Category: Rico

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Put Down the Bright Sparkly Thing and Get to Work

After breakfast and a nice morning walk with Rico and Bender, I got ready to head out for Rico’s sheep herding lesson.

He did a great job at his lesson, but the rain poured the entire time we were out in the field. Luckily, I keep my muck boots and a full set of rain gear in my car so we weathered it pretty well. I was wet by the time we were done and Rico was soaked to the skin with rain and mud mixed with sheep poop. So he got a quick shower in the hose before we got in the car to head home. He didn’t seem to mind.

The rain almost stopped by the time we were pulling away from the sheep farm so I decided to stop at the big field at Washington State University to let the boys have a nice run.

They love getting out in open spaces where they can really run full out. And it’s nice that they always come back and check in often.

You can always tell how much fun Rico is having by the amount of slobber on his head.

And, of course, we had to get a nice pose while we were there.

Once we got home I cleaned up my kitchen and then tossed a chicken with potatoes, carrots and onions in the oven. While it cooked I sat down and watched some pickleball. The house filled with the smell of roasted chicken and in about an hour I was enjoying a nice hot dinner.

Once I was well fed I hit my sewing room and pulled the left over blocks sashed in jumble off my design wall and packaged them up.

I knew that if I didn’t put these sparkly new blocks away I’d be distracted by them and work on that instead of working on the first starburst quilt top.

The first thing I did was cut some new corner triangles. Then I picked out that seam to remove the one that was too small and sewed on the new piece.

This time I cut these triangles perfectly! Phew!

Next I started working on piecing the next two rows of blocks. I had planned to get two rows pieced and sewn together. And it all went according to plan.

Since it was still relatively early I decided to go ahead and sew these two sections together and get them pressed.

Then I huffed and puffed and got it all up on my portable design wall.

That’s five rows of 13 that are done. I’ll just keep chunking away at this throughout this week. Maybe I’ll finish it up next weekend. Maybe I’ll finish it up before then.

Here’s a closer look at how those setting triangles overlap.

It leaves a border an inch wide.

Before I wrapped it up in my sewing room I wound five bobbins to have on hand and ready to load.

And when I left my sewing room I found Bender wound asleep, mostly in the hall but with head I the room. I usually kick him out because he’s always under foot and when I’m up and down, at the machine, at the ironing board, at the design wall, I tend to step on him.

He was almost completely obeying the rules.

A reminder for those of you who read my blog posts via email. If you go to my blog at http://www.agilejack1.com you can scroll through all my previous posts (I posted my 500th post a couple months ago!) You can also read the comments from readers, along with my replies. I do reply to every comment! You can also search if you’re looking for something specific.

Thanks for reading!

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Too Tired to Finish

I’m so close to having this Aboriginal Frankenbag done, but I’m just too tired to do the final finishing. All I have left to do is sew in the lining and top stitch the top of the bag. The handles are from the darker faux leather I purchased.

I like to have a nice finish at the top of the bag… even sewing, nice pressing, and even top stitching. If you go to all the trouble of making a nice bag and then make a mess of the final piece that is the most visible, all the care is for naught. I’m so tired from a stressful week of work that I decided to stop at this point and finish it up tomorrow night when I’m more fresh.

Here’s the back of this bag:

That’s the lining under the bag. I just love that print! This fabric is left over from a backing I made for my Social Distancing quilt. That blog post shows the lining. This one shows the quilt top.

I just love these Aboriginal fabrics. The designs are so intricate and free form, and the colors are amazing. I might have to keep this one. But then I say that with every one I make!

Look at some of the fun little details in these fabrics.

I switched up the quilting on this one a little. I still did the match stick quilting at the top of the bag because I like the structure it brings. But I did the body of the bag with straight line quilting, spaced about 3.8 inch apart.

Tomorrow (Friday) is Bender’s eighth birthday! I can’t believe that I’m already seeing his face turn white. He felt very special today as he was the only dog who got to go with me on our two walks. Rico tweaked his back at our agility lesson last night and had to stay home by himself. He was not happy about this situation! I will cook a peanut butter, carrot and honey birthday cake for him tomorrow night. Rico will get some too.

Facebook fed me this memory of my Parson Russell Terriers Forrest (left) and Skeeter yesterday. Look how cute they were! This photo was taken shortly before Bender was born. We were anxiously waiting for news that a boy border collie was born and would be on his way to us!

