If It Were Not For The Last Minute, Nothing Would Get Done

My, it has been a long time since I made an entry. Excuses: No Internet access at home. I did have dial-up, but after being unable to connect for 3 months due to server problems I cancelled it. I am awaiting high speed availability through our local community association, but there have been many delays in getting the system up and running. More excuses: I have been so busy since November, I think I need a vacation from my life. Work, personal committments, professional upgrading and basic home maintenance seem to fill all my days. Also, my other half had to have surgery in January and was off work recuperating for seven weeks. Somehow, I did not get any sewing done with my husband hanging around full time. I have hardly had any time to work on any UFO's or anything else for that matter.

However, with the upcoming Timberlane Quilt Show, a deadline is looming. And you know how I rise to the challenge when there is a deadline involved. For the past two weeks it has been all about my Gillies Bay Garden quilt. This is a UFO with a past. I first saw this quilt hanging in Rose Garden Quilts, and it was the reason I took up quilting about 10 years ago. They were teaching a class on the quilt, but I was unable to attend due to work schedule conflicts. I bought the book, and was gifted with the accompanying videos a couple years later. It is an Eleanor Burns pattern from the book "Grandmother's Garden Quilt.", and is based on a pattern from 1928's that was published as a serial in a newspaper. See the link to her pattern: http://www.eleanorburns.com/shoponline/books_display.asp?book=Grandmothers_Garden_Quilt&i=17900&pg=2

There are two options when doing this quilt: a machine appliqued flat version of the flower blocks or a dimensional applique done by hand. I opted to do the dimensional applique, which is a lot more work, but also a lot more fun. The techniques for the applique are perfectly brilliant. There are so many fun things about this quilt. Each flower basket, and there are 21 of them, contains different flowers with leaves and petals that stand out from the quilt. There are hand embroidery details on many of the blocks as well.

Canterbury Bells Block

Pansy Block

Fuschia Block

This quilt has had many stops and starts, due to me changing my mind about layout options, running out of background fabric, buying alternate block background fabric that I didn't like once I had cut it out, etc. The bulk of the flower blocks were sewed during my convalescence from gallbladder surgery three years ago. I originally bought a pansy print that I was going to use for sashing fabric between the blocks, but once they were done, I decided it looked too busy. So I decided to use layout option #2, which was to have alternate blocks of cream fabric in between the flower blocks. This was all very well and good, except the original cream background, bought 4 years earlier, was no longer around. So I went in search of something that would co-ordinate. This is not as easy as it might seem. There are way too many shades of cream or off white, and the one I first picked was a rarely found shade, it seems.  I purchased one fabric, did not like it once I cut it out, and am now using it for a pieced background on the quilt. I had a fat quarter of the perfect fabric in my stash, but did not know where or when I had acquired it. By some lucky happenstance, my good friend Angel found yardage one day at Fabricland. So now I could proceed with my quilt.

I decided that the lovely flower blocks needed Trapunto quilted alternate blocks to compliment them, and after watching the Reversible Quilts video by Sharon Pederson, decided on a Quilt-as-you-go method with tiny sashing between the blocks. Each alternate trapunto block took about and hour and a half to quilt. The flower blocks take about 45 min to an hour each to quilt with fine stippling. This fine quilting would have been very difficult to accomplish on a queen sized quilt fully assembled. I finished quilting the main body of the quilt this weekend and started joining them together with the 1/2 inch sashing. The only downside to this method is that you have to sew all the sashing on the back of the quilt down by hand on one edge. I forsee a week of nonstop hand sewing. I decided to use the original pansy fabric for the sashing on the back and the final quilt binding. The yardage I currently have on hand will hopefully be sufficient. I think this will be a close one. Oh, for another third of a metre.

Trapunto Block



Partially Assembled Quilt



The quilt is currently assembled in two halves, and now I have to tackle the borders. The original quilt pattern has a sawtooth border made up of a couple hundred 2 1/2 inch half-square triangles. I think I will do this. I only have 10 days to finish this quilt, but what the heck! I am always up for a challenge. Alas, I seem to have cut up some of the yardage for the half square triangles for sashing. I will have to scramble to cut the remaining squares out of the few scraps I have left. Wish me luck.

