Category: Uncategorized

It’s official. As of Friday at 5 pm, I am no longer among the working. So far, it feels damned good! I’m sitting here Sunday evening and I don’t feel that dread about the impending work week. It’s a good feeling.

Friday night I put a pizza in the oven, took Rico for a walk after dinner, then snuggled in and watched a couple movies. I got up early Saturday and played pickleball with 12 other women and it was so much fun! I had organized it and it was well worth the effort. I hand picked all the women and we were all at about the same skill level so the games were so much fun. And I played like an animal! I was so relaxed. So focused. And everyone commented on how much fun I seemed to be having! The same thing happened during pickleball today. And I swear, I’m actually playing a lot better! So retirement seems to have had a good effect on my pickleball!

I decided to take some time on Saturday and finish up the black, white and pink Interweave quilt I had been working on. It only took a couple of hours, and it’s done!

All I had to do was finish sewing one row of blocks together. Then sewed all the rows togethe and sewed the borders on the sides. You can see the side borders in this photo.

I sewed the victory lap in pieces before the quilt top was all in one piece: top and bottom row, and the side borders. it was so much easier to do it this way rather than dragging all that bulk through the machine.

This quilt top seemed to go together really quickly. Maybe because this is the third time I’ve made it.

Here’s some close ups to see the beautiful fabrics better.

It’s now several days later and I am snuggled up on the sofa with Rico sleeping soundly at my side at the end of day-three of retirement. So far I’m enjoying it! I’m getting a lot done and have been tired at the end of each day. A retired friend said I was going to need to pace myself. It’s unhealthy to keep up that mad pace in retirement.

We’ve been having some warm winter storms the last week. Lots of rain but crazy warm temps in the high 50s. We haven’t gotten the same flooding that they’ve gotten up in Washington, but it’s all part of the same storm system and we’ve gotten plenty of rain. I was awakened at 1 am last night as my neighbor’s brand new generator kicked in when the power went out. It was soooo loud! It sounded like a semi truck was idling in my bedroom! There were some significant wind storms that have parts of town still without power.

The neighbor sent me a text this morning apologizing for how loud his generator is. He assured me that they will be looking into ways to abate the noise. When I looked outside at 1 am there were people standing in the street videotaping the noisy generator. I’m wondering if he got complaints from other neighbors.

I got ready for my 7:30 am pickleball session in the dark and my power was back on when I got home.

One thing on my check off list yesterday was to run by the vet and pick up Bender’s ashes. He is now in my living room next to Billie and my beloved Forrest.

It always makes me sad when I feel the heft of a pet’s ashes in my hands.

I impulsively started a new quilt top using the black and white fabric scraps. More on that next time.

For now I’m busy being retired, playing pickleball, and getting my house ready for guests on Christmas Eve.

I haven’t done too much sewing this week. I did manage to sew all but one of the A block rows on my black, white and pink Interweave quilt. Tonight I hit my sewing room and sewed together the first row of the B blocks and got it all pressed.

Then I got ready to sew this row to the A row that comes next to it in the quilt top.

So the first two rows of the quilt are now done. I think there is a total of nine rows.

I love it when blocks come together. They are always a little chaotic on the design wall. But when they are sewn together they start to sing!

And you know, I’m not someone who really enjoys quilting with a lot of pieces that require significant precision. But I do like it when my corners match nicely!

Here’s the Interweave pattern I’m using, since a few people have asked me for it. You can find it with a google search.

That’s it for sewing tonight. But before I called it quits I wound five bobbins for my Featherweight.

I always wind a few bobbins at a time. i like being able to just drop in a new bobbin and keep sewing. These will keep me sewing for quite a while.

I’m down to 20 days to go until I’m retired. I can’t believe it’s finally here! I’m so glad I will be retired when Christmas rolls around this week. My birthday is Tuesday, and that will be the big milestone that makes retirement a reality!

