More of the Same

Avery's pillow was finished and mailed to his grandma last week.

Now I'm covering a wrap skirt with sequins. It would be easier to just make a skirt with the sequin fabric, but that's not what I'm being paid to do, so covering it is.

The design team now has 39 Christmas trees [nine 7.5', fifteen 4.5', and fifteen table top], 9 "hearth and home items [centerpieces, etc], and 4 wreaths designed. I've excited because this is the first year I've designed a tree! It's boxed up and ready to be put together.

Lastly, I noticed a visitor yesterday and snapped a picture.

That's all for this week. I need to get back to the sequin insanity. See you next week!

Glitter, Sewing, and Baking

It's that time of year again. Time to start planning and decorating for Festival of Trees. I've come home many days now, covered in glitter. But the shop is ready for us to start designing tree themes now.

I'm almost done with the little pillow for my sister's impending grandson. Just need to cut the back sections and put everything together.

And finally, I tried out a new recipe last night for cream cheese brownies. It's from America's Test Kitchen, we have the giant recipe book, and... WOW! So good! Someone (not me) couldn't wait for them to cool all the way before he stole a wee bit off a corner.

That's all for this week. How everyone is staying cool in the heat!

These Shoes Were Made for Sleepin'

Once again I'm not going to show off the chevron quilt progress. FH and I found out his grandmother was feeling well enough to make the trip to meet her new great-grandson, so we headed south so we could see her too. Well worth skipping over the chevron quilts again.

I did finish a fun project for our little nephew.

They are already almost too small! He's got big feet for a baby his size. Takes after his daddy and his uncle. ;-) They both had gigantic tootsies at birth as well.

But his mom and dad both love those iconic sneakers and think the booties are adorable.

Time to rest up so I can do laundry and try to get the quilting on the last chevron done tomorrow. I'm going to try and have the binding made and machined on before Thursday night. We'll see how well that works.

Until next time!

Baby Steps

Our new nephew was born quite healthy, if a tad disgruntled at being evicted from his warm apartment, on Monday afternoon. For anonymity purposes, I'm calling him "Mr. J" in the blog. Yes, that's a comic book reference. His parents would be proud. ;-) Speaking of his parents, they are quite besotted with their bundle and the three of them are a gorgeous family.

I'd been working on some things for wee Mr. J, but only a few were done in time for his early arrival. A set of three little washcloths. I found the pattern on Ravelry.com. I'll note that I skipped the edge stitching.

Still need to play catch up with his crocheted booties. I did have several pair of fleece booties for him though. They've been hanging out in the gift stash for ages.

After I drove home on Wednesday, I had a paint night event to attend. I'd signed up weeks ago when we thought FH would be out of town on business. Lucky break he wasn't or else I'd have needed a friend to look after the cats and bunny whilst I was gone. Instead of the adorable cartoonish kitten in the original sample, I decided to go for a more realistic cat. Of course it's Artan. I picked this event because the original kitten was black. Not bad for someone who's only ever sketched cats before.

Thursday it was back to the grind of laundry and housework. Currently the workroom/studio has spilled out into the house even more, so working on it counts as housework. I rediscovered a box full of tiny magazines that were cut from an issue of some miniature magazine back in the late 1990's. They were cut and folded, but somehow never got any further than that. During a break to rest my increasingly irritable knee, I glued them closed and tossed them into the 'Books and Magazines" container.

My new desk for the studio has yet to be delivered. FH and his boss were going to haul it over on Monday, but the boss had a family issue come up. Hopefully we can claim it soon... it's a cast off from FH's work and perfect for what I need. 

On Friday I finished the quilting on one of the chevron quilts, but I neglected to get a picture. I post about it and progress on the other chevron quilt next week.

See you all then!

Many Irons

In a complete contrast to last week's frustrations, many things have been going right. So much in fact that I had to make the decision to leave out pictures of the gardens' progress. Otherwise this post would take up lots of time and be saturated with photos. There are enough project pictures to choke bandwidth for anyone still using dial-up as it is...

Let's start off with miniatures! I have a few more quilt bolts for the shop. In this top picture, the dark brown bolt is a leftover from a project. The others were purchased to fill in the yellow, orange, and brown selections.

 In this photo, the bolt in the middle was bought specifically for the quilt shop. But it's from a line of fabrics that I purchased yardage of in other fabrics to make a quilt... so I don't feel very guilty about it. ;-) The other two are project leftovers.

Also the mini group project this week was hydrangeas. I made one of each color offered. The pink one still needs leaves though.

We "cheated" and used a punch for the flowers and the punch was 6-petaled and not 4-petaled. So we all have mutant hydrangeas. Made our lives easier for the two hour long meeting though!

Next up is me trying out my new prairie point guide with some extraneous fabric from my stash. I wanted to figure out the folds and cuts on fabric that wasn't purchased for the quilt I'm practicing the technique for. The results are pretty spiffy!

I did get the scrappy border on the other flag wall quilt this week. I'm very pleased with the results.

My healing shoulder got a bigger workout and I finally got this baby quilt quilted and halfway bound!

It's only been waiting since last fall... the baby in question is at the proto-crawling stage and loves to get hugs and kisses. He's a very happy boy. I can't wait to see his reaction to the different colors.

