Author: agilejack

During my lunch break today I hurried and sewed together the initial blocks for the remaining 11 large blocks for this palate-cleansing quilt top. I chain pieced them and it didn’t take any time. Then I pressed them all to have them ready to square up after work.

I have to be live on the radio early tomorrow morning for our end of year fundraising campaign so stopped working a little early today. I had the 11 larger blocks sewn together and pressed pretty quickly and up on the design wall.

Here they are just tossed up with all the blocks in the same orientation, which is not the final layout. I just wanted to see them all up there.

This does look better in person. The fabrics are more interesting in person. Some of them look a little flat in this photo.

Here’s a closer look.

And another one…

Since it was still early I decided to orient the blocks to show the design on the written pattern.

Some of the blocks don’t have enough contrast and that makes the design a little hard to see. Here’s this photo with some drawing to emphasize the pattern.

I will pull out the most offending blocks with no contrast. Maybe three or four blocks. But I’m not going to spend a ton of time, effort and fabric on this quilt top.

Even though this isn’t quite where I want it to be, it’s been exactly what I needed at the end of the year… something fast, easy, and mind clearing made from fabrics in my stash.

I came home from Christmas dinner the other night with a turkey carcass in tow. This is not an unusual thing for me. I can’t stand seeing someone just throw away their turkey carcass. There is such good soup potential in there and I LOVE soup.

So after work I pulled out the carcass and removed all the turkey that was left on the bones. I got nearly two pounds of meat off this thing! I can have a couple sandwiches and still have plenty left for soup.

Then I tossed the bones and everything that fell off into a big stock pot with onions, carrots, celery, some seasoning and bay leaves and let it simmer for a few hours. I turned the heat off as we headed out for our evening walk and when we got home the house smelled incredible. Then was the biggest job… getting all the flotsam and jetsam out of the pot and running the broth through a fine sieve. I’ll skim the fat off of it tomorrow.

It feels good to have a large container of delicious broth and plenty of turkey meat in my fridge, just waiting to be combined into a wonderful winter soup.

I’ll stop at the grocery store on the way home from my early shift on the radio tomorrow morning and pick up some noodles. I usually like to make home made noodles for my home made soup but with my dishwasher still on the fritz I’m trying to make as little mess as possible.

We have two on air fundraising days this week and that will basically wrap up a hectic month. I’m glad I have another long weekend and plan to take advantage of that extra time.

Often, after working intently on projects for a period of time, I feel like I need something impulsive, quick and easy to cleanse my palate and get me ready for another more involved project. So tonight I started on just such a project.

I had this pattern in mind…

And I decided to make it from Australian Aboriginal fabrics from my stash. Several months ago I purchased some online on a really good sale. I didn’t really have any plans for these fabrics so I pulled them out tonight.

These are all one yard cuts. I need a total of 20 different fabrics for this quilt so dug into my stash and pulled out some 1/3 yard cuts that have been in my stash for some time. And then I started cutting.

The pattern has you prepare a bunch of 10 inch squares. You need a total of 80 ten-inch squares. I had them all cut in no time, then I paired them up making sure that each pair had contrast between the two fabrics.

Once the squares were cut and paired up I cut them in half using my new ruler.

Here’s the pile of paired up pieces that will make up this quilt.

Some of my pairs don’t have the contrast I want. I might have to pull out some of them before the quilt is done.

Once they were all cut I sat down at my machine and chain pieced the two halves of the blocks together.

Once these were all pressed, I combined them into larger blocks made up of four smaller blocks. Then I tossed them all up on my design wall.

There’s one block in there that doesn’t have much contrast — top row center. It’s better in person than in the photo.

These blocks aren’t designed yet. I just tossed them up on my design wall as I made them and got them pressed.

These blocks are big. Probably just shy of 18 inches. I finished nine of the twenty blocks needed for this quilt top. So only 11 more blocks to go. They will whip up quickly.

it’s definitely going to be a quick and fun make.

I let myself sleep in a little this morning then after a shower and breakfast of lemon cake and ice cream I started in on finishing the binding for my table topper.

