Hope That Groundhog's Right!

 "Cause this days wasn't fun.  Dateline - Last Friday - We keep getting these Alberta Clippers; note to Alberta - you can keep your clippers, thanks very much!  This one came through, dumped about a half inch of snow (just enough to make the roads really dangerous and then the wind came in behind it.  Blew and blew and blew and blew!  Made it look like it was still snowing.  I took my quilts over to the quilters and passed a car up-ended in a ditch.  At first, all I saw was the State Trooper's cruiser and he was sitting on his backseat sideways, with his feet out on the ground.  At first, I thought there was something wrong with him, but as I came by, I saw the car.  Good grief!  Our back roads were really tricky and if you weren't driving smart, stuff like that could happen.  I am so ready for this to be last winter, it's not even funny.  And yet, there are still idiots out there wishing for a blizzard like we had three years ago.  Ugh, excuse me, do you remember that we couldn't get out of our houses for like three days????? 

 A friend of mine, my oldest friend, in fact, has a birthday coming up this year.  I found this chart and made it into this at right.  I used a 32 count Belfast linen, I think it is Amsterdam Blue, but didn't have a label on it, so that's just a guess.  I thought I'd use up some of the leftover Raven from Gentle Art that I have.  Well, I did, but I still have lots of leftover Raven.   It's going to be put in a regular photo frame.

 Oh, that reminds me - forgot to tell you, the Civil War quilt is at the quilters, as is the small tessellated quilt.  They'll be the first to be done and then I'll rotate in the one for my granddaughter's birthday.

 Customer has given me the tea towel, upper left.  It's Order of the Eastern Star.  She wants me to make something out of it.  So, The photo above is a print out from a blog - I THINK it's Gazette 94, I really, really think that it is, but if someone knows different, kindly let me know and I'll make the correction.

Anyway, I'm going to make it into the receptacle - maybe for mail?  I'm going to stitch the little bird on 32 count white Belfast using all five colors.  Then it will go between the two 30's prints to form the lower section.

 I was inspired by this project in the Sew Beautiful magazine.  But, I didn't like the style of the raincoat.  Good thing, because when I went to the sewing shop to look for a raincoat, it was only in the McCall's line that I could find a child's raincoat pattern.  Very frustrating.  Anyway, the SBM raincoat featured zipper teeth as trim on the raincoat.  There weren't many places to do that on the pattern I got, but I did do it in the raglan shoulder seams.  Don't know if you can really see that in the picture, but I used a yellow separating zipper - they have bigger teeth.  My husband thought that this was really cool.  Last summer I'd bought the fabric - the big polka dot and the floral to do a purse project.  But, the more I looked a the purse pattern, the more I didn't want to do the project.  So, had the fabric, and decided I wanted to use it for the raincoat (for my granddaughter, btw).  Neither fabric was vinyl.  So, I bought iron-on vinyl.  Sounds an oxi-moron, doesn't it?  Actually, it was really easy and initially I was super impressed.  I had to cut each piece from the fabric using the pattern pieces, then to iron vinyl to each piece and trim.  So, a lot of work.  But, few pieces, so it wasn't too big a deal.  The problem came when it was time to sew.  Being woman-handled so much during the sewing process, made the vinyl separate from the fabric AND it got really wrinkly.  I am going to try and iron it again, but don't hold out much hope.  There is a resource online for oil cloth in bright prints, so if I ever do this again (which I probably will as my granddaughter is only 6), I would get that to make another raincoat instead.  The iron-on vinyl would be really great for things you don't have to manipulate too much during the sewing process or something that is already made that you want to make more waterproof.  In the second picture, you can see the hood.  I went out and got a smaller polka-dot flannel that I made the lining out of.  If you don't line them, vinyl raincoats can almost feel clammy - at least, I think so.  You can see a bit of the yellow zipper teeth in that second picture.

A new project, is really an old one.  I love, love, love quilts by Piece O'Cake Designs.  So, back in the 90's I was very ambitious and thought I had enough time to do all these.  Fortunately I had enough sense to just put them away for another time - instead of getting rid of them.  I bought six of these Tulips in the Park kits - they come with all the fabric included!  Not enough for the whole quilt, but enough to make a lovely wall hanging.  These are applique.  So, I've gotten started with one (progress below).  This will probably be a slow go.

 







I don't like needleturn applique, nor do I like the way the fusibles make the fabric feel.  So, I baste under my seam allowances and then applique them down.  Makes for a lot of extra work, but it gets the job done for me. 



I also have the pattern for the Stars in the Garden quilt.  I have done one of the blocks and made a pillow.  I will enjoy making the whole quilt in the pretty bright colors shown.

