Twelve Hours in May-- Part TWO

    3pm So there I was, a good eight hours into my twelve hours of sewing day. Three quilts were readied for long arm, but outside, it looked the world was ending. I had just sent this picture to my sister in Florida, and then I started to make a video for her as the rain came on.

    First, the huge 40 foot pine trees across the meadow started to sway like a stalks of grass--and just that fast, the other side of the meadow disappeared in rain and steam. Our driveway turns into a river, heading down to the lake. We have a metal roof-- so the sound track to this event is just as crazy. I wonder if my baby chickens are still there, after the wind blast. I don't think I've ever witnessed the sky open up so fully and so fast.

     Next up-- new green leaves start flying  everywhere. It reminds me of a tornado when you see all the pieces of roof flying everywhere, but thankfully at a smaller scale. I would not have been surprised at this point if flying monkeys flashed past the windows!

     Then it starts to hail. The entire front of out house is floor to ceiling windows, so imagine 10,000 crazed fourth graders throwing marbles at a pane of glass-- at this point, I retreated from the windows, because I believe the entire front of my house is about to blow open.

    Just about a minute has passed-- I’m getting it all on film! For once, once, once-- I had the camera rolling and I don't want to miss a second. So I step right back up to the window--lol. As quickly as the burst began, it starts to let up. Wow, I am shaken though! The rain is still pretty heavy-- it's transfixing. I stand and watch for about another 20 minutes. Amazingly we keep power, but the internet goes out, so my poor sister is left wondering what happened to me, and I feel very alone.

     After about 20 minutes, the rain is slow enough for me to go outside to discover the fate of my poor chickies-- and see if our cabin is still there. The chicks look a bit freaked out, but luckily they had a little area under a ramp to hide in. As I walk down to the cabin, I almost slipped and fell in the mud-- Whew! Lucky I caught myself. I would have been laying there until midnight tomorrow before being discovered. The cabin is fine-- I don’t see any trees down. The entire world is wallpapered in green leaves.

    My weather event is over. Earlier, I was feeling a little guilt after my king size Reese's treat and had decided to forgo the peanut butter cookies I was going to make. Forget that! I almost died.  It’s amazing how quickly I segued into cookie making after a near death experience. Why not?  Then I lay down for an hour and took a nap. What an afternoon.

    4pm When I woke up, I decided a walk up to the mailbox will be just the thing to restart the day. I know there are a couple of happy mails waiting! The mailbox is still there-- hee, hee.

    Last fall, my trigger finger got the best of me again, and I signed up for Fig Tree Fabric's quarterly subscription box. I am never disappointed with Joanna Figueroa's patterns or collections, and the subscription sells out fast. I had to act fast! It's a bit expensive,  but my first box is a heavy one.

     I sort through-- probably a good value for the $90 price of admission, except I already have the chalk pen, and a couple bottles of that "Flatter" ironing spray hanging around the house. I do like the fabric and the pattern, though-- unlike the Sew Sampler boxes, everything is included to make the top and binding-- I'll only need a backing fabric when it's finished.

     Tea cups are a great theme for me--someday when things quiet down around here, I'll take you on a tour of my vintage teacup cabinet from two British grandmothers. The fabric teacups are made with the new "Jelly and Jam" collection charm packs. It looks a bit labor intensive and I know I'll be putting it away for now. Maybe over the winter.

    I do like this cute panel of quilt and jam labels.

     And there's a magnet I quite like. I have a bit of a collection of these now from the various subscription boxes and a few more I purchased. I guess I could say they are a collection if they were all "collected" in one place! (sigh.)

   My Fat Quarter Shop Spooky and Sweet fabric kit also arrived. Yet, another trigger purchase from months ago. I do love Halloween! Unfortunately, it looks like a pile of grayness.

    I didn't realize the background of this project was gray-- so I checked the sneak peek photo on Fat Quarter Shop's website, and it is. I guess white ghosts on a white background wouldn't have much impact, would they? The back of the package is more promising. It's very colorful, all solids.  

