Monday, May 30, 2016

Monday Meanderings 5 - 30 - 2016

My poor goal list didn't get much finished this week.  I did quilt another Slide Show quilt made by Dorothy.  She used Kaffe Fassett fabrics that really makes a different looking quilt than the one I made for the Mid-Atlantic English Springer Spaniel Rescue.  Here it is just before taking it off Ruthie, the long arm. 
Here is the whole quilt.
And wow!  Don't you love this wild backing? 
It was a pleasure tequila to quilt. (Don't you just love auto correct!?) You can't see the quilting design all that well but it was African Samba by Apricot Moon; Omni thread; and Warm and Natural batting. Dorothy was very pleased with the end result.  And, she plans to keep this one. 

One of the things I'm doing before the move is consolidating all of my craft supplies into the studio.  Considering I'm not doing all that much in my studio it explains why my cutting table looks like this:
I will admit the other side is completely cleared off so I could do some cutting if I needed to.  

As I mentioned above I didn't get a whole lot checked off of the goal list.  I did make progress going through the whole house to determine what can be let go and what needs to come with us.  It's disappointing to know that my kids aren't interested in most of the things we've collected through the years. Over the weekend I was firing off text messages about various things I thought they might like to keep or I could make them make a decision rather than me. (Heck I am inclined to keep things rather than let them go...) Nonetheless here's how I did on the goals:

May 23, 2016
Load and quilt customer quilt: Slide Show√
Clean and organize all spaces under the cutting table
Put borders on the batik rails
Start organizing the back bedroom closet√
Pick a quilt in the waiting pile to quilt! Load & quilt.

Yikes, not very good at all.  Although I somehow got several books finished... And, here's what's on tap for this week. 

May 30, 2016
Quilt one QOV quilt
Finish cleaning and organizing front bedroom
Clean and organize living room, dining room and laundry room 
Clean and organize all spaces under the cutting table
Spend some time sewing something!

That's it for me today.  I've got a lot on my plate and won't be getting all that much sewing done.  On the other hand, I won't be buying new fabric either! 

I'm linking up with Main Crush Monday.  I recommend you take some time to see what others have been working on in the last week.  I'm looking forward to poking around the internet when I have down time! I do take down time cause my feet start to hurt!  

Happy Quilting All!  

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Tuesday Meanderings 5 - 24 - 2016

Retreat was fabulous as usual.  I slept well both nights which meant I was pretty productive during the days.  

Here's a short synopsis of the weekend. I drove up Thursday and got caught up in traffic.  That's pretty typical for the I 95 corridor and the 495 beltway.  My 3 and a half hour trip ended up being 5+ hours although I will admit that I spent more time than I usually do for lunch. Not a fun drive this time. 

Sharon and I left early Friday morning, went over the Bay Bridge and did our normal stop for a breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Yum.  We were set up for sewing by about 11 am.  It helps having the retreat start early Friday morning in terms of how much you can get done.  We all spend a lot of time catching up and chatting.  The first day I was working on finishing some projects so I put the binding on a quilt, a zipper in a pouch, binding on a kit for some sort of envelope.  Didn't get to finish the envelope because I failed to bring velcro I would need.  Sigh.  

Girl "Happy Quilt" from blocks made by FCQ E-Quilters. Pattern is here.  Mary has some wonderful, easy patterns. 
Saturday dawned with heavy clouds and all day rain in the forecast.  Perfect weather to keep us sewing! I pulled out my batik rails and got all the 6" rails sewn into 12" blocks and then sashed it all in black.  It seemed to take me forever although I will admit I had to make some more of the 6" blocks.  By the time I was done I was sick of working on this one.  It's going back into the UFO pile for a little while.  All I plan to do to finish it is put a small (maybe 3") border on it.  (Down at the bottom right you can see the small zippered bag I finished up.) 
Five years ago at the FCQ retreat we swapped 6.5" rail blocks made with either "hot" colors or "cool" colors.  It was time to do something with them.  Remember this quilt I shared from the FCQ show?  I think I like her more subtle colors.  This quilt will live with me for a while and then I'll give it away somewhere. 

Next out was blocks I won at Country Piecemakers retreat 2 or 3 years ago.  Before I left home I made one more block and organized them into rows so all I had to do was sew them together.  No individual picture of them but they are at the bottom left of the picture below. Sharon and I spread out everything we worked on on her family room floor. Brett was interested but didn't decide to curl up with any of the tops. 

The top two and middle left are Sharon's. The middle right and bottom two are mine.  The hot pads were a make and take.  Mine is blue and Sharon's had cute cooking chickens on it.  Definitely not her style but they looked great in a pot holder. 
My goals last week were so vague that I succeeded at all of them! 

May 16, 2016
View a couple of lighthouses in the Outer Banks of NC 
Enjoy fun times and good food with Bob and Barb 
Add a few pieces to each kit
Enjoy the FCQ retreat in Maryland
Sew like a fiend and get whatever I can done!

Now, this week is different.  I've got very specific things to get done! 

May 23, 2016
Load and quilt customer quilt: Slide Show
Clean and organize all spaces under the cutting table
Put borders on the batik rails
Start organizing the back bedroom closet
Pick a quilt in the waiting pile to quilt! Load & quilt.