Getting the binding sewn onto the topper was a bit of a wrestling match. But that’s why I’m usually really happy to pay someone to do my bindings!

Even with that I had it sewn on and joined in no time and it was ready for hand finishing.

I turned on White Christmas, one of my favorite holiday movies, and started hand stitching.

My right hand it really hurting tonight. Another reason I don’t love all that hand finishing.

But in less than an hour I had it all done and tossed in onto my table to see how it looks.

Here’s another view that shows with quilting well.

And one last view…

I had a couple hours to spare between finishing this and when I needed to head out for dinner.

I’m so happy that my friend absolutely LOVES the table runner! I was worried that it was a lot of color and pattern for her. But she was so happy with it!

With a couple free hours before dinner I curled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and watched some more holiday programming. While I watched TV my boys played with the holiday gift I gave them.

Bender got a little tangled up in it while I was wrapping gifts.

I did get a couple of quilting related gifts today. One gift certificate to my favorite local quilt store, and a friend gave me this ruler… which I need for a pattern I bought recently!

That might help narrow down what quilt I make next!

Back to work for a short yet hectic week. There’s a lot money I still have to raise before December 31!

I played pickleball this morning. I was on a very foggy and cold court at 8:30 and played until 10:30. it was a great way to start a Saturday. When I was done I hit the road for Washington for Rico’s sheep herding lesson. He was amazing and did some pretty impressive work.

When I got home I iced my sore foot and dug into my recipes to put together my shopping list.

After getting dinner for me and the dogs later in the day, I went to the grocery store to get my Christmas Eve dinner shopping done. My list seemed really long but I had it done in no time. I got everything I needed except for fresh Rosemary. So I bought some dried instead. I might stop tomorrow and see if I can find some fresh.

After shopping I hit my sewing room with the goal of finishing the quilting on my table topper. So I rolled it up and clipped it so it would be easier to manipulate through my machine.

Then I started stitching.

Not only did I finish the quilting on the center of the topper, but I finished the more detailed quilting on the border.

Once it was done I trimmed all the edges and pinned it up on my design wall.

I’m really happy with how this has turned out. And I’m really glad I’m done with all that quilting! Not my favorite part.

I’m thinking I might need to make a quilt from these fabrics!

Here’s some detail.

And a little more

And one more just because I like it!

While it was up on the design wall I decided to try a couple different options for the binding. One is the same fabric as the backing. The black Shaggy.

I like it, but I think the recipient will like the black Luscious better.

I’ll probably work on this a little tomorrow if I have time. I don’t have to gift this until 6 pm Christmas Day so I have time to hand stitch the binding as I watch Christmas movies and drink egg nog!

I’m playing pickleball at an indoor facility with my coach tomorrow morning at 7:30. When I get home I have to do a little housekeeping and then get busy on meal prep. This will be complicated by the fact that my dishwasher is on the fritz and I’m not due for a repair person until January 2. Christmas is not a good time to need a dishwasher repair. I’ll be hand washing a lot of pots and pans, dishes, glasses and utensils tomorrow.

I leave you with this sweetie pie…

Ernie’s owner came and picked him up this evening. I miss him already. He’s so much fun to have around and so easy. I love that he gets along so well with my boys.

His owner said she might take me up on my offer to drop him by occasionally on her way to work so he can spend the day with us rather than all by himself. It will be fun to have him around every now and again.

I had today off but didn’t do much. I took Bender to his annual check up with his neurologist and he passed with flying colors. The annual exam is almost just a formality so that I can continue to get his prescriptions filled and can get some help if something happens. If you’re not up to date on your annual exams, they can’t legally prescribe drugs. It’s so important to be up to date!

I left Rico and Ernie at home and only took Bender with me. I stopped on the way home to get some wine colored thread to use for the quilting on the table topper I’m making.

Once I got home I grabbed some lunch than took the dogs for a nice two mile walk. When we got home that had an extended rambunctious play session.

I wish you could hear all the growling!

After Ernie left and I had a chance to get some dinner I hit my sewing room to get moving. I finished the border on the topper last night.

