Monday Miscellaneous

Coming Together:

The New York Beauty quilt is coming along.  I'm currently hand-piecing the quarter blocks together to make the circular design evident in the picture below. I imagine I will hand-piece the entire quilt.  It gives me better accuracy.  However, when it comes to quilting it, I intend to reacquaint myself with my long-neglected Juki.

Taos, New Mexico Part 1:

Taos sits at approximately 6,900 feet and is well known for being relatively close to several wonderful ski slopes.  Not a consideration in the summer, but none of us ski anyway.  That said, Taos was a place we'd never been before, and seemed like a great escape from the summer heat of Texas.  We were not disappointed.  The daytime temperatures rose to the mid-80's and the night time temperatures hit the mid 40's.  Low humidity.

Nearly all of the buildings in Taos are adobe.  Not just the houses, but the businesses as well.  I was struck by how well the adobe buildings blend into the environment.  

Juniper House, Taos, New Mexico

This is the vacation home we rented.  Honestly, the price wasn't much more than you'd pay for a decent hotel, but instead of having a room or suite, we had a whole house.

Myself and Lori in our cheap Wal-mart hats

Juniper Street

We took an amazing walk around the neighborhood, reveling in the glorious weather.  The houses here sit on  the edge of town.

Juniper House, interior

We all enjoyed the Southwest architecture and interior design.

The entire back of the house contained floor to ceiling windows.  Here's a shot of the master bedroom from the outside.

The windows looked out on a beautiful backyard:

Eric photo-shopped this picture to resemble a painting.

We spent time a lot of time enjoying the desert air sitting under the ramada, making use of the grill.  It is the shelter you see in the background at the mid right.  If you look carefully, you'll note the hot tub in the mid left.  Mango Margaritas are a perfect accompaniment to hot-tubbing.  Ahem.  :-)  We made them in Solo Cups.  Class all the way!

Myself and Lori, looking at the reflection in the windows

My thanks to Eric for doing the photography on this trip, and allowing me the use of his pictures on this blog. 

Eric

 Next time:  Taos Pueblo

Inspiration

It's interesting what a new perspective will provide to the quilting process.  I recently returned from a short vacation in Taos, New Mexico.  While I intend to blog on the sights, colors, and high desert air soon, the point of this post is how I came back refreshed, and ready to return to quilting in earnest ~ a feeling that I've been lacking for some time.

To that end, I've finished (provided I've counted correctly) hand-piecing all the blocks I need for a full-sized New York Beauty quilt.  It's nice to feel inspired again.

Monday Miscellaneous

Work:

These past couple of weeks, I've been into my PRN (as needed) lab tech job in earnest.  Training is over and the real work began. I'm currently recovering from working 8 out of 9 days, which included my first weekend of being on-call.  (7PM Friday to 6AM Monday).  Interestingly enough, I was not needed for 9 hours during the day Saturday, but Saturday night I got 2 1/2 hours of sleep.  Looks like I need to learn to sleep during the day.  Hmmmm.

But you'll get no complaints from me.  I'm one of those fortunate people who likes my work.  Additionally, I have an excellent manager, which makes it possible to concentrate only on the work itself.  No drama.

New York Beauties:

You're looking at near the last of the blocks I need to make for this project.  It appears that I was on a blue-purple-green kick.  No doubt they will play nicely with the brighter blocks I've made.  Two more blocks (if I've counted correctly) and all of them will be done.  Yay!

Music from the Renaissance Festival:

In April my cousins and I visited the Renaissance Festival is Waxahachie, Texas.  One of the highlights of the festival was seeing Wine and Alchemy:

Their music is one of my new favorites.  We bought all three of their CD's.

Happy Memorial Day!


On this lazy Memorial Day Monday, I'm going to try to catch up once again on my blog reading.  Hope you are all enjoying the long holiday weekend.

Sunshine in Winter

With all of the turbulence of the last four months, I haven't had much opportunity to work on, much less complete, projects.  However, I did get one small (approximately 16" square) wall-hanging done, Sunshine in Winter.  It was a Christmas gift for P. at The Way I Sew It, who lives in Wisconsin.

I conceived of the project last summer when I was still living in sunny Nevada, and knew that P. would face a long Wisconsin winter.  For as long as I've been making the New York Beauty blocks, I've thought to myself that they look like sunbursts.  However, it wasn't until I tried to think of something cheery for P., that it occurred to me to try the New York Beauties in sunshiny colors.  (You all may have noticed that I tend to be a jewel tone, cool colors kind of gal.)

Finishing up the wall-hanging was a bright spot in amongst the trials of getting settled in a new home--a process that as yet continues.  I felt such satisfaction when I shipped off Sunshine in Winter.  Although the wall-hanging was wrapped in Christmas paper, I was secretly hoping that P. wouldn't wait until Christmas to open it.   Being a woman after my own heart, she didn't let the Christmas paper slow her down one bit, and opened it upon arrival. 

There's nothing like giving something quilted to another quilter.  Quilters know how to show appreciation for a quilty gift.  P. blogged about it here.  Her enjoyment has me walking on air.

Monday Miscellaneous

The Button Bandwagon:

I've jumped on the button bandwagon.  Everybody climb aboard.  Seriously, anybody who would like to have my button feel free to take the code, but don't feel obligated.  Mostly, I was interested to see if I could actually make a button.  Since the directions and the code are easily had with a little bit of Googling and some tweaking, it wasn't overly difficult.  Although HTML is essentially a foreign language to me, I enjoyed doing it.  Kind of like exercising the few Spanish words and phrases I can put together.

Painting:

The utility room is done.

Before (sort of)

After

We've moved on to the kitchen.  I failed to take a before picture, but will certainly have an after picture.  Yep, you're going to get the blow by blow painted run down.  But I'm not complaining.  The effort is worth the result.

Speaking with Authority:

Have you ever been fooled by the Voice of Authority?  It happened to us the other day in regard to having paint mixed at Wal-mart.  No, we're not using straight Arctic Blast white (my name; not theirs).  The color is called Swiss Almond, and is essentially white with a bit of warmth, for lack of a better description.  The first gallon mixed was lovely.  It required a gallon of "Base One" and few drips of other colors.  When we went to have paint mixed the next time, Wal-mart was out of Base One.  We were told to check back in a couple of days.  No biggie since there are plenty of walls that need priming.  When we returned there was still no Base One, but the gal who helped us said, "You don't have to use Base One, you can use white.  Some people don't know that."  She used no uncertain phrases that would have caused me to question, like, "I think it's all right to use white instead of Base One."  Nope it was just a flat out statement of fact.  Not knowing much about paint, I listened to her Voice of Authority.  That was a mistake.  In retrospect, I remember wondering in the back of my mind that if the two are interchangeable, why would Base One even be necessary.  However, the Voice of Authority trumped my doubt.

Skip to today's painting session in the kitchen.  I'm doing the edges nearing the ceiling using the bit left from the first properly mixed can of paint, and my mom is rolling using the newly mixed paint.  At about the halfway point, my mom steps back, and says, "Does my paint look different from yours just because it's not as dry yet?"  It didn't take much studying to figure out that the two paints were different.

Wal-mart graciously refunded our money, and as luck would have it the Base One had come in.  We will finish the kitchen that we thought we'd finish yesterday today.

Monday Miscellaneous

The Weather:
For most days of the year, Pahrump skies are sunny, cloudless, and beautiful.  After all, we get only about 4 inches of rain per year.

However, for the last week or so, our skies have been gloomy as in the picture below.  What's up with this?  The moving truck is arriving in a week, and I could really use some of the lovely, sunny Nevada weather that we're used to.  There will be plenty of cloudy days back in Kansas.  I don't need them now.

Fabric:
I bought new fabric yesterday morning, and it is all Mrs. P.'s fault.  ;-)  She asked me via email if I was having quilting withdrawal.  Yes, I am!  I'm missing rummaging through my fabrics that are all packed, and I'm missing my sewing machine.  The one saving grace is my hand-pieced New York Beauty project.  But Mrs. P.'s question got me to thinking....  I counted the NYB blocks I have left to do, and at the rate that I'm finishing them, I'm going to be done with them BEFORE we get to Kansas.  Ack!  I can't be without any quilting to do at all.

