Saturday, 14 December 2024

It's Glitter Season!

 

The office is all decorated for the Holidays. It is my first year with this company and I find it funny that their Christmas tree sports the logo's colours. White, black and lime green. 

This one stands in the lunchroom and 
this one is in the employees space. I forgot to take a picture of the one at the front desk where I work. Next time. 

My backyard was also in glitter this morning but it doesn't show well in the photo. 



In the sewing room ... no glitters but some finishes. Yay! 

Back in October, during a quilting retreat, I assembled two little baby quilts from flannelette scraps. 
The first one is sunny, happy and Spring calling... and done! 


Stitch in the ditch in both direction. The backing is another piece of flannelette that has the same print as one of the patch on the front. I found this cute orange floral on yellow for the binding. Just what this quilt needed; more flowers. Finish at 28 X 34


The second one was quite small and needed a larger border. 

This one is 5" wide. I decided to use up all of the red fabric. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to make 4 9-patch blocks so I did this. It stayed on the design wall for a few evenings before I was convinced that, yep, I hate it. So I changed it. 

Much happier with this. It's not because you have little bits left, it means you have to find a place for them in this quilt. They can got in the next one. So, now, it is quilted. I don't have any red flannelette that looked good with the snowflake one. Dark blue would have been nice but not one of those on hands played well with this quilt. I have two huge bins (and then some) of flannelette and I can't find a suitable binding for this quilt. Really? Hmm. Go look again. 



What I found is not exactly flannelette. It's more of a brush cotton but not the bottom weight kind. 

Hey, it works so go for it. I like stripes for bindings. It measures 28.5" square. 




In this picture, you can see the soft blue print on the large border. The backing is an old flannelette piece left over from a pajamas I did when DS1 was 2yo. When I finished sewing the binding, I noticed that my machine had a heartburn and just spit all over the corner. Argh!! 

It just came back from a spa day! What else does it want? A Christmas present? Sheesh!! Sigh! 

I have one more little flannel quilt to finish. Last week, I received a large bag of scraps .. and some more flannel. There might be another baby quilt in there. These are fun to do and fast too. Eventually, this blog will be back to its regular programming. 


That's all for this week. 
Stay warm, drive safely. 
Take care, everyone. 

;^)


Planning on joining these talented ladies this week;


Saturday, 30 November 2024

County Clare on a Slow Week

Bonnie's County Clare leader-ender project is my L-E too. I called mine Shallow Pond. I got questions regarding how to spin those pieces so the unit lays flat. Not saying this is THE way to do it (as Bonnie does it differently) but it is how I do it.

Like Bonnie, I keep the "long" white piece vertical and sew a green piece on top. I sew the green piece first, on top, when I sew it to the middle part of that unit. For each side. 

The seams of the middle part (white green white) are folded towards the green bit. 


Twist the two seams.


I didn't take a picture of the blue section by itself but you can see here that the seams are also folded towards the dark (blue). When the two section join, the seam in the middle can easily twist. 


The same goes for the last seam. The three seams spin easily and the block is flat. The picture is not on its side. It's just the photographer inability to take a straight photo, haha. 

Ta-Dah! 



My sewing machine had a rendezvous with the Doctor this week. I busy myself with other things. 


Stained Glass blocks await their white triangles. I needed more white bits. 


This drawer is full of "neutral" strings. The pile on top of the drawer was in the drawer too. Yes, it was very squished. I removed only the strips that were approved to join the Stained Glass blocks. After a good 30 minutes, the drawer's load had diminished considerably. 

The white strings on the right side were set apart. They are very long and will be used as the middle strips in a string quilt I want to do. Eventually! (Don't we all know that song?) Now, the table is full of white bits and no machine to sew them, lol. 

Ohio Star Shadow got some attention too. One block is quilted and started the next one on the left. Slow and steady, it is moving along. 


The machine came back home(finally!). It sounds like a brand new one! I'm so happy. I will quilt those little baby quilts in an effort to get some projects out of here. I might sew all through the night. Lol. 