 I like to use scraps of vinyl from photo albums and the like to make placement layovers.  This one is a mess from being folded up in a box for about 15 years, but it will still work.  I also have one last POC design, Flowering Vines.  I think that this will be my next applique project as it combines piecing with applique.

Here is my progress on Susan Singleton (whom I'm calling Gentle Susan) for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year.  

Last year I worked on this needlepoint project.  I'm doing a really good job of clearing out all my unfinished objects.  This has become the scissor case it was meant to be, lined with red satin, it has coral ribbon ties and fits my Sajou scissors perfectly.   Front, back and inside.

Finally, this is my blogaversary month.  I think it's four years now.  I have a bunch of things to make into giveaways so keep your eyes peeled.  Hope you enjoyed!

Trying to Play Catch-Up - Again

When last I posted, I showed you the Hershey's Bar needlepoint in the blocking stage.  I was able to finish it for my husband, as a belated Christmas present.  It is an eyeglass case.  For he who is too vain to admit he now needs the glasses for more than just reading.  But, it's the only thing my wonderful husband is vain about, so I leave it at teasing him.

Front of case in the large photo above; the small photo above shows the business end where you insert the glasses.  At left you see the back view of the business end.  The back was made from a scrap of a man's wool jacket.  I added a pewter button that is a reproduction of the buffalo side of a "Buffalo Nickel" American 5 cent piece.  In the last photo you can see that a week ago, when I took these pictures, we still had a little of our day-after-Christmas snow on the ground.

 Now on to two things I want to share with you.  Ever since we saw the CEO of Yankee Candle on Undercover Boss we've been buying them; in spite of cheaper knock offs being more available.  But a few months ago I decided that those jars the candles come in are just too nice to pitch into the recycle bin.  So, I've been saving them and cleaning them up.  I have one (not pictured) that is a large jar with a rubber stopper sort of top on it that I've also rehabilitated.  You can see what I'm using the smaller ones for - buttons!  They're perfect because the jars pretty much seal up with those stoppers around the glass tops.

 I've been watching Martha's Sewing Room on PBS and have tried some of the designs of Kari Mecca.  I've also been purchasing Sew Beautiful magazine.  Well, I took the plunge and bought some new tools - whimsy sticks and both of Kari's "Whimsy" books.  I hope to be playing with these soon.  Right now I'm in the process of making my granddaughter a rain coat - with my own whimsy!

I have a friend who is an arborist.  As well as a geologist, an archeologist, an anthropologist, a former White House gardener, and all around good guy.  He just celebrated his 70th birthday.  Hopefully we will be able to pull off a big birthday celebration this spring.  On his birthday I gave him a small gift, and I hope to have this one finished for the celebration . . . it is going to be a canvas bag.  For his groceries, for his books, for his digging tools; whatever.

The bag idea was not mine.  You can see in the bottom picture that they made a bag in the magazine.  This past summer I was at a thrift store and found a stash of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts magazines.  I sat there the better part of an hour and went through each one, picking ones with charts that I liked.  This was one of them and I thought at the moment I saw it that it would make a great gift for my friend.  But, you see that they were really bland and did their stitching on white and used raw canvas.  I have done my stitching on Country French Tula, 10 count.  Their count was 7 so mine's even bigger.  And my canvas is GREEN.  I used the charts to stitch the trees, but I chose the trees - did even more than they did and did them MANLY.  That is to say, I didn't stitch any of them with the pink froo froo that they had done.  Can't wait to finish this up.

You'll also remember I picked up some quilt squares that were pre-printed and I was stitching on one of those.  Got one done - finally!

I don't know what I'm going to do at this point.  I will say that it was incredibly boring stitching this pre-printed panel.  I have no idea why, but I just hated it.  The other one I've been working on - the schoolhouse - I've been having the same problem with it.

Now to the quilting.  I'm going to eventually add another page to the blog here that will just have pictures of the quilts when they're done.  We had a fine day on Sunday.  The temps didn't quite make it to 70 degrees like they predicted, but we were nearly 60.  In the afternoon I ran out with armloads of quilts and hung them on the line to get decent photos.

This is the Civil War repro quilt that you can see SO much better now.  Sebastian, the cat, would not go away.  He kept rubbing up against the quilts and getting into the picture.

The backing fabric from Keepsake Quilting arrived last week, so I'm calling the quilter on Friday and this one will go in.

This is the Dick and Jane quilt (name of the fabric) that I made a few years ago.  It has backing fabric now so will also go to the quilter ASAP.

 

This is Froggy Fourth of July.  I made it back in the mid-90's and it gets its name from the patriotic frogs that are all over it.  It is a lap quilt or table topper size.  I've not shown this one before on the blog, so thought you might enjoy it.

