Just like that, it's fall!

I was feeling particularly energetic today so it seemed like a good time to write a post.  Maybe energetic isn’t the correct word.  It’s more of a state of high alert since I found a scorpion in my home office last night.  This was after our recent trip to Pittsburgh where I found not one, but two, of those horrible centipedes.  I guess I just have the luck.  So, all of our illusions about … “at least we haven’t seen any inside” have been dashed. Granted, there were a couple of activities yesterday that could have literally carried it into the house from the garage.  I’ve been doing scorpion hunts since we got the pool and the palm trees and we’ve only found two dead ones outside.  The one last night was very much alive, emphasis on “was”.  Eventually, the high alert will fade.  Sigh.

In between other activities, I’ve been trying to refocus on sewing.   I made a McKenna Ryan wallhanging for our guild’s fundraiser.  I forgot to take a picture but I made the parts for a second one to give a friend who is dealing with some not so nice things.  Once that one is done, I’ll post a photo. 

If I think back to the August retreat, I was working on the Halloween Scrappy Trips made from Friendship blocks.  That top is together and I hope to quilt it during the next few weeks or so.

I put together a Triple Rail Fence for a charity auction.  They requested a patriotic theme so it was a good fit with some of the leftover fabric from the Indians quilt.

I also worked on piecing all of my floral scraps into stacked coins.  That’s not put together yet.  I worked on Moonglow, of course, and I’ve made steady progress.  I kitted up all of the remaining blocks for the Have a Jolly Little Christmas quilt along but haven’t sewn any of them.  I also made some fat quarter placemats for the patio but ended up ripping out the stitching on one of the sets because I didn’t like the layout.  Odd since that pattern is notoriously foolproof, but those need to get finished soon before “winter” is here.

While we were staying in Pittsburgh, my mom has a quilt hanging that I made for my brother's first marriage.  It is one of those things that makes me cringe when I see it because it was above my skill level when I made it (1993 maybe?) but I made it from a photo my ex-sister in law gave me.  She wanted a quilt just like the one in the photo--to match their bedding.  I know I bought the solids from Amish shops and they've held up pretty well.  I used polyester batting because I didn't know better so it doesn't hang very well.  I did some pretty advanced cable FMQ, though, and it looks pretty good!  I am confident my brother cringes when he sees it too since that relationship ended years ago. 

Last night, I even finished the top for the long-promised Cleveland Indians quilt.  I need more of the Indians fabric for a border so that will have to wait for fabric.com but at least it is put together.  There was sooooooooo much sashing, it took longer than I expected and way longer than it should have.  It’s also BIG, hopefully, not too big.  In the meantime, Brady asked if he could make an Indians pillowcase so maybe this timeline was meant to be.

Coming up next, I will probably refocus a bit on piecing charity tops.  Sadly, our guild’s most prolific piecer passed away this summer and her absence has been noticed in many ways.  Since I’ve been co-facilitating the charity quilt effort in the guild, I store the fabric and I’ve been enjoying making something from the oddball parts that can’t be cut into kits.

I also still owe a Cleveland friend a memory quilt made from her former foster child’s baby clothing.  I am very intimidated by that project.  I’ve never made a t-shirt quilt and I think I can muddle through that part but there are things she wants kept “intact” such as newborn knit hats, a couple of onesies, and a rattle stuffed toy.  I have a pattern picked out and she’s pretty easy-going but I have to figure out the hats and the onesies.

In between those projects, I’ve been brainstorming ways to get back into more challenging projects.  You might remember that I have a wallhanging traveling with the employee art show.  The show travels to all of the major locations for a two year round trip.  Just before it came to Phoenix, our corporate art director called me and invited me to be the guest speaker at the opening reception.  Of course, I accepted but then panicked about what to talk about or to bring.  He had suggested bringing other works, including some that are in progress.  The piece in the show was a spin off from the fabric choices I used for my Jan Krentz star so I brought the star, a circles wallhanging I made with the pieced circle technique, a couple of wallhangings I made in our workshop with Melody in Chicago, and also a quilt I bought from Melody to show how the inspiration is reflected in my work.  When I looked for in progress work that was cohesive with those finished items, I was kind of sad and embarrassed to unearth so many cool things that were nearly finished or worked through conceptually but not started.  It made me realize that I don’t work on those challenging pieces because they are intimidating but they are some of the things I’m most proud of or most excited about.  I need to work on challenging myself more, starting with some of these UFOs.  I’m working through it in my head and, hopefully, will figure out a plan soon.

