A Housekeeping Issue for a Cozy Christmas

Hi!  This isn’t a literal housekeeping issue, as in my house. But because the rules of the Finish Along state that each finish must have be posted individually, I am giving the cute little Cozy Christmas quilt its own separate post.

I quilted it with a micro stipple in the pink backgrounds of the blocks, then outlined some of the appliqués. The first frame around each “picture” got a swirly loop, and then the rest of the quilt was stippled. It finished at 58x71”. It will be a gift for my DD Stacy, who loves all things Christmas. And because Stacy has a 1-year-old, I didn’t sew any buttons on the quilt as it called for.

Now, I am linking up to the 2016 Finish Along (see button in sidebar) and my 4th Quarter FAL Goal list here.

Besides, we all love a little extra eye candy (to say nothing of the real thing) at this time of year, right?

Final Cat and Kitten Quilt Done for this Year!

It’s official. I am done with all my planned Christmas quilts - all 9 or 10 of them. One person gets a choice between two quilts, so I did 10 knowing that I will have one left over for us.  :-) I plan to recap them all (even the Rainbow Scrap Flimsies I still have to quilt) on my next RSC post on Saturday.

But for now, I am linking up this Kitty quilt to my 2016 4th Quarter Finish Along Goals. This is #5 on my list which you can see here.

Like both of the other cat quilts, it finishes at 52x72” and has a Warm & Plush 100% cotton bat.

Here are all three kitty quilts together:

L-R:  For London, Abbie and Remington

And from our house, we wish you a Meowy Christmas!

Thankful for ..... A Finish!

Business first. I finished quilting and binding the quilt for my DDIL Kim for Christmas. She selected the orange peels and Hello Darling by Bonnie & Camille.  The quilt finished at 64x75”.

I couldn’t show it on Instagram because she follows my feed there. But here is a picture we snapped between stiff breezes a couple days ago. This was goal #9 on my Quarter 4 Finish Along Goals, which you can see here. This is my fifth finish for this quarter with several more to go. Yikes!!

Back in the early days of my blog (I have been blogging nearly 10 years - that anniversary will come next summer), I used to post vintage graphics for various holidays. As most of them are from old Victorian postcards, and as Thanksgiving was not a national holiday a hundred-plus years ago as it is now, Thanksgiving graphics are hard to come by.  But I did find a few seasonally appropriate ones, so I will include them here. Feel free to right click and save them on your computer; they are copyright-free. So, while I blather on talk about a few things, the pictures will be interspersed.

I don’t usually get sappy at this time of year, but a few readers have remarked (and one even wrote personally) to say how upbeat I seem in my posts, especially given not only the end-of-year Holiday preparations and tons of sewing projects to finish, but our ongoing construction. And let’s not kid ourselves, as adults (and regardless of which candidate you were rooting for), this election cycle has taken a lot out of us these last few weeks. There was no hiding from it.

I am a Glass Half Full person. So, yes, I am upbeat, despite the disappointing-to-me election results (and the sheer number of persons who voted for his intolerance), despite the colder and darker weather that is upon us as autumn turns into fall, and despite the continual delays and messes that the living room (and eventually the hall and back bedroom) remodel throw at us. Why? Because there is so much to be thankful for!

During the election, I was bothered by the phrase “Make America Great Again”. To me, that was a Glass-Half-Empty viewpoint. Excuse me, folks, but America is ALREADY great.  We are free to live and worship (or not) as we like, to own homes, raise families, obtain medical care, get in our cars and drive when and where we want for leisure and entertainment.

We have myriad opportunities to work and a system that allows us to retire and continue to live well when we are old and tired. We can mail a letter across the country for less than 50 cents for crying out loud! We can talk or Skype on the phone to friends and family around the world. We have freedom of speech. Our water is clean (unless we live in Flint - shame on those crooked politicians!), our air is relatively clean (and they are working on it), and we have ready access to more food than we could possibly need.  And we are in the minority of humans on this planet who can say all those things. 

