A Busy Week

If the first week of March is any indication, then it’s going to be a busy month! This was Bruce’s first full week of retirement (or re-retirement as we call it. He retired once about 9 years ago, was home for 3-4 months, began volunteering at The Leonardo Museum, then they hired him part-time, then full-time, etc etc. He worked there for 8 years!)



We ran all sorts of errands this week between continual rain showers. Not complaining about the rain; it’s better than drought. And at least it’s rain and not snow, although I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the snow this season. I’m hoping it warms up for next week, which is my birthday week. Last year I got a bicycle and was out riding it in shirtsleeves.... We did treat ourselves to some cut flowers to brighten things up a bit. I had another pic that was a better view of these tulips and daffodils (bought from Trader Joe’s), but it wouldn’t upload. Oh well. I’m also preparing for a joint birthday party for my older son Ryan and me this weekend, reading two very good books, and just generally enjoying having Bruce home these days!

And another cool thing - I already have my Lattice Birds quilt back from the quilter! I sent it to Diane Knott of Butterfly Threads Quilting and apparently caught her at a good time (between Quiltcon and a family vacation) when she had nothing in the pipeline. I sent it off on a Thursday (a week ago today), from Utah to Georgia. She got it Saturday and sent it back to me on Monday. I had it yesterday, Wednesday. How cool is that? But the best part, of course, was the amazing quilting she did.  I will get the binding on in the next couple days, but I’m going to have to wait for some decent weather to take some glamour shots.

In the meantime, though, I do have the two elephant quilts basted. The one on the left is spray basted, the right one is pin basted. I’m not at all happy at how wrinkled the back gets when you spray baste the quilt layer by layer. But we’ll see how the quilting goes. Yesterday I quilted the pin-based one and will start on the spray basted one today. I’ll show completed pictures when they’re done.

And I bought another sewing machine!!  This one has actually been planned for at least 2-3 months. Meet Sofie, the Singer Featherweight!

Sofie was born sometime in 1968-1969 in Kilbowie, Scotland, UK (She is a 221K, with the K referring to Kilbowie).  She has all her parts, a case and foot pedal, a light, and is in excellent condition. I got a screaming deal on her ($350) from a friend at Weight Watchers (yes, I still go - I’ve maintained my current weight for a year after losing 30-35 pounds, and am now gearing up to  lose the next 30). Anyway, this machine is not for me - I bought it for Cousin Kim. Her old Kenmore is dying a slow death, just like my Kenmore is. Both of our Kens still work, but their motors are weary and have lost most of their power. So Kim’s been using my Brother Innova (“Bob”) when she sews here. But I wanted her to have a nice machine for her home, and she prefers solid vintage machines, so Sofie will be hers.

Now, our next sewing machine project is to get my Singer treadle up and running. That is a project for later in the year. Then I can sew if there’s no power! I also have an old 1951 electric (don’t remember the brand offhand) that is a tank that I need to pass on to someone. I don’t think that Bruce or the repair shop are up to the task of fixing it. Have I ever shown that one? I don’t think so.....   but I digress....

And then I got a wild hair this week to piece a quilt from some of the blocks in the Parts Department. This is what I came up with.

I had hoped to get something out of just all the blue blocks, but there weren’t enough. So I added four green ones (quarter log cabins); one in each corner. That still wasn’t quite enough, so the bottom center block is actually 4 multi-colored quarter logs in warmer hues. And the block above that is just made up of random pieces and squares. I love how the upper right part of that, pieced from a couple different things, looks like a men’s tie. Anyway, this one is also basted and will be quilted soon. It’ll finish at about 44x54”. I’ve got a white with gray swiss dot fabric as sashing, also a scrap, but there wasn’t enough to add a final border to the top or bottom.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week. I’ve also been sewing on my green scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and will be showing some of my green blocks in Saturday’s post and linky party. But between the blue flimsy above, plus the elephants and birds quilts, I will have four finishes in the next week. But I’m not going to think farther ahead than that until I get them done, photographed and blogged.

Year-End Recap and a New Machine!

Hello! Did you all have a nice Christmas? Ours was alternately quiet and then busy with family - just the perfect mix of down time and fun time. But too much food, even if it was mostly healthy. There are the yummy neighbor gifts, of course. And then the cookies I ended up baking “for Bruce” (well, they were for him, but it’s not like I ignored them....) And even some margaritas. Cousin Kim and I got some sewing time in this week and drank some skinny Margaritas while listening to Jimmy Buffet’s Christmas album, LOL. And they were both surprisingly good!  New Year’s Eve here is just a quiet time with the cats. We do stay up until midnight if for no other reason than all the racket that everyone in the ‘hood makes at midnight!

