Catching up

There has been a lot going on here, as usual! The second week after the wedding was wonderfully quiet but then we ramped back up into real life.

Rachel is going to Africa in January. She has been sponsoring a child for 2 1/2 years and has the opportunity to travel to see how the organization works, visit some of the centers to see how they operate and spend time with the children. The most exciting thing is she will get to spend the day with the child she's been sponsoring. She's been raising the money with various fundraisers and last week, we had a bake sale at church. Here is our table at home, all decked out with the bake sale wares. She had a few people offer to donate baked goods as well. Her "sale" (items are not priced, rather people donate what they want to give) went quite well, we only had two plates left when we came home.

The bake sale fell on the same day as opening day of football season. We had one of our snack days that day and I made several different substantial snacks that got put out throughout the afternoon and early evening. Here is a bowl of my potstickers, these are always a big hit and show up more and more at our house.

Lucas requested crab rangoon, so we fired up the deep fryer and had some of those, too.

My son-in-law called and asked if we could use some little bags of chips. He works as a mechanic at an amusement park and the season is just about over. Anything that will go out of date before the park reopens next spring is given to the employees...just another fun perk he's found out about in the months he's been there.

I'm enjoying my quilting very much these days. With the cooler weather settling in, I'm gearing up for my winter quilting. I have several things in the works right now, and my table shows it! In the upper right corner of the table you can see my stack of Carpenter's Wheel fabric pinned to triangle paper and waiting for a few minutes of sewing time.

While working on the Carpenter's Wheel quilt, I had and idea for another in a different color palette. The next one will have these dark prints in it, each coupled with a color from within the print. I'm hoping to start pulling the companion fabric tonight.

I need a bigger design board! This one is over full, holding the finished Carpenter's Wheel blocks and also a table topper made and sold to a friend. Looking at the blocks on the board gave me yet another idea for a Carpenter's Wheel quilt, so I may have 3 by the time I'm finished making these fun blocks.

Here is a closer view of the table topper.

It's a quiet day here today. Rachel took both Ruthie and Lucas to Milwaukee with her to visit her boyfriend. Lucas has been there before, but Ruthie has not. This is the first time she's been away from home all day without me, I'm anxious to hear how she did! She's been much more sociable lately, giving her Cubbie leader a hug and running up to Brian when he stopped by to say hi to him. Usually she just quietly slips away when someone comes here, but that is happening less and less.

Jonathan wanted to build a fire, so Lucas and Ruthie had to be out there, too. Jonathan is our yard maintenance guy, he loves it and has all kinds of ideas for the yard. He did do some work out there this year, trimming trees, planting and caring for the garden, taking down the swingset, and moving the woodpile at the side of the house to the back by the fence. He really wants to do some work with the swings and firepit, cutting out an area for them and putting sand in under the swings and also having the firepit on set in cement blocks. Mike gives him free reign for these projects as we can afford to do them.

And Ruthie, more and more grown up, flashing that sweet smile so very often. She seems to turn the head of everyone who sees her.

Hopefully posts to come will have a lot more quilting pictures on them!

Until then,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Sewing Frenzy

I've been spending quite a lot of time sewing and as the weeks go on, there should continue to be a lot of time for it. We don't start schooling here until the day after Labor Day and both Jonathan and Lucas can work pretty independently. This year I'm adding Ruthie, so some time will be spent working one on one with her. As the cooler, Autumn temperatures set in, there will be more time and inclination for soups and stews and other hearty meals, so I'll be spending more time on that as well. I haven't taken the time to make pizza for a while, everyone here loves it, so that was one of Saturday's "jobs." Here is one before going into the oven. And a picture of a different one coming out. I used to dread pizza making, but now that I've done it so many times, it's not as daunting a process.

The Carpenter's Wheel blocks are going together pretty quickly now. I found that once all the pieces are ready (I sew them on triangle paper) and pressed, that laying the block out next to my machine is the most efficient way to get them sewn together. I've been sewing one block at a time on this one and that's still working for me so I'll continue to do that. It breaks up the steps nicely.

Here is the light and medium blue block.

The light and medium green block.

And the red block.

Last night, when the house was quiet, I pulled fabric for the rest of the blocks for the first Carpenter's Wheel quilt. The only one I haven't found the right fabrics for is the yellow block, but I thought of another spot I might find a few pieces that might fit the bill.

Today I'll pin all those pulled fabrics to triangle paper and I'll start working my way through them.

The more pressing project was Rebekah's wedding fabric quilt. I had a lot of flying geese to make, so looked for my "Angler" to save the step of drawing the line on the squares. I couldn't find it, but found these. Bought years ago and never used, this package of grids made the size geese I needed so I gave it a try.

