Trying to be Creative

My mom never reads my blog, so I feel pretty safe in posting this picture. Her birthday is tomorrow and I made this fabric postcard for her last night. She loves daffodils and some times I can actually find them this time of year, but usually it's too early. I put this card in the mail this morning so she might get it tomorrow.



Friday starts our annual quilt guild retreat. I've decided not to do the mystery quilt this year. The fabric requirements are 240 7"x 1.75" strips, half in dark fabric, half light. I dunno, seems like too much cutting to me. I still have last year's mystery project to finish. That was the one I lead. I had prepared all the examples and just never put it together in the end.

I've been wandering around lately without a plan, without a clue, too, but mostly without a quilting plan. I have several unfinished projects that need my attention but nothing is really drawing me in, calling my name, wanting to be finished. I think that's why I'm having a hard time getting ready for the retreat. I don't know what to pack, I don't know what to take to work on, and I don't know what I want to finish.

I've glanced at my to-do list over there in the sidebar of my blog for inspiration, so maybe I'll start there when I pack. I have a long-standing list in my Palm, too, of things I take to the retreat center every year so I don't forget supplies, but I always manage to forget to put something on the list. I hate over-packing, it's just too much to carry in from the car and back, but I hate not having all that I might need. You never know when inspiration might strike and when it does you don't want to not have that perfect bit of fabric because it's a home.

Maybe I'll pack lightly and just take a couple books and knitting to my quilt retreat.

Notes on Other Topics

Thank you, Greeny for reminding us "Dame" is the female equivalent of "Sir" for being knighted. so, may I present to you: her royal knightress, Dame AM Kingsfield! TaDa!

Dame AM has my kids today since school is closed because of election day, proving her well deserved knightressness.

Just Me commented to me about me being in front of computers all the time and being anti-technology. To that I remind folks there is a big difference between a computer user and a computer programmer.

I'd like to post replies in the comments, do you go back and look? Are you used to that? Should I start?

OK, that's settled. I'll start posting comments, and you'll have to look back for my answer.

Remembering

February 15th is not etched onto my brain the way July 7th or November 16th are. I missed my own blogaversary on Friday, two whole years, thank you very much. Maybe next year I'll remember. Three-hundred and ten posts in two years, not very many.

I'm thankful to of all you who stop by and see what's up in my little world. I'll try to post more often for you.

Retreat

The retreat is getting so far away, I'm having a hard time remembering specifics. But, I'll try. This year I arrived the earliest I've ever gotten there, about 1:00 Friday afternoon. A and L and I got our work space set up, three of us on two tables arranged in an 'L' formation, and I settled in on my first task: Girl Scout badges, I wanted to get my latest vest out of the way, so I could concentrate on other things.

This was A's first year, a retreat "freshman" as she called herself, and L's second year there. I was "Post-Doc" at 12 years. One of the so-called traditions is to make quilt blocks with the year's fabric, usually some hideous floral print that is hard to match and this year was no exception: a purple print with large blue and peach flowers. When all the blocks are made they are sorted into groups and "winners" are drawn, each person taking home a stack of 12 or so quilt blocks featuring fabric de jour.

Friday night's main activity is the Brown Bag exchange, which I was asked to run. Everyone brings a gift in the $10-$15 range in a brown bag, something a quilter would love. Everyone takes turns choosing a gift from the pile or stealing someone else's already opened gift. I brought a quilted tote bag I made with chili pepper fabric and red trim. I was thrilled when the person who drew my bag from the pile liked the tote and even more thrilled when someone else stole it away from her. One gift that got stolen a lot this year was a picture puzzle of a quilting scene. Who would have thought?

Saturday morning the mystery quilt team presented the mystery quilt directions. I'm glad I didn't participate this year. There was a lot of sewing. The people who did participate created beautiful tops, but I just wasn't in the mood this year. I, instead, worked on birthday blocks, several of us promised each other a quilt block of the birthday girl's choice and I finished and delivered two. Both were received well, owners thrilled, and my ego was pleased.

Saturday evening we have an auction, selling patterns, books, fabric, partially completed projects and abandoned supplies, anything we have lying around that we no longer need or want. I did very well this year, there were a lot of bargains to be had: I didn't buy anything.

