Eventually, I finish things...

Sometimes it takes me a while to 'circle back' to a project. Sometimes, it is a long while...

This is one of those projects!


These tea towels were part of my Christmas gift to Dearest Sister. When she and her guy first got together, she moved into his house, which was heavily influenced, decor-wise, by the mountainy outdoors. After combining their things, it was less of a focus, but still predominates, as they are both mountainy outdoorsy people.

A few years ago, I was preparing needlework projects for travel and decided to stamp a few tea towels to throw in the bag. I had picked up the Aunt Martha's "Northwoods" transfer set with them in mind and had a few tea towels in the stash, so I picked out my favorite three of the seven days-of -the-week designs (because who really needs seven tea towels?) and stamped the towels. They are not complex designs (although I did consult a bird book for ideas on the colors of the geese) but I started and finished several, well...many, things before I finished up all three.

Sometimes I get frustrated with my scatter approach to projects. And, when it is to be a gift, that sometimes means I have to keep the secret a loooooong time! But it feels good to finish and send it of to the intended giftee.

(And she might have just been flattering me, but DS said her guy thought they were nice, too!)

Going With The Flow

We have had a quiet weekend.

Since our Christmas guest did not arrive as originally scheduled, we were a bit at loose ends. Well, truth be told, I was at loose ends. The Mister watched football on tee-vee, as was his plan.

I decided to start a quilt!

Over the last few weeks I had gathered the material to make a quilt that had caught my eye on display at the lqs. It is a Moda pattern called 'Sweet' (you can see it here). It appealed to me because it was kind of vintage-y and the colors were very bright.

After studying the pattern, though, I decided that perhaps it was a bit beyond my current skill set. So, I decided to do something different with the fabric.

I started a 'Wonky Log Cabin' quilt.

These are the first four blocks.

I used a tutorial that Quilt Dad had posted in September.

Quilt Dad works in graphic design, or some sort of artistic endeavor, and even though he is relatively new to needle work, he has the advantage of an artistic eye.

Although I did not intend to follow the usual log cabin tradition of lights on one side and darks on the other, I was trying to be aware of the different color values and print scales, but it was pretty much an experiment in progress.

The blocks will be trimmed down to 15.5 inches. The tutorial suggested making 15 blocks - five across and five down.

I cut a bunch of strips and I it really doesn't seem like I have made much of a dent. I might have enough for six across and seven long!

I think the hardest part, so far, is cutting into the fabric. I didn't have a problem with cutting up the fabric in the kit for my class, because it was purchased with a particular goal in mind. But, just cutting into fabric that I have already changed my mind about once, was hard.

I started out washing and pressing all the fq's, and then I washed some other fabric, just to fill up a load in the washer doncha' know... Then, I thought I should look through some other fabric and see if I had any others that coordinated (even though I had forty coordinating prints already!)

Finally, I just told myself to get started and I stacked up six fq's and started cutting! After that, it was easier.

Maybe I should just buy kits!

Christmas Redwork

I hope everyone had a great holiday! The weather prevented one of our guests from arriving. She will get here late Sunday, if all goes as 're-planned', so we will have a bit more Christmas to celebrate with her.

Now that the hand made gifts have been opened (except the one that was finished too late to send...)I can share the redwork project that I worked on a couple of weeks ago.
I showed a sneak peek here, but now I can reveal!

This motif is from the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad. It is meant to be a occupational representation of K - Dearest Sister's first girl. I am not really sure what she does at her work, but it is scientific in nature, so I thought this would be appropriate. (I am sure she will be too kind to tell me if I am entirely off base, which is quite likely!)

This one is for V, the second of three. The design is from the Sublime Stitching 'Vital Organs' collection. V is a nurse and works on a floor that has neurological patients. I don't really think that she stabs needles in their brains. Again, it is a representation.

For B, the third girl, I chose these little sister fairy girls. (The design is from Annie Oak Leaves.) B's main occupation is mother to two little sweetie pie girls. She does other work, but her main job is mama.

I stitched the designs on these totes that I got on sale (of course!) a couple of years ago. They have been waiting on the shelf for inspiration to strike and this was the year.

I really have entirely too many 'gift blanks' in the closet - items bought with embroidery projects in mind.

I think that I better get started on next Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a happy holiday, full of peace and joy!

Image from "Christmas Magic - The Art of Making Decorations and Ornaments" by Margaret Perry (no relation)

Holiday Flowers

On Monday, Sister G and I visited the Bellagio Conservatory to see the holiday floral display. It was gorgeous, as usual. There are five displays a year, spring, summer, fall, Christmas and Chinese New Year. This is the fourth Christmas version that I have seen and each one is different, spectacular and amazing. Sometimes elements are 're-purposed' and sometimes there are entirely new elements.

