I'm Still Here!

     Wow, the time has really just whizzed past me!  In my last post I remarked how I couldn't believe the year was 6 weeks old, and now it's more than half over.  Where does it go, I wonder.

     I wish I could say I'd been busy finishing up UFOs all this time, but while I have finished some things, most of what's kept me from blogging has been the much more mundane, real life junk.

     When I was working on the two little bags in my last post, I also finished a cream silk clutch bag, which I'd started at a class one year (I don't recall which year!) at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo.  I finished it around the same time, except that I wanted to do something on the front, to cover where I'd sewn on the square of Velcro I used as a closure.  It took me a while to find what I wanted to use, but now at long last, here's what I ended up with:



In January and February, I participated in a Knit Along (KAL) in one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry, and made this pair of socks:



Today is going to be a day full of paperwork for me, so I suppose I'd better get started on it.  But I hope to get this blog all updated soon ;-)

Thanks for stopping by to play!  Come back again any time.

Let the Crazy Times Begin

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I was at our Toastmasters Fall District Conference.  We were at Pere Marquette Lodge and Conference Center, in Grafton, Illinois.  As always, it was great to see some of the Toastmasters from around the District, that I don't see except at District events.  I always learn something, and this time was no exception.  And I always have fun, too, and this conference was definitely fun, as well.

I always think of the Holiday Season as beginning with the Fall Conference, because it's almost always the weekend before Thanksgiving.  So it really does lead right into the craziest six weeks of the year.  Well, for most people it's a crazy time of year, anyhow.  For me, it's usually a time I can slow down a bit, and get some quilting stuff done.  I absolutely don't leave home at all on Black Friday.  I have get-togethers with a few groups during December, but I don't have nearly as much craziness as many folks I know do.  So, while everyone else is hustling and bustling, I can nest and quilt.  I always get in the mood to work on quilting at this time of year, too.  I think it may go back to my days in school, when I did a lot of crafting and sewing during Christmas break, that I didn't necessarily have time for during the school year.

For the rest of this year, I'm going to try to get a number of my completed quilt tops layered up, quilted, and ready to be bound.  Then in the early part of the new year, I'll have a binding marathon, and all of a sudden, I'll have a whole bunch of newly-finished quilts ;-)

For today,  I can show you a pair of socks I finished recently.  This was a pair I test-knitted for a designer who is new to me.  I stumbled upon her Ravelry group, and happened to be on the site right after she'd posted a request for test knitters, and was able to be the first volunteer.  They may look like they're from two different yarns, but they're not.  I was working from both ends of the skein, and apparently, the hand-dyed yarn was not dyed consistently throughout.  I really like the effect of slightly mismatched socks, though I know there are folks out there who would be bothered by it.  Anyhow, here they are:



Last week, I finished up this cowl, and blocked it over the weekend:


It's not really crooked or lopsided, I was just apparently standing at a funny angle -- when I fold it in half again, the top edges and the bottom edges are nicely in line all the way along.

I also finally got around to blocking several other things that have been waiting a while for that.  First, here's my Color Affection shawl:


 This is supposed to be striped in three colors, but unfortunately, the colors in my yarns were closer to each other than I thought they'd be, so I lost quite a bit of the stripe effect.  Here are the yarns I used for this:


Looking at this, it seems obvious that these yarns would be somewhat "blendy," but in person I really thought they'd be more distinct from each other.  No matter, I still like this and will wear it.

Then a fun little cowl I made during a knit-along (KAL) with the designer's group on Ravelry:



Then two basic long cowls/infinity scarves, one for DH:



and one for me:



The color is horrible on those last two pictures.  Here's the yarn that I used for DH's cowl:



and here's the yarn I used for mine:



I'm glad to have gotten all this blocking done, and to be able to use these items now. 

I've got a couple other pairs of socks I'm making good progress on, so I hope to show those here very soon.  And maybe some more quilty pictures, before too long.  For now, I'm off to do some sewing!

Thanks for stopping by to play!  Come back again soon.

More Knitting Stuff

I've finally got some space where I can leave my sewing stuff out, and have room to work on it.  But, I'm always working on knitting stuff in the background.  It's more portable, I can do it when I want to watch television or a movie, and it's very meditative in a way that sewing on a machine isn't.

I've previously shown you the first six pairs of socks I made for the 26 Pair Plunge, which runs from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013.  I'm ahead of schedule a bit, as I just finished Pair #13 last Thursday.  Here are pairs 7-13:










This pair is for my DH, the only pair in this Plunge so far that is.