I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with a group of friends that I’ve had Thanksgiving with for the last ten years or so. I’m always responsible for mashed potatoes and cranberries, and then I make the gravy once the turkey comes out of the oven. I make really good turkey gravy!

I’m playing pickleball after work tomorrow night and will stop and do my grocery shopping on the way home. It’s a short list!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I finally had some time yesterday to run out and pick up my Bernina from the service shop. They replaced the tension mechanism and put in a new bobbin case. They happily told me that all the tension issues they were concerned about when I had it in a couple weeks ago have been alleviated. That news makes me happy.

However, it didn’t arrive home until it was too late to finish my bag for a party on Friday afternoon. So I thought about what I could do instead and thought… if anyone in the world deserves a quilt as a gift it’s my co-worker who has now left. I hired her nearly 13 years ago and we’ve worked together that entire time.

So I dug into my closet and selected a quilt to give to her. I was a little worried because, as you know, the stuff I make can be pretty bold. But I took a chance and selected a really bold one for her.

And she loves it!!!

You can find a bunch of blog posts about this quilt here.

I will still finish the bag and gift it to her, but now I don’t have to be in an insane hurry.

With that pressure off, I spent some time a couple evenings last week and started cutting the fabrics for my black and white Interweave quilt. I managed to get all the main fabrics cut on Friday night.

Yesterday I dug into my white on white fabric bins and seleced the only piece that was big enough, but I would have selected it anyway even if I had more choices. It’s white on white with a lovely delicate leaf and vine pattern.

I’m not a huge fan of stark white background fabric in quilts. The color of this is certainly white, but the white on white design gives it some interest and texture. That makes me like it better.

Several years ago I did some small project where I used some white on white as a background, and thought I would do a lot more of that project so went online and bought 10 or so one yard pieces of different white on white fabrics. I’m not sure I’ve every used any of it beyond that first project! This is the story of my life!

I managed to make the strip sets that are needed for the blocks and got them all sub cut after breakfast. (I was supposed to play pickleball this morning but it was quite rainy so hunkered down at home all day instead.).

After lunch I dove in and started putting all the pieces up on my design wall. There are basically two types of blocks in this quilt, and each type makes up one of two horizontal rows that make up the quilt. But it’s important to me to have it all up on the design wall before I start sewing it all together because I want to make sure I have all the fabrics in the right order and everything in the right place.

I have seen a few of these quilts online that have mistakes in them that mess up the weave pattern. It would make me nuts if I had a mistake in this quilt top!

I had all my different pieces organized on the ironing board and cutting table, and with pattern instructions handy…

… I did get it all up on the design wall in two different sessions.

Of course, it’s always fun to get a little closer look at the fabrics.

And even closer!

I’ll start doing some sewing on this if I have some time this week.

Back to work tomorrow. I now officially have less than a month to go! It’s so hard to believe I’m this close!

I finished the Australian Aboriginal fabric string blocks last week. I had them all up on my portable design wall just to see what they looked like.

the main part of the quilt top will be six blocks 7 blocks. then I’ll add a couple of borders to get it up to size. I tried a few fabrics and landed on this combo… a smaller inner border of the yellow that is used in the center of each block with this purplish fabric that is one of my absolute favorites.

Love the way it plays with the yellow center strips! It feels pretty perfect!

I felt the urge to start something new and didn’t want to force myself to finish the strings top first. So I pulled all the locks off the wall and packed them up with the border fabrics and I’ll deal with it all later.

A co-worker of mine, a woman I hired almost 13 years ago and has been in the trenches with me all that time, is leaving the organization for an amazing job. It really makes me sad that she’s leaving, but I’m really happy for her and this opportunity for such a large and well known organization.

I wanted to make her a Frankenbag as a going away gift. I selected a group of fabrics that are similar to one of my favorite bags I’ve ever made.

I got cutting and had a plan in mind. I was nearly done with the first panel and started having all kinds of tension issues with my Bernini. I changed my needle. I retreaded the machine several times. I took the bobbin out and put it back in the case several times.

