What I've Been Working On

If I’m counting correctly, we are now in our 10^th week of Covid-19 quarantine.  My, how life has changed!  It seems like Texas is on the national news every day as the governor moves us through the reopening phases.  We live in an area with lots of retirees and our particular community continues to be more cautious than others; for which I’m grateful. 

Since my last post, I have completed 37 anti-ouch pouches with 9 more cut and ready for stitching.  I’ve done enough of these over the past several years that they qualify as mindless sewing, and I’m grateful to have them to turn to when I need hypnotic stitching.  These cushions benefit breast cancer patients. 

A house quilt has been on my want-to-do list for a while.  When I saw this free pattern for a 9-inch pot holder at Laugh Yourself Into Stitches I decided to give it a try.  It’s a fun little project, and I intend to make several for my gift basket. Now that my test block is done, I want to be a bit more adventurous in my fabric selection.

This is my pandemic quilt project.  I had pulled the pattern from the American Patchwork and Quilting April 2019 magazine.  Debbie at Stitchin' Therapy also posted about this block.  

I decided to do my blocks in blues, greens and neutrals, a combination I find very soothing.  It sure involves a lot of scrap cutting, but my collection of blocks is gradually growing while my scrap stash refuses to shrink.

One way I’m coping with missing my friends is by participating in various e-mail chains.  I was quite surprised when my participation “earned” me this pin made by one of our members.  It will be added to my guild name tag and worn with pride when we finally meet again.

The wildflowers have mostly gone to seed now, but here is another shot from a neighbor’s wildflower bed that I took a couple of weeks ago.

The cacti care still in bloom.

Still Quilting...

It was never my intention to abandon my blog for many months, nor do I intend to give it up.  It has been a helpful diary of my projects, and a bridge connecting me to others who love to quilt. My silence also does not mean I have stopped quilting.  For whatever reason, I just have had neither the discipline nor energy to hit the keyboard.

Since my last post, I completed this flimsy made up of leftovers from an earlier red and neutral project.  I like my leftover quilt better than its predecessor.

Leftovers Quilt Top

Early this year I made up my mind to touch every quilting book I own and decide which would be donated to the Bits and Pieces booth at our guild quilt show.  We were most fortunate that our show fell in the first half of February before we knew what the Corona Virus meant and lockdowns were put in place.  Since then, of course, all regular guild activities have come to a halt, except for email and text chains that help me stay sane.

Donated Books

Also saving my life right now is Ollie, who has a lot of puppy left in him and who definitely claims me as his human.  Walks are helping too, as are audio books and mindless facemask and anti-ouch pouch stitching.  Anything that calms me down and makes me feel productive is good. 

Faithful Stitching Pal

Speaking of anti-ouch pouches (for breast surgery patients), I don’t have the opportunity to pick up kits at guild meetings.  So, one of my goals during quarantine is to touch every piece of yardage in my stash and decide what I will donate to that cause, then cut and sew it.  As a result, I already have a respectable stack of fabric laundered, pressed and ready to cut. But my storage shelves are a hot mess.

A neighbor works with stained glass and gave me this lovely suncatcher.  I love butterflies.

Suncatcher

And a scene from that same neighbor’s wildflower bed.

Patricia's Garden

Some Quilty Setbacks and a Reprieve

See this sweet, innocent face?

Ollie has learned not to get on the beds, until our backs are turned, that is.  That little rascal continues to unmake them.

And now he’s discovered my design wall. 

My red scrappy quilt is taking longer than I anticipated.  I discovered that I will have to add yet another row so that the design ends and begins at the same point top and bottom. 

So, more rail fence and nine-patch blocks are in the works.  Unfortunately, I looks like I will have to do some more cutting too.  I’m learning to love my die cutter.

The reprieve came in the form of a delayed start to a block of the month.  Not sure why I signed up, but I’m committed now (or perhaps I should be committed).

