November Goals and October Highlights

The highlights for October were very much non-quilting-related. Gosh, the whole month seemed to get away from me, and making time for quilting was pretty hard to come by. Let's get into it and see what I came up with.

Top row: I set up my little spot at Greenfield's History Day and took some stitches on the same quilt I stitched last year. It's called Fall Foliage from a Lynette Jensen/ Thimbleberries book called September Morning. Mine doesn't look very fall-ish because I used navy where she had green. Next is a close-up of my big-stitching on the Roman Holiday table topper that I have worked on periodically all month long. Next you see my twin nieces modeling their Aunt Jayne-made Harry Potter robes for Halloween costumes.

Middle row: My blocks are made from the French General/Moda jelly roll quilt I began in September. I have 42 blocks and now need to construct the quilt top. Center spot in the collage is a picture of my aunt and uncle, their daughter (my cousin), and her husband. DH and I had a wonderful meet-up with them for lunch at Lake Hope Lodge. Uncle Bill is my mother's brother. He, Aunt Ann, Ellen and Greg were going on to Marietta for a weekend of sightseeing, while DH and I were on our way to Hocking Hills for a weekend with our family. And that takes me to the next picture of DH sitting at the firepit outside our Hocking Hills cabin.

Bottom row: Our daughters high atop the HH trail called Conkle's Hollow. It was a slightly overcast morning, but still the views were spectacular. Those girls are pretty darn cute, too. The middle picture is of DH and I at a Halloween costume party, looking pretty darn cute ourselves as Fred and Wilma Flintstone. The final picture is from a second Halloween party we attended - billed as 'Spooky Movie Night.' I have my back to the spooky movie because I'm a big chicken, alongside Lindsey, (another big chicken); we chatted and never peeked once! (At least, I didn't!)

And that's a wrap on October. With the really big assignment behind me in my university classes, I am hoping I can be more productive this month. And with that goal in mind, I made a to-do list last evening.

1. Finish the Roman Holiday table topper
2. Construct the jelly roll quilt top
3. Get the long arm machine running and quilt 3-4 very pressing deadline quilts
4. Work on Diagonal Madness (I'd almost forgotten about it!)
5. Construct the Quilter's Planner quilt top (at least begin it)

I also wrote down vague things like "think about Christmas gifts" and "embroider" - who knows how that will pan out.

I still intend to bring you pictures of the long arm room (as I've been referring to it) - getting it set up and decorated. And I am working on it. Over a year ago, I was given an old step ladder from one of my oldest (as in long-time) friends. It was her dad's, and as she was having to clean out her parents' house, I met her there and well, I just knew I could hang a quilt on that ladder.

On one of those gorgeous October afternoons awhile back, I took it out of storage and gave it a thorough scrubbing.

It is going to lean in the empty corner shown in the picture below. I have an idea that I will display all my Sunbonnet Sue quilts; stay tuned for the reveal whenever that will be - hopefully sooner than later.

Have a great rest of the weekend, quilting friends! We here in Ohio will have an extra hour today, as the time change occurs tonight.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Welcome November!

Goodness Gracious! I was an absentee most of the past month and now here we are at November! While my presence here on the blog was rather MIA, I have been trying to keep as busy as possible on quilting-related endeavors. You all know that I moved the long arm machine upstairs out of the basement, and that continues to fill spare time. With the help of DH, I have it successfully leveled. I have a quilt loaded onto it. Yay!

Hold on. Don't celebrate too soon. Skipped stitches. I called my go-to technician, Terry, over at McArthur Quilt Shop. Over the phone he diagnosed a probable issue - the stitches going left and right seem fine, while the stitches going front and back are long. And then, after a time, the machine just stops. He thinks that the contact points on the encoders need to be looked at - something he will do for me in his shop while I wait. I am almost quilting!! It IS gonna' happen!

So I will dismantle the quilt on the frame, take off the sewing machine, and take it to McArthur next week - Thursday after class, most likely. My week is full-up and getting fuller!

In other news, I have made a good bit of progress on the Roman Holiday table topper that I have been big-stitch quilting. Click here to see it. And while doing that, I have listened to another book about the Kentucky pack horse librarians.

I feel quite well informed now on the topic. While both books (previous one) deal with the librarians, the main characters come from very different circumstances. This Moyes book is the less gritty of the two, and has somewhat of a happily-ever-after ending. I believe I have heard that this is being made into a movie, and a quick check of IMDb leads me to believe that a movie is a ways off - no cast listed, and sparse details beyond director.

We have had quite the week of weather here in southern Ohio. Monday and Tuesday were sunny and warm - pleasant enough to wear shirtsleeves. The picture above was taken Monday morning, and later that day we took care of clearing out all the flower pots and storing yard items in the shed. Wednesday and Thursday were rain- rain-rainy. Torrential, at times, but still relatively warm. Yesterday, after the rain stopped, the wind picked up and temperatures plummeted. Last night we had our first hard freeze, and today very definitely had a wintry feel to it. While sunny, the temps never got out of the 40s.