Sunday is usually pincushion day. Each year we make different design. The first one was a chicken, and we also have made a crab, mouse, turtle, strawberry and a few others. This year was an Asian-inspired flower. Someone had a magazine with a duck pattern in it and that's when all the craziness ensued, I helped A put a thong bikini on Pinky (red ball head pins held the pink buttons inside the bathing suit top) and the Professor ended up with a necktie and crystal tie tack after we realized a speedo didn't look good on a duck. Even if it was enhanced a bit.

I haven't even mentioned the food table yet, long kitchen work table covered in all kinds of snacks, health and junky, salty and sweet, twizzlers and chocolate. Enough to feed a snowed-in army for a week, which it did a couple years ago, but not this year. I did my share of eating too much of the snacks and am over the Mendoza line to show for it.

Sunday night and Monday I worked on a small quilt and got a lot done. It is made from 6" squares we exchanged at our 2005 retreat. I had finished it into a top either last year or the year before and started quilting it this year. It's in the picture in the foreground on the table. I would have had more pictures to post if someone hadn't forgotten her camera.... Ahem.

Looking at this picture I just realized a lot of the projects people were working on had been taken off the walls already and walls are not as lively as they usually are.

Now it's back to the real world and putting away my projects until I can find inspiration to work on them.

Retreat Eve

Tomorrow is our guild's quilt retreat and I haven't packed. I don't even know what projects I'm going to work on.

If you're not a crafty person, it's kinda like leaving for a long vacation tomorrow and you don't know what towns you're going to so you don't know what to pack, beach or mountains, cold or hot?

I made a fabric valentine's day postcard for Fern and put it in the mail box yesterday expecting it to arrive today. Silly me, I mailed it from my mail box, so the mail man put a line through the stamp and put it back in our mailbox. D'Oh! so much for the surprise.

I'll post about the retreat on Monday, or from my phone if there's cell reception out there in the boonies.

Carry on.

Weekend Round-up, Among OtherThings

I'm not usually one of those moms that dash off to the ER at the sight of blood, but when the sight of blood wasn't ending, I took The Boy in. I knew there was nothing to stitch up, since the edge of his left index finger was gone, but I knew I couldn't stop the bleeding by myself. He was cutting salami.

Dan was in Tampa for the weekend golfing with his friends.

I did a lot of laundry this weekend. The last load is in the dryer right now. It's the "everything else" load. Usually I pick through what is on the floor of the laundry room to make a load of like items, darks, pastels, colors, whites, towels. The "everything else" load is the stuff that falls through, the stuff that doesn't pass muster on previous sorting rounds. It's the load you hate to put away because it's usually a bunch of mismatched socks and shirts that are too small for your youngest child. You know. I'll have that load waiting for me tonight. Oh joy.

Lost is back tomorrow night after a nine-month hiatus. I gotta make sure the DVRs are set. Yes, both of them. I started a Lost marathon yesterday by rewatching season 5. This interrupted a Lois & Clark season 1 marathon and ended up being interrupted by watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days because we wanted to send it back to Netflix.

I found Season 1 of Lois and Clark on eBay for The Girl (and myself!) because I enjoyed it 16 years ago and thought she might like it, too. "Like it" turned out to be an understatement. She loves it and thinks Dean Cain is wonderful, gorgeous, and very good-looking. He was quite yummy in that show, wasn't he? I found Season 2 on eBay and she had that watched in a heartbeat. Now she's dying to have Seasons 3 and 4, but I can't find them as cheaply as I found 1 & 2 and I'm not willing to pay $61 per season at Borders, or even $40 at Amazon. She'll get her homework done and I'll keep looking for bargains online.

I've had 21 Girl Scout vests to work on this month. I didn't think my stack would ever diminish, but it's down and I now have only four to go, then it's back to personal sewing/quilting. Yay.

The quilt retreat is coming up at the end of next week so I've made a list of projects to take with me. It's a small list, only ten or twelve things. Sheesh. I probably ought to take my ritalin with me so I can stay focused and not get overwhelmed. And get stuff done. There are three guys in my office whose wives are due with babies and I've promised them all baby quilts. Silly me. The nice thing about baby quilts is that you can make them small and no one will complain.

I ordered a portable sewing machine table with some birthday and badge-sewing money. It should be here in time for the retreat. This new table will make it easier to do machine quilting at retreat, where it was impossible before because the table was not flush with the bed of the sewing machine.

Since I haven't had a proper blog post in a while, I'd better stop here. I can't give away all my secrets at once, and, I still have real work to do even though the crush is (almost) past.



 

Thank Goodness for broken water pipes! Well, only when they supply water to my office building and I get a day off! I've already loaded and started the dishwasher, took a load of neighbor girls to school, and worked on a quilt.

