WIP(#14) - Done and Almost Done

They say time flies when you're having fun, so I guess I must be having a blast.  Actually, I think I am.  I love this time of year.  The weather is great.  The yard is bright and green and vibrant.  And there is always something to do.

I put the sewing machine away for a while, but not before finishing a few projects.  The gray fleece jacket turned out fairly well.  I had gotten partway through sewing it, then put it aside to work on the baby quilt.  And then it took me a while to get back to it.  Somehow I had convinced myself that the remaining sewing that I had to do on it was going to be difficult.  You know how long it took me to finish it?  Twenty minutes.  I don't know why I do that to myself.  Make something seem harder than it actually is.  Weird.

The fun project was the baby quilt below.  Once I figured out what I wanted to do and found just the right fabrics, it came together rather nicely.  The teddy bear print is a Boyd's Bear print and is just as sweet as can be.  I sent it off to the mom-to-be about a month ago, hopefully long before baby arrives.

The current in progress project is, of course, mulching the gardens.  This year I only had four yards delivered instead of the usual five.  I started it with great gusto and then got side-tracked.  As of yesterday, though, I probably have less than a yard of it to go.

Working in the gardens, weeding and mulching, has been therapeutic.  I don't deal with "stupid" very well, and lately I have been encountering a lot of it, both at work and on the roads.  I suppose the good  Lord is trying to teach me patience or some other profound lesson, but I'm having none of it.  Yanking weeks lets me work out my frustrations!

"Only" four yards

Mulched - Done on the left, Almost Done on the right!

AMDG

WIP(#13) - Baby Steps

First day of spring?  Yeah right!  Not even close.  Six inches of snow, overnight.

If you couldn't tell from my last post, I am so done with winter.  But apparently it isn't done with us. 

If schools are closed, I figure the roads aren't good enough to drive on.  Usually, since I have the option, I just work from home.  But, for whatever, not very good reason, I left my laptop at work last night.  It almost always comes home with me every day.  

So what's a girl to do? Play hooky from work and have a jammy day.

And it was good!  

We did a bunch of odds and ends and a bunch of just plain relaxing.  

We hung pictures and took apart a television.  I read, made Irish Soda bread, sewed, read some more, and went out to lunch once the roads were cleared.  All-in-all, a perfect day.

We "reframed" some paintings that we bought in Italy.  And by we, I mean Himself.  We got the pictures from street artists as souvenirs during the trip in which we got engaged. (20 years ago, today!)   The frames were kind of a gold painted wood with light teal matts and they didn't quite go any more with our décor.  I was going to buy new matts, but a little bit of spray paint, both on the matts and frames brought the paintings back to life.  I'm so lucky to have such a handy husband!

Back in January, I mentioned that I wanted to make a fleece jacket to wear around the house in the colder months.  I started it and have been making progress ever so slowly.  After cutting it and doing one seam on my regular machine, I decided that the serger would work better for that.  So, the next challenge was getting the machine out of the basement and set up.  If you know anything about sergers, they are a royal pain to thread.  I'm happy to say that although it was challenging, and took multiple attempts, I didn't say any bad words in the process.  Yeah for me!

As close as the jacket is to being done, I started a project that is much more fun and has me really enjoying sewing once again.  But I can't show you it yet.  It's a baby quilt.  The mom knows about it, but she just might see it here, so no pictures.  Sorry.

AMDG

WIP(#12) - Fleeced!

After I finished my latest quilt, I put the sewing machine away for the holidays.  The only "crafting" I did after that was to cross stitch my cousin's name on his Christmas stocking.  He recently moved relatively close by from Florida, and it was the first Christmas he spent with us.  And you know it just wouldn't be a proper Christmas without an "named" stocking!

Now that the holidays are over and the house is back to being boring without all the decorations, the sewing machine is about to reappear.  I have a few things on my project list: a fleece jacket for me, pajama pants for Himself, and a quilt for a long awaited and prayed for baby.

