Heat + Humidity = Hibernation

At least for me it does!

This week I should get a lot accomplished as it's hot and humid here in Illinois. I'm not an outdoor girl as most of the things I enjoy and most of the things I need to do are all inside activities.

While I enjoy sitting outside while my little one plays on occasion (usually someone else is out and able to keep an eye on her) what I really enjoy is open window weather...where I can feel the breeze, smell the fresh air, and still accomplish what I'd like to for the day.

Today, though, is not that. Heat and humidity are settling in for a stay and for me that means easy meals and lots of quilting.

I feel like a broken record sometimes as it seems none of my projects are quick ones so I talk about the same ones for a long time. The strip project is coming along now and I'll be working on those blocks some more today. I'm far enough along on them now that I can pin on both sides without it causing difficulties for me. With the longest seams sewn and a rhythm going on how to work these blocks, they should be finished before too long. I may have to make myself set a timer for a while to work on them, though, because the frame quilt is calling me.

I'm to the point on the frame quilt where I can hardly stand to work on anything else. With this one closing in on removal from the frame (the outer row of blocks will need to be finished in a hoop) I can taste the finish line. I try to have one basted and ready to go on the frame as soon as one comes off, so basting the next quilt is also on the agenda for sometime in the next couple of days.

Aside from a quick practice tonight and errands on Thursday, my days are wide open from now until Saturday night, when we hope to get together with friends. This should give me some serious quilting time, unless I get enticed too much by the computer...which is a big danger for me as it's nearly as addicting as quilting!

Happy Stitching, everyone (and happy 'bagging' Bren!)

A Virtual Tour

of my sewing room. I've had a couple of comments on the pictures of my sewing room so I thought I'd show a more detailed look. I tried to go around the room and 'connect the dots' so to speak, I wish there was a way to see it as a whole! Unfortunately it is still more cluttered than I'd like and pictures seem to make it look worse. I am always trying to come up with improvements that will reduce the clutter and organize it even more, but space is an issue. It's one of the reasons I've been focusing on scrap quilts and using my stash....to clear out some space to contain other items.

Here is the view of one wall. We have a cathedral ceiling in this area so it is a high wall. I hang quilts and pictures here.

The cabinet below with the quilt on it has storage, which right now contains some paperwork, etc, that belongs to my husband. He has once again started stacking things on top (this used to
be a pile of magazines and junk mail...it drove me crazy!) but usually when we have company over he clears it off and it stays clear for a bit before he starts in again with the convenience of putting things there when he comes in the door.

Someday I hope to get him to clear the bottom section out as it would be a perfect place to store bolts of fabric, packages of batting and large stencils. For now, I'm glad that for the most part he keeps his stuff downstairs in the little office area I made for him!



Moving clockwise around the room, this is the 2nd wall. It faces our front yard, so has a nice window, you can just see the door on the left. My ironing board stays there most of the time, when we have company I take it down and the dresser in that space has knick knacks and candles on top so it's decorative as well as functional. The small view is a better look at the lower part of that wall. I keep basted quilts in the bottom drawers, along with my stencils and a few other larger things. The small drawers are actually a bit of a catch all at the moment, though soon I'll be going through those to weed out and organize.

Continuing around clockwise, this is the longest wall in the room. It measures about 13 feet and the upper shelf goes all the way across the room. The cabinet to the left holds thread, it was the leg of a very interesting sewing machine cabinet that was mounting on the wall when this room was still used as a living room.

You can see some of my storage boxes and baskets and my combination pressing surface and design wall. It took two pictures to get a good view of this wall, you can see the continuation as
the pressing surface is all the way on the left of this next picture. You can see that I have a lot of storage! The area by the painted boxes is my cutting area, there is a better picture of that next. Ideally I'd like to replace a lot of the miscellaneous storage up top with more of the plastic boxes, but can't afford the expense right now...and really some things don't fit well into those boxes. I mull this over often, trying to come up with a way to neaten up this area. In the meantime, I know where everything is and it's all easily accessible. Here is a better view of the

cutting area, one of my favorite spots in the room. I try to keep this area open so I can easily cut when needed. The only thing that's difficult in this area is cutting large cuts of fabric as I can't lay them out nicely. I have a cutting mat that is a bit smaller and is stored in one of my travel bags, it can be laid out on the sewing table when I need to work with larger cuts.

