Spring on the Gulf Coast

The Spring season down here is essentially early Summer. Our pleasant Spring weather normally occurs in late Winter, but this year the balmy days with low humidity were taken by damp & chilly ones. The days are warming now, the humidity is on the rise & our flora & fauna are doing their things. Live oaks, a deciduous evergreen tree, are making their annual mess, dumping their leaves as the new ones come on. The azeleas are out, reminding us what fuchsia really means. And the wisteria, non-descript vines most of the year are now dripping with lavender flower clusters.

The third Saturday of the month is Shug's & my Crafturday -- he goes to his woodturning group & I go to my HMQG meeting. But this past Saturday, with a 100% chance of rain, my carpool's enthusiasm was dampened, so we ended up staying home. I was just as glad because it indeed rained -- 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) at our house! Not so nice to be out & about, but perfect to spend time at the sewing machine. I made some more bow ties -- I love these little blocks! I'm not sure how I will assemble them, but I'm beginning to think about a bow tie medallion. I put together 90 little 9-patches from leftover strips cut for one of last year's quilts; I think these can be fashioned into something to help brighten the day of someone on a very rough path. And I made a couple of bottles of nail polish! What? Fabric ones, of course, gifts for 2 friends. Made from this pattern.

Shug went to his meeting though & his latest piece won Best of Show! Yay, Shug!
You are always *my* Best of Show. xxx

Weekend Update

I didn't have the weekend I thought I would, the weekend I *hoped* I would.

It was my first weekend at home after my trip to visit my Mom & I was finally starting to feel well after a 3-week cold. I wanted to sew, I wanted to relax, I wanted to indulge. Instead, I spent much of the weekend emailing back & forth on Guild bidness. Have you ever noticed that when you are dealing with people, you have to deal with personalities? What's up with that?!? Anyway, a group of awesome women & I did some important work for our Guild & if I may say so, we did a pretty good job. And the weekend wasn't all tense shoulders & typing!

I nearly finished my HMQG logo colors mini challenge (say THAT 3 times, real fast), all done except the handwork -- but I can't show it to you yet.

I made another Jane Market Bag as a gift for house-guests here for Quilt Festival.



I basted my low volume quilt -- I'm only 90% happy with this one. Had I realized how big it would be I would have made the design element larger. (The cans of tuna were for ballast, it was windy when I was basting.)



And Shug & I went to Big Lots for our very first time. Shug has been eating the breakfast cereal, Product 19, for about 25 years. It had disappeared from all our grocery stores some time ago. He had signed up for a sort of 'cereal subscription' from Amazon -- every month a box of 4 boxes would automatically arrive at the door. Then that stopped. The End of the Product 19 Era!!! But his Mom found some at a Big Lots in the Kansas City area, so we searched out a local Big Lots & came home with 8 boxes to help postpone the Era's end for a little while.

Something old, something new

I've been plugging away at the HST quilting. It seemed as though I would never be finished, but then, suddenly, I was! Now I need to order fabric for binding before the Big Reveal.

I began quilting my jelly roll race top. I tried free-motioning it & hated what I was doing, picked it all out & regrouped. This evening, I've been trying something new & really like how it is going. But it is our HMQG challenge this month, so I can't reveal it yet either. (I'll show you the backing fabric -- I've had it for years; it reminds me of the artwork of Charley Harper.)



My Low Volume squares are idle on my design door; my Low Volume calicos are waiting for a brilliant idea to strike me -- I've been focusing my attention on the Jane Market bags & quilting.
I got a box of fabric in the mail this week -- I needed that like a hole in the head, but, hey, they were on sale.




And my Big News: Skirting the Circle has been accepted to hang in the IQA -- Quilts: A World of Beauty at this year's Quilt Festival!!!!! I am really excited -- I've never seen any of my quilts hanging in any kind of show. This will be quite an experience. The credit for it even being considered goes to Shug -- he was the force behind it & did most of the work, as the deadline came while I was last out of town visiting my Mom.
Thanks, Shug!!!!

My very long weekend

American Independence Day, the 4th of July, is one of the few holidays that cannot be made into a 3-day weekend. This year it fell plunk in the middle of the week -- not the best for celebrating -- that is unless you gave yourself the rest of the week off, like I did!

Wednesday we spent the whole day at our sail club: hamburgers & hotdogs for lunch (I tried a version of the "Kiwi burger" (our club has quite an international membership & the current Social co-Commodore is a New Zealander -- aka, a Kiwi -- besides the usual burger stuff, they add sliced beets & a slice of pineapple; I skipped the pineapple but added the beets & quite liked it); lots of fun & games for the kids; Shug & I got in a pretty good sail; then resting & chatting & snacking & reading until dinner; then waiting for it to get dark for the fireworks, shot from a barge in the Bay. A very nice day.







Thursday, I was up to my butt in quilt backs. Just FYI, there are 336 5-inch HSTs in a 42 fabric layer cake -- I used all but 10 from my Stitched in Color cake. There is almost as much piecing on the back of this quilt as there is on the front! I also prepped & pieced the back for the jelly roll race top I made at the HMQG retreat. The Guild challenge this month is to get those quilted. Both were then ready to sandwich & baste.

On Friday I did laundry, dusted, vacuumed, etc. But I managed to work in some layout & assembly time with one of my projects for the Low Volume QAL. I also got 2 more Jane Market Bags cut out -- these will be gifts.


