Hexxies

The hexxie throw started months ago is taking shape. I pinned all the sections up on my design wall/drape so I could see how I wanted it to go together and how many more white pieces I'll be needing...... a lot. Once I get it all surrounded by white I'll figure out what I'm going to do around the edges - I'm at a loss at the moment.  Since there's a lot more handsewing to put all these sections together and then more white pieces I have plenty of time to think on what the edging/borders will end up being.

A bit of wonky.....

 I've been working on the wonky stars, what fun they are to sew.....perfect for me, I don't have to be exact, I can just sew them however. I have many other colors in the works.  The purple card is the prototype as these will be our holiday cards this year...…...haven't decided if I'll put them together that way or not, will be thinking on it over the months to come. It will be great to have the piecing done ahead of time.

 Since I finished knitting the red shawl I needed something else to work on in the evenings while we watch tv. Since I'm not sure what new knitting project I want to do I pulled out my hexxies that I usually work on when riding in the car. I only have 3 more sections to stitch before I can start sewing them together.  I'll have more white hexxies to make but won't know how many until I start putting it all together.  I've still got to block the red shawl so pix will come once that happens.

A friend gave me a recipe for english muffin bread - it's really yummy, we had some this morning with butter and homemade strawberry jam.

Wonky stars

Today was one of those days that I just couldn't focus on much so I decided to work on a variety of little projects and what fun it's ended up being. This is one of the projects - wonky stars. After stitching regular stars for the barn wall hanging I decided to try wonky stars using some bits and pieces of purple fabrics with a background of white. What fun these are!  This is the prototype for a holiday project......now all I need are the correct colors of fabric, might have to place an online order, UPS, FedEx and USPS have been delivering many boxes here lately.  Or maybe I could work with leftover bits and pieces in my stash.....might have to investigate the fabric cabinet tomorrow.

Once again, my picture was oriented correctly on the computer but when uploaded to blogger it turned, this only happens when I take photos from my phone but it's never consistent. Oh well, such is life.

Easter bread.........a bit late........

Today I made my Nani's Easter bread recipe.  Yes, I'm late but at least I made it this year, there's many a year I have plans for it but never do.  This is an anise bread that starts with 5 pounds of flour - yep, 5 pounds!  And is it ever tough to mix and knead that much bread dough.  But I've got 10 loaves of bread to put in the freezer.   Well, 9 loaves since I've already sampled and since this picture was taken, just minutes ago, Sam attacked the loaf I started.  It's great toasted for breakfast.

I used to help my grandmother make this bread each year.  For all us kids we would make smaller braids, form them in a circle, put a dyed hard boiled egg in the center and 2 thin strips of dough to hold the egg in place. They were so pretty and we each got our own little loaf.  I can't remember what that hard boiled egg was like but it was already cooked and then cooked again in the oven - must have been like a golf ball.

So, we're set for Easter bread for a while...….minus a couple that will be saved for family.

Before and after......

 I've finished the quilt top for the barn quilt wallhanging. It's now set aside until Jordan's opens so I can take it in for long arm quilting. I imagine they will be backlogged very quickly once open, lots of quilts being made while sheltering at home. I like the way this turned out but it was a challenge - my points are not perfect and there are many places they're even cut off. It won't be entered in any competition, just hung on the wall opposite the dining room and I'll love it whether it's perfect or not.

 We had The Grounds Guys come do a huge landscaping job for us - they were great. I couldn't find a before picture from when we bought this place a little less than 2 years ago but all the mulch area was ugly gravel. 

 Now look at it with five 800 pound boulders, over 50 new bushes/plants plus some trees we planted last year.

 They ran completely a completely new drip system connected to our automatic sprinkers.

 It's going to take a while for these plants to start growing but it's going to look nice. I'll be planting tulip and daffodil bulbs this fall - can't wait.

We switched up our shelter in place location last weekend for the one on the coast, we hadn't been over in 5 weeks and the grass was a foot tall. Misty knows now to relax over there...….

Eureka.......I've found gold!

 I found this box in the guest bathroom cabinet - it's like finding gold.  We keep these in our vehicles but only have a handful in them at anytime.  And that's all the wipes we have since there have been none to be found at the store, no bleach either. I'm ecstatic. Funny how such a thing as Wet Ones could make me so happy. So now we can carry them with us in case they're needed...…..since we aren't going anywhere they should last us a while.

