May’s Blocks (and some of June)

June 5, 2016 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Because my husband is busy this afternoon recovering from our trip (see below), I used an online generator to pick a winner today for the felt, and it’s Elizabeth (what a great name, eh?) who goes by catskillquilter. Congratulations, Elizabeth! I’ll be in touch to get that sent out to you. I have two more giveaways lined up in the next couple of weeks, one courtesy of Uppercase Magazine, and the other from the Steam A Seam people (that one’s on June 13th–in conjunction with our continuing Hallowe’en 1904 QAL). I’ll have some great news as well about that fabulous pattern.

Here we go, first with quilt blocks from our Mid-Century Modern Bee: Carla of Grace and Favor asked for a modern churn dash block, saying she likes mustard and plum. Above is my block, but I was tempted by this, from @myquiltdiet:

I thought it would be fun to try, but Carla said “Too much work!” I could hear the laugh in her voice, so I smiled and went with tweaking the center bars to give it a bit of a twist. I hope she likes it.

In our Spelling Bee Quilt Bee, Susan of PatchworknPlay asked for words to make up her saying, which she’ll reveal on her blog. I first took three words with “w’s” but then Simone had none, so I gave two back, leaving me with the above.

Since NOT staying at home seems to be the thing I do the best lately, we headed out Friday for a mini-reunion with my husband’s family in Zion National Park, about 7 hours away. You can tell who has been coming there for ages (this makes about trip #20 for me) as we say “heading to Zion’s” as if there’s a possessive element there. (However, I do feel like it’s “my” park.) To try and catch up with my patchwork, I took some Chuck Nohara blocks on the road, stitching them in the car and in the park.

We invested in new air mattresses this year, twin blow-up beds, and those of you who have slept on a queen air mattress with another person while it slowly deflates all night long, know exactly why I replaced our aging air mattress. It also helps that my favorite camp quilt, Hearts in the Pines, is made for a twin. The pattern is out of print, but you can find the blocks in this previous post. My husband’s bed later on got a green nine-patch, but he left it off because it was. . .

…pretty dang hot this weekend. Snapshot was from the next day, where it turned out to have a high of 103 degrees F (about 40 C.)

My husband and I, my son and his wife and boys always go out to dinner at Zion Pizza and Noodle Company the first night, as we all love their pizzas, and who wants to cook after setting up camp? I love their scallopy crusts.

We were tasked with getting the S’more supplies. I cracked up when I saw a whole section just dedicated to this.

We rejoiced to have my husband’s niece (shown here in the Virgin River with the youngest of her six children) join us. Several weeks ago she underwent surgery for a brain tumor, and while under anesthesia, had a stroke. She awoke to a mostly paralyzed left side and has undergone significant physical therapy just to be able to walk with occasional hesitation. But she’s walking! She’s our own little success story, and she and her husband and family are our very own heroes.

Throwing rocks in the river was great entertainment for my grandson and the other small cousins. (No, he couldn’t lift that one.)

I left the river early because it was too hot, and went back to camp. I picked up my Chuck Nohara stitching, sitting quietly in the shade, watching (and chasing away) the squirrels. All of a sudden I hear a sound directly behind me, and using the reverse camera on my phone, caught this shot. One of the other little cousins came running over, saying “Bambi’s here! Mom, Bambi’s here!”

Because of the above sitting quietly, I’m all caught up with my Chuck Nohara blocks from April and May:

Now to head into June!

Quilts

Downtime Sewing • Odds ‘n’ Ends

April 28, 2016 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

Or as my friend used to say, “Time flies whether you are having fun or not.” So what have I been doing?

Blocks for our Spelling Bee for Carla, who has just opening a knitting shop. I made two and then one more for Simone, whose daughter is getting married and she’s making the wedding dress. She gets a pass, I’d say.

I made bee blocks for Mid-Century Modern Bee, for Stephanie, who doesn’t really run a blog, but is here on Instagram. Actually she’s in Russia, but try not to hate her. It looks like a fabulous trip.

Did (what I call) Duty Sewing to make an item for the Scout Auction at our church. I was thinking Scouts=Food, so I picked up four boxes of treats at Trader Joe’s, a Dairy Queen gift card and two shopping bags, and wrapped them all up fancy. It’s to help raise money to send boys to camp. I used to be in the boat of forking over moolah for Scout camp (I had three boys), and am really really happy to be at this end: donating, rather than doing.

