Sure took me long enough...

I finished the Do What You Love wallhanging! I echo quilted it a little and stitched in the ditch a bit too.

I found some material for the binding that had been used at LEAST twenty years ago to make Michael a tie! He still has the tie and one other one I made... I still have the fabric from both. So I pulled it from the stash and bound the wall hanging with it.

All done. This project took me forEVER. You'd think I was making TWO, it took so long.

Oh. Wait.

(click to embiggen)

Yeah, I did! One was supposed to be my sister's Christmas present.... Oopsie! For hers, I added little tabs and for her/our birthday, I got her a hanger for it.

She's knee deep in a big remodeling project in her home and she will be hanging this in the new part of their house! Yay!! Mine is in my sewing room. I'm contemplating where to hang it for good, but for now, it's up in the sewing room where I can see it!

And since it will be her/our birthday by the time I finish this post, let me say a huge heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!! Jacque was/is my best birthday present ever, and she arrived on my third birthday!

I'm going to not tempt Blogger to give me fits. I will end this post and start another one above this one, with a peek at sewing from tonight.

:)

Yorba Linda Tea Party 2010

Michael wanted company as he attended the Tea Party in Yorba Linda this afternoon, so I tagged along to take pictures! It was a very well-organized event, with lots of signs, lots of families, lots of enthusiasm!

I've made a slideshow that is huge and don't want to eat up my blog space, so I am posting a link here that will take anyone interested to the 65 or so pix I took, in my Photo Bucket account.


Here are some of the cutest things I saw while there:





































Now, I don't necessarily agree with or condone every single one of the slogans or pictures shown. A phrase I've heard at meetings recently comes to mind: Take what you like and leave the rest! That being said, here is the link for the slideshow:



LINK

:)

Time to Quilt a Wallhanging....

Here's my finished "Do What You Love With All Your Heart" top! Don't look too closely at the embroidery - it was done through cloth, interfacing and Wonder-Under - my fingertips are sore!





















I've brought my Janome 1600 down to the dining room table and I plan to stitch in the ditch around each "shelf" block, and then MAYBE echo quilt the big items, like around the sewing machine, the kitty, etc. I'm not sure if it needs much else? Maybe a bit of loopies in the outer border?

Anyway, after that, I can bind it and get it on the wall! Yay!

Also, here's a book I highly recommend. I've had it forever, but I pulled it out to look for patterns for the Crisis Center quilts and hit pay dirt. Right now I'm doing one that is Oh-Sew-Easy (my description, not the name) but gives a really pretty finish....

Karen held the curling top down for me to take the picture..... note the springy yellow nailpolish!

































See how simple? A simple band of black gets put on two sides of the four patch and then they get put together kind of at 90 degree angles to each other.... Fast and pretty! Can't wait to show this one when it's finished! Should not be long!

The color is not accurate on this square, as the pink is really darker/dustier and the floral matches it!

Here's a picture of the fabrics I've pulled from stash for this quilt...


















(you can click to embiggen)


















I'm loving the black on black print for this one! Wish I could find more of this fabric!! (I found it at M&L's!)

Wishing everyone a great week! :)

Next top for crisis centers...

I do not like borders. But I slogged through these last night - the top had been done for a few days and it was bugging me that this was not "finished".

































I'm thinking Yvette can have a field day on this one. She has taken a class and is eligible to rent a long arm at a shop near her.... I told her I could cover the rent (though she is arguing with me about that already!) - and she can practice on the three double bed sized quilts!!

This has much open, simple space in which to play. Even a panto would be perfect.... It will be fun to see how this one finishes up!

Now that that one is off my plate.... I'm going digging in the bin for the next one for the Crisis Center and should be able to start this weekend. :)

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday Night's Alright....

It was a good day. Typing got done. Then we went out to dinner, Michael, Karen and I, to celebrate Michael's finishing up of the taxe returns....federal, state, personal, kids, friends, and the 4,592 page corporate return - you name it, they're done. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and as usual had a fantastic meal. We have yet to be disappointed there!

I came home and did some sewing. Last night, I got the ten inch block for this month's Saturday Sampler done..
















This one was fun!

Then tonight, I tackled the three accompanying five inch blocks.

















Little pieces! (Glasses included in the pic to show how small the fabric bits were!)
















By the second one, I was zipping along and chaining significant sections.

















And here's my three! I'm loving these. They are hard enough to be challenging, but not so hard that I miss out on that sense of satisfaction when I'm done!

Tomorrow afternoon, Karene is coming over to sew. I'm not sure what she's stitching, but I hope to get a significant portion of a Crisis Center quilt top completed! Would be cool if I could complete it! A lofty goal, but if I don't aim high, it will be next winter and they won't all be done!!

:)

Being Green!

I'm not getting as much sewing done as I'd like.... but then, I'm not sure there would ever be a time when I got as much done as I liked!