Now I'm working on a pair of quilts for twin boys born almost two weeks ago. The nursery is decorated in navy blue and white with chevrons.  I chose a larger quilt design and cut the squares half the size required. I'm getting two quilts for the same yardage this way. The blocks stored in the bag are actually in the order for the layout. The other stack is for the second quilt.

 And here's the layout for the first quilt. Not the best picture as it was taken last night when the light was bad. The second quilt's layout will be the same except I'm turning the blocks 180 degrees so the bottom becomes the top. I want the tops to be slightly different but these colors were difficult to get balanced. 

And that's it! Today I'll be piecing the chevron quilt tops and hopefully piecing the backs as well. I'm hoping I'll get to the quilting on at least one of them into the coming week. I also have that quilt to piece which require six width-of-fabric rows of prairie points! There are a few other UFO quilts waiting on their quilting too. Let's see how far I can get this week!

Cloth and Sandwiches

FH and I spent parts of this weekend trying to clear some of the natural detritus from the yard. After I tore up my shoulder and back, I obviously couldn't do yard work and he was too busy trying to keep up with the indoor chores and working full time. So now we're playing catch-up. One thing we wanted to do last fall was lay down landscape fabric in the beds that didn't have much growing in them to cut down on the weeds. We finally got to start that job today!

The lowest bed is waiting to see where the hostas are going to pop up. Then we'll work around them while they're small. There's a whole other set of tiered beds like this that needs work on the other side of the deck. Not to mention the giant bed of lilies that turns into a jungle come mid-summer. But it's a start!

Remember that air dry clay that wasn't Model Magic? I tried playing with it last night to see how well I could sculpt with it.

It's difficult to see, but there is a crack that goes clear around the tree trunk about halfway up. Methinks this clay's not meant for finer detail.

And then quilt sandwiches. I now have many sandwiches ready to be quilted: 2 large lap/full-sized quilts. 2 baby quilts, diaper bag panels, and 2 runners.

I actually missed the picture of one of the larger quilt sandwiches, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

That's it for this week. Hopefully I'll get finished with some minis in the coming week. I'll probably be inside working on them tomorrow since it's supposed to rain/snow/sleet tomorrow. Ugh. I think Mother Nature must be going through menopause or something. Anyways, ttfn!

Napkins, runners, pieces, and a baby quilt

In contrast to last week when I didn't have much to show, many things were worked on this week. First up are my fruit basket napkins. I've had two of the fabrics (blueberry and blackberry) for a couple of years and finally picked the basketweave and other fruits this summer. However they were sidelined in favor for doing projects for other people. 

 I also finished piecing the "Holiday Mystery Runner" from a Facebook group I belong to.

 It still needs sandwiched for quilting.

This runner took a front seat as it's an anniversary gift for a family member that we'll be seeing at Thanksgiving.

 There are also coordinating napkins that I started Friday, but I'm waiting on more of the silver leaf fabric to arrive.  None of the local quilt shops still had any in stock, so I had to order it online. These are the eight I've cut and started sewing already. They need trimmed, turned, and top-stitched still.

I also started some autumn napkins for myself. They're currently in the same state as the napkins pictured above.

There will be a runner like the black and red one too, but I forgot to get a picture of the cut pieces. I do have a picture of the coordinating placemats that I pieced. There are two of each.

A couple of years ago I designed a quilt top to sew for my dad. I finally figured out how I am going to do the background and cut the fabric for it. One hundred and eighty 5.5" squares in white-on-white tonal fabrics. I still need to cut the pieces for the main blocks.

Finally here is the quilt top a friend and I finished Saturday night. A mutual friend is expecting a baby girl in January and we wanted to make something for them. The mother-to-be likes deer and the nursery is going to be green. We've got a matching diaper bag in the works too. 

We're going to sandwich this quilt and another one later today. The plan for the deer quilt is I'll do the quilting and my friend will do the hand sewing on the binding. We both worked on the piecing Saturday. I made the blocks and put them in rows, then she sewed the sashing and borders. We also managed to get the center of a quilt she's been working on pieced on Saturday and some rows added to a second one she's been slowly piecing. Not sure if we're going to work on either of them again today or not.

Hopefully next week I'll have pictures of the quilting on several pieces to show you. Until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful week and a Happy Thanksgiving!

Forth Time's the Charm?

I tried three times to post this yesterday and I kept getting error messages when I tried to add photos.

Last Tuesday I cut the pieces for the Holiday Mystery Table Runner and put together the first clue, i.e. the sashing.

Wednesday I made myself finally start piecing yet another baby quilt that's been cut and ready to go since August. I've been dragging my feet because I'm both tired of this pattern and irritated by the poorly written instructions. But soon it won't matter anymore because I'll be finished.

 The top is done and ready to be sandwiched and quilted. I'm hoping to start that today. It will be bound in the dark brown, which will frame it nicely.

Saturday I decided I'd had enough of my windows being filthy and started cleaning them. Not a smart move whilst recovering from a torn rotator cuff. I've been in pain ever since. I've also been resting since then, but I will try to work on the baby quilt today and/or tomorrow. The next clue for the table runner comes out today so I can always play with that if the baby quilt is too heavy to work on without FH's help.

See you next week, hopefully without the technical issues!