Thanks for coming by to play!  Come back again soon.

Quilter's Accountability Report for 5/18/2011

It's been a busy week! Here was my list of intentions I posted last week, and how I did:

1. Finish piecing Max & Miss Kitty top. Done! I decided that I didn't want an inner border after all, because I didn't want to go shopping, and I wanted to get the top together. Seeing it, I'm sure I made the right choice there.

2. Add borders to blue and green quilt top. Done! AND I made the binding for it, as well.


3. Add borders to red and brown quilt top. Done! AND I made the binding for it, as well.


4. Work on Mom's jacket, and finish it if possible. I worked on this a bit at retreat Saturday night, got the rest of the fabrics chosen and applied to the sweatshirt that is the base for the jacket, and got the shapes zigzagged around on both sleeves, and started to zigzag around shapes on the front. Good progress, though it's not yet finished. It will stay on the list for next week. Pictures when it's closer to finished.

5. Quilt and bind Crazy Stained Glass. Done!


6. Quilt and bind Diadem. Done!



A good, productive week, quilt-wise. I'm thrilled with what I've gotten done, and hope to continue the trend. Here's what I intend to get done in the upcoming week:

1. Continue to work on Mom's jacket, and finish it if possible.

2. Quilt Oak Leaves and Reel. (This has been loaded on the HQ16 for quite some time now, and just needs to be done!)

3. Quilt Sugar and Spice.

4. Quilt Thimbleberries Goose in the Pond.

5. Add borders to Wolf Quilt.

6. Add borders to As Time Goes By Quilt.

That ought to keep me plenty busy! Stop by Bari's blog, and see how others did with their lists.

Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again soon.

Retreat Wrap-Up/Design Wall Monday

I'm home now from retreat, and I was thinking about just how much I got done. Frankly, I'm impressed! I've already shown some of the pictures, and some will be in my Quilter's Accountability (QA) Report post on Wednesday, but here's what I accomplished:

1. Made two hobo bags. pictures are in this post

2. Assembled two quilt tops, added borders, and made the bindings for them. pictures will be in Wednesday's upcoming QA Report post

3. Added the last two border strips to a quilt top I was donating, made bindings for it and another top (already completed) I was also donating, and handed them both off to someone who will take them to the person who's collecting these donated tops. They'll be quilted, and will be for a fundraising event in late Fall. Silly me, I forgot to take pictures of these tops before I handed them off!

4. Assembled a quilt top from four stitchery blocks, which have been done for several years at least. pictures will be in Wednesday's upcoming QA Report post

5. Made three sock knitting project bags. pictures are in this post

6. Quilted, bound, and added hanging sleeves to two wall quilts. pictures will be in Wednesday's upcoming QA Report post

7. Made 12 fan blocks, though I still have to applique the fans down to the background blocks. I have border fabrics for these, but I'm thinking about saving them to use as the basis for a new jacket for next winter, so for now I'm going to "live with them" for a while, and see what they say they want to be, quilt or jacket.


8. Finished applying the fabrics to the sweatshirt base for my mother's jacket, zigzagged around the pieces on both sleeves, and started the zigzagging on the jacket front. pictures when it's closer to finished, as right now it doesn't really look like much

9. Squared up a set of 16 stitchery blocks, and started thinking about the design of the quilt they'll become. picture of the blocks, and the fabrics for the quilt, are in this post


If I hadn't had to leave retreat, and essentially lost 2 days of sewing time, I'd probably have finished the fan blocks, gotten them set into a top (if that's what I'd decided to do with them), started setting together the stitchery blocks, and finished my mother's jacket. Who knows what else I might have done, as well? It was a fun and relaxing time, and also productive. I can hardly wait for the next one!

Check out Judy's blog, and see what's on other folks' design walls. Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again soon.

Retreat Progress, Not All of it Mine

Retreat this time hasn't been at all typical. Too many things from "real life" intruded in the first part of the week, and now I've been feeling a bit like I'm playing catch-up. Still, it's always good to have a break and get away, and when there's sewing involved it's even better.

So what have I been working on? I'm so glad you asked! So far, I've quilted two tops (Diadem, and Crazy Stained Glass, both of which I've shown before, and I'll show again when they're bound and completely finished), added borders to two tops (the blue and green one, and the Cider Mill Road Disappearing 9 Patch, which I'll show in next week's Quilter's Accountability Report on Wednesday), and squared up a set of redwork (well, brownwork I suppose, since they're stitched in brown) blocks. Today I'm planning to bind the two I've quilted, and work on making those stitchery blocks into a top.