In case you are wondering, the answer is no. I am not doing Bonnie's mystery quilt but I sure am keeping the instructions. You know, in case someday I run out of quilts to do. 🤣 


Enjoy your week. 
;^)


Planning on joining these talented ladies this week;



Sunday, 24 November 2024

You Won't Believe This One

Most of us, Blogger users, had a problem with our readers comments not coming into our email's inbox. Well, the comments do reach your email's but not the inbox. I found lots of the comments in my trash box! Yes, the trash!


Believe me, it is the last place I would put your precious comments to me. So, if you can't find the comments, go check the trash.


All the comments come in as no-reply; even those that I know were never set as no-reply before. Shit-tuation continues. 

On this, I wish you all a very lovely and productive week.

Enjoy! ;^)

Saturday, 23 November 2024

Some of This and None of That

Some sewing done and none of that snow came here. Yet! Fingers crossed that we don't get any for a little longer as the roofers aren't done redoing our roof. Hopefully, they will be able to finish it on Monday. 

My leader-ender project became somewhat the leader-ender to my other leader-ender project. 


Nine-patch were done while sewing Shallow Pond. That's one way of getting things done. Lol. 

Units 

blocks


Last week, I showed you some masks made out of jeans scraps. Here are this week masks made with jelly rolls of gorgeous fabric. 


In my usual way, I had a mind to undo them and use the scraps. Unfortunately, that won't leave much scraps because they are cut for masks, with a curve on top, or worst they were cut at an angle! leaving only the middle strip as useful.


Instead of undoing them, how about sewing them up ... like ... like an apple core pattern ... type of pattern ... like maybe? 


After a few attempts at making something out of them, I decided that the best thing (for now) is to put them back in the bag. I might, yes, might, applique them as they are. It could become a commemorative Mask Quilt of the year no one wants to talk about. 
Unless, you have a better idea which I would truly appreciate you sharing it with me. Thank you. 



I satisfied my urge, need, desire to get rid of some flannelette pre-cut scraps. Another baby quilt is assembled. Here's #3 with rockets.

Not quite completed though. All these colours were put together in a project bag. I thought they played well together. My fingers were itching to see it complete, so, I got it out and started searching for a design and a layout. I'm tempted to add something at the top and bottom before adding a final border all around. Presently, it is only 22.5" which is not big enough even for a baby quilt.   

Almost the entire bag was used. All the orange ones are used. A lighter orange was called on board to finish it off. The argyle print is the same ochre as the solid one but it didn't play well with the others. It got benched for this one but it will find another project where it can shine, I'm sure. 
This weekend, I'll dive into the flannelette bins to hire a suitable border. 

That's all I have. Hope you have a lovely weekend and a productive week. 
;^) 


Also planning on joining these talented ladies; 
Angela at So Scrappy
Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts
Cynthia for Oh Scrap
Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Saturday, 16 November 2024

Cutting, Cutting and Mending

Not much sewing done. Got a few mending done (read boring stuff). Fix the cat "bedspread" which is an old piece of terry cloth. I wash it regularly and the holes get bigger with every wash. It was time to do something. (Yes, I agree, it was ready for a fixing a long time ago, lol.)

At the top of this photo, you can see the size of the holes (ashamed). On the bottom, I quickly stitched some batting to replace the missing cloth. Then, I took whatever fabric to cover it. A simple straight stitch over the folded edges was all that was done. Nothing fancy. 

I know that he will claw at it again whenever he feels it's time to make "biscuits", producing more holes but for now it's somewhat decent.  
Side A and 
Side B. The pink and blue fabrics are flannelette; the brown and yellow are cotton. You can see the sewing around the blue patch is beyond the patch. Those stitches are from the yellow piece on side A. I didn't measure; just winged it. He's happy to have his blanket back on his bed. And that's all that matters to him. 

 

I received some bags of scrap along with 12 masks made of jeans. Yes, jeans as in denim. 

First, aren't we all fed up of making masks? Second, who can breath through all this thickness? So, in my usual way, I'm taking them apart, cutting out the inside because ... 

I want to use those little bits of cotton. The jeans pieces are thrown out. Sorry, but I have no intention of unsewing these awful stitches.

There were lots of wonderful fabrics in those bags. I'm slowly cutting them in usable pieces. 