I lost my magnificent Forrest about 3.5 years ago when he was 14.5 years old. I loved that dog like I’ll never love another dog. Skeeter is living with a friend of mine on Vashon Island, Washington. She has a pretty amazing life and is thriving.

I went out this afternoon to check on my apple tree and was happy to see some really healthy looking buds.

This tree can be really hit and miss on how much fruit it produces. Two summers ago I was buried in apples. I just couldn’t keep up. I was making a batch of apple sauce and a dehydrator full of apple slices every evening and still couldn’t keep up. Last year I barely had any apples.

I had my yard guy prune this tree way back a few weeks ago. But he left me a couple branches that are the ones that usually bear the most fruit. So I’m hopeful that I’ll have a reasonable amount of apples this year.

Look at the amazing weather we have coming up. It would normally be raining at this time of year. I actually had to water a portion of my lawn this afternoon.

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Another Frankenbag Finished

I’ve been chipping away on a couple of new Frankenbags over the last few days. Tonight I finished one and got the panels quilted for another one.

Here’s the front view of tonight’s finish.

It’s made from all KFC fabric scraps, except for one black and white fabric on the back — the one that’s set on the diagonal in the big block.

And here’s the back.

I decided to use one of my FAVORITE KFC fabrics for the lining — Paisley Jungle Tangerine. It’s so fantastic!!!

Hey! And look! It’s on the top of that wonky block on the front of the bag!

I’ve also been working on a bag made from the fabrics left over from this quilt. I finished piecing the panels last night and got them both quilted tonight. These fabrics are all KFC in the contrast colorway, except the jumbles aren’t contrast. And the swirly white background is not KFC.

These panels have taken some time to make because I’m somewhat limited on the scraps I have. It was tricky to make the blocks out of the limited longer strips I had available. But I made some fun ones.

One of the large blocks is a simple star block.

One smaller one is a not very perfect log cabin with a fussy cut center.

This other small block is free form and wonky with a fussy cut center.

And the larger block on the other panel is a sort of log cabin kind of thing.

I have a few crumb pieces left but not enough to make another tote. I’ll have to think about what I can make from them.

It was another nice day here in Portland. We had nice sunshine most of the day. The boys were happy when I stepped away from work for a game of frisbee.

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I Got My Lamb Fix!

I visited my herding teacher at her sheep ranch Saturday and got to hang out and smooch on some lambs for an hour. It was a gorgeous sunny day full of lambs that were just hours old.

These little lambs had been born the night before. They were so tiny and so amazingly cute. Do I look happy? It was so fantastic!

I also learned a lot about what lambing season is like for a sheep ranch owner. I’m really glad I don’t have a sheep ranch of my own! But it’s really nice to have friends who do.

After seeing lambs my friend and I went to another friend’s place and did some sheep herding, followed by a nice hike with my boys on BLM land.

What a gorgeous spring day! Nothing like a sunny spring day in the Pacific Northwest.

I didn’t do any sewing last night because I had to be up ridiculously early today to head to Olympia, Washington, for a sheep herding trial. We were in the car and on our way at 5:15 this morning. By the way… I am NOT a morning person.

Rico did a great job at the trial and we were done nice and early. I was back home by noon. I took a little nap and then hit the sewing room and assembled the Frankenbag panels I started on Friday.

I got them both quilted and ready for assembly tonight. I used the same matchstick and wavy line quilting as on the other two bags I’ve made. I like the matchstick quilting at the top of the bag as it ads some additional structure to keep the shape.

After I started quilting I regretted that I hadn’t checked my bobbin to make sure there was enough thread to finish one piece. Well, I did run out part way through, but it happened right at the end of a row!

I didn’t finish the bags tonight because I’m pretty tired and was afraid I’d make a mistake. So I pulled out my KFC contrast color way scraps from my first Ruffled Feathers quilt and started putting together crumb blocks. Here’s a pile of the first chain pieced crumb pieces.

… and a nice stack of blocks of varying sizes that will be put together like puzzle pieces later.

I wanted to see how these would all look as larger piece so I laid some out side by side.

I think this will be a fun one! I will have to make a few accent blocks out of some rectangles that are left over since I don’t have any orphan blocks on these fabrics. Haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do for those blocks but I will be limited a bit by the sizes of the scraps. I’ll probably toss some low volume black and whites in there.

