It's been awhile...

Wow over a year since my last post. I wish I could say that I have a bunch of quilts to show you but the truth is I did nothing up to a few weeks ago. I hadn't even looked at my favorite blogs. What got me out of my funk? I don't know. Could be a combination of things, I'm not sure.

A co-worker unexpectedly passed away at the end of last month. He left a wife, 14 and 3 yr old daughters. To say I'm devastated is an understatement. He was the most soft spoken person I've ever met. The project we work on is a nightmare, has been since day one and for over 4 years we'd been partners in crime. He was the good cop to my bad. Though we'd only met once in person 10 yrs ago we worked closely together and I miss him daily. His death has put a few things in perspective in my own life.

DH got a new job at the beginning of June and now works Mon-Fri 9-5 about 10 minutes from our house. Quite a difference from 3 13's an hour away. He used to be in bed by 8 and out the door before 5. We rarely saw each other days he was on shift. This new job has him doing a variety of things and he's one of 9 employees which is a big change from the corporation's he's worked for the past 25+ years. He is in love with his job & I couldn't be happier for him! With this job there is a sewing aspect that was previously sent out. Chris loves sewing, so he decided to take this on.  In trying to figure out the best method long story short I ended up pitching in to get a job done. It felt soooo good to run that fabric through my machine.

From there I started picking up fabric but nothing spoke to me.

Then I saw a piece of the Laundry Basket Cold Spell in my scrap pile. I have a full jelly roll and charm pack left from goddaughters quilt. I love this fabric. After a few false starts and some wasted strips I decided to make my favorite ... yep I started making simple stars.

There is a gap between base of the points, I probably should have cut my charms down but I love them. Imperfect but beautiful. From there I've started catching up on my favorite blogs, some have taken a hiatus but others are still going strong. I've already started mentally planning the next 2 quilts for when this one is done. I've got the itch back!

Only 2 weeks away from annual vacation. I'm hoping to put a dent in this one and get to quilting my kids tops that have been sitting waiting for me to get my act together. If I bring the top, batting and backing to my mom's, she loves helping with the pinning so if I get organized & stay on this motivated train I probably can have them done before I go back to work. We'll see.

Does it matter how your quilt is used?

I've been reading a lot of blogs and Facebook quilting groups where I see a ton of people commenting on how disappointed they are with how the quilts they gift are being used or not used. Of course I would love to see all quilts I make used and loved.

Which brings me to the first quilt I finished - my puppy quilt which was stashed in a safe spot and taken out every few months to be washed, admired, then refolded and back to its storage spot. I DID NOT want it be ruined by the dogs (it being my first quilt) About a year ago I took it out to show someone and it was left on the couch which the dogs quickly took advantage of.  I was annoyed and kept saying to myself next time I wash it it's going back into storage but after each wash it just ends up back on the couch and loved up by the dogs. I've finally come to the conclusion it was made to be used and is washable.

My second quilt was Dick and Jane quilt that I made for my mother. It was on the back of a chair in their living room then moved to her rocking chair in the second spare room. This room has all the memories from mine and my sisters childhoods. So it's fitting that it's in this room on the rocking chair her father gave her when my oldest sister was born and the rocking chair I used for all 3 of my children. While it's not being used I know it's cherished.

My others get pulled out on occasion but go back on the quilt rack after each wash until the next time they are needed. I like to believe the quilt I made for my goddaughter is used. Her mom says it is so I'm taking that at face value and feel good about it.

So how do you feel about the use of your quilts? Do you care if they are used by the dog? Do you squirrel them away only to be brought out on occasion? Does the use or lack of use detract from the thought, love, care and money you put into a gifted quilt?

I read one commenter who has a method to her quilt gifting. She said when a person she'd like to gift a quilt to visits, she has few different quilts out, if the person visiting is drawn to a quilt she tells them to take it. She said that way she knows the one they chose suits them and they will appreciate the gift. If they ignore the quilts she doesn't bother offering one.

Thinking about this reminded me of my great aunt Molly, she painted and made crocheted animals with clothes and other things I'm sure. She always had stacks of the animals in the corner of her room. When we visited we always played with them and ended up leaving with one we played with the entire visit. She passed away when I was very young but I remember playing with them and treasuring those animals for years and never forgot who gave them to me. I think that's the trick in gifting handmade items and a good model to follow.

Since my vacation not much has been happening in my sewing room or anywhere else. I wish I could say it's the beautiful weather but it's been a pretty rainy summer so far. I've got so much I could be doing and I think that's part of the problem. My space is a chaotic mess, I'd moved things and scrunched things together to use the room as a storage/sleeping area while we did the flooring in the girls room. The basement has been a catchall for all the stuff  no one wants in their room but isn't ready to commit to toss either. Up next is our bedroom then my sewing room. Can't wait!!

Hopefully next post I'll have something quilty to post!

