I finished the house last night, a lot of stitches, a lot of red floss (weeks dye works “brick”). The roof went surprisingly fast, its about 1000 stitches. The green and brown tiles are ten stitches, five on five, I got about four tiles to the floss strand and stitched them touching on the diagonal when I could.

A lot of sewing has gone on these past ten days, and I was able to get one quilt quilted. Well, one and a half, as I managed to knock my machine out of timing. I’m going to call the shop today and see if they can fix it here. I really don’t want to bring it in, it’s too big and heavy for me to do. I forget what the shop charges for house calls, maybe I don’t want to remember because it’s steep. I managed to bind all the finished quilts, except for the Botanica one. It’s just heavy and large, I did find the binding fabric I set aside for it. Most proud of finish is Berties Year, completely done, and hanging! I started this as a block of the month in 2014, and got it all together in 2015. Then it sat for a time, finally got it quilted in February 2023. I seems a little wintery for the season we are in, I just wanted to see it hanging for a bit. I’ll change it out in a week or two.

I am working on star blocks this week I need a bunch of them for two quilts, a queen and a full. They are quilts similar to this one, called “Crescent” which is a throw size shown. There are a total of 33 big stars in my versions, and a few more little ones. I am doing one quilt with the blue star background and one with the white. Lots of chain stitching going on. I found a great tutorial on the saw tooth block, which includes a quick flying geese block method. What I really like about this tutorial, is that she gives charts for measurements for many sizes of blocks. It is at Amy Smart – Diary of a Quilter .

I got a new-to-me chair for hand stitching. My DH’s office was liquidating some extra furniture, and the prices were very good, as in FREE. There was a table that would have worked a for sewing machine, but it was already taking by the time we got the inventory list. The chair is a Herman Miller “Aerion”, all adjustable and comfortable. The chair I was using was a Dutailier glider and ottoman that I’ve had for a very long time. I find that when I am stitching in it, I slowly slide down and lose my posture, which leads to back and hip soreness after a while. I’m not convinced that I really like the new one yet, I can always use it at my desk or as another sewing machine chair.

Be Kind.

Brick by brick or block by block things are getting done around here. The past week has seen a few finishes, the best one being the doors. All are painted and handles are attached. All the contents of the closets are returned to them. Although there seems to be a bit of stuff left over. I need to go through it and make a trip to the local donation drop off site. Mostly old clothes and toys my kids left here, I figure if they don’t want it after 5 years, they really don’t want it.

Working on the Heaven and Nature piece almost nightly. There are a lot of bricks in this house. The door has 190 stitches in it, gotta love 40 count linen.

I reorganized my sewing room closet, and was able to add a few more shelves. Now that the doors open fully, there is no more dead space in the center. The guest room closet has sliding doors still though, I put all my yarn in there, and some extra quilts. I still need to clean out my sewing room a bit, I am planning a donation run for there too. Once I get the current one done that is. My room still isn’t a functional as it could be, but its better.

I finished a quilt top and a backing this week, the Dwellings quilt and the backing for the Dinner plate quilt. The dinner plate is a king size, 110 x 110, so there was piecing involved, lots of long seams and cutting off of selvages. I have a new ruler by Creative Grids, it’s called “the big one” or something like that, it is 24″ x 12 ½”. It’s a nice stable surface to cut with, it doesn’t move around and holds the fabric still with the special dots they put on it.

My goal today is to get the bindings cut for the five quilts that need it, and maybe apply a few. I am waiting on a shipment of white batting for the Dwelling and dinner plate quilts. Fedex is scheduled to throw it in my driveway tomorrow. The driver doesn’t like my dogs, so he won’t come any where near the house. I have to keep an eye out, so my boxes don’t go home with someone else.

Be Kind.

