Work in Process Wednesday; Progress but no Finishes

One of these days, I am going to write a post and show off a dozen finishes! HA! But that day is not today.  :-)  But I do have a few bazillion  projects I am working on. And since the weather here continues to be cloudy and rainy for the 3rd week, and working outdoors is not going to happen soon (in fact, I may have to move it from my To Do List to my Bucket List), here is a progress report on some of my stitchy, quilty goals.

Starting with the oldest project, this is a vintage needlepoint I bought at an estate sale, onto which I am adding 12 crazy quilt blocks.  Those blocks were part of a 2012 Crazy Quilt Journal Project, and I just finished stitching the final block this week.  Yeah, I know!  But at least I am still in the same decade..... LOL.

Now 8 of the 12 blocks have been added, and the final four will go on this week.  Then I will fill in any remaining bare spots with some stitching, stabilize it, add trim around the center and then back and bind it. It will be done by month end, come hell or high water..... and the high water is no laughing matter around here.

Next up is the Bright Banjos for Bruce using the Pow Wow Pattern from Cluck, Cluck, Sew. All the blocks are sewn into rose, and I only have 3 or 4 more rows to add.  Then baste, quilt, bind and viola!  Another hopeful finish for this month.  Excuse the wrinkle-y top. I have had it folded (and the cats have found it to be a lovely nap spot)

And then there are the ever-present wonky log cabin blocks. I have made 2 of three for this month, but I am likely not going to finish the 3rd until next week. And I have so many green scraps that I think I will start making some 16-patch quilt block to use some up.

If they look PARTICULARLY wonky, it is because they are laying on a pile of fabric scraps from yet another project..... making more fabric packs for my Etsy shop. Never enough hours in a day...

And finally, my Farm Girl blocks. As I mentioned last post (and you can see from the logo on the sidebar) I am participating in Lori Holt`s Farm Girl Vintage quilt-along. These blocks are the Baby Chick (from week 2) and Baking Day and Butter Churn from Week 3. I am loving these blocks and having a ball!!

Baby Chick

Baking Day (with some vintage Pyrex)

Butter Churn

That catches me up on my quilting and stitching news for now.  I have also planted all of my (12) Mexican Talavera pots with flowers for the front walkway. They are lovely, but I want to wait to get a picture until (1) it stops raining (2) it stops raining long enough for Bruce to mow the lawn and (3) it stops raining so I don’t rust. Or, it could just STOP RAINING!!!

Hugs,

Work in Process Wednesday and a Rotten Apple, Inc.

Is there anyone else out there in Blogland who has had the new Apple Photos app forced down their throats???  After a routine “update” three nights ago, I woke up to having iPhotos gone and replace with PHOTOS.  I had to import every picture (hours) into a new library.  OK, I am getting used to the new format. I can live with progress. But I can’t access my photos from Blogger when I want to upload them to the blog! Grrrrr.

So, I had to go in to the new PHOTOS, export them to a file called PICTURES, and then upload them. Does anyone know why the export process is so mangled?  If I try just simply uploading from Blogger, all that PHOTOS will give me is the Photos Logo, not the photos themselves. And I can’t place them anywhere on my Favorites or anywhere they are accessible by Blogger.  As usual with tech things, specific advice is nowhere to be found online.  I am probably the only person in the known universe with this problem.

That must mean it is time to go sew and work off some of that frustration!!!

Here is my in process stitching of Bruce’s quilt. He loves bright colors.  So, I am now loving flying geese after doing 100+ for this quilt.  :-)  And actually, I have four out of 8 rows of the top sewn together. I hope to baste it later in the week, sew the back, and begin quilting on Sunday.

After laying these out in order, hubby decided that he wanted all arrows except one column pointing up.  The column that is second-from-right will stay pointing down.  :-)

The gold-looking print in the picture above is actually orange, and there is a lot of orange in the banjo print.

