Christmas Day Stitching

The DH & I had our big Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve this year which left Christmas afternoon all clear for some quality time in my Studio. I had finished Clues #1, 2 & 4 for the Bonnie Hunter Good Fortune mystery.  That meant I could focus on Clue 3 & 5 to get all caught up. 

First up were the half chevrons & bonus HSTs. The method I used left a very scant seam allowance.  While I worked, I have some old Quilt Cam episodes I had missed, playing on the laptop and then onto the TV.

Much less than a quarter inch.  

I had a moment's pause but remembered this is a mini quilt that will not be wash & used like a bed quilt so this will do fine.  Not pressed, so they appear wonky but they're not, but they are done! 

Here are the turquoise units next to the blue HSTs to show the difference in the colors.

Next - the 3 triangle in a square units. By this time in the day, I was feeling very relaxed, in part due a lovely large Mexicali coffee and Bailey's, so relaxed that quilt math was not my strong suite.  Weird but this is the second time during this quilt that I had an issue with mini-sizing the unit construction.  Seems to me that time away from my Studio has NOT been good for me in more ways than one! I smartly made a test unit - the one on the left - the coral & neutral side was too small!

And then made another test unit - the one on the right - the coral & neutral side was too big! Third time was a charm!  

I went back to Bonnie's blog to re-read the instructions and confirmed where I made my math mistake. ARGH!! It was really a case of not paying close enough attention. I moved on to piecing all the units correctly. DONE!   

And I am officially all caught up on making my units for my mini mystery quilt! Tomorrow will be pressing, pressing, pressing.  Click  HERE to see what quilters around the world are up to with their versions of the Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.

I have to say being back on the Studio yesterday was a great feeling.  I felt the lack of quilting motivation lessening while I sat at Wild Cherry and pushed fabric under the needle. I'm not back to full speed ahead but it did feel better creating something. 

2018 Merry Christmas

AND

Distracted Quilting

Friends shouldn't let friends quilt distracted. Ever.

First, some background.

I've been lacking quilting mojo lately but I'm determined to make the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt again this year.  A fellow quilt blogger from down under, Vireya, (waving "HI") challenged me to get a few units of each of the first four clues done by the time this week's link up went live on Monday. I met (virtually, that is) Vireya 5 years ago via the link up for the BH mystery quilt Celtic Solstice (2013).  It was so neat to make a connection across the globe, share our stitching progress and see a lovely bright splash of Australian summer flowers on her Blog during our cold winter season.

I figured I would to get something accomplished for the link up, though most likely not all the units done.  My stitching time was limited this past weekend, as DH & I made our annual trek down to Chicago for the Christkindlmarket on Sunday. When I finally did grab some time in the Studio, I started with Clue #1 - four patches. 

How hard could that be? 

Right!  Harder than necessary, it turns out. LOL!! I ended up with 4 patch rectangles!  This is what happens when I try to quilt distracted by sixteen bazillion things on my mind.  Apparently, quilt math was beyond my capabilities for this step. I've done mini size versions of the mystery quilts before so I know how to do the figuring, but my brain was obviously NOT on the task at hand!

Friends don't let friends quilt distracted!

The good news?  I can trim them down to the correct size and shape.

The bad news? I've wasted some fabric and will need to make a few more strip set to reach my total. 

The even better news?  I did get Clue#4 totally completed! 

Okay, so I opted to cut solid rectangles rather than string pieces them in miniature size. But at least  they're the correct size.  Let's hope Clue#2 & #3 go better than Clue#1 started. Stop back next week or follow along to see what new trouble I get into in my Studio.

Santa Came Early This Year!

Santa Claus came a little early this year with one of my Christmas gifts. Probably because it took up quite a bit of room in his sleigh.

I was out and about one Saturday morning early in November, doing some errands and having some me time. I decided to check out an estate sale. Nothing there. Then I got a wild idea to head up to the Restore - Habitat for Humanity shop.  Just to look around. I mean, what could it hurt - I was just unwinding from a busy week. 

And then I found these!

Oh, my stars! These are HON steel lateral filing cabinets, in really great used condition, clean, with smooth action - with no price on them.  I tried to contain my excitement while the associate found the manager to price them, hoping she would be gentle, but fair with her marking pen. 