Anyway, those are major things that I often take for granted, but am truly thankful for. There are also bazillions of tiny things that we take for granted, and for those I am thankful as well. That my family comes to visit and play regularly. That my house is warm and my cats love us and keep us company when we are home. That we can go out to dinner if I don’t feel like cooking. That my order from the fabric store arrived today so I can begin my next quilt. And even that a lace client placed a large order today (and that commission will finish off my Christmas shopping). 

I am also grateful for a loving husband with a great sense of humor. We have been together for 14.5 years (married 13.5), and we are still laughing together and planning together and having fun. Plus, he feels it’s his manly duty to clean the turkey and prepare it for the roasting bag. How lucky am I?

Yes, dear, the turkey is cooking!

I just got word today that our cabinets won’t be ready until NEXT Wednesday (Nov. 30). That will be almost 4 weeks to construct it all when it was supposed to be 2 weeks. Oh well, what can I do? In the meantime, the flooring project will move down the hall and hubby can begin hooking up all the wired-in electronics. I can still schedule the delivery of the furniture on time, because it wasn’t going to be ready until Dec. 7-8 anyway.  And the silver lining is that Alfie and Darla will have more time to run around on the floors (sans furniture) like idiots.

Our Thanksgiving will be just Bruce and me, along with my adult son Shane. Shane is a single dad, and his daughter London will be with her mom for Thanksgiving this year. We’ll have turkey, veggies (some from the garden), stuffing, mashed potatoes (also from the garden), pumpkin pie, and beer/wine/coffee. After eating, the guys will putter around with electronics and projects in Bruce’s laBORatory, then they’ll probably whip out their guitars. I will sew, or peruse Pinterest. We’ll talk and relax. So much to be thankful for!!

What are you doing? Whatever it is, may it be joyous, delicious and warm!!

Hugs,

Another (Cat) Quilt Done!

What a good week this has been!

On Monday, my granddaughter Lauren had school off (she’s 12), so we got to have her with us all day. I had hoped to have her help me pick the last of the carrots and potatoes in the garden, but it was cold and rainy, so we opted for Plan B.  Which, really, was Plan A all along, LOL.  We sewed. Of course, we did go out to lunch with Grandpa, but other than that, we sewed.

I gave Lauren a sewing machine a couple years ago, and she brought it along. She already had a project in mind to make. She attends a cheer/dance/gymnastics school locally called Gravity Dance Center and wanted to make a pillow to take there.  I set her loose with my scraps and she selected the school colors of chartreuse and gray, from which she cut 2.5” squares. After playing with a layout, Lauren sewed them all together, then I quilted it very simply for her on my machine. She made the back (with opening) of the pillow and sewed it all together. It was a 14” pillow form, and we purposely made it a bit small so it would be snug. It was perfect!!

Lauren and her Gravity Pillow!

While she sewed, I worked on another kitty litter (I should probably call it a litter of kitties instead of kitty litter, LOL). This is litter #3 of 6 for the third Kitty Quilt.

And while we’re on the subject of kitties, I finished Kitty Quilt #2 (For DGD London). This is my Finish Along Quarter 4  Goal #3. Three quilts finished up this month!! YAY!!

This quilt has the only brown litter and the only teal litter in it. It has the same kitty backing fabric as the one I finished earlier in the month.

I also finished piecing the blocks for my Cozy Christmas Quilt and will sew on the borders next. Color me disappointed when I learned I forgot to include it in my Q4 Finish-Along list, because this one will be done before Christmas. But oh well.

Tomorrow I begin quilting my cousin Kim’s red, white and black quilt. Once that is done, I’ll probably begin quilting Magic Carpet for son Shane.

Today, Thursday, is one of my hubby Bruce’s days off, and we took the opportunity today to get the final paperwork signed and notarized for me to pull my Siemens pension and roll it into my IRA. It was an unexpected surprise that I may have mentioned before. It will more than make up for what we are spending on the remodel.

