Monthly Archives: September 2015

Family Weekend

Last weekend was fantastic. My sisters and I try to get together annually to spend a few days catching up. Usually we rent a place or go to my sister’s in Saratoga. However this weekend we mixed it up and they came up to my house. I live about 15 miles from my parents. With everyone here, we could have a weekend that included the whole family, or as we called it the Great Eight weekend.

If you consider it, I would bet it isn’t often that a person gets to spend time with their nuclear family. Getting back to the original family, without spouses and grandkids and great-grandkids was really fun. Not that we don’t all love our current families and kids, but it was so nice to have a time to reminisce and celebrate our “first” family. (This picture was taken in 1964 so it was before the youngest was born. Sorry Alicia.)

We had a lot to celebrate. Both of my parents had their 80th birthdays in the last nine months. We toasted to their health and happiness. (Check out their t-shirts. My maiden name is Delgado. There is a college in Louisiana called Delgado College. We all have their shirts!)

Next we celebrated my sister Patti. She spent the last ten months being treated for breast cancer. She endured surgeries, a horrid four months of chemo and then several months of daily radiation. It was awful and she was amazing throughout. There are no words that describe our relief that treatments are finished and she doesn’t have to see her oncologist except for routine check-ups now. She is working hard on getting her strength back, building some muscle mass, and above all trying to be patient as her hair grows back (soooo slowly!)

We had time on Saturday with just the sisters. We took a walk but mostly that looked like this:

We had breakfast out and then came home and tried to focus on some yoga. No pictures there but it wasn’t terribly different from the walk.

Finally we got a group shot with Patti’s new license plate. She grabbed it for California and Juanita grabbed it for Colorado (hers hasn’t come in yet.) I love it!!

My best friends!

For a token report on action in the sewing room – I am putting sleeves on two of my three quilts that will hang next weekend in the quilt show up in Downieville.This show isn’t judged. I am easing into this whole show process. Maybe a juried show is in the future but certainly not yet!

Also working on so many items for my Etsy shop. Here is a small sampling:

Lots of Chemex covers, a few mats for pet water bowls, lots of clothespin bags. Business is really picking up. I also shipped a custom order yesterday and have two more in line. This shop definitely takes a large portion of my sewing time, but in return, it pays for (most of) my fabric addiction. I think that between now and December, I will not accomplish a lot of personal quilting. I hope to get the Kaffe Fassett quilt backing today. That project will be worked in between the others. Beyond that, things will have to wait.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Quilt Top Finish

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This week I have a finish to share – I made a quilt top using a jelly roll of Kaffe Fassett solids and a coordinating striped piece of yardage. Several months ago, I saw the jelly roll on Cratsy.com and was crazy about the colors. Really rich, earthy tones that were just calling out to me. I didn’t have a specific plan for it so it sat on the shelf for a while.

Meanwhile, I have been practicing my FMQ and am always in search of something to stitch. I decided to make a very simple quilt top with the jelly roll as that would allow me a really clean slate for quilting. I went to my LQS and found the coordinating yardage (she has a great selection of Kaffe Fassett in her shop.) Then I started to play with ideas. I cut strips from the yaradage and laid them out in a few patterns with the jelly roll (actually I drew everything first on graph paper but then still had to play around with it for a while, crawling all over the living room floor.)

First try:

In this version, I was putting the striped pieces in a random pattern. (You can see that Lady was supervising me all the while – those are her paws in the upper right corner.)

Next I tried something with a bit more order to it, increasing and decreasing the length of the striped pieces by size.

I decided I liked this pattern best. The stitching not a big deal. Well, it shouldn’t have been. I had all of the striped pieces sewn to the solid strips and then I spend a day or two dealing with a migraine. I thought that I was through the worst of it and started to sew the stripes together. As luck would have it, I was not thinking clearly enough and in several places, I sewed them together incorrectly, creating havoc with my simple pattern. It took a bit of time with my seam ripper to get it all fixed up.

Now that it is done, I am really happy with the curved look of the solid color stripes. Kind of like an over-sized chevron.

