Settling...

 Happy Fourth!

So I had promised myself to do a weekly journal entry this year-- I SO wanted to have (52) for 2022 listed on the right column of the blog there-- but you have to settle in life many times and this is another of them.  Struggling for once a month posting  now! (12)

Who knew that the decision to oil my kitchen cabinets would lead to then cleaning them out, painting the kitchen, then starting a bathroom refresh, then basically redoing the whole house, realizing that it’s too big for us with our now empty nest, and maybe in a year or two we’ll think about moving, to maybe that the market’s so great we should do it now.

I suspect that this was Mr. SFOs intention all along, but he gently brought me a long. So there it is. We hope to be out of here by the end of the summer.

I do HATE change-- this house is a treasure with its woods and water and I dreamed of keeping it in the family. It’s much easier to cross a bridge when you have a sweet landing spot and between painting and packing we found a new home-- I’m just going to tease you-- it’s WEST again for San Francisco Stitch Co. and it’s in the mountains. (I married and mountain man and knew this would eventually be the case.)  Woods and water abound. Also-- it’s a quilter’s home-- when we toured the house I saw the tiny log cabin quilt hanging and my heart skipped a few beats. The space for the longarm, the design wall are all there-- it already felt like home! Let’s just say there are more than a few places for gorgeous quilt photography once we get settled.

Meanwhile, mom is physically doing well, but her mind continues to slip. It’s been a challenge, but my sister is with us for about a month and her help has been amazing. We are taking it, truly, one day at a time while we clean, pack, and plan.

You might or might not be surprised but I have been doing 20 minutes of sewing a night! I finished this cute personalized  gift with a Carefree Highways design-- oh, sew appropriate for Fourth of July! I plan to make a few of these for Christmas for my family and friends with new homes or a lot of state pride. I had hoped to do a tutorial on how to make this but again, we will have to settle for nothing. It’s easy to figure out--just make the 4-1/2” design, make a star using the sizes in my free quilt pattern (link below), and the stripes are 2” finished. I embroidered the town name on a white stripe for some extra personalization. The finished size of the pillow was  a generous 20" x 20"-- perfect for an Adirondack chair! 

Then I’m also making another gift with one of my Baltimore Album designs. It was sew fun to stitch this design out from 2016, like an old friend. I am adding a flying goose border with fabrics from Fancy That Design House's first collection for Moda. They matched perfectly, and then I swapped up some of the thread colors for an even better match! You should feel free to make thread colors your own--once you buy an SFO design, it is no longer my design-- IT IS YOURS!

The Autumn Sampler is finished! I was slightly over my year anniversary of starting-- June 22. I’m hoping to bring it to my favorite Michaels for framing before we leave these parts. I stitched my name in tiny, invisible letters in the corner. At some point, I'll chart a free alphabet if you'd like to do this. 

Is it more vain to sign, or NOT to sign your work? Such was the famous argument between two impressionist painters. I sign mine-- because I, myself, am so curious about the makers behind the makes.

A Ribbon Runs Through It is unfortunately on hold. I got to 15 of 16 interior blocks before I was ALL IN on the move and packed it away. I will advise you that boxing up some stuff away from the cluttered disaster my sewing room had become really freed up the creative space in my head! So maybe I will just pull out one UFO at a time when eventually we are settled again.  We’ll see what happens with that, but A Ribbon Runs Through It will be FIRST! I have loved this stitch-a-long, and now, with this great story of adversity surrounding it, it is even more special.

Hope you are having an amazing summer! Never assume that your tomorrow is going to look exactly like your today-- enjoy every minute of it.

xox

Carol

The Carefree Highways quilt pattern is HERE.

The Swallow embroidery pattern is HERE.