Just An Update

There has been very little sewing going on in my life right now. Mostly because I think I would mess everything & anything up because my mind isn't focusing real swell. Even at work, I am finding my mistakes & have to take extra steps to be sure I don't repeat them.


In October my oldest brother, JR, was diagnosed with lung cancer. He has been a life long smoker & wouldn't talk to me about it. Maybe if I had been there in person, he may have. I won't ever know. JR went to the emergency room because he thought he was having a heart attack. He ended up seeing an oncologist. After having biopsies on his lungs, the oncologist determined that his lung cancer was too far gone for any treatment. He was sent home with hospice. JR died on Sunday December 8th. His services were held on Saturday December 21st.


On Saturday December 7th, my brother Johnathon called me & told me that my youngest brother Michael was in the hospital on life support after having a brain tumor removed. Nobody knew Michael was in the hospital. He kept it a secret from everyone so that we could focus on JR. Michael's doctors told Johnathon that Michael also had tumors in his lungs that they were going to address after his brain surgery. Michael was removed from life support on the very same day that the whole family found out he was there. Michael died on Saturday December 7th. His services were held on Sunday December 22nd.


I wasn't there to say goodbye to either of my brothers. Not while they were alive. I don't even know how to put into words how I feel. Christmas. I'm just not feeling it. I can put on a brave face & pretend - that's probably as good as it's going to get. Losing 2 brothers at once  in unrelated deaths is really hard. Just hard.

Some Crafting Going On

Last weekend my daughter, Ryan, was visiting. My son-in-law (Chris) & husband are working on a (HUGE) desk for Chris' office. While they were busy sanding - Ryan & I worked on various projects. T-shirts for her & my grandson. After we got done with those I started on some ornaments. I painted the insides. They took forever to dry. Then I put some vinyl on them. I need to find some really cute co-ordinating ribbons for them. I have several more I have painted & some have glitter inside.

Did you know???? that when vinyl WILL NOT stick to anything, it will stick to itself? Better than anything, it sticks to itself. I know this.

 

Talk at y'all later!

M

Lets See...What HAVE I been Up to????

I made pincushions. These are filled with crushed walnuts. they were all fairly easy & both were really without a pattern. I just followed steps on blog posts.

If you need crushed walnut shells, do not buy them off Etsy. they want more money than you need to spend for one pound of crushed shells. Instead, take your happy self to a pet supply store. You can find crushed walnut shells in the bird section. I don't recall what I spent, but it was well worth it. I have a whole tub of it now. You're welcome.

On Saturday 10/19 - I put up 12 quarts of cranberries in honey to ferment. What do I do with them you might ask???? Last year, I fermented cranberries in honey as an experiment. Some blurb on a blog off Pinterest. I only did 2 quarts last year. After the cranberries have fermented in the honey, I drain the honey/syrup off the cranberries. Dehydrate the cranberries. I use the syrup in tea, oatmeal, yogurt, anything that needs some sweet added. I use the dehydrated cranberries in cookies, oatmeal, yogurt, trail mix...any umber of things! Really good for snacking. I had to be really frugal with what I made last year. I wasn't wanting to have to be frugal THIS year. That's why I did 12 quarts. After fermentation each quart will only yield 1 pint of dehydrated cranberries & 1 pint of syrup. Why 12? I wanted to do 18, but ran out of honey. I still had 4 pounds of cranberries. So I made that jam.



I made 10 (and a half) quarts of cranberry ginger jam. This was my first time making jam. I have to admit, I impressed myself! This stuff is good & even has Prince Charming's approval & he isn't much for sweets.

I finished another applique block. I think I lack 7 now. On this one I have not ironed it yet to get the black Frixion pen marks off of it yet. I love that pen! 

I was on vacation the 7th-11th this month. Rented a cabin in the Smokies. Our intent was to enjoy the turning of the leaves, but we were a little early. Spent the week with my husband's family. This is my niece. I made the T-Shirt for her. She really loves it.  Score!



I don't really feel like I have accomplished much. Life happens you know. I have not sat down & actually did any sewing sewing in over 3 weeks. My sewing room looks like the dumping ground I have been treating it as. Heavy Sigh.....Good things come to those that wait. Right? Let's hope so.

