I'm back... did you miss me?

     Mr. SFO and I snuck off to Colorado just for two nights for our nephew's wedding. I'd never been there! Another destination wedding-- this month has been over the top, but we just didn't want to miss it.

     Before we left, I did get a half a week of sewing in, so I'll start with that.

     My two Flag wall hangings are completely finished-- I'm gifting them, but obviously I'll just hold them until next summer. It's time to start planning Christmas sewing, if we all expect to have anything done.

     Next up, I have my not-favorite table runner I made in April-- it's ready to be cut into an oval and bound. I drew the oval in Photoshop on a photo of the quilt to size, then printed out 1/4 of it-- you only need 1/4, thank goodness, because this thing is huge. Cat included for scale. Here is the template all taped together on top of the real piece.

    It's a little too large top to bottom even without the calico cutie on it, but I don't want to make another one and I think I can just cheat it.

     "Mom, just add a pleat here and it will be fine!"

   This is my least favorite thing I've made in awhile-- ironically, I learned the most from it! Partial seams work, if you're tired of the same old 3x4 block layouts. Oval shapes, or even rounded corners are do-able and deserve more use. And if you don't like the way your quilt came out, pick a fabulous backing and use it upside down!

    Proud to say, I'm totally up to date on my Pressed Flowers BOM-- Block 4 is in the can. Makes me realize how fast a year goes by.

    Summer Memories basket blocks are actively being worked on-- I just about have 16 of 64. Trying hard to just get this done, now that I'm committed.

   Then, since I knew I'd be flying, I prepped Prairie Meadow Block 10 of 12... almost there! I handstitched a lot of it on the plane, but there's still more to add. 

     I think Lori's blue flowers are too small, so I'm going to make them a little bigger. It will work if I move the leaves to the longer stalk. Happy to prove to myself this project is still moving ahead. On my bed, by my birthday did not happen.

    So then we were off for the weekend! Driving from the boonies to a big city airport and then flying most of the way across the country to another city to rent a car and drive back out to the boonies took some time.

   I'd never been to Colorado before-- as you can see, we didn't get the best weather! I was afraid I wasn't going to see any mountains at all. The wedding was in Fairplay-- an old mining town. They had a fun historic village which we had half a day to explore. The buildings were all teeny tiny-- we sure have gotten to be big people! Because of the threatening weather, you can see we had it all to ourselves.

I thought that was a gallows up on the hill, but it was mining equipment! Haha-- yes, I've been a little fatalistic lately.

Disney couldn't have done a better job curating this place. The thing I liked best was all the wood and brick textures in the buildings-- I took a lot of pictures of them, hoping I'll be able to Photoshop them as project backdrops!

Wouldn't this cute building make a nice cross stitch, too?

Of course, they had the dressmakers shop!
Look at all the different types of irons-- and I bet they all spit out rusty water, too, when using steam.

I got a picture of these amazing birds-- bright blue, and their tails were so long!

    Later, the wedding was at a really picturesque ranch, but it was outside, and it started to thunder and then rain. The minister had to totally skip his homily and get right to the rings-- then we all made a run for it! 

   I didn't get many pictures, because I was afraid my phone would get wet. My sister-in-law will share some later, I'm sure. I do think they're going to be super dramatic! And I don't think the bride and groom cared about the weather at all-- it was kind of fun. They took a cute picture in the pouring rain, under an umbrella.

    Before we knew it, the weekend was over and during the drive back to Denver, I finally saw my mountains. 

     At the airport, our flight kept getting delayed, delayed, delayed an hour at a time for five hours --then they boarded us on an airplane where the A/C wasn't working...

    An hour after that, we had to get off... a total of about ten hours wasted. They put us up in a hotel for the night, so instead of BEING HOME FOR MY BIRTHDAY, we still had travel ahead of us. We were all so tired.

    The next day, the crew put together this cute card for me-- I'll put it in my scrapbook! I put on my big happy face, but honestly I do feel a bit cheated. We have $400 in flight credits I totally don't feel like using.