I did have a chance to make a birthday present for my Mom this past weekend. She doesn't read my blog, so I can show it.... ;)

She was "green" before being green was cool. She has recycled as long as I can remember, and she is frugal, with a Capital F!! She and Dad take great delight in being good stewards of their finances, and she often saves WAY more than she spends at the grocery store with coupons, sales, etc. That allows them to purchase some things on the "wish list" for the Womens' Crisis Centers in their town, and they sometimes stop on their way home from the store to drop off some goodies they have scored with coupons, etc.

Anyway, I thought she might enjoy some cloth grocery sacks. I believe her store gives her a certain number of pennies off her order for each bag they don't have to provide for her, so here are two she can use, and if it's ever necessary, wash and reuse!

I got my embroidery machine going, making a cute design for each of the two bags I was making...

















At the same time that I was constructing the basic bags on another machine! Efficiency!

I hit stash for this project, and of course, chose a green print for the outside....

















and a somewhat coordinating print with green in it, for the inside.

























































Voila! I tucked two grocery pads in, each with an owl design (Mom collects owls and, at last count, Dad said there were 450+ owls in the house!) Happy Birthday Mom!!

Next project!
















I'll be making another quilt top for the Crisis Centers this weekend. I cut this full-size one from stash, and realized afterwards that I had enough to also cut an additional twin size.


And I still have some of this fabric left. So I'm headed back to M&L's for additional gold (I know I saw more there!) and more white-on-off-white print.... There is a room at the center called the "family room" which has a double, two twins and a crib bed..... perhaps I will end up with coordinating quilts for the "big" beds in that room!



I hope to have a meeting of the "Red Hot Sew'n Sews" (our quilting friends group) and make string blocks for a few quilts for the Centers also! Just gotta set a date and shovel out the downstairs so everyone can sew here!



Sew Many Ideas, Sew Little Time!

Crisis Center Quilt Top #1

Here’s the first finished quilt top for the Crisis Centers my dad and mom work with. I will layer it with batting and backing tomorrow, pin it, and then start quilting it all together. It's an easy pattern (Take Five Gets the Point) but I had fits with it when I was arranging the blocks.... completely pilot error, I'm sure. I’m not entirely happy with it, but it has the colorful and scrappy look I was going for, and I think I’ll like it MUCH better when it’s quilted and has the binding on it. I'm giving thought to trying some quilting patterns with my embroidery machine around the sides.... but I may get over that in an effort to get going on quilt top #2.
















I have enough scraps left over (and this was donated fabric from sweet Ms. Ellen to start with!) to make several Sunbonnet Sue blocks and I hope to do this with scraps from each quilt I make, thereby gaining a whole ‘nuther quilt at the end of this project, with bits and scraps from each quilt along the way.

The Little People took the opportunity to test the quilt top for softness and check it out as a wrestling surface.






























Tuffboy goes for the throat!
















And Kimi retaliates with an assault on his leg! That’s my girl!

I made Chicken Piccata from Pioneer Woman's website for dinner and DH said it was was great. In fact he suggested I write to her and mention that so far, every dinner and dessert I've made from her recipes has been a "keeper". (Last night there may have been some funnel cakes made using a recipe from her Tasty Kitchen site, that made us think it was August and time for the Orange County Fair!)

Good night!

February BOMs Done

I had no idea it had been this long since I blogged here. Sheesh.

Anyway, a little bit of sewing has been going on. Here are my BOM February blocks from the ongoing Saturday Sampler at Orange Quilt Bee:

And here is my block from our Sampler group.....

Hey, Jenny, Karene, Jacque and Ellen? If you send me a picture of your block for February - I will make a slideshow and post it here so we can see each other's blocks!

Tomorrow I hope to zip over to M&L's for some fabrics for a few Take Five's I want to cut out for our Crisis Center Quilt project.... And I hope to work on my May "Home Is Where the Heart Is" wallhanging. And my embroidery for my "Do What You Love"...... and, and..... Sew many projects, Sew little time! :)

Two "Home Is" Wallhangings Are Done!

I spent some time working in the yard today and then rewarded myself with time in the sewing room! Tiger was hanging out with me, because she was missing her Karen.




















She spent the majority of the evening on my left foot. This was interrupted occasionally by crawling to the other side of me and giving me the Woebegone Sad Face, propped on my right knee.
















Eventually, her Karen came home from her class and I was deserted. Without a backward glance.

In the meantime, I put three quilt hangers from Ackfeld on the wall over the sofa in the den. (Michael gave them to me on our anniversary in November!) I grabbed a block from my stack of "Home Is Where The Heart Is" blocks, and sandwiched it with batting and backing, minimally quilted it in the ditch and a few strategic midpoint areas, and then bound it. I made two tabs and used buttons to hold them....