I got my machine back a week or so ago. I hadn’t sewn on it until this weekend. the tech told me that he was seeing some tension issues in the stitch and said it might be necessary to replace th tension assembly and the bobbin case. So I called him and had the machine back in the shop in a couple hours. He called me today to let me know that with the new parts the machine is making gorgeous stitches with absolutely no tension issues.

So that meant that my plans to finish up this bag this weekend were scuttled. I did finish both panels on my Featherweight yesterday.

then this afternoon I made the quilt sandwiches for the panels so they are ready to quilt once I have my machine back.

I also cut all the lining, pocket and zipper placket pieces and got them fused to the interfacing.

Not sure when I’m going to have time to go and pick up my machine. I have to deal with some traffic to get there and back.

Since I had a bit of an urge to do something in my sewing room I decided on the accent fabrics I’m going to use for my Interweave quilt with all the black and white fabrics and got them all pressed and cut today.

I still need to press and cut all the black and white fabrics and I need to dig into my stash decide on a white background fabric.

I took Thursday and Friday off work since I still have some vacation days that I’ve decided to use up before retirement on December 12. Holy cow!!! As of Wednesday, that’s just a month away!!! I can hardly believe it.

I played a lot of pickleball while I’ve been off. Had some really good sessions and it was a great way to spend some days off.

I finally got my butt out and bought a new car almost a month ago. It’s just a newer version of the car I had. I really like it so far but I’m not quite used to it yet.

If it was just me I wouldn’t ned this much car. But with the dogs I need a sufficient cargo space. My old car worked really well for me and I’m sure this one will too.

It’s been a really beautiful fall her in Portland. The colors have been fantastic! Here’s my yard a couple weeks ago.

And my favorite little October Glory red maple has nearly lost all its leaves.

These little Japanese maple leaves are so gorgeous! I have two of these trees in pots on my patio. I picked them up a few summers ago in front of a neighbor’s house. I’m planning on planting them in the spring.

the dogs are doing well. Rico had a sheep herding lesson on Saturday. the first he’s had in over a month. He was so happy to be out there again!

Bender is getting harder and harder to wake up and to come in from the yard. His sight has gotten bad and he can’t hear much. But he’s still out there and still wants to go for our walks. And his appetite is intact.

He did manage to get himself completely stuck in a barstool while I was playing pickleball today. He was in this position when I got home. I have not idea how long he was like this.

I’m having to lift him onto the bed every night. It’s been a month or so since he could jump up there himself. But he usually sleeps nicely trough the night.

These boys are usually good about leaving me enough space on the bed. Rico rarely sleeps on the bed at night. He gets up for a snuggle every morning.

I’m getting more and more antsy about retiring! It’s so hard to believe that it’s so close!

I finished sewing the scrappy Australian Aboriginal quilt blocks on Saturday and then added the final border piece and sewed a victory lap this Morning.

It’s a nice throw size quilt. I had thought about adding another border in the black color way of the black and white fabric here (the background is black with white writing), but I couldn’t find the piece of fabric I KNOW I have. So I’m considering it done.

It was a nice and quick project. Just what I needed.

I have almost enough of these blocks left that I could make the same quilt top again. I almost start cutting border fabric yesterday but decided I wanted to move onto something new.

It was a rainy day today so I thought I would start my black and white version of the Interweave quilt. Here’s the one I made from almost all Brandon Mably fabrics last year.

I’ll use black and white prints for the horizontal pieces and Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics in purple, pink and orange for the vertical strips. I think I still need more of the pinks/purples/oranges for the size I want to make.

I was all ready to start pressing and cutting fabrics today and couldn’t find my pattern. I looked high and low. I’m usually pretty good about putting my patterns away when I’m not using them. And since I haven’t been doing much sewing, my sewing room is in pretty good shape. Luckily, I called my friend and she has a copy she is going to mail to me. I’m sure that I’ll find mine before hers arrives in the mail.