I haven’t figured out what I will use as backing. I know I don’t have anything in my stash that will work so I will do some shopping for that. Most likely I will use a solid that is used on the front. I don’t plan to put any borders on it. I do plan to finish this up soon so I am going to use it as my October goal for ALYOF. I will have it quilted and bound by end of October!

Later today my five sisters are coming to my house for the weekend. I am beyond excited. My mom and dad live about 15 miles from me so the whole family will be together for the weekend. My husband and daughter went up to the Downieville house which means it will be just the original eight of us for the weekend!

Have a great weekend all!

Linking to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Quilter’s Call to Action

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Hi Everyone –

As I have written, California has been under siege with fires up and down the state. One of the really awful ones, the Butte Fire, is burning in Amador County. At this point, we are thankful that it is 75% contained. However, it’s damage has been horrible. Over 75,000 acres have burned with a current loss of 535 residences. (Information obtained at Yubanet.com.) Everyone’s worst nightmare, right? The loss of your home and all of your precious belongings and then having to rebuild. It must be an overwhelming situation for these people.

In comes Kerri of “Kerri’s Quilting” in Lakeport, CA. She is putting together a few quilts for some of the quilter’s that lost not only their homes, but their quilting supplies and fabric. I think this is such a sweet thing to do. Providing something handmade as an expression of love and concern will hopefully bring comfort to some of our fellow quilters.

Would you like to help? Here is what Kerri wants:

“If you would like to help turn ashes to beauty please make a quilt block – applique a heart in the center of a CUT 10” square using pastel colors, sign your name and town and mail to Kerrie’s Quilting 1853 N. High St. Lakeport, CA 95453.
The blocks will be set together to make quilts for at least 5 ladies that I know of who lost all their sewing/quilting things in the fire.
The deadline for mailing is October 8th.”

Here are two blocks that I made the other day. Just a simple heart appliqued in the middle of a ten inch block.

I hope you will create a block, sign it and mail it to Kerri. How wonderful for people from across the country to show their concern for these Amador County quilters! Let me know if you have any questions. Also, for a quick tutorial on making an appiqued heart block, see this post at Quilting Jetgirl.

For those of you who saw my messy, messy sewing room the other day, here is an updated picture. As I was told by Deb at Frugal Little Bungalow, it was time to ‘Redd Up’ that room, which is apparently Pittsgburgh-speak for cleaning up a mess. 😉 Success!

Much easier to work in!

Of course it didn’t last long because I was sewing this weekend. But it is still, it’s much better than it was.

Remember the post about the elephant baby quilt I made for my friends that are having a baby via surrogate mom in Mumbai, India? Their daughter, Emerson, arrived today via planned C-section!! I can’t even imagine how exciting this is for TJ and Margot after so many years spent working, hoping and praying to become parents. I am so happy for them and hope their transition from India back home is safe and uneventful.

Finally, this is why I love giving a quilt. Look at this text that I received out of the blue the other day. Lil is my niece and I made her a t-shirt quilt about a year ago. (Story is here.) Warms my heart!

Linking to Connie over at Freemotion by the River.

Orange Opulence

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Another row is complete. Thanks to Mari at Academic Quilter, I now have nine rows done for my Classic Stitches BOM quilt. This is, as you probably know since I have explained it many a time, my project for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge that Angela sponsors each year at So Scrappy. It is pretty nice having all of this spelled out for me each month. Angela dictates the color and Mari gives me a block. No decision making on my part except for what scraps to use and what size to make the blocks. Easy peasy.

Orange has never been my favorite color. However, with a bit of on-line research using a very intellectual website, Signology.org, I found out that I do (should?) have a significant connection to the color orange. It seems that, according to the Thai solar calendar, Thursday is associated with the color orange. Accordingly, people born on Thursdays may adopt orange as their primary color (whatever that means – does one have to wear only orange, live in an orange house, eat lots of citrus?) Guess what day I was born on all those many years ago? Yep, Thursday. It concerns me since this isn’t a color I associate myself with, nor am I a particularly huge fan of it. This whole Thursday thing has been a problem from the beginning…. remember the poem, Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace? Well, Thursday’s child has “far to go”. That’s not fair. Talk about creating issues for a kid right from the get-go. Yikes. The color orange and all of those obstacles in life that cause me to have “far to go”. Like Charlie Brown, I’m doomed.