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Taming My Scraps

I took a little diversion tonight and continued taming some of my KFC scraps. All these little pieces came together in crumb blocks.

I kept some scrap strips aside to complete the starburst blocks I’m making. But I actually used up almost all the other KFC small scraps that I’ve saved. This is all I have left:

I made a few nice size panels that will make a fun project. I’m thinking I’ll use the two larger panels on the right in this photo to make a medium size tote bag.

The one on the bottom right measures about 19 inches square.

I’ve been wanting to try some matchstick machine quilting and will probably do that on this bag. I’m thinking I’ll make a deep gusset on the bag as well, one single handle long enough to go over my shoulder and maybe a couple pockets on the inside. It’s all up in the air, but that’s what I’m thinking.

When I make these crumb blocks I chain piece them and it goes pretty fast. It’s amazing how quickly all those tiny pieces turn into larger panels.

I do enjoy making crumb blocks. Improv piecing like this truly is my happy place. It’s nice to just let each piece be what it wants to be.

Took a photo during our afternoon walk today. So many trees in my neighborhood are blooming and the aroma in the neighborhood is so lovely. I came across a winter Daphne today that smelled so incredible! And some apple trees were so lovely.

My forsythia is in such gorgeous bloom right now. It’s at it’s peak.

This is just it’s third bloom. It’s grown crazy fast. It was only about 18 inches tall when I planted it two years ago. It’s going to get a serious trim when its bloom is done. I like them to be all sprangly rather than shaped, but this is a little thin. I’m hoping trimming it back will encourage it to thicken up and fill in.

We have a couple more days of rain and then a stretch of really gorgeous weather coming up. This is usually a very rainy time of year here in Portland, so this will be a treat and everything will come to life and explode with blooms!

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My Scrappy KFC Trip Quilt is Done!

I dug in this afternoon and pinned and sewed the final three horizontal seams for this bright quilt and can now count it among my finished quilt tops in the last year — number 16.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. And I can’t believe I waited so long to make one.

Because of the mistakes I made the last time I worked on this, the final assembly was a little harder… I had a harder time keeping track of how the rows should go together. I had to do a lot of checking and rechecking as I prepared to sew the final seams. But It’s all correct and my previous mistake didn’t cause any terrible issues with the design.

Here’s some eye candy…

And the obligatory close ups because these fabrics are so amazing!

When this was done I decided that I needed to get organized and ready to finish the scrappy KFC starburst half log cabin quilt that’s been on my design wall for months. I’ve decided to gift this quilt to my brother and his wife for their bed and needed to figure out how many more blocks I need to make.

They want the finished quilt to be 84 x 104. I have 88 blocks done and need to make 17 more full size blocks. I’ll also need to make around 15 additional blocks that are a little bigger for the setting triangles. See this blog post to see what I decided to do for setting triangles.

My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate this entire quilt, so I’m using the Styrofoam extension that I made a few months ago and am laying the quilt out sideways. I plan on putting several borders on this to get it up to the size I need. Unbelievably… I’m almost out of my KFC scrap strips. I’m hoping I have enough to finish the blocks I need.

Once I made the notes I needed to wrap this up, I took all these blocks off the design wall and put them away.

Then, to wrap up my time in my sewing room I took all my Ice Storm blocks and put them up on the design wall.

I’ll look at this for a couple days before I start sewing it together. Tomorrow I plan to work on some of my new Ruffled Feathers blocks and will probably crank out some sunburst blocks.

I’m starting to think about the next quilt I’ll start. I pulled out all my Brandon Mably Jumble fabrics the other day and stacked them all up together. They are so pretty!

I’m thinking of combining these with a bunch of the more whimsical low volume fabrics I’ve purchased recently. Thinking it might be another fun trip quilt.

I did go online and order a few color ways of the jumble that I’m missing. I’ll wait to decide what to do with these until I get that order.

I took the boys for a nice long walk this morning before the rain started. We walked five miles and ventured into a neighborhood we don’t typically walk in. It was nice to have some new surroundings.

That was a busy day!

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Almost Finished, but Messed Up Instead

I felt really confident that I would finish this Scrappy KFC trip quilt top this evening. I had a quilt guild Zoom meeting and pinned and sewed the final three rows of blocks while I listened.