Vacation time over and a finished top

I took 3 weeks of my annual vacation early this year. I have to say it flew by in flash. This year's vacation was more of a renocation. We've been laying oak hardwood. We didnt get as far as we hoped with waiting for home depots yearly flooring sale, long weekend bumping delivery a full week, then acclimating the wood and Chris's work schedule. We got one room done, have two last rows on second room which Chris will finish tomorrow (the beauty of working rotating shift work - he only works 3 days a week and has a full seven day off shift stretch every forth week) The second room was fully painted and started laying flooring down on part of one hallway when trying to figure out the girls doorways. We ran into some major frustration with both rooms doors and bathroom being angled toward each other & door frames were butted up against one another. Did I mention we also discovered our walls aren't straight and in some areas actually concave. Still to go is our room, my office, the hallway to my office and the stairs.

1st room done

Seeing we had to remove the baseboards and doors/closets we decided to take advantage and give them all a wash and fresh coat of paint. What I always forget is how much prep work is required before you can do your first paint stroke. We did find that working as a team the job of laying the hardwood goes much faster but I've used muscles I forgot I had!! The only sewing I got done was EPP, my office was out of commission with moving the girls stuff in there while we worked on their rooms.

2nd room in progress

I did finish the top to Madison's petal patch top the weekend before vacation! Yay! I probably won't get it finished until after the floors are all done and we have everything back in its proper rooms. Here is a quick picture of it - I just noticed it still needs a trim on the heart of that last side. There are some mistakes and fudging that happened that are fairly apparent but I am so happy this one is ready for the next stage!

Well that's it for now. I'm exhausted, have more splinters than I can count but its back to the grind bright and early. I will need to be at my best to try and tackle my work inbox which is going to be a nightmare!

Petal Patch on hold while I finished this...

My daughter Madison got a new tablet last week, so I decided to surprise her with a case. We'll what started off as a quick project took a lot longer than I expected.

I made Hazel Hedgehog from Fancy Forest for the first time using the same fabric from her quilt. It turned out a bit more crinkly after the wash then I anticipated & took two turns in the dryer to  dry. If you're wondering how it went read on ...
First face, Surprise! my quarter inch was not exact (was slightly larger) and as you can imagine with this pattern accuracy is a must. So I remade all the pieces for the face.
Second face, I oriented the body/leg the wrong way even after reading the warning. I even flipped it down before cutting but still didn't catch it so big slice down the face with the block going the wrong way.  So on to making face number three, I have to say by then it was going much easier.
While working on the third, my presser foot broke. The lever went up and as soon as I moved my hand away it fell. The foot, well it never moved from down position. Yep, my trusty model singer I bought in '92 was having a bad day. Thankfully, as Chris was at his parents 5 hours away, I jumped over to the 128k that has been gathering dust off to side in my sewing room. Actually this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. 9 layers of fabric and batting for that one section with that front pocket & binding. My '90's model while pretty darn rugged never would have gotten through all that! It was slow going at times, broke one needle and after a needle change & a good clean she kept on chugging. I forgot how much I love that machine, no searching under my desk for foot peddle (knee peddle in table) and as far as straight stitch -she's a dream.
Quilting was done on the 128 and my powerquilter 16. I need to practice a lot more, my free motion is a bit too free at times lol.

Hazel or maybe I should say Myrrh the hedgehog (Madison's Christmas gift 2 years ago pictured above) tablet case has been given and is now protecting her tablet.  I will make this block again along with the other blocks in the Fancy Forest. Next time with a few learning lessons in my quilting toolbelt.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend 🌷🐞

May already

I have no clue where last month went. I haven't made much progress on Madi's quilt since last post but I have to say, I've been whipping through hexies at a good rate. I've been working on them each evening while spending time with the family. All the the middles (25 in total) are done and I started surrounding them in black. I was going to try to make each into square blocks and orient them all going in different directions. I obviously didn't think this through completely (surprise, surprise) they aren't going to turn out into a perfectly centered square block size.

I'm discouraged its not going to be how I envisioned it. Truthfully,  it's all I can do not to put these aside and start on my next hexie project. Whats stopping me is I still haven't decided if it's going to be a star pattern or grandmothers flower garden (minus the extra border). I already bought the fabric Early Bird by Kate Spain. I do love anything stars but I think this fabric in a mass of flowers would be stunning.

Plans are still underway for our vacation reno projects and I'm getting more excited about it as it gets closer. It has gotten me thinking about other little touches we can make around the house to spruce it up. Like new lighting fixtures in the bedrooms, rearranging furniture to maximize our space (we really need to do a major purge first - seriously where does all this stuff come from?!?). We also found an incredible sink on sale that would really change the look of our powder room, but we'll see about that. Most importantly, I think we have finally decided on a new paint colour for the main living spaces (which I'm already starting to second guess). I will show you after its all done. As for my sewing room, it will stay the pale pink we painted last year. I can't believe it's been a year already since Martin moved to his own apartment... and yes his quilt is still waiting for me to sandwich and quilt it. I swear it's next on the list.

