September Wrap-Up

It seems these monthly wrap-up posts come way too frequently. How months can just fly by like they do mystifies me! 

Let's dive into a recap of my September highlights.

TOP ROW: If an overall look at this collage indicates not a lot of sewing, that would be accurate. The consolidation of 2 sewing rooms into one has taken f-o-r-e-v-e-r! I'm still not done. For an admitted pack-rat, letting go and getting rid of things has proven daunting. I am determined, though, to keep at it until it's done. The first pic is from the beginning of the purge, when I was ready to move out the big cutting table. The next picture shows my crowning glory quilting achievement for the month - quilting my Tiny Nine Patch Challenge quilt was such a milestone finish. I have the binding prepared, but I have yet to sew it on. The final pic in the top row is of Emma in all her 8.5-months' pregnant state. We attended a shower for her with lots of family and friends in attendance.

MIDDLE ROW: One fine Friday afternoon, Kevin and I got to attend our first 'Grandparents' Day' at Cate's daycare/school. Afterwards, we had a good time walking her home with lots of 'flying' and 'swinging' along the way. Mid-month sometime, we hosted the daughters and their families for Sunday dinner. You see that I've engaged Cate's help with washing the potatoes. (She liked playing in the water.) Another family pic, this one of my mom holding little Ruby Jean, at the time, her youngest great-grandchild. Mom's name is Jean, so this little one is a namesake.

BOTTOM ROW: Towards the end of the month, I was finally set up well enough to quilt in the big sewing room where all sewing and quilting will now be housed. That earlier quilt was the last to be quilted in the previous room; the two Kaffe quilts shown in the middle picture are the first to be quilted in this room. And the month ended with the best news of all - the birth of Reagan Jayne, Emma's little one, and our second grandchild. She was a week overdue, so we were all on pins and needles with anticipation. 

October will see me continuing with purging and sorting through several more tubs and boxes of miscellaneous sewing items. Much of what my grandmother gave me is going to be offered to some cousins who are also into various facet of stitching, so I will gladly unload her things to them if they are interested. 

I should have included my impromptu project with Chelsea Garden fabric in yesterday's post. It is definitely one that I want to get back to in the coming few days. It's nothing more than a 9-patch quilt, but these fabrics along with that neutral (it's not from the Chelsea Garden line) looks spectacular.

This picture does not do justice to the actual quilt, but the neutral squares in the pieced blocks really create a nice chain across the quilt, which is the look I want. More to follow on this, for sure.

Okay, I am determined to be more diligent with my blog-posting in October. I've really gotten away from my computer and the blog, and I really do not want to let that trend continue. I must make an effort!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Hello May!

Speeding through 2024, we have arrived already in May! Wheee! Such a lot of fun awaits us as the weather continues to improve and outdoor activities take center stage.

I’ve compiled my collage of April highlights - on time for a change. As I review all my activities of the past month, I realize that my focus was all about reconnecting with family and friends. We returned from Florida on March 31, so April became a time for catching up!

TOP ROW: Early April gave us some mighty blue and sunny skies. The trees hadn't yet begun to leaf out. The first thing we planned was a dinner with our girls and my mom; Great-Grandma Jeannie read to a very entertained Cate. On the 8th, I was at a quilt retreat and we were in awe of the eclipse! Here, two quilters - Helen and Sharon - gaze up at the sky as the eclipse was just underway.

MIDDLE ROW: More fun with friends - The Frienzies met for lunch, crafts and games at Pam's house. Near the end of the month, all my siblings and our mother were together for a family member's celebration of life. Minimal sewing occurred in April, but I did get one entire quilt top finished - begun at retreat; finished here at home - Paris Flea Market Find.

BOTTOM ROW: The only other quilting of note was beginning Tag Sale with my little collection of (mostly) Bonnie and Camille fabrics. We got to have a whole weekend of Cate when she was here this past Friday through Sunday. What fun she had with her Pappaw! Last, on the final day of April, I finished the little wrap-dress. You'll be hearing more about it tomorrow. *wink*

I have plans for May, but have not itemized or prioritized them, so I suppose I will be firming all that up in the next few days. 

This afternoon, I will be re-introducing myself to the long arm machine!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

December Roundup

A couple of factors have played into my tardiness in getting this blog going in the new year. 

One, DH's computer is on the fritz, so he's using mine. 

Two, I had that sinus infection that kept be pretty well out of commission.

Things might just be turning around here, at last, so I am going to proceed with an attempt to catch up on old business items - first among them, the December collage.

It is always fun to look back at the month just past to see how much (or how little) I've packed into it. For December, what felt like a very slow month, we ended up having more to share than I expected.