I would have completed this tonight except that I sewed two of the rows together wrong, which meant that they wouldn’t work with the rows they were supposed to be next to. Rather than pick them apart I was just able to move the top row to the bottom of the incorrectly sewed two rows and it will all work.

See that single row across the middle? That was supposed to be the top row.

I think it will be fine to sew it together this way. But I will turn that top section of two around the other way to see how it looks before I sew it all together.

I walked into my sewing room at one point in the evening when part of this was sitting on my cutting table and it was just so pretty!

It’s definitely prettier close up when you can see the variation within each fabric.

I decided it was better to put this aside and wait to finish it, rather than plug on and make more mistakes. I should be able to finish this up tomorrow night and then put the Ice Storm blocks up on the design wall.

Here’s my boys from our afternoon walk today. They were very excellent posers… even Rico!

And such a beautiful sky tonight as the sun was going down.

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New KFC Fabrics Delivered Today!

My big news for the day is that my package of new Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics that I ordered from Glorious Color came via Fed Ex this morning. It was a pretty big package!

Here’s what was in there: 23 half-yard cuts, 2 one-yard cuts, one two-yard cut, and a 2 1/2 yard piece of wide backing.

Oddly enough, the pieces I’m most excited about are the two white pieces and the black and white sharks teeth.

The wide backing will be used for the blue KFC sixteen patch quilt that I finished recently. It will be the first time I’ve ever used a wide backing.

This blue millefiori is really gorgeous! The design is a little big bigger than on the regular quilting fabric and the colors seem just a little more vibrant. The wide backing also has a more silky texture.

That’s the regular fabric on top and the wide back on the bottom. GAH! It’s so gorgeous!

And, of course, I had to take a good look at all of it! There’s a quilt in these pinks and reds! That feathers is so amazing!

And these greens… seriously!!! No wonder this is my favorite color!

And a little more eye candy…

And this white moss flower below is so gorgeous! I see a lot of this in my future!

I took a couple days off work this week to recover from our radio fundraising drive. On Tuesday we got up early and hit the road for the coast. Low tide was at about 8:30. I had hoped to be on the road at 7 am, but it was 7:30 by the time we pulled away from home.

We were on the beach all by ourselves at 9 am. We headed north from Arcadia Beach onto Cannon Beach. We walked about a mile onto Cannon Beach.

If you look at that big rock immediately behind these boys, you might see a little bump on the top.

It took me a little time to figure out what it was, and boy, was I surprised!

A bald eagle!!!! And it was huge! It’s not terribly common for me to see eagles at the beach!

Then we turned around and headed back toward the south and back onto Arcadia Beach — the beach we usually visit on our day trips.

It’s about 1.5 miles from the beach access to the southern point. When we got to the end, I turned around and looked back north from where we had just come and saw something on the beach. At first I thought it was a really big dog. And then I realized it was a deer!

He was on the beach were we had just walked not more than five minutes before.

And our wildlife excitement wasn’t over. As I headed back north I noticed something in the surf. At first I thought it was a rock, but it was bobbing in the water and moving north. . . a sea lion! It’s not uncommon to see sea lions on the Oregon coast, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any on this beach.

I walked over six miles on the beach. I’m guessing the dogs must have run at least 15 miles!

Before I headed home I stopped in at a little quilt store in Cannon Beach that I really like. They have a really nice selection of fabrics and the staff is really friendly. I bought a few black and white fabrics there!

I’m happy to report that my black and white kick is continuing! Here’s an order I got in the mail this week from Quilt Expressions in Boise.

I still have two more packages of black and white fabrics that are on their way to me. It’s becoming a ridiculous amount of black and white fabric.

I’m slowly completing the final blocks for my Ice Storm quilt. I have 8 blocks in progress, with an additional 8 blocks that haven’t been started yet. Then I can get it up on the design wall.

I have sewn together one row of my scrappy KFC trip quilt. It’s a little slower process since the seams aren’t pressed in a way that makes them nest easily. So I have to repress some of the seams, and carefully match other seams that just won’t nest.

Luckily , there are only seven rows so it shouldn’t take too long. I’d like to finish the Ice Storm blocks this weekend and make some good headway on assembling the scrappy trip quilt.