood card table, tableclothed 'em both, set them slanty and put all the food on the kitchen counters buffet style.

There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, succotash, green beans, carrots, corn bread, both chunky and smooth cranberry sauces, mahi mahi for the ovo-pescatarian cousin (and vegetarian versions of the stuffing, succotash, and gravy for her as well), and pumpkin and apple pies for dessert with whipped cream and ice cream to go with.

I almost needed bigger counters.

But that utterly wiped me out.  It took a day to recover - a day during which I donated blood, and picked up fabric for Squiddle's Christmas present quilt.  And today I took advantage of continuing post-Thanksgiving sales and picked up a 20 yard roll of batting, which I will need to make any of the Christmas quilts!

Also today, I cut out the pieces for Jazzy's Christmas quilt:

And I maaaaay have also started cutting the pieces (not pictured above) for Wonderful Husband's Christmas quilt while he was out.  Shhhh!  Top secret!

(Egads, four quilts to do in four weeks.  Better get cracking!  At least Niecelet's quilt top is done.)

This evening, whilst Wonderful Husband entertained the boys by playing a bit of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I made registration marks and finished the last bit of quilting on the Autumn Colors quilt, and sewed the binding on.  And found out I'd mismeasured the (fortunately scrappy) binding by a whole side.  I went out to the garage, dug out the bag of bindings, found two pieces that were in the right colorway, stitched them on, and had like two inches left over.  Score!

And I did a tiny bit of holiday decorating.  I hung my Christmas Landing quilt just inside the front door:

Wonderful Husband was far more productive, and put up the outdoor lights as well as the string around the crown moulding in the boys' room.

T-Minus One Day

No sewing yesterday, but a bit of Thanksgiving prep cooking.  First up, my chunky cranberry sauce, which is from a recipe I cut out of a magazine years ago - cranberries, orange juice, water, orange zest, sugar, and minced ginger.  I bought two 12-ounce bags of cranberries, and by the time I was done culling out all the bad ones, I had slightly less than the 16 ounces the recipe calls for.  Argh!  Whatever, it was enough.

Next up was an apple pie, for those who might not care for pumpkin.  This one's easy - Apple Pie II from The Joy of Cooking.  I usually make the crust with part white whole wheat flour, but this time I couldn't be bothered to dig out the second container of flour.  So the crust was a very soft one, but it browned nicely.  My artistic skills on the apple are... lacking.  Alas.

Also prepped ahead of time: whipping up a few cups of heavy cream with a touch of sugar and vanilla extract.  But a white container of white cream isn't particularly photogenic.

An Unphotographed Life

I've made a bit more progress on the Autumn Colors quilt... just two sections and one line of quilting left.  And then putting the binding and a label on.  But still, progress!

Yesterday we went to Savers with my mother and they had a few things I would have liked to have gotten - some fabric, and a new old Golden Book.  But Jazzy (having taken off one shoe and sock back in the toy department) started having a fit by the end, and I just could not cope with being in the queue with a screaming toddler, so back the stuff went and out the door we went.

I really should have made the chunky cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving last night, but... I didn't have enough energy left.  It's bad when I retreat into quilting to get away from being stressed and tired, isn't it?  So hopefully I'll have the spoons to cook that and an apple pie today, and figure out what else I can get prepped and streamlined for tomorrow.

Make Mine Mini!

For a while I've flirted with the idea of miniature quilts.  Not many people in my guilds do them.  I mean, I think I remember one being shown at Sew'N'Tell a year or two ago.  That's it.  And they kind of seem like a waste of time.  I mean, what do you do with them?  But on the other hand, they're so cute!  And they don't use up much time or material compared to the wallhangings and bed quilts I do....

So occasionally I've picked up a back issue of Miniature Quilts off the freebies table and perused.  But I've never actually taken any steps toward making a mini.

Until now.

I should have included a quarter or my hand for scale, but the quilt is 13" x 10".  There was a scrappier tumbler quilt in the Spring/Summer 1990 issue of Miniature Quilts, and I had picked up the cream and light blue scraps at the daytime guild last week.  I didn't want to deal with cutting templates, so I measured the pattern piece at 2" tall, cut strips that height, and used my dresden plate template to cut out the tumblers, same as I did for the Bright Tumblers bed quilt.  There was just enough of the blue and cream fabrics to make this piece.  The border/binding fabric, as well as the backing fabric (also a light blue) came from the freebies table at the evening guild.  And the batting was a scrap left over from bed quilts.