The other night, we heard a lot of frogs trilling out in the pond outside our windows. A few of them even came up to the building we're in, and several of them were actually ON the glass of our windows, checking out what we were doing. One handsome little fellow was peeking in the side window next to the door:

when I grabbed my camera, he beat a retreat to the outside of the door frame. But since I'm a human with opposable thumbs ;-) I can go through doors -- so I went ouside and got this shot of him:

Look at how long those legs are!

Janet was making a great flannel quilt for her grandson to take to college:


And Bonnie got this top together, which she'd been working on (off and on) for a lot of years. She had a number of frustrations with it, but now that it's together, I'd say it was worth it:

I'm hopeful that the next two days will be really productive. I'll check in again tomorrow with an update.

Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again soon.

Quilter's Accountability Report

One QA report gets posted on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday, and my brain gets reset! I was thinking this was due tomorrow, until I got the e-mail with Bari's post in it. I haven't posted a report for several weeks, because I was with my parents while my mother had surgery and recovered a bit. But I did have some sewing with me, and I DID get a few things accomplished.

Let's see how I did. Here's the list I posted, along with the status of each project:

1. Piece Max & Miss Kitty top. I forgot to take this one with me ;-(

2. Piece Diadem top. Done


3. Finish piecing Improvisational quilt. Done -- not only pieced, but totally done -- quilted and bound.
4. Quilt and bind Strippy Mini. Done.

5. Quilt and bind Mini Bow Ties. Done.
6. Quilt and bind Colorwash TATW wallhanging, and add a sleeve. Leave with mom for Mother's Day. Done, but I didn't leave it there. I realized that they have nowhere to hang it, since my dad paints. He's got lots of paintings they have no room for, so they don't need wall quilts.


7. Finish mom's jacket, and leave it with her. Never got to it at all, but I'm taking it on retreat with me. I leave on Sunday for a week.

I'm delighted with what I got done, given that I was also going back and forth to the hospital, keeping out-of-town family in the loop, and (a few nights) cooking dinner for my father. I got some knitting done, too. It was a productive time for me.

Next week I'll be on retreat from Sunday evening through the following Sunday afternoon. I still want to quilt one or two large quilts, and take them with me to bind. I also plan to take a few smaller things that I can quilt on the regular machine, to finish up while I'm there. Here's my list for next week:

1. Quilt and bind Oak Leaves & Reel

2. Quilt and bind Sugar and Spice

3. Quilt and bind Thimbleberries Goose in the Pond

4. work on mom's jacket

That's enough for the first part of the week -- the next list will have some of the smaller things on it. Check out Bari's blog, to see how others did on their lists.

Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again any time.

Finishes from Retreat

Here are the four quilts I finished binding at retreat. These are pictures I took while there, and the quilts are being held by Celeste and Julie. I think you may see Julie in some of the pictures, but Celeste did a better job of hiding ;-).

First is one that's an adaptation of a pattern from a book called "Angels" by Jan Patek. Her quilt was called, I believe, "Archangel." I just call this one Folk Art Angels. It's large -- 82"x104".

Next is a quilt, called "Puzzler" from Maple Island Quilts. This one is about twin size, at 59"x91". It's for my husband, because he likes bright colors and tropical fish.







The pattern tells you to randomly applique the triangle offcuts from making those half-flying geese units onto the quilt top. I didn't want to do that, so I pieced the triangles together and made a strip that gave me the extra width I needed for the backing.



Here's a quilt I did as a mystery. This one was Mystery #6 from Webequilts. I love the fabrics in this, and am really happy with how it turned out. It's a great size, too, at 78"x88".



Finally is this really big quilt. This was also done as a mystery, but it's a pattern called "Confetti Stars," and I think it's by Terry Atkinson. I don't see that it's on her website now, unfortunately. There's a funny story about this one. The instructor had made her sample in Thimbleberries fabrics. I made mine from scraps and FQs that I pulled in pinks/burgundies, greens, and blues, and used a hand-dyed gold for the stars. She was looking at everyone's fabric selections, and when she saw mine, she said "oh, Lydia, you're using those brights." Ummmmm, yeah, brights. I've got some Thimbleberries, some Jinny Beyer, and other fabrics in there, but none of them are what I'd call "bright." As a result, this quilt has a name! I don't very often name my quilts, but sometimes a name just "attaches" itself to a particular quilt, and that has definitely happened here. This quilt will always and forever be known as "Bright Confetti Stars." It's really big, at 96" square.