I played pickleball yesterday morning and took a detour on the way home to pick up the piece of fabric I needed. While I was there I purchased a few new pieces of Australian Aboriginal fabric they had.

They have a really nice selection of Aboriginal fabrics. And because several people will ask, the store is Pioneer Quilts in Milwaukie Oregon. They have an online store and you can find them with a google search.

I was too tired last night to start quilting on this, so I decided that Just getting the backing and batting cut was good progress for the night.

So first thing tonight was to make the quilt sandwich. I use spray basting when I do quilting, When I’m making bags, I do the spray basting on the top of my washing machine. But this piece is too big for that, so I took my portable design wall and laid it fuzzy side down on my guest bed. Then I put an old sheet over the top of it and covering the entire top of the bed. Then I laid out the backing, batting and the topper and started the basting.

I’ve heard people say that they don’t have good luck with the basting spray… that it gums up their needle and cause all kinds of issues. But I have really good luck with is and use it all the time.

Once I got it basted I trimmed off the corners so I would have less bulk.

Then I started stitching. I decided I would do straight line stitching diagonally through the little squares.

I got all the lines done in one direction. So tomorrow I’ll stitch the lines in the opposite direction, then do some quilting on the border and it will be ready to bind.

I really dislike manhandling all this bulk through my machine. I rolled the top up and used some little metal clips to keep it all together as I sewed and rotated.

Every time I quilt a piece like this I’m reminded why I will NEVER quilt a full size quilt on my domestic machine. NEVER!

I’ll probably do some lines with 1/2 inch spacing around the border. I think it will be a nice touch and finish for this. Once it’s done I’ll sew on the binding and will hand sew the binding for a nice finish.

I’m playing pickleball early tomorrow morning, Then we have Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson. After that I’m going to get some lunch with a friend to celebrate the holidays. I haven’t seen her for months. I’m looking forward to it.

Then my big task for tomorrow is to do my grocery shopping for Christmas Eve dinner. I have my menu all planned so all I have to do it reference my recipes and make a list. I am going to make a different lemon cake for dessert the year. The one I made last year is really good but it’s a little more involved than I want to tackle. So I’m going to make a lemon pound cake recipe from Ina Garten. It sounds really good! I’ll probably serve it with some vanilla Ice cream.

And now I have to make sure I have everything ready for my day tomorrow:

  Make sure I have my rubber boots and rain gear in the car for sheep herding.

   Pick out a pin cushion for my lunch friend and get it wrapped

   Fold the laundry that’s in the dryer

   Drink some egg nog with whiskey!

Better get busy so I can have that egg nog! Talk about motivation!

After dinner I hit my sewing room to sew the blocks and rows together and get this table topper moving along. Because there are only 16 blocks, it went together in no time.

I didn’t get a photo of the blocks all sewn together, but you get a glimpse of it in this photo.

Ernie would like you to know that he thinks sewing is very boring.

Once I got that done I needed to figure out how to cut this into the shape I need. I messaged my friend Karin last night, an accomplished quilter and someone who has strong math skills. This liberal arts major can always use a little help with mathematical calculations. So I asked her if she could help me figure out how to cut my square into a hexagon.

In her quilting and mathematical brilliance, she gently pointed out that the geometric shape that I was hoping to replicate was actually an OCTAGON. This is a critical piece of information that, without, my project would have been a catastrophe.

Once I had been gently edified by Karin, I hit the inter webs and found this quick and easy video tutorial on calculating how to cut a square into an octagon.

I watched this again tonight and measured my piece and decided on my measurements based on the size of my square. Then I marked my piece with tailors chalk in preparation for cutting off the corners of the square.

After taking some verifying measurements, I made my first cut.

(take a guess where that left over triangle will be used!)

Now I was really committed. But since I had verified my measurements, I knew that I was heading in the right direction and in a few minutes I had confidently created a lovely octagon.

Since this all went together so quickly I decided to cut my border fabric and get it sewn on. I didn’t have a ton of the border fabric but I hoped that if I was efficient I would have enough for the border.

Nope.