Start to finish, it took a little over 24 hours.  With lots of other stuff going on in there.  About half of the rows are hand-pieced because I was sewing while interacting with people and doing stuff.  And I will not lie, I tried hand-quilting this.  But I got through one row of tumblers and tore it all out and went to my machine.  At this juncture in my life, I don't have the patience for hand-quilting.  And I am just fine with that.

Autumn Colors Quilt!

A new project is under the needle of my sewing machine, getting quilted.  This morning I got Wonderful Husband to help me haul the Singer 15 table over by my sewing desk.  (I usually do it by myself, but he was home and I was feeling worn-down.)  I did a small project (more on that tomorrow), and determined that the machine probably needed cleaning and an oiling.  After taking care of that, I put on the free-motion foot and got to work!

Here's my setup:

I have the table that holds the 15, my go-to quilting machine, positioned in front of the table that holds the 401.  The increased table space holds the weight of the quilt as I work on it, which makes it sooo much easier than trying to do things any other way.  It's not perfect; I'd like to get risers of about three-quarters of an inch so the 15's table would be level with the 401's.  And the arm of the 15's table angles down slightly, so I want to eventually figure out an additional support for that at well.  But it works.

The Autumn Colors quilt that you can see waiting to be quilted started with a stack of 79 three and a half inch four-patches that came into my possession from I do not know where.  I made two more and set them nine-by-nine with alternating half-square triangles, making the stripes you see in the center.  I thought it was going to be a Christmas quilt, given all the red and green, but the beige paisley and brown dots fabric make it rather autumnal instead.

As of right now, I have five of those center nine rows quilted.  I know what I'm doing for the brown borders, but I need to consider what to quilt in the beige areas....

And relating to autumn color, on Saturday we had four groups of people look at our house.  When we got home, we found these on our front steps:

Chestnuts, maybe?  Were they left by a child, or a witch?  If the latter, are they a blessing or a curse?  Just in case, I've left them undisturbed. :)

New Chair!

The other week the boys and I went with my mother to Savers, as we usually do on Tuesdays.  And there was a sewing desk chair there.  I took a brief look at it, walked away, and thought no more about it.  Until I did, a few days later.  And I thought some more.  And considered.  And decided that if it was still there Tuesday of this week, it was meant to be mine.

And it was.

The stool I was using has been snugged underneath the 15, whose cabinet it actually matches.  This is my new-to-me sewing chair:

The upholstery looks ugly, and I'd love to recover it some day, but for now it's that durable 1960s fabric that wears like iron.  It's a Singer chair (still has its tag) and the cushion removes for a bit of extra storage underneath.  The cushions are untrammeled by time, and overall it's pretty clean.

It fits well with my sewing desk, doesn't it?

Amusingly, after looking at it, my mother commented that my grandmother had that identical sewing chair.  A quick check of her garage failed to turn it up, so... there exists a non-zero chance that this is actually my grandmother's sewing chair.

Block Party~!

One of the things I love about running Block Party for my guild is seeing when some of the blocks get made into quilt tops.

For instance, last June's Double Bow Tie block became this lovely quilt:

These two different Patriotic Pinwheel Variations from last July became this quilt top:

And this Vintage Twist block from last November became this quilt:

Finally, this Card Trick Variation block was made into this flimsy!

I love seeing what my guildmates come up with!

Halloween 2018

Wonderful Husband figured out a roundabout way to get my photos off my phone and onto my computer, so yay!

I had mentioned that we were one of the more tricked-out trick-or-treat stops on our block.  Which is not saying much.  But here's the house:

And the garage.  And, yes, the tree in the front yard has judgmental (beach ball) eyes watching people...

And then there were a couple of cute young men who got escorted around by Daddy that evening.  Jazzy was a tiger this year:

And Squiddle wanted to be a pumpkin with orange wings, but I couldn't find any orange wings in the stores, and didn't have enough time and patience to make them.  I did, however, make his orange pumpkin pants and his pumpkin hat:

And there were four pumpkins, one for each member of the family.  Squiddle designed this fellow:

While i came up with the rest:

And, for one of the three class potlucks, I managed to make something interesting: Spider Eggs! (Actually deviled eggs with black olives cut up for decoration.)

Guild Week!

This week I had evening guild meeting on Tuesday night, and morning guild meeting on Wednesday morning.  Well, I was actually planning to skip the second one, since the boys had class that morning... but then Jazzy's illness, which I had thought was on its way out, mutated into a chesty cough and extremely snotty nose.  So rather than infect a classful of toddlers, I hied down to Fountain Valley where my parents watched the boys for a couple hours while I did guild.

