The Year in Review

     Sew it was my New Year's Resolution to make twelve table runners this year. How am I doing? The year is officially 3/4th over, so I thought I'd take a minute and take stock... 

January: Fig Tree Burgoyne Tablerunner

I dove in and pulled this first thing from a Little Box of Figs subscription I had a couple of years ago. I love Fig Tree fabrics-- but the kits quite honestly were hit and miss-- mostly miss as this is the only one I made. It was fun to get a surprise in the mail four times a year, but honestly Fig Tree is now releasing their Little Box of Figs patterns after the fact, so you can decide if you like a thing first, and use your stash fabrics for it. I switched back to Fat Quartershop's Sew Sampler Box this year-- it's every month, and you get a bigger variety of designers over the course of a year. It's also very reasonable in cost.

Good news! This is actually quilted and just in need of binding! I want to have it for Christmas-- red is such a good color for Christmas-- if you like to leave your things up for quite a lot after the fact, red can take you right into Valentine's Day. That is my decor tip of the day!

February: Sew Sampler Box Fast and Flurrious

Well, that opens the door to talk about my Sew Sampler box project! This one was actually from last November-- clearly, I like my boxes to simmer for awhile. I LOVE this Cider fabric-- I LOVE most of what Basic Grey puts out. If you know me, you know I use their Grunge fabrics which are actually so scrumptious as a texture under machine embroidery. So each new fabric collection has three or four new Grunge colors, and I love seeing what they are. This collection had a new orange, a gold, and a fabulous denim color.

I managed to get a table runner and two pillows out of the honeybun that was in the box, and you can see EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY DONE, has been on my upstairs coffee table for months, and now the color scheme, fall, is appropriate for the first time this year-- YAY!

March: Double-wide Dresdens

This pattern was from another Sew Sampler box in 2018-- but at the time, I really didn't understand what it was. Then I saw pictures on Instagram of these dresdens, and in a rare moment of serendipity, instead of buying the template again, it not only dawned on me that I had it, but I was actually able to find it. 

You stitch an entire charm pack together-- then cut it all apart-- which was as satisfying a thing to me as ever was. Only a quilter understands. So all would be well that ends well, except we don't have an ending yet-- all four are stitched up, but still need to be sewn together and I want to make a scrappy piano key border out of an extra charm pack I have. So that's still on the list but I'd love to have this for Thanksgiving. We got a shot!

April: Scrappy Carrots

This was for San Francisco Stitch Co. Everyone loved this as evidenced in sales (thank you!) and I now have an acorn version in the works. Totally done-- EXCEPT-- I would go back and free motion swirls behind the carrots, only I am afraid of ruining it. More on that later.

May: Pears

I was so pleased with my Fig Tree pears, and I even pulled a pear pattern out of my hat. This is a gift, and THIS NEEDS TO GET FINISHED in time for Christmas. So here's another instance where I am afraid of ruining it. I have the longarm, and I hate to say it, but I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I should have spent the money. Longarm time is not happening in my life as much as it should. I clearly have too many obsessive hobbies. Do you know that I take a guitar lesson every week? My teacher, half my age, LECTURED me on the practice time I (am not) putting in each week. How humiliating was that! 

Where, where, can we find more time, people? Without any area suffering? Does my family need to eat?

These are the questions I ask myself frequently in the fall.

June: Thank You for your Service

So this one was a bit of a cheat--I had extra blocks made from a Quilt of Valor that I did with two friends. I cleverly arranged that we would complete it at my house, and so the extra blocks remained here. (Months later, I did ask if anyone else wanted them, to be fair.) So these got sewn together, I birthday--gifted it as a flimsy, joking that my recipient "would see it again at Christmas." (finished, hee, hee) Now that a bad joke is about to become true, I am promising myself this will get loaded to the longarm THIS WEEKEND. I think just some simple wave quilting would get it done-- does everything have to be SEW FANCY? No.

July: Three Blind Cats

Thank God-- it's a success story. This was stitched, quilted, and gifted months ago. YAY!