     This is the Fat Quarter Shop's free yearly Halloween Stitch-a-long-- it starts in June. They moved it up this year, I guess so we'd all have more time to make it. I'm not going to be in the "spirit" or have the time for this until the fall. And I'd much rather see the finished piece before I commit-- mysteries are not for me. I'm a "skip ahead to the last page of the book" girl.

4:30pm It is now getting later and I want to salvage my sewing day-- there's four hours left before I make my twelve hour goal.  Next on the list is another backing-- no thanks! It's a Christmas quilt and I still have plenty of time before that would be needed.  I decide to pick the most fun project on my list next-- after all, I'm ALIVE!

     At the moment, the most attractive job is a new start, of course. It’s the Bobbin Blooms Sew Sampler box-- it needs to be cut-- a nice change from all the long seam sewing. 

   I used to be a cut a little/sew a little person-- since starting the big Sew Sampler Challenge, I've seen the light and hack up an entire quilt at one time. It's time consuming-- it takes me an hour and a half to do it. I don't have a big cutting table available right now, so it's a struggle working on the corner of our kitchen table. But I do enjoy cutting these days. Note how carefully those ginghams and stripes are cut-- no crooked lines for me!

     4:30pm Then it's on to my favorite part of making a quilt-- sewing up the blocks. I get all of the units together, and even a couple of the flowers in the next two hours or so.

Bonus Embroidery! While I sew, I frequently have an embroidery machine running-- here's two stitch outs I basically worked along during the day. This one you have to wait for until Christmas... it's a super-quick- two color cross stitch.

     This one is already released-- our fifth design in the Village series. I really need to make a project with one of these-- someone on Facebook commented they wanted ideas on how to use them. I'd love to get one of the Fat Quarter Shop's mounting boards, add the fabrics they are always showing, and a cute bow-- then change them out each month with magnets. I am so looking forward to decorating the new space. Mr. SFO frowns on too much decoration, but Quiltopia is going to be all mine. <3.

7:00 pm. Pooped! There's no need for dinner-- I'm still full of cookies. If this was a diet blog, I'd give you this advice-- if you are going to have a big blowout treat-- an ice cream sundae-- cake and ice cream-- a sleeve of Oreos-- just count it as a meal and skip lunch or dinner. It'll save quite a few calories. xox.

     But this is a sewing blog--I estimate I've gotten a full twelve hours of time in today. Three quilts ready for longarm, one new start and two embroidery stitch outs. Realistically, I'd need a whole week of these day to finish my list. Tomorrow, I'll probably be too tired to do anything, heehee!

     It's time to hit the showers, but I can't seem to say goodbye to my day-- I settled in for a good few hours of a new cross stitch in front of my TV.

     Thanks so much for sharing my day-- I'd love to hear if you've ever devoted an entire day to sewing... comment below! For now, it's back to working on my new studio-- the spackling ain't exactly crack-a-lackaling. :-( The first thing I'm gonna do when the DD and SIL get home from South Carolina this weekend is hand them a sanding pad!

xox

Carol

Twelve Hours in May-- Part ONE

    It’s been a good seven months since I was able to dedicate an entire day to sewing. Everyone was out of the house on this day for the first time in a long time as well, so it was a good chance to finish up some of the 99% done projects that have been hanging around my neck for a few months, mostly Sew Sampler projects. I'm gonna have to break this post into two parts-- I made amazing progress! Not only that, I received two boxes in the mail AND survived a horrific weather event. Whew, what a day! 

Here’s the List:

1. Chatterbox-- finish top and piece backing
2. Emmeline-- piece backing 
3. Hats -- piece backing
4. Christmas presents-- piece borders and backing
5. Pressed flowers-- piece
6. Maple leaves--finish border
7. Moonbeams-May Blocks
8. Tilda Jolly Holiday--gingerbread houses
9. Bobbin blooms--Start
10. Cupid box-Start

And let's begin!

