Almost done.......

The king size quilt for the trundle bed in the guest room is almost done. Some people call this a spider web quilt but I need another name for it as I have a spider phobia, don't even like typing the word.  I took my pieced quilt top to a long arm quilter, Stitched on Second, and picked it up this week. This photo shows it laid on the floor in the foyer while I trimmed it up. This was not easy.  I have since learned that Stitched on Second will do the trimming so next time I do a big quilt I'll pay them to do this. Smaller quilts I can easily do.  I now have the binding (the charcoal gray background fabric) sewn on the front, turned to the back and clipped. It will take me several evenings to hand sew the binding to the back.  I have very little leftover fabric but I think I can eek out some pillowcases using one or more of the prints as the borders on white on white fabric as the body of the placemats.  I have some bolsters that sit on the bed against the wall that will definitely need recovering but will have to find a suitable fabric for those (dreading that sewing chore).  So good to almost have this big project done. I'd like to make another king size quilt for our bed but that will have to wait........maybe next year........
 

Quilts.........

Recently I worked on some sewing/quilting projects.  The wallhanging above was from a kit a friend gave me. It's got many small pieces in the center, applied wool flowers, it's 15" x 18". I machine quilted it, some stitch in the ditch, free motion around the flowers, diamond window pane in the borders. I am not a quilter - this size is around my limit.  I'm interested in exploring tiny quilting so this has gotten me started. For tiny quilting I'm planning much smaller than this. Adding it to my very long to-do list.

I finished the 4 placemats I had started a couple months ago - I just did simple quilting on them. I had enough of some fabrics to make some serged napkins. 

 This turkey wall hanging was made from a quilt kit gifted from another friend. It's fused applique with crazy free motion quilting. As I said the quilting part is not my thing but I manage. I put a hanging sleeve on the back but it may end up being a table centerpiece around Thanksgiving - undecided as of yet. 

Also on the quilting front I took my king size spider web quilt to Stitched on Second for long arm quilting - it should be ready in a few weeks. 

I'm finally getting back to the loom. I wound a towel warp on the back beam the other day, threaded heddles and sleyed the reed yesterday.  But have other things on the calendar the next few days so will get back to it soon. 

 

spider webs........

 Earlier this week I finally finished piecing the spider web quilt. It's hanging over a table in this photo. I started this right after the holidays. Very slow piecing with all those fabrics and widths.  Yesterday I ordered some fabric for the backing - I was limited in my choices since I needed 118" wide to avoid piecing. I really don't like dealing with huge amounts of fabric at the sewing machine - putting this one together was a bear as it's king size. I'm hoping where all those 'slices of pie' come together in the center of the spider webs it's not too thick for the long arm quilter. 

Even though I have a need for another king size quilt that may wait until next year - smaller quilting projects as well as weaving and other crafts are on the agenda for the rest of this year. Yesterday I was working on a turkey wall hanging/table centerpiece quilt. A friend gave me the kit for Christmas. I've got the turkey all pieced, actually pieces cut out of numerous batiks and fused. Will post a picture after I sew the two borders on. I'll quilt this myself since it's small.  I've also got 4 placemats all sandwiched and ready to quilt which I'll also quilt myself. 

Our weather has finally turned to spring - we are out of the freezing temps at least for now. I've got apple and plum trees flowering so sure hope there's no hard freeze. I haven't planted any of the early veggie seeds yet - maybe this week.  I'm afraid what's going to happen is that we'll go straight from winter to summer in a week. 

A little bit......

....a little bit of sewing happening here but not much. Did did come up with borders for 2 sides of the sample blocks to make them placemat size. They will have dark purple binding, it's already sewn, ironed and ready to go.  I now have 4 placemat tops set aside to quilt later on.  I've figured out my fabrics for the second part of the quilt workshop but now I'm questioning myself on what goes where.  For the immediate I'm back to making blocks for the teal quilt top for our guestroom bed.......I'm sure that will be set aside again soon to work on other projects. 