Tomorrow I'll show the tops I got finished at retreat, assuming I can get pictures of the last two.



Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again any time.

Sadly Neglected

I've sadly neglected my poor blog for some time now. I can't even say what I've been doing instead for most of that time, I just haven't been posting.


I do have a couple of recent finishes to share. First is a wallhanging that was made from a stocking panel -- I cut out the stocking shape and appliqued it to the background, added a border, and did a little bit of quilting just to hold everything in place. It measures about 18" by 28". This will be going to my parents, so I'll put their last name on the top band of the stocking before I send it off.

Next (seems to be a Christmas theme developing, but it's not on purpose) is a quilt from a Thimbleberries pattern. The pattern was actually for a tree skirt, but I don't need a quilted tree skirt, since I already have one. So I made one extra pieced block for the center, instead of making that a solid green square as the pattern directed. This one is about 60" square. Just ignore my husband's feet and the step stool -- at some point I'll learn how to edit photos, but for now, this is how this one is.

Finally, this is a big one -- between a twin and a double size. It's a pattern called "Sassy Sixteen" by Kimberly Camou. I added the sashing to break up all the busy-ness of that fabric line, and didn't do the pieced squares border that the pattern called for, for the same reason. I really like this one!

I just got back from a retreat yesterday -- we were there from Monday afternoon through just after lunch yesterday, and I got a LOT more stuff done. I have to take pictures, but I'll be sharing that stuff soon. This is enough for one post, I think ;-)

Thanks for stopping by to play. Come back again soon!

A Long-awaited Finish!

I can't remember exactly when I started these placemats. I know I got a kit from an online store for the green ones, which are completely "me," but I had enough of the applique fabrics to make another set. My friend Sue loves snowmen, and blue, so it was obvious I needed to pull some blue fabrics from my stash, and make her the other set. I got the two fabrics sewn together and the appliques fused down very soon after the kit arrived. I did the blanket stitching at a retreat some time later, which must have been in 2004 or 2005. And since then, they've been languishing. Now, here they are -- most of the set of four of the blue (you can only see the top part of the last one):






















One blue one close up:



















And one of my green set close up (there are three more just like it):


















The colors aren't great in these pictures -- the blues are a nice royal kind of blue, and the green homespun stripe and plaid in my set are a lovely hunter green color. I'd originally intended to quilt swirls and snowflakes all over these, but I decided if I finished them more simply, they'd be done, and if I waited until I felt like quilting them with swirls and snowflakes, it might be more years until they got finished. So I just did some channel quilting. I'd hoped to finish these before I went to Florida to visit Sue, or at least while I was there, but neither of those things happened. So now I'll have to entrust them to the USPS to get them to Sue. But it's still snowman season, so we can both use these for a while before it's time to break out Spring things.


I'm pretty pleased with how these have turned out. But the biggest thing is that they're done and no longer languishing on my shelves. Now I'm going to go sew something else.


Thanks for coming by to play. Come back any time.

Another Finish

I've been working on finishing up a number of my (many!) UFOs. I find it's most productive for me to batch things -- I'll add borders to a number of tops, quilt a number of tops, then trim up and bind a number of quilts. It means I have spurts of lots of finishes, and apparently not much going on in between. I was feeling a little bit like I wanted another complete finish, so I went a bit off the assembly line, and finished up this table mat. I made it in the "Trick of the Month" class, but because it was an irregular shape around the outside, and I didn't want to change that, it didn't get included in the sampler quilt shown in my last post.






Here it's shown on my design wall, both with the white background of the flannel-backed tablecloth,









and then with a dark fabric behind it. I couldn't decide which background showed it better, so I'm including both pictures. The color's a little bit off in both of them -- the light isn't really a tan, as it appears here. It's a really light green batik.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it, and a wonderful weekend either way. Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.

Self-Proclaimed Queen of UFOs

A New Adventure

Well, I've finally decided to do it. I've resisted starting a blog for a long time, but decided it's the best way to share pictures of what I've been working on with friends and family. I can't guarantee I'll post every day, but I'll post when I have something to say, or something to show.



Here's a photo of my most recent finish. This was from a series of classes I took at a shop in Akron, Ohio, A Piece in Time, when I lived near there. Probably about 2001 or 2002. The class was based on Billie Lauder's piecing shortcuts, and was called "Trick of the Month." So, because I'm so original in naming my quilts, this is called Trick of the Month Sampler.








Some leftover bits got used on the back, to make it a little bit more fun.

I'll have some more finishes to share soon. For now, thanks for stopping by. Come back any time.