Top Row: The first day of the month gave us our first snow of the year, and it was gorgeous! It was a very heavy, wet snow, and it stuck to the branches beautifully. I continued cranking out the churn dash blocks as I prepared for the eventual block exchange with the Frankfort Girls on the 18th. And secret Christmas sewing was ongoing; I made several zipper bags for girlfriends.

Middle Row: We downsized our Christmas tree and as well as all the decorating, after we cancelled the big gathering with my extended family. On the 19th we had our girls here along with my mother, for a small, intimate celebration. I attempted to quilt some quilts for gifts, but the long-arm was uncooperative; I had two issues: timing (which is fixed thanks to Terry's DH, Mark.) The second issue is as yet unfixed - speed control. It has one speed -  supersonic! (Hoping to fix that on Saturday.) I love my stack of red and white quilts - still displayed on the shelf. *smile*

Bottom Row: Additional secret sewing included this festive pillow. One not-so-welcome dilemma that December brought us was this sink-hole in our driveway. We are filling it with gravel and rocks; before January is out, we will be replacing the entire culvert - $$$ - yikes! The collage ends with a picture of my sweetie and me - celebrating on New Year's Eve, in our grubby, old everyday duds and all by ourselves. No party this year, doggone it. We brought out a 1000-piece puzzle (shown in an earlier post), ate pizza and watched old movies. Very low-key, just like nearly everything this past year.

I would normally be posting goals for the new month, but since it is also a whole new year I am working up a bigger list; that will soon be coming.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome August!

Gee whiz, is it August already? Isn't it a rather harsh realization that months fly by as fast as they do? When I began July, we were in Montana preparing to leave my cousin's beautiful mountain cabin and turn our sights on heading home. And BOOM! Just like that, the month is gone.

My collage for July reminds me that time with family and friends has been happening all too infrequently in these coronavirus times. Only two pictures show people: one was the 2nd annual Honnold Fest held here at our house for DH's side of the family. With only 15 in attendance, social distancing was easy enough to maintain (if we wanted to; there was hugging!) The other people picture shows two of the Frankfort Girls who were my guests yesterday morning for coffee and stitching at the kitchen table. Terry and Sheryll are enjoying a good laugh about something in that last frame.

The quilt pictures in my collage represent the work I accomplished in July. The Periwinkle blocks were hand stitched while in the car on our western vacation. The pile of blocks shown in the top right corner are all my BH3 blocks, which I am happy to have restarted. The red and white sampler got its borders attached a couple of days ago, and will be the subject of a post later this week. The Summer Breeze quilt was a product of some stash fabric I'd had here for a few years, and a yearning to have a quilt that brings to mind the blue skies and leafy trees surrounding us. The inspiration picture is in the middle on the right.

Center spot is taken by a vase of hydrangeas I harvested from our bushes in the yard. I try every year to dry them without success, but I will try again this year to see how it goes.

So, what is the plan for August?

1. Continue working on Blockheads.

2. Get cracking on the long arm!

3. Begin planning for fall semester; I found out yesterday afternoon that instead of being face-to-face, I will be distance teaching - the consternation about my preparedness is already churning.

4. We will have a major kitchen remodel beginning at the end of the month; with school beginning and the remodel going on, sewing might be very much on the back burner.

Hope you have an awesome August! Let's make it great!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Goodbye March

What a strange month this has been. And from the looks of things, the strangeness will be continuing into April.

I always create a 9-picture collage of highlights as I close out each month. I knew I wanted that image of the coronavirus in the center of this month's collage. So I found the picture above in an internet search, and proceeded with my collage.

I thought about just stopping here. Ha! It seems as though everyone, everything is consumed by this little germ, so that is THE highlight of the month, right?

But we had life before "shelter in place" and life continues now while we "shelter in place." This, then is my actual March 2020 collage.

I left "the germ" in the center of my collage, as it divided the month pretty much in half - prior to halting everything, and "lockdown" mode.

Before corona (BC?), we were training for the Columbus Cap City Half Marathon - well, my husband was. I was training for the 5K walk/run. We had some great spring days out on the bike trail.  The Cap City has been postponed until late August, so training has been slowed. Our grand-cat Rocky came to stay for a week while daughter and son-in-law were at Disney. I did some fabric shopping in Columbus with dear friends Dee and Sharon, and the Frienzies had a wonderful dinner get-together at Hettie's.

Then, Covid-19. Oh, my, did things change.