I even embroidered shut eyes on the cats but I guess I didn't get a picture of that. This went to a really sweet person who took in blind kitty cats-- since they could never see, they have never missed it, and I hear that they get on just fine. <3

August: Snickerdoodle

This was a big WIP from last year. I started last year on National Jelly Roll day and finished this year on National Jelly Roll day. That's a year of jelly-- I still don't like Jelly Rolls. There is too much squaring up of units-- like, just cut your dang strips from yardage to 2-1/2" wide and you will spare yourself the extra time these are supposed to save you. Lots of squished points and mismatched seams in this one. I'm perfectly happy to have it folded on a shelf until the next baby or new home is on the horizon. Let's consider it DONE for now. I'm DONE. I can tell you that. It's a hard thing for me to say I didn't enjoy working on a quilt, but there you have it.

September: Bats and Boos

This is Fat Quartershop's free Halloween stitch-a-long-- after week two, I couldn't resist. September is over, but it is not-- that middle block is photoshopped (I was testing colors) and I'd love to hand applique some pumpkin leaves. Pumpkin leaves are a really pretty shape if you've ever noticed. I'm hoping I can cut them out with my new Cricut-- yet another gadget I'm not sure is paying for itself-- though I did cut all the pieces for these blocks on it!

So here's the Checklist:

Burgoyne Binding

Dresdens

Quilting- Pears and Thank You for Your Service

Bats and Boos-- finish

That's actually not as bad as I thought-- and I'm going to tackle it. Technically I have three months of tablerunners to go, but frankly, the Snickerdoodle could have counted as FIVE table runners if you count the rows. It would be fun to go over my master list of projects and think about any others I'd like to finish this year.

So that's my table runner story! I'd highly recommend taking photos of your work on your phone as it comes along all year, or to write a little blog even just for yourself-- to keep things in perspective-- to enjoy the accomplishment-- to keep things moving along.

xoxo

Carol

Summer of 2021

 It's time to say goodbye to summer as the equinox nears on the 22nd! Always such a bittersweet time of year, especially this year, as I celebrated a BIG birthday!

I guess I would have liked to keep it a secret, but I am always so bad at keeping them myself. So here I am, a few lines in my face and a grey streak, but still alive and sewing! I tried to flip the birthday numbers around, but all I could get was 90-- so I'm sticking with what I have.

For my birthday, I asked for a tiara-- my sister got me one, and I was able to wear it for most of the party (also provided by my sister <3) until my head got squeezed too much. Mostly, I got many, many flowers-- that is one of the best reasons NOT to keep your birthday to yourself! These were from my neighbor-- who as she presented them to me said, "Yellow is for friendship!"

Then my good friends from my quilt guild brought me a rose bush-- also in yellow, and also said, "Yellow is for friendship!" There must be some significance to hearing this twice in two days, and I'm still not sure what it is, but when I think about it, I want to shed some happy tears for friendship.

After the birthday, I had company for a few days! Thank goodness for company, or nothing would ever get cleaned around here, so we went from this:

To this:

with heartfelt thanks to the artist-in-residence, who has a lot more stamina than me! And a bonus-- we were out and about so much with our guests, it has actually stayed that way!

That is one of the peculiarities of living in a touristy area-- when company arrives, you go to places that you would never think of going anytime else! Here is the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor...

The Cape Cod Canal...

And even the pond down the hill from my house-- I haven't been over there in months!

We even did some fun cooking-- here are the birthday cakes and a pie-- German Chocolate and Peach-- my favorites, of course!

The artist-in-residence decided she wanted to make pickles-- that is something I would never have thought of, but it's always such a joy to do any type of adventure with this kid, so I'm always all in. The cucumbers were from a farm stand, and we cobbled together some spices from blown out grocery shelves. Who knew, but I am going to have trouble settling for jarred pickles anymore-- they were amazing!

Not much sewing got done, but before company came, I only had the borders to put on my Coriander Christmas. I'm hoping to get that done this weekend-- a FINISH! Ta-da!

And I did have a few sweet moments each morning to work on this-- who knew, when I picked this up mid-June I would become absolutely obsessed with it?

I pretty much have the left side filled in now-- after that, there are four different things in each corner-- Harvest, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Back to School. I'm estimating each would take a solid month. I really want to get on with my Baltimore Album quilt borders-- I mean, now that it's Autumn, why would I want to work on this? I would much rather be starting a Spring project... or work on a Christmas one, at any time of year!

So I'm ready for fall-- fall is my personal New Year, when brand new #2 pencils are sharpened, sheets of loose leaf paper are fresh, and even at 60,  I'm ready to begin again.

xox

Carol

Thread Chest

I missed a blog post last week-- yes, it was PAR-TAY time as we say around here, and I'll tell you all about it next week, when I'm fully recovered. It's come to my attention that Superior is having a sale on Magnifico-- it's up to 50% off-- but you have to act by Labor Day. So here's a quick rundown of our favorite colors, if you'd like to stock up for fall stitchin!

We are blessed with this--

If you've been embroidering for years, your thread collection may be more like this--

We are not at all opposed to this approach-- all the brands play so well together in our experience. It's a good time of year to just take stock of what you have and fill in the blanks-- the goal is to have lights, mediums, and darks in the rainbow colors, and a few neutrals. 

So let's go through the Magnifico color chart-- we're pulling out about 40 of 200 that we use all the time-- and we're going to star about twelve must-haves if you're light on budget. Or as many as you "need." hehe.

The chart starts with white and black-- truth is, I would stock up on white if you need it and the price is right. Some people are loyalists--I am not opposed to any brand of white---in a pinch, I've gotten Sulky at Joann Fabric-- that's my nearest source if I am in desperate need. Black is a must have-- but honestly, it is used in such tiny portions, I don't go through a lot of it.

Now the pinks-

Growing up between two brothers, pink is never a color I learned to understand-- I'd skip all the way down to the most peachy version-- 2023, 2024, and 2025 give you the light, medium, and dark you need. And I'll just skip down to purple, another girly color I don't use much of-- 2112 and 2115 are the warmer purples I use, and 2126, 2127, and 2129 and the cooler purples I reach for. None of these I'd put in the must- have column. 

Warm colors:

Now I'm in my sandbox. 2050* is Magnifico's must-have cream. *2051 is more of a yellow. Then, I'd skip right through the rest of the yellows-- most of them are too electric, although if I need a darker yellow, I'd pick 2061.

*2054 is cheddar-- one of my absolute favorite colors. I like to sprinkle it here and there. *2041 is THE red-- only occasionally do I use a more candy apple one. *2045 is my dark red of choice.

*2068-- a beautiful gold. Then we have a range of oranges, light to dark-- 2036, 2037, 2038, and 2040. Now I am just realizing you can tell how full the spool is to see how much I use it--LOL. So 2037 is my go to orange-- I wouldn't call it a must have, because orange is not a huge color with me.

Greens--

Magnifico has a huge range of greens-- from really soft, unsaturated ones, to bluish, to bright. So I use all of them in slight measures since so much of my work had greenery in it. *2097 is a lime that may be my most used color. *2104 is basic your Irish green. And 2091 is my favorite dark, outline green. Other than that, I also use 2099 and 2100 for more subtlety with my 2097. Then I threw a warm gray into the photo-- 2182 is the best one. 

Onward to blue-- also a nice range of hues in Magnifico.

2134 is a light blue, but *2143 is THE pale blue, my go to. 2138 and 2140 represent the teal end-- you'll know these if you did Stitches of the Sea! The bottom row is a range from light to dark I use freqently-- *2161 is a must-have for me-- it's a great Royal Blue.

Then we close out with supplementary colors-- yes, we do need neutrals sometimes!

2001 is white-- then 2165 and 2167 give you a light and dark gray. 2170 is for beige (only when cream 2050 is too bright) then my range of browns from light to dark-- 2173, *2174, *2176, and 2189.

So that's a run down of MY favorite colors-- I always have to end by saying-- you'll never mis-color an embroidery design if you pick colors YOU like!

Visit Superior Threads to save on Magnifico by September 6th-- here (I'll just note that I do not get a commission on any thread purchases and we are in no way affiliated with them, so we obviously do not provide customer service for anything you do buy.)

Don't forget to visit our sale page by Monday night as well-- you can take 50% off a purchase over $50 on any designs of your choice.

SALE PAGE

xox

Carol