The New Year and Resolutions?

Do you make New Years Resolutions?  I gave that up for Lent or something, a long time ago.  You resolve to eat healthier or do more exercise or whatever, and five minutes after you do, someone tempts you with a cookie or a snuggle on the couch.  Phewt!  Resolution broken!

On CBS Sunday Morning on January 1 they said most resolutions last until mid-February.  Such is human nature...

So far this year, I've spent a lot of time in my sewing room, moving things around mostly.  I did quilt some small things, and I blogged about those last week. 

 

This past Saturday we attempted to put together one of Miss A's Christmas gifts... it has a gazillion small pieces and none of our fingers were the right size to hold them.  She's helping Gramps hold the robot head steady while he works with the wrenches that came in the kit. 

And I'm making a friend some sofa pillow covers.  Two down, two to go.  I made the cording to go around the edges because I like that look, and because these two pillows were made with a soft fabric of either acetate blend or some type of rayon, which will hold up better with the seams corded.  The other two are upholstery fabric and should be sturdier.

I'm not resolving to do much of anything, but I am trying to finish some of the things I started.  So far I've only finished the three doll quilts, but I'm claiming one victory in 2017!

Wish me luck!

Sew on...

More Friday Sewing...

We took two weeks off for the holidays.  Since my aunty saw the quilts I did while she was gone, she vowed to stay home for a while and make me finish up her diamonds!  We shall see whether she keeps her promise or if I get to finish more of my own UFOs.  LOL!!

Sometimes the most complicated patterns are nothing more than small chunks of simple things, combined in a way that fools the eye.

So it went with the combination snail's trail/storm at sea quilts my aunt and cousins are making.

The snail's trail block starts with a small four patch, which turns into an extended square in a square.



We are going from here...

The storm at sea pieces are diamonds that finish about 4 inches by 8 inches if my memory is correct.  Neither cousin nor aunt enjoyed making those diamonds but I think it was due to the cutting instructions.  In order to conserve fabric (batiks are expensive!) the directions said to cut a rectangle of a certain size into two long triangles (scalene if I remember right from geometry class).  Then you put them on all four sides of the diamond.

But if they're too small, or your seam is slightly larger than 1/4 inch, you get into trouble!  Ask me how I know this.

I sewed a lot of diamond block, and sadly rejected a lot of the too small triangles.  Because, you know, it COULDN'T be my seam allowance, I was using the dang 1/4 inch foot!









See, mostly simple blocks, put together into something spectacular.   Here's Amy's finished top:

Where we're trying to go...

Sew on...

Coincidence or Blessing?

I saw this somewhere, not sure if it was Pinterest or somewhere else, but I thought I would share it...

Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous -- Albert Einstein

I'm not sure I agree.  I think it's more like we choose to see God in our lives or we don't. 

Recently Suzi and I were discussing the things we're trying to do at our church quilt guild with our very limited budget.  It's hard to stretch a few hundred dollars into the needs we find for our finished quilts.  People will continue to go into hospitals and nursing homes, we will continue to have more babies in the congregation (thank God for that!), and more comfort is needed all around.

We found sources for the rolled batting we like, but our budget only covers about one and a half rolls per year.  We usually use three or more.  We try to find free shipping, sales, and do everything we can to economize.  We were wondering how we were going to buy another roll before the next fiscal year comes.

The next thing we knew, someone gave a monetary donation dedicated toward the quilt ministry!  It's happened a few times, and often it's from a completely unexpected source.

Our private joke is that it's Loaves and Fishes.  You know the story to which I'm referring, don't you?  In the Bible, Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd, around 5000 men plus all the accompanying women and children.  They don't leave, and it's time to eat.  You can read it for yourself in Matthew Chapter 14 or in John Chapter 6.  Five loaves of bread and two fish feed everyone and the leftovers fill many baskets.

