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. 

Plugging Along

Since I’ve felt bogged down on several of my on-going projects and was having trouble focusing, I decided to finish the anti-ouch pouches I had kitted up a couple of years ago.  They are used by persons recovering from breast surgeries or biopsies and are a community service project for our Guild.  I used to make these by the dozens.  When Covid lockdown occurred, several members churned out so many that I decided to take a break.  The surplus they created is beginning to dwindle and my burn-out is cooling, so I was ready.  These will be delivered to the Guild Wednesday. 

Work is also progressing on my Kim McLean inspired project.  Several of the house blocks are cut out and ready for assembly and another applique block, this one a cactus, is prepped.  Like I said in my last post, these fabric choices are way, way out of my comfort zone. 

The northern lights last week were not visible to the naked eye in our area, but I could capture an image using the camera in my phone.  If I had a bucket list, this would have been one of its items.

I purchased some goodies from Wanda’s recent de-stash sale.   I think there may be some more aprons and hot pads in my future.

I also picked up some Christmas fat quarters from an Etsy vendor. These are Fig Tree Fabrics, which I have started collecting.

We are still having 90-degree days and my hibiscus is blooming despite a season long battle with aphids.  It’s time to retire my humming bird feeder, no visitors to it for over a week.

Since I Last Posted...

Funny thing, blog posts refuse to write and publish themselves.  At least I didn’t quite wait a full month to document what’s going on!

Two years ago, at our most recent Guild Quilt Show, I impulse purchased this Kim McLean pattern and large assortment of Kaffe Collective fabrics that had  been donated to the silent auction.  Since then it's been lurking in my stash closet.  If I made the entire pattern, I would have a bed-size quilt, and I am not interested in that big a project.  Also, looking at some of the applique blocks, I saw there were a lot of critters that don't belong in Texas.  I’ve finally come up with a plan.  

 

What I’ve decided to do, is make a smaller center, perhaps five by five blocks and add in some with a Texas theme.

My first attempt at drafting was an armadillo.  He still needs eyes, nose and maybe claws, but the applique is stitched down.

 

A second alternate block is prepped for handwork.  It comes directly from the pattern. 

 

A purple armadillo and a lollypop tree are out of my comfort zone, but I’m giving it a go because I’ve always been fascinated by Kim’s work.  I may attempt a cactus plant for another block.  I will do the EPP hexagon border, and some sort of fencing as the final border.  I won’t do the outer border shown in the pattern, a little too exotic for me.   

And in other news…

I finished this monster of a puzzle and returned it to Julia.  I’m hooked, another one is on order.

 

 

We had a bittersweet trip to Dallas to visit friends.  We are all getting older.

 And, you may have heard a shrill scream September 2. Husband was out of the house.  Dogs were on duty as usual. (Maddie was hiding.)  

I was minding my own business when I saw this on our bedroom floor.

 

I recognized it as “harmless” and managed to capture it with tongs.  After I had dropped and recaptured it several times, neither the snake nor I was amused.  I carried  it to the farthest corner of our yard and flung it as far as I could onto the golf course toward a drainage ditch.  We assume it came in through the pet door.  I love my mutts.

Although I did some cutting, a little sewing and a lot of pondering, I have very little progress to show for the two last two weeks.

 

A friend gave me some fabric for aprons, and I did complete one.

 

In other news…

 

I’ve acquired new foot apparel.  Seems the gimpy foot I’ve had for a month was caused by a stress fracture.  How that came about is unknown.  

 

My daughter loaned me this puzzle.  It has become a major distraction.

 

A porcupine was captured at our church.  I’ve lived most of my life in Texas, and it has only been in recent years that I’ve been aware that we have porcupines.  How did this little fellow make it to our church in the middle of the city?

That Indecisive, In-Beween Time

I find that I’m in that slump period before starting new projects and determining the next direction on long-term ones.  My hexagon quilt has reached the stage where it could either be enlarged, or a border added and used as a very small throw. If I do the borders now, should I add applique?  Still turning these thoughts over in my mind.  Current dimensions are 47X60 inches.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing some scrap management, cutting down remnants, especially odd shaped ones, into 2 and 1 ½ inch squares.  My containers are slowly filling up and I’m looking at various options on what to do with them.  If I can at least determine a direction, I can start using them as leader/enders.

