I love me some Freelove

Not much to post about this time around.  Just some progress pictures of Freelove Hazard.

Freelove Hazard by the Scarlet Letter

45ct Vintage Examplar

AVAS fibers

It may look like the bird and the two side flowers/leaves on top have no color, but it's a light pink that's hard to see in the picture.

 

Haven't gotten anymore quilting done for two reasons.  One, that little neck problem I mentioned last time.  I didn't want to aggravate it and it felt aggravated.  So I gave the quilting a break to recover. 

Second, I found a cozy space for my quilting stuff.  Yay!  (That's not the reason I haven't done any sewing.  I'll come to that, I promise.)   Loretta, my old friend from way back when, asked why I wasn't using the large, spacious dining table in our back room to set up my sewing.  Well, old friend, you haven't seen our large, spacious dining table, nor the back room, for quite a while!  lol!  The dining table has (still has for that matter) large piles of mail, magazines, etc from my beloved father type all over it.  And there are extra pieces of furniture back there that used to not be there in the old days.  But I decided that Loretta was right -- there would be lots of space back there for my little Featherweight and my ironing board if I just did a bit of work.  So I did!  I cleared enough space in the back room and the dining table so that I could set things up and not have to worry about moving it all every time we eat.  Yay!  

(If you look closely, you can see some of the piles of mail etc from cute father types still on the table.)

Why can't I sew away then, you ask?  Well, reason number two, besides reason number one (the neck), is that the back room gets cold.  We actually shut it up in late fall, winter and early spring so that the heater won't have to work overtime.  (We have another dining table in the livingroom for the winter season.)  And the weather has cooled off again so the back room is shut off for part of the day until it warms up.  So that's the other reason I haven't been sewing.  But reason number one is the main reason.  :D  Also reason number 3 -- feeling overwhelmed by the number of 9 patch blocks I have to tackle.  lol!   I've been thinking that maybe I should make one of the simpler quilts on my list first and sew my strip sets once in a while in the meantime.  We'll see.

In other news, remember how I told you that the girl child is  a last minute kinda girl?  Well, she proved it yet again.  Friday afternoon around 2:30, she emailed (didn't call, just emailed) asking if it would be ok if she came home that evening.  She said she would probably be home by 10pm.  Talk about short notice!  So home she came for the weekend.  It was nice seeing her again, especially since she'd missed out on Easter.  We even got to go see Alice in Wonderland, although not in 3D.  Which was fine by me, personally.   She's back at college again now.  Not much longer till she'll be home for the summer!

The boy child had his rehearsal with the pianist Friday evening in preparation for his NYSSMA All State audition.  I think both he and I were pleasantly surprised with how well it went.  I'm feeling much better about his chances for doing well now come this Friday.  And I think both the boy child and I are looking forward to NYSSMA being over and done with.  Just one last push to the finish and then we can relax!  I did find out something I hadn't known.  If you make All State, not only do you do the All State concert.  You also do the Area All State concert, which the boy child did last fall.  So two concerts!  I haven't mentioned this to the boy child.  I'm hoping at this point that he makes Area All State and not even thinking about All State!  

Finally, head on over to Edgar's blog.  If you do,  you can enter his 3 year blogoversary giveaway.  I always love reading Edgar's blog, Blacksheep's Bit of the Web.   

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!  I hope you all have a great week!

startitis strikes again!

Ah well, the title of this post says it all.  Sigh.  What's next, you ask?  Well, that's a good question!  Here's the first item I picked up. 

SDW Sampler from the Scarlet Letter

40ct mystery R&R fabric, vintagey

AVAS fibers

But I was having difficulty with this one.  The motifs are very huge.  And that double running area up at the top.  Hmmmmm.  Not happy with that.  

So I wandered off to the next item.