Since I have the colored pieces of a new Drunkard's Path cut, that project is all ready to go if I cut the off-white as I go along.

Naturally, the off-white tone on tone that I bought for the project is packed with some glassware somewhere.  So I had to buy more.  This fabric isn't exactly the same as the original but it will do.

But feeling as deprived as I do, I couldn't stop there.  Oh no, I had to have 4 yards of the this bit of loveliness.  I do have a recipient in mind for the quilt I will eventually make from this.  Until today, I didn't even know I was making a quilt for this couple. 

So thanks Mrs. P.!

New York Beauties:
Speaking of New York Beauties, here are the latest:

I've got only 24 left to do--about twelve days work.

A Giveaway:
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict is having a giveaway to celebrate her birthday.  How awesome is that?  She's got a couple of great prizes.  Be sure to check it out here.

Bloggers Quilt Festival:
The 2010 Autumn edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival begins October 29th.  It's open to all manner of blogger quilty-ness.  Check out the guidelines at Amy's Creative Side and join in the fun!

Monday Miscellaneous Suspended Briefly:
There will be no further posts to this blog after Saturday, October 30th, until we have arrived in Kansas and have phone/DSL service--sometime around November 8th.  It's a long time for me to be without access to my email buddies and bloggy friends.  So I'm trying to prepare myself for the lack.

On November 2nd, we'll head down this road to Las Vegas and points east.

Monday Miscellaneous

A Fabulous Giveaway:

Carla at Sew It Up Baby is generously giving away this lovely wall-hanging.

The giveaway lasts through October 14th.  Each person can earn up to 4 chances to win.  Be sure to get on over there and enter.  (Although really, it would be better for me if you didn't, because then my competition wouldn't be so fierce.)  ;-)

Packing the Odd Items:

Have you ever tried to pack an electric guitar and electric bass--neither of which have cases?  It's not easy.

(Charley is supervising)

We got this box at the recycle bin when we were dropping off our recyclables.  A bit of luck there, finding a box that would fit both guitars.  I've tied the guitars to the back of the box.  Padding them proved to be a challenge.  As you can see there are bath mats in the mix.  I used a couple of sheets too.  Then my mom remembered the 1 1/2"  thick piece of foam rubber we'd been saving because it was "just too good to throw away".  For once, saving something like that turned out to be a good thing.  It was just the ticket for padding the guitars.  As long as the movers don't sling the box around too much, they should be okay, I think--I hope.

As for all the other crap we've saved because it was "just too good to throw away", it's either in the trash or will be in next weekend's garage sale.  I don't know how we've accumulated so much stuff in the eight years since we moved to Nevada with nothing but what we could fit in a covered pick-up truck.

Quilting Withdrawal:

Yes, I'm still working on the New York Beauties.   If I've counted right, I have 159 done.  Here's the latest batch: 

Currently, they are my only quilting outlet.  As much as I enjoy doing them, I find that I enjoyed them more after some FMQ on the Juki.  I guess, I need to have my quilting activities mixed up for maximum satisfaction.  The sad thing is, I'm afraid I'm going to get all the blocks done BEFORE I get settled again.  Then what I am going to do?  Kind of ironic considering that back when I started, 196 blocks seemed rather daunting.

More New York Beauties

You all are probably tired of seeing the continuing saga of the New York Beauty blocks.  However, between dealing with my dad's death and all the preparations to move, I'm not getting much other quilting done.  While I have neither time nor concentration for free motion quilting, I can still sit and hand-piece these in the evening when I finally try to relax.

These are actually the result of two weeks work.  Fifteen new ones.  Makes the total 126 out of 196.

I'm linking up for Sew & Tell Friday over at Amylouwho's.  Be sure to see all the other beauties people have to share.

