January Goals

Baby, It's COLD outside!!!!

Some of you will remember my little Bertie's Year January wall quilt which I did several years ago.  I made all 12 of them and change them out each month.  Thank you Bonnie Sullivan for such wonderful designs :*)  Poor little Bertie will go to any lengths to make friends, even with a snowman in the depths of winter!  Unlike Bertie, I am staying inside!  My grandson asked if I made a snowman out of the snowfall we got this morning, and I told him I never even stuck the tip of my nose out the door.  He laughed at that :*)

In these frigid temps, I think it is in our DNA to be thoughtful about survival and eating well to stay healthy.  One of my goals for 2017 is to learn to cook more healthy meals.  (Well, basically, to learn how to cook period LOL!!!). We are both at the age where many foods bother us for one reason or another.  My Guy especially suffers reactions to MSG, and there are few packaged or processed food items that don't contain it.  We've found it in foods we would never have suspected!  Most gravies of course, and anything with flavorings, extracts, enzymes, etc.  Even crackers, bread and last week a bag of shredded Parmesan cheese!  For New Year's Day, I challenged myself to try one of the recipes I've been collecting - Double Crust Chicken Pot Pie....

It was absolutely DELICIOUS!!!

Now that's what I call "comfort food"!!!!  And it didn't take a village to put it together either.  I diced some celery and onions, as well as the turkey, and then all I had to do was gather the other ingredients and have them ready to add when needed.  One of my favorite things about this dish is that it cooks in my cast iron skillet!

I used the leftover turkey I had frozen from Thanksgiving.  Although it was really, really good, the dark parts of the turkey kept it from being a perfect meal.  Next time I will use fresh chicken breasts instead.  We loved it and will definitely be making it again!  You can get the recipe HERE if you are interested in trying it out yourself :*)

This first week brought my first finish of 2017!

This is a Kismet Trinket Box, a Sara Lawson (Sew Sweetness) design, and although it was not an easy sew, it wasn't too terribly difficult either.  Anyone with at least intermediate bag sewing skills should be able to make one.  There are six sizes/shapes in the pattern - this one is the Large Square box.

I made this as a birthday gift for my friend Susie who is a real-live artist, so I had to chose fabric worthy of her, right?  Jane Sassaman fabrics can always be counted on to give that extra "wow" factor!  These are two that I picked up when Jane came to our guild last September.  I have to say, there are few things that make me happier than working with beautiful fabrics like these!!!  You can be sure that I plan to follow this one up with one of my own!  Here is a quick peek at the back as well ....

Today I cut all the pieces for Block #6 of the I Believe Sampler UFO project and they are ready to be pieced as soon as I hit the "Send" button here!  First I had to repair my "oops" from yesterday on Block #5 - I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that the bottom left unit is now correctly oriented :*)

Getting this top pieced together and ready for quilting will be my One Monthly Goal project for January.  You can see lots of other UFO's in various stages of construction HERE at the amazing Elm Street Quilts!

And Bonnie Hunter revealed her En Provence mystery quilt on January 1!!!!!!

©Bonnie Hunter - En Provence

I'm looking forward to getting back to this project!  I was caught up through Clue #5....

But then it had to sit for the past week.  I've begun cutting the pieces for #6, and hope to have them sewn by the end of the weekend.  If I'm really diligent I should have Clue #7 cut and started as well.

I've only made half the number of units called for in Bonnie's clues - mainly because I wanted to be sure I liked the quilt enough to work that hard on it - Bonnie never designs easy quilts!  Now that I know I like the design enough to finish making the quilt, I have to make a decision about the size I want it to be.  I really don't need more large quilts, so I'll stick with my original intention of just making a large throw.  I'm only going to have enough units to make 8 blocks, so my plan is to make one more block and lay them out 3x3 for a 70"-ish square throw.  I think that'll work!!!

Rocky is pretty much worn to a frazzle with all the extra workload lately.  He's demanding extra naps and treats. With good help so hard to find, I'm pretty much caving in to his demands.  I just hope he doesn't ask for a raise because he already gets top dollar!

My guild UFO number was #11, which is for me to quilt my Soul Searching top.

I finished the top in September 2014 at Runaway Quilters Retreat.  I suppose it's about time to get 'er done!!!

PS - for some reason my email account stopped allowing me to send out replies to your comments yesterday!  I apologize for not letting you know in person how much I love hearing from you, and I promise to have My Guy working on it first thing tomorrow!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

A Few Fun Projects - and More on the Horizon

We took Sara and the grandpuppy Link home on Wednesday - what a nice visit it was!

One of our main goals was to get Sara reacquainted with her sewing machine, gifted to her by a sweet friend during her last visit.  She had decided to leave the machine at my house until she was at a place in her life where she could devote more time to sewing.  Although she is finishing up her senior year and plans to start college courses in a few months, she is excited about doing some small projects at home this summer, so we've sent the machine and some basic tools home with her.

As promised, while she was here we each made a cuter-than-cute Shark Pencil Case which I told you about in this earlier post.  This is a design by Patchwork Posse which can be found as a free download on Craftsy.  I got to play with a lot saved-up crumbs for this project....

Sara's case is done in her beloved vintage-inspired pastels....

..... while mine is done in a fun mix of grays - one even has quilting text!

This was a fun project, so much so that I was seriously entertaining thoughts of making one out of each color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge next year - right up until time to add the zipper - UGH!!!  The designer says this can be a bit "fiddly" - riiiiiiight!  I even had to call in the Snoopervisor for help on this one!

Unfortunately, he wasn't much help.  He's decided zippers are not his thing!

In fact, he was plumb tuckered out by the time we got that sucker in there
and declared an emergency nap break =^..^=

  

It was nerve-wracking to tell the truth, and I had to do quite a bit of hand-stitching to close in the ends properly.  But they are well worth the effort I have to say. These turned out so darn cute and Sara was delighted with her accomplishment.  She did all of the sewing on her shark herself except for the zipper.  I put that in for her - I didn't want the poor child traumatized at this early stage of her sewing career :*)

And here's mine before the button eyes were added ....

I even used "scraps" for the buttons - these are buttons I've saved from recycled men's shirts!

No quilting was done on the Blooming 9 Patch while Sara was here, so I didn't meet my Guild UFO Challenge for June.  We were just too busy, and I had a couple of non-quilty things going on that needed a lot of my time and energy.  But Rocky volunteered for some overtime hours in the Studio to stand guard over the quilt until I can get back to it ....

One reason I ran out of time is because we celebrated the 80th birthday of my dear friend, Joanne!

Yes, she's 80 and still fabulous!!!

And she runs rings around me!  This is the Joanne who often shares her long-arm machine with me.  She had two parties, one given by her daughter for all of her many friends at church, book club, women's groups, as well as a few of her quilting friends.  The second was a small surprise party at the home of one of our Mountain Quiltfest ladies, Susie.  I made the cake for this party and put a lot of love and time into planning and executing it, especially since it had been ages since I had decorated a cake and I wanted it to be perfect!

Joanne loves birds and birdhouses, especially cardinals, so naturally I had to put a couple of those in the birdhouses.  You can just barely see the white picket fence behind them if you look closely.  I let out a deep whoosh of relief once that was done ... I was definitely reminded of why I no longer decorate cakes LOL!!!

I did manage to finish my latest See-N-Go Project bag.  This is the back of the bag featuring a Kaffe Fassett Corsage print ....

And the front with a vinyl see-thru window - I just LOVE Kaffe's purple and pink dot fabric lining showing through - so bright and cheerful :*)

This is a pattern I designed for Jacquelynne Steves for her Summer 2014 Summer E-magazine.  Some of you told me the links I shared in my last post for this pattern no longer work, so she gave me new links for you to get this pattern from her......

Please sign up for my free newsletter and emagazine here http://jacquelynnesteves.com/my-emagazine/

and when you sign up you will get a welcome email with a link to the archives page with ALL of the previous issues. The bag project was in the Summer 2014 issue.

You also can read the online magazine issue without signing up for my newsletter herehttps://issuu.com/jacquelynnesteves/docs/the_art_of_home_summer2014

If you have further questions, please email me at comments@jacquelynnesteves.com

I highly recommend that you sign up for Jacquelynne's FREE e-magazine - it's always full of fun projects, inspirational ideas, and even a few delicious recipes!

A teensy bit of hand stitching has been worked in here and there when I can.  I always enjoy linking up with Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching linky party - today she talks about multi-tasking and the value of slowing down.  It's a great post - be sure to go over and check it out!

My 3-D braided tree is almost completely stitched down in my Blue Collection center....

And I am finally getting back to playing a little with my Patchwork of the Crosses blocks.  This is the latest one in progress ....

Even with the best of intentions, I didn't find time to join in on these great QAL's, although I fully intend to make a start this coming week.....

   

I really, really want to do both of these.  I love starting something new and fresh, don't you?  I plan to keep both of these pretty simple so they don't end up on my UFO list for next year LOL!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Linking up with the following fun parties:
(links will show up when the party starts :*)
Slow Sunday Stitching
Tuesday Linky Party
Scraptastic Tuesday
Oh Scrap!
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?
Let's Book It

June UFO Busting

My Guild UFO Challenge for June is to quilt my Blooming Nine Patch (B9P).

Looking back through my posts about this quilt (you can also see them if you click on the quilt name above), I recalled that I began work on it during a class taught by a good friend and guild member, Pam Thorne, in late July 2014 ....

Fabrics in the quilt with the exception of the second one from the left
Although you might think "batiks" when you see this quilt, only 3 fabrics are batik

Getting a good start!

I finished piecing the top in late October of that same year.  Two years since I started it - yep, it's time to get this puppy quilted and done!

My first thought was to simply do a nice flowing panto on it .... something that could be done in a day on the longarm.  The busy pattern would probably not show the quilting stitches very well, so no need to get fancy with it, right?  Buuuuut .... this diva quilt top kept asking for free-motion feathers!  Seriously?  Yikes!  The longer I thought about it though, the more excited I got about doing some lovely free-motion on this favorite quilt top.  It had been ages since I had done any serious free-motion quilting even though it is something I really enjoy.

I knew there would need to be quite a bit of practice on muslin sandwiches first of course!

It was actually 2008 when I had last quilted free-motion feathers on a large quilt, but I remembered that it was great fun, very rewarding, and I loved the way the quilting turned out.  I wasn't sure how long it would take for me to begin producing decent looking feathers on the sample swatches, but happily in only a few hours they were coming along nicely.... not perfect, mind you, but I knew better than to hope for that!

After practicing throughout the afternoon, I was comfortable that I could do a decent job on the quilting.  Next, I had to baste the quilt sandwich - Ugh!!!  One of the main reasons I have been grateful for friend Joanne's generosity with her longarm is not having to baste sandwiches!  I simply can't get down on the floor to do this anymore, but there was no getting around the fact that it had to be hand basted.  I had seen many other bloggers post about how they used this table-basting method and that it had worked well for them.

I like to use a combination of basting glue spray along with safety pins - the basting spray really adds that extra control to hold the layers together securely no matter how much I shove and shift them under the smaller harp of a domestic machine.  So I asked My Guy to set the table up in the garage, because after all the health struggles I've faced recently because of chemicals and toxins in my environment, the last thing I wanted to do was spray a bunch of chemicals into the air in my home!

I was pretty optimistic that it would work out well once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing - Happily, it worked like a charm!