Snow off and on here the past couple of weeks, has been some on the valley floors but mostly a bit higher in elevation, enough to mess up driving on the passes to the north and south of our valley, and then many feet higher in the mountains, that is great thinking ahead to fire season. 
 

Paper piecing......

 Last month I signed up for a 3 day paper piecing quilt class at Stitched on Second in Gold Hill. Friday was day 1 which was to learn the technique. Here is my block from that day, it's made up of 4 smaller blocks. The pattern is out of a Carol Doak book, the instructor provided it. It's fittingly called 'Cindi's Block'.  It was suggested that we should make 4 more big blocks and use them as the center of a baby quilt. I have no use for a baby quilt and I don't have a use for a wall hanging in these colors (I was working from bits of stash fabrics). I have decided to use them to make a set of placemats - I will add borders to 2 sides so I end up with a rectangle. They will be bright and cheery to use on the deck table once it's eating out weather. 

I'd love to be working on this over the weekend but the weather is nice and we need to get the plum and apple trees pruned - 2 plum trees done yesterday, will do the apple trees today. Did grapes last month. Roses still to come sometime in March. And it's getting time to think about the garden. There has been lettuce, spinach and chard growing under ground cover all winter.  It's amazing how much we have growing on a city lot - more than we ever had when we were on acreage. 

Day 2 & 3 of the workshop come in a couple weeks. We have homework to do - buy our fabrics, cut out paper patterns. I already bought my fabrics but need to decide what will go where.  The pattern we'll be doing for those 2 days is called Arizona Cactus - more complicated and includes curves.  

This month was a bad one for me to sign up for a class but I'm so glad I did - I love learning new!  I'm really enjoying the paper piecing. Of course I 'had' to buy a lightpad from the quilt shop halfway thru the day.  I have a tiny lightbox that I bought for who knows what over 25 years ago but it can't compare to a lightpad that has cutting mats that fit on top and it's big too. And I even got a carrying bag. Added benefit of being so flat to store, it won't take up much space. Every new technique comes with a new set of tools that must be added to the cupboard!  

Yet another........

 Yet another throw size quilt top finished. Hard to see but it has a 5" white border, it will get a navy binding after quilting.  Next up in the queue is baseball theme with light tan background and medium brown accents. 

On the high seas.......

Another throw size quilt top ready for the long arm quilter. This one is all sea themed fabric. it's hard to see but there's a 5 1/2" white on white border around the outside.  Once quilted the binding will be red.  Now on to the next one.......another sea themed but will have navy as the accent. 

 

 Here is the first quilted throw top finished, it's ready for the long arm quilter but I think I'll wait until they're all done to deliver it. The background looks pink in the photo but it's really a pale lavender. It's a fun and quick quilt pattern called Fast Lane. Love these Kaffe Fassett prints. Next up is a sea themed quilt top. I grossly overbought my background and accent color (lavender & dark purple). I wasn't following the pattern exactly for the sizes they made so I had to figure out how much I needed on my own and obviously rounded up a bit too much. Live and learn..........

Life in the fast lane.........

 I'm attempting to start on some holiday gifts which will include some quilted throws. Here is the start of one using Kaffe Fassett fabrics in my favorite Fast Lane pattern. I'm using a pale lavender as the background and dark purple as the accent color - both will be used again in the borders and binding. Very cheerful project to be working on. 

Up above my 'design board/drape' is a framed double weave pick-up piece I wove years ago. There are two layers of fabric woven at the same time on the loom, one over top the other.  Working from a graph individual threads are pulled up from the bottom layer and pushed down from the top layer to create the design. It's very time consuming but it's a technique I've loved doing over the years. 

I'm trying to knit in the evenings again like I used to. I'm working on a simple shawl I've worked on off and on (mostly off) for several months. So much better for me to work on something while watching tv in the evening rather than just sitting and watching like I've done much of the past 2 years. Maybe life is getting back to normal...........

All in an afternoon............

