Looking forward

Still hammering away at tucking the threads. Sigh. I need to just finish it. I should make it a goal to finish before the end of the year. 

Journal cover front

Journal cover back

 I did complete the journal cover for my sister-in-law. It got wrapped and put into the mail. It really finished up quickly. Lyric's tutorial is very clear. I have some more journal notebooks, I should make some more covers. They make great last minute gifts.


I am looking forward to the new year. A fresh list, fresh start, and hopes that it will be better than this year. We have a great grand daughter due on January 10th, but she could show up at anytime. And we will have a 7th grandchild in June!  Just found out it is a boy!  Wonderful events to look forward to in the upcoming year.

Happy New Year to all! I hope that you will have some joy in the upcoming year.

Linking to:

Lorna

Emily

Judy

Beth

Myra

Sarah

Nina-Marie

Happy Holidays!

I am still working on tucking threads. I am sparing you with yet another hanging thread photograph. I spent quite a bit of time getting more things listed on my Ebay page. I got my vintage knitting and crochet booklets listed. Please check it out, my smaller sewing room is bursting at the seams. Thanks for looking.

Journal cover

I am making a journal cover as a birthday gift for my sister-in-law who is a writer. At this point I am a bit behind, it will not make it in time for her birthday on the 26th. I have the cover quilted, just need to trim and sew in the lining. I am using the technique in Lyric's tutorial.

Sunrise

Sunrise two minutes later

I was reading online this morning with my coffee and watching the sunrise. I read something about FOMO. (Fear of missing out)  As my sunrise photographs show, if I had gotten up to get another cuppa I would have missed  most of the colors.

Afternoon Visitor

We live in rural Southern Utah. There is wildlife in the neighborhood. The vacant lot to the east of us is a highway for the local deer families. This guy was hanging out for quite a while this afternoon. There was a group of does nearby as well.

Winter Solstice Moon

Again, if I had not been in the kitchen working on dinner, I would have missed out on the beautiful moon this evening. It looks full, but I think tomorrow is the official full moon.

Homemade bread

I have been out of the bread making mode this year. I finally got back into it, and this was the result. I had forgotten how good my artisan bread tastes.  

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday with friends and family and good cheer.  We are just having a quiet day at home. Which will be fine. And bonus, on Christmas eve we will find out whether our 7th grandchild will be a boy or a girl! Due June 2019.

Linking to:

Brooke

Lorna

Judy

Beth

Alycia

Sarah

Nina-Marie

Threads

Lots of threads

I finished the quilting on my Ricky Tims flower quilt. Now for a time consuming job, the tucking of the threads. I had a ton of starts and stops. I like the look of the threads tucked neatly away. Sometimes I do go over a previous stitching line, but I felt for this piece it would look too clumpy. I have spent two sessions tucking, think I have two more to go. Then to trim and bind.

Linking to:

Lorna

Nicole

Emily

Judy

Beth

Kathy

Nina-Marie

Sarah

Needled

Background quilting in progress

This week has been busy and I didn't get a chance to sit down to sew until yesterday afternoon. I quilted the flower and then started quilting the background. Starting off around the flower. Going along pretty well until I held the threads to one side too tight, it pulled the needle over a bit and as soon as I started to stitch the needle broke. UGH. 

Knot in my thread

 Switched out to a new needle and started to stitch. Halfway through the first line it clumped up and made a noise.  What could that be?  How about a knot in the spool of thread?  UGH yet again. I have never had that happen before. And it is a quality thread, Mettler. Very disappointing. Rethreaded the machine and stitched about 3 lines of quilting. Starting the next line and bam! Broke another needle. Again, I held the thread tail to the side too tightly.  Time to quit for the day. UGH.

Feathered Star

 A month or so ago my local guild offered a class with Claudia on a feathered star design. I had to do it my way. As in more complicated. Instead of just using 2 or 3 fabrics, I used a wide variety for the background. I am still in the audition stage with deciding how I want the feathers to look. Scrappy? or just a light and dark to be consistent. And which way should the feathers aim? Toward the star or toward the background?  It is curing on my design wall.