I have a thermometer in the van that reads the outside temp. It started out at 45°F in the garage and dropped down to 10°F by the time we got to school, the girls counting down the temp like the rocket count-down. They were disappointed it didn't go to single digits. I reminded them 22° below freezing was cold enough. It was interesting to me to "watch" their brains work, sure 10° was cold but 22° below freezing made the cold more real.

The quilt I'm working on this morning has been in progress for almost two years. I started it at quilt retreat in '05, I got the top done last year and got it basted a month ago or so. It is my "retreat" quilt because I needed a quilt for my bed at the retreat center, using a sleeping bag sacrilegious, somehow. The pattern is called "birds in the air" and each set of "birds" are of a different fabric, 56 in all. The background is a geranium print, thus the name of the quilt is Birds in the Geraniums.

Click to enlarge.

Another Day, Another Project

Here's another quilt I'm working on. I lead the mystery quilt at our quilter's retreat in February '07 using the delectable mountains pattern I found on the 'net. I did all the demo blocks ahead of time and started to put it together at the retreat but lost interest in it when some of the seams didn't line up right. Then, a few months ago I read The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. It's a story about antebellum Pennsylvania, the Underground Railroad and a quilt the protagonist (I could have said main character but wanted the bump in reading level) makes to help runaway slaves. Inside the cover on the endpaper is a drawing of the quilt. (Click here to see a picture of the author's quilt.) It was basically the same block unit I made for the mystery quilt, the story's quilt is just bigger, but I was nonetheless inspired to work on the abandoned quilt again. I took apart the blocks I'd sewn together and reassembled them in this pattern.

This picture was taken before the blocks were all sewn together, but were just laying out on some of the background fabric. The center space is 12" square and I'm not sure what to about it. I think I don't want to leave it empty, but I haven't come across any blocks I want to use there. I want to finish this top soon, but it has stopped talking to me. Anyone have any ideas?

Tuesday

I'm going to have to remember to think about the trees when I tell someone they can park their 65' rig in front of the house.

Yesterday, as I already posted, I stayed home from work while we got our new windows installed, leaving only to take Fern to the orthodontist to get her braces on. When I got back they were all in place and the house was getting warmer. The actual ripping out of the old ones and the setting in the new ones goes quite fast, it's all the caulking and finishing that takes a long time.



While the installer guys worked on that, I worked on the living room. I had bought that book case a couple weeks ago and only got half the stuff back in place. Add to that an unbuilt K'nex kit or two spread all over the floor along with migrating sewing room paraphernalia and you need a snow shovel to navigate the room.

I cleaned and vacuumed and was able to lay out one of the quilts I've been working on. This is the One-Block-Wonder (OBW) quilt I'm making for my mom.



I started the center of this quilt almost a year ago, like in April or May. Then in July I had trouble with the borders, got disgusted, and put it away. I took it to the retreat with me this past weekend determined to get past the disgust and make some progress. I'd seen a cool border on another OBW in Houston but I forgot to print out the picture of it for reference before the retreat so I designed the one you see here on my own, with lots of input from a fellow quilter (Thanks Cap!).

I need to take a close-up picture of the corner block. When I drew it up I didn't realize the number of partial seams there were: all but one. Sheesh. I could have altered the pattern to make it easier and not as pretty, but I pretended partial seams weren't hard and knocked out the four rather nicely. For you non-quilty folks, a partial seam is where you have to sew together two pieces of fabric part-way, then add another piece, then finish the first seam. Here's a picture of a quilt block with them.

After Fern got home from school, she and I went to fetch Kevin from his after-school program. All the while, her new braces were irritating her gums so she called the ortho office to see if she could pick up some wax. She could. While we were in that neighborhood, I suggested we go to Bob Evans for supper. Motion approved.

We were mostly through our carbo-laden dinner when my purse started vibrating. I didn't hear my phone ring but Fern felt it. It was my baby brother. He had just seen a sign for Bowie on I-97, he didn't realize how close he was to me. I told him we were eating at Bob Evans and invited him to join us. He has a new job driving trucks for Swift. He's not on dedicated runs so he never knows where he'll be next. Just like he didn't know he'd pass close to Bowie on his way from Columbus to Easton until he saw the Bowie sign. At that point we were only about 8 miles out of his way and he hadn't eaten all day, so he made the detour.