Tomorrow I will post my October highlights collage and maybe some more on the long arm room decorating.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Costume-Making

Rarely have I spent so much of my sewing time working on Halloween costumes as I have this month. Typically, Halloween celebrating is pretty low on my to-do list. It's just never been a "thing" for me. Decorating the house, lawn ornaments, involved costumes - not my jam. Ever.

However we had an invitation to some friends' for a costume party on Friday night. These are fun people, and so are the other guests we know who would be there. I searched Pinterest for easy "couples" costumes. The easiest one I could find was Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Boom! Voila!

I needed something easy and fast because I didn't even begin looking for ideas until I had less than a week to work with. (Procrastinator!) The Flintstones were cavemen characters, so I knew I could cobble this whole look together with as limited real sewing as possible - I didn't have to hem anything. Raw edges everywhere. It didn't matter if it looked crappy - a cavewoman made it! Hah!

If I had been more timely in my planning, I would have figured out some wig options, since Wilma was a redhead. I found a couple online that would have worked, but time was too limited by the time I began shopping.

Now, you may recall earlier in the month, I was called on by my sweet little nieces to make Harry Potter robes for them to wear to their school Halloween party. These did require a bit more attention to detail, and I was so pleased with the results. The twins were, too. *smile*

Here are some pictures that my brother sent of the girls in their robes. I love how they loved them.

Great little Gryffindors and Ravenclaws don't you think? The girls have enjoyed reading the Harry Potter books, so this was a perfect option for them this Halloween. Yay for reading!

I hope you all have a fun Halloween week. Our celebrating is pretty much over, and that's okay with me. No trick-or-treaters will find their way to our door as we are too remote. I now look forward to Thanksgiving.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Christmas Prepping

 In an effort to finish off some works in progress (WIPs) that are cluttering up my sewing room, I picked up a small project that will take just a bit of time and focus to be complete. And the bonus?? It's a small Christmas quilt, so I will have a pretty piece to add to my holiday décor as a wall hanging or table topper.

I am fuzzy on all the particulars surrounding the creation of this little quilt, but what I do recall is that I had dug into my tub of Roman Holiday/3 Sisters fabric remnants and found that I had the makings of these HSTs. I pieced them until I ran out, then used other remnants for a pieced border.

Above is an old (and poorly lit) picture of the quilt parts on the design wall. This shows the pieced border and corner blocks. This old post tells me that this little quilt had its start way back in December of '17. I wouldn't have guessed it was that far back, honestly. Just goes to show that time has a way of getting away from us. Hmm...

I have tried to be diligent and do at least some stitching every day for most of the past week - just 15 or 20 minutes - and at this rate I feel confident that I can claim this as a finish in short order. With the 'big-stitch' technique and the simple Baptist fan design, the stitching goes pretty fast.

Making the stitching even more enjoyable is the new book I have queued up on Audible - The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson. I have been hearing quite a bit about this book lately, and at just chapter 5 or 6, I am quite enthralled by the tale.

(from Google search)

Big doings in the long arm room tomorrow! We have an electrician coming to install a new ceiling light and fan! I will definitely bring updates on that as they become available!

Hope you are having a great week!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Well! THAT'S finally done!

Gah!! The first big assignment of the semester is the biggest one of the entire semester, and at last, I have finished grading it!

That big whooping noise you might have heard yesterday just after 6pm likely was me beginning my celebration.

I purposely build my classes to get this intimidating assignment out of the was first - both for my students and myself. From here on out, grading will be a cakewalk compared to this one.

Because of the school work, I have very little to share on the blog today. I did spend Saturday sewing here with Sharon, and I have all my jelly roll blocks finished as a result of that. We laid them out on the bed to see the final effect. Click here for when I began the JR quilt.

This picture looks busy at first glance because I have a star quilt on the bed with a large patchwork pillow. I placed my red and white jelly roll blocks right on top -- and of course, Gracie had to get involved.

At this point, I'd made 20 red blocks with white chains and 20 white blocks with red chains for a total of 40 blocks. Where Gracie is standing is a perfect spot for two more blocks, one of each, so I have now made those for a current grand total of 42 blocks. The quilt will be 6 blocks wide and 7 blocks long.

I have made a change -- correcting those 4 blocks in which I'd put the 4-patch part in the center. (click here for the pictorial of that) I was thinking it wouldn't make any difference, but as I laid out the blocks, it did interfere with the (very) subtle secondary pattern that emerges. Unsewing and making them right didn't take too much time, and I'm glad I did it.

By the final few blocks, I was running out of the original partial jelly rolls of La Vie en Rouge by French General/Moda. If you know French General, you know that all their lines play so very well together, so I dug into my FG remnant tub for suitable additions. That tub is quite full, and I could end up making more blocks, but then my quilt would not qualify as a "jelly roll" quilt. I think I will stop here, ending up with a nice-sized lap quilt - a true jelly roll quilt, in other words.

I tell you, the weirdest thing - when both Sharon and I looked at this quilt we could not see those diagonal lines at all. The blocks just looked like a big mess. But through the camera, the diagonals were so pronounced. Isn't that strange? How can a camera view change a quilt so much from a direct eye-view?