My one-week spring break was stretched to a two-week spring break. Then we were given the news that the entire remainder of the semester would be done through remote means: no more face-to-face classes! I endured a week or so in panic mode (as did many students, I'm sure), but have finally arrived at a comfortable alternate.

My collage shows a picture of my longarm room, which I finally decorated. (I did not quilt the 4 quilts draped over the bar, however. Bummer.) The bottom row shows the only true finish of the month, my Peachy Surprise, made simply because I found a stack of random 4-patch blocks. The Ohio Star illustrates a tutorial I put together for a reader, and the final picture is of some protective masks I made to donate to local facilities.

I am not beating myself up too harshly for failing to quilt those quilts. Covid-19 forced me to spend way more time on schoolwork than I normally would have. I fully expect that I will far surpass my 2-quilt goal in the coming months, so it will all even out.

I also have worked pretty exclusively on sew-along projects which don't lend themselves to finishes. I am thinking that I will start something in April that will also be finished in April.

Yeah, I need some finishes.

One nice thing about all this staying home - DH and I commented the other evening that it hasn't been so bad. We are lucky in that we don't need much; we aren't lacking for activities; we have our hobbies and phones and internet and television and books. We are doing okay.

I hope you are, too.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Look Back At 2019

On Tuesday, the last day of 2019, I spent a good bit of time looking back through pictures on my phone - particularly those taken in '19. It is gratifying to see that the year was good in terms of my sewing and quilting, as well as in terms of our projects around the house.

In an effort to "sum up" in the briefest way, I made three collages: one of big quilts completed; one of smaller projects completed; and one of home projects completed.

In the big quilt category, I selected these 9 photos, although that 8th picture contains two quilts. Two of the quilts in this collage were made start to finish - including quilting and binding! - in this calendar year. Now that is a big deal for this old gal, let me tell you. Moda Love, in the middle of the top row, and Blue Lagoon, the first quilt in the middle row, were the two done entirely this year. I gave Moda Love to my mom for Christmas, and Blue Lagoon was a wedding gift to my nephew and his new bride back in September.

The middle pictures of both the middle row and the bottom row represent UFOs that I finished. Having completed a whopping 12 UFOs in 2018, I began '19 completely burnt out on them. Getting these three done in '19 leaves me energized enough to consider doing two in this new year.

Not all smaller projects were quilts, as you can see from the collage above. I included the Harry Potter robes that I made for my nieces, as well as pillows and pillow cases.

In the home projects collage, I run the gamut - curtains for our porch, a bedspread made of ticking, painting the faux windows on the garage door, reupholstering an old chair, power washing a weather-worn porch swing, painting a kitchen table and six chairs, and turning an extra bedroom into a long-arm quilting room. Two pics in the collage - the applique work for the Lake Effect quilt and the cross body bag - are not certainly not home projects, but I needed a place to include them in my '19 summing up.

I would love to do a collage for the entire last decade, but gosh, pulling together all those photos would be a job and a half! I don't know whether it would be worth the time or not. I could just scroll through all the finishes in the year-by-year "Pages" list. A whole decade and a bit extra are archived there.

New Year's Day was a pleasant one for DH and I. We partied pretty late to ring in the New Year, so we were slow to get moving, but by early afternoon we found the energy to get out on the bike trail for a 2.5 mile walk/jog. It was a gorgeous day, in the mid-40s, sunny with a light breeze. Perfect for blowing out the cobwebs of a late-night celebration. *grin*

Today, I am spending quality time with the Frankfort Girls - from 9-11:30, quilting at Terry's; then we are being treated to a surprise! Terry has something planned for the afternoon. I will report back with full details. *wink*

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello October!

Another new month! Welcome, October!

 

September is done and gone - the months continue to just fly by. I try to make every day count - accomplish something worthwhile each day - I don't want to get to the end of my day and wonder what I did all day long. So let's take a look at the noteworthy accomplishments and activities of the last month.

My collage contains two quilts in the top row, both of which I quilted on my friend Terry's machine. What great practice this was for me! The OSU t-shirt quilt is a donation to my DH's college fraternity, and the blue/white quilt was a wedding gift to Will and Kristi (see center photo of collage). The other top-row picture is of our moving of the garden shed from one side of the backyard to the other with the help of our Mennonite neighbors, Daniel and Harlan.