 

In other news, a friend gave me the start of a Blue Mist Flower plant last year.  This year it has really taken off and the butterflies love it.  She cautioned me to grow it in a pot because it can be invasive.  It’s reached the point now, that I will need to divide it before next spring.  So far, all my efforts to grow Milk Weed have failed.

 This weekend we celebrated our youngest grandson’s 21^st birthday.  Wasn’t he just a toddler last week?  He resumes classes at Texas A&M next week!

 

Hosting Quilty Friends

Yesterday was my turn to host the neighborhood quilters.  Whenever I visit a quilter’s home, I always hope for a glimpse of their studio.  In my case, they have to access the guest bathroom by going through my sewing room, so of course a tidy-up was necessary.

I come from a family of packrats, so my room will always have some clutter, this is much neater than usual.

The Husky tool chest serves as a storage space, as well as a pressing and cutting station.  I purchased the large pressing surface from a friend who was opening a retreat center.  It and the Husky are two of my better purchase decisions.

I keep two sewing machines ready for use at all times.  The one in the window is a straight stitch only machine with some modern convenienes like thread cutting and needle-down capabilities.  The Janome has a built in walking foot plus some extra stitches.

Then, there is my sit-down quilting machine.  I have a love-hate relationship with this machine.  I love its capabilities and hate my skill limitations.

I also received some happy mail from Wanda.  During a recent destash sale I jumped on these pretty grape fabrics.  This is a color family that is lacking in my stash, and I was happy to get them.

Another Finish

The binding is finished and my vintage bowtie quilt is bound-labeled-done.  This was done as a part of a Fig Tree & Company sew along using fabrics from their Jelly and Jam Collection.  I wanted a light weight summery quilt for my easy chair and chose the thinnest batting I could find by Quilter’s Dream.

 

My Hibiscus was not doing well and I’ve moved it to a bigger pot and a sunnier spot.  I discovered the buds and undersides of leaves were covered with tiny white bugs.  A Master Gardener friend suggested that I drench the foliage with water.  That has helped and I am now seeing more buds.  Unfortunately, the bugs keep reappearing and I have to repeat the process daily.

In other news... 

The time I spent with my daughter last weekend was wonderful, followed by a call Monday morning telling me she had tested positive for Covid.  In the past week I have tested three times, all with negative results.  I’ll be checking with my doctor Monday to see if I can resume normal activities.

A Non-Quilty Finish

My Tuesday quilting group did a road trip recently and I brought home this pattern.  The apron is reversible and made with quilter’s cotton.  The hardest part for me was making and placing the pockets.  I think I tried four different methods before I found one I liked.  I ended up making a template and turning the rounded edges using starch and an iron, similar to the way I do prepared-edge applique.  The pockets are made with two coordinating fabric layers, and I found it helpful to stitch the two layers together before prepping the edges.  The next hardest part was attaching the yoke.  Pins didn’t work well for me and I ended up using applique glue to hold the seam ends together while I stitched. 

 

Hopefully future aprons will go together quicker.  I am considering making more for the Guild boutique and as gifts. 

 

Progress

After much frustration and lost time, my vintage bow tie quilt is quilted, trimmed and in the process of being bound.  The machine difficulties that plagued me stemmed from a number of sources.  The thread I used was linty and resulted in the bobbin case clogging up quickly, especially behind the spring in the bobbin case.  (Thank you, Wanda, for that hint.)  Finally, after many broken bobbin threads and numerous recleaning stops, I figured out that the bobbin spring was not correctly seated in the case, allowing lint to get behind it.  After I discovered that issue, progress proceeded much more smoothly. 

I got caught up in some household projects this week while hubby is out of town.  So, there was little energy left to finish up the binding and create blog posts.

Julia came to visit this weekend and we had a great time shopping the town.  Also, we took time to visit the Beloved Art Gallery featuring the early works of Akiane including her most famous piece, Prince of Peace.