     So that was my birthday adventure-- I am ashamed to say I haven't traveled much in life, but this confirms why. I'd rather stay home and sew, sorry.

    In the meantime, our own honeymooners are set to return from the Alps. I'll be so happy to just see their mountain pictures without having to go through an airport. Then, our big first summer at Sugar Meadow will be over--  can you believe it's almost been a year here? The breezes are getting cooler, the flowers are all gone to seed-- the next season is ready to make its debut.

xox

Carol

Twelve hours in August...

     Now that wedding plans are a thing of the past, I've entered an idyllic part of summer with no real plans and few responsibilities. Furthermore, Mr. SFO is away for the day, so I decided to treat myself to an entire day of sewing! Maybe you're at a stage in life where this is the impossible dream-- I was once in that situation with a full-time job and two kids running around the house. I promise, you will get there! Until you can have one of your own, share mine... I'm going to document my day from start to finish.

     I love a list! It's so satisfying to find one under a pile of papers weeks later and find you actually finished a couple of items. This list, however, I intend to keep in front of me all day and try to check off a few finishes I really want before the summer ends. 

1. Finish the Brick House Binding
2. Add the final border to the Mod Flower Box
3. Prep backing for Mod Flower Box
4. Sew together Let's Pop Some Corn Pillows and Backings
5. Mail out to Sara (my beloved Longarmer)
6. Make bindings for both Liberty Box Flags and stitch on.
7. Cut Sweet Acres table runner into an oval, make, and stitch on binding
8. Sandwich the Fruit Cocktail table runner for quilting
9. Make Summer Memories Baskets 

How far do you think I'll get,? With uber focus, I'm hoping to get at least some of #6 done. Lets go!

6:30 am. Up and at 'em! There's nothing like a day of sewing to motivate you to get out of bed. I always start the day with a cuppa tea and needle in hand for a little hand stitch. The Brick House quilt made with March's Sew Sampler fabric had about two sides left on the binding to hand stitch-- I have all day, but it's done by 8:30. Okay, it took two cups of tea. CHECK! This is a nice size piece-- I'm gifting it for my nephew's wedding in a couple of weeks.

8:30 am. I guess I'm too self-congratulatory and I already went sideways! Instead of moving to #2, I got distracted with my Summer Memories Flower Baskets. I spent an hour ironing and then trimming up HSTs that were lying around from last night. I am so mad at myself for succumbing to this detailed quilt-- 64 basket blocks!

     I got sucked in when the July Sew Sampler box had the perfect red, white, and blue jolly bar-- then, I realized I needed a second one, and now it appears I'll need a third one to finish all 64 baskets. So I'm about $100 into this project. The Sew Sampler Challenge to complete all 12 boxes this year is starting to get a bit expensive... I already have a hint the August box is not fabric I love, so I'm really determined to make something cheap and easy when it arrives-- I just got billed.

The Summer Memories baskets are coming out super cute, however-- I don't think I'll regret it. It seems like at least one Sew Sampler project this year should be a full size quilt-- and this is a beauty. Come back over August and September, and you can see if I'm making progress.

9:30 am. Focus, people! Actually it's time for breakfast. The chickens have been laying 7-10 eggs a day-- Mr. SFO and I have tried to keep up to no avail. It's three eggs and a slice of toast. I then take out a treat for my beautiful birds-- a squishy peach. They love me.

10:00 am. Once a week, my ol' quilty buddies from the last house and I do a ZOOM call. Lainey has two beautiful finishes-- Tere is gluing something. My tribe. >3 The calls really keep me going, now that I live in the boonies. We share our progress on stuff and a bit of wedding gossip for an hour. It's fabulous. See you next week, besties!