If you read crime novels or watch CSI type shows, you know that most law enforcement types don't believe in coincidence either.  It's never a coincidence when they find the victim's blood in the back seat of someone's car... or that two guys just happened to hate each other and one guy disappears.

Years ago, more than I will admit to -- I had a temporary job downtown.  The kids were in elementary school, and went to a neighbor's house after school each day until my DH got home.  It was easy work but it got difficult mentally and emotionally.  I needed to work to make ends meet, but I couldn't stay at that place any longer.  I took a week off during Easter break because the kids were home, glad of the time off, dreading having to go back.

That week I saw an ad in the local paper for a receptionist at a business less than two miles from my house.  I interviewed for it and at the end of the week I had a full time job that allowed me to go home for lunch or emergencies.  It eliminated two hours of commuting time.  I stayed there for seven years, very happily.

Coincidence?  Maybe not.

A couple of years ago, I was driving downtown to my current job.  I was on the busy freeway in the middle of a morning rush hour.  I was in the left lane, facing the southbound traffic across concrete dividers.  I was humming Amazing Grace... I think we had sung it in church the day before. 

About 45-50 feet up and maybe 500 yards ahead I saw what might have been a huge bird flying through the air.  On second glance it was no bird.  It was the wheel and tire from a car or small truck!  And it looked like it was headed in my direction...

Imagine this flying at you!
Queue shark music from Jaws!!

In rush hour there is normally be no slowing down, and if you do slow down, there is no shortage of people zipping around to fill the gap, plus horn blowing and maybe finger waving.  You know which finger.

That morning, everyone slowed almost as one vehicle.  Nobody flew around the left or the right.  The tire hit the lane I was in, about ten feet from my front bumper.  By then we'd come to a complete stop.  If that tire bounced again though, it looked like it would hit my windshield.

I held my breath and prayed hard and fast.  And then -- da da daaahhh! Instead of bouncing up to hit anyone, the tire stopped, wobbled and very gently fell to the left, into the hazard lane and out of traffic.

The guy to the right of me and I looked at each other and grinned, relief evident in both our faces.  Thank God it didn't hit anyone!  Or thank God that when that tire flew off, it didn't bounce anywhere?  Was I thinking about God at the moment I needed Him, or was He was thinking about me?  You can decide for yourself.  I know what I believe.  There's no such thing as coincidence.

Keep calm and carry on...

Pet Peeves and Sewing Machines

Some friends and I were talking recently about pet peeves.  Do you have any?

I really do not like hearing people use bad grammar, or using words incorrectly.   I will admit that I don't always use the proper English or American grammar all the time but some things are like nails on the chalk board.

My least favorite usage error is when someone writes or says "please call Jim or myself..."  Mrs. Wright, my teacher in fourth grade always said take out the other person and see if it makes sense.  So take out Jim and you get "please call myself".

BZZZZ!  No!!  Only I can call myself -- names, or on the phone, whatever, it makes no sense.

Acronyms are another pet peeve of mine.  How many things can WRA stand for these days?  Well, there's the Water Reclamation Association,  Washington Radiology Association, Weapons of Removal and Abatement (I kid you not!), and on and on.   Go ahead, Google "WRA" and see for yourself.

Last on today's list is the Featherweight Sewing Machine.  It seems like everyone wants to get on the Featherweight bandwagon, so much so that you cannot buy a decent machine for under  $200 unless you're prepared to do a lot of restoration and/or repair.  Check out eBay or Google Featherweight.  many listings are as much as $500!

A machine like this is on eBay for $475

Granted they are nice machines for taking to class, they're small and light (thus the name).  But seriously, any other small machine should serve the purpose, right?  I have a Janome Jem that weighs 12 pounds and it works very well for classes.

So here's the peeve part:  There are people in blog-land who brag about how many Featherweight machines they own.  People will buy them in apparent bunches.  They buy one made in the year they were born, in the year their mother/father/sister/aunt/grandmother was born, one in black with decals, one in black with no decals, one in green, white or pink and one that works with a hand crank.