The constant...

...the tree. About four stories high, from Mount Shasta.

New this year...

... the polar bears. Made of 36,000 carnations that have to be changed out once a week!

Mama Bear takes 12,000 carnations, Papa Bear needs 16,000. Baby Bear (not pictured) uses 8,000. They are surrounded by white poinsettia 'snow'.

The rocking horse is back...

...but this year, it really rocks!

There are always crowds of tourists in the conservatory, most of them taking photos of each other. I thought a Monday afternoon might be less crowded, but no, it was just as busy!

After we watched the fountain show, I took her to another 'can't miss' place. For Christmas, or anytime - In 'n Out Burger!

Christmas - part one

I am passed the Christmas rush! I took a vacation day from work on Friday to finish up all the loose ends and get the out-of-town packages shipped. It was kind of a frantic day of looking for gifts that were purchased early and then misplaced, (I still haven't found one of them!) and getting everything wrapped and packaged for shipment. The post office web site was down for purchasing on the internet, so I had to go and stand in line, instead of just printing the postage at home and dropping the parcels in the bin. It wasn't too bad when I got there, though the line was twice as long when I left. Timing is everything!

Saturday evening, we had a Christmas gathering with part of the family. Sister G is visiting the desert, staying with L the doctor neice, through Wednesday. She and I hung out most of Saturday, though, and had a good visit.

We have plans to get together on Monday to go see the Bellagio holiday display. We might also go see the new City Center that has opened in stages over the past couple of weeks. It is a shiny new complex of everything you can think of that rich people might want to see and do. There is quite a lot of public art at the shopping mall that I would like to see, though. (The mall is made up of shops from Rodeo drive, but the LV versions are bigger than the LA versions...)

Donald Trump publicly dissed the whole project and called it 'a catastrophy'. The head of MGM, which owns the City Center (in partnership with Dubai), said he 'couldn't imagine an opinion that would matter less'. I take that to mean that he would value my opinion over The Donald's! I must go see it and put my two cents in!

Featured Fabric

Part of the fun of collecting something is finding others who enjoy the same thing. I feel that way about feedsacks. I love them for what they are, but I like to share the joy!
On Wednesday, one of my feedsack fabrics -

was featured here! This is the second time one of my fabrics has been selected as a representation of the 'Daily Swatch' theme. Its not an award, or a reinforcement of my great taste in textiles. (I self 'nominated' by tagging the photo and adding it to the Flikr pool.) It is fun, though, to open up a blog and see my little piece of fabric heritage!

This piece of fabric is a good example of how color can 'date' something. Even though green is a very current color, these greens just say 'vintage'. Maybe it is the combination with the brown, but I just get a 40's feeling from these colors.

My favorite modern quilt fabrics are the reproductions because they have a classic vintage look. The new designers make beautiful things, but you don't have to look very far into the blogosphere to find examples of things that were beautiful when they were introduced, but sadly 'tired', 10, 20 - or more - years later.

I am working with a very modern fabric in my most current project. I will post a photo in a few, (read: seven) days! ;)

Self Indulgence, pure and simple!

Okay, two posts in a row is a bit much for the same project, but - oh well!

I am really pleased with my quilt project!

Last night, since I already had my blocks sewn together, I was ahead of the rest of the class, who had stuck to the script. The first border went on quickly and the instructor showed me how to do a mitered corner for the outer border (which is a very neat trick!)

When I finished up the borders, I decided to look at fabric, with a goal of picking a backing fabric. I had a coupon for 25% off, as well as the refund of my $20 deposit for the class that was burning a hole in my pocket.

Once again, when faced with buying fabric for a particular project, it was too much choice! I just couldn't pick! So, I bought a fat quarter stack and a yard of decorator fabric for a potential project that I will tell you about, later (after I see if it turns out okay!)

I am thinking of making a few more blocks and using them to make a stripe across the reverse and piece the rest of the backing. Maybe with a solid color from one of the prints, or white.

The winter class schedule comes out in a week. I hope I can get in a quilting class pretty soon! I am really anxious to go to the next stage of the process!

Holiday Spirit

This weekend, I intended to accomplish some holiday gift goals - and I did! Not my original goals, I had to scale back my plans a bit when I realized there was no way I was going to get everything done, unless I adjusted. So, I adjusted.

I can't show you the finished effort, yet, though. I don't want to spoil anyone's surprise. Here is a peek, though...

I love redwork and these look really cute !



I had to finish them all today, though. My fingers are going to be too sore tomorrow to do any more stitching, for awhile!

The fabric is heavy, so lots of pulling on the needle to get it through the fabric. On the upside, though, I didn't have to use a hoop!

