agilejack

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.

I ended up sick this weekend. I started feeling something a little scratchy in my lungs last Wednesday. I felt fine on Thursday, but in the evening I felt the same scratchiness in my lungs. When I woke up Friday I had a full blown cold.

I’m pretty sure this happened because I was bragging a few weeks ago that, aside from my COVID case in May of 2022, I hadn’t been sick since the pandemic hit.

So, I do have a cold. I did COVID tests three times over the last few days and they were all negative.

I struggled through work on Friday but was so punk I spent all of Saturday napping on the sofa. I was supposed to play pickleball at a club event at a large indoor facility Saturday night, but that was not going to happen.

I feel much better today. I can tell that I’m on the mend. But I’m a little resentful that my weekend was wasted being sick. I would have been happy to take a sick day or two off of work.

If did manage to hit my sewing room tonight and get a little done.

Some time last week I made the lining for the Aboriginal fabric bag I’ve been working on. Tonight I pinned it to the body of the bag and got this bad boy done. Since this bag doesn’t have any zipper pockets or zipper placket, finishing it was a quick job.

Here’s the finished bag showing the lining.

Here’s a few more photos.

And, of course, I had to add my tag.

This bag will be shipped off tomorrow with one of the pin cushions I made recently.

It was nice to make a bag without having to do all the zippers. I might have to do a few more like this.

I had been giving some thought to what I could do for my pickleball teacher as the holidays approach. I decided that I wanted to give him (and his wife) a quilt that I’ve made. I had the contact info for his daughter because I helped connect her to people at a local medical center recently (she’s in med school), so I sent her photos of what I had and she said my Ice Storm quilt would be the best option for them and their decor.

After I finished up in my sewing room tonight I settled down on the sofa and started hand sewing the binding to get it ready to gift.

Oh man! I do LOVE that octopus fabric for the backing of this quilt!

I managed to get one full side of the quilt done. I feel pretty good with that progress for one evening.

I do LOVE a hand sewn binding. Too bad I hate doing them so much!

I do need to get cracking on a table runner for a friend for a holiday gift. It was a special request!

Last Tuesday was Giving Tuesday and it’s the day that kicks off all of our year end fundraising. I actually went into the office to be on they air live on the early shift.

I hadn’t been live on the air from the studios since the pandemic hit. I’ve been on air from my sewing room for nearly four years! It was fun to be in the studio again. And I had a huge studio all to myself. Probably a good thing since I ended up with a cold.

My boys have been terribly bored with me sick for a few days. Maybe we’ll be able to get out for a quick walk tomorrow.

My long weekend started with a little pickleball on Thanksgiving morning. I only played for a little over an hour because I had to do a little cooking for my pot luck Thanksgiving with friends. My responsibility was mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and I would make the gravy once the bird was out of the oven. I made the cranberry sauce Wednesday night. I made the mashed potatoes when I got home from pickleball, put them into a warm crock pot then jumped in the shower. I headed off for my friend’s house around noon.

We had a really good dinner. My friend always does a good job with the turkey. Really juicy and flavorful. We had a table full of people but not a crazy number.

After dinner we took a walk around my friend’s 15 acre property and let the dogs run. She is a wonderful photographer and took a few photos of my boys.

They were pretty dirty and wet by this time and Bender’s mane was full of little burrs. He got a good comb out when we got home. Here’s more photos of these two knuckleheads.

I had the opportunity to play pickleball Wednesday morning at the big church and had a blast! I haven’t played there since the first part of September. I think I truly played the best I’ve ever played! it was a full two hours and I was worn out by the time we were done. I was lucky enough to play there again on Friday and it was 3.5 hours of fun! I love playing there, but I’m guessing it will be some time before I get in there again.

I woke up this morning with the plan to hit the pickleball court at 8 am and I did just that. It was a brisk 32 degrees when I got there. But in Portland, we like to play when the courts are dry! There was a lot of frost this morning but the courts were in great shape. We were all pretty bundled up and by the time I was almost done I was actually a little hot! I had a great two hours of pickleball!

I’m planning to play again tomorrow at noon. It should be warmer at that time.

I heard from someone who has purchased a few items from me in the past asking if I had any bags made from Australian Aboriginal fabrics. She wanted one to give to a friend. I showed her the Aboriginal bag panels I made a couple weeks ago and she loved them. So my goal for this weekend is to finish that bag and get it in the mail.

To that end I pulled out the quilt sandwiches I made a week or so ago and started quilting. Then I got the bag handles sewn on.