Pink FW

Basic black

Blue - did someone paint it?

White...

Why do they need so many Featherweights*?  In my experience you can only sew on one at a time.  And if so many people are buying up two or six or twelve machines, what's left for the rest of us to buy?

<Sigh>  Whoever said life was fair? 

*Disclaimer, I do own more than one sewing machine, but they are all different. I have my main machine, a serger, an embroidery machine, the aforementioned Jem, and a treadle machine that was my husband's grandmother's first and only machine, and a small Babylock that technically belongs to my oldest Grand but it lives at my house.  When she's sewing, my youngest Grand calls the Jem "hers".  I'm good with that!

Sew on...

I Quilted!! But Not in A Big Way...

Yes, me, I did it! 

Well, before I get too carried away, I want you to know that I did it in a very small way.

Unlike my friend Suzi who can quilt a queen sized quilt before you can say it, I am definitely not that fast.  Or that good.

 

I started small... note the American Girl doll under this quilt.  It ended up as 18 inches by 24 inches.  I just did swirls back and forth.  I decided that this is the type of quilting I do best.  Relaxed, no pattern, just go with the flow.

 

This was quilt number two.  Also doll sized, maybe 20 inches square.  I made a small pillow of batting scraps, and made an equally small pillow case.  I did a kind of geometric pattern, tried to follow the lines in the striped fabric, but my corners kept getting rounder and rounder as I went.

I take NO credit for this one, it was a piece of already-quilted fabric, left over from another project.  However, I did make a matching pillow case.

And this last one was my very lame attempt at making feathers.   I decided that I need to mark those if I should ever do them again.  It's 16 inches by 18 inches.  I did a mangled version of a flower in the square blocks, then did a figure eight in the last border.  Both were more successful than my feathers.

 

I have to say that quilting with gloves works better than with bare hands, although my hands still ached after I was finished.  Maybe I'm still tensing up and gripping things too tightly.  I also need to consider clearing my table off before doing anything larger, and getting one of those extended tables for my machine.

After these were all finished, I needed a hot wax hand treatment and some pain relieving lotion.

On New Year's Eve day, Suzi and I went to our two favorite quilt shops and I bought some new gloves.  The ones I had only had grippies on the fingers, the new ones have gripper palms AND fingers.  Maybe things will go easier next time.

If I could just learn to relax at it maybe that would help too. 

I've got one larger quilt to finish for the Log Cabin Quilt Guild charity project, so I'm considering this my practice run(s).  Fingers crossed!  Ouch!  Or maybe not crossed so hard.

Happy New Year!  And sew on...

Winter Vacation

With the girls off of school for the week, DH needed a bit of a break so I anticipated that I'd be spending my week "off" being in charge of pretty much everything kid-related.

I was only partially correct.

Miss A decided we needed a schedule.  So on a daily basis she has made a list of all of the things we were going to do that day.  There is no room for deviation from the schedule!

On Monday 'we' planned everything from what to eat for lunch to what to do in the sewing room to what games we were going to play and in what order.  The only thing more rigid than her schedule is the schedule that Miss Kitty is on!  That includes a lot of loud meowing when you're not watching the clock!

We went to see Rudolph the Musical last night at the Todd Wehr Theater downtown.  That was very enjoyable and even the big sister thought so.  If you've seen Rudolph the Claymation Program on TV, you know the story and the characters.  With live actors it's very enjoyable.  The character of the "bumble" (abominable snowman) is part actor in costume and part puppet on long poles, so he can be of a size to work with the characters in person. 

You can just make out the person in a white costume holding up the bumble's left arm in the photo above.  There were a lot of those actors moving stage pieces around, and generally trying to be invisible.

 

The whole play takes about an hour and a half with intermission.  The theater only seats 500 so it is nice and intimate, you're close no matter where you sit.  We were far enough away to maintain the magic but close enough for a good look.