Voila! April is hanging! (Click to embiggen)

Yes, I know it's only January. I meant to grab March, so that I could work toward getting January, February and March on the wall. Figured if I ran into my usual good (?) luck, I would surely be able to finish February and March, by the beginning of March. However, it went quickly. So quickly that I had time to do another one. That's when I figured out I had my months screwed up. Oh well! I grabbed the Real March block and finished it too!
















I think it's going to look nice. Me Likee!

















My goal eventually is to have the current month in the center, and the next month on the right, the previous month on the left. Each month I'll bring out a new block and put one away, and there will always be three displayed. Yay!!

Tomorrow, back to my "Do What You Love" project. I have some hand embroidery waiting for me - ugh. I'm not real fond of hand embroidery, mostly because it makes my hands hurt.... but I am determined to get this small amount done, and then get to quilting that wall hanging!

The year of the UFO is shaping up nicely!!

Wrong Dance!

Okay, I got careless. That much is obvious! A bright whitish orb showed up in the sky and I saw a rainbow and....

I did the Happy Dance.

I could swear it was the Happy Dance!

And the downpour returned.

I obviously screwed up and did a Rain Dance. I'm sorry!

I'm going to go take a nap now.

That's safer!

Here comes storm #2

Don't forget your umbrellas!!

StormWatch!

Every time it even gets misty around here, it seems like the media goes crazy and suddenly, we're on Storm Watch on the televisions.... It's normal around here not to have rain from spring until fall.... and to have pretty much clear weather punctuated with brief monsoons (just kidding) during the late fall, winter and very early spring. You can pretty much plan on an outdoor event around here and not even make backup plans in the event of rain. What rain?

Well, then something like this week's forecast comes along, and we're kind of pooh-poohing it and thinking, "yeah.... right."

Here's what the news predicted for the week, when I read the on-line headlines yesterday afternoon....

The National Weather Service has issued a new and disturbing forecast for this week’s series of storms, saying Orange County could receive “potentially epic” rains, with as much as 20” of precipitation in the Santa Ana Mountains and 4” to 8” along the coast.

Santa Ana averages less than 3” of rain for the entire month of January.

“We’re giving a lot of advance warning so property owners and emergency planners can take action ahead of this,” says Rob Balfour, a weather service forecaster.

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center said today the upcoming storms “finally show El Nino traipsing in” to Southern California. El Nino can greatly enhance rainfall. Forecasters said the upcoming storms could rival the damaging El Nino rains that hit Orange County in January 1995.

Balfour said the polar jet stream “is extremely strong; it already extends from off Asia to Hawaii and up higher.” The storms will tap some of that sub-tropical moisture, strengthening the storms.

The first storm will arrive late Sunday night or early Monday and will drop 1.5” or more of rain. The surges coming Tuesday and Thursday/Friday will be stronger. By the end of the week, hillsides will be soaked, raising the prospect of mudslides. Ski resorts in the San Bernardino Mountains are expected to get 4 feet of snow.

I decided to stick a precise (not!) rain gauge outside at 4 p.m. yesterday, when the first droplets appeared. The rains came. And came, and came, and came. Then at 4 p.m. today, the clouds scurried away, and the blue sky laughed at us as we walked around the backyard in this.

And here's my "precise rain gauge".....

2.75" in 24 hours. Hmmm. Maybe they're actually on to something this time! If that's the case, the rest of the week could get interesting!

And here's how Michael warmed up today after he got home, soggy and cold, from the Land of Lost Packages..... he asked for help from his personal space heaters!

Sewing Saturday!

I took some time this weekend to join our dear Ellen and Jenny for a Sewing Saturday! We're working on a sampler project together and the three of us wanted to do our block together. There are five of us doing it: Ellen, Jenny, Karene, and I here in So Cal, and my sister Jacque in South Carolina!! Karene and Jacque had already done their block for this month. We tried, tried, tried to twist Yvette's arm into joining us, but she managed to escape without us enabling her into another project for this year. She has promised to come and join us sometimes when we are working on this sampler, and work on her own UFOs at the same time! Sounds like a plan to me!

Here's a view of each of the five blocks (name of quilter is under each block - click on pix to embiggen!):
















Karene's block

















Jenny's block


















Ellen's block


















Jacque's block


















and Joy's block.

We "done good!!" Thank you Ellen, for letting us sew at your house. I can't wait for next month's block! We will sure know a lot about half-square triangles when we finish the next one!

:)

Saturday Sampler Month One is Done

Got the third 5-inch square one tonight.... Here are the three together:

This one gave me fits for some reason.... some creative cursing and un-sewing took place. But, I won! Now I am looking forward to working on "Do What You Love" for the rest of the week when I get time, and Saturday, I will join Ellen and Jenny to make block one of the Web Sampler!