A Finish!

Haha, last night I finished sewing the binding onto the Spiraling Geese quilt, and finished dating the back.  It still has to go through the washer/dryer, but here it is:

It's still a bit wobbly at the edges (which it shouldn't be, as the striped/branch parts of the spiral were cut from the length of the fabric and therefore should not stretch), but I'm hoping that's just because of handling while sewing the binding on.  I'll wash and dry it today and see if the issue persists.

And here's the backside, with all the extra geese blocks pieced in so that I could stretch the blue backing material and make it enough.

Next, I think, is looking at the various orphan blocks I have and figuring out if I have enough to make a strippy quilt out of them....

Sunday Sunday

Not much sewing got done yesterday, other than continuing to work on binding the Spiraling Geese quilt.

In the evening, however, I broke out the book I bought from Edyta Sitar at Road to California (I will not get to attend her class in April, waaah! ;_;) and paged through it while the boys sequentially bathed.  This worked until Jazzy splashed water at it.  It is currently drying on the kitchen counter with paper towels between the pages....

We did take my parents out to dinner for my mother's birthday (which is actually today!), and some yardwork and laundry got done.  As did the relatively important transfer of the boys' birthday height markings onto a painted board which will be taken with us.

Stress Bunny!

If all goes well, our escrow will close on this coming Friday.  And then we have 29 days to pack up, find a new place to live up in Washington, and move out.

This is, as you might imagine, a tiny bit stressful.  So much so that I could not get to sleep Thursday night.  I finally gave up at a quarter after one in the morning, and got up.  And started cleaning and tidying what I could without being loud.  Went back to bed at half past four, finally fell asleep some time after five.  Friday night I slept somewhat better, but still not great.

Yesterday we started reaming out the garage, so we can get it organized and retrieve our things from the storage unit, as there is no way a moving van could get into the storage unit area.  A carload of stuff got taken to Goodwill, and our recycling and trash bins are now full.

Quilting-wise, I went through my bag of binding scraps and pulled out all the blue ones, as well as one piece of green to make up the length, pieced them together, and stitched it on to the front of the Spiraling Geese quilt.  I've started hand-stitching it down to the back.

Wednesday, Wednesday...

In escrow for the third time.  Had our house inspected yesterday for the third time.  Blargh.

In happier news, I pushed through and finished the quilting on the Spiraling Geese quilt:

Ginormous feathers in the ginormous geese!

As part of keeping myself busy during the inspection, I trimmed the quilt and pulled out my bag of bindings.  I have enough of the bright bindings already pieced together to do it, but I'm not sure.  I'll look at it all again later.  Right now I need to fill my head with a Pink Floyd song (Learning to Fly) in order to write a climax scene (narrative climax, not sexual) so that I can stop thinking about that one scene and go back to working on the stuff leading UP to that one scene!

monday, monday...

The boys' naptime yesterday was taken up with house stuff (offer #5...) so I didn't get stitching time until the evening, when I did get the second line of quilting on the alternate spiral done.  So now I need to tuck away the Rocketeer and haul the 15 and its table into place for some free-motion quilting on the geese spiral.  I wish I could say I made more progress on the embroidered tablecloth, but Squiddle's speech therapy session is just about the right length of time to do my writing class homework (editing my classmates' submissions).

I am pleased that my boys had their dental check-ups yesterday and have no cavities!  And especially that Jazzy's spacing issues are resolving themselves and his last baby tooth is just coming in, right on schedule.

I'm still keeping up on my Swedish and Japanese practice on Duolingo.  As I'm half Scandinavian, it feels a touch shameful that the Japanese comes so much easier, but then I did get a BA in the language once upon a time.

Oddball thoughts: if this offer on the house does go through, I'll be missing the workshop with Edyta Sitar by something like two weeks.  Alas!  As soon as I know one way or another I need to let the guild know so they can see if someone else wants the space.  On the other hand, it means I'll be up in the Seattle area in plenty of time for the PNW Treadle On Gathering, which is something I've been curious about for a couple years now....

A Tiny Bit of Quilting

Yesterday's two house showings turned into four - two in the morning, two in the afternoon.  So in between I put the walking foot on the Rocketeer, discovered the smaller bobbin tire does indeed make winding bobbins faster (though I still haven't gotten the handwheel clutch loosened), and filled a couple bobbins.  Then I set to the first line of quilting on the alternate (black/white/blue branch fabric) spiral of the Spiraling Geese quilt.