11:00 am. Goodness, gracious, time to get back to my list. #2 and #3 are really the same project--I realize a big time waster is going to be finding the backing fabric I purchased-- the entire house was "cleaned" for wedding company-- not good! I was able to find it quick enough. The "Mod Flower Box," redubbed the "Mod Berry Box" needs one set of super wide borders. I had to order more fabric, but it's here. No more excuses! One thing I hate is measuring for them-- you can see here, that the top and bottom of the quilt are off about a 1/4."

I split the difference, like you are supposed to, and then proceed to sew wrong sides together!

(The pretty manicure is a wedding leftover-- I'm not a girlie girl, but I could get used to it! So much nicer for photography.) At this point, I'm just getting frustrated with progress-- I power through and get three borders done before I'm starving for lunch. 

1:00 pm Back on the job. I finally get my last 6" border on. I really LOVE this thing. A very quick stitch, if you don't mind a few curves.

It's a respectable 50" x 50"-- I'm trying to think of a super dramatic place to hang it.

1:30 pm. Time to sew up a backing for it. I like to use a fabric from the same designer-- it's Camille Roskelley, but the "Sunnyside" options were a bit sold out. I found this from her "Dwell" collection at a LQS-- not totally my taste, but I do like to shop local. I honestly don't have much bigger than a fat quarter in my stash, so purchasing backings is always a major expense when finishing things. It's another detested task to cut 3 yds. in half and resew them the other way, and takes me a good hour and a half. Ready for quilting! 

3:00pm On to task #4! "Let's Pop Some Corn" was finished in January, and I promised myself it would be on my table by the fall. Not only on my table, but I also made a couple extra blocks for pillows-- my living room is gonna look fantastic! I want all these pieces quilted, even the pillow backings, so to be cost efficient, Sara the long armer advised me to sew the pillows and backings, four pieces, into one "quilt" and then cut them apart when I get them back. Smart, huh! Then I also need to piece a muslin backing for all of this. Fortunately, the tablerunner part is ready to go.

4:30pm An hour and half later, much musing has occurred about how much work and time it is to drag these quilt-y projects over the finish line-- just as much time as constructing a top. Here are my two pillows sewn together with a piece of fabric to make pillow backings. I want a really substantial pillow and the blocks are about 20" x 20" so the entire piece is about the size of a good throw. These large pieces get heavy and are super tough to measure-- I have a large table, and I'm not sure I'd know how to do it without one.

5:30pm I'm really "over" sewing large pieces together at this point. So the piece above is getting backed with muslin-- it will never be seen. The muslin I bought is 48" wide-- my long armer likes 4" all around, and it's a bit skimpy. I'm going with it, so let's hope she doesn't notice! This took me an hour, because I still had to cut it end to end and square it, and I wasted a lot of time thinking about whether or not I should add a strip to make it wider. I thought about it for longer than it probably would have taken to do.

Once in a great while, I like to throw out a tip amongst the blather to keep you coming back--heehee. So don't make a quilt that has both sides longer than 36." Why? Because fabrics are 44" wide, and if your long armer needs 4" more on each side, you are going to have to buy double the length and sew it together! It's a huge waste of fabric and pricey as well. So I haven't ever bought any of those 108" wides, but I'd sure look into it for a bed quilt. "My Ribbon Runs Through It" top is still hanging around-- I have to piece three giant pieces together for the back... that's gonna be an all day job!

6:30pm Dinner time-- I have to admit I'm really getting tired. I made up a package of ramen-- a guilty pleasure I can only enjoy when Mr. SFO is away. A little TV watching-- we love Turner Classic movies, and we recorded the dumbest movie, "Random Harvest," where a guy loses his memory and forgets he has a wife and baby. (Amnesia and time travel are two of my favorite plot mechanisms.) Anyway, the wife coincidentally finds him 12 years later and he doesn't recognize her. She decides not to tell him who she is-- she wants him to fall in love with her all over again. Plot holes abound, but the gowns are gorgeous. An hour in, and I'm still waiting for him to get another blow to the head and wake up. Time to move on.