 An update on the barn quilt wall hanging project. I now have all 12 blocks done and am working on the corner stars - there are 4 of them up on the design wall so far.  There are 2 blocks I'm not thrilled with my workmanship so once the stars are all made, the sashing and borders cut, if I have enough fabric I'll remake those 2 squares. It really is fiddly working with these tiny pieces but I'm enjoying it. Now I wonder how do those that make the mini quilts, I mean really small, handle all those seams allowances on the back.

Friend Yvonne gave me a recipe for bread using quick rise yeast, which I have, so this afternoon I made these 2 loaves. This is the pic before Sam and I cut into one of the warm loaves and ate slices with butter. Dinner plans have totally changed to grilled cheese sandwiches on this yummy bread alongside tomato soup. 

Onward to another project......

I had plans of putting another towel warp on the loom but that cone of 8/2 black cotton had other plans. I spent hours figuring out the color order for a draft, then started winding the warp making constant color changes. I got around 5" wound before I cried uncle.  The black, of which there were quite a few stripes, kept breaking - it would break if I looked at it wrong.  Sam found me sitting on the floor trying to repair a break at the bottom peg only to find it breaking over and over again as I tied a knot, I was ready to cry but just got myself up and walked away.  An hour later I went back, pulled everything off the warping board and sacrificed it to the weaving goddess, aka trash can.  At that point I decided I needed to do something different...….

…..and here it is - a quilt wallhanging kit I bought months ago. It has 12 different barn blocks which will be separated by sashing and star cornerstones. I'm loving the look of the blocks I've sewn so far up on my design wall.  And yes, I made the design wall too.  It's a big piece of felt that I hung using command hooks and office binder clips - it's in front of the sliding closet doors in my sewing room. Easy to move out of the way or remove and so much better to see the quilt in progress.  I can't wait to get to the sewing machine today to work on block #6. I'm getting better at matching my points, still not perfect but I'm learning, matching points and working with bias pieces is new to me. Although not perfect I'm happy with my blocks.

I'm still working on my shawl a bit in the evenings. it's slow but coming along. This is my handspun, merino and merino/tussah blends that I blended together on the blending board - a total of 8 different colorways.

Hemming towels.....

I'm hemming the towels that came off the loom yesterday and were washed & dried.  I love using these clips rather than pins - they're sold with quilting sewing supplies. And I discovered just this last year after owning my Bernina for 13 years that I get a beautiful hem by using the walking foot on my machine - duh - only took me 13 years to figure that one out after using that foot while sewing a binding on a quilt.

I'd love to get the photography work done on these but the sun has disappeared so I'll wait for another day.  Three are for a gift so those will be set aside but the rest will go in my etsy shop after I do the much dreaded photography work.

I may put one more towel warp on the loom before moving on to a sewing/quilting project.

Everyone stay safe out there, if you must go out.......

Twill and basketweave.....

I got another towel warp on the loom. This one is cotlin.  It's a twill and basketweave draft.  Not sure but there may be one more towel warp in me before I move on to doing some sewing. I've got a quilt wallhanging kit to piece and also a twin (or maybe it's a full) quilt (block) kit of the month project to start - not to mention many other projects. The kit of the month quilt was from 2 years ago - I signed up for it right before we started house hunting so it got put on hold, all I did was pick up my kit each month and store it away.

This whole virus pandemic is horrendous but I sure am liking this sheltering in place, I wonder if I can keep it up after life gets back to normal...….it used to be my old normal but then life changed and there were too many commitments to deal with.

New towels.....

 Newly woven towels are now in my etsy shop ready to find new homes.  

I love these bumbaret towels, so colorful. They are a pain to warp though with a warp color change every three ends..….but worth it, I'll weave these again in the near future, maybe more tropical bright colors next time.

Just another day.....

..... in paradise.  Yes, for me sheltering at home is paradise. I can weave, sew, spin, knit, quilt, do whatever my creative heart wants without interference from the outside world.  I am happy here at home, I have plenty to keep me busy.  But my heart goes out to all those who will not be getting paychecks because businesses and restaurants have closed their doors until things get better, to those who may have contracted this virus, to those worried about loved ones far away.  It's tough out there at the moment.  But for me, yes I'll be sheltering in place playing with fiber - we're good until the toilet paper runs out which won't be for a while since I bought some right before the big run on it, which still baffles me, I mean why not just buy as one usually would.