So with a bit of an itch to scratch, I decided to use Aboriginal scraps that were gifted to me by two different people. I’ve been wanting to make a string quilt from Aboriginal fabrics for a few years. So it seemed like a good time to dig in.

I had a package of the Missouri Star Quilt Co paper foundations in my close so pulled them out, grabbed a bunch of the Aboriginal strips and got going

I have a lot of Aboriginal scraps!

I have a thought that I’d like to make my next few projects only from what I have in my stash. So I found this yellow Aboriginal fabric, Three pieces of it, actually, and decided to use it as the common center strip for each block. I cut the strips then lightly glued the strips to ten pieces of the paper foundation.

Then I sat down at my Featherweight with all ten pieces of paper and started adding strips. I chain pieced the blocks and Had ten all sewn pretty quickly then pressed and cut to size.

After dinner and a walk with my boys I made another six blocks and got them all up on the design board.

The yellow fabric is actually more mellow… sort of a creamy butterscotch color. This photo is much more true to color on my devices.

Had to keep booting Bender because he kept falling asleep in the next place I needed to be. On top of the foot pedal, in front of the ironing board, or the design wall, etc…

I’m pretty happy with the yellow for the center of each block. It makes it feel real warm to me and I like a nice definition of those diagonal lines.

My Bernina is still in the shop for service/maintenance. I talked to the tech yesterday and I could have picked it up yesterday but didn’t have time to get to the shop. He did tell me that my machine has over 11 million stitches on it! A rough calculation and some help from AI tells me that is nearly 20 miles of stitching!

The tech was quite impressed about the 11 million number!

I took Thursday and Friday off work. I decided that I was going to pretend all weekend that I’m retired. I have to say, it felt pretty luxurious! I loved the feeling of being in control of my time. I loved the feeling of not really having to be anywhere. I loved the feeling of much less stress than I’m accustomed to.

The only things on my calendar for four days was pickleball and my annual flu and COVID vaccines. And I’m glad to have that done!

We finished our fall membership drive at work yesterday. I’m very glad to see the end of it. It is the final full length drive I will do before I retire. I celebrated my 30 year anniversary of raising money for public broadcasting yesterday. A rough calculation shows me that I’ve been responsible for over 200 on air fundraising campaigns across those years. That’s a lot!

I have set my retirement date. December 12 will be my last day of work. That means I have just over two months to go. It’s hard to believe I’m that close!

It’s been a rough year at work. I never would have guessed that the final year of my career would be like this. But I’m happy to say that I’m leaving a strong program and an amazing team as I depart.

With work being hectic the last few weeks I haven’t gotten much sewing done. But I have made a little progress on my scrappy Australian Aboriginal impulse project. You know, I really love an impulsive project. They are usually the most fun for me.

I got all the bocks done and up on my design wall a couple weeks ago.

This will make a good size throw quilt. And I do like it. Of course, scrappy quilts are my favorite.

Earlier this week I sewed the first four rows together, so that’s 1/3 of the top done. The bottom section in this next photo is the four rows sewn together. The top section is still loose blocks that need to be sewn together.

I sewed the center section into rows this evening.

I still need to sew these rows together. That will go really fast.

The dogs are good. Bender had an odd head tremor a couple weeks ago so off to the vet we went. After an exam and blood tests, the diagnosis is that he is old. He has been fine since his vet visit.

He is at the stage where he doesn’t hear me come home so I’m always checking to see if he’s breathing as he sleeps.

So far so good.

He’s been enjoying himself eating the last of my cherry tomatoes.

Rico is great. Very healthy and enthusiastic. He will be nine soon. I can’t believe my baby is nine!

I found out after my vacation last month that I still have two weeks of vacation available. So I’ve scheduled some days in the next two months to take my days off rather than taking a pay out when I retire.

I’ll be off this Thursday and Friday. I actually need to buy a new car. My current car is a 2012. I bought it new and it has nearly 190,000 miles on it. I drive alone in the countryside all the time and want to have a new car. I love my current car but need something with lower mileage. I really dread buying a car. It’s such a terrible ordeal.