I also finished piecing the blocks for my quilt! For class tomorrow, we were to have 25 blocks ready to put together. The instructor said, "if you want to sew it together, go right ahead". So, I did.

I ended up adding an extra row. Since my seams run to the narrow side, I ended up with it a bit longer than the pattern intended, anyway. I figured I would have to adjust the measurements for borders, etc either way. I checked to be sure that I would not run short of border fabric, but there is plenty. Now, it can be a baby quilt, or a lap quilt, instead of just a 'project'.

It is such a good feeling to start the week with some things checked off the list. Now, I can start looking forward to Christmas!

Good thing, since it is right around the corner!

Seven Day Time Warp

This last seven days have been something! This time last week, we were just getting home from a two hour trip to go 'over the hump to Pahrump' to get our car trailer from the storage lot so we could drive 9 hours to look at (and buy) a car that we do not have room for!

We have run out of space, after parking the two campers (one is for sale, but it is the off season, even in the desert!), two classic cars (the tiny one has to share the garage slot with the workbench), two daily drivers and two car trailers.

We have been storing the big car trailer in Pahrump for a couple of months. Pahrump (which I can never say, without adding 'pa-pum-pum' in my head) is in Nye county, about an hour away, over the mountains. It is in one of the huge Nevada counties that has very low population. And low storage fees.

Low population allows them to have legal prostitution, so there are lots of 'ranches' in Pahrump. With names like the chicken ranch, or the bunny ranch, or mustang ranch, etc.

There is also The China Date Ranch, which grows date palms. I understand that it is not uncommon for them to get a lot of confused customers late at night...

Anyway, after our whirlwind trip to buy the car, and bring it home, it has been a very busy week! It seems all the evenings were spent outside of the usual routine, so any idea that I had to catch up on holiday preparations was out the window.

We decided early in the week that we would look at paint colors for the Falcon on Saturday, since the shop is across town. Luckily, they are open a few hours on Saturday mornings. I made a list of all the other things that I want to accomplish this weekend, too. My plan is to really make an all out effort to get some gifts done (well, started first and then done!)

This evening, The Mister shared his idea of the important things to get done this weekend. Surprisingly (not!), our lists do not intersect, other than at the paint shop... His list involves shuffling of cars and trucks and sorting of parts, etc.

I think I might try to convince him that we should just leave the car in the trailer and think about all that in January! I am guessing that I will not have any luck...

My New Ride

Just a quick show and tell!

This is my new ride. Actually, it is a 'potential' ride, since it does not have a drive train, or interior, yet. It looks fast, though, don't you think?

When The Mister and I were married a short time, I realized that he gets a hankering to buy a car about every 12 to 18 months. Early on, it was new cars, but that is very hard for me, since I love not having a car payment.

Later, it became vintage cars, which are much less expensive at the outset, at least... (the expense is accumulated gradually, as packages of car-booty treasure are delivered by the UPS truck, and sometimes, the purple one)

Last year, it wasn't even a car, it was a Go-Go Scooter mobility thingy.

This year, it is a 1963 (and a half) Ford Falcon. Ostensibly, it will be 'my' car. You know, when I retire and want to look good tooling down to the grocery store...

It is more of a 'real' car than the Isetta, which I may never be brave enough to drive anywhere, other than around the block.

I don't think I like the Rangoon Red paint. Since it is about a twenty foot paint job (it looks fine if you are 20' away), we will probably have it re-painted. I can't decide what color, though. I do like red cars, but this color is a bit to tomato-y, I think. The Rangoon Red and Burgundy are the only two 'reds' in the 1963 Ford colors. It doesn't really need to be a stock color for me, though. I just want it to look good, I am not a purist!

We will go look at paint colors on Saturday. Maybe we will go with something completely different.

The 1969 Ford color chart has "Thanks Vermilion", "Freudian Gilt" and "Anti-establish Mint". An effort to inject a bit of cool-groove, I guess. In 1970 they went a little farther with "Bring 'em Back Olive", "Last Stand Custard", "Young Turquoise", "There She Blue", "Good Clean Fawn".

In '71, it was back to "Medium Green", "Dark Green", and "Bright Red".

So much for Ford hip!

I might have to pick one of those colors, just for the name!

A '3-G' Cutter Quilt

One Christmas, when I was a teenager, my mother cut up a quilt and made this coat for me.

It was a quilt that she made with wool that she got as a wedding gift, I believe, or maybe a graduation gift. It was not a pieced quilt, it was two pieces of fabric with carded wool sandwiched in between, and hand quilted. I am not sure what the fabric content was, but it was shiny and slick and never stayed on a bed (It is kind of a heavy-ish taffeta). But, it was very warm! And beautiful! One side was burgundy and the other was royal purple.