They wanted these green nylon webbing handles instead of my typical handles so they shipped the material to me to use.

I got the bag panels quilted, got the handles sewn on and got the bag outer body sewn together.

Here’s the other side of the bag.

They don’t want the zipper placket or zipper pocket on this one. Just a couple of slip pockets on the interior. So this one should go fast. I selected the lining fabric from my stash and got the lining cut out and the interfacing fused on.

It has all the colors that are in the outside of the bag. So it should work well.

I also dug into my stash and selected this orange color for the slip pockets. The same fabric in a little different color way is in the front of the bag.

I should have this done tomorrow.

Today is my birthday! It was fun to start it out with a game of pickleball. And it was such a gorgeous day here in Portland. The sun shone brightly all day and made for high spirits. I treated myself to shrimp tacos for dinner.

My friend who visits and helps me make quilts sent me a great gift that arrived a few days ago. I waited until today to open it. And look what I found inside…

It’s a huge tub of pickleballs! And she even selected the kind most people use. I just bought a huge box of these for my pickleball teacher. I will definitely get good use out of these!

I enjoyed talking to family and friends today… always the best part of having a birthday.

And as of today I will officially start counting down the months to retirement. Just 24 months to go. That’s half a pandemic! It will arrive in no time!

It’s hard to believe it’s Tuesday already. It’s already been a busy work week and it will only get worse.

We’ve got about ten days of decent weather and the last fall leaves are dropping from the trees. I was able to take a break from my desk at the end of the day today before it got dark and got Bender and Rico leashed up and headed out. We all needed it after working and sleeping (not me!) all day.

Every day the trees are more bare and the streets have more leaves on them.

It’s been a nice fall so far. It’s been cool but not cold and we’ve had rain, but we’ve had some nice days too. I hate to see the last of the fall color.

Sunday was all about pickleball. I met my pickleball coach (I’m going to call him Hank) in the morning to do some drilling for an hour or so. And then ended up playing games for about an hour before he had to leave. I played another game or two, tossed the toy for my boys in the park, and met Hank later at an elementary school where our pickleball club was having a new player training day. Hank was teaching and I was a volunteer to play with the newbies and help them learn the game as they played.

At the end of the newbie session we got to play with the teachers and volunteers and it was so much fun!!! I just love it when I get to play with higher level players. The games are so challenging and fun. It’s different than I usually see… more strategic, more controlled. When I usually play there are a lot of what we call “bangers.” They are people who hit every ball as hard as they can. In higher level play, a lot of control and strategy are required, and the ability to hit different types of shots. We played for about 1.5 hours and had some really competitive and fun games.

By the end of the day, Hank and I calculated that we had played pickleball for five hours!!! I was so tired that night and was in bed by 10pm, which is incredibly early for me. I slept really well!

I did manage to do a little bit of hand sewing Sunday evening and closed up the pin cushions that I made and filled the other day. Have I mentioned that hand work is not my favorite thing?

I just love these with the blue borders. There’s something really wonderful about those deep indigo blues with those bright prints. You might know that I love that combo!

I decided that I had enough oomph tonight to do a little of this and a little of that in my sewing room.

An internet friend contacted me and asked if I had any Aboriginal fabric Frankenbags available. She bought one for herself a couple years ago and wanted one to give to a friend. I had just made two bag panels last week and when I showed them to her, she was excited and asked me to make a few alterations for her friend. Basically, she wants a basic bag with a couple slip pockets inside… no zippers. So that makes it easy.

So I cut the backing fabric, batting, and put together the quilt sandwiches for that bag this evening.

I might try to get these quilted tomorrow. She asked me to use some handles that she has, so she’s shipping them to me so I can’t get too much done on this until that arrives.

Then I sewed all the pin cushions that I made Saturday and sewed them together, turned them right side out and got them all pressed.

Over the weekend Stef from Quarter Acre Arts on Instagram mentioned that when she sews her pincushions together she sews most of the opening before putting the ground shells in. It makes it easier to sew and allows you to gill the cushion more completely.

She leaves enough opening to get the funnel in and leaves the needle and thread hanging.

And once all the stuffing is in, you just sew what’s left of the opening and you’re done. It did make a difference in how much filling I could get in there. Here’s the fuller one on the left and the skimpier one on the right. It’s a significant difference. Probably at least 1/4 cup more of the crushed shells.

I like the feel and look of the fuller pin cushion.

And I really like that diagonal strip, the bright colors and the bold black and whites.