I’ve been playing pickleball five or six times a week. The weather has been lovely. Fall here in Portland can be really lovely. We have had some days of rain but it hasn’t completely settled in yet. Hoping for a few more weeks of nice fall sunshine.

A few months ago I was gifted a good size box of Australian Aboriginal fabric by a fellow blogger, Julie at https://quiltdivajulie.blogspot.com. She emailed me and told me she had decided to destash all of her Aboriginal fabrics and thought that I might gain some inspiration from them, knowing that I had been in a bit of a dry spell.

It was a lovely collection of yardage and some really enticing scraps … strips, squares, and other pieces.

Included in that packet were two small Ziploc bags of 4.5 inch squares of many, many different fabrics. I have been thinking about those squares and made a decision a few days ago.

I had purchased a few yards of Brandon Mably’s Amaze fabric in black and white a couple years ago intending to execute this same quilt idea using Kaffe Fassett Collective scraps. But it just seemed so perfect to use that fabric for these Aboriginal squares instead. And then I wouldn’t have to trim up all those squares!

So I played out a handful of the squares on top of the black and white fabric to see if it floated my boat…

And I liked it. So decided to go ahead an do it.

I was supposed to play pickleball this morning but it was canceled because of rain. So instead I hunkered down at home and started pressing and cutting the sashing pieces.

I cut the sashing pieces at 2.5 inches in width and sat down and strip pieced the 120 squares I think I’ll need for this quilt, plus a handful of extras to be safe.

My Bernina is in the shop for servicing so I cranked away on my sweet little Featherweight.

Once that was done and pressed I cut the sashing pieces for the second side of the blocks and had another chain piecing and pressing session. I got all 120 blocks plus extras sewn and pressed.

I threw a handful of these blocks together on my cutting table just to get a feel for it.

There is a lot more color variation across all the blocks. Somehow I got stuck in a purple/blue section!

I’m enjoying this so far. It felt good to sit down at my little Featherweight again. I still don’t have much creative drive happening so it’s nice to chunk away at something that’s not asking that of me. So if I can’t be creative, I can at least be a little bit productive.

A huge thank you to Julie for thinking of me and nudging me back to my sewing room!

I had a two-week vacation earlier this month. It was not an exciting vacation. I spent my time playing pickleball (I played every day!) and preparing for retirement. I have set a date in December that will be my final day of work so I spent a good part of my vacation dealing with Medicare, health insurance, Social Security, financial and legal matters. The good news is that I got a lot done and am well on my way toward being ready when my retirement date arrives.

I did spend a little time in my sewing room during my vacation. I finished slicing up the woven stripes blocks I made a few months ago and am much happier with how this is looking now.

I completed the slicing and sewing of all 40 blocks. Now I need to get them back up on the design wall and then sew them all together.

It’s been absolutely beautiful here the last few weeks. I joined some friends in St. Paul, Oregon, last weekend to watch a sheep herding trial at a winery. It was a great way to spend an afternoon. It had rained that morning but was gorgeous by the time we got there.

I’ve been thrilled with how my new raspberry bushes have done this summer. I’m getting raspberries for my breakfast nearly every morning.

Later this fall I will rip out all my strawberry plants in preparation for planting more raspberry bushes in the spring. The raspberries have put my strawberries to shame. (I might plant some of the strawberries in smaller pots, just to see how they do.)

A few months ago my friend Linda gifted the Arboretum quilt she made to my brother and his wife.

They had wanted a bright quilt to hang in the entry way of their house and this is the perfect choice!

I love how it looks in that space!

My boys are doing well although Bender has done some serious aging since his birthday in April. He is nearly deaf, can’t see very well and is very wobbly. But he still wants to chase a toy and go for our daily walks. He’s about 12.5 years old. His wobbliness is made worse by his epilepsy meds. Poor guy. At least he’s still happy and seems to be somewhat oblivious to his predicament.

