Busy weekend

I saw this back for a baby quilt lying on the sewing room bed. "Oh, yeah," sez I, "I was going to put that quilt together for Susan's 100 quilt project."

So I found a piece of batting barely big enough, and I layered it. And I quilted it. And I bound it with some more green old fabric.

Oh, yes, it was the one with the green sashing and the confetti blocks.

Then I went out and planted 12 Russian sage plants that were on sale at Meijers. I'm still working on that new garden bed which is to conceal the new well head.

Then we went over to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and were entertained by the two grandkids and friends displaying their "minors". They were both in the choir, one at each end of the back row.

Now we have had Peter and Lynne and their two dogs over for dinner and heard the tales of their trip to Barcelona and the Dordogne.

Next weekend: my 50th high school class reunion!

What shall I wear? Hmmm, the same stuff I usually wear.

Leaving for Minneapolis next Wednesday with the ferry across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Grandkids' Dad is driving them home to St. Louis; last year we did it.

Zillah swimming out to Lynne in the lake

Yummy spaghetti and meatballs for dinner

"Fair and Square"

Here are a few of the confetti blocks that I had made last week and cut to the 6.5" size for the workshop.

Fair and Square is the title Amanda Jean gave to this quilt pattern.

Since I had cut another set of the sashings at the workshop, I sewed most of this together last night, and finished it after church.

So this makes a third top for Margaret's Hope Chest made this weekend.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Goat cheese with herbs on slices of baguette

Black-eyed Susans in bloom all around town

Being challenged about Greed in today's Gospel reading

Luggage

Here is DGD Samantha who with her mother left by train to return to St. Louis at 7:30 this morning. They'll be back in 10 days to attend the final concert at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp for the other two kids.

I used the rest of my day making more Confetti blocks and then sewing 16 together for a baby quilt top.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Classical music on WBLU

Swedish movie of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"

Dinner with Jo K.

Pfaff returned!

Yes, they "fixed" my sewing machine and it is HOME. Here's what they sad: "Your screen contrast dial was turned to the extreme." What? No, it wasn't! I hadn't touched my screen contrast dial.

Well, now it works just fine, and they didn't charge me anything. Only I didn't have my machine for a month while it waited in line to be serviced.

I got right to work on that quilting of the confetti quilt, where I had such a problem with the Featherweight. The dual-feed foot solved the mis-feeding perfectly.

So I am moving forward with the quilting in sections plan. The center section is now quilted.

Next to add a side section. I'm going to cogitate about this for a while before I really sew anything. For one matter, I need to piece together another section of the backing!

.

I think I am going to name this quilt "Finally Got My Scraps Organized".

.

Sara

Confetti DISASTER

This is what happened on the BACK of my confetti quilt when I "quilted" one line. YIKES! I knew I was in trouble when I got near the end of the line and a ran OUT of backinig material. Clearly there is a tension problem because the front side is not gathered like this.

I am using a borrowed Featherwieght because my Pfaff is in the shop. I can see the knob where I should adjust the tension, but the knob won't move. Dang! Now I think I'm going to have to wait until I get my Pfaff back. Or do I dare get a pliers and try twisting the knob with that? Oh, oh, this is NOT my machine. Better be careful.

Guess I'll just start unsewing that one seam so that I'll be ready for better tension on my next try.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sunny and breezy day after a night thunderstorm

Started on aandajean's Zig-Zag quilt with NO triangles

Leftover steak for dinner

Confetti quilt section #1 layered

I did get all the columns together today.

Then I made a backing wide enough for the middle section, cut the batting to fit that section, and I began layering it together on the kitchen counter.

My plan is to simply machine stitch down the length of each sashing in the ditch, and then sew down the length of the quilt a couple of times through the blocks. This plan is partially based on only having Dianne's Featherweight machine to use. Straight stitching will work best!

Once this section is quilted I will attach one of the side sections at a time. More on that later when it occurs.

Sara

Gratitudes:
Queen of the Prairie starting to bloom
mosquito repellant!
phone conversation with Kate

Confetti columns

So here's "the look" when the confetti blocks are being sewn together. Every third sashing strip is twice as wide, going for a semi-plaid effect. Only five more loooong seams, maybe tonight, or maybe not until tomorrow.

I'm leaving this in three sections so that I can try quilting it myself. At least that's the current theory!

.

Sara

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Gratitudes:

.

Elizabeth George novels

a set of "computer eyeglasses", work much better than my bifocals

fresh bread baking smell in the kitchen

Getting my confetti together

I have sewn most of the confetti blocks together into columns, and here is a sample of them on my bed (yellow quilt showing underneath). I've been combining four at a time, and have 30 sets. Looks like it needs to be 10 blocks across and 14 long, so I need to make another two for each column.

Getting there!

Sara

Gratitudes:

our Monday outing for breakfast

Lots of blocks and sewing today

Dragging the sprinkler around gets me outside and moving

Confetti blocks again

More flowers blooming in the garden. Here are some coreopsis:

Here is a daylily that I think is "Hyperion":

And here are some roses that I think are blooming on the under stock--in other words the rose that I purchased has died and the root stock is now showing it's idea of a rose.