This is Juliet's Ribbons, my personal Civil War reproduction quilt. This will be a wall hanging in our foyer.  My husband really likes this one.  And I'm pretty proud of it myself.  I haven't gotten the backing fabric for it yet (Hancock's of Paducah really let me down on that) so I'm going to my local quilt shop soon with hopes of finding something.

This is called My Little Red Tractor (based on the print on the fabric) and is a tessellated block.  I made it many years ago and gave it to someone as an unquilted table topper.  She returned it to me after several years never having used it.  People with no imagination don't deserve nice things like this anyway.  I've decided to have it quilted and use it myself.  So there!

 Last year I bought a fat quarter bundle at my quilt store.  It sat until I was inspired by a background quilt on the Fons & Porter show.  I call this Patty O'Quilt and it is my granddaughter's birthday present this year.  You may recognize the design from her Christmas stocking - I stitched it as the quilt on the bed!  Top left is the blocks that I did in a day.  Top right shows rows in progress.  At left are the white backgrounds that I pulled out (I didn't want to use them in the blocks so substituted the turquoise and orange you see in the top left) but I did use them to make the binding.  Here, below,  is the quilt top hanging out on the line.  I have to go through my stash to see if I have fabric I can use for the backing. I'm thinking not; and I'd like to find something white and sweet like the binding fabric.

Last of the quilts came out of my stash.  Several years ago I bought these panels at a quilt shop going out of business.  They are Robert's Baltimore Album.  The first part was easy, sew the two panels together to make the center or "album blocks".  Then I had to cut the other panel apart to make the swag borders.  This weekend I worked to attach said borders with mitred corners.  Only problem was I soon discovered the panel had been cut about six inches too short to make matred corners.  Huh.  Guess I know why I got it at such a good price now.  So, what to do???  I sat there looking at it so long that when my husband walked by the door of the workroom, he asked me if everything was OK.  Jackie knows what I'm talking about.

Finally, I went to the Fons & Porter show I'd seen just that morning.  It was about making easy LeMoyne Stars.  Well, I didn't use the easy method, lets just put that out there right now.  That means set-in seams. I have a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's ReUnion.  They are Civil War reproduction colors.  They also happen to be the colors from the cheater quilt panels.  So, I zip zapped with colors and neutrals and made the "test" LeMoyne Star block you see here.  Those blocks will go in the corners.  There was no way I was ever going to be able to match that white background (as there about 50 billion shades of white) so I'll have corners and the swags will run between.

Here you can see the album blocks in the back, the swag border on top and the LeMoyne Star block I made to see if the colors went with.  My husband really liked this one too!

Our weather's been weird here.  Snow on the days before and after Christmas and then so cold afterward that it stayed for two weeks only to be melted away by a nearly 60 degree day.  When the warm air came in that morning, we were treated to super thick fog.

This photo was taken as the fog began to drift away from us, but you can see the top of the fog bank just at the top of the trees in the distance.  The sunny sky quickly went away and we were very dreary until about 3 in the afternoon.  Now cold air is coming back and we are expecting freezing rain over night.  Keep your fingers crossed that we don't lose power!  Hope you enjoyed!

Hello 2013!

When last I left you, I was showing all the stuff I'd been working on for family, clients, and even myself.  I'd like to report that my clients were thrilled with all their work.  Especially the Civil War reproduction quilt.  I had picked out a fabric for the backing from Hancock's of Paducah, but they later wrote to tell me they were out of stock of that particular fabric.  Very frustrating.  So, I had to sit at the computer and spend another couple of hours finding a replacement.  Here is what I picked -

It is extra wide and will not need to be seamed to cover the whole back of the quilt.  I ordered this fabric from Keepsake Quilting.

I also showed the Prairie Schooler Christmas Eve piece that was stitched several years ago and never finished.  I had put the patchwork borders on it by the time I posted it last.  Now, it is finished.  I am really, really happy with it.

Not all the Woolrich Wool I'd purchased in a box-lot went to making Veteran's Christmas stockings.  My Great Britain friends can confirm this for me, I think that the plaid (tartan?) is called Royal Stewart.  I saved a huge batch of it.  I made a tablecloth for the dining room table, a cloth for a side table in my living room, and then I had a little more left.  I wanted it on my hunt scene needlepoint that was my take-along project last year.  I had also decided that I wanted to add a bit of leather to the pillow and I was going to go on the "hunt" to my local thrift shops.  How fortuitous that I was walking by my husband last weekend and he had a belt in his hand.  I must say, this usually excites me, but this time it was for a different reason!  I asked him what he was doing with the belt and he said he was tossing it.  I asked if I could have it and he, sweety that he is, gave it to me.  So, I did this -

and this -

Also, a bit ago, I showed you the Charles Craft linen I'd picked up for a dollar at the thrift shop and said I was going to do a pillow for my car.  Well, I finished the stiching some time ago, but it's been languishing to be turned into a pillow.  The car is as red as the trim, with black and silver interior.

