Pecking away at large projects, a bit at a time. I started the next commission quilt, called Dinner Plate. It is mostly 10″ squares surrounded by smaller rectangles. The pecking part is the folded triangles on each piece that make this quilt a bit different. I wanted to use the constellation prints for the black and white strips, I knew I had enough of the white, but I was a bit short on the black print.

I found a yard on Etsy though, and a few more fabrics jumped into my cart (all in the name of free shipping). There was a cute panel and a 10″ square pack of adorable baby animal prints. I need a few more small quilts in my shop, so these will get in there probably in time for Christmas. I think I have enough in my queue to keep me busy until then. I really have no business taking on more projects at the moment, my to-do list is getting long.

• 7 commission tops/quilts
• Poinsettia HST quilt currently on design wall
• Two BOMs – Message in a bottle and Simple Pleasures
• Quilting on Forest Babies quilt
• Binding on Berties Year
• Binding on Botanica Park
• Applique on baseball blanket
• Work on TBQ pile of finished tops – Chilhowie, Ribbon, Reunion, Xmas trees, +

The baseball blanket is an interesting side project. A friend of mine is an avid fan of the game, and goes to many of the SF Giants games with her husband. San Francisco is quite chilly in the summer, and the stadium is on the bay. A nice cozy blanket helps on those days when the sun is behind the clouds, or when the games are played late in the day. It can start out at 75 degrees and end at 50, and they don’t sell hot cocoa. I am sure there are some very expensive sweatshirts and jackets in the gift shops. Anyway, my friend found this beautiful alpaca wool blanket in natural black and grey and I am going to appliqué the SF logo on it. I found some orange 100% wool felt to do the letters and she asked for a few baseballs in white felt. What I am going to try to do is use a projector to enlarge the S and F letters on to the felt, cut them out and machine appliqué them to the blanket. A fairly straight forward project right? Stay tuned for that one.

I have been adding lots of crosses to this stitchery, I think it’s starting to look like something good. The house just sucks up the threads, I get about 40 stitches per length. I haven’t started the Gathering Stitches piece yet, but it’s all kitted up and ready to go. I decided on 20 count Aida cloth and red 16w thread, I have two spools, probably enough.

Also in the works this week is the replacement of four interior doors, two pocket doors, and two closet doors. Oh, and the door to my DH’s office. Last month the replacement of the sliding doors in the sewing room with a window, kept me out of there for a few weeks. I casually asked the contractor if I needed to empty the closets for the door replacements, thinking nah, there’s lots of room on the outside. Alas, I am spending my day emptying them. The sewing room closet and the guest room closet are the storage closets in this house. The guest room still has a bunch of my youngest son’s clothes in it. He now lives in NY, so it’ll will be more of a purge than a relocation exercise. The sewing room closet on the other hand contains all my yarn and excess fabric. Most of it is in bins and wire drawers, so it is more of an inventory/resorting project. I may even unearth a few things I have forgotten about. This door replacement is something that I have wanted to do for a while. When we bought this house in 2003, it had been remodeled on the late 80’s. Lots of honey oak trim, flooring and cabinets, and sea foam green and mauve colors on the walls. The trims were a fluted style with rosette corners and ornate moldings. Which can be very attractive in a New England or Midwestern home, but my house is a 1960’s Ranch/Mid Century Modern Style. Our major remodel in 2017 brought back that style in most of the house, except the hallway to the bedrooms. This week all the decorative molding is going to be replaced with straight lines and “plain” boards. The eight panel doors, Honey oak with brass handles, will be replaced with four panel, white, shaker/MCM style doors. I am hoping, that this project will be the last for a while, but it is something that I have wanted to do since we bought this home.

I’ll spend my day emptying those closets while I wait for delivery of the new doors.

Be Kind.