I have enough to finish probably six of the eight sides. So I stopped. Wham. I didn’t want to finish sewing on the limited border pieces I had because there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to find that fabric quickly and would have to resort to something else in order to have this piece done in time to gift it on Christmas Day.

I am happy to see that I was right that the darker fabric would darken up this piece. It’s exactly what I was hoping for.

Here’s a closer look at those borders.

They’re really easy to put on. You just sew your border on one side of the octagon, and then trim the border off even with the angle of the sides of the octagon on either side of the border. Then you sew the next piece onto one cut edge of the border you just put on and across the next side of the octagon.

Then you just keep going all the way around the octagon. Easy peasy.

So, now my task was to see if I could find more of that fabric at my local quilt store. If not, I was prepared to pay to have a piece overnighted by one of my favorite online fabric shops.

LOCAL QUILT SHOP SUCCESS!!!

I’m hosting pickleball for my club tomorrow morning and that puts me closer to that quilting store, so I think I’ll hit that store on my way home and then I can get cracking on this table topper tomorrow night.

I decided how I’m going to quilt this piece, so once I get the borders on I’ll get the quilt sandwich made and then start quilting. I’m going to do diagonal lines through each 2 inch square. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to do straight lines or wavy lines. I’m thinking I might do wavy lines, but I don’t have to decide now. And now I think I might do straight lines.

Bender, Rico and Ernie were terribly disappointed in me this morning as it was after ten o’clock when I got a break in my morning so I could give them breakfast.

Ernie’s owner told me he usually eats breakfast at 5 am!!! So this was five hours overdue for him. My boys are more accustomed to varied meal times. It’s not unheard of for me to completely forget a meal every now and then. They usually let me know, but they are somewhat patient with a late breakfast.

Tomorrow will be my last day of work before the weekend. I made an appointment for Bender’s annual check up with his neurologist on Friday and just decided to take the entire day off. If you don’t know, Bender is epileptic. We have really good luck controlling his seizures with medication. He had a five year stretch with no seizures, then two years ago he had four seizures. After adjusting his medications, he’s almost up to another two years without another seizure. We are very lucky in this. Some border collies can be very difficult in seizure control.

I need to be sure that he’s up to date on his annual check up so that if something happens, they can make changes to his meds, and so they can give me refills. If he’s not up to date on his annual exam, it’s not legal for them to prescribe drugs.

I’m going to have some friends over for dinner on Christmas Eve and am going to completely replicate the meal I made last year… it was so good! You can see this blog post from last year to see my menu and find links to my recipes.

On Christmas Day I’ll join friends for dinner. I’m going to try to find a pickleball game in the morning.

Happy holidays to everyone! Thanks for being with me over the last year.

Since I got such a good start on the strip sets for my blocks for my table topper the other night, I was able to chunk through sewing the blocks together quickly. I sewed half of them together last night and then the other half were sewn today as I sat in on a webinar for work.

Since there’s only 16 blocks for this table topper, I had them all sewn and pressed in no time. And they are now up on my design wall.

The person I’m making this for requested wine colors. There are other colors in this, mostly pinks and some peaches and oranges. But they are needed to make the darker wine tones sing! Overall, I think it has a dark and rich feel.

I’ll use this darker fabric for the border… maybe a three or four inch border… and that will darken up the entire thing and make it read more wine.

I have no recollection of how I calculated the cuts to make the other table topper into a hexagon. I was able to find several videos with instructions to cut a square piece of paper into a hexagon, but they all have you cut material off of one of the ends of the square. So my blocks would be catty wompus. No one wants that.

I’ll have to give it some thought.

I was supposed to play pickleball this morning but it was raining so it got canceled. I’m hoping to get to play tomorrow morning at the big church. It’s probably unlikely but I might get lucky. I will sleep with my fingers crossed and check first thing in the morning.

Ernie has met my expectations of being an easy house guest. He just fits in so easily. Here’s Ernie and Rico having a nice snoozle after breakfast this morning.

We took two walks today so they are all out cold as I type. I like tired dogs!

I pulled out the good whisky last night and it was so much more tasty in my egg nog.