We also loaded up our antique Dutch sideboard and took it to our favorite antique store, Capital City Antiques in Salt Lake. It’s now for sale on consignment, and they (the experts) priced it at a level that pleasantly surprised us. If it sells - and they are pretty confident it will soon - we’ll get much more than anticipated. Of course we’re not counting any ducks yet.....  But all this is to say that our living room is pretty much emptied out now. We have a couch to take to the thrift store next week, and it will be virtually empty. The painting can begin in earnest now that we have access to walls (LOL). It will go quickly. And then there is the hallway, and the doors. We will add crown molding and new baseboards, but they’ll all be painted before installing. This weekend the fireplace gets grouted and we begin ripping up carpet.

I’m also linking up to Amanda’s Finish it up Friday!

Talk to you on Saturday for Rainbow Scrap Saturday!!

Mellow Yellow and a Quilt Finish!

The Mellow Yellow is ME. I am mellow because I’m so proud of myself that I didn’t lose my temper while spending way too long (like a couple hours or more) trying to set up my iCloud photo sharing between my iMac, iPad and iPhone. I am so sick of having to take pix on multiple devices and/or email them back and forth...... and then things change whenever there is a major update. I finally did it. A computer geek I am NOT. Fingers crossed.

Since I posted my 4th Quarter Finish Along goals yesterday, I want to start off by showing you the first finish of this quarter. Aria. Our model today is Alfalfa.

Once the quilt was back from the quilter on October 3, all I had to do was trim and bind it. Here is a close-up of their quilting. The pattern is a paisley and flower, which I thought was appropriate for the fabric.

And then, since I was taking pictures, both cats had to jump up and get their photos taken. At one point, Alfie started grooming Darla. That went on until he either got a bit playful or rough or Darla had had enough. Anyway, just like human kids, the nice play turned into a fight (claws retracted). I got a picture or two of them at that point, not realizing until later that I caught Darla in mid-somersault. I love when they do that!!

Anyway, Aria was Goal #1 on my Q4 Finish-Along list (shown here).

This week I did manage to get four golden 16-patch blocks. Bad pic, but it’s all I have.

I threw a few peach scraps in there, in the spirit of the sunrise (or was it sunset?) colors. No matter. The bright and pastel yellows are coming up next week, but I wanted to hold off until I had made my final blocks for the RSC Sampler Quilt.

I’m linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, too, so why not come check out the fun?

My cousin Kim sews with me every Sunday. Last weekend she finished piecing another quilt top. This one is for her other granddaughter Zoey, who is six and picked out the colors herself. I think she has rather sophisticated taste for a 6-year old!

Kim will add borders this weekend, and then we will baste it sometime (with construction going on here on the weekend, that may be problematic). Isn’t it gorgeous???

Finally, I made my 9th block for the Cozy Christmas Sew-Along; the holly. I still have to add all the sashings, but will probably do that tomorrow.

Oops, I forgot to crop and do some photo editing, but oh well. Besides going crazy with the computer this afternoon, my morning was spent running to Home Depot (to return the extra electrical and media components, a credit that totaled $140) and then heading to Sherwin-Williams to buy paint for the living room and hallway (spent $98 of the aforementioned $140,  even with a contractor discount), and then to Trader Joe’s (pumpkin scone mix, Pumpkin O’s cereal, and peaches and pears). And that used up most of the last of the credit, LOL!!! Our contractor Jeff is adding the tile/stone to the fireplace this weekend. The floors are here in boxes and are acclimating for the next 10 days. This whole construction thing seems to be clipping right along. Either I’ve grown patient in my old age, or...... or what? I think I’ve just grown patient in my old age, LOL!!

Quarter 4 Finish-Along Goals

I’m running out of time to list my 4th quarter goals for the 2016 Finish-Along, so here I am sliding in under the wire by a day or two.

