New Project

 I have started a new project, a bolero sweater.  Mine is really in blue: I will try to get a better picture later.  I found the pattern while I was working on organization in my studio.  It seems I liked it when I first saw it but didn't know enough about knitting to even attempt it.

 This is the picture of how the back of the sweater is supposed to look.  I am at the waistline with quite a way to go.  This is the first time I have worked a pattern that had me using three different needle sizes.

And this is what the full sweater looks like and, yes, that is a lot of 2x2 rib. 

If anyone is interested, this is where I found the pattern.  Look how long it took me to learn enough about knitting to work this pattern.  And I am really enjoying finally getting started on it. 

One of my Christmas gifts was a Spiralizer attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer.  It was really fun to peel and core a bunch of apples to ready them for making applesauce in my Instant Pot.  I could hardly keep up with the Spiralizer: I had to cut the ends off of the apples before I put them on the Spiralizer.  And after I finished getting them ready I fed the peels to the chickens.  What a fun place I live in.

Well, except for last weekend.  It started raining Sunday afternoon and after 36 hours we had gotten 9" of rain.  I took this picture on Wednesday and it still looks like we have waterfront property.  I am not complaining: we love to have our trees well watered.

I am also still working on a pair of purple socks: they are about a year in the making, too.  I am almost finished with them and will post a finish picture next week.

We are babysitting our granddog this weekend (5 days).  She is a mini dachshund, about 2 months old.  She is quite a busy puppy and, of course, our 3 adult dachshunds are not quite sure what to make of her, or whether or not she should be allowed to be here.  We are going to have an exciting long weekend.

Works in Process

Yippee, I am almost done with my tunic.  When I started it I hoped to have it done before Fall but now it should be done before Summer officially is started.  I have about 6 - 8 rows left to do on the collar, the bunched up part at the top and then I will be sewing up the seams. This has been so easy and fun.

These are my light purple heather socks.  I have about 1.5" more done than shows in this picture and am about to be ready to start the heel: I will be doing the FLK heel.

And here are the socks I just started this week. The color of the yarn is a dark purple heather.  Boy is it hard to see the stitches.  I plan to do a slip stitch pattern and am just hoping that I will be able to see them.

I was very happy when I finally got this embroidery done.  This is called "Owls on a Branch" by Urban Threads.  I do want to put one owl on the front of this shirt but haven't chosen one as yet.

Here in South Alabama we have been having rain.  On the day this picture was taken we got 4.5" in 2 hours:  that is the most we have had on any one day.  And we are very lucky in that it is all absorbed by the next day.  However, on the day it was raining it looked like we had waterfront property.

However, you can see that Sadie was not impressed at all by all that water.

And the puppies were also not impressed either.  This is how I start my day, with puppy play time.  What fun we have.

I will be linking with Patchwork Times.  And now, I hope everyone has a great weekend.  Gari

Barns and Blocks

There is something new on my design wall.  As I have said before, I am planning a stripe of barns for the backing of the Funky Chickens quilt.




So this is block 1.  It is 6” and I am using leftovers from a quilt called Going Dotty.








This is block 2.











And today this will be block 3.  With any luck I will have two more made before the end of the day and will be able to begin cutting the barn fabric.










I got this one block done so I could see how they went together.  It didn’t take me long to remember the reason I haven’t made houses or barns before.  Lots of little fiddly parts.  But now that I have one done I will do the last 4.  I think I will cut all the fabric and chain piece them.  But I still have not decided what fabric I am going to put on either side of the barn strip.








I did “have” to go on a fabric hunting trip.  I only had one barn roof fabric and I wanted a different roof on each barn.  It took visiting 3 different stores to find these but I am very happy with them.







And, of course, while shopping for roof fabric, I happened upon these two fabrics.   The first is a newspaper fabric featuring cats.  DH saw it and decided he needed a pillow made from this fabric.  I told him I would “right on it.”


I got the brown fabric for two projects.  Of course it will find itself on an owl at some time but first it will be 3 gingerbread men for a BOM I hope to start this week.