Enough negativity. I love this row of bright orange blocks. See what you think.

It really is a pretty row. These blocks were such a breeze to make. Until yesterday that is. For whatever reason, I had sewn one of the flying geese blocks in upside down. I ripped it out and then repeated the error. More ripping and more sewing… I don’t know what the deal was. Finally worked it out and the row is finished. Here it is with it’s other mates.

At this point, most of the rows consist of 6″ blocks. The light blue and the gray rows are 7 1/2″ blocks. I am thinking of doing a small row next month, maybe a row of 5″ blocks? Just for variation. Of course if Mari springs some sort of complicated monster of a block on me next month, that may change. 🙂

For now, I am pleased with the quilt. It is going to be a fun one, once it is all stitched together. I am going to sash the rows because my blocks are not entirely precise and won’t line up well if I sew them row on row. Not to mention the difference in size with the light blue and the gray rows. Of course, that begs the question, what do I sash them with??? The background color on each row is made of scraps of cream and/or off-white fabric. I had a load of it and wanted to use it up. What if I find some sort of miniscule polka dot? Could I sash with something like that?

In closing, and because you are probably dying to know this, it rained a little bit yesterday. Every single person in Northern California could be seen dancing a happy dance. It was heavenly. Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!

Linking to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts and Angela at So Scrappy.

No Easy Solution

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Have you been reading the on-going debate about Craftsy and their (possible) decision to release a privately owned fabric and/or yarn line? People are getting a bit heated about this and I am curious what you think. I am a loyal follower of Abby Glassenberg, blogger at While She Naps. Abby has built a successful blog, has a fantastic weekly newsletter and a lovely Etsy shop where she sells patterns to make childrens’ stuffed toys. She inspires me and I have learned a huge amount from her informative newsletters. (If you haven’t checked out her blog and newsletters, I highly recommend both.)

Last week she blogged about the fact that Craftsy has registered two new trademarks to (possibly) begin manufacturing and selling a line of fabric and a line of yarn. Because Craftsy has such a huge customer base, they sell a great deal of fabric and supplies at below retail pricing. People are in somewhat of an uproar because they are upset about yet another bigbox retailer squashing the smaller retailers. After Abby’s post, in which Craftsy declined to comment, there was a bit of conversation – most of it on the negative side. However, much of the arguments commented on this post centered around Craftsy’s treatment of pattern designers and teachers. I am not going to go into the specifics because Abby laid it out clearly in her post already.

My opinion is this. We live in a world of huge on-line retailing. Amazon and the like make it nearly impossible for smaller brick and mortar shops to compete. This makes it a big struggle for those shops to be profitable. I am a frequent on-line shopper (Craftsy included) and also a loyal supporter of my local quilt shop. There are benefits to each. With on-line shopping, I don’t have to make the twenty mile round trip to the LQS and can shop whenever I want. With on-line shopping, I usually get a good deal on fabric but there is a price to be paid for shipping. At my LQS, I can touch the fabric and get a better look at the colorways. I have a really hard time with color – it isn’t my strong suit and I have purchased on-line several times, only to be disappointed that the colors weren’t what I thought they would be. The added benefit of expertise, advice and a social experience offered at the LQS is not to be matched by shopping somewhere like Craftsy. There is a place for both in my fabric budget (and it is entirely possible the budget needs to be reduced!)

As far as pattern designers and paid bloggers, I am of the opinion they should work for a fair wage. If a corporation such as Craftsy or Moda (think Moda Bakeshop) isn’t offering a fair wage, don’t take them up on the opportunities offered. It is the decision of the designer. Personally, I love the patterns that are individually designed and offered on Craftsy. Many a quilt blogger/designer has their paid and free patterns posted on Craftsy which provides some exposure for the designer and a huge benefit to us, the crafting community, But again, if the designer doesn’t think the pay is commensurate, don’t go there.