The quilt will be backed with some orange Riley Blake ombre fabric. I found an entire shrink-wrapped bolt of it (10 yards) for $7.99 at a local thrift store.  (No, those things never happen to me either....)  Plus there will be some other pieces and/or flying geese added into the back for interest. I shared this on my Instagram a couple weeks ago.

Well, off to sew.  Linking up to WIP Wednesdays with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

See you soon!

WIP Wednesday and Animal Welfare

Today is Wednesday, and I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.   I have several things going on at once, which is probably no surprise to any of you stitchy or crafty ladies. We all do it, right? So I won’t apologize for that. However, I only have pictures of one of them at the moment, so I will have to start doing better on that front.

I will have a finish to show you on Friday (never had the time to link up last Friday), so I have been busy.

This will be a mini-quilt, approx 22x27” made from a Marmalade charm pack from Bonnie and Camille. I`m doing a little QAL (quilt-along) with Heather Mulder Peterson, using her pattern Pretty in Pink (mini).

I also have lots of blue scrappy log cabin blocks to show, but that will come on Saturday for So Scrappy Saturday.  And I have finished cutting out the background blocks for my grandson Easton’s quilt, and will begin working on the trees that will go into that. Pictures next week.

Meantime, last Sunday at our family sew-in (or Sewarama, as my DH calls it), which we hold every Sunday in my studio, my cousin Kim and her DGD Trinity, we were all busy cutting and sewing.  Trini is 10 now, and wanted to work on the Koala Mittens and Joey Pouches for  the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Australia.  While their recent posts have said they have enough Koala mittens, Trini wanted to work on the joey pouches and the mittens, so how could we say no?  The made 3 joey pouches and 4 pairs of mittens.  I will be mailing those off to Australia this week.

And speaking of Animal Welfare, I am going to have to start banning the Supervisors (better known as our cats Alfalfa and Darla) from the studio if they don`t shape up.  Alfie seems to feel that part of his responsibilities include removing pins from the design wall. It has gotten so that I can`t use pins except high up where he can`t reach them.  

Alfalfa (Alfie), age 1.5

Both he and his sister Darla (below) enjoy the colorful pin heads, and will remove them from pin cushions if we leave those lying about. I know, I know, it’s dangerous!  Which I have told them. You can see just how concerned they both are. 

Darla, age 1.5  

I know what Alfie is thinking. Revenge. He will call a 4:00 a.m. “staff meeting” as payback.

Work in Progress Wednesday

I am currently working on a commission quilt/wall hanging for a woman in Park City who has, during this long process, become a friend. This has been one of the most delightful projects I have ever worked on, and as the process draws to a close, I am simultaneously excited to see the finished project and sad that it will soon be over.

This will be a cream-on-cream wall hanging comprised of 20 8-inch blocks.  My client is giving this to her mother for Christmas, and we used her wedding dress that I salvaged from remnants of the dress and another strange wedding quilt (that someone else had tried to make. It had the entire bodice as the central piece and looked as though someone was coming through the quilt...... enough said). 

Every block contains a piece of the wedding dress fabric, and much of the lace is from the wedding dress as well. The recipient (my client’s mother) was a florist, so there are lots of lace, silk ribbon and other flowers throughout. The marquis shape of the center medallion echoes the shape of the lace pieces from the dress that are scattered throughout. There is even one entire sleeve cuff on the right side (to the right of central medallion). The central portion is all ribbon flowers (or yo-yos). I still need to add in a stem and some leaves. there will also be some seamwork below it. Lots of the blank-looking areas will be covered (as will many seams) by lacy little doilies or other lace motifs from the wedding dress.  Plus I will need to re-check that everything along the seam lines is secure after trimming/sewing the blocks. 

The back will contain a dedication with a picture of the wedding couple printed on silk.  I should be able to finish it this weekend or early next week. 

While I`m working on this, I am also working on a couple sewn Christmas gifts, which I will reveal at a later date. 

I`m linking to:

Work in Process Wednesday at Pintangle   AND

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced