Month: March 2024

I did. I had to. Because it’s literally been days since I last bought fabric. Plus, I felt the strong desire to replace all the Brandon Mably fabrics I’m using in this new quilt… and a “few” more.

And because I know someone will ask, I bought these on Tennessee Quilts. I don’t tend to shop there often but they had the four fabrics I really wanted. And then it just went sort of crazy from there. None of these were on sale.

These are all Brandon Mably fabrics. They are all part of the Kaffe Fassett Collective. I have no idea what I’m going to do with these, but I will be happier knowing they are all in my stash. They are all so much fun and my brain is buzzing with more ideas for these fabrics! Plus, some of this will be a gift for a friend for her June birthday. It’s good to plan ahead.

I went and played pickleball after dinner tonight. It was a much better night than yesterday. I had some really good games and really enjoyed myself. I was so glad I didn’t have a disappointing play session again.

When I got home I was greeted by two dogs who were clearly not happy with their lack of activity. So I played a little game with them where I hide treats around the living room and they have to find them. We played this game three times. It helped a little.

Games like this are very mentally stimulating for dogs. Working their brains like this for 15 or 20 minutes is as good as a two-mile walk. They are both snoozing on the floor next to me as I type.

I didn’t have much time to sew tonight so all I got done was one row on my Interweave quilt. And it might be my favorite row of this quilt.

That yellow fabric with the blue blooms is so amazing!

I also decided earlier today that I would absolutely make this quilt just nine rows instead of the ten in the pattern. And I decided to remove the fabric I had at the top previously and replace it with this rainbow fabric.

The reason I like that rainbow fabric better is that it brings yellow and green to the top of the quilt. For me, it helps accentuate those colors elsewhere in the quilt.

I’m hoping to have more time tomorrow night to get a few more rows of this quilt done. The weather is supposed to be nice the next few days so this gal and my boys are definitely going to be getting our walks in!

Looks like this quilt top will be done pretty quickly. I had better start thinking about my next project. Maybe another palate cleanser. Hmmm. Ideas.

Had a bit of a sleep in this morning. Then after a hot shower, some breakfast and a couple cups of coffee I hit my sewing room to start getting all the fabric pieces for my Brandon Mably Interweave quilt up on my design wall. I was a little surprised how quickly it all went up.

Before I started I set up all my fabrics around my sewing room so I could easily access the pieces I needed and I could keep it all in order.

I had to move pretty carefully on the first few rows to make sure I had everything in the right place.

Once the pattern started making sense in my head, I had it all up in no time.

I’m so surprised at how this looks. I was really thinking it was going to be a lot more chaotic. It actually feels somewhat ordered and I’m pretty happy with how it looks.

I went and played pickleball this afternoon and when I got home I dug in and started sewing this together. I was able to get four rows done.

Isn’t that fun?!?!? I’m really loving the brightness of it and the eclectic group of fabrics.

Here’s the first four sewn rows at the bottom of this photo. I lost a good 7 inches with seam allowances.

I’m making the twin size. It’s supposed to have 10 of the patterned rows of fabric. Even though I’ll lose around 9 inches in seam allowance when it’s done, I think I’m going to end with nine rows because 10 might be too long. I’ll make that decision later but it’s likely I’ll make that adjustment.

Here’s a little eye candy.

Haha! I’m loving this quilt!

It was another rainy day here in Portland. So my dogs didn’t get much activity. Bender handled it pretty well.

(That reminds me… my sparkly winter tree will come down next weekend. I always leave it up until time changes in the spring.)

Rico didn’t handle the lack of activity quite as well. This was him as Bender slept…

Back to work tomorrow. I’m happy to say that we have some days of sunshine in the forecast for this week. It will be very welcome.

My pickleball got canceled this morning because of snow! There was snow falling at my place when I got up but it didn’t last long and it didn’t stick to the ground.

It was absolutely gorgeous on the way down to Rico’s sheep herding lesson. The sun was out with some beautiful clouds and I could see the snow covered hills in the distance.

It was cold enough that I wore my down jacket, a hat and gloves for our lesson. It was windy which made it even colder. As we were finishing our lesson the rain started and it rained all the way home.