In response to all of this hub bub, John Levisay, CEO of Craftsy, wrote an open letter to Abby for our community of makers. You can read it here. Nothing earth shattering is contained in his response. It is what I might write, were I in his position. They are a large, for profit, corporation. They sells on-line classes, patterns and supplies – for PROFIT. Just as Amazon, Jo-Ann Fabrics, and Fabric.com aren’t overly concerned about the profitability of the brick and mortar shops, I don’t think Craftsy is terribly worried. Is this the right thing? Who knows. It isn’t really a question of right and wrong to me. It is just the way things are and will continue to be. Overall, I thought the letter was respectful and it made sense to me. Things are forever changing as the world of technology grows and allows businesses to develop in new ways.

Finally, this is the first time I have written a post without pictures. Kind of strange so I am going to add one here for your viewing enjoyment!! What a huge mess. I have decided that it is time to clean this place up. My sewing room has become a huge disaster. Like beyond ridiculous. OK – how about you? Do you take issue with the Craftsy decision to market their own lines? Should they be able to sell below retail? Do I have to clean my room? Is your room messier than mine? Is a blog post without pictures acceptable? Do tell.

Have a wonderfully creative day all. 🙂

Stuck Inside

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Poor California. It is a mess. Currently there are ten large fires burning up and down the state with approximately 400,000 acres are involved. It is horrible. Smoke fills the air and ash rains down everywhere. (If you want to see more details, here is a good source of information.) Yesterday and today have been horrible as far as air quality goes. It was a stay-inside-kind-of-weekend. The photo above shows the pasture next door to us and was taken by Julia this afternoon.

Doesn’t take much to guess what I did. Played with fabric, sewed, cooked, and read. It was only logical. What else is there?

Let’s take things in order, shall we? Saturday morning Julia had to be at a meeting at the library for an hour so I had a time to check out a few books. Here is the reading list for the next little while.

I am already half way through The Distinguished Guest, by Sue Miller. It is an excellent book. Sometimes Sue Miller’s books are a little dark for me but I am really enjoying this one. The two Kaffe Fassett books are solely to drool over. I have finished drooling over his Quilts in the Sun book and yet to begin salivating over Country Garden Quilts. The book by Lee Cleland, Quilting Makes the Quilt, is amazing. The quilting shown in this book is far beyond my skill level but the process she used in creating this (older) book is amazing. In order to show how much the quilting defines the quilt, Cleland, an Australian quilter, decided she would make five sets of twelve traditional quilts, each exactly the same. So, twelve quilts – five of each of them! Sixty quilts in a two year period. It exhausts me to even write about it. She took each of the quilts and quilted them, one different from the next. It is really helpful in seeing how the different choices of quilting motifs would set off the piecing and secondary patterns on each quilt. She is brilliant. While this book is a great one to thumb through, it is beyond me at this point. She does include the patterns for each of the twelve quilts in the book. The two cookbooks are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The French Laundry Cookbook, by Thomas Keller, is just for grins. I don’t cook like that and as a result, we don’t eat like that. But it makes a person hungry to thumb through it! However the Light & Healthy Cookbook (from America’s Test Kitchen) is how I cook and eat. Last night I made the Turkey, Lime and Tequila Chili and it was excellent. Finally, I grabbed the biography of Mary Cassatt because she is one of my favorite impressionist artists. I have seen a number of her paintings at different exhibits and there is a tiny print of one that hangs in my sewing space, making me happy each time I see it. I’m looking forward to reading more about her.

Ok, moving forward. Playing with fabric took some of my time yesterday. I recently ordered some Michael Miller solids to use in the Michael Miller Challenge, sponsored by Modern Quilt Guild. I have a few ideas brewing but luckily this project isn’t due until November so I have some time. At least I have the fabrics ready to go.

I ordered the solids from Hawthorne Threads and while I was on their site, I also ordered a scrap bag. I love these. It is an inexpensive way to add a few pieces to the scrap bin (because I really, really don’t have enough scrap.) Most of the pieces I received are wonderful. Here is a sampling of them (a few have already been cut into so aren’t included here.)

See that pretty piece of Amy Butler’s, second from the left? To the right of that is one of Jeni Baker’s prints. They are all lovely and will be used here and there.

I did receive one piece that I know I will not use. I haven’t ever watched Downton Abbey so I have no affinity for this fabric.