So, back to the towel warp - 4 towels woven using a blue weft.....

....and 4 towels woven using a green weft.  

I'll be cutting these all off the loom shortly, will stitch the ends quickly and throw them in the washer and dryer, then hemming.  I'll be putting aside some for a gift and listing the rest for sale in my etsy shop. I will have to figure out a place to takes photos of them once finished as the dining room is a mess. We are taking out the two archways - arches now gone, a bit of a header needs to be built, then drywall, texture and paint. The house is a disaster once again.  Once that is cleaned up we'll move on to the kitchen backsplash.

Seeing red......

Seeing red..……..on the loom, that is.  The first 4 towels will be red but not the red that's in the warp, I'm going with a deep burgundy. I like it.  The next 4 towels with be green, the final 4 will be navy.  I ended up going with darker wefts but next time I weave bumbaret I'm going with bright tropical colors.

I had to run to the store today - it was crazy. The lines were all the way to the back of the store.  When I look in people's carts filled with crazy large amounts of certain foods I wonder if they normally eat those foods and what will happen to their huge stockpile in the pantry when life gets back to normal.  Maybe the food banks will benefit.  All I was concerned about was would my ice cream melt before I got to the checkout. And while at the checkout there was a box of Reese's eggs sitting there so I told the cashier I really needed one for my mental health so to ring it up and I'd eat it right then......it tasted great, my favorite.

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Auditioning wefts

I finished warping the loom with this super colorful warp for bumbaret towels. I've woven around 12" in samples to audition wefts. I'm still not sure which color of wefts I'll choose for the 12 towels. I'd like to choose 4 and have them coordinate with each other.  So now the question is will I go with brights or more subdued darker colors. Will think on it and revisit this tomorrow morning.

I wish everyone the best during these crazy times. I hope you have lots of cheese, chocolate and wine stockpiled to hold you over during the worst of this pandemic. If we run out of those it will really be bedlam. I've got plenty of yarn, roving and fabric to tide me over for the rest of my life so I'm good.

Bumbaret............

 Here's the start of the warp for some bumbaret towels. I changed my mind numerous times on the 9 colors of cotton I wanted to use.  At the last minute I pulled out the black and navy and put in the red and purple..…...hope that wasn't a mistake......

…….whatever, I guess they will turn out colorful and fun.  It's a 12 yard warp which is killing my back so I only wound 3 of the 6 bouts it will take for this warp......will get back to it hopefully, Friday.

I am still not liking my new camera, just a newer version of my old one but not one photo so far has been color correct. I work on the color in photo editing software but still can't get it true.  My gripe for the day.......

Weaving and a little pooch pic

Afghan woven out of handspun is finished. It's much prettier in person, I just couldn't get the color right in this pic, probably taken too early in the day with artificial light. It feels wonderfully soft.

As I was trying to get that picture Misty kept walking in front of the phone so I finally told her I'd get her picture.…...she's a ham and wanted to be on the blog.  She's learning more and more each day but somehow we can't get her to be somewhat calm when seeing other people, she never calms down, even after hours of someone being in our house. Hoping she eventually acts like the two goldens we've had in the past where she'll be excited to see people but then calm down after 10 minutes or so.....right now it's seeming like she'll never improve but we're hoping.  She's doing great in obedience class - she loves going and excels, probably because she's a show off........she does seem to be the most social in each class.

Handspun projects....

 I cut the shawl woven from my handspun off the loom today, twisted the fringe and washed it, it's now hanging to dry. I didn't agitate it but did think it might full a bit more than it did. I'll check it after it's dry and see if I need/want to full it a bit.

Yesterday at my spinning group I started another shawl.  It's the Pretty Basic shawl pattern I've knit in the past. I wanted to link to this shawl pattern on Ravelry but it's now discontinued and no longer available......glad I got it when I did...….

This and that.......

I have gotten a little bit of fiber time. I'm nowhere near where I need to be to keep my sanity but I'm trying to work toward getting back to what my normal had been for 2+ decades. How did life change? I need for it to change back, at least partially back to what it used to be or 'funny farm' here I come.