Because I use the basting spray, there's not a need for a lot of pins, just enough here and there to keep it in place enough so there's no opportunity for the layers to pull loose from the glue basting ...

Once a section was pinned, then it was a pretty simple matter to move on to the next and clamp it in place...

I have to say I'm delighted to know there is an easier way to baste large quilts, and I won't let that keep me from getting as creative as I like with the quilting stage of my projects in the future!

When I finished basting and laid the quilt aside while setting up my machine, Mr. King of the Studio decided a little Quality Assurance testing needed to be done to test it for nap-worthiness before things could go any further.  Does this face look like he's willing to compromise on this all-important stage of the work to you? ....  Oh my gosh, he's a tough Snoopervisor!  All the workers in the studio are terrified of him and toe the line!

Even after he grumpily graciously allowed me to have the quilt back, he continued to insist on curling up and napping on it - even while I was stitching!

I finally had to put a quilt next to it on the work table for him to nap near me (or near his quilt, depending on who is telling the story LOL!)

Once I got everything (and everyone!) settled, I nervously began to stitch some feathers.

My Janome 6600 is a trusted friend!  She has been my quilting workhorse for the past 10 years, and I've pieced and quilted so many quilts on this beloved machine with nary a hiccup.  So I was quite shocked when I hit a road block almost immediately.  I had all of one feather section quilted before I started noticing that the top thread was no longer sinking into the layers and the bobbin thread was popping up on the top .... uh-oh!

You can see from the threads at the top right that it was not doing this at first, so I didn't realize there was a serious tension issue for a while.  But when I checked to see what was happening on the back, I got a very ugly surprise ....

Apparently the tension issues just didn't show up on the front at first, but it was looking pretty darn nasty on the back from the beginning!  I can't remember EVER having tension issues with this machine.  I even have a separate bobbin case with the tension set for free-motion that has never failed me.  All had gone well during the practice sampling, so I can only assume the problem lay in using a thicker top thread (King Tut #40) with a thinner bobbin thread (SoFine) for the actual quilting on the quilt.

All production stopped - with a few choice words coloring the air of the studio I must in all fairness add! - while I fiddled and fidgeted with the tension both upper and lower until it was in such a mess that I couldn't even get it back to stitching normal stitches anymore!  This happened on a Saturday afternoon so I was looking at having to take the machine in to my local shop on Monday and waiting until I could get it back.  Thankfully, My Guy sat down with me on Sunday morning and spent a couple of hours very painstakingly going through the tension settings until we had it making decent stitches again.  Seriously, he's my hero!!!

I can't say it's working perfectly - I may need to replace a bobbin case - but it's working well enough that I've been able to continue quilting the B9P.  I'm hoping it gets me through this project so I can make the July 6 deadline!

Following are a few progress photos - you can tell I get a little more comfortable and the stitching is smoother as I go along ....

Discounting the frustration of tension issues, this project has been a real joy for me!  I have to carve out time to work on it because lots of other good things are going on as well, such as these two coming for their summer visit!

Granddaughter Sara and Link on the way to our house
They look just as excited as we are about them coming!

Sara is now 18 - all grown up!  

But she's still young enough to be a delight to have around and to teach new things :*)  Do you remember her from this picture when she was learning to sew on a previous visit?

She had just finished her first ever sewing project - a pillowcase out of soft beach fabrics.  We are planning to be up to lots of different crafty things while she is here.  Like stitching up one of these .....

Needless to say, Rocky is not quite so delighted with their visit - he has taken to hiding under the bed and being very inhospitable!  Anyone would think sweet little Link was a huge devouring beast intent on tearing him from limb to limb!  It is clear we have some manners training in our future. But he did find a chance to sneak in and take a nap on the B9P for a few hours, so although he might try to tell you otherwise, all is not quite misery is his world. =^..^=

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Linking up with the following fun parties:
Design Wall Monday
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?
Let's Bee Social
Tuesday Linky Party