Planted my summer garden. This time we didn’t buy the fancy-schmancy tomatoes at the Swanky Garden Center, but instead went to the local nursery and Lowe’s. They look much healthier. Things that grow in my garden are an endless fascination to me, and I sometimes check the seedlings daily. I’m #goofyaboutmygarden, thank you very much.

Did some market sewing for a friend. I also made plans to go to market, courtesy of Painter’s Palette Fabrics, who I sewed a quilt top for. . . and now I get to see it! Can’t wait–so excited.

Perused Instagram. I had no idea that people still crocheted granny square bedspreads. My horizons are widened every time I follow a hashtag that’s new to me, in this case #makersmovement, which is for (duh) people that make things. We used to be called crafters. I like the term Makers much better.

Finished up last month’s blocks for the Halloween QAL and got the blocks ready for this month’s post on May 13th. You know, when you break down a quilt into chunks, it’s much easier. And I know I would have never have gotten this far, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had to make the bits of the quilts to post. Thank you very much for putting up with me.

~~Cleaned out~~ Started cleaning out the photo cupboard, where I found my First-Ever Selfie, painted when I was six years old and in Brownie Scouts. Interestingly, we didn’t have a dog at that time, even though I painted one in the picture (wishful thinking?).

Found out that the street where we stayed in Dubrovnik, Croatia in 2014, was one of the sites used in Game of Thrones, a show I have never seen. In the top photo (taken from the web somewhere) is the scene from the movie. The middle photo is their comparison of how it looks when it’s not been movie-fied, and the bottom photo is taken by me, leaning out our window, looking back up the street. I found this out one day when I was reading the NEWSPAPER (yes, I’m that old) and saw the top photo. I ran upstairs to compare mine with theirs, then found the middle photo on the Internets.

Another eureka moment was when I discovered that Costco sells macarons. Yes, I have two boxes in my freezer right now, but I gave away the coffee-flavored cookies to a neighbor (I hate the taste and smell of mocha/coffee). I’ve also gotten three bids on a new HVAC system, and one guy is wandering around my house right now, taking mea$urement$.

In the cooking department, I made biscotti to take to my son, who lives in Normal Heights, in San Diego, California. My recipe is *here.*

Found out there is a fabric store in Normal Heights, in a former movie theater, which had some silk shantung, perfect for working on my Four-in-Art project for the May reveal. I’ve also been to the doctor’s twice, but the patient — like Mayor Shinn’s wife in the movie The Music Man — will recover.

Coming soon to a blog near you, on May 1st.

And my design wall last week, as I was figuring out a scene for under the Christmas Tree (next step is coming May 2nd), working on my Four-in-Art art quilt, and enjoyed a completed mini–a sample to check on how my pattern worked for some more market sewing, which I’ll show you very soon. (You know the game.) Now back to the sewing.

Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilt Bee · Quilts

Roaring into March

March 5, 2016 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

First off the bat, the winners of the giveaway, using the Husband Random Name Generator were:

Janice, who wrote: “WOW! I just began following your blog and missed the start up of this QAL. After seeing your beautiful work, I am inspired to dive in and QAL too. I love the embroidery details. . . [and the] layering [of] the stitches. I’d choose the magazine. Thanks for the great give away. I can’t wait to see your finished tree.” I’ll send you the magazine.

Camille, who said: “Thank you again for your excellent post. I’m almost done with the tree appliqué. Still have the freezer papers to cut out. This project is so out of my typical arena so I’m thrilled to be pushing myself. Thanks. I’d love to add the fabric medallions to my stash since I have the magazine.”

Good luck on the Oh Christmas Tree project to these two and to all of you (and me). I tried out making birds last night and they went so fast, as there’s far less stitching work on them. Can’t wait until next month to tell you about this.

In my regular, non-digital life, I attended our monthly gathering of the Good Heart Quilters, a group of friends who have been quilting together off-and-on (with new members coming in, and old members leaving) for the better part of twenty years. Charlotte, a newer member showed off what I think is only her third quilt top EVER, a Monopoly board. All the fabrics are Monopoly fabrics. Terrific!

Laurel brought two new rosettes for the New Millefiore Hexagon and re-arranged them to make more sense. She has an exquisite sense of color. Caitlin, whose house it was at, had a nice spread of snacks, including freshly baked brownies, and she worked on Christmas stockings. Lisa and I did hand work–Lisa sewed together hexies and I worked on Step 3 of the Oh Christmas Tree QAL, which I already mentioned. We had a lively and interesting conversation, running from mid-century modern furniture to QuiltCon to Donald Trump.