Last quarter I only finished one of my four goals, and I even did a post about it (my Notting Hill quilt, here). But then I forgot to link up to the 3rd Quarter Linky Party. Just so much going on....  But I am determined to stick to the program, LOL.  Without further ado.....

1.   Aria Quilt
Edited to add: Finished. Post is HERE.

This finish didn’t make it into last quarter, but only by a few days. I got it back on Oct. 3 or so, then trimmed and bound it. It is now done, but I will do an official post about it next week.

2.  Cat Quilt for Remington
Edited to add: Finished. Post is Here.

The below quilt, pictured when it was just basted, is almost ready to be revealed. It will be shown in its own post later this month.

3.  Cat Quilt for London.
London’s quilt is basted and will be quilted by me this weekend. Reveal post will be after numbers one and two.
Edited to Add:  Finished. Post is Here.

4.  Cat Quilt for Abbie - right now it’s just a pile of cat squares; you can actually check back on my blog to see the yellow litter (yellow is not in either of the above quilts).  This was a later addition to my Must Make Cat Quilts because I didn’t know until last month that Abbie was in love with cats!!
Edited to Add:  Finished. Post is  HERE.




5.  Magic Carpet Quilt for Shane
Edited to Add:  Finished.  Post is HERE.

This quilt top was so much fun to piece! It’s ready to be basted and quilted.

6.  Vintage Sheet Rainbow Rail Fence

This top is also pieced and ready to be basted and quilted. I’d wanted to do a vintage sheet quilt for a long time, so used this year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge as an opportunity to work with my sheet scraps. I rather like it!

7.   Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
Edited to add: Finished!  Post is Here.

This one is a column-along quilt. The tenth and final column will be a yellow one which I’ll sew up as soon as it’s announced. Not pictured are the red, green and gray columns, and the blue column is folded up at the foot of the teal and pink columns.

8.   Christmas Quilt for Mike
Edited to add: Finished! Post is HERE.

This is a deer-themed printed quilt top from Pattern Jam. The green and black polka dots will be thin and thick borders. The newsprint fabric will be the backing. This will be for one of my dear sons-in-law Mike, who is a hunter.  My other SIL is on assignment overseas, so he will get a quilt next year.

9.  Petals for Kim
Edited to add:  Finished! Post is HERE. 

My daughter-in-law Kim picked out the pattern and the Bonnie & Camille fabrics. These orange peels need to be machine appliquéd to the blocks, then stitched together, etc. Should be a quick and easy make for Christmas.

10. Ryan’s Manly Quilt.
Updated to add: Finished!  Post is HERE.

Unlike my artist son Shane (who picked out the colors of his Magic Carpet quilt above), Ryan is more comfortable with darker, more sedate colors. This fabric is Black Tie Affair by Basic Grey for Moda.

11.  Cozy Christmas
Updated to add: Finished! Posted HERE.

Right now I’m participating in the Cozy Christmas Quilt Along. I plan to finish all four blocks, the borders, etc. and give it as a Christmas present.

This quarter, I am confident that I will finish at least 80% of this list, as they are slated as Christmas gifts.  Then I can start the new year with very little on my plate!!  YAY!!

I’m linking up to the 4th Quarter Goals for the 2016 Finish Along. Why not hop over and see what others have planned?

In the Red . . . Scraps. And a Finish!!

The highlight of my week was on Monday when our daughter Emily (actually, she’s Bruce’s daughter from his previous marriage, but now she’s mine too!) brought her 3 kids over on Labor Day. Her hubby Chad in in the US Air Force and is stationed overseas for a year. So, since her son Deacon (age 8) needed help with a Cub Scout balsa flyer project, Grandpa (DH) was happy to step in.

That means that Emily and I, along with Abbie (7) and Gunner (3) got to hang out. We picked veggies (that is always great fun for little kids) and grapes, played, made pizza for lunch and talked and talked. And one thing I found out is that granddaughter Abbie is now bonkers over CATS. I knew that two of my other DGDs, Remi and London, were crazy for cats, but this was a new infatuation for Abbie and news to me. So, that means I now have THREE cat quilts to make for Christmas.