Linking to:

Lorna

Nicole

Emily

Judy

Beth

Amanda Jean

Nina-Marie

Myra

Lynette

Sarah

Over Stuffed with Stuff

Earlier this month I went to the nearby big town to check out an Art Quilt Group. I was told to bring show and tell, so I did. I enjoyed the meeting and joined the group. I will be going to the next meeting on Tuesday. Anyway, here is a link to their blog, check out the show and tell section!

On to the next UFO. This guy is from about 2003 or 04. Ricky Tims had come to teach his Caveman Quilting class to the Sacramento guild and I was able to secure a seat in the class. It was a wonderful class on freeform cutting. I enjoyed it greatly. I use a lot of freeform cutting in my work. I credit this class with inspiring some of my cutting techniques. So why did I not complete the class project? Hmm? Who knows.

My progress in class

I had all but two borders completed on the first quilt. The technique of cutting the flower yields 2 of them. I will make the second into another piece at a later time. I really like this project, so it puzzles me why I never buckled down to finish it. And over the years it has only come up for air once or twice. Other UFO's haunt me frequently.

The Mirror image flower

Recently I have been finding things that I have been looking for easily. Since the class handout was not with the project, I went to my class handout loose-leaf binder and sure enough there it was fully protected in a plastic page protector. I was able to finish the piecing and get started on the quilting.

Flower so far

I had hoped to have this piece quilted and bound by now but we went out of town for Thanksgiving. We were gone for 5 days. Got to see the grands, so it was wonderful.

Quilting so far

Fancy, schmancy whiskey glasses

A month or so ago my cousin and her husband came to visit. I offered beverages. The guys wanted to have a whiskey. I had bought some pretty, fancy schmancy whiskey glasses. Still in the box. Went looking for them. Of course, they were no where to be found (this was prior to my recent luck in finding things).  A few weeks later I was in the hall cupboards looking for something else and found these way back in that cupboard. I had looked there in the first place, but not far enough back. 

Which brings up my recent freak out. We have too much stuff. We downsized to a smaller house when we moved here 2 years ago.  We have a workshop for Sweetie and right now it is filled with stuff. I went out there looking for some boxes of photographs and ran into boxes of kitchen stuff. My new kitchen is small. Serviceable, but small. All the cabinets are full. I can't fit anything more in there. I need to get rid of stuff! I would like Sweetie to be able to actually work/tinker/play in his workshop. I have a much smaller sewing room than the previous house. At the old house anything I couldn't fit in the sewing room I just dumped down in the unfinished basement.  Now all the basement stuff is in the workshop.  I am going to make an effort over the next year to sort through and pare down my stuff.  

Linking to:

Kelly

Lorna

Nicole

Judy

Emily

Beth

Myra

Nina-Marie

Sarah

Summer

Beth

Another finished UFO

I believe it was the early 20's, possibly 2003 or 4, I took a class from Sue Hatt at Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Fest. The class was on Swedish quilts. I really enjoyed the class!  I had this piece 3/4 finished and it disappeared into the UFO box. Last month I sorted out some of my UFO blocks for Orphan Night and several projects showed up that I really wanted to complete.

11-1/2" x 24"

Detail of quilting design

I have been playing with my walking foot designs. This was fun to stitch!  I am a tucker. I feel the finished look is tidier if you leave tails and tuck them in after.  This guy had a ton of ends but I feel the end result is worth it!

We are up in the Salt Lake City area having Thanksgiving with our son and his family. No sewing going on this weekend. But spending time with the grands is totally worth it.  Hope everyone had a lovely holiday with family and friends!

Linking to:

Nina-Marie

Sarah

Laura

Beth

Judy

Beth

Emily

Nicole

Lorna

Out with the old

I have finished some small quilts recently. It feels good to check them off the list. 

12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

This little guy came from Orphan night. It was a donated block, probably from a previously taught class on Amish Small quilts. We decided that it would be ok to quilt it and then donate it back to the guild for their Mini Quilt Raffle next year. I am pleased with the way the quilting turned out.