 Last month in my zoom (ASG) sewing guild meeting one of my fellow members showed a number of mini-quilt wall hangings she had made over the years. Most involved objects attached to the mini-quilt. Immediately the wheels started turning and I thought of this cute knitting 'goddess' that had been hanging in my studio for several years. I went through my fabric stash and found 4 different satins and a silk, just small bits of each. It's hard to see the woven patterns on the border and binding but they are satin and are different. I learned to have patience sewing with slippery, fraying fabrics but all turned out well in the end. I'm hoping the ribbon the 'goddess' is hanging from holds up over time......I did put some dots of glue on the knot to keep it from coming undone. Did you notice I'm using an old metal knitting needle for a hanger?  This was a very fun project. I'll be looking at little 'things' differently now wondering if they could be made into a small quilted wall hanging. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Olympics, I've been dvr'ing all the curling and watching it here and there speeding through the commercials. I am not a sports person but I got hooked on curling several years ago and it hasn't let up. It's a little bit of an overload right now but I need to get my fill as there's very little curling to be found on tv the rest of the time. While some will be watching the Super Bowl I'll be watching curling, doesn't matter to me which country is playing............my favorites so far were the Italian doubles team who won gold in doubles, she especially was incredible. 

In progress.......

 Why in the world do some photos taken with my phone turn out sideways when uploaded to the blog??? It looked fine on my computer so I was sure it would be fine here.  Anyhow, just turn your head to the right to see it the correct way. 

Anyhow, this is what I've been working on the past couple of days - a small wallhanging. I bought this pattern and the fabric for it probably around 10 years ago. After making the sheep wallhanging kit that had been hanging around for years I decided to do another project that's been taking up shelf space.  This was really fun. All the fabrics were fused to the white background using fusible web. The black lines are fusible bias binding that comes on a roll, I had 2 sizes - 1/8" and 1/4".  Next up is machine quilting but it will have to wait until I buy some spray quilt adhesive, so I don't have to put pins in it...........and I need to start packing up much of the house in preparation for new floors and painting. Not looking forward to packing up stuff and emptying closets but it will look so nice once it's all done. We're doing everything except the master bedroom and bathroom at this time......holding off on those as we're going to gut that bathroom and totally redo it. 

This and that..........

The other day I decided to put a towel warp on for some Valentine towels. It's hard to get away from production weaving but then I also won't spend the time warping for just a couple towels.  I compromised and put on enough warp for 8 towels.  I'll keep a couple for myself and eventually gift the others.  Of course, I probably won't put them out to use in February as I have to pack up much of the house in order to have new flooring installed and painting............will be living in a disaster zone for a while. 

A friend gifted me with a mini-charm pack of already cut squares, 2 1/2" square.  She also gave me some fat quarters. Yesterday I had planned on weaving but ended up going down the rabbit hold playing with the 42 little squares. 

I ended up making a tote bag.  I mean, everyone can use another tote bag especially when we have to bring our own bags to shop with. If I'm buying fabric or clothing I don't want to put them in the same bags I use for groceries.  I used all 42 squares on the front of the tote, one of the fat quarters to frame the squares..........

 .........one fat quarter for the back and then 2 fat quarters for the lining.  I just happened to have some brown webbing for the straps in my stash.

So on to fabric shopping - in my local fabric store all the ladies I've encountered that work there wear those little clear masks that sit out in front of the chin & mouth.  I mean, what's with that???  What good do they do???  And they cut fabric so slow when all I want to do is get out of there. Good thing I rarely go in that store.....I wonder how many others rarely shop there these days because of this.  I want to support local businesses but not compromise my health doing so.  And it's not just that local store - we found the flooring store staff and customers weren't wearing masks, same at the door store and many other stores in town. We rarely go in stores but the past few weeks we've needed to and are shocked. We do have an indoor mask mandate. Our region has low vaccination rates because people refuse to get vaccinated, they also don't want to wear masks.........so the rest of us pay.  I'm growing very weary and very irritated at how inconsiderate others are. And I'll stop at that because I could go on.......and on...........