You know the cat quilts; each consists of a mama cat and 12 kittens per litter, like the red one on the right that I made this week. Six litters per quilt. I would have been finished with sewing felines after this month. And then..... dear Abbie. Needless to say, I will be sewing an additional six mama cats and 72 kittens in the next two months.

Anyway, I ran out right away and bought another couple yards of Kona white for cat and kitten backgrounds and so far I have made two more red mama cats for this month. Can you see them at the left? They are pregnant! LOL. But their litters are not due for another couple weeks because I will be on vacation in Missouri at a quilt retreat next week. Yes, we will be making a trip to Missouri Star Quilt Company. I went last year, too, but it will be nice to see the newly-remodeled store.

And I hope to get the rest of the mama cats (not to be confused with Mama Cass) cut out and sewn this month; one each in green, pink, blue and purple. Then next month I will do three yellow cats and kittens.  And somewhere over October and November the kittens for Mama Green, Blue, Pink and Purple will be stitched. But that is OK!  It’s not like I have anything else to do..... oh wait.....

Now I'm hoping we might be able to hold off on the living room remodel until after the Holidays. I have my RSC quilt to finish, these 3 cat quilts, plus four more quilts for DS1, DS2, DDIL, and DSIL2 (one started/shown last week) The vintage sheet quilt will wait until January, and when Aria comes back from the quilter, I'll only have to bind it.

The RSC blocks for this month were a breeze, and not only did I finish them, but I sewed them to the gray blocks from last month. In fact, although I don’t have a picture of it, everything is sewn together now except the yellow column.....

That was yesterday, and Alfalfa was feeling either very needy or very bossy, because he was with me in the studio supervising everything I did. And he is sitting on my lap this morning as I type this.

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This week I finished quilting Notting Hill, which will be one of the quilts that goes into the pile of 4 quilts that Emily and her sister Stacy will get to choose from for their Christmas present quilt: Notting Hill, Valentine, Birds & Bees and the RSC Sampler quilt). The other two I’ll keep.

Notting Hill done!

Notting Hill was also #3 on my 3rd Quarter Finish-Along goals.  I used the sampler format to practice old free-motion quilting skills and try out new ones. Overall, I am pleased enough with how it went. The sashing was all done in a line pattern. Stippling was used in 2-3 of the blocks.

In one block I used the zig-zag style. It was easier than I thought once I wrapped my brain around it, but it does need practice.  You can also see the border where I did free-form flowers and leaves.

Some blocks had hearts, spirals, waves, or loops. This wavy line quilting, below, turned out to be one of my favorites.

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This week I also finished another block in the Cozy Christmas Sew Along;  Cozy Tree.

I have started on next week’s block so that I won’t get behind while I’m away for a week. Next time I report on these I should have 2 more to show. Yes, Cozy Christmas is another quilt I would like to finish before Christmas.

And yes, I plan on moving into my studio/sewing room and forsaking all housekeeping, cooking (have a month’s worth of meals already made and frozen) and other “extra-curricular” activities. 

Linking up to:  So Scrappy Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Quarter Three Finish Along Goals

Hi! I’ve been so busy for the past two weeks, I sometimes don’t know if I’m coming or going.
I will share some pictures below, but first I want to list my goals for the 3rd Quarter Finish Along. The Finish-Along is hosted by several lovely ladies who work their tails off to coordinate our goals with our finishes, hosting link-ups and gathering prizes from so many fantastic sponsors. If you have never looked into this, try the linky in my sidebar or go HERE to see the 3rd Quarter Goals of the many participants.

Without further ado, here are my goals:

1.  Shane’s Magic Carpet.
You’ve seen it in my goals before, but hopefully this will be the last time before I finish it. I intend to work more on finishing quilts this quarter rather than starting any more.