 

Saturday, Shug helped baste 2 quilts; outside, he set up a couple of saw horses & the plywood work surface he made me. In a VERY fortunate turn of events, as I basted, I found my "humility block" in the Stitched in Color quilt -- but not being prone to humility, I later fixed it. It wasn't so very hot but it was pretty humid & I was very sweaty & a little cranky by the time I finished the second one. Shug also cut some templates for me so I can experiment with them with my low volume, granny calicos.





It was thunder-y & rainy on Sunday. Luckily we had done errands on Saturday, so didn't need to get out. I could spend a much time as I wanted stitching! And I got quite a bit done: more low value work, prepped the Jane Market bags & began quilting one of the basted quilts!





I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did mine. What did you do?

Weekend update

Saturday was Crafter-day for Shug & me. He goes early to his wood-turning group, I leave mid-day for my HMQG meeting. We don't see each other all day, each spending the day with their respective "tribe" & come home full of stories to tell about what we did & saw.

On Sunday, my plate was pretty clear. I could have worked on my QuiltCon blocks that I have been longing to experiment with, but now that I *could* work on them, I didn't *want* to work on them. (Please reassure me that I am not the only (crazy) person who does things like this.) So what I did do was stitch up some butterfly blocks for a flickr friend who did something nice for me. I made them with left-over pieces from the Shirts & Slacks quilt. I LOVE these butterflies & may have to make a whole quilt of them for myself!



And speaking of the Shirts & Slacks quilt -- it is finished!



I basted my HMQG row robin quilt & began quilting it with my new Brother machine (Frere Jaques) but ran into trouble. I'm sure it is just one of those rough patches in a new relationship, but I had to walk away from him for a while & didn't get very far with the quilting.

I behaved myself

This past weekend, I wanted to start playing with my ideas for the QuiltCon Block Challenge, but I had quite a bit of obliged projects to finish up, so I worked on them.

I made up some samples for raffle blocks for our up-coming Houston Modern Quilt Guild Spring Retreat. I am getting crazy excited about going away with my Guild buds! (I also wanted/needed to do some more cutting of project parts to take with me, but that got postponed too.) Anyway, Tammy is our Swaps & Challenges coordinator & I am on her committee. She has some ideas & I have some ideas -- well, an idea -- for Retreat. Mine was for raffle blocks that we make while at Retreat. So I came up with a block & color-scheme & made some samples -- which I don't want to show until I've shown the group (next weekend).

So many of my Guild friends are SO good at making bags & pillows & pouches & pincushions & etc, etc, etc. They put me to shame. We have several members who are expecting babies & I offered to make -- well, something. I am at an especial loss when it comes to babies. But I found a cute fabric & bought some burp towels & I think what I made is pretty darn cute! But, again, I can't show them to you just yet -- the Mama-to-be is a visitor to my blog & I don't want to spoil her surprise!

Next Saturday, the Guild is gathering together the quilts & pillowcases for donating to the Star of Hope Mission. My quilts were done, but I wanted to make some pillowcases. There may be a million methods out there in the Internets for making pillowcases, but I've used the one from the ConKerr Cancer site. It is ridiculously easy! It probably takes longer preparing & cutting the fabric than it does to make the pillowcase. So I made 3 pillowcases to donate & 1 for me to keep! (I said I was good this weekend, not perfect!)



My final project was not so showy as the others. Shug wanted some fleece drawstring bags for carrying his wood projects to his wood-turning meetings. I had some fleece scraps left over from the red brick quilts & made up the first of several bags for him.

Turn turn turn

Shug has been turning wood for just a little more than 2 months now -- and look at what he has spun out!



There are 14 pieces there, of varying quality, though the quality is getting better and better. There are 2 bowls upstairs on my sewing table (one with spools, one with patchwork parts) and there are a few -- though just a few -- failed attempts. Pretty impressive I think!

He is getting much more done than I am. These days, I can't seem to do anything more complicated than browse blogs, flickr, pinterest & tumblr and play find-it games on my I-Pad. It isn't that I don't have PLENTY of needle-ready projects. Here are just some of them, along with my lame excuses:

The squared plates have been disassembled, squared & are ready to re-assemble, but, well, the design wall is full. The blue postage stamp top is ready to sandwich, but the table where I do this is covered with wooden bowls. The quilting threads in snafu need to be restitched & anchored, but I am still to irritated to work with this one.

 
 
I think the shirts & slacks quilt will be about 5 or 6 blocks by 6 or 7, so I still need many more of them, but I can only work on them for a short time because they make me sad. (I think this one is a real excuse.)



I just need to make more pieces for the indigo & white stars -- just haven't made the time. The yellow zig-zag is built diagonally so I need lots of space to spread it out; it is about 3/4 done & is pretty big. I am working on the Sunday School Stars -- the one thing I am getting done!



I want to add more borders to my Habitat challenge but need to get some more Habitat fabric. Come on! That means a trip to the fabric store! Surely I can 'motivate' myself to do that! The hexagons came to a screeching halt back in January or February, I don't even remember why, but I am sure it was a good reason. And I just dug out the purple & gray squares in squares. They were going to be a gift for someone, but I came up with something I liked better. The parts are all cut for this, it would be an excellent donation quilt, I just need, well you know, MOTIVATION!



I am always encouraging people to be easy on themselves, but I am the last one to take my own advice. Like the song in this post's title, there is a time for everything. I had several pretty good finishes this summer, so maybe I can take some time to rest & recharge. (Though Ecclesiastes doesn't mention anything about the internet or computer games.)


And check this out! HMQG's Habitat Challenge projects! AWESOME!!!