To both meetings, I took what I'm calling Snuggly Ugly 2.  This is one of the two vintage tops I picked up at the evening guild's garage sale last month.  (For nothing!)  Here it is being basted:

And here it is as quilts are meant to be, being enjoyed:

The backing is flannel, making it nice and, well, snuggly!  I had to fix about a dozen popped seams before doing anything with it, but it turned out quite nice, I think.  Based on the fabrics, I estimate the top was from the 1960s.

The speakers at both guild meetings this month were very good.  Katsy Chappell was hilarious, and Leah Zieber's collection of antique quilts was stunning.  I definitely came away inspired!  During the daytime meeting, I stitched away on my long-term embroidery project:

It's a tablecloth, and I've done all the red and green and only have the yellow to finish.  But there is a lot of yellow, and I only work on it when I have free hands but nothing else I can be doing, so... at daytime guild meetings, in class, and while waiting in doctors' offices.  It may be another couple years before it's done.

Also, at the daytime guild, it was announced that everything at the fabric sale table was free this month, so I wandered over and found this:

Unlike the Snuggly Ugly 2, this one is all cotton, and hand-sewn.  My mother and I estimate it's from the 1950s based on the prints.  The center bottom square has two different fabrics.  Some of the rectangles are pieced, eking out every last bit of material.  There are at least two different muslins used.  I need to give it a several-day soak on Oxyclean to see if the (mostly age) stains will come out.  But I absolutely cannot believe that this was free!  (And now it's mine. ^_^)

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Wonderful Husband found a cable to connect my phone to my computer, but it still doesn't work.  The first thing on the troubleshooting site he found suggested "try another cable"!

So, in order to get the Block Party display and handouts done for guild on Tuesday night, I e-mailed myself all five photos I'd taken of the block construction sets.  For November I offered batik butterflies:

I love the block, but I'm not expecting to get a great many turned in on Tuesday.  Applique blocks never seem as popular as pieced.  So for December's block I chose the pieced Northwinds block, in either red or green:

It's 9" finished, so none of the pieces are small, but, honestly, I'm not expecting a blockbuster response to this one either because of all the half-square triangles.

Meantime, our house buyers dropped out because their loan ended up being declined.  So we're back on the market! :/  Ah well, at least that means the house is pristine and being kept that way.  And since the kitchen counter is clear, today I cut out pieces there for the Giant Geese block exchange (this is the final month).  Oh my I love cutting at that counter height!  Even better than at the dining table. I have made a mental note.

I have a hankering to be piecing, but I have three quilt tops that need to be turned into quilts first.  So I have a plan:

1. finish the geese blocks
2. label, baste, quilt, and bind the autumn quilt
3. piece and label the back for the next Ugly quilt
4. piece and label the back for Niecelet's Christmas gift quilt
5. piece Block Lotto blocks.
6. acquire more batting
7. quilt the Vintage Ugly
8. quilt Niecelet's Christmas gift quilt
9. feel free to proceed on whatever I want to sew next

Of course, you know what they say about plans....

Argh.

Has it really been a month since I've posted?  I'm going to blame it on house-selling stress (which I am not going to rant about here/now/yet again) and on the cord that lets me transfer photos from camera to computer going walkabout.  (Still haven't found it.)

Let's see... after season 4 of Octonauts dropped on Netflix, we discovered that there is in fact a Gup-S.  But it's based on a narwhal, not on a snake.  I liked Squiddle's design better!  He continues on telling me stories at bedtime, some obviously cribbed from the Golden Books we read him, some less so.  Donald (Duck) and "his three boys, Huey, Dewey, and who's the other one?" are frequent central characters.  Squiddle has also coined the portmanteau term "holication" (holiday + vacation), which I think is a keeper.

Jazzy is very clever but still not speaking.  I'm hopeful that his weekly speech therapy sessions will start bearing fruit eventually, because his four-months-younger cousin is very verbal, and he's nine months behind Squiddle starting to talk.  But he has the loveliest laugh, and I think has impressed his speech therapist with some of his cognitive skills, so it will come when it comes.  He has figured out how to get a cup of iced tea from the fridge when he wants some... which works better when he's not trying to use a juice box as a "cup"!

I've finished sewing two quilt tops and turned one of the two vintage tops I picked up at the guild's garage sale into an actual quilt.  I don't know why I like the uglies as much as I do.  But there's something bohemian in their mismatched make-do charm.  I can't make quilts like that, but I can certainly love them!  I also sewed about half of Squiddle's Halloween costume.  Wonderful Husband took the boys trick-or-treating this year while I handed out candy.  Including them, seventy kids came around this year.  We were definitely among the best-tricked-out houses.  I want to continue that, adding a little more every year.  It's just FUN.