Sewing in Neutral

I feel that my sewing life has been in neutral this past week. And not just because light neutrals are the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Steve watching the eclipse in our front yard

With my brother Steve living here with us, bless his heart, there seems so much more to do that takes me away from sewing. Like helping him fill out paperwork and chauffeuring him around for Social Security, Teamsters retirement, to say nothing of helping him cancel his AZ benefits and see about Utah benefits (a ‘no go’)..... health insurance, drivers license, etc etc. Calgon, take me away!





But enough of my whining. Steve is here and we do enjoy having him. He has a hilarious sense of humor, loves the cats (and Alfie adores him), and is a considerate, fastidious house guest. He has started us composting, keeps the cars clean, and has planted a late season garden that is doing well. And he, like Bruce, loves my cooking! So it’s all good.

On Monday we all watched the eclipse, naturally. Here in the Salt Lake Valley, we were in the 91% zone. The sunlight became weaker as the eclipse progressed, but even at its peak, it was brighter than you would have guessed for only 9% of the rays coming through. However, it was quite dark in the house when I ran in to get my cell phone. I had to take pictures of the light through the trees (left). I love the crescent-shaped shadows and from other people`s pictures online, I believe lots of us were fascinated with them!  It was a fun late morning event in the ‘hood, and there was even a Solar Eclipse Party down the street at Wheeler Farm (hence all the cars parked on the street).

As far as sewing goes, I did finish the rest of my neutral string blocks. There are 168 of the 4.5” (unfinished) blocks. Ready for when I decide to tackle the Jamestown Landing quilt by Bonnie Hunter next year.

Yep, that’s my funky tomato pincushion in the center. And also yes, I do have lots of other pincushions - all cuter. But they are too cute to use. so they are just on display on shelves in my sewing room. When the tomato dies, I will select a different one down the road.....

This next picture is not too impressive, but let me explain. I have finally started Bruce’s Groovy Guitars quilt, which is a pattern by Robbie Joy Eklow.  This is the piecing diagram, and I decided that if I was going to have any chance of getting this done in any orderly fashion, I would have to color the diagram so I would know which color goes where. This was NOT colored with an eye toward any type of artistic effort - it’s just a quick-and-very-dirty "fill in the blanks” effort for placement purposes. (Yes, I can color better. And so can my 4-year-old grandson). But you get the point, right?

The drawing above is in reverse, because you trace the pieces onto the paper of the fusible webbing, then fuse to the backside of the fabric. Then you flip and fuse it to the background. The background for Bruce’s quilt is solid black Kona cotton. The other colors are the three primaries (red, yellow, blue) and the three secondaries (purple, orange and green). My only changes are that I will make the orange guitar (on the left of the diagram) whole. Same with the yellow/red one on the right. If I still have any sanity left, I may make their headstocks complete, too.

So, what did I do first thing? Fused the orange guitar to the wrong side (left) of the fabric, instead of the right. That’s what I get for changing it to a complete, symmetrical piece. Luckily, I had enough orange to re-do it, and the missssssnake on the black fabric will be covered down the line....

My progress has been frustrating and painfully slow. I have made every conceivable mistake  that can be made. But I am learning! Learning that this will be the LAST EVER fusible project I will ever inflict upon myself. I have a hard enough time thinking in reverse (paper piecing comes to mind), but add fusible webbing, huge pieces, and no instructions (other than basic How to Fuse), and it’s recipe for disaster. My brain just does not work that way!

But so far, everything has been fixable. Except my poor ironing board cover, which I will have to use inside out from now on. But we will just skip that story. I see you shaking your head....

So, I put Groovy Guitars in Time Out for a few days and decided to start on some kennel quilts. I got 2 of them done on Friday afternoon.....

The cats won’t care if they are perfect or not! That gray backing on the top quilt says “You’ve got to be Kitten me”.  It was a remnant I picked up at JoAnn Fabrics.  Two down, a half dozen more to go before the end of the month......


And finally, you might remember that when my DGD Lauren visited a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that we painted a wooden garden ornament - a cockatoo - together. I finally got a picture of it.

MEET RINGO!!!!

He is a handsome fella, isn’t he? For the picture he is sitting on the living room mantel, but his natural habitat is out on our patio. The other side is just more of the same.......  We just used acrylic paints and sort of figured it out as we went along.  Not bad, eh?

That about wraps things up for this week. Hopefully by next week I will have finished the rest of the kennel quilts and made good progress on the Groovy Guitars. If I can survive that monster, I can survive anything.

I’m linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday post for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Hugs and prayers for the safety of our friends and families who are in the path of Hurricane Harvey, due to make land in Texas as I write this.....