Handwork and Quilting Progress

 

This hand-pieced clamshell quilt is my current machine project.  Work has been slowed by thread tension and bobbin issues which, I hope, have finally been resolved.

 

My handwork has been focused on making hexie flowers from Kaffe fabrics for my Kim McLean project.  I think I need 13 for the border.  Working with these fabrics is fun and my current take-along for Tuesday sewing.

 

The only completion I can brag about this week is this 1,000-piece puzzle that Julia gave me for Christmas. 

We are expecting a handyman to come Tuesday.  Smoke detector batteries need to be changed before the chirping begins.  Neither of us belongs on a ladder. 

We were very fortunate with regard to the winter weather last week.  No icy roads in our immediate area, but we did get 2/3 inch of much needed rain.  Many of the bloggers I follow had their hands full dealing with snow.  The pictures were pretty, but I didn’t miss the hassle.

Another Apron

I finished another reversible apron this weekend.  It is for a friend who provided the fabric and said she would make a contribution to the quilt guild’s boutique if I would sew it for her.  There are some small fabric cuts left and I am considering making a couple of hot pads out of them.

I also managed to pin baste a quilt and clear off the quilting machine so I could work on it.  The result?  A mountain of projects-in-process precariously balanced on a small table desperately needing to be addressed.  This is a continual process in my sewing space.

Winter has arrived with lows in the 20s this morning.  One business, a quilt shop in Llano, has already sent out emails saying they would close Thursday due to the possibility of bad road conditions.  We got our grocery shopping run done today, so we should be set no matter what.  Fortunately, nothing is predicted to happen tomorrow that would keep my Tuesday quilting group from meeting.  It feels like forever since we have been able to gather.  Christmas and New Year's falling in the middle of the week certainly messed with our schedule.

I don't always choose a focus word for the year, but this year "intentional" keeps crossing my mind.  I would certainly accomplish much more if I were better about being intentional in how I spend my time.

Enjoying the Season

Very little stitching has happened since I last posted, and this is just a quick check-in. 

I started working on hexagons for the border of my Kim McLean project.  At least it’s a start.

We spent several days on the Texas Coast at Port Aransas celebrating our 47^th anniversary as well as both our birthdays.  The weather was mild and I particularly enjoyed sitting on the balcony smelling the salt air and reading. 

 

The view from our balcony at night.

 

One of the two rainbows we saw.

 

Fortunately, neither of these were an issue. 

It's been years since I put on a swimsuit, so cold water was not a problem.  I did get in a couple of beach walks though.

Our balcony gave us a good view of incoming ships.

Christmas was a quiet one with just the two of us.  Our family celebration was Sunday, which was also Bob’s birthday.

 

The kids went a little overboard on gifts.

We recorded a high of 90.3 degrees on our home themometer today.  This winter has started off as a very warm one, but things can change quickly.

Indulgences and Applique Progress

I indulged in snagging some items in a series of recent flash sales by Fig Tree and Company and my box of goodies arrived this week.  It included a bundle of half-yard Christmas fabrics and a set of scissors.  I made a quilt out of Christmas fabrics several years ago and gifted it to my daughter.  Maybe I will have a new one for me by Christmas next year!

I also managed to finish the handwork on another applique piece for my Kim McLean wall hanging project.  If I follow the pattern, I will add a series of hexagon flowers as a border.  I’m still debating whether doing so will make it too large for use in our house.  We have so many windows and an open floor design that minimizes wall space.

 

My Tuesday quilting tribe had a Christmas gathering this week.  I handed out these screwdrivers as party favors.  Most of the gifts I received in return were edible.  Their only remaining evidence can be seen on the bathroom scales.  

One member who is very good at machine embroidery made felt patches for us.  It occurred to me that it might be appliqued to a journal cover, we’ll see.

More About Those 400+ HSTs

A couple of posts ago, I talked about a baggie of triangles that yielded more than 400 half square triangles with no fabric repeats.  The friend who gave them to me told me they were off cuts from a millennial quilt she had made and last week she brought the quilt to our Tuesday group for me to see.  It’s huge, and I couldn’t get all of it into the picture.  

I love how she worked her colors so that the pattern looks like it sparkles. She was in some kind of group exchange.  I'm pretty sure not all the fabrics are 100% cotton, but so far I'm using them all.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been pairing half square triangles with a white fabric.  This ought to give me lots of mindless, therapeutic stitching for a while.

 

I neglected to post a picture of this 1000-piece puzzle I finally finished.  It was a challenge.  Now I’ve got a 500-piece puzzle in the works, courtesy of my daughter. She also left me with two others that are waiting in the wings. Arrrrgh!

Gotta Love Someone Else's Scraps!

A member of my Tuesday sewing group recently brought a large tub of scraps destined for use in dog beds.  Well, of course I couldn’t let the opportunity pass for harvesting some of them for my own use.

 

Consequently, my collection of light a dark precut 2-inch squares is growing.  I’ve started accumulating neutral two-inch squares in another tray.

 

Our Thanksgiving was a small but joyous one.  It also happened to be my birthday, and I got a lot of pampering.  We opted to have our local grocery store cook everything.  It was an extravagance, but a much appreciated one.  Our daughter and one grandson made a day trip out of the day, but when she discovered she had left her favorite electronic device behind we got a bonus visit Saturday so she could retrieve it.  She even brought snacks for us to enjoy as we watched the Texas and A&M rivalry game.  The right team, in my opinion, won though I believe our grandson who is a senior at A&M would strongly disagree.

400 +

Whenever I’m in a slump, as I have been the last two or three months, mindless stitching is one of the most therapeutic activities I can enjoy.  So, I recently pulled out a baggie of precut triangles a friend gave several years ago.  I began matching darks to lights, and when the baggie was empty there were 400 + half square triangles measuring 1 ¾ inches per side with NO fabric repeats!    Of course, I had to circle around and get the back story for that little baggie.  The friend who gave it to me admitted they “may” have been off cuts from flying geese blocks in a 2000 millennial quilt project.  That explains the variety and age of the fabrics.  At any rate, I enjoyed the process, and I’ve since cut some white fabric from my stash to use as alternate blocks.

 

I’ve made a few more house blocks for my Kim McLean quilt.

 

Last year’s chrysanthemum gave me bonus blooms this year.

 

This sweet little girl visits us regularly outside our fence.  One evening she brought seven of her friends.

 

For a while I thought about retiring my blog, because the motivation to sit down at the keyboard simply hasn’t been there. I love the connections and comments and inspiration from other bloggers, but am just having a hard time doing the work.  I decided to at least finish out 2024, before making a decision.