The reception and talk went well.  The group asked lots of good questions and enjoyed seeing the in progress components.  Mike went with me to see the show and help.  They ended up asking him questions and the stories of our professional and personal changes from the last year came up.  Of course, the changes in my quilting space aka the basement, were a part of the discussion.  I spoke highly of all of you--the fun we had, the food, the drinks, the challenges, the fairy-godmothering … it wasn’t the quilting bee that the audience had previously envisioned.  Another funny thing happened when I left the room and the director decided to temporarily hang up some of the things I brought. He hung the lone star backwards.  Granted, the backing was pieced and had a large print that is very artistic, however, I would have thought the label and hanging sleeve would have been a give away plus the lone star is a pretty prominent “front”.  Of course, I thought of Kathy’s wise words about “reversible quilts”. 

It’s still the afternoon here but I’ll leave you with a photo of last night’s sunset.  We were at a little league game so I got to watch the whole progression of colors.  It was beautiful.

Churning the Community Quilt Stash

It's usually pretty obvious that I'm avoiding a project when I start working on something that should be pretty uninspiring.  Right now, I am avoiding some intensive auditioning with the Indians' panel blocks by using up some challenging fabric in the guild donation bins.


I received the fabric bins for our community quilts and luckily my share of this process only includes a bin of guild-made kits, a bin of fabrics sorted into theme bags, and two shallow containers that I haul to guild meetings so people can pick quilt kits or Red Cross bag kits at each meeting.


I dug through the fabric bin in preparation for a guild charity sew in and there was a bag of orphaned items that were difficult to "kit" or pair fabrics with.  A couple of things caught my eye including a pretty but skinny Alphabet Zoo panel and some bright but homely offcuts of a floral stripe in odd sizes.


I pulled out an oddly large chunk of a vintage ESF giraffe print and did a simple layout to incorporate a small stack of alphabet print blocks with the panel.  I wasn't aiming for a square top but, at least it is a useable size for one of our donation sites.

I also dug through the bin to find enough yardage in blues, pinks and florals to make 5 tops that are variations of this.  The kits that the guild makes include simple squares like this, bricks, rail fence, and semi-coordinated jelly rolls.

Of course, I thought I would make a dent in the bin with these but, not so much.  There are some coordinated school and ABC fabrics that are calling out for some yellow and red so I may tackle that next.  There's always a steady supply of Christmas, too.  None of this sewing is as challenging as the work that the Wednesday group in Willoughby does with blocks and spare parts but, hopefully, I'm keeping the fabric supply churning for our community quilts.

I'm still here ...

Wow, this last year has gone so fast.  I have a lot to catch up on, blogging-wise.  My last post was before the March retreat!  Crazy.

March in Amishland was lovely. It was so relaxing to cross the pavement without fear of ankle breaking or wrist snapping.  It was relatively warm; however, all weekend, I thought I’d managed to forget to pack socks (despite the fact that I remembered making a pile of socks to bring).  It was probably a month later when Mike reached into the secret zipper compartment on my bag and there were my socks.  Sheesh.

I managed to get a few things done at the retreat.  There was the usual project—Moonglow.  I made progress and hope to have all of the blocks done before the next retreat.  I worked on the cute holiday sampler that Mary turned us on to.  I rescued the Friendship Group pinwheel stars top from obscurity and added a piano key border that I’d actually worked out on a previous retreat.  I think I also worked on Bonnie Hunter’s mystery from last year.  Could that be all I did?  I don’t have any photos to tell me otherwise.  The boys asked me to bring them wings from Quaker Steak at the airport so they were extra happy to see me when I returned.

I was home from the retreat for less than a week before we headed off for spring break.  We drove to Las Vegas and stayed the night before catching our connection to London in Atlanta.    I was lucky to be able to meet up with an Ohio friend whose trip overlapped with ours by a couple of hours.  Things were pretty chaotic at the Vegas airport but we finally figured out the maze and boarded for Atlanta.  We were so relaxed in the Atlanta lounge that we missed our flight to London.  It was absolutely our fault but who knew that it is the airline’s “policy” to leave 20 minutes before the “departure time”?  Sigh.  While Mike tried desperately not to lose his temper and Brady cried because Mike had said we should just go home to AZ, I tried to figure out what our options were.  Unfortunately, there were 2 more flights that night but they were all overbooked.  We waited for the next few hours on standby, slowly watching those planes fill and leave, before booking a hotel in Atlanta. Sigh again.  We bought toothbrushes and Mike huddled in the cold and rain wearing his travel clothes of shorts and a t shirt.  Luckily, our London hotel was nice enough to shift out our reservation.  We were at the airport extra early the next day so we easily made our flight.  When we got to London, Mike’s luggage hadn’t made it.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t cross-packed and I’d put some of my toiletries in his bag so he was going on the third day in the same clothes and we all had our cheapie toothbrushes, etc.  It all worked out in the end but it was a bumpy start.