Just to the left is a couple more storage boxes, the surface of those has some baskets with various items that I want kept at my fingertips.

Moving clockwise again is this little wall that denotes the 'end' of my sewing area and beginning of the dining area. Our open layout means that I can be working in my sewing area and still supervise schoolwork, tend to dinner preparations (the kitchen is around the corner to the left) and really supervise nearly any activity from right in my sewing room. There is more storage, a pegboard and you can just barely see a little end table that sits next to my frame where I store my purse (on the bottom shelf), can put my quilting supplies when I need to move the quilt in the frame, and in the drawer I store a roll of small bags that line my wastebasket.



On the side of the short wall is my bookshelf. This holds most of my quilting books and the cookbooks I use the most. My frame sits in front of the bookshelf and just up and to the right is the computer, where I play DVDs while I hand quilt. I love this frame, it works as easily as a hoop. The visible wooden rectangle is what holds the quilt in place, I just lift that off, move the quilt and replace the piece and I'm ready to go again.


And finally my sewing table, in the middle of the room. My sewing machine is up most of the time, it gets taken down when we have friends for dinner (kids eat in the dining area, grownups in my sewing room), and when I need to baste a quilt or use my pressing board. I spend a lot of time here as it's not only my sewing area, it's really like an office for me, I run my house from this room, do all the planning at the table and can supervise both indoor and outdoor activites from it quite easily.

While initially I told my husband that there was no way I could use this room because I couldn't keep it company ready all the time, I'm so glad he talked me into it, I don't know what I'd do without it!

After spending this time showing off my sewing room, I'm anxious to get to work! The strip project is calling me, I'm at the pinning stage again, and the frame quilt is getting far enough along that I'm really getting excited about finishing it. This week is fairly quiet in our house, so there should be a lot of time for stitching. So far today the weather is nice and I'm planning on a fire in the firepit tonight with some hand quilting. It's supposed to be HOT the rest of the week, though, so I'll be hiding in the a/c, quilting the days away.

Happy quilting!

Back to Quilting!

We've had a busy few days in our house. Yesterday our youngest son turned 7 and his birthday fun started over the weekend. My husband (Mike) works two jobs, one of them second shift so he's not here in the evening during the week. Birthday meals and other fun is often moved to the weekend so we can all be together for it.

Mike took off Monday night from work and the fun began Sunday afternoon. He tries to take the kids camping at least once during the summer (I stay home for this, I'm not a camping type of girl. Mike tells people my idea of roughing it is the Holiday Inn without a pool, LOL) but with a couple of the kids working and his schedule it can be tough to work out.

So we set up our tent in the backyard. We all went to a local state park and hiked the trails. Ruthie fell alseep on the short jaunt from one part of the park to another, so the girls and I visited in the car while the boys all fished for a bit. We ordered a pizza on the way home for a quick snack and then our older kids left for some softball games. Afterwards they all slept in the tent.

Monday, Mike took the available kids fishing, we barbequed hamburgers when they got home, they went to the last softball game and they slept in the tent again.

Yesterday was the actual birthday, we met up with Bren and some of her kids as today is her youngest son's birthday. We took the 6 of them (4 of mine, 2 of hers) to Chuck E Cheese for lunch and games...what fun! Last night our older kids had a few friends over, played games Lucas could play and they had birthday cake with him. He really enjoyed his 3 day birthday bash!

While I was able to quilt a bit the last few days, I'm ready to get back to it full force. The frame quilt has reached the point that I'm getting excited about finishing it. While I'm basting a quilt, I can hardly wait to get the first needle in, to feel how the quilt will go, to see those stitches giving texture to the top. Then the reality sets in of how much quilting there is on it and the fact that there is a long way to go to get it finished. Once I get past the halfway point, though, I start to get excited again. I often have to take the quilt off of the frame to do the last border, so I start focusing on getting it off and getting the next quilt ready to go on the frame. I've gotten to that point on this one and am very excited now, hoping to finish it up in the next couple of weeks.