Scraps, border strips & bits

Fibre Friday

A Friday to myself.....what to do, what to do...The possibilities are endless. There are the things I should be doing:

And then there are the things I want to do: Such as:

1. Work on my Grandmother's Garden quilt. This is a photo from our November retreat. I worked on this UFO for 2 days, and have not sewed a stitch on anything since.
2. Work on my baby quilt, also pictured above. I brought it to retreat, pinned the blocks up and never sewed a stitch on it. My ambitions are always larger than my time frame.
3. Start my Christmas gifts. Hmm. I am doing it again. Every year, I swear I will not fall victim to what has laughingly become known as "Susan and Cheri's Annual Christmas Panic", and every year I do. Hi, Cheri! Are you panicking yet? In November, it suddenly occurs to me that Christmas is coming, and that I have to make a gift for each of my friends and loved ones, because bought gifts just aren't the same. Then I end up sewing gifts til 1AM Christmas Eve, and wrapping unfinished ones for those closest to me, with promises to finish them by Jan 1st. Every year, my New Year's Resolutions, to finish my UFO's and make a Christmas Present a month, are dusted off with great intentions. Once the memory of sewing quilt binding on until 15 min before I am due at my Mother's for Christmas dinner fades, I go back to my old ways. Will I ever learn? 
4. Spin wool rovings, dyed at my friend Lynda's last month, while watching season one of Glee. Alas, I am a sucker for musicals.

5. Tidy up all the silk embroidery ribbon and thread I dyed this month. I will not need to dye anything more this century. They are just lying around in a glorious tangle, and I need to sort them out desperately.

6. Sit back and admire the yarn I spun and plied yesterday evening:

7. Have all my friends over for tea this afternoon and work on my embroidery. Speaking of embroidery, I finished another project. Oh, I should have deadlines for everything. Retirement gift for Maureen, finished at noon the day of her retirement party, following a last-minute scramble looking for bellpull hardware. I thought I had some but they were too big. Thank goodness Lorrie was in Nanaimo and able to stop by The Stitcher's Muse.

8. Bake cookies for the craft sale tomorrow. Our embroidery group is hosting the luncheon, and I need to provide goodies.

9. Start a new project. I just got a pattern in the mail and it is calling my name. As an added bonus, it could be a Christmas gift as well.  http://abbeylanequilts.com/winterwonderland.html

I suspect my day will be filled with a combo of all of the above. I am so fickle.

Random Fall Photos

A selection of photos, unrelated to UFO's, taken this morning by myself.

Our very handsome and vocal rooster. I'm glad he is sleeping in more now that fall is here. And so are the neighbors.

The girls, we have 9 chickens in addition to the rooster. They are just about laying age. Only one of them is giving eggs. We have had 4 so far. They are all green. We are saving them til we have six and then we will make Green Eggs and Ham  for breakfast.

Hot peppers finally turning red.

The tail end of the produce in the greenhouse. The pumpkins are being saved for Halloween.

Gerbera Daisy, left over from the wedding. I have high hopes I can make them survive through the winter.

More greenhouse pics.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

I can't believe it has been about 6 weeks since I last had a blog entry. Where has the time gone? It has been a busy 6 weeks, I assure you. It is a misty fall morning, with a nip in the air. I have been forced to break down and turn the heat on. My feet were too cold, and I was shivering in bed last night. Well, I almost made it to Halloween!

Ash Street this morning in the fog

And what have I been up to, you may ask?

There is this:

Canning Fall 2010

And this:

Spinning: My first yarn, Oct 2010

This yarn was spun out of a Blue-faced Leisteshire Top I purchased at the Gibson's Fibre Arts Festival. This is my first kick at the spinning cat. I fear I will get hooked. My singles were pretty variable in thickness, as you can see. Once I started plying it was so exciting. Repeat after me: I do not need another hobby, I do not need another hobby, I do not need another hobby....

Then I finished this:

Red Hot Chili Pepper Socks, Circa Mexico Holiday Feb 2009

These socks were for myself, from a pattern by Cat Bordhi, called The Milkmaid Stockings. The yarn was Knitpicks Undyed fingering weight, dyed by myself. The pattern was very interesting but required a bit of concentration, as most of the patterns from her book, New Pathways in Sock Knitting , do. None of these designs follow the traditional way of turning a heel with side gussets, her increases are located just about anywhere, on the bottom of the foot, the top of the foot etc. This leads to incredibly beautiful design possibilities, but these socks are not for KIP (knitting in public).
Check this book out if you want a challenge.

Alas, because I finished the socks, I allowed myself to cast on:

Fingerless lace gloves, from Fall 2010 Vogue Knitting

Who could resist? Here is a photo of the finished project, by Shiri Mor. This is a fun and easy knit, pattern is easy to memorize, although it looks challenging. The sizing on the gloves is done by changing needle sizes throughout the pattern. Alas, I have lost one of the pairs of needles on a trip to Nanaimo. But I am sure I can find another in my stash.  Am I trading one UFO for another? Time will tell...

