Red is a Flimsy

I met my goal for finishing my hexagon top before last Wednesday’s Guild meeting and workshop.  I’m calling it Red because, well it is...  It’s time to take it down and store it out of sight for a while.  Usually I like my work much better after a break.  I have a bit of a quandary on where to trim the outer borders.   It somehow ended up wider at the top than the bottom.  If I even it up by trimming off the top, the print design will no longer be symmetrical.  I would love comments about how to handle this.

The workshops with Becky Goldsmith Wednesday and Thursday were a delight and loaded with information.  By the end of the second day my head was spinning.  Here is my class sample on traditional needle turn applique.  I need to improve my technique for sharp inner points, but I’m no longer so afraid to attempt the technique.  Becky admits to being something of purist.  After listening to her rationale I went out and purchased Orvus detergent for washing fabrics and quilts.

The elliptical has become my friend this summer.  When it’s still 95 degrees at 8 p.m., inside walks are the only way I’m able to get in a reasonable number of steps.  Listening to audio books makes the task more enjoyable endurable.

I’ve also been punching out hexagons for my next English paper piecing project.  The weekly flyer we get from the grocery store is on heavy enough stock to be usable.  I’m also using the inserts from magazines.  As slow as I work, I should be able to easily keep up with my need.  These hexagons measure 3/4 inch on each side.  That's slightly smaller than the design I will follow, but it seems more economical than purchasing the shapes.

Checking In ...

While I have had a difficult time making myself sit down to the keyboard and create a post, I have been at work the last two weeks.

I finished 10 anti-ouch pouches to take to the guild meeting Wednesday.  That brings me to a total of 74 this year.

There have also been some stash enhancements here.  I’m getting ready for my next English paper piecing project.  I’ve long admired the cover quilt on this book by Edyta Sitar and have decided to do it primarily in French General fabrics (but maybe not the border).  I scored on a recent online auction and was able to get a jelly roll plus four yards of fabric for what I would have paid for the yardage alone.  I have some other French General cuts in my stash, so hopefully I have enough diversity and can begin with this soon.

I’m signed up for two guild workshops with Becky Goldsmith this week and have been pulling the supplies I will need to take.  The first one is on color.  Thursday we’ll have a six-hour session on applique.

I’ve also resumed working on dishcloths while watching the Tour de France with Bob.  It’s an easier project to work on if a dog decides to land in my lap.

When nothing but mindless machine work would satisfy me, I’ve worked on miniature bowtie units.

My goal is to finish appliqueing my red hexagon quilt to its borders before Wednesday’s workshops.  I’ll probably take it with me tomorrow when I join my Tuesday group.  We’ll see how far along I get working on it some tonight.  

A Flimsy

I finished adding borders to this bluebonnet applique piece this weekend.  It's nice to free up a project box.

For some reason I had trouble sizing the center to the pieced borders and had to resort to drawing a picture on graph paper.  In the end it did work out.

We're enjoying a quiet, at-home holiday weekend here.  This evening we will probably take the golf cart to one of the areas on the course where we can enjoy the city's fireworks.  

Guild Day

Quilt Guild met today, a week later than usual this month so as not to coincide with Vacation Bible School where we meet.

I turned in 10 completed anti-ouch pouches I had made bringing my 2016 total to 64.  I also took a very big, very heavy dog bed which I was ever so glad to pass along.

On the home front I’m plugging along on the quilter trying to make progress on a UFO. 

I kind of like the way my practice/warm-up piece is looking.

Stitching continues on my strip sets for bordering another UFO.

For a few weeks I’ve been in something of a quilting slump, but now I feel like I may be coming out of it.  Mostly, I’m trying to stay productive inside where it’s cool.

Resurrecting a Project

I worked on my quilter until the bobbin ran out this afternoon and then decided to change gears and play with a different project.

This applique piece has languished much too long.  It’s time to add a pieced border so it can be completed.  When I finished the center’s applique, I hand washed it to remove the glue basting.  To my dismay, the blues ran badly and I was afraid all that work was wasted.  Fortunately, I was able to eventually get rid of the stains using color grabbers and Dawn.   By that time I was so burned out on the project, I set it aside.

Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.  After pulling possible border fabrics, I prewashed them along with some other batiks. 

Here are the color grabbers from those washer loads.  Yikes!  If they were made of better fabric I could add them to the border.

Summer is Here!

Like so many other places, our weather has transitioned overnight from wet and coolish to blistering bright, humid and hot…prime time in this part of the world to stay indoors and work on quilts and quilt-related projects.

I’ve finally reached a pause point in my Guild Committee work to be able to once again turn my mind to other projects.   In the meantime, my brain-breaks consisted of making potholders for my gift basket stash and knitting dishcloths from the endless cone of cotton yarn I purchased at the library thrift store years ago.

The top two potholders were finished using Diane's technique which she posted here.  The bottom one has a binding remnant leftover from another project and is ready for the finishing hand work.

A Tuesday quilting friend is clearing out her sewing area as she prepares to become a full-time RV-er.  She kindly gifted me with these batik scraps and remnants.

This is the last picture I was able to capture of the babies before they left the nest for good.  Time to do some heavy duty cleanup on the front porch.  I need to get Rent-A-(Grand)Kid to help with the ladder work.

Could Someone Loan Me a Paddle?

Even though our immediate area has so far escaped the terrible flooding experienced elsewhere in Texas; we have certainly had an unusually wet spring. 

All our streams and creeks are flowing swiftly. 

The golf course is closed until the cart trails are clear and the ground is not so soggy.

For the first time in many years the flood gates on our series of dams have been opened creating currents so dangerous the lakes have been closed for recreational purposes.  

Several of our low water crossings have flooded resulting in city street and state highway closures. After our terrible drought, I promised that I would not complain about the rain.  I will say, however, that I’ve really enjoyed our brief moments of sunshine.

There are still lots of baby birds around.  Swallows have once again built a nest over our front door.  This little guy does not appear to be at all amused by my presence.  But then, I'm very unamused by the mess he's making on my porch.

We also are having a lot of snake activity.  These two were seen this week along my usual walking route.

A Master Naturalist friend tells me this is a harmless rat snake.

My husband is pretty sure this one is harmless as well.  I don’t intend to test either theory out.

Somehow I ended up serving on two Guild committees.  I’ve enjoyed working with my friends on the donation quilt and a program for our August meeting, but it’s left me with very little time to sew.  

I managed to finish this project from the April Karen Eckmeier workshop on her Happy Villages technique.