Finals Week

A big milestone in the academic year, finals week meant sending students off for the summer, finalizing grades, and beginning a 3-month break for teachers and students alike. Now retired from all of that, I find that I have a new type of finals week. The bittersweet list of Florida's "final time for _____" before returning to Ohio.

We had our final bike ride Thursday afternoon. We had our final shuffleboard games and our final boat ride yesterday. We had our final home-cooked meal on Thursday. The fridge and cupboards are bare; even the coffee pot is stored away until next January. We are either eating leftovers warmed in the microwave or eating out until we leave.

The stitching has reached finals, too.  I ran completely out of neutral shirtings for GFG paths, and needed more fabric in order to have enough paths to finish my quilt. The few in the baggie are all that remain and I know I will need many more to get to completion.

In an effort to have stitching to do on the car ride home, I took that baggie of hexies with me to Quilted Twins in Dade City on Thursday. (Final trip to Quilted Twins. *wink*) I found the two main items I needed: fabric for paths and fabric for additional flowers. Shown below are the colorful FQs I selected for flowers. I will mix-n-match them to fill the remaining corners and outer edge of the quilt. (Click here to see current progress.)

I've got a head start on the first flower. I fully expect to get all the remaining hexies covered, all the flowers made that I can make with the remaining papers, and all parts attached until I can do more.

My packing for the road will have a tote bag with all these essentials plus the quilt, needles, thread and snips for easy access. You can see in the photo below that I have only about a dozen papers left for covering. I imagine I will make path hexies with some of the substitute neutrals I bought.

So, today is the final day in Florida and I will spend most of it packing. We will go out to dinner - Texas Roadhouse - with the two remaining couples here in our group. Then early in the morning we hit the road.

The second full year of snowbirding has concluded. Fun and relaxation and sunshine and warm temperatures, for sure, and it was all great, but I am more than ready to be home and nearer to family and friends.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

GFG - One Major Effort

When we arrived in Florida in early January, I had two quilting goals. One was making the blocks for Smoked Cheddar, which required the use of the sewing machine. The other was making Grandmother's Flower Garden, an entirely hand-stitching project.

The sewing room also serves as our guest room, so with more guests this winter than last, I have not had as much access to the sewing machine as I did last year. Therefore, Smoked Cheddar has mostly been on hold. 

Conversely, the amount of time spent working on GFG has been increased and so very rewarding. I am rather surprised, actually, at the progress I've made on it. The picture above shows the present state of completion, and only three flowers are yet to be unattached.

A while back, I took some process pictures of how I am handling the stitching as the quilt grows. The bulky nature of an ever-enlarging quilt forces one to work in subsets.

One of the reasons I had to be pushed to make this quilt was the idea of stitching these hexagons one by one by one by on for what would seem like infinity. However, making the flowers was an easy little finished bit and it was satisfying! So the idea of adding part of the path to the side of the flower made the endless one-by-one attaching of that path more amenable.

Now, let's talk about what is yet to be done on this quilt. First, I need about 13 more flowers. I did not bring bright, flowery fabric with me, so I've only made 2 while here. I used some of that same fabric that I used on the pillow covers. 

It is very likely that I will make one more trip to Quilted Twins down in Dade City. When that happens, I will specifically look for happy florals to use in making flowers. I know I have plenty at home, but it would be nice to include "Florida fabric" since so much of this quilt has been made here.

I still have ideas swirling around in my head for handling the borders. It seems like something not to stress about at this stage. It'll come in due time.

Happy Spring! 

And Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Guest Room Pillows

Bits of sewing truly are happening here, just much more infrequently than I would ever have predicted. That said, let me share today the pillows which now decorate the guest room bed. It's been a finishing touch for this room that I have wanted to make for awhile; at last it's been accomplished.

 Two basic goals with this project included selecting a simple block design and making pillows that reflect a sunny Florida vibe.

Using 2.5-inch squares in 'granny square' fashion is about as simple a design as I could come up with. Some of the fabrics used are ones purchased recently here from The Quilted Twins as well as some that I brought from Ohio, totally by a stroke of good luck (I didn't plan it, in other words.) 

The pillow inserts had a previous life as matching cushions for a swivel rocker in our family room. Those cushions were not being used, and I'd determined a good while ago that they would be turned into something suitable for the guest room.

I wasn't looking for an exact, matchy-match with the current quilts on this bed. Rather, I wanted pillows that would work with most quilts that might at any point be used in the guest room. My bright blue and green pillows, I think, will fill the bill.  