He is doing well enough to have gone on a quick trail hike when my brother and SIL visited a month or so ago.

It was a little difficult to head back to work after my vacation, but I’m getting through it by knowing I have less than three months to go until my time is all mine! I will be sad to leave the work that I love, but I feel like it’s time to step away.

I looked back at my blog and realized that my last post was April 20. that’s just a little over four months ago. I’m a little surprised it’s been that long. The time has flown by.

It’s been a good summer, but a little crazy as well.

Congress voted to eliminate federal funding for public media so my job as a fundraiser for public TV and radio has been a little nuts the last few months. We had a lot of planning and preparing to do in anticipation of the funding cuts. Once they happened we jumped into gear and executed a vast array of fundraising campaigns. The good news is that Oregon loves its public media! the community has really stepped up! The crazy amount of work has eased off a bit but we still have a lot to do. I sure never thought my last year of my career would look like this.

On top of that, It’s been announced that I will be retiring in December. It’s so hard to believe that it’s just a few short months away. And then I’ll have so much more time to do what I want to do. But it’s a hectic time making sure all my ducks are in a row before that time comes. I’m really looking forward to it!

Since my last post I’ve done a few things in my sewing room. Mostly tasks that have needed to be done, but not much creative work so far. Still waiting for those creative juices to start flowing again.

I added borders to two quilts to get them ready to be quilted. This Jewel Frames quilt is for my bed. It’s been sitting and waiting for quite some time.

I just did a simple wide border of the Jade millefiori fabric. I wanted this quilt a little bigger because the one I have on my bed now shrunk up more than I had anticipated once it was quilted and washed. I want this one to be plenty big.

The second quilt I added borders to is the yellow and brown Japanese X and + quilt that is for my guest room. It needed significant borders to make it the size I want for that double bed. So I added three borders. the inner border is of this lovely big leaf fabric.

I think I have enough of this left over to make pillow cases for the bed.

Here’s all three borders.

I wasn’t going to add the green spot border because I didn’t want to wrestle all that fabric for another round. but it really needed it.

Here’s the quilt top on the bed. It’s generous!

And a close up.

This fabric combo is not for everyone but I love it!

I still need to make the backings for these two quilts.

The next thing I made was a set of pillow cases for my friend who I gifted my blue swirly quilt to. She loved the blue feathers fabric so it seemed like a no brainer.

A set of pillow cases make a really nice gift.

Tonight I started chopping up my woven stripes quilt blocks (from my last post in April) because I wasn’t loving them. So I’m cutting a 2.5 inch strip off each side and will sew them back together.

I managed to slice up all 40 blocks this evening. At least I think there are 40 blocks. It will be pretty fast to sew them all.

I’m sure I’ll like it better with the blocks sliced up.

We’ve had a nice summer. It’s hot right now… over 100 today. But the summer has generally been really nice. I had ripe tomatoes earlier than I have since I’ve lived in Portland. I ate my first ripe tomato the first week of July!

I’m also really happy that the raspberry bushes I planted last spring are producing fruit right now! I wasn’t expecting much in their first year, but I’ve had several breakfasts with them already and they are soooo good!

They are putting my strawberries to shame. I will tear the strawberries out and plant more raspberries.

My brother and his wife were here a month or so ago and I gifted them a quilt and let them select which one they wanted. They surprised me and selected the one I call my black quilts. Here is it hanging from the loft in their house.

I love it there. I doubt it will stay there because it will get a good deal of sun. But it’s a great place for a quilt.

I’ve been playing a LOT of pickleball. Seriously, at least six times a week this summer. I’ve also been taking a weekly lesson and am feeling really good about how I’m playing. I even played this morning before it got too hot and had some really great games. I ran into a former co-worker there who I haven’t seen for years! We got to play a few games together and had a blast!

I have one more week of work and then two weeks of vacation. My friend will not be coming since I have so much to get done to be ready for my December retirement. It will be good to have some time off I really need it.