April

I finished 2 quilts in March! I can only show one of them at this time. Stay tuned for the other one at a later date. This is my Skittles quilt. I quilted it at a retreat put on by my local guild. Used a walking foot and one of my standard designs. I am happy with the way the quilting turned out.

Close up

Quilt before trimming

Faux quarter inch quilting

Glamor shot

I used a flannel print for the borders, binding and backing. It should be a very cozy lap quilt! Eddy approves!

Yarn Barf

I knit the qualifying round of Sock Madness. I was having yarn barf issues. I think that there was more yarn that barfed than was left in the skein.

New technique

I learned a new stitch technique. It involved several rows with 2 colors and slip stitches.

Done!

I was just a few hours short of making it to the next round. But since I was close to finishing the qualifying round pattern, I am a cheerleader and will get to knit the other patterns for fun. My project page Here.

Linking to:

Tweety

Amanda Jean

Myra

Sarah

Nina-Marie

celtic

Brooke

Jo

Emily

Lorna

Beth

Judy

Beth

Nicole

Julie

Wild Life March Block

Block of the Month by Sew Crazy.

Still Sewing

Last week I wrote about my Dad.

Thank you all for your compassion and kind words. I appreciate all the good vibes. We will get through this. Just taking it one day at a time.

I sewed!

. 

I saw a tutorial last week for a fun project using 2.5" strips. I dug into my 2.5" strip bag and sewed up a few blocks! It was fun! And should have been fast. You know, you think you can sew it up since you have 10 minutes and then the thread keeps breaking and then the bobbin runs out. The next thing you know a 10 minute sew turns into 1/2 hour and you are still have not completed the 4 blocks you meant to sew quickly

Iris

I pulled out this UFO to work on last month.  I have 3 sections that I made using a quilt as you go technique. My original plan to sew them together did not work. So I threw it in the corner for a time out for 3 years and now I need to deal with it. I don't have any obligations this week, so hope to make some progress.

Scrap Box

I have to confess, I am a scrap-a-holic. I have trouble throwing out scraps. I have learned to try to process scraps as I generate them. This box resurfaced yesterday. It is crammed full of scraps. I packed it up when we were in the process of moving in 2001. I has been taped shut and moved to California, then back to Ephraim, UT and now to Kanab. I think it is time to deal with it. I will try to process some each day.

I am linking to:
Lorna
Nicole
Emily
Beth
Judy
Beth
KatieMae
Myra
Sarah
Nina-Marie
Amanda Jean

I sewed Today

I had taken a bit of a break from my blog. My daughter and her husband were visiting over Christmas and then right after we took off with the dogs and went camping in Quartzsite. I had hoped to blog a bit from there, but had internet issues. We got home middle of January and I started to sew daily. I was able to get the swap blocks on my design wall sewn together.

Swap blocks

I finished the top on January 21, 2018. I posted a photograph on my Facebook page and had a lot of wahoo's. It was later that evening I got a phone call that my Father had died suddenly.  Wow. I am still reeling from the news.  Dad had seen my post via a friend and had told her it was really cool.  My Dad had a lot of adventure in his life. He and my mother emigrated to the USA from Germany in 1956. They settled in Utah and had 3 children. They moved to the San Juan Islands in Washington State in the 80's and sailed for 10 years. Then they moved to St. George Utah. They traveled all over in a trailer and did the Snow Bird thing. In the mid 60's they had bought a lot at Bear Lake, which is on the border of Utah and Idaho. Dad built an A-Frame cabin. My siblings and I grew up there. Many fond memories. For long time, my parents would spend Spring and Fall in St. George, the Summer at the cabin and then travel to Arizona and Mexico for the Winter. We lost Mom in 2006.  We lost my older brother, Tom, in 2011.  And 12 days ago we lost Dad. 6 days short of his 86th birthday. My sister and I are left behind to pick up the pieces of our family. My Dad had a conversation with my husband the week before he died. He said that he had no regrets.  I can find comfort in that statement.  

Block One

A month or so ago I had joined the Sew Incredibly Crazy Block of the Month 2018 group on FB. The first block came out today. I sewed today. I had not turned on my machine since Dad died. Grief will do that to you. I am trying to find my way back to a routine. I sewed today. I hope I can sew tomorrow. Even if it just one seam.  Life moves on. I need to as well.


Linking to:

Kelly

JulieLou

Nicole

Judy

Beth

Emily

Beth

tweety

Myra

Amanda Jean

Leanne

Nina-Marie

Sarah

The Joys of Autumn

I was not able to get a post up last week. We had driven up to Salt Lake to baby sit our 2 young granddaughters while their parents were out of town. Oh my. Lovely girls but I forgot how much work it is to take care of an almost 2 year old and a 4 year old. I was lucky to get the dishes done!

Baby hats

While riding in the car I like to knit. I am bored with dishrags, so I switched over to baby hats. Easy pattern, great car driving project. It is a 5-6 hour drive to Salt Lake, so I got a lot of knitting done. Now I have a couple of hats ready for the next new babies to arrive.

Mom's yarn

I had a bunch of yellow and pink yarn that came from my late Mother's stash. It feels good to use it up.