$30 each! $30 each! $60 for the pair! OMG!!! And to top it off, they were offering 20% off everything in the store for veterans, as it was Veterans Day weekend. $48 for the pair! And buying them helps support a good cause. 

The DH had had a bad night, with quite a bit of pain and was safely ensconced on his couch, trying to get some rest.  This was worth getting him up & out to the store. In the meantime, I literally sat on the cabinets until the very nice associate put SOLD tags on both of them. It took a while for the DH to get there, and get them loaded and home but they are mine!  

For my Studio. 

For my Stash.  

Several years ago I bought plastic carts with drawers that fit under my cutting table. And they worked for a while. But plastic is not sturdy enough to withstand time, the weight of all that fabric and constant use & abuse until they looked like this. 

The new cabinets fit under the cutting table, placed back to back. 

The whole stash fits in their four drawers! Previously, it took four of the old plastic carts, 12 drawers plus four other drawers. 

Loving the new clean look of these cabinets! I told DH that they are part of my Christmas gifts from him.  Their acquisition has kickstarted a cleaning and reorganization of the Studio - something that is long overdue around here. 

Mini Mystery!

I'm doing it!

I'm doing the Bonnie Hunter Mystery...in miniature!

This past weekend was a dog show weekend so no sewing actually got done.  What I did manage to do was convert all three clues unit sizes to mini (half regular size) and discover the little HSTs from Clue# 3 are going to be challenging. Those I haven't figured out which will be the best way to make them without making myself crazy or the machine eating tiny points. I'll get there!  I have two other clues units to make while I figure them out.

Since I'm not about to cut into the larger yardage pieces I posted last week, I needed to jump into the stash and find my colors/fabrics. 

I'm changing them up from Bonnie's like I said I was going to do.  Her green is my turquoise. Her red is my hot pink.

Interestingly, two of my batiks weren't washed - weird since EVERYTHING gets washed before going into the stash.  But I figured out that must have happened when I was re-housing my entire stash.  That will be another blog post.

Hard to believe there are three clues released already - I need to get busy! Thankfully, I only need to make a quarter of the number of the units than I would if I was making a full size quilt. If I did the math right, my mini should finish around 18 inches square.

Check out all the other Good Fortune mystery quilt makers progress HERE

Mystery Musings

It's time to get back to stitching something - anything!

I've been dealing with several issues in my life, one of which I would classify as Quilting Inertia. I've had nothing even remotely creatively quilty going on for months now. Nothing.  If anyone out there has some extra quilting mojo - please send it my way. Thanks!

In the meantime, I am bound and determined to get my fabric stash and my sewing machine back together for some quality time.  What better way to do this than to tackle a project that I don't have to design?  Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt kicked off on Black Friday. I'm a little behind but if I do it as a mini, I can quickly get caught up.

This year's Mystery is called Good Fortune and the intro post can be found HERE . The colors reflect those from Bonnie's trip to China.  

While they are pretty, I'm going to change things a bit to reflect my stash.  

These are end bolts I bought over a year ago, just hanging out together waiting for a project.  

BUT (there's always a but) I had them earmarked for a quilt to match the wall hanging in the Michigan bedroom. 

And they are fairly large yardage-wise and I'm not keen on cutting into them for a mini or lap size quilt. Not to mention, they are as still unwashed. YIKES!  Going to have to remedy that, regardless of whether or not I chose to use them now. 

But ultimately, I think my colors for this year's mystery will be closer to these batiks, rather than Bonnie's selections. We'll see but a decision needs to be made and some sewing started - SOON!  Check out all the other quilters are doing for their version of this year's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt via this Link Up.

Switch-a-Roo

Switching things around, around here.

I went from this

to this.

This is the DH's 2017 van. It has fewer bells and whistles that the wine van, which sparked a bit of jealousy in DH. I don't need bells, whistles and back up camera doodads. That, coupled with that fact I'm going to racking up some miles here, there and everywhere, it made more sense to just switch vans.  

Except it's grey.  Dark grey. With a black interior.

Blah.

Too boring and too dark. I plan on adding color to the inside.   I dislike the normal seat covers available to buy. They are stretchy, nylon, polyester, icky fabric.  Only slightly worse than the seats themselves. 

The only thing to do is to make some myself and of course, I needed to get fabric to do that. YAY!! And excuse for shopping - with a coupon, of course and sale fabrics. I wanted something fun, bright and turquoise. 

