Life is running slow...

Things have been fairly quiet around here the last couple of weeks. I think it's God's way of letting us heal after losing Laura so tragically. She's all over the news in Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa... But like I said, things are staying pretty quiet in our neck of the woods.

I've been working mainly on my Candied Hexagons quilt and the Circles applique quilt lately. It's been waaaay too hot to work on Mom's tablerunner. That particular project has been pushed back to a Christmas gift (I missed her birthday deadline). We've been dealing with temps in the 90's and above for a few weeks and even the air conditioning isn't able to tackle that. The humidity is just horrid, too. I keep telling people I've become an expert sweater this year (sorry if that's too much information).

We had DH's birthday party this past weekend. It was nice, we had burgers on the grill and corn on the cob. Our neighbor brought over 2 cakes! A chocolate and a peach upside down...they were both wonderful :) I got a sunburn, but I blame it on the meds I'm taking for the rosacea...I was only in the sun for 15 minutes, honest!!! LOL

I've been spending some time this past week going through the drawers and places in my sewing room that I don't normally go through...you know those places that collect things you don't want to get rid of, but promptly forget about once you put them away? Anyway, I've collected a small pile of things that I have no use for, or haven't used since I've bought them and am planning to have a give-away soon. I've got to get pics taken of them first. Can you tell the picture-taking is my least favorite part of blogging?? If only my photographer DH was more interested in taking pics I ask him to take....oh well.

I guess that's it for now...I hope you are all surviving the Heat Wave of 2011, too!

Quilting Update

Have you ever noticed that the closer you get to finishing something, the less you work on it? Maybe it's just me. I don't know. I do know that when I get close to finishing something, it sits and sits in my sewing room and stares balefully at me from across the way, wondering why I'm ignoring it. And you know what? I don't really know the answer to that. I think it has something to do with the fact that I enjoy the process of the work, more than the finished product. And if I finish something I love, then that means I can't enjoy the process on that particular project anymore. I know, crazy-talk.

Well, anyway, my green star quilt has been sitting with this much quilting to be done on it for over a month now. Yes, I know Christmas was fit in that month, but still, this is what, 10 minutes of work? Yeah, it should be done now - I could probably finish this bit faster than I can write this blog entry. But am I finishing it? Nope. And the really crazy part - the quilt still needs the borders quilted! So it won't even technically be finished when I finish this bit! Yeah, I know you can all say it - crazy. Oh well, I'm enjoying the ride :)

I have been spending quite a bit of time surfing the web for new free BOM patterns that are being posted now. I've found 3 that I'm gah-gah over. Beyond the Cherry Trees by Sentimental Stitches, Christmas Row by Row by Fat Cat Patterns (she does awesome BOM's!) and Simple Thymes by Angie's Bits 'n Pieces. I even started to pull fabrics for the Simple Thymes piece - but I need to go shopping for background fabrics - I don't have anything suitable on my shelves. Hmm, I should probably hunt through my unwashed fabrics first - I've got about 3 big tubs of that....

I have been spending a fair amount of time on a quilt I started about 2 years ago on my trip to Phoenix. This is the first wreath block, without the circles attached.

It's from the pattern Winter Dance by Piece 'O Cake Designs. I love their patterns, and own most of them. I was feeling like I needed to start a green and red quilt after Christmas settled down and realized I had one already started! So, I dug it out of the WIP pile and worked on it some more. Not much done yet - I'm only on the second wreath block now, but I never claimed to be a fast sewer ;)

Yes, the Circle Quilt is seeing some work time. This is a shot I took of Felix overseeing my work on tracing the sewing line on the circles. See, I decided that instead of using the Perfect Circle technique that Karen Kay Buckley made famous, I'd just needle-turn them like all the other applique I do. Of course, I haven't gotten any of these circles sewn on yet, but they're ready when I get to that point!

By the way, Felix thinks I'm doing a bang-up job - hehe.

What I've Been Working On...

I promised you an update on what I've been working on lately. Here it is!

While on breaks at work, I've been working on my cable scarf. I found the pattern for it here. It's a good beginner cable pattern, and I'm enjoying working on it very much. I'm using WoolEase yarn and it's so wonderfully soft. I'm not a very fast knitter, so I don't expect to have it finished this year - but as long as I'm still enjoying it, it'll still see some working time.

The other thing that's been on the work table lately is the Circle Quilt. I had found sticky dots that were the size I needed for the circles, and was in the process of basting the seam allowances around the dots. But it was going very slowly! And, I couldn't iron the circles with the sticky dots in there - they became permanent! So, one day, as I was working on appliqueing some more of the leaves, it occurred to me that I enjoy needle-turn applique. And why is a circle considered harder to applique than any other shape? Sure, getting a perfect circle can be tough, but if you have a perfect line to follow - it can't be impossible. Also, I was having some trouble getting the circle's seam allowances to stay tucked under (as you can see in the picture below). So....I changed my approach.