I did stop and buy a huge bag of oranges at one of the road side stands that are all over the place this time of year.

They are really reasonably priced and soooo good! Linda and I bought a bag last weekend and really enjoyed them. I’m always happy when I find really good oranges.

It was dry but cold when we got home, so I bundled up and headed out with my boys for a three mile walk.

I didn’t get around to taking my Flower Baskets quilt outside for a photo because it’s so wet and muddy. So I threw it on the guest bed instead to get a better look at it with the borders.

And now I’m almost wishing I had gone ahead and just made it queen size. Oh well. It will have to be what it is.

After a nice nap on the sofa I got up and fixed dinner then hit my sewing room to start working on my Interweave quilt. With all the fabric cut I dug in and started sewing strip sets. I can’t go into a lot of detail on how this goes together. You’ll need to get the pattern. Just let me say that the pattern is really well written, includes a lot of color images, and it has lots of detail.

I did use my metal ruler method to make sure I was keeping my strip sets straight as I pressed them. Here’s a video that explains how I use the ruler.

I had all the strip sets sewn and sub cut pretty quickly.

So with all the fabric cut and these little units made, I’ll be ready to start tossing this all up on the design wall tomorrow.

A woman I’ve been mentoring at work recently gave me a gift card to Amazon, so I decided I wanted some under-counter lights. I found these rechargeable LED lights. They are really easy to use and you can set them to come on automatically when they detect motion in the kitchen.

They go off pretty quickly if there’s no motion in the kitchen. I only bought two lights to see if I liked them. They were really easy to install and I really like the way they work. So I just ordered another set.

I’m playing pickleball tomorrow afternoon and plan to get busy on this new quilt tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see how quickly it comes together.

I’m really wanting to start sewing on the Interweave quilt that I cut Brandon Mably fabrics for earlier this week. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t start until I finished the borders on my Flower Baskets quilt. So I dug in tonight and got it done!

I wanted to add borders to make this quilt a rectangle. So I added 2.5 inch borders on the sides and 6 inch borders on the top and bottom.

I didn’t want to wrestle that large top up onto my design wall to photograph it. It won’t fit. So if the weather cooperates I’ll take it outside tomorrow and get a good photo of it.

The plaid fabric isn’t printed perfectly straight. And across a longer length of fabric the wonkiness gets more and more noticeable.

Since the side borders are relatively narrow, that wonkiness wouldn’t be very noticeable. But on the wider top and bottom borders I was worried it would be really disturbing. So I decided to piece the top and bottom borders with 6×10 inch pieces. It has the same feeling gas the sashing that is all cut differently. And it seems to have alleviated the issue I was afraid of.

Here’s one length of the wider pieced border.

It will be interesting to see it in one piece tomorrow.

I was really missing my friend Linda as I was pressing all these borders.

But I managed to get it all done.

Ha! You can see the crooked plaid in that length of narrow border! Oh well… too late to fix it now!

Here’s a corner to show the difference in the width of the top and side borders.

I’m really glad this is done and I can start working on my new quilt tomorrow!

We’ve had so much rain the last few weeks. I’m pretty sure we’ve had close to 8 inches since my brother and SIL were here a few weeks ago. It rained most of the day today but cleared up around 3:00. So we got out for our first walk in a few days. We were all glad to have an opportunity to stretch our legs and get some air. We walked almost three miles!

Even though it still feels like winter, I’m starting to see signs of spring as we walk around the neighborhood.

I was so surprised when we walked around a corner and I saw that pink rhododendron in full bloom. It’s the first one I’ve seen and it seems so early!

All these blooms are making me feel hopeful that winter is on its way out. And next weekend we welcome Daylight Saving Time. The day the time changes in the spring is my favorite day of the year!

All our winter rain does make for wonderful spring blooms.

I keep forgetting to share this video I took of the sun setting at the Oregon Coast a week ago. It was such a great ending to a wonderful day.

I’m scheduled to play pickleball in the morning, followed by a trip down to Molalla for Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson.

If we get rained out in pickleball, I have been invited to play with a group in a local school. So I’m covered regardless of what the weather decides to do. There are actually some snowflakes in the overnight forecast.