THIS WEEK

As another week draws to a close, and I have to go back to work tomorrow...

These are some of the things I worked on this week:

Splendid Sampler blocks---

This one took a while to complete, it was fun.

I got back around to working on the Floral Trails (it needs a real name) quilt blocks, and managed to finish them up on Sunday.  I put them up on the wall randomly and moved only two and I seem to be just fine with the way it looks.  I'll leave it there this week and see how I feel about it next time I see it.

The original plan was to add a plain 1" border then two rows of same size squares, randomly in light, dark, light, dark, and then a final border probably three inches.  

As it is now, with no borders, it's 90" by 75",  if I add all those borders it will be 102" by 87".

I'll have to give it some thought.  I'm tired of working on huge quilts.

I'm going to go watch the Oscars.  This is the first time in years that it has been on my day off.

THURSDAY ADVENTURE

The DH needed to go to Port Townsend today to get some lumber, so we took the dogs and off we went.

Going to Port Townsend entails a ferry ride each way and several hours driving.

JAX sitting in DH's lap while we're on the ferry to Southworth

Jelly looking out of the front of the ferry.  

We pulled into Edensaw in Port Townsend, used the facilities and then I left him to his sorting and the dogs and I went to Fort Worden for our walk.

I had snowed the night before, but there was very little evidence left of it, and the weather was mild - clear and calm, if a little cold.  It was very quiet and restful up in the woods there.

At Fort Worden, some of the bunkers.

Walking by the bunkers.

On a trail, going to the bluff,

Lots of interesting things to smell. 

The view from the bluff,

The view from the bluff.  You can see the lighthouse down below.

The lighthouse.

More bunkers.

Lots of bunkers.

Lots and lots of bunkers.

After our walk, we went and picked up the DH and went to the local food co-op for a nice lunch.  The dogs waited in the car.  They were overly excited to see us when we returned.  The get the windows all slobbered up and the whole inside steamy.

They were happy, tired pups and slept most of the way home.

We made home just in time for me to get to my 2:00pm Tai Chi class.

It was a good day for an adventure.

WEEKENDS ARE SLOW

Weekends at work can be slow once I get my paperwork caught up.  I try to bring a project to work on.

I brought several.

Today I'm working on sewing the binding down on the back of the green Abracadabra quilt.

I could probably get it done, if I stopped messing about.

LOTS DONE TODAY

After a very invigorating walk with the dogs at Lincoln Park I went up to the studio and re-arranged the bouquet the DH bought me for Valentine's Day.  I pared it down to just a few flowers so it would fit on my small canvas.

I finally opened the oil paints I had bought last year and spent a great two hours painting.

I don't think it's done yet.

Then I hung up my Grandmother's Flower Garden Blocks on the wall.  I want to see how big it will be and whether I should add hexagons or triangles in between the blocks.  Looks like it will be hexagons.  Now I just have to decide what color hexagons, black or white?  

Also, it looks like I might not have enough blocks.  I still have 3 or 4 ready to make, but it appears I might be short a few.  The problem is the center hex uses all the same fabric, which I don't have any more of.

After lunch I worked on my Splendid Sampler blocks.  I ironed the appliqued gulls and the quilt shop block and made the other two today.  This is such fun!

The Family Stars block took a long time, lots of small parts.

The quilt shop block is modeled after my own quilt shop, Pieces.  It's like the sign we had in the window, but in this one the star above the 'i' doesn't show up well.  I may need to amend it.

Since he's out of town, I'm making pizza for myself for dinner.  Yum.

There should be enough leftovers to take to work tomorrow for my dinner there.

SKIPPING WORK

It's our sixteenth anniversary today.  I took the day off work.

I finished a few of my Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks this morning while watching the news.  

This project was originally started way back when I was a member of Issaquah Quilters and has been languishing in a project bag for at least 15 years. 

When I got close to finishing my Connecticut quilt, which was English Paper Pieced, I realized how much I enjoyed sitting and working on that project.  So, I dug up this one and started working on it again.

Happy Anniversary Darrell.

I love you.

These last few decades have been the best ever because of you.

SPLENDID #15

"Family Affair" by Janice Ryan:

I've been working on this one a little bit at a time for a few days now.  Tonight I finally finished it.

It is paper-pieced.  Jax enjoyed when I took the paper off the back and tossed them to him.  I think he even ate some of them.  Goofy dog.