I don’t know if you can see this but we have had better than 4 1/2” of rain this past week and I can say that everything is really green around here.  The rain has also kept the temps below normal, perfect times for sitting on the deck and reading.  It is a wonder that I got any sewing done at all.





Today we have an appointment with the vet.  Seems one of our dogs has an ulcer on her eye.  We have been doctoring it all weekend and today we will find out if our efforts have paid off.  If not she will have to have surgery.  However, if she is better we have more fun plans.  We have been planning a trip to Atlanta to visit the Cobb County Quilt Show.  Wish us luck, either way.

Have a great week!  Gari

Organizational Plan

Over the past several months the studio has become more and more just a place of clutter.  When I want to do something I have to clear a spot to work and the clutter has made it even harder to use what little time I had.  So yesterday I devised a workable, I hope, plan to de-cluttering and yet having sewing time, too.  Since I have several applique projects going (all machine applique) I will applique one block and then spend the same amount of time putting things away.


So yesterday I appliqued three of my Funky Chickens.  Don’t those needle holes look big?  But experience has taught me that they will shrink back to size when the quilt is washed so I don’t worry.  Besides, the needle is really not that big.





Anyway, these three are finished and ready to be a quilt once we have all 12 in our chicken coop.  I do most of my applique with invisible thread and a zigzag stitch which seems to work really well.










In between chickens I cleared off the ironing board and started whacking off the top of the fabric mountain that has grown on the cutting table.  One bad thing about having a large table is that I can leave stuff there and move on to a new project and it isn’t in the way until there are 6 or 7 projects worth of fabric, rulers, and other assorted tools on there.  I finally was using a 2’x2’ space to do all my cutting and fusible drawing.





I did take some time off to document the rain we had (30 hours of it).  This gauge only shows the last 4”, the first 3” were accidently dumped by the dogs. 













I don’t know if you can see but we are on well water and our pump is about a quarter underwater.  I have always wanted to live on the water so I just pretended this was a lake.  When the rain stopped it only took about 2 hours for all of this to be gone.











However, while it was raining it was like living inside a waterfall. 











I put the plants in a semi-protected area so they got mostly the splash of the water falling on the outside area of the deck: I won’t have to water them again for a couple of days. 









Yesterday I received the panel I won in a giveaway from Kate of Life In Pieces.  The panel is about 4’x3’.












Although I don’t plan on using these blocks with it, I think that a layout something like this would work for it.  I will be putting it away for now but probably get it back out next summer when I begin working on Christmas stuff again. 







Along with the panel Kate sent these note cards and tweezers (I apologize for cutting the head off of the tweezers: will get a better picture for DWM).  I didn’t realize until I opened the cards that Kate made them and they are beautiful.  As for the tweezers, they are great.  I already have a similar pair that I use all the time and now I can have one at another sewing station.  When I got the first one I thought it was just cute (she has red hair) but they are long and get into places my fingers can’t and they hold tight: excellent.

Now I better get back to my organizational plan.  I am currently waiting for the Direct TV person to show up.  He called to tell me he wouldn’t make it until after lunch and then I just got a recorded message saying he will be here in about 1 1/2 hours.  Who knows!?! 

Mid-Week

Early this week we had rain:

Heavy rain and sunshine at the same time.

We even had hail.  And I learned something: hail makes a lot of noise when it hits a tin roof.

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This is what I woke up to on Wednesday.  What is it, you ask?  This is the container for cat food.  And you probably can see that it is completely empty.  I have to tell you that I was not a popular person when I walked right by the hungry cats.  I tried to tell them I was on my way to the grocery store but it didn’t seem to console them, at all.

When I got home I was faced with this.  This is my Weight Watcher’s paperwork and I usually

make a mess of 1/2 of the dining room table while I complete it.  But after a little while it was all done and ready to get in the mail.

Then, finally I could spend a little time in the studio.  Here I am showing the completed Block 4 for August of the Carol Doak BOM.  I am really enjoying her foundation paper piecing a lot and may have to make more of her blocks on my own.  Of course, I also really like the fabric I chose for this BOM.