Madi's Petal Patch blunder

Spring has sprung in Ottawa!!  This past week was rainy and between 3-10°C , today 17° and Monday they are foecasting 22°! Thats 62 and 71 F for all those in US

I didn't get as much time spent in the sewing room as I was hoping for the past few weeks, but I did get a good chunk of the pinwheels cut and sewn into hst's last weekend for Madi's quilt. I got all the pinwheels made yesterday and started sewing them on today.

Now for the blunder- On Wednesday after work I was putting together a few more hst's to make the pinwheels and checking they were correct size once together. Then started thinking (never a good thing). So these pinwheels are 5 1/2 which will be ... WAIT!! I need them 5 1/2 finished (insert your favorite expletive here because I probably said it at least once). So back to basic math which got me in this mess to begin with if I add small strips between each pinwheel that will work. Crisis averted but sadly it took awhile to come up with that. Having to fudge it as I go it's slower moving but it's coming along :) I'm hoping to get some time in this week to get the 3rd and 4th sides on before the weekend.

As I mentioned last post, Reeg's quilt design continues to weigh heavy on my mind... no decisions yet. When talking to her she mentioned one of her friends is moving soon and she was hoping to make her a house warming quilt.. yes you read that correctly - she wants to make a quilt! I have heard this before so we'll have to wait and see.

I've started picking at hexies in evenings again. I have no clue what I'm going to do with these but I just enjoy the process of sewing these little piece together. I would love to try the other shapes and actually finish something. I currently have 3 hexie projects in progress at different stages but then get so far in and then it starts I should have done ... I didn't get enough fabric, what was I thinking when I... you get the picture.

The countdown to my holidays is on - 5 weeks & 4 days to go! At this time our plan is to tackle some bigger projects on our honey-do list. More on that when it happens.

Madi's quilt & a catch up

This wasn't the beginning of the post that I was expecting to write. I know its been awhile since my last post so you'll have to take my word for it... I've updated the look of my blog. Blogger popped up change your look then showed me the online and mobile views. The mobile view was horrifying. I'll be honest I hit post and never look at what anyone else sees. I try to make my pictures large size so it's easy to see without having to click on the picture to fill the screen then I orient it left or right and put text beside. Looks good online but is unreadable by mobile. It shows the picture and beside it a few characters then new line, more characters...

Heres an example what I saw on the mobile view
Imagine the picture is here then text : thi
                                    Picture continues:  s is
                                    Picture continues: My Q
                                    Picture continues: uilt
             
While I was playing with the layout I decided for a new theme. I may change it again now that I will be looking at the previews on posting. Lesson learned.

Enough of that and onto the quilt progress. Madi's quilt has been back up on the wall since finishing my Christmas quilt at the end of Jan. I've put a lot of thought into what to do with this. It's taken me 6 weeks of picking at it here and there. Flowers have been appliqued, blocks were trimmed and connected into 4 patches.  I'd been dreading stitching the fused flowers but once I got going it wasn't so bad - there will be no question if this is a homemade quilt though LOL. With the center done I played around with adding multiple borders to fill the rest of the space but it just isn't the look I want. At the moment I'm thinking pinwheels as the next section ... I did make a sample (actually a few) and the purple'ish fabric is too dark as the background. I went scrounging for the right white. It's not bright white and just a touch off snow, seems plain white I bought a mini bolt of for my farmers wife is the winner. I need to label my fabric and write the colors down for my projects ... another lesson learned. Pictured I still need to trim the borders and join the patches. You can see that pinwheel peeking from the top left

The leaders and enders quilt is slowly growing and I have stacks of 2, 3 & 4 patches which I need to join to make rows of 5. It's such a happy spring quilt! Pictures were taken at night. If you squint at that picture I kind of like the thinner white gap between the bottom blocks. Hmmm something to play with before joining them.

While I'm not working on Madi's I've been searching for inspiration for Reeg's quilt. I guess my over buying fabric is really working in my (her?) favor, if I change direction again this will be the third attempt on her quilt. The scraps from the previous two fails will be pulled apart and go in a scrap bin. Reeg had her 19th birthday since my last post - it's her lucky year so maybe I'll actually get her quilt done... I've only been sitting on these since Sept 2014.

For international quilt day I spent it glued to thequiltshow.com. I can't believe how talented their guests are. They break down the process so well it takes some of the fear out of trying new techniques like curves. I really enjoyed the site!

In other news, I can't believe we are in the home stretch of March already. I've got a handle on two of my 2017 goals ..time to add another. I'd like to say it will be my 15 minutes daily in the sewing room I guess I'll try adding them all and see which one sticks. My 9 to 5 job has been hectic & I'll leave it at that. I've been in meetings all week, thankfully I can do them remotely. They wanted me to travel but it's not a good time for my family and honestly I over did the work travel for a few years and just don't have the travel bug right now. Even though I'm not in the room I've been staying out of my emails and apps. I know if I multitask I'm going to miss something important and be sorry later.

So that's it for now. Hopefully I will have more progress to show by the end of the weekend & a new haircut if my daughter can find the time. It's nearly waist length and I'm wanting something light going into spring/summer. Unless I chicken out again and just have her cut off a couple of inches.