Saturday, May 30, 2020

More citrus

A bit more weaving......

.....on the orange towel warp - here it is using a light turquoise for the weft - very tropical.......

....and here using rust for the weft - very late 60's - early 70's...…
.....I didn't expect to like this one that much but I do.......


Oranges

Finally I've got a warp on the loom.  I had giant cones of 8/2 cotton in pale yellow, light orange and orange so I put on an 8 harness 2 block twill for towels. For the first towel I'm using a pinky red for the weft and love the look. I've also got rust and a turquoise picked out for other wefts.  These colors make me smile, so cheery and bright...…...makes me want to go eat one of those naval oranges sitting in a bowl on the counter.

Stay safe out there, wear your masks, protect those in your communities.


Friday, May 22, 2020

More time at the machine

 I made another quilted table runner and 4 placemats from two of the kits from Jordan's that I bought sometime early last year.  These are holiday themed.  I love them.  I'm wishing when I bought these kits and other ones in my last post that I bought matching fabric to make napkins. I don't know if they'd have any left in the shop but when they open back up I'll check, if not I can make solid color napkins.

Also on the shelf was a small wall quilt kit I bought at a quilt show last year. It was a very fast sew and fun, immediate gratification. I'm not sure where it will hang, beach cottage is small, can't think of a wall right now but I'm sure I'll find one.  The photo on the front of  the package showed the outer border in a blue fabric that looked like water ripples. I was dismayed to find this turtle fabric as it doesn't really go with the whales but in the end it's ok, not a choice I would have made but it's fine. The hanging is only around 16" by 22".

Now on to a new project.  Think I'll take a break from the sewing machine and move on to winding a towel warp.



Tuesday, May 12, 2020

This and that.......

Been doing a bit of this and that lately. Haven't been setting any records, don't really care. Having a hard time getting motivated to start certain projects but I'm not idle...….

I bought a few runner kits from Jordan's Quilts - these kits are so fun, so easy, all fabric cut precisely. They also have directions online to take a kit and make placemats so I also made 4 placemats. This set looks like winter to me so it will be put away to be brought out next winter.

This is the shawl out of handspun that was recently finished - I finally blocked it.  It's the Pretty Basic shawl pattern although I kept going on the lace section on the bottom making it much longer than the original pattern. This pattern is no longer available on Ravelry from the designer.

Yesterday I sewed this sleeveless top from some rayon I had in my stash. A very comfy and crazy summer top. Our 90 degree weather has now gone back to the 60's but it will be hot again very soon.

In the grocery pick up last week I was given way too much of certain produce, bananas being one of them.  This is not a great picture but these are incredible banana crumb muffins. I mean really good, really really good...…...but don't expect healthy, they have their share of butter and sugar. The recipe says it makes 10. Muffin pans are for 12 so not sure why it makes only 10 but they ended up huge. If anyone else makes this recipe divide up to make 12 muffins. This is what I call a saver recipe - one I will be adding to my recipe collection. It's one of the best banana muffin recipes I've tried.  You can find the recipe HERE.

And now a few pix of what's going on in the yard.....here is my little garden, it's already growing

One of the apple trees is loaded with 'baby' apples - we should have a bumper crop as long as we can keep Misty from eating them - she's already eaten 2 baby apples off the other tree pulling branches off along with them.........I was not happy.........

These are the red grapes, there are also green grapes

I didn't realize this was a lilac, it's not shaped like the ones I grew up with

And the rest of the pix are of the roses.  I have 15 rose bushes - here are 12 of them, two aren't blooming yet, the other one the picture was fuzzy.  These bushes are taller than me and are covered with hundreds of blooms. I'm thinking I should have cut them back further back in February, still learning about roses. 













Sunday, May 3, 2020

A quick project

 I started and finished a quick project yesterday afternoon.  It's a table runner kit I bought from Jordan's Fabrics. I knew there were precision cut pieces but I still thought they were long strips that I would cut for the 4 log cabin blocks as I went. Nope, they were all cut to size - all perfect. Matt at Jordan's does such an incredible job putting these kits together.

And here it is finished, even stitch in the ditch quilted. The kit comes with everything to make 4 blocks, the borders and the backing - all I needed to provide was the batting and thread.  What a deal these kits are - yes, I paid for someone else to cut the fabric but I didn't have to buy lots of extra fabric for all these small pieces...…..fabric that would have ended up in the cabinet for a someday project, taking up valuable space in the meantime.

This runner is for a gift but I have more kits to make runners for us and also have the instructions for taking the runner kit and making 4 placemats.  So, in the near future I'll be making a runner and placemats in grays/light tans and also a runner and placemats in holiday fabric. My only problem at the moment is that I have no more batting so it's either order some online or brave JoAnn's donning mask and gloves.

If you sew/quilt and haven't checked out Jordan's please make sure you do. I am lucky that they are located right here in town, 5 minutes from me, so I can go in to shop (well, not right now) but they have a huge internet ordering presence.  And they have great youtube tutorials and many free patterns.