  Freelove Hazard from the Scarlet Letter

45ct Vintage Examplar

AVAS fibers

This one was going slowly, namely because my eyes have gotten progressively worse since the last time I stitched on 45ct fabric.  So I had to make a trip to get some new "reading" glasses, ie magnifiers.  (I wear them in front of my regular glasses, the ones with the bifocal type lenses in them.)  

 

I did make some progress eventually though.   But it's slow.  

I think startitis hits the worst when the boy child is on break at home from school.  It was his spring break last week.  Thus the startitis.  

Anyway, the boy child was back at school starting yesterday.  So of course, I started something else!

I have a million more of these strip sets to sew in order to make a million 9 patch blocks, which go into making 25 nine patches of 9 patch blocks, which go into making a quilt.  You can sort of see the pattern underneath the strip sets.  I'm looking forward to the setting blocks made out of this.

Ah such luscious, red gorgeousness!  I just hope I'm up to this quilt.  It's a big one!

I worked so long yesterday that I could feel my crotchety neck muscles seizing up.  So I have to take a break from the piecing today!  Don't want to end up in bed with a neck that doesn't work (which happened to me a couple of years ago.  Don't ask.).

Now for those of you who are lucky enough to have a sewing room to yourself, where you can spread out, leave your sewing machine and iron and all the pieces of your project all over the place without causing a mess to be tripped over by other family members, I have one thing to say.   Can you lend me your sewing room?   Pleeeeease???   I have my sewing machine on my ironing board (it's a Featherweight (the sewing machine is a Featherweight, not the ironing board)), along with the cutting board and ruler and rotary cutter, the iron, the strips to be sewn, the strip sets that have been sewn, etc etc.  The ironing board is tottering precariously at rest in front of the chest of drawers, in the hope that no one will need to get into said chest of drawers to get to their clothes.  Or if clothes are needed, the hope is that said ironing board will be moved safely aside to access the clothes and then moved safely back again.  Without dumping the Featherweight onto the floor.  See why I tend to not want to quilt?   Stitching is so much easier.  The project just stays on my table by my stitching chair.  I neeeed a sewing rooooom!!!!!!   Argh!!!!  

So I guess the family is going to be tripping over said tottering ironing board for a while.  This is a biiiig quilt.  lol!

On a different subject, a few days back, I was sitting minding my own business when all of a sudden there was this loud swishing noise followed by loud bumps of what sounded like a screen door.  I got freaked out -- who was trying to get into the house?  Or who HAD gotten into the house?!  Eeek!   I went to the back to investigate, but there was nothing and no one.  The noise continued though, so I followed my ears to the basement door.  How strange!  I looked down the stairs of the basement -- nothing, no one.  But then the noise happened again!  And there, in this strange space we have in our house opposite the basement door, was a bird.

Now I'm going to bore you all to death.  You see, our house used to be a summer house.  We live up the road from a lake, and all the houses around here used to be summer houses specifically built and geared toward that lake.  So our house has two back doors.  One of the back doors, the one with the strange space in it, has the back door, then a weird, very small enclosed porch area, then the screen/glass door.  The enclosed porch area was supposed to be used to knock off all the sand from the beach that is down at the lake.  Now you get the picture.  The poor bird had gotten trapped in this little enclosed space. 

As you can see, me being a meanie and wanting to save this experience for posterity (and for my blogging friends), I grabbed a picture before I did anything humane.  The pic was taken through the glass of the door, thus the quality.  Then I rushed outside (after putting some decent clothes on) and opened the screen/glass door and saw the poor thing fly away.  Whew!  He was just fine, no problem.  So my picture taking didn't do any harm.  

In other news, we had a nice, calm Easter.  No girl child since she had a conference to take care of at college/work.  No Easter egg dyeing for the first time since the kids were born.  But the boy child did get Easter candy, and there's some Easter candy waiting for the girl child when she makes her way home again.  The father type cooked a delicious meal as usual, and we were very content.  