The middle row of the collage features the one book I spent most of the month with. I had an audiobook of Circe checked out of the library and LOVED it so much that I renewed it and listened to it all the way through a second time. I have never listened to a book twice, so that tells you how enamored I am over it. I will refrain from saying any more until after our book club meets to discuss it. Then there's our newlyweds at the reception. What a fun day it was celebrating them. The last picture in the middle row is of a new quilt I started called Diagonal Madness using Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The bottom row shows the pumpkin tablecloth I am making. I had hoped to have it complete by the end of September, but I still have a bit yet to do - stitching around each pumpkin and making a backing for it. The middle picture represents my homage to National Sew a Jelly Roll day. I made up a block using two partial jelly rolls of a French General fabric line called La Vie en Rouge. I have made good progress on it. The final pic shows my DH painting the room which will soon house my long arm machine. It has been in the basement - unused - for two years, so it was time for a change.

And about that goal of moving the longarm upstairs by the end of September??? Did I achieve my goal?

Yes, it is moved upstairs. By about 8pm yesterday, we finished lugging all the parts up two flights of stairs. Whew! Since I didn't specify that I wanted it assembled upstairs, I guess I can claim success on the goal. *ha!*

As I begin this new month, I have a house in total havoc. The moving of a bedroom suite out of one bedroom, and a longarm machine into that space has resulted in our having furniture and "stuff" everywhere.

This is what my front room looks like. A dresser, nightstand, headboard, footboard, rungs, mirror, and drawers are spread out all over the place, awaiting delivery to my sister's later this week.

The upstairs hallway is equally cluttered. The other bedroom suite dresser is piled up with miscellaneous items; there's a tall cupboard that will be returning to the bedroom; at the far end, an old sewing table will also be returned to the room. Currently, I have to sidle in to my sewing room through that narrow gap. Besides all of the stuff in these two pictures, in our bedroom we have the actual sewing parts of the longarm. *chaos!*

Hopefully, some normalcy will return to these parts, soon. Of course, I will share all here!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello August!

Here we are - August! Oh my, what kind of mischief can I find this month? *wink*

As promised in the last post, I have compiled my July collage. For some reason, I have felt that I've not been sewing and quilting as much as I'd like, but while I have only one finish for the month, I did quite a bit of handwork which is naturally slower. 

So what have we here? Top row: Early in the month, we took a 3-day trip to Gibbs Garden in Ball Ground, GA. While on that car trip, I began working on the Lake Effect center panel; and for two weeks, we cat-sat for Rocky, our daughter's cat.

Middle row: We spent all of a Monday power washing the back of our house which had gotten extremely discolored since we last did the job. Yes, I did take my turn on that ladder, and yes, I was sufficiently exhausted by day's end. In the middle, My sister Sandy and I, after having spent a day shopping together, something we rarely do. And something I hope we find time to repeat. A niece and nephew (Evelyn and Eli) came with their parents for a family get-together and they enjoyed riding DH's Can-Am Spyder with their dad.

Bottom row: My one - ONE! - finish for the month was the ticking bedspread for one of our extra bedrooms. I added pillows to complete the look. The UFO called Six Degrees got derailed by a fabric shortage, but it is very close, and I am actively searching out a FQ for a quick finish. Finally, my niece Abby came to help me make a slipcover for an old and very dirty chair. She has plans to do her sofa and wanted a practice round before tackling that big project. Her mom (Sandy) came, too, to 'supervise.'

Now, I wonder what August will bring? School starts back up for me on the 26th; between now and then I hope I can make some headway on some beauties from the massive stash.

First, I will definitely continue working on Lake Effect. I have found renewed energy for this project since discovering the ease of back-basting applique. This is a HUGE discovery for my progress on Lake Effect.

I have wanted to make a Kaffe Fassett quilt and a red and white quilt. I am confident I could pick easy patterns and do both, so we shall see.

I have several quilt tops that I need to quilt, and that leads me to thinking about my long arm. It has been down for a few months, and I really have to force myself to get it going so that I can tic some necessary items off my list - 3 t-shirt quilts (commissions), one baby quilt, and one wedding quilt. These are absolutely must-do items.

Lots of words today, and few pictures. Hopefully I can remedy that tomorrow!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

End of March Round-Up

Dang! Where in the world did this month go?! We bemoaned the length of our short month (February) and now here we had 31 days in March and they have flown right by. I'm not sure I understand how that can happen. *scratching my head*

Last night I took to my sewing room to listen to an audio book - Louise Penny's A Fatal Grace - and begin a new embroidery project. For ages, I mean like 15 years or more, I have had a plain white denim jacket that I always believed would look way better with embroidered embellishment.

I have started by using the red pearl cotton floss I bought in Key West, and I (so far) am totally making this up as I go. I have no plan in mind, nor any pattern to reference. I have looked at pictures on Pinterest and Instagram for inspiration. I will be winging it all the way. I hope that as I get more comfortable with some of my stitches, I will be more experimental - maybe even fancy - with my designs and colors. I figure this will be a long-term project, but would be able to wear it even if I decide I still want to add more to it later.