6am--Handstitching. Up and at at em! It’s amazing how I can jump out of bed in the morning when a day of pleasure is at hand. I started today like any other day with a hand stitch, not on my list. It's too early to sit behind a machine.

    In a moment of itchy fingers last fall, I clicked BUY IT NOW quite a while ago to add this Moonbeams cross stitch to my Moonbeams quilt kit. (Remind me never to take a gun safety class.  With my trigger finger, I'd have the whole range shot up in a matter of seconds.) I honestly had every expectation my cross stitch kit would end up in a drawer, but the lure of the NEW got me right on it when it came in. My inability to a get more Lori Holt Prairie Meadow blocks prepped for my morning hand stitch has meant this project is sailing along... I’m ahead of schedule on ONE thing! Fat Quarter shop already showed what the finish looks like, and you can see that releases 4 and 5 are the same as 2 and 3. So I’m zooming ahead. I have even now purchased the cute mounting board to finish it-- I’m hoping for a glorious wall of assorted cross stitch in my new studio. Just one more corner to finish!

7-8 Time to sew! First up, Chatterbox. I'm tired of talking about it. This is March’s Sew Sampler box and I’m already over my four week allotment. It’s been a ton of sewing and matching points. I have all the rows just about together and just need to join them. 

     These are small 6” finished blocks, so I was forced into pressing seams open and it is super time consuming to iron them that way. It’s bulky anyway--- here’s’ a a good look at the back-- 8 seams come together in the middle. A half round pressing stick helps. 

     I’m not paying too much attention to the layout in terms of color placement-- I did a good job of mixing things up initially and want this finished. It takes a full hour to press and assemble the last row.

8-9 Chicken Duty and Breakfast  Some quilters chase squirrels- I have chickens! By 8am every morning, I try to get out to do my farm chores. Mostly this involves feeding and changing water for my 12 hens-- we do have four new babies now. Each day, I have to carry them from their “bed”-- a small brooding box, to the outside back coop area, where the bigger hens can't terrorize them.

    This new batch of girls has been extremely skittish-- they SCREAM like seagulls when I catch and and carry them out. Then the rooster gets upset-- I’m pleased he at least seems protective of them, but then he attacks me when I go in to change the water in the big coop. Last week, I brought out a grape for him as a peace offering-- he preferred a chunk of my thumb.

    Back inside. When everyone is out of the house, it’s time for some unhealthy  nice food-- I then made myself a waffle (Oops! accidentally mixed up two waffles) with lots and lots of our own homemade maple syrup. Let the energy boost begin!

9am Assemble Rows. Why should any part of Chatterbox start moving fast? Each row has 25 points to match and I pin everyone of them. Sometimes I use the timer on my phone to get a handle on how long a job will take. It takes 10 minutes to pin, 5 to sew, 5 to fix the “flipped seams” that are always such a problem with open seams,  and another five minutes to iron. That's almost a half hour per seam!

    I have a really slow and methodical way of doing everything-- things get done nicely, but not fast, and I just have to accept this about myself. There are seven seams to sew, so looks like I’ll be on this until 12!! I don’t mind-- I LOVE THIS PROJECT and it’s super happy moment to finally finish my top ahead of schedule at about 11:30. Woohoo! That moment when you layout a hard won, finished quilt is one of life's main joys.

11:30am  The Great Backing Search! Final step-- stitch together the backing I bought for Chatterbox. It is nowhere to be found. Everything in my sewing space had to be moved downstairs to sheetrock and finish the space. I have no access to most of my supplies-- 80% of it has been in an attic for the past year and a half, and the other 20% is all over the rest of the house. (I try to keep my blog posts to 49% whining-- this cuts down the hours of whining my family has to deal with to 51%-- thank you for listening and the percentages will now end. :-)  

    The search party (me) takes up a half hour of my valuable day--  I finally tag it in a box of randomness next to my embroidery machine. All my storage boxes are pretty random these days-- it does make for some nice surprises when opening. This is my set up right now-- I’m sure my mom is tolling in her grave over the use of her beautiful, mahogany side board over in the corner there. Sorry, mom. This is what I’m dealing with until my new space is ready. And obviously there is NO PROGRESS today on the spackling job still awaiting me upstairs, in my studio, today. Here is the backing fabric-- it's part of the same Sweetwater "Vintage" collection.