I think I might make enough pin cushions to use up the walnut shells I have. Then I’ll put the finished pieces in a plastic bin to keep the critters out until I can figure out what the hell I’m going to do with them. Some of them will be holiday gifts.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adapting this diagonal block design into a quilt. I haven’t quite landed on what I want to do, but this might be the next quilt top I tackle. It’s all coming together in my head but it’s not quite a full picture yet. I feel like an impulse project is just what I need right now!!!

I was supposed to play pickleball at 8:30 this morning but it was raining and the courts were really wet so it was canceled. It’s not safe to be out there dinking around when the surface could be quite slick.

Rico had his weekly herding lesson at noon at my trainer’s place in Molalla, Oregon. And he was brilliant! He did some of the best work I’ve ever seen him do! And we lucked out and the rain stayed away too. I just love getting to be able to take advantage of Oregon’s beautiful country side every weekend!

When we got home we just spent a couple hours hanging out with Ernie since his owner was coming home today. It was so much fun to have him in the house and I hate to see him go. But the good news is that he’ll be back for a few days later in December.

This was our final walk with him yesterday afternoon.

Ernie left around 6:00. So I got myself some dinner then hit my sewing room to play with an idea I had last night for pincushions. I’ve seen a variation of this design used for quilt blocks.

I started by digging out some Australian Aboriginal fabric scraps and selected some strips what were around 1.5 inches wide. I sewed them into a strip set and then cut them into 2 in and 2.5 inch strips. Then I put a strip of bright colored fabric along each long end.

Once that was done I added a triangle to each side to make the piece essentially square.

Then, using my 5 inch square ruler, I squared those bad boys up.

These will have backs in that black fabric.

I thought I was done for the night but since these went together so quickly I decided to dig into my KFC scrap strips and make a few more. I chose strips in the red/pink/orange family and made my little strip set. Then cut several strips from that piece and sewed a 1 inch strip of that black Aboriginal fabric to each edge.

So, how do I know how long to make the strip sets? I laid my 5 inch square ruler over the top to make sure it was long enough to go from corner to corner.

Then I cut some 5 inch squares of black and white Jumble for the corners, and cut them in half diagonally. I sewed them on by eye-balling the center of each piece.

Then these were squared up and I cut 5 inch square pieces of the jumble for the backs.

I decided that I needed to take a few minutes and make one more and pulled out the Aboriginal strips I was using before. I ended up sewing just one narrow strip set, bordered it with the black fabric, and added jumble triangles.

This one might actually be my favorite.

Look at all of these pieces together. I’m thinking there’s a great idea for a quilt in there.

And this arrangement is pretty cool.

And a more cohesive look.

Hmmm. that would be a great use of my scraps. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a string quilt and this would scratch that itch.

I drove out yesterday to a little town called Carlton, Oregon, southwest of Portland. It’s in the heart of Oregon’s wine country and is gorgeous countryside. I really enjoyed the drive. I met the long arm quilter who did my six quilts and grabbed those bad boys. I haven’t had time yet to completely unfold them, get a closer look and take photos. They are sitting on my guest bed in a beautiful pile. There are now 10 recently finished quilts on that bed!!!

I’m usually pretty conservative on what thread colors I choose for my quilts. I usually like the quilting stitches to sort of blend in and let the fabrics and piecing be the stars. But I went with some bold choices on these.

The black quilt is quilted with a deep and vibrant red thread. It doesn’t show up in every block but it looks really cool when it does!

My red Algorithm quilt was done with a lighter reddish/orange. It’s really pretty.

My red and purple Fractured quilt was screaming for a deep red thread. I think it was the right choice. It disappears on the red fabrics but shows up on the narrow purple strips.

After my trip to pick up quilts I had a slow drive home because of terrible traffic and got home just in time to snarf down some lunch, get the dogs settled and head off for a THREE HOUR pickleball lesson with my coach! I had no idea we were going to train for three hours. It was so fantastic!!! He has been sick and is finally feeling well enough to get out and play. It had been almost three weeks since we had gotten together to practice. And it was a really good practice. I was so tired last night I could hardly keep my eyes open. I think I was in bed at 11 pm, which is REALLY early for me!!!

We were laughing because we’re so much alike… we are fighters and willing to work hard for improvement.

I’m meeting my teacher tomorrow at 11:30 for some training, and then we’re helping our club president with a new player training session. Several people will be teaching the beginners, and then I’ll get to play with the beginners to show them how the game is played. Then we’ll have an hour to play with the higher level players. It will be a fun group!

I’ve certainly packed a lot of stuff into my long weekend! But that’s the way I like it.