Brass and steam

I had a bag full of shawls and a couple of cowls that needed blocked. I decided to block one a day and was able to get them all done in about 10 days (took a couple of days off) We then went up the trail near our home and took some glamour shots. I did not photograph the cowls. First up is The Age of Brass and Steam. Rav project page

Hemp Shawl

Next up is a triangle shawl that I knit using some cool Hemp yarn that a friend gifted me. Just a simple triangle pattern that I made up as I knit. Rav project page.

Croc

I loved knitting this one! It is the Croc-a-tail Scarf pattern by Jessie Ksanznak. Link to my rav page.

I used some wonderful handspun yarn by Karen of Gift of Grace. Right now her shop is empty of most of her yarn, but she is doing a shop update soon, I believe on November 1st. She also does custom spins.

Simple blue

Another fun, fast knit! Blue is my favorite color.  Painted Hills is the pattern. Link to rav page.

Wirbel

Another fun knit! I had a bit of trouble with the start of the pattern, the designer is not a native English speaker and so some of the instructions were a bit unclear to me. Once I got the idea of how the increases worked, it all made sense. This is a huge shawl! Rav project page.

Jadis

And the grand finale of my blocking pile! A design by SusannaIC. I love this shawl! It is very large, like a cape size on me. I started off using a larger needle and so it just grew like a weed! It is beaded. Rav project page.
I am still working on my swap blocks from last post. Hope to have those finished this week. So my only finishes are my knitting and blocking. Nice to get that bag of shawls blocked!

Linking to:

Nina-Marie
Amanda Jean
Myra
Sarah
Anja
Judy
Beth
Emily
Nicole

Catching up

One of the quilt groups that I had belonged to in California swaps blocks every month. Each year has a pattern and color/theme and this year's blocks are strip pieced blocks. Since I am so far away and can't attend meetings I do a year's worth and mail them off to a friend. I usually try to get them there early spring, not happening this year. As long as they get there before the December meeting, my friend can catch me up.  I did participate in the swap last year and wrote about it in this post.

string block

I thought I need to square to 7" (over-sized for the recipient to be able to square all her blocks to the same size) and made about 4 blocks. Then I found out most were squaring to 7-1/2", so I decided I would just keep those and then went to the larger size.

4 blocks

My four smaller blocks. I love the design!

one batch

I have one month's worth done, and most of a second. Each batch features a block for each swapper and a block for the "Pot". Sometimes there is one winner and sometimes two. Depends on how many blocks are in the pot. I have won the pot a couple of times.

strips

I pulled strips from my scrap bags. I sort my scraps according to size. I have bags of strips in various widths and also boxes of squares cut from scraps. No matter how many strips or squares you use up, they still keep multiplying! I tried to keep the strips sorted a bit on my sewing table. That lasted for about 15 minutes. Oh well. I work better in chaos.

in progress

I have several blocks in progress. I will start another one so that I can go iron the seams.

ready to trim

removing paper

I found that if I fold the paper back and then tear it away using That Purple Thang it really comes off easily! Since the seams are all side to side it is an easy chore. I have been tearing right after trimming each block.

Grand Canyon

We drove down to the Grand Canyon last week. Oh it was lovely!  I had only been there once before, when I was 4 years old. Since it is day trip from here, we will be going back frequently!

I am linking to:

Nina-Marie

Amanda Jean

Myra

Beth

Emily
Sarah
April
Judy
Beth
Nicole

Home sweet home!

We were away from home for over a month. We had sketchy internet most of the time, so I was not able to get a blog post up.  Trying to catch up and get back into a normal routine. Our first stop was at the family cabin at Bear Lake. Very relaxing and peaceful.

Grand Teton National Park

Next up was 2 days at Grand Teton National Park. There was a lot of smoke in the air from the ragging wildfires in the western USA. We could barely see the mountains through the smoke. The second day was a bit better, but still smokey. I had accidentally hit the date stamp on my camera.  Wish I could figure out how to erase it off the photographs from that day.

Old Faithful

Our next stop was Yellowstone National Park! We stayed 4 nights there. OMG! It was fabulous! Still some smoke in the air, but it did dwindle each day. This has been on our list forever. It was the first National Park in the USA.  We saw Old Faithful!

Sapphire Pool 

This was one of my favorite features! The colors were incredible! It looks like a cool pool, but is really a very hot spring.

Bear Lake

We took 2 days camped at two different lakes on the way back to the family cabin. We stayed for 4 or five days there before closing it up for the Winter. Sweetie dropped me off in Layton on his way home. The Utah Quilt Guild has an annual Fest every year and I love to attend with all my buddies. I did not teach this year, taking a year off.

The Amazing Race

I took two classes.  A design class from Joe Cunningham. Which I will show next post. And then a team class, The Amazing Race. Sandy and I did this class last year and it was fun! So we decided to do it again.  You work as a team and end with two quilts. In between the steps you have to do challenges. Which is to make a couple of blocks from a kit. The blocks will be used in donation quilts. I still need to get the borders on my pineapple!

Design Wall

After I got home I decided it was time to finally install the design wall in my new sewing room. To test it out I put up a batch of swap blocks that I had trimmed at Quilt Fest the week before.  Looks like it works!

I am linking to:

Nina-Marie
Sarah
Anja

Amanda Jean
Tweety

Beth

Emily

Myra
Judy
Beth
Nicole