We had a great time seeing all of the sights and basically running Brady ragged.  Luckily our hotel had a great lounge so we didn’t feel too guilty about ending the days earlier than Mike and I alone might have.  Brady would say that the Tower of London and “the pubs” were his favorite.  We let him order soda at the pubs (a rarity) so that’s why they made the list.  That plus the fact that the mercurial bartenders paid him special attention.  The trip was wonderful and broadened our world view, once again.

We spent a couple more days in Vegas once we returned from the UK.  That gave us enough time to see mostly all of the child-appropriate sights and do a stopover at the Hoover Dam.

Since then we’ve indulged in spring activities (former Cleveland summer activities) like baseball, basketball and hikes.

Monthly wine night with the neighborhood women ...

Allergy season--can you believe these trees in bloom?  You can hear the swarms of bees from far away.

Creepy mannequin in Old Scottsdale--it took some convincing to get Brady to sit with "him".

In May, we learned that my great nephew Quinnten would be coming from San Jose to Phoenix for a hockey tournament.  Family from all over came to watch him play.  If you had told me that we’d have a family dinner in Phoenix less than a year after we’d moved, I never would have believed it.  We had such a great time with two of my brothers, their families and extended families.  Brady and Quinnten were born less than a month apart and they had the best time.  After saying his goodbyes in tears, Brady told us that because he and Quinnten have the same personality and interests, they are “pretty much best friends”.  We were so happy for them that they were able to spend time together.  The tournament is here every year and Quinnten has family in Tucson so we hope to get the boys together more often.

With all of the activities I’ve mentioned, I haven’t gotten much sewing done.  I have had more misses than hits at guild meetings so I needed to regroup somehow.  I volunteered to take a position on the community quilts subcommittee.  I’ve only facilitated one meeting so far but we have a bigger session on Tuesday so I should be fully indoctrinated by then.  Hopefully, investing more will pay dividends rather than backfiring.

I also signed up for a couple of classes at the closest shop to me.  They are a small shop and very new—50/50 sewing and scrapbooking.  One class was to make a clutch using laminated fabric and the other showed you how to make fabric flowers and a garland.  I met some interesting people there but over half of them were visiting from out of town (!). 

I did some shopping.  Thank you, Divas, for my spree at Mad B’s.

May also brought plans to finalize our back yard design.  We hope to break ground in about a week which would mean that the yard would be mostly done by August.  Here’s what the end product will look like, sort of.

That’s all for now.  Check out this post from a sewing blog when you have time.  Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, all! 

The little things ...

My family came to visit for the weekend.  Of course, it was unseasonably cool and wet. I was surprised to realize that I could only think of two indoor options for activities.  The desert hike and a train ride through the peach blossoms were definitely not going to happen.  Most of Saturday was spent at basketball games and a football game.  My mom had said that if we moved to Arizona, we would "never see her because it is too hot".  Apparently, the Universe was listening because it was windy, raining and about 60 degrees.  This picture was taken before I gave her a second fleece blanket.

While my brother was in town, I asked him to help add the handles to my sewing storage units.  The cabinet door instructions offer no suggestions on how/where to attach the handles and the handle instructions only suggest a side to side measurement.  In the end, I decided to center them from top to bottom.  Here is Sherman's cousin, Crosby, "helping" a/k/a monitoring my brother to ensure that he doesn't drive back to LA without him.

My brother is a dog-lover and always comes bearing treats for Sherman.

I still need to organize a small shelving unit before I can call this room done but I am so happy to have the cabinet handles on (and to be done with opening them from the bottom edge).

Ready, set ....

I have been quiet on the blog-front because I've been busy sewing plus prepping for a family visit this weekend.  One of the reasons I had to pass on the race was that my family planned to visit sometime this winter and the dates were still up in the air.  The time has come.


Here's what I've been up to, sewing-wise.  Nearly all of the blocks for last year's Quiltville mystery are finished.