Sorry to everyone who wasn’t able to get to my Scrappy Ornament tutorial because I shared the wrong link.

I’ve corrected the link in the post.

For convenience sake, here’s the correct link:

Scrappy Night Time Tree Ornament Tutorial

The holidays are fast upon us. I wanted to share this tutorial again this year as a reminder of a fun little holiday sewing project and great gifts for friends, teachers, neighbors.

It’s my Scrappy Holiday Ornament Tutorial. You can find it at this link.

Please feel free to share this tutorial with your friends, on social media, with your local quilt guild. Share it far and wide!

Here’s a little reminder of what they are.

And a photo that shows them really clearly.

And it’s all just in time to get some done for this year!

Happy sewing!

My big bag o’ground walnut shells arrived this evening while I was out playing pickleball.

It looks very similar to the more expensive crafting variety I bought several weeks ago. So I’d recommend this cheaper and more plentiful alternative if you’re thinking of making pin cushions. Here’s the link to the one I bought: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUFRZU2?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

So after dinner for me and three good boys and a walk in the cool night air, I hit my sewing room and cut open the bag and promptly dumped a bunch all over my cutting table. Once I got it cleaned up I actually managed to dump most of it into a ziplock bag. Then grabbed my 1/2 cup measure and funnel and started filling the pin cushions I sewed last night.

It took a little more than a full cup to fill each pin cushion. I’ve filled them pretty full and have clipped the tops closed. I’ll hand sew them tomorrow night.

This photo shows how full they are. They will be perfect once the opening is sewn up.

I filled 8 pin cushions and had almost a full gallon ziplock bag left.

So I’m guessing I can fill another dozen or so pin cushions. I might just whip them up, get them filled, then store them securely in a plastic bin. That’s a better idea than storing the ground walnuts in my mind. I have some ideas for more of them.

So now onto the really fun stuff.

Back in June I took six quilt tops, backings and bindings to a friend who offered to trade quilting for finished quilt tops. I traded her one top for her in exchange for quilting one quilt for me.

Shortly after I left those quilt tops with her she finished the quilting on two:

One was my Ice Storm Quilt. Photo and quilting pattern for this quilt.

Number 1

The other one was this quilt, front, back and quilting pattern:

Number 2

It’s been several months with no word from her. Since it took me about a year and a half to get backings and bindings made after we struck a deal, I figured I should cut her some slack! So waited patiently to hear from her.

About a week ago she sent me a photo of the next quilt she finished. Then the two more in a few days. Today she sent the final one of the six!

So let’s take a look.

Number 3, what I’ve called my black quilt.

A closer look at the quilting.

And the quilting pattern.

I was soooo close to cutting up that black quilt and making bags out of it. I’m pretty glad I didn’t. I’m really excited to see this in person!

Number 4, Fractured. My friend helped me make this when she visited a year ago this Labor Day.

And a close up view of the quilting.

And the quilting pattern.

Number 5, my red Algorithm quilt.

And a close up view of the quilting.

And the quilting design.

I have LOVED this quilt from the day I started on it. There’s just something magical about the reds, pinks and yellows combined with those black and white jumble strips. This is one of my favorites that I’ve ever made. It will be hard for me to part with this one. It might be one that gets to hang in rotation over my bed.

Finally, #6, my starburst jumble quilt. I made this quilt a lot more difficult than it needed to be. I’m really excited to see this one in person. It was such an impulse make. The best kind of quilting project!

And a close up of the quilting.

And the quilting design for this one.

I’m going to meet her on Saturday to get my hands on these babies after early pickleball and Rico’s herding lesson! And then I’ll have six quilt bindings to finish! But I’m happy that she sewed all the bindings on for me. All that’s left for me is the hand work.

We sure are enjoying Ernie’s company. He has such a fun little positive spirit. He fits into our household really nicely.

And he’s really affectionate! I really miss having a small dog in the house. And I REALLY miss having a terrier to smooch on!

It was a pretty much perfect fall day today. These three good boys agree!

One more day of work and then a LONG weekend! I have a lot planned so I’m sure it will go by way too fast.

I worked today. It was a better weather day than the last two days. The sun came out early in the afternoon and it was pretty glorious!

Obligatory photo of a cute Ernie in the fall almost-sun.

I left work a little early to head out for a few games of pickleball. I was happy to feel like I played smart. Most of the games were close and the team I was on won all but one game. So I feel like I played pretty well tonight.