Yesterday was a stay home day. It was rainy and cold and I had workmen in house, so I couldn’t leave. While the moldings were installed and painted, I watched the longarm do its thing. I have been working on my Chilhowie quilt, it was ready to go, backing and top. The pantograph I picked out is called Tropical Flowers, it is Plumeria blossoms and leaves. Sort of a weird choice, but I’ll explain. Last year while on a Home Depot shopping expedition, I saw that had Hawaiian Plumeria plants for sale. I had just finished reading a book in which one of the characters had a collection of Plumeria trees. Although they lived in San Diego, I thought it would be an interesting plant to grow. The one I picked out was a green stick with about eight leaves on the top. It lived on the deck all summer and when it got cold, I brought it inside. It promptly lost all its leaves and was just a stick. It stayed green and I thought maybe it is deciduous, and kept watering it every once in a while. While I was away last month it sprouted four new leaves. I was so excited, well, happy it wasn’t dead. I am hoping it will flower this summer, I don’t know what color the blooms are, but I have visions of Leis dancing in my head. Back to the Chilhowie quilt, it is the 2022 Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt, and I seem to remember her talking about the little town named that and the flowers around her, Irises that were purple and orange. So I went with the floral theme, only switching the tropical for the temperate. I used a variegated purple thread, and a dark purple backing. Each row took an hour and fifty minutes to sew out, I got it finished yesterday, sewing out two and a half rows. I had done the other three earlier in the week, but still its a lot of sewing.

While babysitting the computer run panto, I was able to trim up a few more finished quilts. I trimmed the Berties Year quilt, the Botanica Quilt, the Aegean Quilt and the You are loved quilt. I wish I could bind them, but the painters are doing their thing in my sewing room, and once again everything is covered in plastic. I am hoping to get to it this weekend, once the paint is dry. A mass binding session, I wonder if I have ever done five at once before. Maybe three, but it is possible, as long as I don’t have any interruptions like having to eat or shower lol.

Earlier this week I was working on the Dwellings quilt, another one that uses the Nocturnal fabric line. I got most of the block pieces cut and pieced, I need to assemble the 20 leaf blocks. I have them all laid out, ready to go. I also need to sew together a backing for the Dinner party quilt, also a Nocturnal fabric quilt. It should be next on the frame, but maybe I can squeeze a small one on there. The TBQ pile is getting smaller, the Sew Couture top I made last year is only 60″ square. I bet I could do that one in a few hours.

Time to get a move on today.

Be Kind.

I feel like one of those cartoon characters doing the exaggerated double-take move, where they are wide eyed and obviously amazed at what they have have seen. Sort of “Wait…what?”

Last week I had to go out of town unexpectedly. Dropped every thing and went. I got back Tuesday and here it is Thursday and I haven’t caught up with life yet. I think today will clinch it though. Yesterday I did some shopping and cleaning, a bit of laundry and met with the contractor who is replacing the doors. Today I plan on a bit more sewing and cleaning, or maybe just more sewing.

I brought a small cross stitch piece with me, the red-work “Gathering Stitches” project. Didn’t get much done on it, lack of good lighting and time. On the flight home, I was in a middle seat on a very full plane. I ended up listening to my book for 4 hours. I may have dropped off to sleep a few times, I am hoping I didn’t snore lol.

I am ready to sew a bunch this week though. Before I left I had finished all the blocks for the king size ‘Dinner Party’ quilt. I laid them all out on the design floor yesterday, and discovered I had 66, two extra.

All good, I think I got a good assortment and random placement pattern going. I stacked them all into columns and got half of them sewn together.

You’ll notice to the right a few baskets still stacked. These are the contents of my sewing room closet, due to the door replacement project. The doors were installed while I was away, but the finishing trim and painting will be in the next two weeks. So I will continue to look at that pile for a bit longer. Last week I had some extra time to watch TV. I caught a few episodes of a “Hoarders” on Netflix, probably not the best thing for me to be watching with this pile of my stuff taking over my bedroom. I am greatly inspired to sort it and organize it back into my sewing room. I am a bit embarrassed by my fascination with this disorder, maybe because my hobbies require a bit of collecting. I don’t currently believe I am at risk for becoming a hoarder, but it seems like a slippery slope. It’s a good thing fabric and yarn has more than doubled in price since I started crafting, or does that make my stash more valuable? Do I really need more, or do I hang on to what I have in case I need it? I don’t subscribe to the “does it bring me joy?” mind set, as that is still an affirmative. I think I’ll be okay.

I could hardly wait to get back to stitching on the Heaven and Nature sampler. I got more of the red house done these past few evenings. Mindless stitching is what I need before sleep, as I am a little jet lagged after a week in the EST zone. I tried to keep my normal sleep times while there, but a few naps made me adjust a bit.

Off to sew now.

Be Kind.

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.