Hope you enjoyed a few extra days off. I did manage to squeeze in a little sewing. I finished the binding on # 5 and loved the back of the quilt.
Just like the clean lines and minimal fuss of the design.
I did start working on another one with my class fabrics and am about 60% done with the quilting. A sneak peek for you….
Now that I see it on the screen, it looks kind of Christmas like which was definitely not my intent. Better get going on my day. Happy sewing, my friends.
The turkey was a little late but delicious. The rest of the food was wonderful and it was also wonderful to have different families from different sides come together and enjoy each others company. It was even nicer to be able to enjoy a fire and watch a movie after 21 people left. ( I even had time to baste a quilt in the afternoon.)So, all in all, a great holiday. But I hadn’t taken one photo all day. I dismissed it last night as -“well you were the hostess. You didn’t have time.”
But, a much less tired me this morning had to admit the truth. I didn’t want to see –through the lens of a camera– that for the first time in eighteen years-my girl wasn’t with me for a holiday. My eighteen year old Erin had gone to South Carolina to be on vacation with her dear boyfriend and his family. I knew far in advance that it was going to happen. She loves the Carolinas and and I knew that she would go if asked. I wasn’t angry that she had gone. I wasn’t worried about her safety as they are a great family to be with. I thought I was prepared. But I was just plain sad that she had grown up. That big gaping hole that was left was just sad. After all, wasn’t it enough that I had been a big girl when she left for college? Wasn’t it enough that I am brave and don’t cry when she leaves to go back to college?
Nope, I guess not. Motherhood just isn’t for wimps, that’s for sure. Sometimes you can never prepared for them to grow up.
So what’s a girl to do? Go shopping with the one who’s still at home and enjoy every minute of fussy teenage girlhood that I have left. Please remind me of that soon! And give your little ones a hug before you go to bed. You are never prepared.
Some oldies for you-my first improvisational quilts which hang proudly in my sewing studio. Hopefully next year I will be brave enough to take some pictures! Happy sewing my friends!
I had fun this week volunteering at school and at the Operation Christmas Child warehouse. It renewed my sense of -if we all work together the world to make a difference, life is easier and richer. I read a link on a blog last week about a community that came together to save a barn in Vermont and make it into an artist and community spot. I will send you to Martha Sacco’s knitting website : www.greenmountainknittingbags.com. Go to last week’s news and you will hear about the wonderful sense of community in Starksboro, VT. Martha has a once weekly sale of her beautiful bags for knitting. Yes, I am the proud owner of one.
I have been a bit distracted this week. I did decide that I absolutely love Aurifil thread for piecing. If you put it in the bobbin, it lasts forever. It is smooth as butter on top! No lint, very fine and my new machine loves it as well. It is expensive but comes in a large quantity. When I looked for it last night, Mai-Britt Axelson is a sponsor. More eye candy for you-http://www.linen-and-silk.com.
I know you are looking for completed UFOS. None yet although my back is pieced (on the left), thread purchased and now ready to go on this top(right) from my Carol Soderlund workshop. Distracted I was by finding bits and pieces of this UFO in my Christmas fabrics.
I am grateful for all God has blessed us with this Thanksgiving. Life is indeed good. Happy Thanksgiving and Happy sewing, my friends. Put your feet up after turkey dinner is done and enjoy the links.
I have been saving my weekly photography “homework” for Sunday afternoons and usually drag some of the kids with me. But this week, with 60 degrees and sunny, no one wanted to come. They were too busy playing some kind of sport outside. So, I treated myself to a walk through a local botanical spot a few miles from my home, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Museum. It is filled with indoor and outdoor gardens and always some kind of art exhibit.
Just balanced by the weight and angle of stone and nothing else. All stone transported here from Europe.
Great sculptures.
These guys just surprised me.
And more lines for you.
These are all unedited. The goal for the past few weeks was just to learn to shoot in manual mode-no editing. I never knew that you could make your pictures look so great with Photoshop.( Yup, there was much eye-rollling by the two teenagers when I made that comment to them. And the question by college girl-please tell me you aren’t putting unedited photos anywhere Mom?) I guess you just need to laugh at yourself when you have teen agers. As usual, I have much to learn but am a willing victim! I can’t wait to do more.
Addendum- I am not making a quilt out of the last fabrics I just showed you -those were my rejects or dye-overs. Those were pretty bad colors. I’ll try not to scare you too badly next time.
Be inspired by lines. Happy sewing my friends.
Last February, our quilt guild had the the privilege of hosting Carol Soderlund. She presented a wonderful lecture and then stayed for two days of classes. I attended both days of classes with the first being her Pot-of Gold class. She taught us how to dye layers of cloth stacked three high in a plastic bag and upright container. She was previously a teacher and still had the gift of making everyone feel very comfortable with her. She is a teacher I would highly recommend taking a workshop from.
In the quilt I am working on now, I showcased the fabrics we made. I had made a prototype months ago and finally put it together as a stitch sampler in order to decide how to quilt it. It is one of my UFOS, too. The sampler fabrics are much lighter than the quilt I am working on now.
.jpg)
These were the last layer in the “pot” so ended up the lightest. She uses Testfabrics 400 M. I fell in love with this fabric this summer and started ordering it in large quantities. The company is very easy to deal with and ships out quickly.
.jpg)
Directions prototype-9×12
I am going to choose the upper left for my quilting pattern for the next quilt. It is the most time-consuming as you are always turning the quilt back and forth but that’s what I like. I am feeling like I might have time for two more quilts realistically before the holidays. Must go put the Thanksgiving grocery list together. Happy sewing, my friends.