I'm starting with the jacket below as it will be helpful in these cold, cold months.  I've had the fleece in my stash for almost ten years and the pattern was just a dollar at one of Joann Fabric's Christmas sales.  I have never sewn fleece clothing before, so we'll see how this goes.

AMDG

WIP(#11) - All Done!

It may have taken eight months, but the Irish Chain quilt is finally completed!  This was a fun project and I am so glad the the FB group, Catholic in Stitches, suggested it.  I have sewn nearly a dozen quilts before this one, but I certainly learned a lot on this one.  I think it just may be my favorite!

When finishing quilts in the past, I had always overlapped the ends of the binding.  It is not the best way as the join tends to be a bit bulky and obvious. Pinterest to the rescue!  I found instructions here on how to properly join the binding.  What a difference that makes!  You cannot tell where the two ends meet.

I frequently have problems getting the corners on my quilts just right.  I found a great tutorial, again via Pinterest, that was extremely helpful.  Check it out here.   

On to the next project!

AMDG

WIP(#10) - On the Edge

That quilt I started back in March is getting so, so close to being done.  Between bouts of canning, I managed to get the edge sewn on.  There are four borders that are sewn on all four sides.  It's not difficult, just a bit awkward as the quilt grows larger and larger with each successive strip.

This weekend I dropped it off at a local quilt shop to have the quilting done.  Time and the lack of a long-arm machine keeps me from doing it myself.  They called yesterday afternoon, and it's done!

You know where I'll be tonight.

AMDG

WIP(#9) - Getting Sauced

Let the canning begin!

Yes, it's that time of year.  The tomatoes are coming fast and furious and wait for no one.  This weekend we picked, cleaned, roasted and canned over 120 tomatoes.  It is what I would call a good start.

I've been waiting for this.  We used the last of the previous year's tomatoes in the spring and I cannot bring myself to use store bought spaghetti sauce.  It's a lot of work, but so worth it.  There is something about home grown, home canned sauce that can't be beat.

Our scarecrow has done a good job watching over the garden.  His job is not done just yet!

AMDG

WIP(#8) - Garden Goodies

The man standing in his own kitchen-garden, with fairyland opening at the gate, 

is the man with large ideas.

― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The gardens and yard have been a joy this year.  It may have taken us a dozen or so years to figure out what it takes to keep it up, but we learned.  Slowly.  It's been fun to wander out, pick a spot, and futz.  There are any number of jobs that need to be done.  I've spent more than a few evenings recently watering and weeding and deadheading spent blooms.  

Last night the Hummingbirds weren't too happy as I tended to the area around the butterfly bush. They buzzed my head trying to shoo me away.  That made me want to stay even more, to be near this flurry of flying energy.  What a treat!

We are beginning to see the fruits of our labor, literally.  Tomatoes and peppers are ripening and are ready for picking.  They are as pretty as they are delicious.

Taking care of the gardens, and fairlyland, has truly been a labor of love!

AMDG

WIP(#7) - Digging It

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

A friend posted this quote along with a picture of his adorable toddler on his Facebook and LinkedIn pages.  Two year old Sammy rocked the overalls.  Me?  I don't have the overalls, but I certainly have had the opportunities.

I got the last of the shrubs dug out and new ones, along with a Weeping Redbud tree, planted.  Hostas were split and transplanted and everything was mulched.

I'm happy that it's all done, but you know what?  As hard, and dirty, as this job was, it was fun!  I had an idea of what I wanted to do and it came out even better.  The sore muscles and loads of dirty laundry were definitely worth it.  More pictures to come.

AMDG

WIP (#6) - Bushes and Birds

WIPs lately have moved from inside to out.  Over the last couple of years I have been redoing the landscaping in the front of the house.  Shrubs that were supposed to be slow growing and small (2-3 feet) grew well past six and seven feet.

I started cutting down and digging out the last of the Gold Thread Cypress and Yews.  I still have a few more to do, but a mama Robin and a mama Cardinal also have their own WIPs in two of the bushes!  Thankfully Himself found the well hidden Robin's nest before I chopped that bush, ironically called a Bird's Nest Blue Spruce.