Peace Out People

M



Done!

Had to buy the Base

I could not use the doll on any spool pin on my sewing machine. So I broke down & bought a base. It works SWELL ! (If you ever watched "Lady & The Tramp" (Disney movie) You'll giggle at that "swell" !!


M

Bindings!

I spent ALL DAY Sunday sewing down the binding on the Wild & Goosey Quilt. I watched movies on Netflix. It was binding or housework. You see who won???

Next up is the binding on my Everlasting Wreath Quilt. 368 inches.

Normally I machine sew the binding to the back & flip it to the front & hand sew it down. But because I had these custom quilted, I'm doing it the opposite (normal I guess???) way. I decided to use up the left over scraps from the backings & make the bindings the same as the backing. They are both scrap quilts, so it' certainly does NOT look odd.

This little jobbie is a "Binding Baby". It works well enough. Probably better on smaller quilts that require less binding. All it has to do is keep the binding from twisting and it does that fabulously.

M

Wild And Goosey Quilt

1 year in the making

Pattern by Quiltville - Bonnie Hunter. (Layout is a Pinterest hack)

In this post, and the last, I was trying to get pictures of the quilting. I hope you can see it all.

Everlasting Wreath Quilt

6 years in the making

Laundry Basket Quilts Pattern

Quilting

My next posts will be brag posts.

During my lunch today I went & picked up 2 quilts that I left with the long arm quilter early last month. let me tell you: she did an ABSOLUTELY STUNNING JOB !!

I can't wait to get the binding on these beauties!

One is the Everlasting Wreath Quilt (I'll NEVER make that one again!) and the 2nd is the Wild & Goosey Quilt. Both will have black as a binding. the Wild & Goosey has solid black cornerstones & the Everlasting Wreath has black triangles in the center of each block. Both quilts have dark (& busy) backs, so black will be a perfect ending to them.

M

Checking In / NO SEWING

I have been volunteered to work vacation relief. If they had let the girl that resigned work out her 2 weeks, I wouldn't be doing it. But, I am. This is week #3. 11AM to 7:30PM. It truly sucks. Can't get anything started in the morning & too late getting home to start at night. Tired all the time. But maybe that's my attitude. Big crybaby. No sewing going on & everything I do with Prince Charming has to be done on the weekends. I had already scheduled 8/16 off & we went camping with the kids. It was fun. But ended up EXPENSIVE. The park we stayed in had something wrong with the hookup & fried our 12 volt system. New battery. New microwave. New inverter.

Light

I took these pictures at night, so they seem an odd light, but really, they make a huge difference. Especially with frog-stitching, or choosing color! I think they were like $22 for 4. At Lowe's. Get you some.

Progress

I added 2 more rows & it turned out TOO BIG !!!

Finishing Up Another Project

I started this project 2 years ago, so getting it back out & getting it done in THAT time period is pretty good for me! Paper Pieced flying geese Pineapple variation at it's best. This is from Laundry Basket Quilts - pattern is On Eagles Wings. I think I have used these blocks for 3 (maybe 4) different projects. For this project I am setting the blocks on-point & no borders. 3rd finish in a row with no borders. Also 3rd quilt in a row with black in it. Lots of black in this one.

First picture is where I stopped in 2017

This past weekend I added 3 more rows.

I am 3 rows away from being at the half way point! The next 2 rows are already sewn into rows & will bring me to the other corner of the quilt. I just have to sew the rows to each other & then to the big finished piece. It's coming along nicely - Prince Charming said it looks like pastels. Um....Ok. I guess so. They are all neutral fat quarters. All presumably light colored Civil War Reproduction "shirting" prints - but all too dark to be used against a medium. I was going to gift them away - but honestly? I had so many of them! So I started THIS project!

Good news though: I only have 96 more blocks to make to be completed! YAY ME!

Talk To Y'all Later!
M

PS - I'm calling this quilt Ravens Wing. Black flying geese units & all....you know....

My Go-To Easy Quilt

 

 

I put this together in under 4 hours last night! But...I ALREADY had the chain blocks done & everything else cut into strips. It measures 59x71 and it's for a brand new baby. Good thing they don't stay little! If I had made it smaller I would not have been able to use the fabric for anything else...since I already had it cut.