2. Notting Hill Quilt.
This project has always been to add 2 blocks per month to what I had at the beginning of the year. I have sixteen completed and plan to do 2 in July and 2 in August. It then just needs to be sashed, quilted, bound.

3.  Aria Quilt.
The blocks and rows are all sewn, and about half of them are sewn together. A good hour would allow me to finish this top. I will have to piece a border and backing with all the leftover fabrics. I plan to send this ASAP to a professional quilter because it will be a queen bed-sized. If I hurry, I can get it back by the end of the quarter.

4. and 5.  Cat Quilts.
I have 8 litters made. Each litter is a 24x24” square consisting of a 12” mama cat in the middle surrounded by twelve 6” kittens. The litters will be set 2x3 with sashing and should finish about 54x74”.  The two quilts will have some different colors, so when I finish, you’ll be able to see that they are actually two separate quilts. I have some cute cat fabric to back both of them. They’ll be Christmas presents for the 2 granddaughters who are cat crazy like their grandma.

6. Farm Girl Quilt.
This one has been on and off my lists for a year. I have enough blocks to finish the quilt in a 7x7 setting. (By the way, see the new watermelon block? I just made that at the Farm Girl Retreat last wee - more about that below).

The problem here is that I was really a beginner last year when I started these. Yes, I had been quilting for 2.5 years at the time, but I had never learned the finer points of flying geese, measuring 1/4” seams, etc.  The blocks range from 12” to 12.5” finished, in various eighth-inch increments.  I hope I’m up to the challenge of fudging on the sashing to make up the differences. And I think cornerstones would accentuate the issue, so those are out for sure. We will see how it goes. Needless to say, I am much more careful on getting my blocks more accurate. It’s a continual challenge...

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Last week we had another Farm Girl Retreat at Thimbles and Threads with Lori Holt. This was called our Instagram Farm Girl Retreat  (#igfarmgirlvintageretreat) because we were there to greet our friend Cathy (Tazzie) Purdon from New Zealand, who is visiting the USA for 5 weeks. So the whole IG group of friends was there, as well as some of Lori’s “peeps” - her personal group of crazy and delightful friends. There were 22 of us, including teacher Lori and guest of honor Cathy.

At the retreat, Lori introduced four new blocks (coming soon) and her Farm Fresh Quilt Pattern (now available at the Fat Quarter Shop). It was pure craziness and laughter with all these women. Beth B (@kitqueen) made everyone their own IG block. Isn’t it cute? She has the most infectious laugh! And several other ladies, including Lori, passed out gifts for everyone.

Here is Lori and Cathy P just as they were presented with the USA Flag Blocks that each of us made for them. They will each have enough (signed) quilt blocks to make their own quilt.

Lori Holt and Cathy Purdon

L-R: Cathy K, Betty, Kristie, Rae Anne, Suzanne

Joanna Cotton and me

Can you believe this amazing dress (below) that Cynthia Horst (@dreamquiltcreate) made for herself from selvages?!?

I met some incredible ladies and had a blast. Yes, I did feel totally out of my league, but as always, I learned a lot and made new friends. It was wonderful, and I was certainly humbled to have been invited.

Finally, apricot season is here. If hubby and I are not out picking apricots (and cleaning up our and our neighbor’s yards from them), we are dehydrating them or I’m making jam or freezing quart after quart..... It looks like an apricot tornado in my kitchen. And did I mention that my daughter Megan is visiting from Seattle this week??

And then there are the contractors. Today they measured for new sliding shutters for our sliding glass doors. The rain gutter/soffit contractors will be here Tuesday to do their repairs and install heat tapes. DH has just about finished making the new porch pillar bases (they are 3/4 installed), so I will be painting the pillars next week. And I have a month to paint the kitchen (and get someone in to paint its ceiling). The shutters arrive 3rd week of August, as does the custom light fixture we are having made from a woodworker on Etsy. Once the kitchen is done, the living room demolition will start. And somewhere in there will be vegetables to harvest with grapes following after that.

At least I’m not bored!!