Robin's nest

Mama Cardinal 

AMDG

WIP (#5) - Getting Organized

One of my projects this winter was to organize, and cull where appropriate, all my sewing supplies.  Everything is the basement and I would head down there for an hour or two at a time.   Lots of patterns, material, and magazines are headed to our garage sale this spring.  The rest was sorted, boxed, and labeled.  Well, everything except for the thread.  That was a big mess.

 

I needed a way to get at least some organization to it all.  We had a bunch of containers that the Hairy Beast's treats came in.  I cleaned them out, removed the labels, and covered them with some appropriate fabric - spools of thread.

 

Six tubs containing thread sorted by color now sit on the new-to-me heavy duty wire shelves I snagged from work.   We're closing down part of the office and the shelves were either going to be thrown out or given away.  So who better to give them to than me? 

 

 

To have a little fun I made  one of the cloth baskets from Faith and Fabric to hold the soon to be sorted jars of buttons.  And, yes, those are buttons on that lining material. 

 

I've been doing the Happy Dance now that this project is almost done.  Am I the only one that finds neat and organized to be calm and peaceful? 

 

AMDG

WIP (#4) - It's Coming Together

I was able to get the squares put together.  I just love how it looks.  I have a few other projects that are time sensitive, so this is going to get put away for a little while. 

AMDG

WIP (#3) - How Many Quilts?

Three.  I have three quilts in process at the moment.  That's not too many, is it? 

 

One is set to go to the shop to be quilted.  That's the one I can't show you yet. 

 

One has been pushed aside so that I can work on the other two.

 

Then, there's this one.  Boy is the Irish Chain quilt a fun pattern!  Really.  It looks complicated but it's not.  In two evenings I had almost all of the block B's done.

 

Block B - sewn strips



Block B - strips cut

 

Block B

 

preview

 Someday I may actually write about something other than quilting.  We'll see.
 

 

AMDG

WIP (#2) Irish and then some

I've been busy sewing this past week, busier than the picture below would have you think.  I finished all of block A for the Triple Irish Chain quilt, eight in total.  Once I had a system going, it came together rather quickly. 

 

 

Block B will have to wait a while.  I'm working on couple other, time sensitive, projects.  But I can't show them to you.  Not yet anyways.

 

 

AMDG

WIP (#1) Irish Triple Chain

On Wednesdays I am going to try to do a WIP - Work in Progress - post.  I have a lot of sewing projects in process and it's really been what's keeping me busy lately.  If anyone else is interested in showing what they are working on, we could turn this into a link-up.  It doesn't have to be sewing.  It could be needlework, gardening, knitting or crocheting.  Whatever keeps you busy.  Let me know.

A Facebook group of which I am a member, Catholic in Stitches, is doing it's own take on the Block of the Month club.  Instead of twelve different blocks, we are all working on Irish Chain quilts.  I decided to join in a little late after I remembered some material I had in my stash.

A couple of years before we lost my mom, she bought all the material and thread to make this quilt.  I love the fabric and color.  Well, almost all of it.  I don't like and won't use the ribbons.  Sorry.  Just can't do it.

I think most of the FB group is doing a Single Irish Chain, but I decided to do a Triple, given the fabric I am using.  I bought a white-on-white fabric to replace the ribbons and got busy this past weekend.

After looking at a number of websites for directions and guidance, I decided to use these directions. Whoever put the webpage together did a great job.  It's not too wordy and has charts and graphs - perfect for my IT, techy brain!

The sewing is pretty simple, lots of strip piecing and chain stitching.  But, with the design and number of fabrics, it's taking some effort and concentration to make sure all the fabric pieces are in the correct order.  Sticky notes to the rescue!  

WOF (width of fabric) cut into 2.5" wide strips, A is sewn, B-D are staged

2.5" wide strips cut from the sewn lengths above

Block number one done.  Only seven more to go of this style.

AMDG