Except that I was quilting in the wrong direction, so that more and more of the bulk of the quilt was getting stuffed under the arm of the sewing machine, it went well.  The tree trunks on the branch fabric are straight, so they made for a wonderful guideline.  And for the second line of quilting on the alternate spiral, I'll be going the "correct" direction, so it should be much easier.  After that I'll switch over the the 15 and do free-motion quilting in amongst the geese.  I'm still debating between feathers and outline quilting.

I've also started going through the old quilting magazines (Traditional Quiltworks, Quilt, Miniature Quilts, and some of the old Aunt Martha's booklets) I got at Road to California.  Swoon!  So many exquisite vintage/traditional designs that you just don't see in today's magazines because they're not easily strip-pieced....

All Roads lead To Quilting

Woohoo!  Yesterday I went out to Road to California for the first time!  Despite the four-plus years I've been quilting, I've never managed to go before, and I had a good time, going with some friends from guild.  I spent too much, but I love the patterns and templates I purchased, and I only bought two small bits of fabric, both for gifts.  There were lots and lots of lovely quilts, some of which blew my mind to the point where I got into sensory overload and couldn't process them for a bit.  I did take plenty of pictures of quilts which had color combinations or patterns I really liked, so I have a reference catalog for future inspiration.....

I have also gotten the Spiraling Geese quilt basted, and I've fiddled with the Rocketeer so hopefully it will wind bobbins faster.  I have also unboxed the slant shank walking foot I bought for it, so hopefully today, after the morning house viewings happen, I can start getting it quilted.

Treading Water

Haven't been here in a few days. I apologize.  Life kind of got away from me for a couple days between my boys' classes at the community college starting up again, and my mother going into the hospital for a few days for surgery.  (All is well, she's out and recovering.)  Plus Friday I twisted my foot while going down the steps to the laundry room, and between that and a nice emotional stress breakdown I had to cancel going to Disney California Adventure on Saturday with my sister and niece.

Today is better.

Over the weekend I got a good deal (though not all) of the trimming done on the trees in the backyard and the bush in front of the electrical box.  I need to do more, but that has to wait until the yard waste gets picked up Tuesday morning and the bin is empty again.  I also got the backing pieced together for the Spiraling Geese quilt, using the extra blocks and a three-and-some-yards bit of blue fabric from the thrift store.  And I made cupcakes for Niecelet's birthday - cupcakes from a box, frosting from scratch.  Her birthday was actually yesterday, but we're celebrating today since she was at Disneyland yesterday.

A Finished Flimsy!

I sewed on the last two strips of the branch fabric, and the spiraling geese quilt is now officially a quilt top!

I've put together the extra geese for a strip up the center of the backing, and I have pulled out the two blues I'm going to use for the backing, so I can get that prepped tonight or tomorrow.  I'm thinking straight-line quilting in the branch fabric, and either feathers or outline quilting for the geese....

Cosmic Coincidence

Amusingly, the same day I posted a picture of my Spiraling Geese quilt, Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting posted a picture of hers!  I didn't even know she was working on one, so clearly this is some sort of meant-to-be thing, no?

Since we had an afternoon house showing yesterday, I didn't get much sewing done.  Everything got cleaned up and put away in the morning, then Wonderful Husband and I left our boys with my parents for a couple hours and went to see Mary Poppins Returns.  It was good, but felt different than the original.  Emily Blunt's portrayal of Mary Poppins felt much closer to the books than to the first film.  That said, there were two costumes of hers that I absolutely loved.  I must see if there's an artbook, or something, with details!  I was also charmed that Karen Dotrice (Jane in the original film) had a cameo!

And, somewhat relatedly, I submitted my class proposals for Costume College.  I had been e-mailed asking if I might reprise my blackwork class, and last year I was asked if I could teach a free-form embroidery blackwork class in addition to the counted-stitch class, so that was two, and for a third I offered to teach the Beaded Fringe Evening Bag class I haven't taught in a couple years.  As I'm expecting to have moved out of the area by then, classes with easily transportable supplies were on my mind.  Well, I'll know in a couple months what I need to prep supplies for.

Trudging Along...

I'm slowly trudging along with assembling the Spiraling Geese quilt, with 8.5" red string blocks as my leader/enders.  Here's a picture of where I was yesterday afternoon:

It's about as scrappy as I could make it: most of the duplicate blocks have been banished to the back.  I think I like it...?  Looking at this picture I'm less sure.  But regardless, I have three more strips to sew on, and then the top, at least, will be done.