I know, I know that almost doesn’t count but this has been crazy week and I want to show you almost. This blogging thing is a bit crazy and I have to admit to you that I missed it this week when I couldn’t keep up with it. I felt like I was letting you down. Or I wasn’t pulling my end of the deal . What is really strange is that I am completing things, I am not sure I even like. Just to have something to show you. Which makes me feel a bit vulnerable and not necessarily proud of what I am producing. But what I am ” getting out of ” this whole thing is a great bit of humility, a great sense of respect for those who do this blogging thing well and much improved construction technique for sewing just because I am sewing more.
I have finished #4 except the binding so I know it doesn’t count just yet. It looks like a spider web and I am happy to say Betsy -my new machine-did her part. After a software update and two new parts for a machine less than six months old, she still needs to win me over though. I am skeptical.
The binding will be done tonight while I watch tv with the kids. I did some random crazy quilting over a very chaotic quilting.
# 5 I am not sure it is worth saving. It was in the middle of the whole sewing machine debacle and I am sick of wavy. So am in a quandry of whether or not to finish. I did spend 2 hours trying to pick out bad stitching. Yuck.
My husband brought home thirty roses yesterday to celebrate our first date thirty years ago. What a nice and romantic guy I have.
I am very grateful for him! Now, on to sewing. Happy sewing, my friends.
I can’t believe this one is done. I made it late last February just as a means of using up strip sets and playing around with another neutral color-the tans and khakis. The process of finishing it with all the machine issues just about made me give up on it. But I left in the areas of stitching that were less than average and a bit wavy. I had fought with it in areas that left it even more wavy when finished. Or it ended up that way because I densely quilted it ( six spools of thread later ) or strip sets just stretch. But it the end , it is done.
I did persevere this weekend and did what I could with my limp-along machine. I feel a bit of desperation sinking in as I did something I have never done before-I put half of a binding on an unfinished quilt. It’s just a flat binding and that side of the quilt was done, so why not? I guess half of my quilting rules are just that. Silly rules. It felt good to move ahead even if it was just a weak attempt at ahead.
Machine update: Clare will come home today. Betty will be taken back to the dealer and war negotiations undertaken. Not really mad , just sad and need to move on.
I did finish this small work. I am in a fiber arts group and we have been working with different fun stuff-Shiva paintsticks, TAP paper, Lutrador, fabric paint, setacolors when we meet once a month. This little guy has some Shiva paintstick work on it as well as the base made of hand-dyed fabric. The thread is a really heavy silk which I have fallen in love with. It was relaxing to make the needle do what I wanted-in my hands instead of relying on a machine.
Sweet Peas
8×12
I also started to piece a back for one of my UFOS. Yes, you say-who would have time for that when you have 6 more? Oh, just the patient one waiting for her machine to be fixed.
The back is on top of my quilt top. Crazy yes I am. Or just spinning out of control…. Off to volunteer at Operation Christmas child. Hope you have your boxes packed. Happy Sewing, my friends.
I need to give you a look back at an earlier work . This was made many years ago and now hangs in my sewing room. As I look at how nicely the hand quilting really gives the background texture, it is encouraging me with my machine quilting I am now working on. My two UFOs for the week might even be done —by Sunday which I guess is within my weekly goal for Project Joy. It’s a bit of a gamble to depend on much sewing time in the weekend. But they are both about 70% done!
.jpg)
It seems odd now to see a border on one of my quilts as I haven’t been using them with all this abstract work. Must go -I am off to trace 27 kids feet for the jeans quilt I am soon to start. Have a good weekend. Happy sewing, my friends.
and not like it? I feel like I have given her a fair chance. I have written off many of her problems to my ineptness as a machine quilter. I have given her a name in order to bond with her.( Her name is Betsy. ) But Betsy and I just aren’t making it together. I have spent many hours trying to bond with her. I have figured out her computer. Hint…Hint…she isn’t a person.
But she has a problem I don’t know I can’t get over. She wobbles at the needle level. ( Yup, I have totally lost my mind this week. I am not whining, just stating fact.) Yes, you guessed it, Betsy is a sewing machine. She wobbles, not from the machine jiggling on the table, but at the needle level. I thought it was me but my local sewing buddy said she has had three traded in this month. I have read about it on the internet.The dreaded needle wiggling. But that doesn’t solve my problem. So I am left with intermittent wobbly stitches. Maybe she needs to be traded in….( I won’t tell you which brand it is as I don’t want to get in to machine bashing. Sounds like a punishable crime. I will tell you I switched brands with this purchase. ) I have gotten out the older wiser machine(Clare) but the needle is banging on the hook so Clare is off to the shop. You know this whole UFO project is soon to be over for me unless Clare and Betty pitch in to do their fair share, don’t you?
Some positive news. I have taken the plunge and signed up for another class at the Barn this spring with Nancy Crow: Sets and Variables. I debated a long time about this. I am looking for my own style, so why take another class from her? Why not someone else? Because she makes me think the most and work harder than anyone else, so someday I can be myself. And now I need to decide how much of my fabric I dyed this summer should be put away for it-all 220 yards?
That seems like a huge number but when you see it on the shelves, you realize how quickly you could burn through it sewing at the speed you need to there. My laundry room was moved upstairs which isn’t conducive to dyeing in the winter ahead. Do I save it for May? Any suggestions?
My commercials are dwindling. Although the drawers are full of fat quarters.
Ok so there are six drawers and a few more you haven’t seen yet. Just the hand-dyed I’d like to save. Well, off to the sewing machine store to drop off Clare. Peaceful thoughts amidst a frustrating week with this sunset picture. Happy sewing , my friends.