Try to remember the kind of September...

 Just wanted to squeeze in one last post before we say goodbye to another month of this wretched year. For my birthday my dear son and his wonderful girlfriend gave me a 2021 calendar-- best gift of them all and I can't wait for it... it's already hanging!

It's been a bit of a rough month--some of this I need to just keep to myself, but some of it, I'm happy to whine about with you and a cup of tea. 

The embroidery muse went dark on me-- yes, it's time to do the Stitches of the Sea design I've been dreading all year. 

T H E  J E L L Y F I S H.

How to render this invisible-ish thing in thread? I have to confess-- this is what I would like to have done!

Kitty helpers are staying again this week-- they kept me smiling-- I guess that is the main part of their job, because not much else has been a help.

 The black cat likes to be sitting on my lap being petted at all times when it is not directly in front of my computer, but we were able to negotiate this intermediate position. I rummaged through the house to find the calico the perfectly sized box, who is now content with the floor, thank God. 

In between making cats happy, you can see on the screen I did get the main part of the design done-- still not happy with the colors though. Invisible thread, maybe?

Then it came time to digitize the quilting-- does anyone out there know how hard it is to draw nice waves?

First impulse-- 

AVOID by just making straight lines. 

Second attempt-- a little wavy...

Third attempt-- THE TEMPEST.

"The Tempest"... I was finally happy with and was no doubt inspired by what was going on outside last night-- 60mph winds and thunder. Unfortunately, after stitching it, we lost power. I happened to be in front of my computer when it happened-- and I watched as the Jellyfish design flickered, then got smaller and twisted into blackness. My life flashed before my eyes. (when was the last time I saved?...)

Apparently my last save was this: 

After all this year has spit out, I can honestly just laugh this off, as something that can easily be fixed in a few hours...

So today, it's back to waves...   Stitches of the Sea will not debut in September, but did you notice how I am cleverly calling this series "Block 6"... "Block 7".... "Block 8"....?

I like to end on a positive note-- so here's is something that did get finished in September-- it's a Sunflower table runner for my sister's birthday. I graphed the pattern out myself, and it's made from Coriander Quilts Pepper and Flax fabric-- a year or more old, but I loved that collection. All done on the longarm-- yes-- I think I am ready to load up "Sew in Love!"

Pulling on my big girl pants and soldiering on, doing what needs to be done (Or redone), ready for another month of 2020 -- hope you are as well.

xox

Carol

Jelly Rolls and Jelly Fish

 Last Saturday was "National Jelly Roll Day.".. who knew? We were all supposed to pull out our Jelly Rolls and quilt something. Did you?

I'm as much a precut fan as anyone, but I have to say, the Jelly Roll is not my favorite-- it's all about the pinked edges. With charm squares and layer cakes, you can cut the fuzz off-- (that sounds like a swear--  heehee.) Not so with these strips. If ever I need a 2-1/2" strip, I just cut it out of fat quarters!

The only Jelly Rolls I have are from my Fat Quartershop Sew Sampler subscription... in the name of moving excess fabric out of here, I decided to unroll them. This roll came from a box over the summer-- the fabric is super cute and colorful-- it deserves to be out of my closet.

It's perfect for this "Snickerdoodle" pattern from the "Perfect Five Quilts" book. It's meant to be made from charm packs, but the base units are all 2-1/2" wide so I figured my strips would work. 

 I

I did get sixteen red snickerdoodles made. As I sewed them together, I tried to use the outside of the pinked points as the "edge"-- it works well enough, but it's not the super high degree of accuracy I usually love. I had to trim them down a bit. I'll soldier on.

Unfortunately, the day after "National Jelly Roll Day," Mr. SFO declared "National Seal Your Own Driveway Day." Instead of telling him to cut the fuzz off, I agreed to help. Our first house was a fixer upper-- pretty typical in the day of Bob Vila's "This Old House." The house we're in now is newer, but starting to need some things-- it was fun to relive our youthful home improvement days and the driveway did come out nice. I'm a lot more sore than I ever remembered being though!

Here's a finish I had this weekend-- this The Pattern Basket's new Sunflower Seeds pattern.

I mixed up quite a few of my favorite things-- Kim Diehl's Sage and Sea Glass fabric-- some Basic Grey-- and the orange fabric came from a Halloween collection. I love Margaret Languedoc's patterns-- this is the first one I've ever bought, though-- it came together perfectly. I'm thinking of going back for more-- I've had my eye on one of her bird patterns forever.

I'll even show off the back...

So you probably noticed I'm on a table runner jag and this is why--  I need longarm practice!

The longarm is so fun and so addictive, it should probably be illegal. I was able to complete this in a couple of hours, instead of throwing it into a drawer for four years. Mostly I am just stitching in the ditch and doing a little ruler work-- freemotion is still kind of hard for me, but it's coming along and ultimately what I want to be doing. I'd love to get to the point where I could just help my local quilt guild get charity quilts finished easily.

So that was my weekend-- looking forward to digitizing Stitches of the Sea this week-- I must have Jelly Rolls still on the brain-- it's going to be a Jellyfish!

xox

Carol

High Flying Geese!

When last I left you, I had just returned from the lake to my next BOM quilt in the mailbox!