The pillows are 22-inches, and I used a 3-inch neutral border to achieve the correct size. The same neutral fabric is used as the back of the pillows, and was remnant fabric from a project made last winter here in Florida. All in all, then, this guest room pillow project cost me very little more than my time. 

And that's all I have to say about that.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Flower Garden Update

Sometimes, I surprise myself. For a project that I didn't think I would ever be able to sustain and finish, I am making surprisingly good progress on the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. And wait until I tell you what I did these past few days which forced me to stay on task with this.

The paths are attached on over half - almost 3/4ths - of the flowers. Every bit of path shown in this photo is attached to a flower on most sides. In that upper right corner are the remaining unattached flowers.

The unattached flowers are shown more fully in this photo. I've sort of approximated their placement, but of course, it will all change and be rearranged before finishing. I still need to make about 13 more flowers, too, so randomly setting all the colors will factor into the placement.

I love looking at the finished portion. Seeing this come together so quickly has motivated me to continue working on it. I find myself looking forward to time spent with needle and thread.

Instead of calling this quilt Grandmother's Flower Garden, I may have to subtitle it Anna Karenina's Garden. Yes, my audio book has been the 34-hour long Tolstoy classic, Anna Karenina. The book consists of 239 chapters in 864 pages. Yikes!

Whatever possessed me?!!? I'll tell you. As a retired English teacher of over 40 years, I have never read any great Russian author. I decided that listening to one of these long, long tomes would be worthwhile for stitching. 

Ha! The joke's on me! I really didn't like it much. I appreciate Tolstoy's immense ability to observe and relay human nature in all facets of life and in all manner of situations, but in the end, I want a worthy protagonist. You don't get that in AK. Nope. Every character is shown both in good and bad light, and readers must form their own opinions of right and wrong. Critics call AK one of the most perfect novels ever written, but it will take quite a lot of convincing for me to agree on that. The ending was largely Tolstoy (through the character of Levin) outlining his ongoing deep, inner philosophical struggles with his inability to be a good and worthy human in all things, in his marriage, in fatherhood, in society, in faith.

I did finish it (audio form), I can check it off my list of things to accomplish, but I'm not delving any further into Russian literature any time soon.

If you stayed with me through that lengthy synopsis, then you deserve one more look at my flower garden. Future audio books associated with this quilt will be more entertaining, for sure. *grin*

 Hope you are having a wonderful Monday! We awoke to quite a thunder storm this morning, but the afternoon is looking brighter.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Summer Dresses

Now that we've been in Florida for two months, my hankering for those two granddaughters is growing more intense by the day. They were on my mind when I was shopping at the AQS Daytona quilt show, so much so that when I saw these fabrics, I thought of how cute they'd be made into summer dresses or tops for the girls.

Both fabrics are from Windham designers. The top one is called Celestial, and I plan to make a pinafore-type dress for Reagan with it. I've made it for Cate, so I know it well enough and should be able to whip it out pretty fast. I will have to do it back in Ohio, though, since I didn't bring the pattern with me. I made two from this pattern.

 

The surfing print will become a dress for Cate. The very first movie she ever became enthralled with is the Disney movie Moana. I will probably wait until I return home to make it also. I've got a box full of old patterns to choose from.

 

Now, I did bring two patterns with me; they contain multiple sizes. So I could move forward, depending mostly on my mood. 

With just a yard of each fabric to work with, I'm thinking I could definitely do the sleeveless dress. So we shall see. I need to find my sewing mojo, for sure.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Hello March!

Ah, I feel springtime approaching! As we welcome March, we can look forward about 3 weeks when we will have the first day of spring! All good things!

 

Spring is not the only thing on my mind today. A couple of sewing projects are also occupying brain space. We have one month remaining here in Florida before we head back to Ohio. I was supposed to have a lot more done on my sewing projects by now, so I'd best be picking up the pace a bit.

I've stalled somewhat on the GFG. I have made one additional flower; need 14 more. I have prepped more path hexies, and I ought to get back to work on stitching them into the quilt. 

I have made more progress on Smoked Cheddar, in that all the units are constructed. Now I am in the phase of building blocks from those units. It's dull stuff so far; once the blocks are coming together, perhaps I will be more motivated.

One additional bit of stitching has been pillow covers. These two blocks will become the fronts of shams for the guest bed.
 

But even with this progress, for whatever reason I just don't seem to have the same focus on sewing this year that I had last year. Maybe I need to get a really good book going on my audio player; maybe I just need to stay home more! Ha! 

Anyway, let's just welcome this brand new month and see how productive we can be!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne