Quilt progress and a finish!

 I finished knitting the 2nd Butterfly baby blanket. Yay!

Now I can concentrate on the Elephant Baby Blanket and maybe work on a sweater for myself that I started some time ago. I have to figure out how to adjust the armholes though as my gauge is off lengthwise. 

I have been working on the Timberline Log Cabin quilt. I decided to work on ten blocks at a time. Here is the process for the final log of each block.

First I lay out the 10 blocks and pick a red diamond, a cream diamond and a green trapezoid. I try to make sure that no fabric is repeated in any block. It isn't hard to do as there are 6 different red, 33 different green and 32 different cream fabrics. This may be a scrappy quilt, but I am picky about repeating fabrics.

Next each diamond is trimmed using the Judy Martin tool that she recommends for this quilt.

Here is one pair all trimmed.

Preparing to sew them together.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

Here is the strip with the green trapezoid added.

Except for the Y-seam, the block is complete. I am happy that I seem to have mastered matching the seams of the diamonds.

Here are the 11 blocks that I have finished so far except for the Y-seams. This is the arrangement that is shown in Judy Martin's book for the center. She doesn't show the complete arrangement for the queen-sized quilt, but there are several options online.

I need 196 of these blocks in total.Then there will be 4 corner blocks and 56 border blocks. Oh my this is another long-term project. These ten blocks took almost 2 weeks of on and off sewing while I am on summer vacation.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will spend some time working on the secret stitching. School starts on Tuesday, so my stitching time will be greatly reduced.

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow stitching for sure

 There wasn't much stitching going on this week that I can show you. I spent a lot of time on the secret stitching. I added a few stitches to Santa so that the bow has been filled in a little more from last week.

My daughter, son-in-law and their pup came to visit late Wednesday night. They had planned to stay until this morning, but Hurricane Henri is heading our way so they had to leave after an early dinner yesterday in order to get back to Boston before the storm hits. 

We visited Gardiner County park and walked down to the water. 

The park is very marshy and as a result was full of mosquitos. My daughter and I liberally sprayed ourselves with OFF, but she was still bitten.

Ruby enjoyed visiting our house.

My mother was very glad to see her also.

I made a couple of plum cakes. After giving my mom and my mother-in-law each 1/2 of a cake and after sharing the other one with the kids this is what is left.

I finished reading "74 Seaside Ave" by Debbie Macomber and I am about to start " The Dollhouse" by Fiona Davis. This book is on my Kindle, so if we lose electricity, I also have "The Guardian" by Nicolas Sparks in physical book form if necessary. I am really hoping the electricity stays on. I don't want to have a repeat of Superstorm Sandy where we had no electricity for over a week. Hubby and I spent part of today securing our outdoor furniture, potted plants and pool toys. We don't want anything blowing away. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will spend this rainy Sunday working on the secret stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along progress

I have been trying to complete one to three 18" lengths of floss each time I work on the Santa stocking. Here is what Santa looked like on my last update.

I finished stitching all of that particular red for the bow and have now added some of the next darker red. This is what Santa looks like now. It is hard to see that there are two different reds in the bow, but believe me there are.

I still don't know whether or not he will be finished for this Christmas, but I am not stressing over it.

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

If you want to see my latest update on some of my other crafts, you can find it here. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

And so it begins

Of course, now that I have finished cutting out all of the more than 4000 pieces for the Log Cabin Star quilt, I had to start piecing some of the blocks. This is a slow process as accuracy is going to be of paramount proportion. That of course also means lots of seam ripping. Here is what the quilt will eventually look like although this is only the wall hanging size.

I made a sample block last summer just to be sure that I was capable of completing it. It isn't perfect, but it convinced me that I should keep going.

Since I need a total of 196 of the block you see above, I decided to work on 10 blocks at a time to keep it manageable. I am slowly, very slowly, adding strips to get all of the blocks to be the same size. it is working and it hasn't frustrated me yet. I have yet to fully complete the first 10 blocks that  you see below, but I am enjoying spending time at my sewing machine. Yes, there will be y-seams to stitch on each block.

I finished "Jingle as Ye Enter, Jingle as Ye Go". This was a kit from the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe that is no longer available. Hubby cut and sanded the dowel for me. I happened to have the ribbon in my stash.

The knitted Butterfly Baby Blanket is almost completed. Just 10 more rows and the seed stitch border and it will be done. 

I finished reading "The Storyteller" by Jodi Picoult and I can tell you without a doubt that I am glad it is over. I did not enjoy this book. It is set in Poland during WWII and it depressing to no end. I have to remind myself that I understand the lessons of the Holocaust and I do not need to read a novel based on it. Only because I was somewhat invested in the characters did I stick with it until the end, but I have to admit that I could not read this book near bedtime at all. 

I am now reading "74 Seaside Avenue" by Debbie Macomber and I am a much happier camper.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to. My slow stitching today will be on my secret stitching. I have been making a whole lot of progress.

If you are interested, there is a Santa update here.

That is all the interesting news right now. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Yay! I finished cutting out all of the green pieces for my daughter and son-in-law's quilt. Here is the final array of fabrics that I am using.

A few of them may be too light, but I have plenty of extra dark fabrics to substitute. It is supposed to be scrappy. As long as the "dark" fabric is darker than the beige light fabric that it is next to, it should be fine. 