One fun thing we did is give our oldest Grandson, Easton, his usual Christmas cash. He’s a sophomore in college (nuclear engineering) and any money he gets supplements his earnings from scholarships and working part-time at In-n-Out. But this year we put a different spin on it. I saw a picture on Pinterest where someone had used a 2-pound candy box and put in coins, folded dollar bills (of varying denominations), etc. So, we did the same thing. And then re-wrapped it so it didn’t even look as though it had ever been opened. Seriously, though, the big bills we put into his Christmas card, and the candy box was filled with about $50 in coins and bills. Everyone loved it! He was a bit puzzled at first by the “candy” gift (but infinitely too polite to say anything), but laughed heartily when he opened it.

And here is Easton with his sister Lauren. You may remember that Lauren accompanied her mom and me to Kenya last July.

I was going to combine my recap post for 2018 with a looking-ahead post for 2019, but decided that would be too much. So, I’ll just do the recap here and save the new project introductions for my next post.

Because I’m an organized person for the most part, I use a personal written planner, spreadsheets, and online goal groups (like the Finish-Along and One Monthly Goal) to keep track of my goals and progress on them. Truly, no UFO (UnFinished Object) is left behind in my studio!

In December, I finished All You Need is Love,  a kids’ donation quilt,  two Rainbow selvage quilts, and a table runner.  You’ve seen pictures in previous posts of the quilts, so I’ll spare you. But here is the table runner I made for my friend Terri. It’s similar to the one that I made for us, but these reds and greens are prettier fabric!

Here is a collage of my favorite nine quilts that I made in 2018.

Top, L-R:
AB Baby - a baby quilt for daughter Stacy on the birth of DGD Evie in June
Autumn Sampler, sewn late last year but finished in January
Dancing in September - A Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) quilt of bowtie blocks

Middle, L-R:
Starry, Starry Day - finished in January
Groovy Guitars - finished in August for DH Bruce
All You Need is Love - for daughter Megan, finished in December

Bottom, L-R:
Linked Squares - another RSC quilt finished in August
Exploding Boxes - a RSC quilt finished in November
Orange Lozenges - finished in September

And here is a collage of all my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts completed this year EXCEPT the two selvage quilts I finished last week. Some of these overlap with my 9 favorites in the above collage.
 

Top L-R:           Pawsitivity 2; Squared Away Sampler; Dancing in September
Middle L-R:      Rainbow Strings; Starry, Starry Day; Geese Migration
Bottom L-R:     Linked Squares; Exploding Boxes, Pawsitivity I

All my quilts are shown in my Quilt Gallery (2012-2018). You can check out the blue link just under the header. I plan to start a new page for Quilts 2019-? this year.

And finally, I’ve been worried for weeks about what I would do for a back-up sewing machine when Bernadette (my Bernina 550QE) went in for her annual spa treatment after Christmas. I do have a friend at Weight Watchers who is also a quilter, and she has a Singer Featherweight (white) that she’s going to sell me - but I won’t see her until January. My poor Kenmore sewing machine is so frail; he was serviced last year and the motor is dying. Bruce said he can replace the motor if we can find a new one, so we’re on the lookout.

So, I took Bernadette in and looked at their trade-ins at the shop yesterday. They had a Brother Innovus (2 years old) - solid state metal insides, not the cheap plastic models they sell to big box retailers. Anyway, it does embroidery (which is NOT a feature I was looking for or even care about) and has a hard case and a soft cover. Also, since its previous owner bought it there and then traded up to a bigger embroidery machine, they offered to continue the remaining 4 years of the original 6 year manufacturer’s warranty. The price? Only $399, and they cleaned and oiled it, threw in a pack of 12 bobbins, a bottle of oil, and a quarter inch foot. Needless to say, it came home with me, and I’ve been sewing happily away on it. It has an automatic thread cutter, which my Bernina doesn’t have AND an automatic needle threader. The Bernina has that, but it’s awful and never ever works for me. Bernina is not known for their needle threading prowess!

What’s with all the Disney crap stuff on the machine? It’s pre-programmed with lots of Disney embroidery designs. Apparently, Brother is the only sewing machine manufacturer licensed with Disney. So, it looks like a kid’s machine, but I so do not care! However, I still have have to name it, LOL. Not a Disney name, though.