I also mentioned that I'd found some old quilt squares and got quite a deal on them.  Well, I've decided what I'm going to do with them -

I will be looking in my quilt shop for some shirting prints that are similar in scale and color to what's used in these.  I'll use that for some borders just to get this sized right.

Above is a pillow.  It was designed by that Fredericksburg, Virginia designer whose name escapes me right now.  Each section has needlework and then all of them are stitched together to form the pillow top.  Clearly my spacing didn't work out too well.  But, I give myself a lot of credit for having it finished only two years after I finished the stitching.

 

I showed you the Blue Jay I did for my husband, over the summer; but I just finished the fantasy bird in the foreground.  These things are crazy to finish and I'm not sure I'll do anymore because of it.  I think I'd like to figure out a way to do them on linen which is much more forgiving to seam than Congress Cloth is.  I found it hard to get into the spirit of Christmas this year and finally, a week beforehand, put up my small tree.  I made the tree from a tomato cage and some lighted garland wrapped around it about fifty billion times.  I have some natural things hot glued onto it and when I use it, I only put a few extra ornaments on.  So this year I put on the candles (we don't light them) and the bird ornaments that I've collected over the years.  She was already taken down a couple of days ago, but sure was pretty while she lasted.

 The wool needlepoint Hershey Bar was my end-of-year take-along project.  I ended up putting it all together on Christmas Day and gave it to my husband that night as a belated present.  He absolutely loves it.  In fact, I have to get it back from him so I can take a picture of the finished product.  The backing I put on it was from a man's wool herringbone jacket.

We had a full moon this last week.  By "we", I mean all of us.  We (usn's here) had snow on Christmas Eve that gave us a White Christmas and also the day after Christmas.  So, when I took the dog out  a few days later, and saw this moon rise, I just had to get a picture of it.

I just love the blue glow that I say you can only get when you have
 snow on the ground.



So, above is when the dog went out (I ran into the house and grabbed the camera quick before I lost the shot!).

And here on the right is about five minutes later.  Within thirty minutes, the whole thing had disappeared into the clouds and was gone.

Before I go, I've had a terrible time with my laptop lately.  For the last couple months actually.

I bought myself a new one before Christmas.  But, that one had Windows 8 on it.  Windows 8 is made to operate like a phone.  I am still in shock when I say that .  Microsoft decided that it was a brilliant idea to cater to the crowd who are still living in their parents basements when they designed their new operating system.  I am a pretty savvy home computer user.  but I knew it was bad when I actually had to do an online search to find out how to POWER DOWN THE LAPTOP.  Turns out that Microsoft has just arbitrarily decided that people don't really need to turn off their PCs.  The problem is that you are not supposed to move a laptop from place to place without powering it down.  It would be like taking your record player - while it was playing your favorite Beatles album - and moving it from your bedroom (upstairs) to your basement two stories down.  You are just not supposed to do that.  Just like a "lap" top is not really meant to be sitting on your lap.   I thought I was going to LOVE LOVE LOVE my new laptop and it really turned  out to be HATE HATE HATE.  I really, really mean it.  The straw that broke the camel's back was when I tried to load on my photo editing software and my family tree software and it would not load.  I am not a person who is often without words, let alone speech, but I sat there speechless when this occurred.

I have since sold the new computer to someone for what I bought it for.  I think I have decided to go buy an Apple Mac.  I have no experience with a Mac operating system, so I am going to see someone tomorrow and ask about ten million questions.  I am hoping that I can get lucky and find someone who is selling a new laptop with Windows 7 on it.  I could get that cheaper and also, it will give me the time I  need to save my moo-lah and make a final decision about whether or not I want to buy a Mac.  I am told that Mac is SO much easier.  But, when you've been a Windows user for the last 30 years - and before that writing programs in CPM (that was what they had before there were windows), I think that the transition may be more difficult.  Anyway, I just wanted to warn you all - IF any of you are looking for a new PC and you're looking at one with Windows 8, be VERY VERY WARY.  My husband says (he who is the Techno-Geek) that there's a reason they are doing the advertising blitz that they are now doing.  He says there's been a lot of push-back against Microsoft because Windows 8 is nearly universally despised.  I have to say, it took me a long time to find a positive review of Windows 8 when I was looking online and I think that one positive review was made by a Microsoft employee. 

Hope you enjoyed.  Next time, pictures of  Patty O'Quilt - the one in the making for my granddaughter, a hopefully - so much more!