After supper he called the company his load was for and couldn't get a hold of them. He hoped to unload ahead of schedule but it wasn't to be, so I invited him to stay with us. That's when I told him there was plenty of room to park a truck in our neighborhood. I hadn't counted on the trees.



Here's my brother taking a picture of his rig. Don't those new windows look great?!



I'm so glad my brother got to stop at our house for the night; I don't get to see him often enough. This morning I made him a couple sandwiches and fixed a bag of snacks and sent him on his way. I hope he can make his way by here again soon.
 

I'm back from my 3-night quilting retreat. The car is not quite unpacked, but it's getting there. It took 7 trips to get the car loaded from the retreat center, and probably more than that to get it unloaded now into the house.

I got a lot done in addition to leading the mystery quilt and the fabric dyeing workshops. I'm so thrilled the ladies seemed to enjoy both activities. I'll post pictures of the quilts I worked on as soon as I get the car unloaded and the pictures downloaded.

I better check on Kevin, he headed off with a tub of paint and a brush. later.....

Thanksgiving Follow-Up

Egads, has it really been more than a week since I posted?

So much has happened, but yet, not too much out of the ordinary.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, we were to host my family. Neither of my brothers could make it so it was going to be my folks and the four of us. I called their house in the morning to find out what time they would be arriving, but there was no answer. No answer on Mom's cell phone, either.

Dad called later, from the hospital, Mom was in severe pain, she couldn't move her leg/hip. A couple hours later they called again, she was sent home with oxycodone and an order of bed-rest.

So the four of us had a quiet day at home, full traditional menu sans pumpkin pie. My parents were supposed to bring that. Kevin helped by peeling the potatoes, Fern made yeast rolls from the Joy of Cooking, Dan made his yummy stuffing. I made gravy. We forgot to cook the cauliflower or any green vegetables. Oh well.

We have oodles of turkey left over so I'm going to make oodles of turkey salad with my curry chicken salad recipe. I don't like turkey much, I need to have it doctored up with gravy, so looking at the large bag of leftovers is daunting. Might as well doctor it up, right? Oh, that reminds me, I need to get some pecans for the salad. Same with pork, I don't like it plain, got to doctor it up. My mom made pork chops by browning them, then baking them on a bed of rice in mushroom soup. (See? doctored up.) I haven't had that dish in a long time. hmmm. Need to add pork chops to the shopping list.

After we ate, I worked on a quilt top I had started at the quilt retreat last weekend. (Oh sheesh, I didn't even write about the quilt retreat, did I?) It's made from "homespun" type fabrics in orange, dark tan, forest green, and purple. It finished at the perfect size for a baby quilt, but it's pretty ugly for a baby quilt, being so dark and "homey" looking. I'll finish it up for a wall hanging. Darn, I really need to take pictures of these things so you can picture it when I write about them. One of these days I'll just post a slew of pictures and you'll have to figure out which posts they belong to. I might even award a prize.

I remembered to tune in to FOX at 4:00 for the Kaleidoscope ice skating show (see below). Did you? The football game ran long so the show had a delayed start. Fern and I found ourselves in the audience a couple of times, the most visible at 4:55 and 5:34. In the latter shot, you can see me holding up my camera following Scott Hamilton skate and do a back flip with Fern right next to me. I videoed that program of his which I'll need to upload so you can see it too. Darn, one more thing to remember, that camera is in my other jacket pocket. This picture was taken with my phone during one of the teleprompter segments where Scott was introducing one of the skaters. They did most of the intros at the other end of the rink with the stage behind them but did two at our end. These bits must have been cut because I didn't see it last night. Fern and I think they actually cut out a lot of pieces, including one skater entirely. Oh well.

I can't wait for my quilt guild's retreat next month. It's usually a wonderful time, away from the kids and spilt chocolate milk, staying up late, sewing until your hands fall off, starting way too many projects to ever finish.

I volunteered to lead a fabric dyeing workshop one afternoon. I have no idea why I do things like that. Especially since I haven't dyed fabric in about eight years. I've been looking at my old notes and am I'm slowly remembering how to do it, I even placed an order at Dharma for two new colors of dye. I decided I needed to practice dyeing first so I'll round up some of the girls and moms in the neighborhood and lead a class one afternoon. AM said she'd bring her girls. I figured if I could teach them, the adults at the retreat could not be harder, right? My plan is to show them how to do a six-step two-color blend. Is that too much for the girls? Am I crazy? What colors would you blend?