Now it's back to school this week.  And the boy child is gearing up for his annual NYSSMA audition.  Ugh!   He's doing All State auditions for the first time this year (first year he's old enough).  And for the first time he has a piano accompaniment.  Which means trying to schedule rehearsals, etc etc etc.  Double ugh.  And NYSSMA is early this year by practically a month, which is not what is needed.   More time is needed, not less time!  Oh well.  

Sorry for all the wordiness.  Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I so enjoy being a part of the blogging, stitching community.  Sorry to have kept you all in suspense about what was next for me stitchingwise.  In case you're wondering, I think I'm going to concentrate on Freelove for a while.  :D

Country House Sampler start, the blahs

So I've started another project. I picked up the Country House Sampler by Brenda Keyes of the Sampler Company. I just love her work! I figured I've done a Moira Blackburn, now it's time for Brenda Keyes!



I'm using 40ct. Legacy by Picture this Plus, with an NPI conversion I got from a friend.



For some reason the camera wanted to take flash pictures today so the color may be a bit off. I think I need to take photography classes!



I've been feeling in a bit of a stitching slump recently. I guess the limited stitching time these days doesn't help. It's been sort of a bummer of a week as well. I thought the flat tire at the groceries last week was bummer enough, but then the father type got sick over the weekend. Of course it would strike Friday. By Saturday when he was pretty incoherent with a 102.8 fever, of course there were no doctors available. So to the emergency room we went (after making sure the girl child was taken care of with a ride home from a neighbor). He ended up with an IV for fluids, being dehydrated, and some IV meds for pain -- he had a super bad sore throat. And they of course gave him fever reducers and some antibiotics, in case the test for strep, which said he didn't have it, was wrong. By Sunday morning, his fever was a lot better, although still there, but the throat was still sore. Etc etc. Anyway, I think it was probably strep, because his fever seemed to respond so well to the antibiotics. And by yesterday the sore throat was mostly gone. Anyway, my point is, it hasn't been the best of weeks (or week and a halves) around here. I know, I'm spoiled. But I got freaked out by the father type's high fever and incoherence. I'm so grateful, especially when sickness strikes, for our general good health. I'm not good with sickness. :D

Enough of that. The boy and girl child are very busy with friends (and boy friend in the girl child's case), always out at all hours so I have to worry about their whereabouts. So what's new, right? lol! The boy child had to have a mole removed by a plastic surgeon on Monday -- it had grown back after being removed before by a dermatologist -- so he has stitches and will have yet another scar to show off once the stitches are removed. (He has a huge scar from the surgery he had to remove a lump in his neck two years ago.) This child is getting very used to having medical procedures, poor thing. In comparison, the girl child has had nothing, zero, zilch, nada. Now is that fair? The boy child also had surgery for strabismus on his 4th birthday (the only time available in the doctor's schedule). So he's had his fill of surgeries and such. (Strabismus is crossed eyes in case you were wondering.)

Sorry for the rambling. I think it's the blahs I'm having. :D Oh, and it doesn't help that I still haven't heard back about my Featherweight. Maybe that's why I have the stitching blahs. I want to sew a quilt instead. In the midst of all my trials and tribulations this weekend, I got a wonderful package of bright cheeriness in the mail. Look at these yummy twill stripes that I got from KwiltyKim!




They're from the Blackbird Design ladies, of course. Those ladies are so amazingly talented. And I discovered when I took a class from them at a retreat a couple of years ago that Barb is as big or a bigger fan than I am of Paul McCartney! Anyway, so these and other fabrics are calling to me to make them into something pretty. And no sewing machine. Sigh. But thanks, Kim, for cheering me up when I needed it! I have the twill stripes out where I can admire them.

Finally, there's another giveaway here at a blog that's new to me. So wander on over and enter!

Thanks for stopping by! It's so nice knowing you're out there!

My First Quilt

Ok, since I'm dying to get my Featherweight back from being fixed so I can make a quilt (!!), I decided I need to do this "My First Quilt" thing that Camille and Carrie are doing. But I have a caveat, and I hope it doesn't disqualify me. I haven't finished quilting some of the quilts. :( You see, I hand quilt. Which means it takes forever. And I have the attention span of a fly. Soooooo, I have lots of half quilted quilts. My first quilt, for example, is about half quilted.