I want to show you this Winter Cactus because it's blooming. A beautiful, vibrant coral colour. I'm in love with it. 
I'm happy about this because this is MY plant! And it's blooming! I'm a serial plant killer so this is like AMAZING news! I bought it last June, or was it May, anywho, at a garage sale. It was just a tiny little thing. I transferred it in a bigger pot and it survived ... and it's blooming!

Also these Mums from last year that I kept inside all winter long. It came out of the house last Spring and it tried to survive the heat of the summer. Now that the weather is cooler, it's blooming too. 

Granted, it's not the prettiest plant ever but it's blooming. I'm sock! 


They are calling for a glorious unseasonably warm weekend. I plan to enjoy it to its fullest by sitting outside with a hand sewing project. Yep! I'm taking Ohio Star Shadow out of its summer hibernating state and get it moving forward while I watch the clothes dry on the clothesline. 

The last time I worked on this was on April 12, 2024. Let's finish it. 

That sounds like the perfect weekend to me. How about you? any plans? 


Enjoy! 
;^)

Also planning on joining these talented ladies; 


Saturday, 2 November 2024

Two Long Weeks





I brought my "pet" spider at work on Halloween and someone invited a "Punk-kin" cousin.
They hitched up right away. Haha. (The lollipops are the punk's mohawk hairdo. So cool!)



She was running all over the place.
On the left is my beautiful co-receptionist dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. 




No sun shining, 
No flowers blooming, 
No birds singing, 
No children out playing, 
No vember! 

(This is so right in Canada.) 

Ready or not, November is here. Enough said, on to sewing. Not that I did much. Got busy with nothing, played Volleyball, got some kind of bug/flu for 24 hours and went to a class. Now, that was fun. 

I learned how to draw on Pergamano or Parchment Craft paper. It is so beautiful! I need more practice but unfortunately this is hard to come by in Canada. 

This is the kit we got in class. I only did two because it is very delicate and slooooww work. 




I did the bookmark for Olivia as it was her birthday shortly after the class. I messed up the edges. It is a tricky puncture trimming. 
Regardless, I'm happy with my first try. Not sure how many I will make. It takes very good eyes and a steady hand to accomplish this craft beautifully. But the class was fun, with 7 other ladies. The teacher said we were good students. Yay! 




I also played Volleyball at the Dome! 
 
This place is huge. There are 8 volleyball courts and 3 soccer courts under one dome. The blue arrow points at a net (some 20-25 feet up) separating the 4 volleyball courts from the other 4. The white dome is inflated and the blue is the bottom part. I couldn't reached the white section even on tippy toes. (I'm 5'6" btw), I mean, it's a HUGE place. Very well ventilated and I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. We lost but we were must closer to winning than the first time I played. Maybe next time. 



How about sewing?  I did nothing worth showing but since you made it all the way down here, I'll show it anyway. 

I'm sewing pieces (read crumbs) of white to finish off the Stained Glass blocks. Boring picture. Skip that. 

I'm sewing some black and white HSTs for a new project. Yes, it will become my RSC2025. 


Or like this ? 


Or like the original quilt Cathy did, with the HST all the same size. (Oh, of course, I can't find it anymore! Darn!!!) Cathy, if you recognize your quilt that inspired me, please tell me on which post I saw it. It's a wonderful scrappy quilt.

I also added the border on the baby flannelette quilt. 
Not trimmed yet. If you look at the bottom right, I had to change the yellow piece. The previous one had frayed beyond the size I needed. This one is not the same yellow but it will have to do. 

Somehow, 9-patch blocks were made. I don't remember making some of them. Such were the last 2 weeks for me, lol. 

Back in September, I took a picture of my brown scraps. Remember this? 

And this morning, I took another picture. 
If you don't see the difference between the two pictures, you are absolutely normal. I didn't sew enough to make a dent anywhere in the brown scraps. Sigh! BUT! I love doing this and will continue to do so next year. 

At the craft class, one of the ladies said "if I had known you were coming, I would had brought a bad of scraps for you". Yes, I do have to continue this next year because scraps are still coming in, haha. 

Enjoy your scraps!! 
;^)

P.S. I am not receiving your comments in my mail inbox ... again! I've enabled comment moderation for the time being until Google fix this "shit-tuation". Have a great day! ;^)


Joining these talented ladies this week. 
Angela at So Scrappy