I had another glass tonight with a very generous pour of whisky. I usually only allow myself one pint of egg nog each Christmas but I might have to break that rule this year! I do love my egg nog during the holidays!

Ernie climbed up on the sofa with me as I was having my lunch today. he was shivering so I wrapped him up in my quilt. I think he would have slept there for hours if I hadn’t had to et up to go back to work.

I do love having this guy around. He’s really good natured, like my boys. They are all so agreeable and easy.

I met my pickleball teacher today at 9:30 am for a rousing training session in freezing and foggy conditions. And it was fantastic! We haven’t been able to have a lesson for about a month, with holidays, family visits, and weather. It felt really good to get out there.

And I knew this was my opportunity to present him with my Ice Storm quilt. So I wrapped it up last night, wrote a card, and locked it into the back of the car. After my lesson today we walked to our cars together, got all the training equipment into his trunk, then I told him not to jump in his car and leave so fast!

I pulled the package out of my car and gave it to him. I told him that he had been giving to me generously for months of his talents and skills, and now it was my turn to give to him of my talents and skills. He’s so funny… he got emotional. He’s just so touched when people do things for him to show their appreciation.

I told him he could open it then, or he could wait until he got home. He said he would wait until he got home. About a half hour after I got home he sent me this photo. I’ve obscured his face because I don’t know if he’s in the witness protection program or something like that.

I left his smile for you to see! He wrote to me: “Your gift was a delightful surprise! Thank you for thinking of me and making me feel special.”

After icing my foot and having some lunch I hightailed it out into the crazy shopping frenzy to pick up some gift cards for people at work. I only had to go to three places and had it all done and was home in about an hour.

Ernie arrived yesterday afternoon. I took the prospect of company as a reason to dig in and clean my living room and get my little birch tree and mantle lights up. This will be the extent of my holiday decorations this year.

After dinner and a little relaxing I decided it was time to get busy, so I dug into my sewing room to start working on the table topper that I’m making for a Christmas gift. I figured it was time to pull the trigger! I had already selected the fabrics and had a couple different blocks in mind.

I decided to go with a basic 16 patch block for this. Mostly because I wanted the pieces of fabric to be small. So that pattern seemed like a good one and a quick and easy one to whip up. I follow this really good tutorial for a 16 patch block from Wanda at Exuberant Color.

I’m basically going to replicate this table topper that I made for this same friend several years ago, but I will make it just a little bigger.

I borrowed this from my friend so I would have a model to follow. It’s been a long time since I made this!

I cut two 2.5 inch strips from each of the fabrics I selected and then paired them up…

and chain pieced them into strip sets.

I always finger press my strip sets before pressing. Then when I press I use a metal ruler to keep my strip sets nice and straight. This video shows you how I do this.

I got the eight strip sets made and got them all cut into strips so they are ready to sew together.

It’s going to be fun to see this come together. Here’s a couple of the sets arranged into blocks. that little strip to the right is the only waste left over from one strip set!

I love this next one…

Ooh! I love that one!

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to quilt this and I’m thinking I’m going to go very organic with wavy lines going two different directions — criss cross wavy lines.

I’ll add a couple of borders onto this to bring it up to a bigger size. the larger outer border will be Philip Jacob’s shaggy in black.

Or, I may use the piece of Philip Jacobs Luscious instead.

Hmmm. Good thing I have a few days to think about this. I think I have enough of the luscious. I KNOW I have enough of the shaggy. Using one of these darker fabrics will help the topper read dark, which is what I want. But I think those lighter value fabrics are going to be critical in making this thing interesting and making those dark fabrics really pop!

This is all of the waste from eight strip sets. I love a project that doesn’t generate any scraps that I need to deal with!

I had a lovely dinner tonight of fried eggs and toast. It was really good and a treat for me. These three agreed and really wanted to lick that plate.

As I was getting ready to settle in on the sofa for the night I remembered that I bought some egg nog the other day. So I decided to dig into my liquor cabinet for some bourbon. Rather than opening a new bottle of a good bourbon, I went for the old Jack Daniels.

that was a mistake. Next time I have one I’ll open the good stuff!