   More than one finish these days is just awaiting and assembled backing, if you read my list. Most of the Sew Sampler finishes are at an inconvenient size for backings-- 40-45” wide. If you send your projects to a long armer, they usually want 4” all around--that puts you a tad over the 42” width of most fabrics, so you have to buy twice the length of your quilt, cut it half and resew the halves back together along the other dimension, plus end up with a ridiculous amount of excess. Does anyone out there enjoy measuring and cutting 3 or 4 yd pieces of fabric and then sewing 4-5’ long seams? If so, come on over. I’ve looked at those 108” backings, but they are way too big for this size quilt. I did notice some fabrics are starting to come out in a 60” width. Until I get smart enough to plan for this, I'm stuck.

12:00pm-- Sew Backing Together.   An hour of sewing and the Chatterbox binding is behind me. All ready to go out the door! Only one thing crossed off the list so far, but the next three are pretty much backings, backings.

1:00-- Lunch. More favorite eats that I would never consider making for Mr. SFO-- he worked at a hot dog stand every year at a state fair during our high school years. Whenever he see me eating one, he describes how the flies would land and sizzle in the hot grease, and the sight of a hot dog makes him physically ill! I assure you, no flies were harmed in the cooking of this meal. Why would I stop making hot dogs out, just because the Board of Health didn’t shut him down?

     You can see I also have a dessert planned-- and my beloved Coke Zero. I stopped drinking diet soda before Christmas. Then, I need just something tasty to encourage myself while spackling, so I started drinking REAL soda which is not better for you. So I'm allowing myself of case of Coke Zeros just to get me through the next couple of weeks or so.

1:30pm -- Another Backing. My Dulce backing gets cross off the list. This one is a gift for a new little lady-- it's the December Sew Sampler box. It stitched up in no time, except for this last step took me five months. I am getting smarter in one way-- backing fabric from Marden's at $5.99/yd. Isn't it just perfect?

2:30pm-- And another!  Haberdashery backing. I tried to get a 60" wide print of Lori Holt's Mercantile fabric to match, but it was sold out, so I picked this print a couple of months ago. $11.99/yd and tons of waste. You can see it below. So I'm only shopping Marden's for backings now. It is really fun to sort through their shelves and you will absolutely find the perfect one. 

Three all ready for long arming.   Then...

3:00pm Microburst. I knew we were going to have thunderstorms today-- I love a storm! Awesome--no feeling guilty for not being outside today. So I noticed the sky started looking really weird. I’ve been photographing the whole day, so my phone is right at hand and I snap a shot and send it to my sister in Florida-- she also enjoys a good storm. I didn't notice till later, but it appears the devil's horns are in the middle of that picture-- do you see them, just to the right of our pump house? I still cannot figure out what that is.

     Oh, I know... it's a  cliffhanger! Will we be in OZ in a few minutes? Is it the END for my twelve hours of sewing day? STAY TUNED!

xox

Carol

Getting What I Deserve...

      Another light sewing week, although a few things got an hour here or there. After sheet rocking my entire studio in a lightning fast two days, everyone on the homestead has had to get back to their day jobs and the project started to languish!

     I decided to put in three or four hours on my own every day. To those of your who aren't crazy DIY construction fans, the next step is to add drywall tape over all the cracks and make sure all the screws are recessed. To make it more fun, I pretended this was a jelly roll:

     This was a rotary cutter:

     And these were pins.

   
     Attitude is everything, isn't it! When Mr. SFO came up to check on me, I decided to radiate positivity amongst the dust, debris, and dead lady bugs, and told him I was really enjoying listening to the rain and doing something different for a few hours. Without missing a beat, he looked at me so lovingly and in all seriousness said:

"You deserve it, sweetheart."

     So here I am, getting my just deserts. The weekend was filled with some other gardening activities, but I am a bit of an unstoppable force and will continue putting in what my body permits over the rest of the merry month of May-- three coats of spackle, three sandings. I got this!

     I try to put a couple of hours into digitizing every morning just to give myself some wakeup time, but also some time to convince myself to go upstairs. For the longest time, I've wanted to make a perpetual calendar of some sort, and I have a great bowl filler set started for June. It's called "Celebrate."

     Instead of a holiday, this is for all those little private milestones we have in life-- like a birthdays or anniversaries. So we have the word "Celebrate," and then a cake, or course! If you know me, you know I love a sweet-- I'm thinking of doing an alternate colorway for a chocolate cake.

    Then we have a set of plain numbers. That is the best part of this set. You can use your numbers to display a person's age on their birthday, or the number of years for an anniversary. You could also combine the numbers with your previously stitched Monthly bowl fillers, and change it out each day-- for instance, use "MAY," the "1," and the "4" for today. That gives you a perpetual calendar. There's probably many other things you could do with the numbers-- like "2025" for the next New Year's Eve. So that's my sales pitch. I, myself, would love to change this our every day on my desk. I'm always wondering what the date is!

     This is all digitized, but needs to be tested-- one thing I am ahead of in life is bowl filler ideas, and we are up to June, so I'm just simmering it right now.

      Then I also have this complete-- it's the 12th installment of my "ABC" series-- Gardening! It's also ready to test stitch.

     I very much have gardening on the brain right now. Maybe next week I will show you everything that's growing on Sugar Meadow! Can a baking design be far behind? 

    The Village of the Month is underway.
It is the SEWING VILLAGE!

    The Village of the Month is very challenging in terms of organizing the space into a landscape and this one is especially difficult. Do you have any ideas on what sewing items should be in my vista? We already have pincushion mountains, scissor trees, and a button sun. For the saying, I'm thinking of "My Happy Place." Comment if you have an idea. I wanted to do this before we get into the summer villages, like the lake and ocean-- where would you like to "visit" this summer?

     So a lot of cross stitch-- I know some of you are not interested, but it's just easy right now, with the slave labor camp I have going upstairs. I also just moved everything over to a new computer, which is now done-- Phew! I love it. I had to drive all the way to Bangor to pick up the new digitizing software which is not sold online-- it was a scenic drive, and I want to share that with you soon, too. Did you know Benedict Arnold went up the Kennebec River to attack Quebec, before he was a traitor? I passed where he traveled. Did you know it's harder to transfer your software to a new computer than to boat troops upstream on the Kennebec in January? So I'm glad this is behind me.

     Finally, the sewing portion of my week. The poor reindeer are languishing-- sorry, Sara, my stitch-a-long pal! I WILL catch up!

    But I am halfway to catching up on the Moonbeams sew along-- got four of these queued up for final assembly--

     And the matching cross stitch is way ahead of schedule!

 And I didn't buy this, this week:

    The Red Little Posy Wreath has been on my wish list since I first saw it months ago. It has lately occurred to me that I need to think more about the 20 hours it will take to make a thing, then the millisecond it takes to order it. My friends, I don't know about you, but I feel that once in my new space, all those UFOs are gonna be FFO'd. I, for one, do not think I have yet reached that tipping point where I cannot finish all my projects in this lifetime. BUT-- while last week my new space really had the creative juices flowing-- this week, I'm exhausted from all the up and down on ladders and I'm just thinking about putting a couch and a TV up there!

    So that's my world-- summer is coming on fast here, with everything springing back to life. It's time to be part of it. I think it's probably a natural cycle that sewing slows down and rests for a season.

   But not for too long, right?

xox

Carol

 

Big Things are Happening!

      A TON of progress this past week-- just not on sewing...

but my new creative space has walls!

Here's the "before"...

So, just to NOT have disgusting insulation raining down on my head is a huge improvement... I'd move in now if they let me!

All this was accomplished in two days with five twenties-something people--

all I had to do was provide food and you can bet no one was left hungry.