8-1/2" x 10-1/2"

At one of my local quilt groups we had a demo on mini quilts. This little guy came from that class. The nine-patch blocks are 2 inches.  It was a fun demo.

19" x 22

Back in the late 90's I used to attend Quilting in the Tetons. It was a wonderful event. Quilt show and classes. Since there were no evening activities, it was a good one to take your spouse along. I would be in class all day and he would go mountain biking and we would have evenings together. This piece was from a class by Shelly Burge. We drafted our own version and then the geese were paper pieced. I had all the geese sewn and several of the background pieces attached and then this got set aside. I brought this along to Quit Fest to work on. Didn't get to it, but then we went to the lake and I was able to finish the top. When we got home I quilted it.

13-1/2 " x 15"

13-1/2"x 25"

 After finishing the geese quilt, the only thing I had with me to work on at the lake were the scraps of the geese quilt. It turned into 2 more quilts! These were going to be one, then the pieces just did not want to be in the same quilt. All of the fabric was in the box with the original project. Another thing that really pleases me is that even though all of the fabrics came from the late 90's all three pieces still feel contemporary today. The colors still work and do not feel dated.

It was great to finish an old project, I will continue to clear out the old.

Linking to:

Nina-Marie

Myra

Sarah

Alycia

Beth

Judy

Emily

Beth

Nicole

Lorna

Orphan Night

Last month at the Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Fest I helped with Orphan night. Everyone donated their orphan blocks and then we sorted them into coordinated bundles. At the event, groups of people took the bundles and made tops. There were tubs of fabrics that could be used for fillers. Fun times!

Some of the donated blocks

Linking to:

Nina-Marie

Storied Quilts

Sarah

Beth

Emily

Beth

Judy

Nicole

Lorna

Wedding Quilt is Finished!

I am happy to report that the wedding quilt was finished on time!

Me showing off the quilt at guild.

Another view

Peaceful rowing

View from the rowboat

I was able to get the binding on and brought it along to our trip to the lake. I spent one afternoon tacking it down. Bonus! When digging through my fabric stash I found the exact fabric I had used for the flying geese border that was perfect for the binding.

We came home for about 5 days and then headed to California for the wedding. We took two days to drive there, Mountain View, CA. Stopped in Bakersfield on day one. All of Sweetie's brothers came to the wedding. Our niece, Sam, is the daughter of the youngest brother.

Thursday night was a casual family dinner at the couples house. It was nice to meet the other bride, Kristi, and her family. Unfortunately, Sam's father and step-mom's flight had issues over Dallas and they had to be rerouted finally arriving 2:30am at a different bay area airport. Their luggage did not make it there with them. Thankfully it did arrive later in the afternoon, which had all their wedding attire.

On Friday family and out of town guests went for a  DOF (Day of Fun) to Santa Cruz. We had a lovely time at the beach and then at the arcade.

The four Brothers

Sweetie and me at the beach

The happy couple at the arcade.

Saturday was the wedding. It was one of the loveliest weddings I have ever attended! All the readings, songs, prayer and vows were well chosen and very meaningful. The reception was held at a nearby park in one of the larger picnic areas. Lots of shade, catered BBQ, photo booth, yard games, it was fun!

BBQ buffet

Cup cozy favor

photo booth results

Sunday morning was a family brunch and then we headed out for the two day drive home. Again, Stopping in Bakersfield for the night.

I did not take many photographs, I got sidetracked visiting with family. One photograph I should have gotten that I didn't was a photograph of the happy couple with the wedding quilt. So it goes.

Before starting to write my post I spent some time reading blogs that I follow. What a thrill! Quilt Inspirations  posted several posts about the Springville Art Museum's show and one of my pieces was featured in this post!

Tuesday I am headed north to Layton, UT for the Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Fest! Should be a blast to catch up with old friends and make some new friends.

Linking to:

Lorna

Nicole

Judy

Beth

Emily

Leanne

Nina-Marie

Myra

Sarah