I would be ready to put the top together but I've decided to make it bigger.  I've been pre-cutting and kitting up parts for the additional blocks.  There are also HST parts for a new office runner/quilt since I have new furniture in that room.

As sew-offs in between the mystery blocks, I've been making piano key border sections for the Friendship pinwheels.

I have one more set of blocks to precut and then I will be ready to pack for Amishland.  The trip is right around the corner.  Can't wait!


Here are a couple of sunset photos from last week.  We are treated nearly every morning and evening with incredible displays.

Birthday Minions and Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

Sometime around the middle of January, it occurred to me that the Minion quilt I'd put together for Brady at the summer retreat was still pin-basted.  Back then, I thought it would be a good goal to get it done by Halloween but that got away from me.  I managed to carve out some time to quilt it (simply) and then I secretly worked on the binding for the rest of the week while carefully concealing the surprise from him. 

He really likes it and it is the first quilt he has ever slept under.  He likes relaxing with quilts and building tents but he is a minimalist with the bedding.  I have the circles quilt I made for him a couple of years folded on the end of his bed but he has always said it is too hot.  Somehow the Minions and our coldest AZ weather yet have collided and now I sneak into his room every so often to see how content he is to sleep under it.

Since January usually means race day, I also pulled some fabrics for a jelly roll quilt.  I used up lots of odds and ends to make what will become a spring couch quilt for the desert.  The photo looks more yellow than beige but it is mostly greens, blue greens, beiges and grays.  I sewed the strips together then immediately started racing.  That was a long stretch in the sewing chair (close to 3 hours).  I don't recommend that plan.  I am happy with the way it turned out.  These days, anything that lowers the blood pressure is welcome in our house.

Also in the last few weeks, I pulled out last year's Quiltville mystery quilt and was pleasantly surprised to see how much progress I made last year at this time. You know, back when I thought I'd have nothing to do but sew because my sparse and spotless house was on the market?    I am using the same color scheme prescribed by the direction because it fits our home accessories.  I am hoping it may even end up on our bed.  Would you believe none of our beds have quilts on them?  I have about half of the blocks together so far.


So that I don't get confused with the mystery blocks, I am using the piano keys I cut a couple of retreats ago as sew-offs.  The piano keys will be the border for a vintage Friendship top (red and yellow improve 9 patches).


I've also managed to get all of the strips cut for the Midnight Flight that I started in a workshop in early January.


My exercise instructor was injured just before the holidays so I had to find a new weekly routine.  Also, Mike and Brady have been really immersed in Rock Band so both of those changes have helped me get back into a pretty significant sewing routine.  This time, I think it is going to stick.

Some progress ...

I got a Me day to sew for several hours on Sunday while the boys were at baseball camp.  It was practically disorienting.  I am hoping that gets me on track again sewing-wise.  I needed some alone time to finish Brady's minion quilt in time for his birthday on Saturday.  Of course, when I laid it down to measure for binding Sherman had to get in on the action. Sigh.

Once the boys got home, I was still inspired so I made four of those strippy charity quilts using the WOF novelty fabric cuts that I still have stockpiled.  I'll turn them in to the guild and the charity team will pair them up with batting, backings, and binding fabric.  I might keep one of the girly creations.  It is just so cute.  I have no idea what I'll do with it but ...  I actually see a real dent out of my novelty drawer!  That never happens.

I only had one cut of the cowboys and cowgirls but I think it turned out really cute with the twinkle twinkle stripe.  The stripe was on clearance years ago.  It was loosely woven and printed somewhat off kilter but that's ok.

I'm still working on my sewing room.  One side of the closet was a weird dimension so it took me a while to find shelves that would maximize the space. I needed the space to contain my finished quilts that previously lived in an armoire.  Here's the before and after.

I also hung two design walls to maximize the one unused wall.  I used one 4x8 sheet plus a scrap to fill in the open space.  The top in the photo is about 42x55 so that gives you a sense of scale.  Yes, I will need a ladder if I ever use it to lay out a bed sized quilt but that's ok. If I never end up using the high space, I could also put inspiration stuff up there.  We will see.

The doors are on the cabinets but they still have the blue protective wrap while waiting for handles to be installed.

Next, I need to organize a small cabinet and deal with a couple of smaller storage containers of miscellaneous items.  I have to say that it has been a lot easier finding things now that I have packed, unpacked, organized and labeled nearly everything within those four walls. That whole process has given me more ideas on ways to move different projects along or move them out.  I'm getting there.