We're kind of back on our own for the spackling and sanding-- yup, three coats, but I'm hoping in six weeks to be all moved in! I'll show you progress as we go along-- it may be a bit of a light month for new embroidery releases and sewing, but just seeing the potential of a new organized space is really getting the creative juices flowing!

I did get a little sewing done on the nights when I didn't feel DECEASED...
All 64 of these blocks are together on the Chatterbox quilt-- I only laid out a few here so you can get the gist of it.

     I really LOVE this thing-- it was so much more work than it appeared-- and I still have to sew the blocks together. I'm thinking of gifting it to my son, who will destroy it-- but he's my patriotic one-- what do you think, should I? Giving it to him is the diametric opposite to having it sit in a closet for 20 years.

     While I didn't get the Moonbeams Release 2 quilt blocks done in April, I got Releases 2 and 3 done on the Moonbeams Cross Stitch!

     We weren't supposed to do that lower right corner yet, but from the picture you can see it's the same bird. I just need a little help on the placement of the tree, or it will be upside down.

     Release 3 is now out-- it's the quilt blocks in the upper right. That really gives you the whole pattern, because it's also repeated in the bottom left corner. So I'm just going to continue along with this at night and first thing in the morning until it's finished. If I APPLY myself, I could be done ahead of time. This is the Fat Quarter Shop's Make-a-Wish project-- it is not free-- they are looking for a $20 donation for the cross stitch and $50 for the quilt design. Don't forget! It is so hard to raise money right now-- they are doing a great job. Click the links below and join them-- it is a lovely project!

DONATE HERE

DOWNLOAD THE CROSS STITCH AND QUILT PATTERNS HERE

 Of course, even though there's no time to sew, there's plenty of time to just click a button and order more stuff, isn't there! Here's a package from the Fat Quarter Shop this week. 

   I wasn't going to get this board to display my finished Moonbeams Cross Stitch on, but I really love how it's coming out. I'm hoping for a WALL of finished cross stitch in my new studio!

   I've been eyeing Cathe Holden's fabrics for a couple of years-- she has a bit of a Tim Holz, scrapbooky look-- I just love it. This fabric is going to be hard to use, though. It's called "Curated in Color" and has all the colors of the rainbow and brown. Fat Quarters are a bit out of reach for me financially these days, so I'm thinking the layer cakes may be a good option from now on-- they are about $40 instead of $140 and you have enough to make something a decent size.

    Then the last thing I bought is this finishing kit for the April Sew Sampler Box. I may just put this away for now-- I'm getting more and more behind as Chatterbox has taken so long, and the Cupid Box really hasn't been touched yet. I just don't need the self-imposed pressure right now. It's just going to be a big help to drag some of these project across the finish line when I can spread out.

I still don't have my six reindeer for April finished! Three are done, then the three facing the other way are almost there. It would only take a half hour to finish them-- that's one of my top excuses for UFOs-- they are "almost done," which I frequently confuse with DONE!

 This is from the "Quilt Kits I Didn't Buy Last Week" department--

isn't it marvelous!

      Does it remind you of anything? Here's a clue:

     Yes! This is Wendy William's "Licorice Allsorts" BOM. I'm not a Licorice fan at all, but the colors in that quilt are delicious-- it also has some hand embroidery-- which I could quickly convert to machine embroidery to get it done. It also checks the nostaligia box for me-- my mom and dad were from Scotland, and it's a British candy they both enjoyed. Half of my family tree is still in Scotland, and I had greataunts galore, people I never met, sending me British candy as a kid. Occasionally, I still find an AERO bar (flaky chocolate) or a CURLY WURLY (long, braided caramel dipped in chocolate) in the international aisle of a grocery store. 

    So I haven't clicked the button on that one yet-- but I can't seem to "unsee" it. 

     That was my week-- I may skip a week of blogging here or there over the summer, depending on whether or not I have any sewing to talk about! Just know that I am here, inching my way along on all fronts, and that my heart is with all of you, my sewing friends.

xox

Carol