Today I finally began the piecing on the second set of swap blocks.  I thought I had all the pieces cut but soon figured out that I hadn’t cut at least half of the parts.  Here I am chain piecing flying geese parts.  I did figure out that I really do not like chain piecing, just sewing the same thing over and over again.  However, I will continue sewing these since they need to be done SOON.  With luck, maybe, I can have all the blocks done by Monday.

Saturday, after my WW meeting, DH and I are going to Pensacola to do some serious shopping.  I need a new pair of shoes (oh, yes I do), the birds need seed, and DH wants some new pool toys.  We have been making a list because when one lives in a small rural area, one needs to use her city time wisely. 

But, before that, I hope to spend a great deal of tomorrow sewing, swimming, sewing, reading, and sewing.

Have a great weekend everybody.

 

Singing in the Rain

So, I came out of the house and was on my way to the studio when this happened.












Look at that rain!  It has been pretty dry here and the rain has been spotty and short lived.  DH said it was like sitting under a waterfall.











So we took full advantage of being able to sit outside, on our deck, under our new roof, in the rain.  Can you see where the wet and dry is?  One of our puppies didn’t notice the difference until she wandered out into the rain.  She jumped, startled, and hurried back into the dry, shaking all that wet stuff off as she went.  So fun was had by all.









Then, when the rain stopped it was off to the studio to get some sewing in.  The first thing I did was complete the applique on the last Henrietta Whiskers block.  I am not embroidering the eyes on any of the blocks as I plan to use crystals but they will not be put on until after the quilt is quilted.  I really like a little sparkle on wall quilts and this one will be hanging in the dining room come Fall.







And here is my Carol Doak Mystery Block for July, all sewn and pressed.  And, since she is traveling, she has already given us the August block.  However, I am putting it a little further down the “to do” list in the hope I can get some other things done.








The last thing I worked on today is the beginning of my Color Challenge for July.  This is a very different project for me but so far I am really excited about it.  I won’t share what it will be until I get a little further along but it is not a quilt but will be quilted.  How’s that for an enigma? 

Now that I think of it, this has been a really great day.  I got everything done in the house I planned to do, I had a really nice call from my mother, lunch out with DH, fun in the rain under the roof, and progress in the studio.  Very nice.

Lots of Projects: No Finishes

This is my design wall this morning.  And when I saw it in the picture, it really looks like a mess.  But when I was putting it on the wall, I thought I was coming up with something.  The 12” blocks are from the LCQAL that finished up earlier this year using Bliss by Moda.   My thought was to use some charm squares to make up a divided 4 patch but, oh, I don’t like it at all.  So later this morning I will be taking the charm squares down and trying to come up with something else.

The first thing I took down from the DW Sunday morning was the 16 patch quilt top.  It is ready for quilting and the backing has also been readied.

I went through all my batting pieces and chose the ones I could put together for this quilt.  Here are the leftovers, ready to go back on the shelf to await their call to duty.

 

I even prepared the binding and it is also waiting it’s turn to be used…….sometime in the near future, I hope.

 

Then I started working on my Snowbound UFO.  I trimmed all of the blocks while I began sewing them together.  Look at all the slivers of fabric on my cutting table.  I keep thinking there is something I should be able to do with them but I probably will just toss them.   As you will soon see, I already have enough mess in this studio.

 

 

I sewed the blocks together and once again enjoyed seeing these clever blocks from Bunny Hill Designs.

 

 

So now the center is all together and pressed.  And on the chair back are the inner borders (don’t look too closely at the mess behind the chair).  I still need to add cornerstones and then we will be ready for the outer borders.  I am thinking of white cornerstones on them with maybe embroidered snowflakes.  But that also will be decided either today or tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it.

Here in South Alabama we have been getting rain.  No, I mean RAIN.  We have had about 7.5” in the last 4 days. 

 

This is how my shoes have looked every time I go out.  But I don’t mind, we really needed all that rain.  Besides, these are Crocs and I just rinse them off and keep going.

Now, clean off your shoes and run on over to Patchwork Times to see what other quilters are working on.