After meticulously following the slightly daunting directions for a process that was a bit confusing at first, I ended up with this. I flipped the paper over and cut on the lines as directed, but you can see from this side that cut apart they didn't quite end up perfect size. There shouldn't have been any gaps between the rows.

Thankfully, they weren't too "off" to use and I had only done this one page of them. I switched to my usual method for the rest of the geese.

Putting this top together gave me FITS. I did more ripping on this one top than I've done over the last few years. I was thinking of appliqueing in the "filler" spaces, but have decided it would be too busy. I'm going to quilt some nice feathered motif in red thread in those spaces instead.

I have another of these tops in the works for me, and will get back to it after a few Carpenter's Wheel blocks. Hopefully I've learned from all the ripping on the first top and don't make those same mistakes again!

This picture of Ruthie was taken on Lucas' birthday. We roasted giant marshmallows to make s'mores and she had a good time. I don't think she ate much of that marshmallow, but she had fun trying!

I love this next picture. While she has her crabby moments, this is more often how she is. Quietly busy and quick to smile, though she is becoming more of a chatterbox!

It's going to be a pretty quiet day here. My husband works this morning, will be home for lunch, a shower, and a quick nap (he worked a LOT of hours this weekend) before leaving for his second shift job this afternoon. Jonathan is leaving to go camping for a few days with Rachel's boyfriend and his Dad, Rachel has school all day and then work (she's taking a few classes at the local community college), and Joshua works all day, too.

That means another good sewing day for me and I plan to take advantage of it!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Quilting!

The Ruthie picture is up top this time because I forgot to put it at the bottom! When I'm using the "large" and "center" options to load pictures, I can't move them around within the post, which means I have to plan ahead and load them last one first.

Ah well. This one was supposed to be in the last post, but I accidentally erased it while backspacing. I love this picture and am considering enlarging this one and framing it.
Last week didn't end up nearly as unscheduled and relaxing as planned. I considered it an extension of the wedding since a lot of what I had left to do was finding places for the no longer needed wedding paraphernalia. There were also more errands and other odds and ends to do than I'd planned.

This week, however, has been my "off" week. While I'm back to having to cook with the wedding leftovers all finished, other than my errands today I have little on my schedule.

The wedding tablecloths were all washed and there weren't any stains to be found on them. That left me with about 21 yards of red fabric and 6 yards of white fabric for making quilt tops. After some playing around on graph paper, I came up with a top that I liked. I'll be showing the blocks as I go and the end result will be a surprise.

I'm making two of these quilts, one for Rebekah and one for me. I'm using the white head table fabric for hers, but just some plain white that I had here for mine. The reds all came from the table cloths.

These are split nine patch blocks. There are a dozen of these 9 inch blocks for each quilt.

These are Anvil blocks. There is also a dozen of these 12 inch blocks for each quilt. Next up will be some flying geese.
Along with the red and white quilts, I've been working on Carpenter's Wheel blocks. Years ago I made one giant one for a lap quilt for my brother in law. I love this block, and am making 16 of them, each different colors, for a nice sized lap quilt. Here is the pink one.
And the purple block.
I pulled fabric for a few more and will pin it to triangle paper. Here is a dark blue and medium blue.
The fabric for a medium blue and light blue block.
I pulled greens, too, the light and medium will be one block and the medium and dark, another. I'm having so much fun with these that I have another top in mind for the Carpenter's Wheel block. It will have darker colors and more predominant prints, I think.
Not all the thoughts are on quilting. I got a $10 off coupon in the mail for Penney's. I love these coupons, there is no minimum to spend so I head to the clearance racks to find one or two items that total $11-15. I found this blouse and had to have it, $14.40, which means I spent under $5 to get it. I have quite a few things in my wardrobe that would go with this blouse. With the basic pieces covered (neutral skirts, slacks, and jackets) I'm having great fun adding some color to my wardrobe when I get these really good coupons to use. With the wedding over, I'm hoping to hit the clearance racks once or twice a month to slowly add to my closet. I usually only buy one piece at a time, but it's starting to look like a wardrobe!
My really nice coffee pot died a few weeks ago. I pulled an old one out of the closet to use for a while. Unfortunately, that one started leaking badly. I make a pot of coffee and it lasts two to three mornings. I drank the last of it this morning and was hoping we could swing a new, inexpensive pot this week. This is now gracing my counter, the first pot made and ready for morning (I don't drink my coffee hot except on rare occasions, so usually make it the night before.)
The quilting/sewing is well under way and I'm enjoying it immensely. I don't have anything but church Sunday morning that will take me out of the house, and then I have errands and music work to do on Tuesday. That means most of the next week can be spent working on quilt tops. I'm hoping for a break in the heat and humidity so I can hand quilt some, too, but for now, watching these blocks come together is giving me a thrill!

Happy quilting!

Sue