I need to clean up the small heap of stuff by my sewing desk before the house showing today, but I did at least manage to take the old Comic-con booklet I had and cut it into foundation papers for more string blocks.  It's significantly lighter weight paper than the printer sheets I had used for the first two, which will make it much easier to tear the paper off the back later.

The boys (well, Jazzy, but since Squiddle isn't in kindergarten yet he comes with) started school again yesterday.  And while Jazzy's circle time attention span still isn't great, at least for part of the time where he wandered off to play on the rocking horses etc, he was actually still paying attention to the teacher.  Which is a good development.

After we got back from that, I started sewing the top for the Spiraling Geese quilt together.  I got maybe about a third done with it, but forgot to take any pictures.

I also started back with my schooling last night, with my novel-writing class starting up again.  I'm happy to still be here and attending it.  (I'm also kind of hoping that my burst of writing last week can be repeated with my novel as the focus.)  The teacher and her husband recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.  How's that for relationship goals?

Blocks

No sewing done yesterday, though I did work some on the Endless Embroidery Project while Jazzy was in his speech therapy session.

Instead, I cut!  I got all the alternate rows cut for the spiral geese quilt, and didn't need to piece any of them!  Fortunately.  I also got the lights cut for another Wheel of Fortune block.  And I stopped at JoAnn's after Jazzy's speech therapy and picked up some wider elastic to make the waist of Wonderful Husband's Christmas PJ bottoms fit better.  I only had 1/2" elastic on hand at the time I made them, and he's said they don't stay up as well as past ones for which I used 1" elastic.

But I did trim and depaper both of the string blocks I made yesterday:

The one on the left is 5" and the one on the right is 8.5".

I also took a picture of the latest Wheel of Fortune block:

I'm somewhat snarkily proud that not only do all the lines on the light fabric run the same way, so do all the lines on the dark blue.

Baby Steps....

I did a bit of sewing last night.  I finished another Wheel of Fortune block, and got the last strip of the giant flying geese sewn together.  I also sewed the first Tiny Tuesday block for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  And then, since I had red strings strewn all over my sewing desk, I cut a couple 8.5" foundation squares and sewed a red strings block for the Moda String-Along.

I also wrote a couple hundred words.  Easing back into writing stories.  Baby steps....

Wheels and Spirals

I'm currently working on two projects, using them as "leaders and enders," as Bonnie Hunter would put it, for one another.  The first is sewing the giant geese together into rows for the spiral quilt.  Here's a teaser picture of the layout, with the fabric I purchased to be the alternate row in the spiral:

I'm amused by the alternate row fabric.  According to the selvedge, it's called "Branching Out."  Which is the title of my guild's quilt show this year! :)  For this project, I'm on the second-to-last row of the spiral, and then I get to start cutting the alternate row fabric into strips and piecing the whole top together.

And while I've been working on that, I've also been working on these Wheel of Fortune blocks:

Can you tell that the blue one has two different blue fabrics in it?  I ran out of one, and this is very much a using-up-the-last-scraps project, judging by how many of the centers I've had to piece thus far.  I cut the light pieces out for the next block, and all that was left over was a 1.5" square for that project bag.  Gotta use it up!

Some Sewing, Some Fandom

No pictures today, but some sewing did get done.  I laid out the Giant Geese (4"x8") I received in the block exchange I ran with my guild today, and discovered that my counting skills are shite.  Rather than the 90 I needed for the spiral layout, I have... 111.  After weeding out as many duplicates as I could while still maintaining something of a light/dark/light/dark distribution, I figure I can use the extras on the back.  So I started sewing those rows together, as well as working on the Wheel of Fortune blocks.  I finished the first WoF block and cut the light pieces I need for a second.

AND I went to see Bumblebee.  I've been a Transformers fan since the 1980s, but I gave up Bayverse after seeing Dark of the Moon, because that was the tipping point when the series went from "not good, but interesting" to "this is bad, you cannot make me watch any further."  And I ended up with FEELINGS about this movie, because it was actually GOOD.  And a love letter to the cartoon series.  And a love letter to those of us girls who weren't supposed to like things that were for boys, but did anyway.

GAH.  I wish LiveJournal hadn't gone to heck after being bought by the Russians, because right now I am really REALLY missing the community of female Transformers fans who found one another there... I want my fandom friends back.  I want to talk with them about this film, and analyze and dissect it with them, and remake our community to what it once was.  I hate the diaspora.