The March of the New York Beauties

I know all you quilters know that New York Beauties are quilt blocks. For any other readers, we're not talking about parading women!

Right at the moment, I'm basically working on two projects: doing the free motion quilting on the pansy quilt, and hand-piecing these New York Beauties. This makes 111 out of 196. So the process is marching along. Only 85 blocks to do until I can start driving myself crazy with the arrangement. What fun!

(Looks like I got on a pink kick, doesn't it?)

Although it's not much to brag about, I'll be linking up with one or more of the linky parties in my left sidebar. There's lots of cool stuff to be seen at these locations, so be sure to give them a look.

Quilter A.D.D.

As a person with a family member who has Attention Deficit Disorder, I do not write this post to make light of what can be a very frustrating condition.  That said, of late I've been a rather frustrated quilter because I can't seem to focus on only one or two projects.  It's not just that I feel like flitting between projects that I already have going (currently 10 WIPs), it's that I've got so many new ideas I want to try, and they also compete for my attention.  Ironically, the more successful I feel about whatever project I am working on, the more new ideas crop up.  Since I'm feeling extremely successful in regard to my free motion quilting endeavors this past week (the subject of a future post or two), my creativity is just flying.  However, there are only 24 hours in a day and most of those hours are filled up with other responsibilities, my shoulders can stand only so much free motion quilting, and there are those WIPs, which I'd dearly love to finish.

I've tried organizing by putting my WIP list on my blog where I can be reminded of them.  I've made a quilting bucket list that contains my priority projects for the future.  It currently sits at 12 projects and I'm loathe to add more because then it will simply devolve into a "maybe, someday, I hope to" do list--no prioritization.  However, I'm considering adding a "maybe, someday, hope to" list in hopes that if I record the ideas that are flitting through my brain, they'll quit bugging me.

Sheesh!  I can't believe I'm b*tching about having too many ideas.  Ridiculous!  Yet, I really do need to find a way to manage them. 

So tell me, how do you manage your Quilter A.D.D.?  Don't try to deny it.  I know most of you suffer too.

Okay, so that this post isn't a total whine, here is a picture of the latest NYB blocks.  It brings my total to 91.  At 98, I'll be at the halfway point.

When Projects Collide

I had hoped to be able to blog about finishing Matt's quilt and get it off my WIPs list, but that wasn't to be. It's not that Matt's quilt isn't finished--it is--but I haven't been able to wash it yet. And it's really kind of ugly with the washable marker quilting lines all over it.

However, I do have a good Friday finish. The tile in the laundry room where the washer and dryer sit is done! As of today, they are back in place. It is this DIY tiling project that has kept me from washing Matt's quilt.


The laundry room isn't complete finished, but having the washer and dryer back is a important milestone. Now we're down to just one little spot where the sink sits. The sink is residing in the garage at the moment. (Naturally, Charley had to get into the picture, although he's pretending not to care.)



Here's the latest update on the New York Beauty blocks. This brings the total to 78.



I'll be linking up over at Amylouwho's for Sew and Tell Friday. And for the first time, I'm going to link up at Lit and Laundry for Finished for Friday. Wander over to these blogs and see what everyone else has been up to.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Even though I'm not the most prolific quilter, making many of my quilts by hand, I still had a hard time choosing which quilt to enter in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I finally decided on this one, Lady Liberty, as I never tire of looking at its many fabrics.

This is my 2nd quilt. I began work on it somewhere around 1997, and didn't finish it until 2002. It was intended to be paper-pieced. I received the kit for Christmas, complete with paper-piecing patterns. Paper-piecing was a really new concept for me, and although I read and re-read the instructions, I never was able to make heads or tails about how to use the patterns. Instead, I made my own templates, and started cutting this scrappy wonder.

The blocks are hand-pieced, and the quilt is tied. Originally, I'd intended to hand-quilt it too, but 3 moves within a year and nine months, put a dent in my quilting for quite awhile. I was only able to steal snatches of time to work on quilting, so opted to finish Lady Liberty in the most speedy way possible.

I still have those templates. I love this quilt so much that I'm currently working on another. This one will be full-sized. You can see the beginnings of the new quilt here.