Wish me luck, I'm going to try & quilt this on my regular sewing machine. I need to have it done by this time next week & there are no long arm quilters with nothing to do! Imagine that! I'm just going to do straight line quilting on the diagonal through the yellow chain & alternate blocks. Also going to use a flannel sheet for the backing.

Talk to y'all later!
M

Never Ending Wreath Quilt

Well I did it. I FINALLY finished the Everlasting Wreath Quilt. I told my friend Donna that I started it FIVE years ago. Um....that's not correct. I looked back on my blog & I'm afraid it was SIX years ago that I started it. Dang. That's cruddy. I finished a lot in between that though...

The first picture is the pattern from a Google search, it’s 4 or 5 rings wide. Mine is 7 complete rings across.  2nd picture is my schematic. You might be able to see my modifications. I spent 4 hours last night picking paper off  (only lack getting 1 side done!) & one of my fingers is so sore. Thank goodness for spellcheck...I'm barely hitting any keys with this finger. Why so sore? Hmmm. It's because, in my infinite wisdom, I used blue painter's tape on the edges of the paper. It worked great. The paper was getting so fragile - disintegrating as I was sewing the blocks into rows. If you have ever made one of these, the blocks are hexagons. No straight row sewing. Every single seam is set in, like a "Y" seam. You don't sew off the edge, you stop at a 1/4 inch, pivot, rearrange & sew again. It was tedious.

My quilt measures 87 by about 97. Maybe a little longer. I measured it while it was on my bed. I'll need to measure it when it's flat. I already have backing ready too! Just have to buy batting. I had originally thought I would put a solid black narrow border around it to give it some width & length. It doesn't need it. It's plenty big enough. Any larger & it will look like  a king sized quilt on our bed. Though, I'm sure...., this quilt will spend more time on a wall or the guest bed. So I can look at it more!

There are 3 reasons why it took me so long to finish this quilt. Well ...Not including boredom, or distractions!
#1 yes, it's paper pieced - However, the blocks are hexagons
#2 I had to "improve" the pattern by modifying the blocks to make the wreaths "complete". the pattern just has them running off the side edges. I couldn't do that
#3 Similar to #2 I modified the blocks on the side edges & made 1/2 blocks for the top & bottom.

It took me 13 hours of sewing non-stop to put just 27 "wedge" side blocks on & 6 "half" blocks on. But it's DONE! yay!

Expect pictures soon.

See Ya!
M

PS- Up next? I'm finishing Raven's Wing. A variation of Laundry Basket's quilt "On Eagles Wings". All the triangles in Raven's Wing are black. I am slightly less than half way done.

Wild & Goosey Resurrected

I'm not sure where my sewing Mo-Jo went, not really sure I found it. I don't even have a REASON why I am not sewing. Yes, I have been knitting & crocheting - but that has been only during my lunch times & late at night when watching TV. Not when I would usually sew. And sleeping. I am tired ALL THE TIME. Even went to the doctor to see what may be wrong. Can't find a thing. I just have the BLAHS I guess.

Anyway - I started this quilt last year, maybe the year before, I'm not counting them anymore. I got half way done & just got preoccupied on other things. I have been working on it this week because #1 I had all day Tuesday off & my friend came over just before lunch & we sewed until 9PM #2 She just finished a Wild & Goosey Quilt & made WAY TOO MANY blocks, so she gifted them to me. Several sub-units more than I need to complete the remaining 36 blocks #3 It was time to get some of my UFO's done so I can start another quilt!

I was originally going to put an inner border of little flying geese on my Wild & Goosey but have changed my mind. I believe I will just make it the muslin from the body of the quilt to the edge. I am planning on having the talented Bridgette Long of Gr8t Quilting custom quilt it for me & I want FEATHERS, FEATHERS & MORE FEATHERS in it! That's really why I set it on point & used so much muslin. It's actually Kona Cotton "Natural".

I have loads & LOADS of scraps cut for Wild & Goosey blocks & I'll do another one. Considering using black instead of any other color (see last photo)

As Always - Talk At Y'all Later!
M

My Hair

I have had long hair all my life. Well I cut it off. It's been, conservatively speaking, 50 YEARS since my hair was this short!

You may NOT believe this, but I have never colored my hair! LOL