I'm a tool junkie. I admit it. I love all the tools of the trade that go along with quilting. I have hoops in several sizes each having their own purpose (or just giving me a way to work more than one project without taking off the hoop!) I also have an end hoop, enabling me to get a stable edge to finish up my quilts.

I thought I'd leave a little teaser from the frame quilt, hopefully the finished product will be displayed soon!

I'm headed off to quilt, clean, cook, tend to my kids and make a grocery list. Mostly quilt today, I hope, the busy-ness of the last few days has left me tired and wanted to pop in a movie, rest and quilt.

And so I will.

Mixed Bag Day

Today is going to be one of those days. While I would really love to spend the whole day quilting, I have a few other things that really should be done.

One of them is freezing beans from our ample garden. I do NOT have a green thumb and don't particularly like to work in the dirt. My husband, on the other hand, could make rocks grow and has passed that down to our middle son. Jonathan is the one pressing each spring to work on the garden, he does a lot of the planning on what to plant and where it should go (with his Dad's help.) He's right there along side Mike as they turn the soil and plant the seeds. Jonathan waters daily when it doesn't rain and does some of the weeding (this isn't his favorite thing to do, I liken it to basting and binding for quilters.)

He's harvested many green onions, dozens of radishes and a hot pepper. The cherry tomatoes are beginning to ripen and yesterday, he brought me three bowls full of beans.

One I'll leave out for the weekend, the other two will be blanched and frozen and saved for other days. This is only the beginning, I hear, there are many more bowls of beans to come.

Also on the agenda today is baking cookies. I've started baking in triple batches and then I have a chance of my baking getting us through the week.

While the cookies are baking, I'll be making a pillow and then will probably spend some time at the frame and some time at the machine today. I'm sure that I'll get far less quilting done than I'd like with so much else to do, but even a few minutes here and there will make some progress. Perhaps by this evening, the work of the day will be finished and I can sit and relax, a fire in the firpit, some handwork in my lap and maybe I'll even take a few stitches on it. Does anyone else do this? I'll sometimes sit with work in my hands, too tired to stitch but comforted by the feel of the fabric and the idea of sewing.

Here's to a productive, and hopefully not too tiring, day!

My Biggest Supporter

is my husband, Mike. He's amazing. He talked me into using our living room as my sewing room because he wanted to take over my sewing room and use it as an office.

I told him "no way I WORK in there every single day and couldn't keep it looking neat enough to be the first room you see entering the house."

He said "it's our house, we should use the rooms how we want to."

Though I liked the idea, I continued to protest. I was afraid that this would, at some point, become a bone of contention. I should have known better. I've always done some sort of needlework, spend a fair amount of time at it, and had spots in the house where my current projects resided.

I told him I needed storage. He built me shelves. We started to buy storage boxes, I collected baskets. As my collection of notions, tools and fabrics grew, the shelves filled up and stacking began. Still he did not complain.

I told him I needed a work table. He scoured the classifieds and found this antique oak table. I told him it was too fancy, too expensive and that I couldn't guarantee it wouldn't get scratched up from pins and scissors and other such tools. He said it's your work table, it's ok, and it will help to have an extra table for when we have friends for dinner. (By the way, the table has held up beautifully in spite of my daily use of scissors, pins and other sharp objects.)

In the time this has been my sewing room, it's seen several changes. I had a large quilting frame along the shelf wall, but it didn't get much use (for various reasons.) I ended up storing boxes, etc, underneath. I used it as a support for a long work surface and that served me well for quite some time. Until I started to feel too crowded and wanted to streamline things a bit. I kept the frame, still hoping someday to have a good place for it, but I'm so happy with my little portable floor frame I'm not sure if the other will ever be used again.

This is the view when you walk through our front door. Straight ahead is the dining area and just to the left is my sewing area. I'm always in the middle of several projects, but try to keep my table cleared off, there was a time when it was always piled high with stuff. My machine is often out, but I try to keep other things put away or in neat, working stacks if I'm in the middle of something.