Does it speak to any of you? It has a little Christmas holly on it. The piece measures out at 16″ wide, so just under 1/2 yard. If anyone thinks they would like to use it, leave me a comment and I will happily send it to you. If more than one person asks for it, I will just choose a name randomly. Hope someone can use this so it doesn’t just live sadly on my shelf. Claim it as yours!

Finally, I did accomplish some sewing. Check out these orange Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks. They will be the orange row for September on my Classic Stitches BOM project. These blocks are so bright – they will add a good splash of color to the quilt. Hoping to finish these up this week.

That is my weekend in a nutshell. A lot of nutshells actually. This post just got longer and longer! 🙂 Hoping for the air to clear and feeling eternally grateful for the nearly 10,000 firefighters that are battling active fires in California right now.

Linking to Molli Sparkles’ Sunday Stash which is hosted by Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts this week and to Freemotion by the River.

Odds and Ends

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The weekend is just about here. Julia is going to her first high school football game tonight and we are not a football family. It is rare that you’ll hear any talk of sports in our house. But I am fairly certain that 14 year olds don’t go to football games for the sport – it’s all about the friends. She will have a great time and I will wonder how she got to be this age so quickly.

It was a busy week here in Grass Valley, CA (doesn’t that sound just like Garrison Keillor? I love him.) I decided I was tired of looking through filthy windows so I hired a couple of window cleaners to come and clean them. We have lots of windows (40 to be exact, I paid per window so I now know this number.) Turns out that having windows cleaned involves lots of prep on the part of the window owner. They asked me to clear any items near the windows so they could have access. Yikes. My sewing table, ironing station and cutting station are under a window. I am sure you can imagine. But after I got the house put back together, it was well worth it. Shiny clean windows. Just in time for fall colors… the maple trees near these windows turn a great shade of yellow-gold and now we will enjoy the changes that much more. (Well, that’s if fall ever comes, it is a balmy 98 degrees outside today.

Time in the sewing room was not plentiful this week. I did finish up one quick project though. Remember the block-hop that I posted about last week? When I was playing with the design for that block, I did a mock up first. I used some holiday fabric that I had (mainly because it was right next to the cutting area and saved me the long walk to the closet across the room where my stash is stored.) The block was pretty though and I wanted to use it for something.

I added two borders, one 2″ wide and the other is 3″ wide. With these borders I ended up with a pillow cover that is about 21″ square.

I used an envelope backing and stitched a seam 1″ in from the perimeter to make a flange. Straight line quilting with a fairly narrow gauge was done on an angle, dividing the pillow into four quadrants.

I used a Mettler variegated thread with shades of gold, silver and cream which I love with these fabrics.

When I quilt a pillow, I sandwich the quilted portion with plain muslin and pieced batting scraps. The quilting looks kinda cool on the muslin side.

It makes me want to try some sort of whole cloth project to really emphasize the quilting. Another addition to the list….

It will be fun to pull this out in a few months when the time comes to decorate for the holidays. Hoping everyone has a great weekend. Seems like it is hot across the country right now. Maybe this is the last blast of heat before wonderful autumn starts.

Linking to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict as well as Freemotion Mavericks (even tho this is quilted with a walking foot, not my darning foot.) All links to these link parties are available at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

TBT Except It’s Saturday

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I have been reading posts that are linked up to a party hosted by Jen at Quarter Inch From the Edge this week and really enjoying them. (I also enjoy the name of Jen’s blog, isn’t it perfect?). She has been hosting a monthly link up where bloggers are sharing projects from earlier days and I love seeing how far everyone has come with their skill and creativity. Really interesting to read the posts and check out the pictures. Most of my earlier projects have been posted about already but I did think it would be fun to share the Tablerunner Craze of 2012.

The fall of 2012 was when the quilting bug really bit. I had recently finished a queen size simple patchwork quilt for my mother-in-law. I posted that story here. When I was finishing up that quilt, I had no clue how to FMQ so I stitched in the ditch along every block. Once that was finished, I really wanted to try some free motion quilting so I took a class at my LQS to learn the basics. Table runners seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice this newfound love. Glad for the excuse to shop, I shopped for holiday fabric so I could make table runners for my family as Christmas gifts. If you have been a reader for any length of time, you probably know I have a huge family. I made eight table runners in about a month’s time. One for each of my five sisters, one for my mom and my mother-in-law, and one for myself.