This is what happens when you put 30 women in a room with little sleep and a bag of fiber-fil: Professor Moskovi of Duck U. & Pinky Tuskaducko.

I'm having fun here at the retreat, eating too much, and not getting near enough done.

What Do I Do in the Mountains?

I've been working on this quilt for my dad on and off for a couple years now. I started almost two years ago as a mystery project I lead at our guild's retreat and finally got the top done last fall. I've registered it in our guild's spring show so now I must get it finished. The gold fabric is a print of Gingko leaves, one of Dad's favorite photo subjects.



This is my first attempt at feathers and have decided to put them in the green areas and have decided to use this overlapping circle design as filler around the feather.

Now I just need help with how to quilt the gold or "mountain" areas. Any suggestions?

More progress from the retreat

I played with a new technique of dyeing fabrics a la Amy Johnston. I'll describe it more when I don't have to tap it out on the phone.

Another quilt finished! This is Kevin's Autism quilt as it hangs in his room on the wall.

This is a close-up of the quilting I did in each block. I used mono-poly in a stipple meander in the background fabric and thread to match the star points in the centers of each star.

This is a sink full of hand-dyed fabric the women did at the quilting retreat. I love the colors! Click on any picture to enlarge.

I finished another quilt, this one hangs in my husband's office. Several years ago he got a promotion and with it came a private office. I set out to make this for him and to liven up his walls. I wanted to hand quilt it because I felt only hand quilting could do it justice since the pattern is so intricate. Then I finally realized, as the top sat unquilted for many years, I was never going to have time to hand quilt this piece. I got most of it machine quilted during the retreat and finished it up when I got home. Click to enlarge.

Take Two or Three

Ok, that didn't last long.

Pre-planning, that is, for our trip to Europe next month when Mom and I go to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. I figured out We'll have the most free time in Amsterdam, the first day we are there, the day we'll probably be most tired and jet-lagged. We land at 07:30 and have unscheduled time until the welcome reception/orientation that night. Our hotel is just a couple blocks from the Van Gogh and the Rijksmuseum, so we'll have plenty of options.

The rest of the days are scheduled with tours and sight-seeing trips except for an afternoon in Paris when we can take an optional tour of Versailles. I'm torn between that and checking out Mona at the Louvre. Or going up the Eiffel tower (our hotel is two blocks away!).

I won't be able to fine-tune plans until we get our travel documents with a more refined itinerary. Which means I'm back to having that empty lost feeling I wrote about a couple days ago.

OH! but wait....
I'm going to our quilt retreat this weekend. I really really need to start a packing list for that. I'm sure I'll forget to take a project that needs attending too. I have so many started and neglected projects, sheesh. I tend to overpack and be too optimistic about how much I will get finished. Then I start something new and end up having even more projects than I started with.

I'm also running a game on Saturday so I cannot forget to take all I need for that, including prizes.

And I promised to bring a soup for Friday night dinner.

I'm not teaching fabric dyeing this year, Lisa is, so I don't need to pack anything for that. I must not get sucked into that. Must. Not. Dye. Fabric.

I really could use another brick-colored fabric, however, for a current project I really need to finish. It's a quilt to be included in a book a fellow quilter is putting together, and the perfect color would add so much....

ARGH! Must. Not. Dye. More. Fabric.

Well, that worked well, I haven't thought about missing my favorite literary characters for that past several paragraphs now. D'oh!

 

Greetings!

 I just realize it has been two and half years since I have posted on my blog. I have been shamed, not intentionally, by my blogging friends. So, here’s a new post. No promises for the future.

Currently I am enjoying a quilting retreat with bee mates at a rented cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. I am working on blocks for the 365 challenge and making a bathrobe for my daughter. It’s been so long since I’ve made garments, I hope it turns out well. Here are the newly completed 365 blocks:

Our cabin:
  

Latest Quilt Project

This is what I worked on at quilt retreat this weekend:

This is a project for my dear high school friend in Florida. She has floor-to-ceiling closets in her bedroom with a 25" space between them. She commissioned me to make something eye-catching to hang there. I'm going to add a couple borders to this, maybe even my "trademark" interlocked knot design I used on the quilt I made for Mom shown below.

This technique was developed by Lisa Walton of Dyed and Gone to Heaven, an inspiring quilter/beader from Oz. I'd love to meet her one day.
 

Progress at the quilt retreat

I've had this quilt forever and got to work on it this weekend. It's almost done, I just need to quilt the last border and bind it.

Ta-da!

Quilt Retreat: Project #1 done