I purchased the thread I need via curbside pickup at Joann's. So I just needed to organize my sewing space. That meant getting one repair and another WIP completed. 

You my remember "Jingle as ye enter, Jingle as ye go" from last summer. 

I finally braved Michaels to buy the dowel I needed, so I decided to complete the machine sewing. It now has its backing and a sleeve in which to place the dowel.

I still have to sew on the jingle bells and the ribbon that needs to go on the dowel for hanging. I think that will be part of my slow stitching today.

I have added a few stitches of a different red to Santa's bow near the bottom.

Speaking of bows, I have also started the yellow bow that is part of the secret stitching.

I am starting to feel the time crunch on this, because although I don't need it finished until next year, there is still a good deal to stitch and it will need to be framed. 

If you recall, I recently cleaned out my freezer and made some homemade croutons with some leftover Italian bread. This week I used some of that bread for bruschetta.

A nice little appetizer before dinner.

I still haven't chosen a dishwasher or an appliance store to buy it at, but we did treat ourselves to a new TV for our living room. Our old TV had some wavy lines coming on it. Hubby moved it to our bedroom and got rid of the really old analog TV there that definitely no longer worked correctly. It was always skipping. We rarely watch TV in our bedroom, so the one that we replaced in our living room will do just fun. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I should get a bunch of stitching done on this rainy day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Variety

I have a variety of things to show you today. Hubby and I have been trying to get out and walk at different parks lately. At one park we saw some geese in the lake.

At another there was a turtle swimming in the bay.

Despite my tomato plants looking like they are half-dead, they are yielding a bounty of cherry and grape tomatoes.

I have added this cute little lady bug to my back yard. I used to have several little figurines around our pool, but over the years they've gotten broken. 

I need to defrost the large freezer in my basement, but first I need to use most of the food that is in it. I decided to try to make room for some of it in the freezer part of my refrigerator and found many, many Italian bread halves that we save from when we order in. The restaurant always gives us two halves and we only share at most one at dinner. I sometimes slice them thin and make bruschetta, but this time I decided to make some croutons out of 3 of halves to go with our salad. I used this recipe for Homemade Croutons and it was delicious. 

I will be making these again to use up more of those breads.

I cut up more fabric for the Log Cabin Star quilt.

I have added some stitches to the bow of the gift that Santa is holding. 

I have been spending most of my stitching time on the secret stitching so there is not much progress to show. Here is a peek at a pretty rose.

Unfortunately, the arthritis in my right thumb has started acting up again probably due to all the stitching I am trying to accomplish and I can only stitch 2 or 3 18" strands a day.

Now for a story. My current dishwasher is 14 years old. It works perfectly fine, but the racks are rusting and staining my dishes. It also gets mold under the utensil rack and a few other places that we are constantly battling as it has an old polymer interior. Hubby and I went to our local appliance store and I ordered a new, not inexpensive, dishwasher with a stainless steel interior. I don't want any more mold. Wednesday the crew that delivers and installs the dishwasher came bright and early. The installer walks in to my kitchen, looks at the old dishwasher and immediately tells me that the new one won't fit. Now trust me when I tell you that I researched and measured before buying. He measures the opening which he states is 23 1/2". The dishwasher needs a 24" wide opening. He goes back and forth measuring and declares that it can't be installed. He says I will get a call. It is loaded onto the truck and off they go. Hubby and I decide to go to the store and get this sorted out. I remeasure the opening and I find the manual to my current dishwasher that includes it's dimensions. At the store, the salesman is very helpful and actually finds our purchase of our current dishwasher on their computer. Guess what? The dimensions of the old dishwasher are virtually the same as the new one. Specifically, the widths are identical. We are told that the polymer tubs give a little during installation and the steel ones do not which is why they believe that our current dishwasher fit in the space, but they need to speak with the installation supervisor who is at another location so we go home. I decide to start researching other dishwashers just in case it is determined that I need to find something else. Now I need to tell you that supply is very limited. I originally tried to order a dishwasher that was one step down from the one I ordered and the store had no idea when they might be getting it. There was a two week delay on the one they wouldn't install. Thankfully mine works.

So I find two other dishwashers that are possibilities. We decide to return to the store and speak with the store manager who wasn't in when we first went. He was exceedingly nice and went through the same procedure. Noting that the old dishwasher is the SAME WIDTH as the new one. He looks up the two new dishwasher choices that I have made. One has over 40 people waiting for it and they aren't expecting any units to come in next month, the other has 30 people waiting for it and they are expecting 3 units next month. Sigh.... The manager says to wait until he hears from the installation manager and he will call us. We go home.

The store manager calls us and says that the installer insists that we only have a 23 1/2" opening and they can't install the dishwasher that we ordered. We need to go back to the store so they can process a refund. I am not a happy camper so I took pictures of the opening just to show the manager that the installer was wrong. Hubby and I measured the opening with 3 different measuring tapes and yard sticks.

I am not sure what we are going to do next. I think I am just going to look for another polymer tub dishwasher and wait until it arrives. My old one was fine and I don't think I will be in this house another 14 years. I will get an upgraded one in my next kitchen. Just have to decide whether to go back to my usual appliance store or try another. 

Well that was my story for this week. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will work on some more secret stitching today.

Thanks for stopping by!