 

The only thing 'we' forgot to get on the schedule was Miss E's orthodontist appointment -- I looked at the calendar, saw the time and said yikes!!  We need to rearrange the day to get that squeezed in.  Which bent Miss A's timetable somewhat, but we survived.

Hermey wants to be a dentist, not an elf.

 

From Wikipedia:  Frederick "Todd" Wehr (April 14, 1889 -September 28, 1965) was an industrialist and philanthropist. He was co-founder of the Wehr Steel Company and founder of the Todd Wehr Foundation, Inc.  Wehr left the bulk of his estate to a trust set up for charitable religious, scientific and educational purposes. Many Wisconsin universities and cultural organizations have benefited from the Todd Wehr Foundation, including Marquette University.  Marquette has named its entire science complex after Wehr as well as a theater.

 

After the play ended we walked around downtown, looked at Christmas lights, and went to dinner at the Chinese restaurant I go to for lunch sometimes.

All in all, a good day.

Now for today's list...

Sew on!

Holiday Greetings!

Slightly out of focus tree...

Live Nativity Play Saturday Dec. 24
at Peace Lutheran, you are invited!

Holiday blooms... Thanks, Scott.

Last year's Santa sighting.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and many blessings in the new year.

Sew on...

Friday Night Sewing Club

For my family Friday Night Sewing Club... unofficial of course because anybody can come and we don't always sew... sometimes we eat, or talk about sewing, or just talk.  We always talk!

The past couple of weeks we've been working on finishing up a couple of the retreat-goers' latest quilts.  One block is a snail's trail

Aunt Zel's center blocks, in red, white and gray.

 

The borders of each snail's trail block are made up of square in a square and this diamond block, otherwise known as the two parts of Storm at Sea.

 Nancy's diamond blocks in green, blue and purple batik.

Since I didn't attend the retreat, I am not making this particular quilt.  But since I like to sew, and I'd rather sit and sew than sit and do nothing, I don't mind sewing on someone else's project.

The blocks were paper piecing, and they had all the pieces printed out on newsprint paper, which is soft to sew through and tears off pretty easily.

The pieces need trimming once they're sewn.  You're seeing Nancy's hands zipping away in the upper right corner here:

And the pile of trimming in the center. 

Things I learned while paper piecing the diamonds:

1. The fat end goes to the outside.
2. It DOES matter which piece you grab for what corner...
3. When in doubt, cut your pieces just a little bigger.  Honestly, that 1/8 of an inch matters!
4. This pattern is tricky -- talk less, sew more!

There will be more diamonds to sew next week.  What are YOU doing on Friday??

Sew on...

Happy Birthday Kids!

I know my son looks at my blog sometimes... so son, please say a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Miss K and Master J! 

Make sure there's CAKE!!



Love...

Tiny Geese and Frivols

My local quilt shop had Moda Frivols boxes on sale last week.  I picked up a couple for the guild raffle and me.

I already had one that I purchased a couple of months ago with a coupon.

Photo from the internet, not the one I bought.

The box contains 40-42 squares of fabric, each 7 inches square.  There's a card with a traditional block inside, with a clever quote on the back, a quilt pattern, and some other little present, sometimes it's a quilt label or two, sometimes it's a tiny tin to store things that might otherwise get lost, and one had some lovely embroidered ribbon in it.

The one I was working on last night was the Blue Barn Frivol, number 12 of 12.  The pattern is for a small table runner, the blocks are a simple star.



This pattern...



The sides are flying geese.  I actually enjoy making flying geese most of the time.  But these geese are baby geese.  Tiny.  Like the sides are half of a 2 1/8 inch square cut diagonally, and the centers are half of a 3 3/4 inch square cut into quarters.

 

Small.

 

This illustrates the size of the pieces - first squares are cut, then some of them are sub-cut once and some are sub-cut twice.  The result is tiny triangles. 