When I have deadlines and am coming down to the wire, the house is in disarray and I'm rushing to get meals, still my husband does not complain, but compliments me on my work and asks about my progress.

Instead of complaining that I'm always quilting, he brags to people that I never just sit, but that I always have something I'm working on.

He's my hero!

So now I'll go, to figure out what project gets my attention today among the dishes, vacuuming and straightening up. I started a huge project years ago for my husband, I think I need to pull that one back out and finish it. It seemed overwhelming at the time so I put it away, but I think it's time to finish that one. It's made of octagons and squares and has a castle, a moat, and a horse with a knight in shining armor. It seems so appropriate for him as he's certainly mine.

And so I go. Happy quilting!

It's Quilting Bee Day!

My sewing room is in tornado mode as I get ready for my quilting bee tonight.

I meet once a month with a fun group of ladies, most of whom I knew from guild years ago. I had quit the guild when our 7 year old was born, for a variety of reasons, and just after our youngest was born I ran into one of the bee ladies in JoAnn's. She invited me to this bee and told me all about a retreat they do once a year. I was so excited!

Some months I bring handwork along, which is much easier than transpoting everything to machine sew. In fact, until I got my machine case recently, I rarely took my machine anywhere as it was too difficult to safely transport.

Last month, my time was limited at the bee as my kids had somewhere they wanted to go, so I just brought handwork along. The month before, I brought my machine, even got there a little early to set up (we meet in a church) and was so excited...until I realized I'd left my power cord at home. ugh. One lady's daughter had come and was going to run out and get her food at a place near my house, she offered to pick it up which was great! But it took 45 minutes :( During that time I got a chance to visit though, so my spirits were still high. My plan for that day was to sew the final seam on a bunch of blocks, then assemble the top. It was set on point with an interesting layout. I sewed my seam, pressed my blocks and got ready to lay it all out (there's a nice big, open are just outside the room we sew) only to realize I'd also left the pattern at home. ugh again.

Thankfully I had brought along a second batch of blocks that were nearly finished, on the outside chance that I finished that top, so I was still able to sew until it was time to leave!

When I bring my machine along, I try to have a bunch of work ready to go. Either the cutting all finished or pinning, if that's next. Both current piecing projects are paper pieced, so I'll spend my day pinning on the next piece so I can set up and dive in. The projects combined have over 300 blocks, so it will take quite a while (perhaps even more time than I'll have) to sew those up, cut them apart, take out the pins and press them. Being my usual overly optimistic self, I'll have my iron and portable ironing surface along with the boxes of pieces and my pins just in case I get to the next piece.

In addition to getting ready for my bee today, I'll be babysitting a friend's kids for the afternoon. It will likely mostly be my daughters job to watch them as she's babysitting to earn money this summer, but if she has other plans, I'll be doing it. This can work for or against me, sometimes it helps to keep my own little ones busy allowing me lots of working time, sometimes it just means chaos and it will be hard to finish my planned tasks.

In any case, I'll have 3 hours, out of the house, with grownups, to sew. I have 5 1/2 hours to ready my blocks, get myself ready, pack up, and make dinner so I'd better skedaddle.

I know I'll be having a happy quilty day, I hope the same for you :)

The Perfect Summer Sunday

Our two oldest kids play on a church softball league, yesterday was their allstar game. Both of our kids were chosen to play on the allstar team so we packed up the family after church and off we went.

The game was held at a local park, each team set up an area to grill and hang out together. It was a warm, sunny day, with just enough clouds to provide a break from the sun occasionally (though by the end of the day, we were sitting in the shade of our son's truck!) First was the picnic, then a homerun derby and finally the big game.

A wonderful time was had by all, we came home tired and happy. As the oldest 3 went off with their friends, the rest of us settled in for the evening.

Today, I'm still tired. Thankfully there isn't much pressing except for a few loads of towels (our family of 8 goes through towels in no time!) so it will be a puttering day. I'm going to machine piece on the strip quilt for a while, and then maybe this evening will work on the frame while the ballgame is on. Storms are supposed to blow in later, I love to quilt and watch the rain. And I'll bask in the afterglow of our perfect summer Sunday.

Happy quilting!