Tag: sewing

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.

I haven’t done much sewing this week. Work has been busy and our winter membership radio drive started Thursday. So the next week will be hectic. I’ve played pickleball five of the last seven days, which has been my winter so far. I’m really happy I have access to an indoor facility and am having fun getting to know a lot of people who play there.

So I’m feeling good and relatively content but no much sewing has taken place.

I have been playing with my selection of Australian Aboriginal fabrics over the last week. I’ve removed and added fabrics and am still not sure what colors I’ll use. I had thought I would use various “black” fabrics to play with the saturated colors.

The more I’ve looked at these fabrics the more I think I will go another direction. So much so that I checked online with my local quilt store earlier today and after pickleball I drove over there and bought three yards of this black and white fabric to use in place of the various fabrics.

I bought all they had. It’s more than I’ll need for this quilt but I love black and white fabric and I’m sure I’ll eventually use it. This is the fabric that I used on the back of the quilt I use on my sofa. I’m snuggled up under it right how.

I spread out all the colored fabrics to get a feeling for how it will work.

And as I look at that photo I’m pretty sure this is not the final group of fabrics I’ll use for this quilt. I’m not in a hurry to start this so I’ll give it some time to play around a little. I may even use fewer of the colored fabrics. I’ll decide later.

I actually did a tiny bit of sewing today. I pulled out my Australian Aboriginal trip quilt blocks. I’ve been wanting to finish that quilt. I was pretty sure I had 19 blocks done with all the pieces ready to assemble for more. I was right that I had 19 completed blocks. So I grabbed a set of the cut strips and put together one more block to make an even 20.

I had been thinking I would stop at 20 blocks and assemble them 4 wide by 5 high and add a broad border to make the quilt a good throw size. So I tossed the blocks up on the design wall and tried the border fabric to see how it looks.

I think I’ll make the borders 7 or 8 inches wide. that will make the quilt around 62 x 74 or so.

Here’s a closer look at the blocks and border. There is a lot of color in there that doesn’t show in the full picture.

I also have a couple yards of that red fabric in the block at the upper right in that photo, now that I think of it. I might also work as a border. It’s definitely a different feel.

I’m not sure I love it. Here’s a closer look.

I feel like that would need a smaller inner border of a different color, but that would be easy enough to do.

We have some cooler weather the last week but it hasn’t been too wet. We actually got some snow on Wednesday but it didn’t stick. It was nice to see some flakes fall. That was our only snow so far this winter. It’s not unusual for us to not get much in the way of snow. I’ll be happy if we get by without a major storm this winter. That storm that left me without power for four days last year was enough to last me a few winters.

I’m happy to take the colder weather if I get to see the sun and we’ve had a good deal of sun the last week. We’re supposed to have cold but sunny weather through Wednesday, then it gets a little wild with rain, snow, and maybe some wind as far out as the forecast goes.

I’m loving that I’m seeing more light in the evening. And in a month we’ll change our clocks. That’s my favorite day of the year!

I decided this weekend that the one thing I wanted to accomplish was this brown, not so brown, quilt that’s been on my design wall for a couple weeks. The blocks are big so it all went together pretty quickly and I had it completed Sunday afternoon .

It’s not really very brown. It’ has purple, deep reds, oranges, and greens in thee too. It’s a lot prettier than I thought it would be.

I’m glad it’s done and pressed and folded into a small package. I’m thinking I will likely donate this quilt. Will have to see how attached I feel to it.

I have a nice stack of scraps left over from this quilt. Not sure why I’ll do with all of this. Maybe a bag or two. Probably not another quilt.

The fabric I’ve been waiting for to make the borders on my B2Q purple and green quilt arrived a few days ago. I haven’t yet dug in to get that done. That will be my next project.

I wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind to dig in and wrangle al that fabric for borders tonight so I decided to look at some of my batiks to see what I could make out o them. I have a good number. Thinking I might do more quick quilts with large blocks to slam a few quilt tops out. Will give it a little thought.

I also did a little organizing on my Australian Aboriginal fabrics in anticipation of making a new quilt form them. I managed to get them all into bins under my cutting table.

I’m thinking I’ll make another one of the economy block, or square in a square/ quilt tops and I want to make one from my beautiful Aboriginal prints. So I dug out a selection that I like. I’ll ruminate over this over he next few days. I

They are rich and saturated colors. I think I will likely ad some black in with these in the mix to make them really sing.

I arranged them a little differently go get an idea of how they’ll work together.

I’ll think on this selection for a few days until I feel that it’s all right.

After three weeks without any precipitation the rains have returned. We have a chance of snow a few times over the next week. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be too serious.

Our radio fundraising drive starts this Thursday so I have a couple of hectic weeks coming up. My friend Linda is planning another visit. Looks like she will be for 10 days around the first of March. I’m looking forward to her visit.

It’s been a minute since I posted here. I’ve really been taking advantage of a lovely summer here in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve barely spent any time in my sewing room and haven’t been much inspired. That lack of inspiration has impacted my frequency of posts here.