 

Things I learned from cutting this kit:

 

• A seven inch square of fabric is relatively small.
• Cutting directions are not always developed for the most economical use of fabric.
• 2 1/8" is an odd size to find on most rulers. 
• I personally need to cut the squares that are sub-cut just a hair larger for the way I sew.  
• Even if you are the most accurate, careful sewist a quarter inch seam and a scant quarter inch seam can be worlds apart!
• You cannot press out some errors...
• When in doubt, cut a new piece.  It's OK to toss a couple of inches of fabric rather than pull out your hair.

Tiny geese, measuring 1.5 by
3 inches.  That's a small goose! 

Lucky me, when I cut out all the pieces there was enough fabric left to cut more pieces.  99% of the triangles were the proper size to make the geese with the proper 1/4 inch seam allowance at the points, but the ones that didn't fit REALLY didn't fit!

There are multiple squares of each color in the kit.  There are star pieces and background pieces, and they are cut from the same fabric.  You are instructed to cut four small squares and one large square from one pattern/color, then use the same pattern/color to cut a different sized large square and four small squares.  This got confusing to me,

I divided the frivols into two piles, making sure I had one of each color in both piles.  Then I took several off the top of the first pile and cut the one set of squares.  I took the same fabrics off the second pile and cut the second set of squares.  Or so I thought.

Doing this while binge-watching the replay Downton Abbey may not have been the best idea.

I should have just cut the first pile and then cut the second pile, keeping to one size of square at a time.  Why?  Too many of one color, not enough of another!

See the pile on the right?  That should be FOUR small squares, and it's ONE small square.

Lovely Blue Barn colors.

A word about Frivols -- at a normal price of $40-45, these tins are not inexpensive.  I bought mine on sale or with coupons.  The tin is adorable, and since I have a thing for collecting them, I thought they were worthwhile buying, but you can get about 15 fat quarters for the same amount of money, and there are free patterns all over the internet.  So think about it.

Some who bought Frivols on Amazon or other places were disappointed because they didn't come with enough contents to actually complete the project -- you have to supply your own batting, backing and binding.  Several commented that they were disappointed or felt misled.

To them I say:  IF YOU READ THE CONTENTS on the side of the tin or the description on the website, you should understand what's inside.  It's a four inch by two inch by seven inch tin!  How much did you think was going to be in there?

I'm very happy with my purchase of Frivols.  But not too happy with my cutting skills this week!

So lessons learned.  Crisis averted since I have enough fabric left to remedy my errors.  I made one complete block and about a dozen geese units before it was time to go to bed.  When I go back to this project I'll listen to the radio instead of watching TV... maybe classical music with no distracting words!

 

Sew on...

Doll Coat Update

Here's the doll coat I knit last week and posted about... modeled by my old Samantha doll.  After putting the coat on the model, I decided the sleeves were too short.  I knit the proper number of rows, but maybe the author's doll had shorter arms, or maybe my gauge was off slightly.  So I picked out the bind off stitches and knit more row.



I decided the sleeve length needed
adjustment.

I had one ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino that I used for the cap, scarf and mittens.  After finishing cap and scarf, I divided the balance into two small balls, eyeballing it for about equal distribution.  And of course after starting the mittens in blue I realized there wasn't going to be enough to finish.  If they hadn't been so small (20 stitches each) I might have attempted stripes, but I think finishing with the cream turned out well.

Isn't this cap cute?

One ball of Cashmerino was used for the accessories.

Miss A helped me choose some coat buttons from the Resource Center on Saturday, so now we're good to go in the snow that fell on Sunday.

 

Here's what the street looked like this morning at the first stop sign on my commute.

Knit on...

What's On The Needles

I've been on call lately to help Miss A with her fourth grade homework.  While I'm listening to her read the problems out loud I'm usually doing some knitting.

(Who knew they were getting these kids into algebra in fourth grade??  If snake A is 36 cm longer than snake B and snake B is 117 cm shorter than snake C, and snake C is 245 cm long, how long are the others? OMG!  And SNAKES!)