Can you tell it's from the 80s? Ugh! I'd forgotten about that bright pink! Eww! I decided to quilt it in an all over fan pattern, which of course takes forever. And guess what? It's only half quilted! But the quilted parts look pretty!


Now I'll show you my last quilt that is actually finished. It's a Tumbling Blocks. I love English paper piecing. And this was MY quilt! I got to keep it! lol!



I even made the edges all funky.




Now I have to show you my last quilt -- the last quilt which isn't all quilted yet. Don't look at the date -- it's embarrassing. It's a Baltimore Album.



I even did a square with some penmanship. No, I can't really write like that -- copied it from a book.



Again, I want to quilt it pretty densely, which is why I'm taking so long to hand quilt it. And also, there's this thing called cross stitching which has totally distracted me from quilting lately. But you can sort of see the idea behind the quilting.



So Camille and Carrie, do I still count? I hope so! I couldn't remember what my first quilt was that was actually finished, just the one that's still being quilted. :D Sorry!

Now I just hope my Featherweight comes home in working condition -- and I can finally make a quilt top! I've just recently noticed the whole new thing (that isn't that new) going on in the quilt world -- besides fat quarters, there are jelly rolls, honey buns, all sorts of cool precuts! My only problem is how to find the time to stitch as much as I usually do and also make a quilt? :D :D

Have a great weekend, everyone!

National Quilting Day -- bizarre!

It's apparently National Quilting Day! Never heard of it before! But KwiltyKim over at her blog says it is and I believe her. In celebration of the event, KwiltyKim is having a giveaway -- go check it out! Click on her name and you'll get there. Actually don't bother -- I want to win the giveaway. :D Just kidding.

In honor of National Quilting Day, I thought I'd show a quilt top that was part of a round robin thing that a bunch of friends (including me) did together. The quilt top is currently at one of the participant's houses waiting for that final border. I've been waiting for a long time, but I know life gets in the way. And I'd rather wait for my friend to come visit and bring the quilt top with her anyway.





This round robin was the kind where you provide a block for the quilt and each participant adds a border to it and then passes it on. I really love how mine is coming out. I actually provided the 4 blocks in the middle, and then also included a bunch of the other blocks that were used in the borders. Yes, they're Dear Jane blocks. I believe -- if my rather unreliable brain remembers correctly -- that the Dear Jane blocks were part of another round robin. But with my unreliable brain I may be wrong about that. My brain is particularly unreliable tonight -- more on that after this picture.




I admit, the main reason why I chose to show this quilt and none of my other quilts is that this is the one that I happen to have pictures of on my computer. :D I'm sooooo tired today. I think I ended up with a huge sugar rush from all the birthday celebrations for the boy child yesterday. We had milk shakes with our burgers at Johnny Rocket's (one of the boy child's favorite places to eat), and then later on we had cookie cake. And whoa, by the time I went to bed, I was wide awake and rarin' to go! lol! Couldn't sleep forever, then eventually did. But was up and bouncing again around 4am. So I read for a while instead. Ugh! Anyway, that's my excuse for not showing my in-progress Baltimore Album quilt (it's supposedly being handquilted by me, who's not touched it in decades), or my Tumbling Blocks quilt (which was mine mine mine after a long string of baby quilts for friends and family), or the Sunshine and Shadows quilt in Amish- ish colors, or the Angel quilt (can't remember who designed it, but I love it), or -- well you get the idea. Yes, I'm a lapsed quilter, and I admit it.

Anyway, enjoy National Quilt Day -- what's left of it. And go to KwiltyKim's blog and enter the giveaway.

On the stitching front, I finished Lois Minshall last night while on that sugar rush. I'll do my best to take pictures of it and post them tomorrow.