I feel this changing a little.

First off, my friend who usually visits this time of year was here for over two weeks. I drove her to the airport this afternoon. We did quit a lot while she was here. We bought a lot of fabric while she was here. We did a lot of driving while she was here. We did a little sewing while she was here.

Most of the fabric we bought was from the new Kaffe Fassett Collective August 2024 collection. I showed some restraint and didn’t buy all of it. You can see the entire new collection here. There were a couple of pieces that I was really anxious to get my hands on.

My friend flew into town on Friday, Sept. 6. After a restful weekend we headed for the coast on the following Monday. It was an absolutely perfect day and we all felt rejuvenated and refreshed after time at the ocean.

We spent the next day at home because I had committed to taking care of a friend’s corgi while her husband had surgery. She was a wonderful guest, well behaved, and she had a blast with my boys.

During the rest of that week we continued to drive and buy fabric. Oh, and we ate out a few times too! Even met some old friends for a lovely meal and conversation.

Last Sunday we loaded up ourselves and my boys and headed down to my brother’s place near Bandon, Oregon, for a few days. I just love going there. It’s so peaceful and tranquil. And the dogs love it. Whey have over eight acres of property and part of it is a wooded area on the hill above the house with little trails wandering here and there. We managed to get up there for a couple of morning walks during our visit.

I would love it if I had this fantastic space right outside my door! And it would make Bender and Rico happy too!

We ate a lot of great food from their garden. Look at these gorgeous cabbages!

We only went to the beach once during our visit with my brother and his wife. We were thinking about going a second time but it was rainy and wet and we decided to hang around at home and went out for dinner at a little Italian place in Bandon that evening. I can’t remember the last time I had pasta so I was happy to indulge.

And these boys were happy to pose on Seven Devils Beach.

We headed home on Wednesday and decided to head north on Hwy 101 along the coast rather than spending most of the drive in heavy traffic on Interstate 5. So we drove up from Bandon to Florence, Oregon, then headed across the coast mountain range toward Eugene where we, of course, bought more fabric!

Once we were back at my place we decided that if we were going to make a quilt we had better get moving. My friend had wanted to make a version of my Brandon Mably fabric Interweave quilt. You can see that quilt here.

She brought some fabric with her and she had a couple pieces of Brandon fabric she purchased during her visit. So we tossed them all on my cutting table and narrowed it down to these fabrics.

And after a couple days it was done… like magic!

It’s almost exactly the same as my Interweave. There are a few fabrics that are different. It’s a fun quilt to make and it goes so much faster when I have someone to press while I sew.

These Brandon fabrics are so bright, happy and relaxed. I just love them! That floral with the bright orange background on the ironing board is a Brandon design from the August 2024 KFC collection.

We also managed to get a few quilt backings made and stopped by my long arm quilter to get them in the cue. My friend took in three quilts but I only took in my Blue Swirly quilt. It will be a holiday gift in a few months.

After we had been sewing for a couple days we decided that it was time to hit the road again. So we loaded up my boys and headed up to Sauvie Island. It’s a beautiful island north of Portland that is lovely farm land surrounded by floating houses moored on the Columbia river. You can read all about Sauvie Island here.

Since it’s an island, that means there’s lots of water. So we parked the car and hit the beach and let my boys get a nice swim in the Columbia Rifer.

They were so excited to see where we ended up after our leisurely drive around the island. They got in a lot of swimming and running. They even had enough exercise to offer up a good pose.

It’s a bit of a tradition to take a photo of my dogs on a log. And look at how gorgeous it is!!! What an amazing day!

We didn’t have enough time or drive to complete a quilt for me but we did dig through my stash to find fabrics for an economy block quilt I’ve been wanting to make. You can see the tutorial for the quilt here. It’s made from some Crystal Manning fabrics but I wanted to make it from Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics. So I pulled some fabrics from my stash that recreate the feel of the original fabrics. Here’s the quilt from the tutorial (left) and my first whack at the fabrics to use for my version (right).

I was pretty happy with this selection of fabrics and decided to dig in this evening since I’m here all alone and the house is quiet.

I had purchased some paper piecing 12 inch block foundation papers for these blocks a couple weeks ago.

The blocks are big. They finish at 12 inches. The tutorial has instructions for making the blocks with traditional piecing but I knew I’d be happier with the result if I made the blocks with paper piecing. I was very happy to find these foundations on Amazon. Exactly what I needed!

I pressed and cut a handful of my fabrics and managed to get six blocks done. It’s enough to give me an idea of what this will look like and I have to say that I’m really happy with this so far.

I love the way that some of the blocks are really obvious and otherwise are more subtle. I’m looking forward to seeing this as more blocks are completed.

And tonight I’m feeling a little sad that my friend is gone and I’m really not looking forward to going back to work. But the good news is that I only have fourteen months left to retirement!

Sorry I’ve been away so long. It’s been a needed break. I’m hoping my creative motivation is slowly coming back!

I’ll leave you tonight with a little eye candy.