I also finished my baby Sweater:

Sweater for Leota, knitted from Baby Bamboo. Love this yarn. Silky smooth and with a beautiful lustre.

And, finally, there is this:



Fall Leaves Project from Nanaimo Stitch-In

 Ta-dah. Although, I must admit there is one bit of finishing to do. I have to put a button and buttonhole on the back to close the pillow up. It is held in place with a pin at the moment. I will try to do this today, or it will remain pinned for eternity.

I have a whole day off today. What should I do with it? My choices are:

1. Study for the Advanced Cardiac Life Support Course I am taking this weekend.
2. Help my brother Ron edit his book "World of Legends", he finally has a publisher interested, and is doing a fast revision at their request.
3. Deal with these:

Almost the last batch of tomatos from our garden.

4. Work on the retirement gift for my co-worker Maureen. Deadline: November 13th, 6 PM, at her retirement party. Project "N is for Nurse Sampler" by the Victoria Sampler. I am half way done, or maybe slightly more than halfway. I will accomplish 2 objectives by completing this gift. a) thoughtful handmade gift b)UFO to cross off the list. Link to pattern: http://www.victoriasampler.com/Catalogue/VS_Samplers/p79Sampler.aspx

5. Work on delinquent thank you cards for our July wedding. I have had them laid out and ready for weeks. Bad Susan for not working on them sooner.

Thank you cards, not done yet.

7. Blow off all these and work on something else...

Hmmm. Tricky.

Progress....

It has been almost a month since I posted, a month filled with activity...Mostly of the canning variety. Our garden just exploded this year, so I have been canning produce like a fiend. I have put up over 250 jars of assorted relishes, jams, pickles, and tomato sauce!



Our Garden 2010



The Tomato Hut

However, things are not without progress on the UFO front. I rose to my summer challenge and actually finished my Embroidery Group Challenge of doing the finishing on my Stitcher's Chair Necessaire. (On the morning of the September meeting.) And here is the photo to prove it:

I also went to the Gibson's Landing Fibre Arts Festival and took 3 courses. I am proud to say that I have returned home without any UFO's to show for this outing. Of course, two of the classes did not have actual projects. One class was on natural dying of wool, and we dyed 22 different colors of wool from one dyebath (madder root). The other class was beginner spinning, and I did come home with some hand-dyed rovings and a borrowed spinning wheel, which I have not had time to get back to. Do hand-dyed rovings qualify as a UFO??? I don't think so.

And now, last but not least, a completed project from my third class, which was an Embroidery Stitch Sampler Book taught by Betty McCaskey....ta dah! This was a really fun exercise. She would teach us a stitch and we would freehand embroider a design with each stitch. The pages are then blanket stitched together into a book.

 

I was determined not to have another UFO to add to my pile, and finished it within 2 weeks of getting home, in between canning tomatoes.

I have, however, started another quilting project. This one has a deadline. It is a quilt for my new granddaughter, Leota, who was born Sept 13. Some photos of the WIP:

I have to get this done by the baby shower in 2 weeks, so I don't think this will join the UFO pile. It is a really fun pattern. There is lots of decorative stitching and embellishment, though I changed the original colors from white and pastels to bright blue and neons.

Oh, and I also started knitting a baby hat. 



Another Class UFO?

I have just returned from Nanaimo, where I participated in the ANA Guild's Fall Festival. We stitched a fall-themed piece, a circle of 5 leaves. The workshop was in a round-robin format, with an hour and a half devoted to each leaf, which were all in different techniques.

This will, alas,  be a forced UFO, as I ran out of thread for 2 of the leaves. I have ordered a couple skeins from the Nordic Needle, along with a DVD on needlepainting, plus a kit of needlepainted pansies. I am not allowed to start this new treasure until I finish the Tanya Berlin Fox.  I repeat, NOT ALLOWED.

I also finished the baby hat for Leota!

And started a little baby sweater, see WIP photo below.

And purchased a kit for a sampler at the White Elephant Sale at the Guild Festival. It has been started by the previous owner, and was only $5.00. I think I will finish it, as I don't have any UFO's of my own to work on. Here is a link to the finished project. http://www.drawnthread.com/Chart%20Pages/randomthoughts.html. Here is a photo of the stitched piece so far.

The Texada Quilter's Guild is also going to start a Block of the Month Quilt, the Halloween Baltimore Album. One hand appliqued block a month. Should be do-able. Here is a link to the project in question. How can one resist? http://www.amidonquiltworks.com/baltimoreHalloween.php. The first block is an owl. Love it.