I've begun tracing around the sticky dots on the front of the fabrics and things are moving along much quicker! I got about 150 of these done last night while watching a movie with DH.

I also wanted to share with you a recent purchase I made. I found both of these glass jars at Hobby Lobby. I think they work perfectly for my spools of thread and my fabric scraps. And I just love the look of clear glass bell jars.

This last picture is included only because I felt it was time to introduce you to another of our family members. This is Boots. She lives with us both by accident and force of will. You see, her mother was a member of our family about 10 years ago. We rescued her and took her home. We lived in a 3rd floor apartment in a large city. We used to leave the sliding door to the balcony open for the cats to get in and out when they wanted to. One morning we woke up to a cat missing. Apparently she had jumped from one balcony to another and disappeared. Imagine my surprise when I spotted her hanging around the apartment building in the middle of winter the following year! After 2 or 3 days and nights of trying to catch her, we finally succeeded and brought her back home again - only to find out she was pregnant. Later that spring we welcomed Boots and 2 brothers into our family. We found a home for one of her brothers, and finally decided to take the rest of the family to my uncle's farm so they could live as barn cats (we were currently at 7 cats in a 2 bedroom apartment!) When we got to the farm, the mother and brother took off, happy as larks to be outside running around. Boots, however, hunkered down and started wailing. Well, soft-heart that I am, we ended up taking her back home with us. She's been with us ever since. And you can see, she loves getting involved in everything we do. In fact, right now she's circling my chair as I type, trying to find a way up on the computer table. :)

Circle Quilt Update

First of all, I want to apologize for the quality of the following pictures. I don't know what happened, but everything is slightly out of focus.

I decided to pin some circles to a block to see how they would look. To see if I like the scrappy idea I started with. Here is the result:

I'm not 100% certain I like the scrappy look. I'm really leaning toward a controlled color scheme right now. So, I decided to put up another block with some borders I had finished earlier...

It's looking a little better......sorta...well, anyway, you can see how the whole quilt layout will be in the next picture...I'm just short a block - it should be 4 blocks by 4 blocks when done (my design wall isn't big enough to lay out the entire quilt)...

I think I'll leave it this way for now and start on the Candied Hexagon quilt I've been holding off on in my controlled colorway idea. Maybe doing that will get it out of my system and I will decide I really like the scrappy look of my Circle Quilt.

What do you all think?

A Lovely Gift

My DH's Aunt is a wonderful person. Since she never married or had children, she dotes on her 2 nephews - and well, on me too!

About 8 years ago, she gave me this for Christmas. Isn't it beautiful?

She made it with plastic canvas. When you lift the top, you see inside she constructed little sections for me to put things...

And when you lift that, you see there is another layer of sections!

I just love it. I use it to store all of my perl cottons and Kreiniks (as you can see). When I think of the time she put into it, it just makes me smile to know she loves me :)

I forgot to add a picture of the circles of my Circle Quilt the other day. These are what I'm working on when I watch football with DH. The circles finish to 1 3/8" (if I recall correctly), and I was lucky enough to find stickers in that exact size. So, I'm running a basting stitch in the seam allowance and pulling the fabric tight against the stickers. I've experimented and found out I can't iron with the stickers still there, so I'm letting them sit for a while, and when I'm ready to start sewing them on the quilt, I hope the fabric will remember it's crease and I can just pull out the sticker and go. If not, a quick dab of the iron should do the trick.

Oh! We found our first pumpkin yesterday!! DH and I decided to plant 2 pumpkin plants this year. We had wanted to do a whole garden, but we just don't have the yard space for one....so these 2 plants were our consolation. We didn't clear an area for them, just plopped them in the ground behind the grill area about 6 weeks ago or so. They've been blooming each morning for a while, but yesterday, we found our first pumpkin - we were so excited! And today, I see there is another :) Can't wait for Halloween so we can use them to decorate :)

My Work Project

I decided to share the project I've been working on during breaks and lunches at work. It's another applique project, with no real name yet, so for lack of something original, I'm calling it the Circle Quilt for now. That'll probably change as it moves along.

Here is a picture of what I've done so far:

I've got a couple blocks that look like this. Just stems and leaves. Lots of leaves waiting to be basted to blocks....and a few border blocks completely finished (of course I forgot to take a picture of those)...

And this is what the goal is:

I found this pattern in the Fons & Porter magazine, July/Aug 2006. I just love the overall pattern the circles make, and the quilting on it is divine! I want to do something similar, but will be hand quilting it, not machine quilting it.

On another note - I want to assure everyone that our hunter is back in business! He left us a trophy on the back steps last night (after he scurried out the door - something he's not allowed to do!). If you're squeamish, skip the following pic. Evidence of Hunter Extraordinare: