Month: September 2023

I can’t believe how quickly this weekend has gone by. Here I am on Sunday night and it’s nearly time to go to bed. It started raining here yesterday. It’s supposed to rain for the next five or six days. It seems too early to have the rains start, but I’m hopeful that we’ll have a lovely Indian summer once the rain leaves in a few days.

My sister in law, the one I made this Aboriginal quilt for, was in town today. When I was at her and my brother’s place a couple weeks ago she decided she wanted me to make some pillow cases to go with the quilt. So today we visited my local quilt shop that has a nice selection of those fabrics and chose a piece for the main part of her pillow cases.

We chose the same fabric that we used on the back of her quilt, and combined it with the fabrics I used for the sashing and corner stones. I had these two fabrics in my stash.

Here’s one of the finished pillow cases, modeled by my sister in law, who happens to share my exact name, except no E in Ann.

Here’s a closer view of the fabrics in the finished pillow cases.

I just love these fabrics. I mean… look at how gorgeous this one is!!!

And a closer look…

I’ve made a good number of pillow cases over the years. Here’s the tutorial I use. It includes a video.

It’s done with the burrito method, which means everything is rolled and sewn into the cuff. It starts with the cuff, the accent band, then the main body of the pillow case.

Then you roll it all up and fold up the other end of the cuff…

Then pin it all together…

Then sew that long seam.

When this was all sewn, my SIL got to turn It all right side out.

Once that’s done, you finish it all with French seams. They turn out beautifully and all the raw edges are enclosed. I love the finish on these.

Here’s some eye candy on my ironing board.

Yesterday was a day mostly of fun. I took Rico for his sheep herding lesson in the morning, The sheep were waiting for him when we got down to the field.

I hit a fabric store on the way home to look at some home decor fabrics… thinking of a table cloth my SIL wants to make.

Once home I hit my sewing room and finished up another set of napkins.

The final piece of fabric I need to finish my Libby quilt arrived on Friday. Look at all this color!

With the rain we’re going to be having this week, I should be able to finish up the corners in an evening. Might be able to get this thing put together this week. It will be a lot more time consuming without my pressing friend here.

Last night I went and played pickleball at a wonderful indoor facility. One of the pickleball clubs I belong to rented the entire facility. There are a ton of courts there so I played pretty much the entire two hours. I’m glad I got to play because there won’t be much pickleball this week with all the rain.

Our fall radio fundraising drive starts on Thursday. So a hectic couple of weeks coming up.

I dropped my friend off at the airport late this morning. Today is my last day of vacation… back to work tomorrow. It’s a wrap.

The house seems really quiet and empty tonight.

It rained a little this morning and it was cool all day. It was pretty dark by 7:30. It feels like fall is very serious this year.

After I dropped my friend of at the airport I went directly to the pickleball courts to meet my coach for two hours of drilling. My coach was in Texas visiting family the entire time I was on vacation. I only played twice in the last two weeks. So I was in desperate need of some practice and it was really good and fun to see my coach. And he worked me hard and I was exhausted after the two hours. But it felt good to work on my skills.

Two of the four pieces of Aboriginal fabrics I ordered to finish my Libby quilt arrived today.

That Etsy really over-communicates on package delivery! I think I got two emails a day about where my fabric was… so much information. And early delivery on top of it.

I still need the bright yellow piece to finish the corners. The fourth piece was just something I wanted. The yellow fabric is supposed to arrive on Saturday. I may wait to start on finishing the corners until I have that final piece.

I didn’t have a lot of oomph for sewing tonight so all I mustered was cutting out the fabric for three pairs of mitred corner napkins.

I’m messaging my pickleball coach this evening about practice tomorrow after work so it’s unlikely I’ll get much sewing done tomorrow night. Have to take advantage of the early fall days before the rain starts and have to make up for lack of practice during vacation.

My friend will fly home tomorrow afternoon. It seems like her two weeks here has gone so fast. And just like that, my vacation is nearly over.

We had a stay-at-home kind of day. After breakfast and hanging out a little, we decided to get into my sewing room and finish up the corner pieces for my Libby quilt with the black background. We were able to finish one corner, and get the three other corners finished except for one strip of fabric each. I’m expecting fabric deliveries on Thursday and Saturday and will have to do the final work on this all by myself. I will definitely miss my pressing helper.

Here’s the one corner we were able to get done.

Here’s two that still need a strip of fabric each.

All four corners are now pinned onto my portable design wall to keep them in order and out of the way until I can finish them up.

These corners have turned out nicely. With long pieces of fabric like this you need to be careful with the fabric when sewing, pressing, and just general handling. It’s easy to make them misshapen and wonky. I’m a firm believer in lots of pins in long seams. It helps me be sure not to stretch the fabric as I sew.

After getting these corners done my friend and I hit the road for a late lunch/early dinner at a restaurant in Lake Oswego, Oregon… Holy Taco. It’s one of my favorite restaurants because, well, TACOS!. We shared some chips, really good salsa and guacamole. I had a spicy Margarita, and we each had a variety of tacos. It was a really good dinner. Really tasty food and a great way to wrap up my friend’s last day here.

Once we got home and chilled out for an hour or so, we decided to hit my sewing room and finish a project that I started a few months ago.

We tossed these blocks up on my design wall and moved them around a little and quickly landed on a layout we liked. Then we started putting it all together.

These blocks are big. They will finish around 17.5 inches so this was a pretty quick finish.

Since the blocks are only 4 across and 4 down, the quilt was going to be square, and I don’t love a square quilt unless it’s a queen quilt for a bed. So I wanted to add some length but was out of the fabric I used for the blocks. So I used this fabric that I picked up in one of our fabric store visits last week. It’s a lovely batik and I love how it looks with these blocks. I added a 5 inch border on the top and bottom rows of blocks to make this quilt a rectangle.

And, once again, lots of pinning to make sure I didn’t stretch the blocks or border.

I pinned and sewed and my friend did all the pressing.

I liked these blocks when I made them, but my friend and I sort of fell in love with this quilt top when we were done.

That’s probably one of the quickest quilts I’ve ever made. And it looks more involved and complicated than it is. For those of you who don’t know, the blocks are disappearing four patch blocks made from 10 inch squares of batiks. You can find all kinds of tutorials and variations for this block on YouTube.

I’ll be driving my friend to the airport late tomorrow morning and then I’ll meet my pickleball coach for some practice. He’s been out of town my entire vacation so we’re both in need of some practice time.

We had a pretty productive day.

My day started early with pickleball at the church. I didn’t play great, which I expected since I haven’t been playing or practicing with my friend here. But I did have fun and there were some good things.

When I got home my friend and I ran a couple errands and then headed out to my long arm quilter’s place to deliver one of my quilts and my friend’s three quilts. I love looking through quilting designs for each quilt and choosing thread colors. And now I can’t wait to see all four of them done! I’ll have to wait a month.

On the way home we stopped at a fabric store to see if they had one piece of fabric I wanted. When we were leaving I was standing by the car in the parking lot and a yellow jacket got under the strap of my Chaco sandal and stung the arch of my foot THREE TIMES!!! It hurt like a sonofabitch!!! It still stings tonight.

Since I was stinging from the yellow jacket, my friend took me for frozen yogurt to make me feel better… like I’m five years old. And it did! We decided it was our lunch and a good lunch it was!

Once we got home we hunkered down and laid out the center section for my Libby quilt.

Then we chunked away at sewing and pressing all the rows. We had it done in no time.

I’m so happy with how this is turning out. It’s much brighter than I thought it was going to be.

There is one thing about this that bothers me, but it is what it is. The two red pieces that join in the corner are bothering me. I wish I had separated them better. But I’m thinking it won’t be so obvious once the corners are all on.

After a dinner of leftover salmon, oven roasted potatoes and a nice green salad with some of my garden tomatoes, we headed back into the sewing room and put together one corner for this quilt. We got it done pretty quickly.

That’s the only corner we’re going to be able to finish because I have three fabrics on order that I didn’t have enough of. One will arrive Thursday, the other two will arrive Saturday. We’ll finish what we can and then I’ll just have to cut and sew in three strips to finish the last three corners.

The biggest challenge is the I’ll have to mark and cut all the corners by myself. But it will be a little easier because I’ve already done it.

I’m really liking how this quilt is turning out. I’m glad that it’s totally different from the one we made a few days ago. It will be fun to see it all some together.

Here’s some eye candy…

Tomorrow we’ll work on the remaining three corners. We’ll probably have to find something else to do to fill the day.

My friend heads home on Wednesday and I’m back to work on Thursday. It makes me sad to think that my vacation is nearly over.

My friend and I decided to take a drive today up to Suavie Island, an island in the Columbia River north of Portland. It’s a rural island with lots of farm land and homes, natural places, Fram stands and other fun stuff.

It was a beautiful day and it really looked like fall. There were lots of pumpkins still in the fields, corn being harvested as we drove by, and not very many people for a Sunday.

There were still a lot of flowers growing in the fields. This was a field full of hydrangeas.

I’m not sure what was in this field but it was really colorful.

My boys were very happy to get a chance to take a nice swim in the Columbia. I think they were totally surprised to find themselves in the river.

