Finished a quilt!

Finally finished my Ricky Tims' Caveman quilting piece! The finishing process took more time than I had expected, but I think it was worth it to tuck all those threads. The background does not show well in the photograph, it is more of the greenish blue.

Ricky Tims Caveman quilting

I did post this to my FB page and tagged Ricky. His comment was "Oldie Goldie". I think that makes a good name for this guy, what do you think? Up next is making some labels for recent work and to start working on another piece for a challenge that is due in March.

Gift Bags

At my local guild this week we worked together on making gift bags for the Balloons and Tunes event coming up President's Day Weekend. The visitors center co sponsors this event and we were asked to make the bags for all the pilots. They give out a bottle of sparkling cider. It is a fun event. Fun to watch the balloons launch and float by the red cliffs. Hope the weather allows them to launch. There is also a band showdown. A fun free event, if you are anywhere near Southern Utah, check it out!

Crown Royal block

One of the gals in my guild is making a Crown Royal quilt for her son. He collected a lot of the bags over the years. Claudia drafted out her quilt on graph paper. It has been fun to watch this evolve.

This week's lousy dishrag 

We drove to Salt Lake City last weekend for our granddaughter's 3rd birthday. It is a 5-6 hour drive, so I usually have my knitting basket with me. I knit another lousy dishrag. I experimented with a new design. Here it is blocking. The horizontal rows try to gather and the vertical rows stretch. So it is very cockeyed. Anyway, I had nice comments on my lousy dishrag last week. Thanks. I was using the term lousy as in not much rather than awful. I decided that I would have a drawing for this lousy dishrag. It is meant to be used, so when it stretches out it is no biggie. Please leave a comment if you want your name thrown in the hat. Sorry, but USA addresses only. (I sent a baby hat to England for the great grand and it cost $14 to mail it.)  This may become an ongoing thing, I knit a lot more dishrags than I can use and give away locally.



Linking to:

Lorna

Nicole

Beth 

Emily

Judy

Beth

Myra

Sarah

Nina-Marie

Leanne

And so it goes.

I went to Arizona with Sweetie and the two puppy dogs for a couple of weeks. I had hopes of all kinds of wonderful photographs of the desert landscape. It did not happen. I took some photographs of the first sunset and the camera battery died. And of course, I had forgotten the battery charger. We did not have internet this year, I had given up the hot spot when we got real internet at the house. It was nice to take a break from News. So here is my entire collection of photographs from our trip!

While we were in the desert our great granddaughter was born! She arrived on January 20th, 10 days overdue.  7 lbs 14 oz with a full head of dark hair! Bella Rose.  

Only thing I got finished was a lousy dishrag. It was a fun, stress free knit. Pattern is here.

Linking to:

Nicole

Beth

Judy

Emily

Beth

Nina-Marie

Myra

Sarah

Alycia

New Start

Happy New Year! I hope that there will be happy times in 2019. We are expecting our first Great-Granddaughter to make her appearance any day now! Officially due on the 10th, but as always with babies, they come when they are ready. I am not sure that I am ready to be a Great Grandmother, but at least everything looks like it is going well. 

Caveman Flower

I finally finished tucking all those darn threads on my Ricky Tims' class project! I wet it and blocked it before trimming. Still trying to decide about a faced binding. I don't think I have enough of the blue and I don't know that I would want the orange out on the edge.

Red bowl

Yesterday I went to the quilt guild sew day and wrapped cord for another bowl. I sewed it when I got home. I am happy with it. Happy bright color. Big enough to put a plant in.


Linking to:

Lorna

Nicole

Emily

Beth

Judy

Beth

Nina-Marie

Myra

Anja

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