So Bruce and I talked, and will still buy the Featherweight. It’s going to be our gift to Cousin Kim, whose Kenmore motor is also failing. Her Kenmore is only 2 years newer than mine (mine is a ’74, hers is a ’76), so they’re both over 40 years old. Now we’ll have two happy endings!!

Have a safe and wonderful New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day! We’ll see you on the other side!!

Linking up to:  Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Christmas 2012

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  And I hope you did, too!  Did you get to see family?     Did you have snow (if climate-appropriate)?

On Christmas Eve day, about noon, it began snowing here.  The roads weren’t bad, however, so as the family joined us during the day and evening, the driving conditions were not hazardous.

Bruce’s daughter Stacy and her family visited in the afternoon.

Stacy and hubby Mike

Grammy (me) and Hunter

Grandpa reads to Remi

Hunter likes to play Grandpa’s Workshop on my iPad

Remi likes to “read” too

Hunter the Red-Nosed Cute Boy (isn’t that vest darling?)

Then in the evening of 24 December, my three kids and their families joined us for dinner and presents.

London pets Boomer while cousin Easton and Grandpa look on

Kim, Lauren (DGD) and son Ryan

Kim, Lauren, Ryan, Easton and Ron (daughter Meg’s husband)

I didn’t get many pictures, because we were too busy having fun. But one of the highlights of the evening was when I realized what London’s mom had done to London’s hair.  About six weeks ago, London “cut” her own bangs. We all have horror stories of that, right?  Anyway, Heather (L’s mom who does not live with Shane and London) decided to (1) trim London’s bangs at an angle (like this: /) and (2) chop off some of the sides, effectively giving her a mullet.   U.G.L.Y.

So, I grabbed a brush and scissors and when no one was looking, brushed London’s hair and chopped off about 4-5 inches off the back, even-ing it out in back to a cute, curly bob. Everyone was astonished that I would have the nerve, then they laughed and applauded. Shane was grateful, especially that I had done it without consulting him (plausible deniability) so Heather couldn’t get mad at him.  My daughter Megan put it on her Facebook, saying it will go down in family lore.   :-)   Now, London looks pretty again, and she knows it!

Christmas Day dawned bright and clear; a perfect picture day.

We had already seen and exchanged gifts with all the local family (who were now off to other parents and in-laws), so Bruce and I had the day to ourselves.  Bruce’s Christmas present was a new laptop computer with touch screen that he’d ordered and received a couple weeks ago.

So, it was my present from Bruce that was the highlight of the day:

Here’s a better shot of the Certificate of Compliance so you can read it.  He has quite a sense of humor, that boy!

So, as you can see, Bruce did certainly meet his compliance requirements. The chips were eaten on Christmas Eve, the Bud Lite (aka SWILL) is still sitting in the ‘fridge because we don’t drink Bud.

And the $100 gift certificate, you ask?  I used it for the down payment of this:

The Sewing Machine of my dreams

I have been coveting a Bernina 550QE for months.  They are simply the best (and among the most expensive) sewing machines made.  Solidly engineered in Switzerland and will last me for the rest of my life (and then can be passed down).  I have had mediocre-to-bad sewing machine karma all my married life (when I lived at home, we had my grandma`s Necchi that she used as a dressmaker in NYC).  My last (bad) purchase was a Brother that I bought on Amazon.  It has been in for repair twice, but seems to be doing OK these last couple months as I have whizzed through quilts, pillowcases, Christmas stockings, etc.




Anyway, my Bernina is on layaway, and will not actually be paid for until after DS Ryan and Kim (see pix above) get married in June. We are joining them and the family on a cruise to the Bahamas, and then several days in Florida, where they will get married on the beach. Then we will all visit Disney World, etc.  Bruce and I are also visiting our friends Carol and Woody while there.  So, there are other priorities to pay for first.

And speaking of paying for things, hehe, I am having a year-end clearance sale in my Etsy shop (link on sidebar).  Everything is 20% off, even the clearance items.  Just type in the code GOODBYE2012 at checkout, and you will receive your 20% off. (and if you mess it up, I will do the refund manually).   This offer is good through 31 December 2012.  I hope you will stop by and take advantage of this great deal!


Wishing you and your family a bright and beautiful New Year 2013, and safe travels over the Holidays.