Block of the Month quilts are just like sugary treats: once on the lips, forever on the hips. It only takes a second to hit that subscribe button, and you are on the hook for twelve months! This is Corey Yoder's Holliberry fabric Christmas quilt-- it passed before my eyes a few times before I succumbed. But I've always wanted a Christmas quilt on my bed, so no buyer's remorse... yet, anyway.

It was supposed to start in July, but shipping got delayed a bit so I didn't get my first month until September. I'm very good at starting projects, and so I dived right in!

Like many designer quilts lately, it's built on half-square triangles and flying geese, using that method where you draw a pencil line across on the diagonal. My lines just never seem to work-- especially on the geese-- and one of my Frivols quilts I have been working on recently was really disappointing in the way it came together-- and that is after I did a really good job on those pencil lines.

I tend to wake up at night and start worrying over things-- it helps me get back to sleep if I think about my beautiful sewing projects. One night I was lying awake at 3am thinking over the world situation, but instead, turned my thoughts to quilts and in that happy place between awake and asleep, I thought up a great way of making half square triangles. I now chide myself-- if I had kept on worrying, I might have come up with the answer to world peace. Oh, well-- this is all I got, people, but I do think it is pretty clever! It's a fairly unusual occurence when I think of a way to make something easier instead of more painstaking and time consuming.

I was excited to try it the next day. So I cut my squares, and instead of the pencil line, I just pressed my pieces across the diagonal-- wrong sides together. It is much easier that way to get the line where it needs to be-- you can match the top and bottom corners up perfectly. 

Lay the folded patch right on the corner of the base unit-- the is the beauty of this method now-- you can see exactly how it is going to fold. If you are trying to get stripes to go a certain way, always requiring impossible mental gymnastics...no surprises!

Now just open it back up, without moving it, and pin out of the seam line. The pins are really needed to flatten the patch back out at this point.

Instead of stitching on a pencil line, I'm stitching on a crease. Yes, it's correct to just stitch a hair to the left of the line to allow for the turn of the cloth, but staying ON the line is hard enough for me these days, so that's what I did.

Then just cut the seam allowance off-- it's already pressed!

I did the same thing on the other side, and voila!

So this is the great Triumvirate of the Flying Goose-- first, you have 1/4" from the point to the edge. Second and third, the diagonal seams are coming right into the corner at a 45 degree angle. Not to mention, that it's exactly 1-3/4" by 5" like it was supposed to be in the directions-- no expensive ruler or trimming step required.

Block #1 came out SUPERB...

all my points on the edges are on that 1/4" sweet spot!

...and that's a good thing, because I barely finished it when I got noticed that Block 2 is on the way-- I guess now that the shop has the fabric, they are trying to get us back on schedule? I'm not sure I appreciate that... one month in and I'm already behind!

...and to further complain-- there was enough fabric in Month One to just about make another block-- here are just some of my extra pieces. So I thought I'd make myself a "bonus" block each month-- hee, hee-- why be behind on one UFO when you can be behind on two?

Stay tuned!

xox

Carol

Life is better at the lake...

I snuck away for a little birthday girl getaway at Lake Winnepesaukee last weekend. Did you miss me?

You might wonder why, when you live on a lake, you would visit a lake for vacation... yes, I kind of wondered about that, too.

The reservations were kind of last minutesy, but I got a couple of nights at a really beautiful resort in Meredith, NH, called the Inn at Mill Falls. Our room was in the building to the far right, (Location: 14), and as it turned out, all the action was at the building to the far left, (Location: ONE) but it was beautiful walk over there along a boardwalk-- you can see it in brown below. 

The grounds were just gorgeous-- you know how I love gardens!

 

This feature definitely got a lot of use! 

But, it was honestly just too beautiful outside to try this one.

I wonder if this is a popular place in the winter?

Our building had the advantage of being closer to the little town--

there were all sorts of shops, none of them chain stores, which is pretty unusual in this day and age. I wish I had taken more pictures of this, but I was too busy... shopping!

Our hotel was on "Meredith Bay,"-- it's just a tiny finger of the lake, so the second day, we decided to drive around part of the larger lake. The WHOLE drive is a long way... ninety miles, and believe me, you can't drive it at sixty miles an  hour, so we just took a little spin 45 minutes south and back.

They had "Scenic Overlooks" along the way-- but we should have known, when no one was parked at them, we were getting snookered! I know the trend is NOT to mow down trees in this day and age and I understand that, but the greenery was so tall and full, I had to stand on top of a rock on my tippy toes to get this picture!

When you look at a map of the coastline, I'm not sure a sweeping view across the lake exists anyway.

Honestly, nothing about the entire trip could have been disappointing-- with my beautiful sister and my daughter, we were just laughing the entire time!

For dinner both nights, we went to this restaurant with a camp theme-- it was decorated like a lodge. Again, I wish I would have taken more pictures of it, but I was too busy.... EATING!

 

The colorful jet skis had our names on them-- but alas, time ran out.

I hope you enjoyed the trip! I'm not a big traveler, but after being stuck at home, I can't say enough how I enjoyed this little road trip... maybe there are adventures beyond what the sewing room offers. So who knows, when this crisis is over, I might be boarding that big ol' jet airliner!

This was our last big night, at the Tiki bar on the bay-- 

definitely a happy ending...

 But also, another happy ending when we returned home-- my new Block of the Month has arrived!

Happy trails!

xox

Carol