I sat down last night and watched the final season of The Crown and stitched the final side of the binding on my Ice Storm Quilt. It feels really good to. have it done. It’s been long time.

I’m so glad that my friend suggested using that Octopus fabric for the backing. It’s really quite perfect. And since several people have asked, the fabric is a Brandon Mably design called Octopus in the black color way. It’s a Kaffe Fassett Collective Fabric. I think it’s getting a little tricky to find, especially in this color way.

I bought a couple of large pieces of this fabric a couple years ago. I found some on sale and bought enough for a quilt backing, then decided to buy another big piece because I love it so much. So I have more than enough to make another backing some day.

This is one of the quilts that was quilted in trade for finished quilt tops by Cindy Rich. It was a great deal for me. This photo shows the quilt design nicely. The quilting pattern is called Curly Weave. I don’t know the designer.

Now I need to get this into some good light and trim off all the stray threads. Then it will be ready for gifting to my pickleball coach.

And a couple more photos just cause I love this so much.

I’m feeling better every day, but my cough is still lingering but is quite productive. I did manage to get out of the house Friday and Saturday. It wasn’t raining Friday and my work schedule allowed me to join a group of friends for a pickleball lesson. It felt so good to get out and move around. But my body certainly wasn’t in prime form.

I also went out early Saturday to play pickleball before Rico’s sheep herding lesson. I felt so much better and played better and we were lucky that the rain held off. So I got a good 1.5 hours of play in before hitting the road to find some sheep.

I’m going to play for an hour or so this afternoon. Then I’ll come home and get some house work done. I want to put up a little bit of holiday decorations and I hate doing that in a messy house.

We’ve got some decent weather coming up over the next ten days so I’m looking forward to a little more activity and not being stuck in the house.

Between being sick and all the rain we’ve had, I’m getting a bit stir crazy. I haven’t played pickleball for a week and a half! And I’ve been stuck in the. house either recuperating or fleeing the rain.

I feel pretty good. Much better and almost back to normal…. except for this freaking cough! I’m really quite exhausted from coughing. The good thing is that I’ve been taking a good expectorant and my cough is becoming more and more productive every day. But it’s a lot of coughing.

How many of these is too many?

I’m well into my second bag. The directions say to let one drop dissolve slowly in your mouth every two hours. I’m pretty sure I’m taking one every 20 minutes! If not more!

We’re going to be getting a bit of a break in the rain for a few days. it’s been really wet here. There are land slides, road wash outs and flooding all around us. It’s a lot of rain, but it’s been warm. I keep my thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and turn it down to 63 degrees when I go to bed at night and the last two nights it’s only gotten down to 67 degrees by the time I get up. That’s some balmy nights.

I noticed today that my daffodils are up already! They are usually poking their heads up before Christmas. But this is ridiculously early!

This is the field where Rico has his sheep herding lesson on the weekends.

I have managed to get my boys. out for an evening walk the last few days. It actually makes me feel better and clears my head and lungs a little when I get out and move around. And it makes my boys happy too. They’ve been really good the last week but they are ready for action!

I have a light schedule at work tomorrow and the weather looks good so I might duck out mid day and go and do some practice with my teacher and some other students. I think it would do me good!

I’m slowly chunking away at hand sewing the binding of my Ice Storm quilt. I have three sides done now and should be able to finish the last side tomorrow night, unless some kind of offer for something more interesting comes my way. Like that ever happens…

I don’t love handwork, but the one thing I’m really enjoying about this project is looking at this quilt as it’s crumpled in my lap as I work on it. it’s really pretty and so different from what I usually make.

And I LOVE that octopus backing! It’s so crazy but all the colors are so perfect with the quilt top. I’m so glad my friend suggested it.

I have the fourth side all clipped and ready to start sewing.

I’ve been switching out which quilts I have on the top of the pile on my guest bed. It’s fun to see them every time I walk by. I caught this black quilt in the morning light today and just loved the way the quilting stood out. I just had to take a photo.

Fingers crossed that I feel good enough and the weather cooperates a little so I can get out and get some physical activity.