It was not really practical as a bed cover and it had some damage that was inflicted by a small wiener dog pet (who made the most unfortunate choices of things to chew on).

I was so surprised on Christmas morning! I couldn’t believe she had cut it up!

For me!

It kept me warm on the coldest days!I wore it for several years, but it was not a good coat to wear shopping or running errands. Since it wrapped around and tied in the back, it really couldn’t be worn ‘open. ’

It really was too warm unless you were going to be outside for awhile in below freezing temps. So I put it away for ‘safe-keeping’.

The scraps were saved in a brown grocery bag that found its way to my basement and when Ms A was small, I thought that it would be perfect backing for a Christmas stocking. I kind of followed a pattern that was in a needle-craft magazine, but also just sort of winged it as far as embellishments.


I lined it with fabric from an old sheet, so it is very soft, inside. The embroidered ‘label’ was back in my days of stamped cross-stitching. I didn’t know any ‘real’ embroidery stitches, so it is pretty wonky.

The fabric in the coat has some breaks and it is too small for me now, (and I live in the desert ...) so I would like to think of some project that would use the quilt/coat for something that would not suffer the wear and tear of a garment.

Any ideas?

We take a break...

...from our regularly scheduled programming...

...to visit V and the little bean.

...And to pick up a new project for The Mister. A Ford Falcon, in Rangoon Red, with no engine, but everything else (in the trunk and in assorted boxes!) It looks like it will keep him busy for quite awhile.

(I didn't drive 450 miles to the snowy North just to make Dearest Sister jealous, but....)

Opposite Day!

A few weeks back, I shared my unfortunate experience with Estelle, who advertised a 'mother lode' of quilting supplies that she thought were worth waaaaay more than I thought they were worth.

Well, yesterday was 'opposite day'!

I met Sharon, who had a sewing machine for sale that I thought was worth more than what she was asking!

So, I bought it!

Meet the new girl!

She is a 1950's model (atomic, don't cha know!) Singer 221. A Featherweight!

In my quilting class, some people bring their own machines, but if you don't bring your own, you get to use the fancy schmancy Berninas. Which are very impressive! The one I used threaded the needle by itself! (It came unthreaded about five times in 3 hours, but that was probably due to operator error...)

As we were packing up, the store worker came into the class and there was conversation about the machines, and prices etc. (And oh my, the prices! Most cost more that what my car is worth!) While there was certainly appeal in having a machine that winds the bobbin automatically (and fast!), and threads its own needle, etc, I just kept thinking that I would rather use the machine that I have and spend the money on fabric! (If I were going to spend that kind of money, which I am not going to do!)

But, this is Las Vegas and a common phenomenon here, is that people sell their belongings, for various reasons, at a fraction of what they cost new. So, just for fun, I thought I would look at Craigslist to see if anyone bought a fancy machine and, would now rather have whatever it would bring on the open market.

And that is how I met Sharon. She was not in desperate straights, just downsizing to move in with her daughter and son-in-law. She has another machine, but this one was extra. Sharon said she always thought that she would do more sewing when she got old, but found that she just couldn't sit still to do it.

I was so pleased that it looked even better than in listing photos! And for $150!

Then, I asked if she had any fabric for sale. It turns out that she does, but it is in a storage 'pod' in the back yard. She said that it was all cottons because her mother was a quilter and she has some vintage quilt tops as well!

I left my name and number and asked her to call me when she was able to get into the storage unit!

I told her I might be interested ...

(Dearest Sister has claimed dibs on sharing, if a transaction comes to pass. I told her that I am going to need some wool socks this winter...)

Quilt Progress

Last night was session number two of my quilt class. To be accurate, my piecing class. I completed seven blocks during the class and I finished eight more this evening. I need to have one more done before the next class.

I am having a lot of fun making the cute little 6 ½” blocks! The first one that we did in class was ‘rail fence’. I cut the three strips and sewed them together, but my seams were a bit generous, so I had to take them apart and re-do. Not a great beginning, but it certainly made me more careful with the rest of my seams.

We also did 9-patch and 9-patch with a variation and one framed square block. It seems that the kit was designed with lots of room for error, so I might have enough extra to add a row of blocks to make the finished quilt a bit bigger than the plan.

Next week, we will do log cabin, flying geese and friendship star. The final class will be the following week and that is when we will put the blocks together.

The next class schedule is due out at the first of the year. I hope I can enroll in the next session of ‘Beginning Quilting’. Most of the classes are during the day, though, and that doesn’t work for me. After the quilting class, I will need to enroll in the ‘Borders and Binding’ class. So, it will be quite awhile before I have a finished project.

Dear Sis shared some of her tiny pieced ornaments here. Maybe I will try something like that if a quilting class is not available right away. (I will have to try to talk her out of that book....)