It got dark so early that we were done playing before 5:00. It was too dark by then to see the ball. So I was home at around 5:45. I fed three apparently starving dogs, fed myself, then sat back for a 20 minutes to watch this.

Once everyone was nice and worn out we headed out into the cool, dry evening for a nice walk.

Once home I decided to hit my sewing room and dig into some of my crumb blocks. I thought it would be fun to make some of them into pincushions. I ended up making seven pincushions. That way I’ll be ready when my 1.3 gallons of crushed walnut shells arrive tomorrow.

Here’s the first three I made. Just crumb blocks with the backs made from some free form strip sets I found in my crumb block bin.

Then I thought I could make something more interesting from some of those pre-made crumb blocks I have. So I squared up some crumb blocks to 3.5 inches, then added a 1.5 inch border all around the edges.

Once the border was sewn on all the way around, I squared up the blocks to 5 inches.

I have a 5 inch square ruler that made this really quick and easy.

The border fabric is left over Kaffe Fassett Collective wide backing that I’ve had around for a while.

I just love that deep blue fabric with the bright colored prints in the crumb pieces. I had started looking for indigo batiks to border these blocks when I remembered this wide backing fabric.

I used it for the backs as well. It’s pretty perfect!

Once these pieces were done I fused a piece of non woven fusible interfacing to the back of the crumb block and the backing. I got it all pinned and sewed that seam around the outside.

I marked the opening with a blue pen, then put in this pin going a different direction than all the other pins. This is my reminder that this is the opening and I shouldn’t sew that part closed.

Once I had all these sewn I trimmed the corners, turned them all inside out, then got the opening all lined up and neat and then pressed it all.

I think those l little blue borders make these crumb blocks so much more interesting and vibrant!

Here’s all seven pincushions that I sewed tonight.

If my industrial sized container of crushed walnut shells does arrive tomorrow, it’s likely I’ll get these all stuffed and sewn closed tomorrow night.

The weather looks good tomorrow and I’m on the calendar to play pickleball in the later afternoon. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it. It all depends on how early I get going in the morning and how much I get done during the day. I hate to miss the opportunity to play when our weather has become so wet.

It rained again today. A lot at times. It was a very dark and dreary day. I had planned to play pickleball in the last moments of daylight today but it was canceled because the courts were soaking wet.

There were two bright spots in this dreary day. The first is that my October Glory red maples are coming into their glory. I just love these trees.

I have two of these trees. The other one is visible from where I sit at my desk all day. It’s still a little green. But this one turned red in one day, so I’m guessing the other one will be glorious soon!

The other bright spot in our day showed up after dark. It’s this guy!!!

I’m so happy that Ernie is here for a few days. He brings a sweet and cheerful little spirit into the house. He was so excited when he got here that I could hear him screaming as his owner brought him to the front door!

It was nice to have him resting peacefully as I kept myself busy in my sewing room tonight.

The rain stopped for a while after dinner so I got everyone leashed up and headed out for a 1.6 mile walk. All three boys were really happy to get out… and so was I. It’s always nice to get an evening walk after a day of soaking rain.

Once we got home I hunkered down in my sewing room and made FOUR more pin cushions.

I made two more from the ever smaller pile of scraps left over from my Australian Aboriginal Libby quilt. Then I dug into the scraps left over from my Jewel Frames quilt and made two more from these Kaffe Fassett Collective scraps.

I actually only finished three of these since I ran out of crushed walnut shells. I anticipated this was going to happen so I went on Amazon again today to buy more. Someone commented on my blog last night that you can purchase crushed walnut shells made for the bottom of bird cages or reptile cages and they’re much cheaper. So I ordered 5 liters and it was about half the price of the two packages I used up on four pin cushions. How many pin cushions do you think I could make out of 1.3 gallons of crushed walnut shells? Well, stay tuned because you just might find out!

I made these just a little bigger than the one I made last night.

The one I made last night was 4.5 inches. The ones I made tonight are 5 inches. They are a good size.

I fill them to the brim with crushed shells. They are about 1.5 inches thick.

I used the same wonky log cabin piecing. I just love the before and after look at these pieces.

And one of the Aboriginal ones…

It was fun to pull out some of my KFC scraps. So much color!

I really don’t love doing hand work. I wish I enjoyed it because I really appreciate it when someone else does it. It’s all I can do to sew these small openings closed!

And I actually put one of these pin cushions to work as I sewed those seams.

Nothing more fun that a nice little stack of pin cushions.

The weather should be a little nicer tomorrow. I hope to get these boys our for a walk mid day.