I purchased and downloaded a couple of books on doll clothing patterns from Annie's Catalog.  The one book had the most adorable coat on the front page...

It is all garter stitch, so you knit, knit, and knit and keep knitting.  There's very minor increase/decrease work, so nothing fancy.  I knit one in cream yarn and started another one in a relatively dark green.  My only gripe is that it wants you to use relatively small needles -- fours.  I'm used to doing everything on eights but gauge is gauge.  If you don't believe me go read the Yarn Harlot blog from late last week!

I'd thought to use up some of my small less than a skein balls of yarn, but the coat uses a pretty good amount, something like four to six ounces, which is almost a whole skein depending upon the yarn.

I did have a skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmireno to make the hat/scarf/mittens combo to go with the cream coat.  And let me tell you those mittens are crazy small!  Even so, I ran out of the blue half way through the mittens.  I was making two at a time, like I like to do, and got to the point of splitting for the thumb (yes, a thumb!) and I had to switch back to the cream.  I intended to take a picture but I didn't... I'll post one when the other coat is done.

Here's the close up from the book:

Coat and hat from the book.

My next project from this book is going to be this one... ballerina!  I found a skein of pink Fun Fur and a pink Caron to match.  I couldn't resist trying the Fun Fur to see whether it looks as impressive as the picture and it does!

 

This is project three... I have to check my supply because the pattern calls for number 3 DK weight yarn and I may not have any gray in DK. 

 

So that either requires another color scheme, which would NOT be impossible, or I might have to go to JoAnns' on my way home.  (Oh No!!)  That could be dangerous because I hardly ever get out of there for less than $25.  But I do have coupons!

 



That's what's happening in my world theses days...

Knit on...

Another Long Weekend Over!

After one week of working from home for a bit and a four day weekend, I have to go back to the salt mines and start chipping away at my pile of things to do.

The quilt top I had begun two months ago for our local guild got done over the weekend.  It's not either of these, although it IS the same pattern...  These are two that were quilted by my friend Suzi for our church guild.  I stitched up the top on the navy and multicolored on, and cut up the kit for the one with the beige borders.

I made this top, expertly quilted by Suzi.

The Bonnie version, also quilted by Suzi.

This one was sewn by our ultimate overachiever, Bonnie, and completed after I'd given her more of the beige fabric... seems that I shorted the kit by two WOF strips.

The only other thing I managed to sew all weekend was to hem a pair of my hubby's pants.

One whole day was spent sorting through the books and toys in the guest room, discarding or donating the things that were too babyish for the under-8 crowd.

The impetus for this was that the grands were over on Thanksgiving, and you know how well kids clean up after themselves.  In doing that, I discovered that there had been an inordinate amount of scissors activity on things from the toy box that should probably not be cut.  Trolls and a doll got haircuts and a few stuffed toys were dismembered.  And if you can believe it, tossed back into the toy box that way!

I guess the best you can say about that is that at least they didn't cut each other up...

So scissors are now verboten upstairs and the pool of potential victims has been thinned considerably.  What goes through the mind of a child?  Who can tell... but this just proves to me that anyone under the age of 27 probably still has some mental growing to do, and perhaps many OVER that age too!

A number of large black plastic garbage bags made their way to the Goodwill Donation Center today and that's a good thing. 

The baby was still there but the
mom and dad are missing.

If you buy this from the GW,
I hope you have your own chicken!

Someone else's child will surely enjoy the Fisher-Price doll house, farm and that little roller that plays music as you push it around.  I will not miss that!  I don't think you can even buy it anymore... I tried Google-ing to see what it was called and it's not even in the images anymore.  Although there is that think that's supposed to be a lawn mower and makes popping sounds.  THAT was obnoxious too!

All that cleaning led me to feel rather virtuous, but it didn't get a lot of projects finished.

There's always next week, right?

Sew on...