SOME SPLENDID BLOCKS

I haven't been posting the Splendid Sampler blocks I've been doing.  So here are some of them.

There are more, but I'm still working on them.  They are either applique or need embroidering.

They are all 6" blocks:

This is the one I made today.

SOLSTICE #8 SORTA

The block for this week is 18" square instead of 12" square, like the rest have been.

I started this with a bundle of blue flannel fat quarters which are over 15 years old (which means I probably couldn't find anymore).

So, I've been concerned that I'll just barely have enough to finish the 25 blocks if they were all 12" blocks.

Pat showed the setting she has in mind and instead of doing that, I was thinking I'd just stick with a 5x5 or 6x4 setting (still thinking they'd be all 12" squares).  

Anyway, long story short, this block uses a lot of fabric.  It has three big hearts, the biggest of which would use up a half of a fat quarter.

So, I'm not doing that.  I'm just making a 12" square for now.  I'm going to think about what I want to do.  Some of the things I'm thinking about is:  just putting one heart in the square, or putting a 5-pointed star (I like stars more than hearts).  And if I was going to add another fabric or two, maybe even a red, then maybe the star should be red.  I don't know.  I'm going to let it stew for a while.

In the meantime, I need to start looking for plaid flannels that will go with.

This is the block as I made it.  Now I'm wishing I had just shrunk the 18" block down to 12" and made the whole thing.

This is the block as presented.

FINISHED THE BAG!

It took lots of angst, cussing, pain and frustration, but I got the bag finished today!

On Tuesday, we went to McLendon's Hardware and got some nylon screw rivets to attach the handles to the bag.  [I didn't like the instructions in the pattern, and came up with this plan]

The DH drilled holes into the plastic tubing that makes up the handles.

The first set of rivets, 3/4" long,was a little too long.  So, Wednesday I went back to hardware store and bought shorter ones.  They only had 1/2" and I was worried that they'd be too short since the tubing was 1/2".  So I also bought 5/8" in aluminum, which is what I ended up using.

So, I spent alot more money and bought alot more hardware than I needed.

I used one of DH's square punches (1/4") to punch a hole through the bag's side.  [You too can buy one of his punches thru Veritas or Lee Valley]

Then I attached the plastic tube covered with fabric to the bag with the rivets and washers.

Then the ends of the fabric tubes was pulled down and attached to the bag.  This was one of the most frustrating things I've ever done - trying to hand sew the final bit of fabric down.  Never again.

I almost gave up a couple of times, but after several hours over two days I persisted and won.  It may not be pretty, but it's done and it works.

DONE>

[I thought I might get Jelly to pose next to it to give some measure of it's size.  But, noooo, she thought I was trying to kill her or something.]

PAISLEYS

I've started doing the Splendid Sampler (a year late).  I'm going to use my paisleys and paisleys only.  

So, to make it easier I took them out of the two large drawers they were in and sorted them and put them out where I could see them.

EMBROIDERY THREAD

Okay, so I went a little crazy.

The Splendid Sampler has quite a few blocks that have embroidery on them.  I used to do cross-stitch in a former life, so I had a few boxes of thread, but I'll be damned if I can find them.  I've spent several hours looking in all the places they could be hiding to no avail.

So, I looked on the interweb, and lo, I could get an assortment of colors for under $10. I ordered some and waited anxiously for two days until they arrived.  I was thrilled until I realized there weren't any yellows.  I have no idea what colors I will need for these upcoming embroidery blocks, but I had to have yellows!

So, I ordered another set.  This is the set I should have bought in the first place.  But I didn't see it the first time round.  This second set was 240 skeins, two of each color, but the colors were fantastic!

I don't need two skeins of each color, but I ordered them anyway along with plastic boxes and spools.

I spooled up one set or colors - the other set I think I'll give to his grandkids or something.

I love all these colors - !!

Here's the first block I did.

SOLSTICE #7

Tidy Rows

BOTTOM ATTACHED

The bottom of the bag had to all be sewn on by hand and it was not easy.

The inside had me struggling until I got fed up and turned it inside out.  (I was worried I might ruin the bag by doing this). 

Well...that was easy.

Inside out - just like sewing binding on.

It looked really cool when it was done.

I had done the outside first, and then when I sewed the inside bottom to the inside sides, it made it all kind of shift or something and the outside looks like this now.  But I really like it.  Weird.

I still don't know about the handles.  They have me confused.

CHILDREN'S LIBRARY #2