It was nice that the beach wasn’t crowded so the dogs could really get some good running and swimming in.

We stopped at a large farm store before we left the island and headed for home. There were pumpkins everywhere!

When we got home we dug in and started arranging fabrics for my Libby quilt. I decided that I was definitely going with the black background fabric… mostly because I wanted this quilt to be completely different from the one we made a few days ago. It will definitely be different! I can’t wait to see it come together.

It took a little more time to select the final 12 fabrics I needed and to get them arranged in the right order on the design wall so we could start cutting. We labeled each piece A through L so they correspond with the cutting chart in the pattern.

That’s the final set of fabrics and an idea of the final arrangement. My friend pressed all the fabrics and I cut them into the strips that would later be sub cut for the quilt.

Then we ordered some tacos for dinner and picked them up. Tacos are never a bad idea! They were really yummy.

After dinner we hit my sewing room again and sub cut all the fabrics. We also pressed and cut all the background pieces.

It’s all ready to go up on my design wall tomorrow afternoon. We might be able to have the center of the quilt sewn together tomorrow evening.

I’m going to play Pickleball all at the church in the morning. Then after lunch we’ll head off to my long arm quilter to drop off four quilts. It’s always so exciting to drop a finished top and back off to be quilted.

I’m starting to feel sad that I have to go back to work on Thursday. My vacation has gone by way too quickly.

It was 90 degrees in Portland yesterday so we decided to head for the coast and cooler temperatures. We were in the car and on our way at 8:30 am and were on the beach a little after 10 am. Guess who was really happy about that…

While we were on the beach we saw tons of pelicans. They were flying just off shore and were diving in the water. I’ve never seen so many pelicans on a beach visit. You can see them in this photo… the little black dots just above the horizon line. So many pelicans!

It’s about a mile to the end of this beach from the parking lot. Once we got to the south end and turned around, I looked up and saw a bald eagle flying north and quite low over head! That’s not something you see every time you visit the beach. He flew a little north and landed on this tree and sat there, just surveying his kingdom, as we headed north on the beach.

We spent about an hour and a half on the first beach, then hit the car and headed south to Tillamook, OR, to visit a little fabric store there. Astoundingly, we didn’t buy ONE piece of fabric at that store!

On the way back north to Cannon Beach we stopped and got some ice cream and drove to Manzanita beach to eat our treat with a view of the ocean. And after our dessert in the car we hit the beach one last time to let the dogs have another romp.

Bender and Rico were very appreciative of this opportunity to get their feet wet… and their heads… butts… etc… It’s really nice that my boys don’t feel the need to go very deep in the surf. They’re pretty happy with just getting their bellies wet, but occasionally get a little surprised by some waves.

As you’re driving south on Hwy 101, the Coastal Highway, the first view you get of this beach is from the cliff in the distance in this photo.

It’s a long, gorgeous beach with tons of room for every person and every dog. And it was a perfect day to get to visit TWO beaches!

Before long we were back in the car and headed back north to Cannon Beach. We wanted to visit Center Diamond quilt shop before we hit the road home for Portland. It was already around 4 pm!!!

We made it to the store in time and looked at a lot of fabric and bought a few pieces. The staff there is really friendly and they all read my blog so it was like talking to old friends! Hello to the ladies at Center Diamond!!! Oh, and a couple of them got to meet Bender and Rico!

I was really excited about one piece of fabric I bought. It’s the black version of the fabric we used for the background of my friend’s aboriginal quilt that we finished a couple days ago.

I had the bright idea to use it for the background of MY Libby quilt instead of the white.

When we got home we picked out the brightest Aboriginal fabrics I have in my stash and tossed them up on the design wall on top of this black fabric.

We weren’t convinced that the fabrics popped on the black fabric the way we though they would. So we tossed them up on the white fabric and played around a little.

I was convinced until a few minutes ago that I was going to use the white fabric, but now I’m not so sure! I need to decide because our plan is to start on this quilt top tomorrow!

Today started with Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson. He was brilliant, as always!

Before we headed home we stopped at a little quilt shop that has a ton of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric. Country Manor Quilts is in a metal barn out in the country near where Rico has his lessons. They don’t have an online store so you’d have to visit if you’re ever in the area. Here’s the aisle with her substantial KFC collection.

I only bought one piece of fabric… the contrast color way of Roman Glass… one of the new fabrics. It’s pretty amazing!

No idea what I’m going to do with this fabric. But I’m happy knowing it’s in my stash!

Traffic was terrible on the way home so it took a while to get home and get some lunch. After lunch we headed off to Pioneer Quilts in Milwaukie, OR, to buy some fabric for the backing of my friend’s quilt. We ended up with this vibrant green Australian Aboriginal design.

It looks great with the quilt top. We worked together to get the backing measured, cut sewn and pressed.

Have I mentioned how nice it is to have someone to do all the pressing? And… have I mentioned how much I HATE making backings???

Some time in the last few days I made two self-binding napkins out of some KFC fabric from my stash.

They’re made with two pieces of fabric, one cut larger than the other. Then the larger piece becomes the mitered binding. Here’s the tutorial I followed.

There’s a video that goes along with it.

They were really easy and quick to make. Although the corners on my first one weren’t perfect. I’m planning on making more and selected some fabric combos as we finished up in my sewing room tonight.

I love using cloth napkins. I go through a lot of them so it’s good to have a selection on hand. Plus, these look amazing with my Fiesta Ware.

Our plan for tomorrow is to start working on my version of the quilt we made for my friend this week. On Monday I’ll play pickleball early in the morning, then we’ll head off to my long arm quilter to drop off three of my friend’s quilts and my sunburst log cabin quilt that is for my brother. I washed and dried the wide backing for this tonight. My friend will press it tomorrow morning.

Have I mentioned how nice it is to have a friend who is good at pressing?

My vacation started 1.5 weeks ago. I have another week to go and I’m pretty sure it won’t be enough. Each vacation just reminds me how much I want to retire.

My friend Linda arrived a week ago. We spent the weekend at my brother’s place outside Coquille, Oregon. It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend. We didn’t do much, but we did take a couple quick trips to the coast to enjoy ourselves and let the dogs have some fun.

On Sunday I was in a short sleeve T-shirt and shorts on the beach! It was absolutely perfect weather. We all thought so.

I think they must have run five or six miles!

These photos were taken on Seven Devils Beach just north of Bandon, Oregon. On Sunday we also took a drive to Shore Acres and Cape Arago because we heard there were resident whales there.

We didn’t see any whales but we did see hundreds of sea lions at Cape Arago. It’s a beautiful part of the Oregon coast.

We stopped on our way home and picked up some fresh ling cod and had home made fish tacos for dinner.

Mmmmm.

Then we finished up the evening with a family tradition…

We drove back to Portland on Monday and took a more scenic route to avoid three hours on Interstate 5. It was another gorgeous day.

That night we decided to dig in and start cutting fabric for a quilt we wanted to make while my friend is here. It’s the Libby Quilt by Kitchen Table Quilting.

We saw a quilt made on this pattern and with Australian Aboriginal fabrics in a quilt store in McMinnville, Oregon, a year ago. We bought all the fabrics at that time but only now got around to making it.

We got the fabric pressed, cut and labeled that night for this puzzle of a quilt.

We got the center part of the quilt up on the design wall on Tuesday and started sewing.

We finished the center that evening.

The pattern instructions were really detailed and it worked well to have everything organized on the design wall, I did all the sewing, Linda did all the pressing, and we helped each other keep it all in order.

We took yesterday off from sewing. I went out early and played pickleball at the church and had a blast! Then we took a quick trip out to the same fabric store in McMinnville to pick up a few pieces of Aboriginal fabric. We were tired when we got home so we had a good dinner of grilled salmon, potatoes and a salad and then watched a movie before bed.

Today we dug in and made the four corner pieces for this quilt. They went pretty quickly because the pieces are big.

We compared each corner piece with the center to make sure we had the fabrics arranged correctly.

I sure do like having someone around to do all the pressing!

The part I was most worried about was getting all the corners marked accurately and cut well so the quilt would actually be a true rectangle. All those strips would eventually be cut on the diagonal so terrible wonkiness was a real possibility.

To avoid wonkiness, we marked the line to cut the angles on each corner piece. We had to arrange the pieces on the back of my portable design wall on the living room floor to get it all flat.

Then we marked the line to trim off all those corners to make a straight line. Before cutting, I sewed a line of stitching inside the marked line to keep those bias edges from stretching.

Once that line of stitching was done, I trimmed off the corners.

Once all four corners were marked, stitched and cut square, I sewed them to the center of the quilt top. Then my friend did the final pressing.

And just like that, this quilt top is done! We weren’t sure we were going to love this once it was done, but we DID when it was all sewn together and we could see the woven affect.

Here’s some close up photos because I love the eye candy!

The pattern for this quilt is very detailed with all kinds of charts and graphs to help with the construction. It was a good idea to keep the pattern handy and refer to it often.

We just might whip one of these up for me while my friend is here, but I think I’m going to do it with brighter and more colorful Australian Aboriginal fabrics… for a completely different look. We were too tired to go through my stash tonight.

It’s going to be over 90 degrees here in Portland tomorrow. We’ll have to figure out a way to stay cool.