On the sewing front I have been working on "confetti" blocks, or as Nann calls them, "Mile-A-Minute" blocks. I pick up a "center" and start sewing strips around the sides. Here is a stack of them piling up behind the sewing machine:

And here are some of them laid out, not yet up to 6.5" in size, which is the size I have decided on. No reason except that I have a ruler that is 6.5" square.

I think I need about a hundred to make a decent sized quilt with some sashing. But what color sashing? I think it has to be light in this case because some of the blocks are VERY dark, lots of black in them.

And for the Fourth of July, here is what is decorating the wall behind the kitchen stools:

Finished this is 2004.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Living in a country that keeps on trying to live up to its ideals

Wimbledon for breakfast

Temperatures warming back up

More Confetti blocks

Trying to bring the scrap pile down lower by making Confetti blocks, or some call them "Crumb Chaos." Patti put hers right adjacent to each other, but I'm going to try a narrow sashing. At least for the first quilt top.

At the moment I have about 40 blocks and about another forty "In Process".

When I checked the show box that is labelled "Confetti Blocks" I found that there are quite a few batches of Orphans, rather than Confetti blocks. So maybe this will be a combination of both!

Sara

Gratitudes today:

Exercise class humor

Leftovers for dinner meant no cooking

New Yorker cartoons

Valentines and Hearts

The UPS man stopped about 2 pm, and I thought it was going to be two new pairs of pants for Charlie.
But "No!" It was a Valentine's gift FOR ME from my Spoolspinners Secret Sister.

Here is a plate for my chocolates or brownies and a HUGE cup for my Hot Chocolate. Then there are four FQs of RED fabric, my favorite color, and a tin of sugar-free hot cinnamon candies! Yea! a candy for a Type II diabetic.

Thank you, thank you to my Secret Sister!




I have been looking at the Confetti blocks again, and there were 12 that looked pinky and pale compared to everything else. So I found some sashing strips that were of the same ilk, tho' a tad darker, and I sewed them into a 3 x 4 Baby quilt. It looked pretty unfinished and dull to me.
Then I remembered the packet of jewel toned, pre-cut hearts I got from Keepsake. Grabbing a few, I dropped them on the top as a sign of love, appliqued them down by machine, and now I am satisfied. This is really too large for the Neo-natal Unit, so this will probably go to Pine Ridge. [Still not really my style. Oh, why did my parents raise me to "use it up" rather than "throw it out"?]

I now have three little tops for babies that need backs and to be quilted. Is this a sign that I should do them myself and "practice" machine quilting? Or is it a sign that I should call a Long Arm machine quilter and pay her to do it for me?

I am doing a great job a AVOIDING the two jobs that need to be done by next Thursday!

Sara


Gratitudes:
Secret Sister
Smell of stew in the crockpot
Funny anniversary cards

Snowstorm

This winter "arrangement" of evergreens and dry stalks was given to me by my gardening service folks back in November. It was claimed to be OK for outdoors all winter, so I set it on the deck where we can see it from the dining table. I placed a statue of a nearly naked boy reading in front of it because the wind blew it over once or twice. This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago when we had had a minor snowfall.

And on the right, you can see what the classy arrangement looks like from the dining table tonight! Can't see the statue at all. I hope that little cave is keeping the wind off and the naked boy is warm and toasty like an Eskimo in his igloo.

The snow on the top railing of the deck is about 8 inches deep. Howevere, the wind is beginning to kick up, so it may fall off before morning.

Charlie felt it was necessary to cancel the evening Ash Wednesday service because of the terrible driving conditions. We had freezing rain so that turned to ice and then the snow fell on top of it. But there were services at 7 AM and 10 AM, so the work with the veil was not futile!

After staying in bed until 10:45 (!), I spent a wonderful day enjoying my sewing room with occasional glances out the window.

I bound the Baby bargello quilt and put it down the chute for washing.

I spent 15 minutes ironing scraps, and then 15 minutes cutting up some of them (ironing goes faster than cutting).

Then I was inspired by Patti of "Quilting is my passion" to make what she calls "crumb chaos" but I call "confetti" blocks from the scraps and strips. I just played and played with them. When I had one finally up to 6.5 inches square, I got down the shoe box with some previous confetti blocks to put it away, and I found there were already 44 blocks in there! That's the box containing the stack of blocks at the far end of my cutting table, then there are about nine confetti blocks laid out that I completed today. Plus I have quite a pile of partial blocks. I will put a couple of quilts together from these for Pine Ridge. Can you tell I have a project that I'm avoiding?

Closest to the camera is a block I made from seven orphan Drunkard's Path blocks which I also found today. Following on in Gwen Marston's liberated mindset, when squaring them up, I purposely made the circle NOT match each other's seams. I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but at least the seven now make SOMETHING. A perfect table mat for when we have a "blue moon", two full moons in the same month?

Sara

Gratitudes:

duvet

furnace that works

Slimfast when I don't want to think about food