I put some handspun on the loom recently for a double weave/width afghan. Color is not quite right but it's close, and that was after working on it. Newer version of my old camera takes terrible pictures colorwise, just don't get it. Anyhow, that skein on the top is the weft.

Here it is in progress. The join is on the left hand side. When this comes off the loom it will unfold to be twice it's width, which is around 42" before washing.  I'd like to think I would get it off the loom today and be able to start twisting the fringe but I've also got 3 fruit trees to prune and I need to help Sam get the bird netting over the garden structure.

I finally finished a pair of superwash merino/bamboo/nylon socks that have been on the needles for probably a year. A project that I'd just pick up here and there when I needed to grab a quick project to work on while on the go. They feel super soft, with our weather these may not end up on my feet until next winter. Time to get another pair of socks on the needles for my on the go, no thinking necessary, project.

At the sewing guild meeting last week we learned about Swedish weaving, which is not really weaving (as we weavers know) but embroidery on huck fabric - the embroidery sits on the top of one side of the fabric. This is my sample in progress. I think I may be pulling my thread to tight - looks fine but once washed it may pull.....I need to consult my fellow guild member to find out. This is very fun and very addictive......the last thing I need is something else fun to do as I don't have the hours to do what I want but that's ok, I'll fit it in somewhere, sometime.  I'm thinking I need to make myself a couple of towels, maybe even make a few gifts for later in the year.

Busy week ahead.  I'm hoping to find time to start winding a warp for bumbaret towels although I'm learning life gets in the way all too often. All those colors of 8/2 cotton are calling to me to make super colorful towels.

Another shopping tote

I made another shopping tote, not meant for groceries/food shopping tote, but one for other fun shopping like yarn, fabric, clothes, etc.  It's really not this skinny, just happened to fold in when hung.  I always remember to bring totes to the grocery store but it's not ingrained in me yet to take them everywhere else - maybe having some fun totes stashed in the cars will remind me.

MIA

Been MIA from the blog lately - just haven't had anything to say and nothing to show.....such is life sometimes. I keep hoping that I'll get back to what was my normal for a couple decades - weaving almost every day, doing other fiber stuff, and enjoying hibernating at home. I seem to need that for my mental sanity and it's just not happening.  I told my husband yesterday that now I understand why some people turn to drinking to escape life.....not that I will but I can how it could happen. What would work for me is to delve into a big pile of fiber and stay there for a while!

This morning I finished up a crudely quilted huge tote bag.  I always bring totes to the grocery store but never think about them when shopping for other treasures, especially where I'd need bigger totes than grocery store size.  I found this fabric in my stash when I recently reorganized the fabric cupboard. It's a panel from the Sisters Quilt Show from 2008. I'm not sure what my original plan was for it and I had totally forgotten I had it. I didn't put it back in the cupboard - I left it on the desk to think about what it could become and a huge tote was the answer.

Here's the backside of it.  I'll keep this in one of the vehicles. I'm going to make another huge tote in a sealife print to keep in the other vehicle.  After finishing this up I went out and pruned the grapevines and one plum tree, I did all the roses a couple weeks ago.  I still have another plum and 2 apple trees to do sometime soon. I also cut back to the ground a bush near the grapevines with huge stickers on it - my husband will pull out the remaining bush soon.  We've got 3 more of those horrible bushes to pull out as they'll be in the way of the deck once we enlarge it...…...yet another project. My husband was working on the garden area making it more permanent with fencing and a structure for the netting to go over top to keep the birds out - last year we did it quickly just to protect the plants.

Last week we were on the coast - it was beautiful. Misty loved looking down on the ocean from the bluff. It's weird but she's more excited about walking the streets and going to the dog park than she is about frolicking on the beach - so unlike our last 2 goldens.

Finished quilted throws

 I had dropped off my quilted throw tops to Jordan Quilts for long arm quilting just a couple weeks ago. I knew it would be 7 weeks before they'd be ready but last Thursday they called and had them done. So, during the Superbowl and today I got the bindings on them. I love the way they turned out. I haven't been getting good color with this new camera - haven't figured out why as it's just a newer version of the old camera. The throw above has a pale blue background and navy accents.

This second throw really isn't pink looking - the background is a light lavender with plum accents.

I really like this pattern - it's called Fast Lane and I bought it at Jordan Quilts along with the Kaffe Fawcett 10" layer cake bundle of prints and the solid background and accents.