Finally finished..........

I'm not sure exactly when I started my hexxie quilt. Perhaps toward the end of 2019???  I can't remember and don't feel like going back in my blog at the moment to see if I can find the first post about sewing those little hexxies together.  I know I learned how to do them in a free mini-class at the Rogue Valley Piecemakers Quilt show in May of 2019.

So here it is finally finished.  It's afghan size. It's all beachy fabrics in seaglass colors and coral with seahorses in the center of the hexxie flowers.  It's not evident in the photos but the background hexxies are a white on white beachy print. The binding uses all 9 sea glass fabrics.

Here's a close up of the quilting.  I had it quilted by local long arm quilter who did an incredible job. It's not an all over design that was computer driven, it was human driven, flowers in the hexxies, feathers and such in the background. I was blown away by the quilting job. I would love to give the quilter's name out to give credit where it's due but I'm not sure if it's ok to put that on my blog so I won't. I'm very conscious of other's privacy and anyone who has read my blog for a while knows I never put photos of others, mention names unless linking to a website, or even put photos of myself up here. 

I have to say I loved hand-sewing all these hexxies. I can see more english paper piecing in my future although maybe next time a wall piece with different shapes, a more contemporary version of the traditional. 

It's pumpkin time......

I'm very excited that my pumpkin wallhanging long arm quilting was done in time for pumpkin time. As soon as I picked it up I sewed the binding and hanging sleeve on. This will eventually look better once we paint the walls a light gray.  I get to enjoy this quilt until it's time for a christmas/holiday quilt which my husband's cousin made for us a few years ago. (This pattern is called Mini Pumpkins by Some Kind of Wonderful - I made mine much bigger than the original pattern)

And here's my pumpkin table runner finished.  This was a manageable size for me to quilt on my sewing machine. The pumpkin wallhanging is on the wall at the end of where this table is. (This pattern is Punkin' Patch Runner by Bonnie K Hunter of Quiltville) 

I have gotten a little more time at the sewing machine to work on some small holiday gifts for family and friends but I can't show those yet.  I'm almost finished with our holiday cards too. 

Pumpkins.......

 The pumpkin piecing is done. It turned out to be around 48" x 66".  Next up is to call the long arm quilter to get it to her for quilting. I'm happy to say it should be hanging on the 'quilt wall' this autumn. Before I start on any other projects at the sewing machine I really need to get my machine in to my  Bernina shop for maintenance, it's way overdue because of covid restrictions........guess they apply to sewing machines too. 

Sideways pumpkins

 Here's my new quilting project although one has to turn their head to see it correctly.  I have this problem when I upload pictures to blogger from my phone but never from my camera so this is a first........and it's irritating.  Anyhow, these are pieced white/gray pumpkins and orange pumpkins on a dark gray print background. I learned something new with this project, how to sew concave and convex shapes to get curves. I'm coming down the homestretch on making the blocks, then it will be time to sew them all together. My goal is to get it to a long arm quilter quickly as she has a 8 week backlog.  My other goal is to hang this on the big wall opposite the dining room table this fall. Right now the barn quilt is hanging there. Another goal is to eventually have 4-5 quilts to exchange out in that spot during the year......that will take a while and I'll be working on other projects before that happens.  

This and that..........

We had a great long weekend on the coast other than just running over to check on the cottage and mow the lawn - it was wonderful. We spent time with vaccinated friends who camped over there. We did something we had never done before - rented a polaris rzr to ride the Oregon Dunes. Our friends have done it before and loved it so after 29 years of living in Oregon we finally did it.  Very fun and a bit a lot scary as the dunes are tall and have drop offs that we sped straight down as that was the only choice at that point. There were roll bars, we were helmeted and belted in our 2 person rzr so other than possibly rolling the thing we were safe. 

Speaking of the coast after getting back I decided to make two small wall quilts out of cross stitches that will go perfectly at the beach cottage. I love these sandpipers. I usually frame cross stitch pieces and actually have several sitting here stretched over foam core waiting for me to feel safe enough (covid) to get them framed. 