I wanted to show everyone my newest flowers. There they are above, all prepped up, with fabric appliqued on three of them. And below, you can see my progress.

I sewed the backstitch around the orange fabric not only so you’ll think I’m so clever, but also to cover up some wonky appliqué. Okay, that’s the real reason. Then I just got going on it, and kept adding stitching.

On this one, I borrowed one of Wendy’s ideas for the center, then did “closed blanket stitch” for the green-on-red ring and then just a zig-zag backstitch with small French knots (3 wraps of the needle using size #12 pearl cotton) at each juncture. It’s really a layering sort of task. I add this stitch, and ask. . . now what? It also helped that the program I was watching, “Sagrada,” a documentary on La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain was still going on. We’re headed there this year and I can hardly wait to see all of Gaudi’s surface decoration and bring home more ideas of what to put on these circles.

Lastly, I finished up two sets of bee blocks, the first for Linda of the Mid-Century Moderns. She asked for tiny churn dashes; these are measure 4″ finished. We were also supposed to make some unusual section but still keep the church dash recognizable. I wasn’t too inventive, switching around colors and turning corner blocks.

Mary of the Spelling Bee (#spellingbeequilt), an IG bee, asked for sewing words, then asked for us to add one more word. I wonder if that “i” is too long; I included extra fabric in case she wants to shorten it up.

Lastly, I thought you’d be happy to have some solid research behind our quilter’s habit of eating chocolate, from an article published March 4, 2016, in the Washington Post. Definitely need to keep up our visual-spatial memory and organization in order to keep sewing our quilts together!

Quilts

Spelling Bee Begins • January 2016

December 31, 2015December 14, 2024 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Sometime ago, I hatched an idea of making letters and words and ideas up in cloth. Not a new idea, but just one that emerged from the morass to capture my attention, I’d say. Getting a few friends to join me in this endeavor was the easy part. I set up a blog, Quilt Abecedary, where I experimented with making letters free-form, teaching myself as I went, failing and succeeding, jumping off my comfortable quilty cliff. That done, I wondered what to choose for a theme.

My first thought, and the one that lingered the longest was to do a series of words around the theme of “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Elizabeth” — verbs like bake, roast, chop, sauté and so forth. I have a recipe blog, Elizabeth Cooks, so thought to add that blog address to the mix. But somehow it just didn’t seem satisfying, as I couldn’t just settle into it.

I made my parents an embroidered sampler some years ago with a lovely saying celebrating their marriage:

When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man,

the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in the house and sing for joy

The interesting thing about deadlines is that they force you to a decision, whether or not it’s the “perfect” one. And this idea–of making a Valentine’s quilt — resonated with me. For better or for worse, my marriage is the key to my happy life, and I wanted to celebrate that idea with a Valentine’s quilt.

I chose a range of reds to dark pinks in all shades, with minimal patterning, with creamy whites to light pinks to serve as the background. I’ll mark our progress as we move through this one-year commitment (the bee will disband at the end of the year). My beemates will choose their words and I’ll make the rest. We’ll pop up now and again on Instagram at #spellingbeequilt. We have no blog or Flickr site as it is only a year-long project. If this idea piques your interest, drop me an email with a photo and I’ll share your words on here, too.

Since tonight is New Year’s Eve, I thought it was a good way to celebrate the New Year by trying something I hadn’t tried before. I was quite struck by something my nephew’s wife posted today on Instagram. She wrote that she’d seen babies born, a friend’s wedding, job losses, and sadly, buried a brother; she summed it up by saying “So much great that I want to remember forever and so much heartache I hope I never know again. Goodbye 2015, you have made your mark. And now on to 2016, I have so much to tell you.”

She echoed my feelings exactly. I’ve learned a lot this year, working through my Lost Summer of surgery, continuing health problems and had to come to grips that every time I look in the mirror I think of more of my grandmother than I do those pictures of me as a young woman. But I’ve had the sweetness of my husband’s company during this time, good friends who rallied round, lovely readers of this blog (many of who have become good friends) and lots of new quilting opportunities to enjoy. So, to echo Casey’s words: Goodbye 2015, you have made your mark. And now on to 2016, a clean slate, full of hope and plans and big challenges.

Happy New Year, everyone!