Hello 2020

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope your 2020 is joyful.

Even though my blog has been silent, work continues on a number of projects, though at a very relaxed pace. 

This rag wreath will stay on my sewing room door year-round, or at least until I get tired of looking at it.  I found several tutorials for making it on Pinterest, and it was a great way to use up some of my neutral scraps.

My piles of nine-patches have grown and are being added to my design wall along the way.  I figure when I have enough blocks to finish filling the wall, I’ll play with placement and start thinking about borders.  This is a “leftovers” quilt from a couple of previous projects. 

The forever hexagon project continues as well.  I discovered an error in aligning two rows and will be doing some frog stitching…sigh.

On December 6 we had to put down our beloved corgi, Harley.  He was the best ever dog.  Just let me say that I-Hate-Cancer.   It took both my parents, several aunts and now a second dog.  The house was just too quiet with only Maddie, so we have adopted Ollie into our pack.  Here I am with Maddie (in front) and Ollie competing for lap space. 

Ollie is a rescue terrier mix that looks like he is made up of spare parts.  Like all rescues, he has issues.  Our dogs have their own beds and are not allowed to sleep in ours.  Ollie, however, not only gets on our bed when we are not looking but unmakes it and redistributes the pillows…that rascal!

My Christmas cacti are pretty much finished, but at their peak they were a delight.

For the first time, I tried my hand growing an amaryllis bulb.  It provided a nice bit of color as well.  

The last two weeks have been filled with hostess duties as relatives from Wisconsin have been visiting.  I've eaten too much and exercised too little.  Time to get back to my healthier lifestyle.

Since I Last Posted

The quilting highlight of my past few weeks was most definitely my visit to the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  It was physically exhausting, financially costly and emotionally draining and altogether wonderful.  It dished up equal amounts of inspiration and humility, and I hope I will get to go again.

The adventure began with just getting to the hotel entrance.  It seems the final World Series game was just a few city blocks away and the streets were crammed with fans and television crews. 

We were fortunate to be in one of the hotels attached to the George R. Brown Convention center and once in, I did not have to venture outside again until it was time to leave. 

There is no way my photography would do justice to what I saw.  This link will take you to the Festival web site where there are pictures of some of the winners.

In other quilty activity…

A friend has had to take an interim position at our church due to the sudden death of a staff member.  She asked me to help her complete a Christmas tree skirt she had promised to her son.  The pattern she gave me was really for a table topper.  I used the traced templates she provided and made the topper from my own stash before I had the courage to cut into her fabric.

This is how her tree skirt turned out after I enlarged the templates she provided.

And, then I made one for me using the only fabric purchase I made at Quilt Festival.

Winter weather has arrived in the Texas Hill Country.  Fortunately, we had no road issues here, but our rain chain is frozen this morning.

Tuesday is usually the day I go out and sew with friends.  I decided to enjoy my nice cozy house instead.

Next UFO Chosen

No finishes to show off as September winds to a close, but I have been at work on my quilting and sewing projects.  I delivered 19 anti-ouch pouches to last week’s guild meeting bringing my total for 2019 to 111.  Saturday was spent with three friends doing housekeeping chores at the place where we gather to sew.  It was both hard work and fun, and the place looks much brighter.

I selected this as the next UFO to quilt and bind.  Backing fabric has been pulled from the stash and batting has been preshrunk.  I expect there will be a lot of stitching in the ditch on this one.

And always, my ¾ inch hexies are my go-to handwork project at night or while traveling. 

Finally, we passed a number of exotic game ranches during a country drive last Friday.  I don't really know what kind of critter this is, but it is definitely not your typical Texas white tail deer. 

Wall Quilt

I managed to squeeze in a finish on the last day of August.  This is a small wall quilt from Kim Diehl's Simple Whatnots Club last year.  I still have several more to complete. 

We were surprised this morning by a nice shower that gave us a little more than half an inch of rain and was very happily received.