And, here's why a lot of organizing and cleaning up will be going on in my household for the next several months.  First the back story.  Pat and I moved to central Virginia 6 years ago for a job.  We ended up about 40 minutes west of downtown Richmond because the job was another hour or so southwest in a very rural area.  For the first several years we loved it.  But as we've aged (gasp!) we realize that keeping 2+ acres of yard mowed and being 25 to 30 minutes from stores, hospitals and restaurants wasn't exactly part of our retirement plan.  

So the long and the short of it is we put our house on the market in late February.  It went under contract to the folks who saw it first. (Isn't that a nice reflection on all the things we did to the house?) Except, it was contingent on the sale of their house.  Which, didn't happen.  Eventually, a family who did not have a contingency made an offer we couldn't refuse. (Nor did we want to really!) 

We had been scouting 55+ communities a little farther north which would make us closer to our kids (1 hour and 1.5 hours away if there is no traffic on that blasted I 95 corridor.) One community we liked better than the other two and had a model that we like.  We'll be moving into a new home in the community although we looked at nearly every resale that came up for sale.  The whole let's move thing happens at the end of June.  Needless to say, once again it is time to clean up, clear out, downsize and ... well whatever else needs to be done.  We are selling some of our furniture and the lawn tractor and anything else we can move out.  So my postings won't be as quilt oriented and no doubt will be sparse as the move out date arrives.  

Here's the new house.  Reminds me of our years in California where the houses are close together. (Read that -- less yard to mow!) Sod is piled under the tarp ready to make the mud a yard. It's slightly smaller than our current house but I have a nice big space in the finished basement to set up the sewing studio.  Eventually we'll probably finish the other basement room to make an office for Pat which will leave us 3 bedrooms upstairs and we'll still have a lot unfinished basement to store odd ball things.  No doubt I'll continue to post about the move over the next few weeks.  



Today I'm linking up with Monday Makings, Main Crush Monday and Sew Cute Tuesday.  

That's it for me today.  I've got a closet to clean out! I will need to make a list of all the areas I need to work on and assign a day to them.  That way I will get it all done.  I'd rather spend the day sewing but that will be curtailed a lot over the next few weeks.  

Happy Quilting All! 

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Showing Off the Doggy Quilt

About a month ago I finished the doggy quilt for Mid-Atlantic English Springer Spaniel Rescue (MAESSR).  Life has been really busy so I haven't been blogging as much as I like to and I hadn't shown the finished quilt.  Here's the finished quilt. 

And the back.  I didn't think about the fact that part of the back would be trimmed after quilting.  So, some of the sayings are cut off.  Bummer. 


And close ups: 



I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday, Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?,  and Thank Goodness It's Finished.  Check out what's going on in the Internet's quilting world.  (I'll try to link to Whoop, Whoop tomorrow but it might be later in the day before I can try that as Sharon and I are on our way to retreat!) 

Happy Quilting All!  





Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Tuesday Meanderings -- 5 - 17 - 2016

Monday went zooming by -- I never even thought about posting my normal Monday post.  We are down at the beach house with friends from college.  Bob and Pat rowed for University of Southern California together.  When Bob married Barb it turned out that we all became great friends. We go for too many years without seeing each other but we pick up our friendship without missing a beat.  

Here we are after finishing a great meal at Blue Moon Brewery in Manteo, NC.  We had spent the morning at the Fort Raleigh National Park on Roanoke Island.  This was the site of the first European settlement in America.  If you remember Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I, and the Lost Colony form American history, Fort Raleigh is where it took place.  Walter Raleigh organized the trip from England with the approval of Elizabeth I, the Virgin queen.  Raleigh was hoping to start a settlement of English and gather resources and wealth from the land. That's not what happened.  The governor of the land went back to England and couldn't get back to Roanoke Island for 3 years.  All English ships were being used to fight the Spanish Armada. Not good for the settlers.  They were gone when Governor White was able to return.  It's still a mystery of what happened to them, including the White's granddaughter who was the first European child born in the New World. 

Monday we spent exploring lighthouses in Cape Hatteras National Seashore.   I wasn't willing to go up the first one -- I'm slightly claustrophobic and the whole idea freaked me out. At the second lighthouse I decided to give it a try with everyone else. I got up two flights of spiral steps but -- nope -- not for me!  I've included a picture of the Bodie (pronounced like body) Light Station. Despite me chickening out we all had a great time.  (You should be able to click on the photos to see a larger pic.)

Bob and Barb go back to California tomorrow and we're headed home.  I leave the next day for Sharon's in MD and then on to retreat on Friday.  I have a little bit more cutting to do for the two main projects I'm bringing with me to work on.  And, of course, I need to clear out the suitcase and refill it with clean clothes.  I'll probably have less than 20 hour turn around.  

Here's Dorothy's quilt that I finished quilting last week.  She was happy to pick it up last Friday. The fabrics were so busy you really couldn't see the quilting, even close up.  It is a beautiful quilt -- I always like blue and yellow quilts. 

Here are my goals from last week.  Most got done.
May 9, 2016
Quilt customer quilt
Finish piecing CP orphan blocks √ only 1 seam left
Cut two quilt kits to sew up at retreat √ need to add some units to these
Make samples for flippy star presentation

And this week: 
May 16, 2016
View a couple of lighthouses in the Outer Banks of NC
Enjoy fun times and good food with Bob and Barb
Add a few pieces to each kit
Enjoy the FCQ retreat in Maryland
Sew like a fiend and get whatever I can done!

Today I'm linking up with Monday Makings, Main Crush Monday, Freemotion by the River. Grab a cup of joe and surf the internet a bit to see what's happening with quilty blogs! 

Happy Quilting All!