7:30pm-- Gonna try to get another couple hours in. I did say get to #6, and I do need my next hand stitching job for tomorrow morning. First to find the binding fabric! That took a half hour. Sometimes if you order yardage from Fat Quarter Shop-- they fold it all up together-- it was wrapped inside some white snowflake yardage I bought.

I cut my binding strips to 2-1/4 for these smaller projects. 2-1/2" is a bit wide. I also don't fuss with diagonal joins-- especially here with a stripe-- okay, it's less bulky, but why start piecing diagonals when a piece is all right angles? You can also get some really bad, jarring joins, depending on the fabric, like this:

I can see that if I just sew in the middle of a stripe, the seams will even disappear.

How sexy is that?

I do trim the joins to 1/4" when done, for less bulk. Then I was able to stitch one on to one of my Liberty Box flags... 

it is now...

9:30pm and I'm officially calling it quittin' time! I got a lot of "grunt" work done today to FFO some of my finished tops-- I feel totally accomplished, but I think my next day of sewing will be more of a fun, piecing one... I'm thinking of a new blog series-- "Twelve hours in September!" It was so motivating to do this, I think I will just make it a monthly thing. 

Still there? Thanks sew much for spending the day with me-- I hope you leave feeling inspired to make a list and spend a day working your own projects forward, or if you don't have that, it's amazing what 15 minutes here and there will do. Be sure to take progress shots of your work-- it is extremely gratifying to see things coming along. 

Nitey nite!

xox

Carol

Got 'er done!

      

       Each day, the sun comes up, circles across the sky, then sets... but this one, for us, was a day like no other! Mr. SFO and I realized we passed a big milestone in life-- our children are marrying. And I have to admit, I worried over this day for many weeks-- in the end, it went off without a "hitch"-- or I guess it would be with a hitch!

      Many of you will recognize Gypsy and Fern, (also known as the artist-in-residence or the DD here) from more than a year ago, when I asked all of you to sign up for their Appalachian Trail videos. You did, and followed right through the end-of-trail proposal on the top of Mount Katahdin in Maine, xox. In keeping with the hiking love, they married at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.  In my mind, there were going to be 50 mile per hour winds and temps in the 30s with whiteout clouds rolling in and out, but if you know anything about this location, that wasn't a stretch of imagination at all. But there is no reasoning with people in love. After obsessively watching the weather for ten days, the top of the mountain, 7000ft up, was in the 60s with very little wind-- a beautiful day. 

     All of the hikers on the mountain used their trekking poles to make an arch, and Mr, SFO was able to walk his daughter down an aisle of backpacks. They found a hiking minister to perform the ceremony, a wonderful Godly man, and are now husband and wife.

    Then we all drove back down the mountain to a barn reception-- a terrifying drive to be sure, but no one fell off a cliff, as I had also imagined. It was a small gathering, but there was such a spirit of happiness and love for these two that just made everything perfect.

     I always assure people this will never be a cooking, homesteading, chicken, or travel blog, and I promise you I won't make it a wedding blog, either! I did secretly finish up an Editya Sitar "Alaska" quilt-- it's a snowflake to symbolize the White Mountains-- which we hung at the barn for them. It is a great satisfaction to me that the quilter's daughter has a wedding quilt-- on time! I don't have many pictures yet, but you can just see it in the upper right of this one.

        There-- that keeps it a sewing blog, right! 

Now that we've checked off one of life's special moments, there will be a bit of this...

...and then there is plenty of summer left to tackle a list I made of FFO's to be done,
hopefully with a lot less worrying my mind.

Thanks so much for reading-- now let's get back to our sewing machines!

xox
Carol

Maine Quilt Show 2023

 This week, I am sharing some of my favorite quilts from the 2023 Maine Quilt Show with no comment. I always wanted to attend this show, and never guessed that the first time would be as a resident of Maine! There are some very talented quilters up here-- no surprise, since we have a long winter to pass. Left feeling very inspired and vowing to have one small art piece and one large quilt in next year's show. Quilt on, peeps!

xox

Carol