Truly, I am going to have fun with this project. It is a perfectly wearable jacket that has been hanging in the closet all these years! So what's to lose? I wasn't wearing it, and with the fun embroidery on it, I think I will want to wear it. That's the plan, anyway.

Thus far, I have outlined the collar and the pocket flaps. Two little flowers are on each corner of the collar. What next? Change colors? Try out some different stitches? I will keep you updated as I progress.

So let's look at the March collage. This is the first one I can recall making that doesn't have a single person pictured. I hope that is not significant of anything, but it does seem odd that I'm featuring places and projects in this collage.

Top Row: My little poison green and navy churn dash table topper, the poison green checkerboard, and margaritas on our first night in Key West; Middle Row: the pool/deck area of our KW hotel, crocuses in our yard; March blocks for the Quilter's Planner quiltalong; Bottom Row: my finished embroidery project which was a birthday gift from dear friend Sharon, daffodils in our woods, and a totally improv embroidery project, the white denim jacket.

I am linking up with Kathy's Quilts and her Slow Sunday Stitching. I tell you, I love slow stitching with an audiobook playing; it makes me feel doubly productive! My usual slow stitching is that Lake Effect EPP, but I have favored working on these embroidery projects lately. I promise I am NOT forgetting about Lake Effect! *grin*

Have a great week everyone!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome November!

We really are marching right on through 2017, aren't we? Incredible to think that it's November already. Wow.

No doubt I have mentioned before how I love the Peanuts gang. The cartoons were a staple of my growing up. Books, comic strips and television specials - my siblings and I devoured all things Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

With the relief of having the October UFO finished, I treated myself to some scrappy stars this morning. The parts for 6 stars have been cut and stacked near my machine for over two weeks--they were my reward for when my UFO was done. Finally! I could work on something else! I see that I was in a bit of a rush and a few intersections are somewhat off. I may do some "unsewing" later on and redo them properly.

Here are my six newly made stars. It looks like I was digging in the red and blue remnant tub, doesn't it? I hadn't realized how similar my color choices were until seeing them lined up like this. Added with the previously made stars, though, the colors do become distributed a bit more. Below are the 24 Scrappy Stars made to date.

I generally do a quick look-back at the accomplishments of the month just ended. I can't brag on too many this month, that's for sure! Having over two weeks of respiratory infections really slows a gal's ability to do much of anything! I missed birthdays (Mom's, hubby's, twins', and friend's), card club, quilting, History Day, and class. Our son-in-law was very ill during the time we were sick, even hospitalized for five days, and we couldn't get to Columbus to see him because we were contagious. What a month! (S-I-L is fine now, thank you.) When I finally did bounce back, I found that I needed to spend more time on my two classes than I normally do, therefore sewing time was at a premium, to say the least.

My collage for October includes a few stars made prior to getting sick; a fun night with Frienzies; fabric bought on a shopping trip to West Virginia; cool weather which prompted using the fireplace; a lunch date with daughter Emma; spools of thread from Grandma's sewing kit; a gorgeous fall sunset; the American Jane Jolly Bar I won on Instagram; and the October UFO.

Now about that UFO. It was a quilt-along I joined in 2014 called Tell It To The Stars. I stopped late in the year when I realized that the borders were extremely involved and - gah! - pieced! In working toward a finish this month, I decided to make two skinny inner borders into a single thick border. The mottled navy that you see is the result. 

Another change is that lighter narrow border outside the pieced section. It was supposed to be of the same background fabric that I'd been using throughout, but I had used it all! I needed to substitute. More than likely, I could have tried a bit harder to find a better match, but you know what? I just didn't really care, so I found a suitable neutral in the stash - I refused to obsess about finding just the right shade of neutral. It's no big deal.

A final difference is the addition of corner blocks in the outermost borders. I might try putting together a brief tutorial on how I did those last two borders and the corner blocks. You can't see that corner in the photo above, but it does show in a picture from yesterday's post. And get this - with all this time and a few changes, the size came out almost perfectly to the measurements given on the instructions - 91" x 79". Now how about that?

So there's my month, in a nutshell. I don't have any really firm plans for November. I will find out which UFO is up next when we Frankfort Girls meet on Friday morning. I have some other WIPs (works in progress) that will likely be tended to. And do I dare consider starting something new?? Oh, how I would love to!! 

I hope your November is productive!

I have linked up with Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts. Click on over there to have a look around!

Happy Quilting, Friends!