And here are some funny otters for my otter wall in the hallway over there. I didn't take a picture of the backside but for hanging I did the corner triangles and cut a dowel to fit across the top back.

And a few roses in my yard - they have gone crazy, there are hundreds blooming with hundreds more buds on my 16 rose bushes.  The breeze kept coming up so most of my pix didn't turn out but here are a few. 

I can't remember the name of this one, isn't it interesting how the petals are so close together?  If I weren't so lazy at the moment I'd go outside and check my tag on it.  Many of the bushes were here when we bought this house three years ago so I don't know what they are but this is one I bought to fill in an empty spot. 

This one is interesting too with the white & dark pink but a bit of yellow in the center. 

I cut my rose bushes back quite a bit in February but they're already way taller than me and huge. They obviously love that side of the yard. 

 

Blue Jean Picnic Quilt

I've been able to sneak a little time to work on the blue jean picnic quilt. I so wish I had unlimited time right now to knock this project out because it's fun and easy - perfect for me at the moment since I'm having a hard time focusing with everything else going on in my life. I have 145 dark blue 5" squares cut and 144 light/medium blue 5" squares cut. And here are my accent stripe colors - purples, teals, greens, yellows, peach/oranges and reds. Here's a link to the pattern which was written for a throw size.

The light/medium jean squares get cut in half and a 1/2" stripe is added (starting with a 1" stripe of fabric). Here I was working on the purples. After this photo I sewed all the teal stripe squares and have just started on the greens. This will be a heavy quilt so I won't be using batting, just a backing fabric. I'm hoping the blue jeans aren't too thick in the seam areas so it can be long arm quilted by Jordan's but I won't know until I see how thick they are and let Jordan's see how thick they are.  I think it may be too big for me to handle on my own machine for just a simple stitch in the ditch quilting so I may have to resort to tying the quilt if it can't be long arm quilted........which is fine, especially for a picnic blanket. I'm hoping to get some time at the machine today because the next several days are booked so no sewing again for a while. 

 

Hexxies

 

I keep forgetting to post a few photos of gifts I made this year. I made some hexxie ornaments - handstitched hexxies. I then put them into 4" embroidery hoops to display/hang. Since I wanted the backs to look nice I used the same backing fabric on the backside. In hindsight I probably should have bought 3" hoops but I didn't so these are bit larger than I might have wanted. If used as an ornament they need a substantial tree to hang on, but myself I've got one hanging on the wall in a small spot that needed 'something' in my sewing room.  I'll post a couple other gifts on another day.......

Life sucks at times.......

Life is uncertain right now, things change hour by hour. These days my life is centered around talking with nurses, doctors, social workers, case workers, palliative care teams, etc concerning a younger relative who is gravely ill. Tough times for my relative, us, and for the rest of the family out of the area who I'm drawing on for strength and support. 

 

I haven't been able to do much for myself but when I have a little block of time I've gotten back to the towel warp.  The first towels in my last post I used a teal as weft which I loved, here I'm using a rose color as weft. Only 2 towels left to go on the warp at this point. 

Here I've used a lavender weft - I love it. Eventually these towels will end up in my etsy shop but with life the way it is right now I have no clue when I'll get the final 2 towels woven, then all washed, all hemmed and photography done.....just can't worry about it at the moment, taking it one day at a time, when it happens it happens. 

Here are our holiday cards for this year. I chose a quilt theme rather than weaving this year - these are my wonky stars. And I decided I didn't need to use traditional christmas color either so they are all over the place. I like how they turned out. I am so glad I worked on these during the summer so they were ready to go. I also had 9 wonky stars made up in seaglass blue and 9 in apricot/peaches. I was on a roll when sewing so had way more than I needed.  The seaglass and the apricot will end up being miniature wall hangings at some point, maybe I'll hand quilt them.........that small size is about my limit for handquilting........