I found this great outdoor fabric for the front seats, since they will get sun.

Don't you just love it?  The pattern is large, not super busy and fun. The middle seats will spend a lot of time stowed away so I don't have a plan for them yet.  I need to figure out how to design them and allow the seats to fold down into the floor.  The back 60/40 split seat should be easier to figure out but still folds away.  Rather then use the same palm fabric, I opted for a plain turquoise canvas duck. 

I found some bath rugs to put under Odie's crate and/or in front of the middle seats, to add extra color.

It's brighter in real life.

Oh - and the majority of the miles I'll be racking up will be from my daily commute to my new job!  I started last Tuesday. So far, so good.  It's a change that will take some time to adjust to - time, schedule, tasks, errands, etc. 

Garden Project: Step Three - Relocation

In my previous post, I talked about relocating this daylilies and hostas to make way for the raised beds and new perennials and grasses. But I never showed you where they went. 

Outside the fence!  In a mud space/nasty ground cover area created by the removal of two trees over the past 10 years by the HOA. 

The clumps of daylilies were a challenge to dig out as they were up against the fence and could only be dug on 3 sides. I spread them out in the new area to give them plenty of room to multiply.  

Half of the daylilies relocated

I was convinced they would not bloom this year, given the move and the excessive heat during the first couple of weeks. But they did.

The hostas had been happily growing in the garden for about 10-12 years, with only a little setback from harsh winter weather.  One green hosta clump I dug up was divided into FIVE new clumps.   They did suffer some heat and transplant stress but I know they will be fine over time.

The variegated hostas were only marginally newer to the garden and yielded ten good size transplants that I did not subdivide.  I thought I had taken pictures of them but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

Garden Project: Step Two - Planting the Raised Beds

Now that we had new raised beds, totaling 20 feet in length, ready to go, the planting could commence!

Perennials and ornamental grasses, some native prairie varieties, would be the primary focus of the garden going forward. 

Left Bed

Center Bed

Right Bed

These pics were taken June 6th - right at planting time. I planned space at the front of the beds for a few annuals to be added each year. You can just see the verbena on the left side of the picture above.

Below are pictures of the raised beds taken July 14th.

I had added in a few more perennials and annuals, along with some rocks and metal sculpture to the garden by then. Quite a difference! Still to go - the garden formerly known as the Hosta Garden.

Garden Project: Step One - Removing Daylilies and Building Beds

Early this spring, DH was watching one of those 'consumers gotta have this new product' shows.  The item that caught his eye this time was a raised garden bed starter kit. Basically, plastic corners into which you insert boards to create the framework of a raised bed.  DH had grown tired of our tired looking backyard with overgrown hostas and the floppy leaves of the daylilies. 

The Hosta Bed

Daylilies

To him, it was messy looking. To me, it was easy gardening and an unfortunate reminder that the hostas should have been divided at least 3 years ago. 

Okay - so we had a Spring Project at the ready. We just had to wait for the Ides of May and the blasted rain to stop.  In the meantime, we picked up the fancy corner things and, in a stroke of brilliance, composite deck boards to use instead of treated lumber. 

Supplies laid in, a loose plan for the plants and the corner things stood at the ready for our new raised beds along the back fence line.  The rain kind of stopped, but not really.  The May temps soared into the 90's!  Crap!  Oh, and the DH was suddenly busy elsewhere.  His sum total of this joint project was to cut the boards to length and slide them into the corners.  

Kind of Level

It was my job to dig out the daylilies, level the frames on the site and fill the new beds with organic material. Granted, we both picked out plants for the beds - perennials and ornamental grasses, for the most part, with a few annuals for more color and texture.  I was to be responsible for the actual planting, mulching and care. 

The raised beds are on two different levels, with the center section at eight feet long and six inches high. The two end sections are six feet long and a foot high.  In case you are wondering, YES, that's a lot of space to fill by hand with organic material!

A variety of soils and fill

Ready for planting!

By the time I got them to this point, it was 11 am and way to hot to even think about planting.  

Review of the plastic corner things - meh. They are not as rugged as I had hoped; a few of the flanges snapped off as DH was assembling the beds.  Had I done some additional research, I would have found concrete ones available and advocated for those.  On the other hand the composite decking boards worked great!