This was long before I started blogging and I am happy I thought to take a quick picture of some of them before giving them away. Definitely last minute pictures. I remember I was about to wrap them and get them in the mail and I tossed them over the back of the couch and took a picture with my phone. (Hence the superb quality of the pictures!) Here are three of the runners.

I did a basic, squiggly meander over the entire runner. Mitred bindings were not yet in my wheelhouse so the corners were just folded over and stitched (machine stitched to the front and hand stitched to the back? Maybe, maybe not….)

Here are three more.

These runners are on the small side. They are probably 13″ wide and maybe 30″ long? They were pretty though and I enjoy looking back at them. They were definitely my first foray into free motion quilting. Actually, it kind of amazes me that this was almost exactly four years ago. The time continues to buzz by.

We are spending the long weekend up at our Downieville house. It is gorgeous up here with crisp, cool air. If you live in California, you are probably hearing about this tremendous El Nino that is supposed to happen this year. Ray is cleaning all of the drainage paths and gutters this weekend. If it comes to be, then we could get some substantial storms this year. I am grateful that he is so good about preparing for this sort of thing. Our Downieville house is is a flood zone being so close to the river so we do need to be careful. At any rate, maybe this year will put an end to four years of drought. Here’s hoping!

Linking to Quarter Inch From the Edge (for the very first time!)

Basic and Practical

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Here is a post about one of the least exciting things I have made thus far. Today I made a little mat to place under my dog’s water dish. I hate the puddles that happen when she drinks (and more often than that, when I kick the dish as I walk by it – like every. single. day.) It wasn’t that I didn’t try to control the issue. Look at this gorgeous set up I had going on.

Classy, right? (Please avert your eyes from the dirty floor. Thank you.)

My true goal was to learn to quilt a basic “orange peel” motif. It is one that I had not yet tried and seemed like a good one to add to my limited repetoire. I didn’t look for a tutorial and didn’t sketch any first. It just seemed so easy. Silly, silly me. Drawing first has huge benefits as will become clear in a sec.

First I found a pile of 3 and 1/2″ squares that were left over from various projects. I added a few extra squares cut from puppy themed novelty fabric that was in my stash. I made a patchwork of five squares across and four down. I found a scrap of french terry to back it with so it would have the absorbency to handle my constant kicking and splashing of the water. (One would think moving the bowl to another location would be much simpler!) I sewed the two pieces, right sides together, leaving a small opening to turn it right side out. After stitching the opening shut, I pressed it and pinned it. Then I just dove in with the quilting process.

The problem was I didn’t really think about how to travel along with the orange peels. Mostly I was listening to music and not focusing on the exciting task at hand. I began by moving around the inside of each square. This doesn’t work and I was almost immediately stuck in the corner. Ahh… of course. The pattern is supposed to be stitched along the length of each row of squares and then again along the opposite edges of the squares (e.g. along the vertical rows and then the horizontal rows – or vice versa.) Very basic and had I sketched for just a few minutes first, this would have been apparent right away. No big loss though. This was easily remedied and I finished up by stitching along the edges. Once I figured it out my curves looked (somewhat) better.

The quilting on this is mediocre at best. Fortunately I have a rather undiscerning dog when it comes to quality of the FMQ on her water mat. It does look better from the back (because there isn’t the point of reference of the squares to look at next to my stitching.) Quilting along the perimeter was really tough because there was no edge to hold on to (since I had just made this “envelope style”.)

I really love how the orange peel motif looks (when done well!) and plan to practice it further. It would be very easy to quilt a larger project with this pattern. I would want to have a better handle on it first though. This little mat certainly improves the look of the water station in the kitchen though! Very classy. I am sure the dog is grateful.

Have you been enjoying the Fabri-Quilt New Bloggers Block Hop so far this week? I have seen some amazing creativity out there. The hop continues through Thursday. The Tuesday group can be found over at Meadow Mist Designs with Cheryl leading the crew.

Linking to Freemotion Mavericks and Freemotion by the River.