I am glad to be back in action here on the blog. Hopefully the rest of the semester will be easier to manage.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Moving Right Along...Slowly

I knew when I agreed to take on the third class at OUC that this fall would begin to feel very hectic. I have been feeling it for about a week, and as a result the long arm room activities have stalled.

The last pictures I shared were from very early in the month, and the long arm was in pieces spread across the floor waiting to be rebuilt. We have done that, and the stall now is the leveling of the table so that the machine stays where I leave it instead of strolling/rolling/listing off to the back or the side. We stopped in to a quilt shop in McArthur last week to pick the brain of a man who sells and operates Tin Lizzies, and he gave us some very good information which we have yet to try. I have every confidence that we will be up and going soon.

The McArthur Quilt Shop has been incredibly helpful in answering my questions about this machine. If I end up needing it, he will even make a house call to fix the problem.

My pictures here are showing a very bare room. I still need to iron and rehang the curtains along with reattaching the curtain hardware. All the outlet covers, vent cover, and switch covers have been reaffixed, although these pictures were taken prior to the fact. I have been giving some thought to what I will use to decorate the walls in this room. Since the long arm takes up so much of the space, there will be very little other furniture in the room, so wall art will be a must.

So besides my three composition classes, what all has been going on around here? Let's recap a few highlights.

Friday was my mother's birthday, and several available family members gathered at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Hillsboro for a fun dinner celebration.

Saturday was DH's birthday, but we both planned to be involved in History Day activities. To celebrate him, we spent Friday on a long Spyder ride to McArthur and Hocking Hills.( That was before going to Hillsboro for dinner.)

History Day was lots of fun and not too much work, as I was quilting, at least. I love talking to folks who stop by; I catch up with people I've not seen in awhile, and I get to hear many reminiscences of quilts and grandmas, and the like.

On Saturday evening friends invited us over for a bonfire/wiener roast.

Sunday saw us busy with sewing Harry Potter robes for my twin nieces - now nearly 12 years old. I will share pictures of that fun in an upcoming post. While the girls and I were busy in the sewing room, their dad (my brother Mark) and DH took a load of bedroom furniture to my sister's in Hillsboro. Finally, my front room is back to normal!

Then Tuesday night, I hosted my card club ladies. I love having them come here, and it had been awhile! They'd not seen our newly painted kitchen table and chairs, nor several other of the home improvements we have made here in the last 6 months or so.

With all this craziness, I am not getting much quilting done. However, I do have Frankfort girls
at Jan's on Friday morning, and Sharon P. is coming for a sewing day on Saturday. Yay! Hopefully, I will have all my essays graded and will be able to enjoy guilt-free quilting.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

History Day

Since 2010, I have volunteered to demonstrate hand quilting for the Greenfield Historical Society's  annual History Day festivities. The big day is always the first Saturday in October, so guess where I will be tomorrow? I've only missed one since 2010, and that was due to strep throat.

I thought it'd be fun to take a look back at the quilts I have worked on for each of those previous History Days. The pink and brown quilt shown below was my project for both 2010 and 2011 - I hardly quilted on it at all in the year between one and the next, but I can say that it is now finished.

In 2012, I worked on Long Road Home. I loved quilting this quilt. Maybe because I love the quilt! It was fun to piece, and it was fun to quilt. I have shared it often here on the blog and on Instagram, and it always gets a lot of praise, which is appreciated because this was a lot of work!

And to prove it, I was still plugging away on Long Road Home the next year, 2013, and it hadn't been ignored like the previous quilt had. I worked on this a long, long time.

And, I'm almost embarrassed to show you the 2014 quilt - yes, it was still Long Road Home. It was a really, really long road, I guess! In my defense, I don't spend a lot of time throughout the year doing hand quilting.(Stating the obvious, duh!) I have a fun '14 picture of sisters who sat down to try their hand at quilting for a bit. Look at how they are concentrating!

In 2015, I worked on this star quilt. I hand pieced all of the star blocks and then hand pieced the top. So I decided that hand quilting was essential. Interestingly, the finished Long Road Home is draped over the chair in the background.

In 2016, I worked on two quilts - one in the big frame and one in a lap frame. I am glad I took two options. The marking tool I used on the big quilt smeared so terribly that I stopped almost immediately. I still have not finished it; I am in a quandary as to removing the graphite markings. Currently it is folded in the closet of my sewing room. The little quilt in the lap frame is finished.

History Day 2017 is the one I missed due to illness. As I have read back through the archived posts, I see that I called it upper respiratory infection, and not strep throat. I was pretty sick, either way.

For History Day 2018, I worked on a simple Thimbleberries quilt - I forget the name - and it will also be the quilt I work on tomorrow. I have done zero stitching on this quilt in this entire year. I am actually looking forward to getting back to it.

If you happen to find yourself near Greenfield, OH, tomorrow or are looking for a fun outing for a fall day, come on over for a visit! The Historical Society owns several buildings, and all will feature displays and activities. Good food will be available, too! Freshly roasted pork for sandwiches are featured every year. MMM-good!

Happy Quilting, Friends!