This is my first Blogger's Quilt Festival. I'm eager to see everyone's entries. As soon as I link up at Amy's Creative Side I'm going to start enjoying all the beautiful quilts. Go take a look!

The Similarities of Tiling and Quilting

What? Tiling and quilting have similarities? It does seem a rather odd comparison, doesn't it? However, ever since my family and I began tiling nearly the entire house almost two years ago, I've been repeatedly struck about how the two endeavors require many of the same skills.

There are three basic skills in tiling: measuring, cutting, and fitting it altogether. Sound familiar? It seriously is not rocket surgery. Yes, a tile saw is used instead of scissors, and cement and grout are used instead of thread, but the concepts used in tiling are the very same ones we use in quilting.

As I mentioned above, we began this project nearly two years ago. We needed to replace our worn carpet, and discovered that tile was significantly cheaper than carpet, especially if we installed it ourselves. Once installed, it lasts virtually forever. Big pluses. The downside is that you're always working on the floor and the endeavor is labor intensive. We've taken extended breaks after getting each section done.

We began in the sewing room in September 2008.
We were working on the living room by Spring 2009. When we bought the house the fireplace already had some tile around it. We didn't want to remove it, couldn't match it, (and while the tile color is okay, it would not be our first choice for doing the entire house anyway), and so we had to find some way to boot the tile we were installing up next to the tile around the fireplace and have it look like a plan. Guess what? The answer was tile borders (okay do I need to refer to my quilting analogy again?). How cool is that? The border made having the two color and sizes of tile in the same room not only acceptable, but decorative too.
This week, we finally began tiling in the utility room. I estimate we are about 3/4 done with the house. We'll keep at it slow and steady, and it'll be done whenever it's done.

I kind of feel like I'm cheating talking about tile instead of purely crafty endeavors, so just to make this article more appropriate for Sew & Tell Friday, here is this week's installment of the New York Beauty blocks. This brings the total to 62.

I'll be linking up at Amylouwho's. Swing over and see what everyone else has been up to this week.

Oh and if I could draw your attention to the polls on the side? Please take the time to vote. P, over at The Way I Sew It pointed out that I'd hadn't offered a choice for UFO's that were only a year old on the poll about UFO age. Personally, I think she's just showing off, not having any UFO's older than a year. ;-) I totally admire that. A year old? Hmmm, does that qualify as a UFO? Since I'm sitting here with a UFO that's nearly 15 years old, it just never occurred to me that someone could have a UFO that was only a mere year old. But what to you think? How long must a project be neglected before it is considered a UFO?

Note: I tried to edit the poll to offer a choice for UFO's only a year old, but unfortunately, I can't change it without wiping out all the votes. So my apologies, P!


Late note: Just found Hodgepodge Friday, a place for creative people to share their creative endeavors. I'll be linking up shortly. Check it out.

The Accidental Quilt

My mom and I are making a quilt that we'd never planned, wished for, or much less imagined--but we're happy about it. How did this happen? It was due to a fabric mix-up. I'd ordered the fabric pictured on the left, but received the fabric pictured on the right. Oops!
A quick call to the online fabric shop, Fabric.com, immediately corrected the situation. They not only sent the correct fabric out to me ASAP, they also told me to keep the fabric they'd sent by mistake. It was 2 1/2 yards worth. Wow! Okay, time to make another quilt.

The fabric is part of Kaufman's Intergalactic line. Given the astronomical theme of the fabric, we decided to make a star sampler. Every block in the quilt will be a different star block, with the themed fabric serving as the background. We also decided to do something a little novel (at least for us) and use only the colors that are present in the Intergalactic fabric. This does limit us to a narrow range on colors and tones, but that's part of the fun. The blocks will be sashed, (we're thinking with some shade of teal), and the quilt will be tailored, like the quilt shown here.

Here is the block I made this week:This particular block pattern came from The Quilter's Cache.

Eventually, we'll need 47 blocks to complete the king-size quilt. However, at the moment, it is a low priority project. We make a block when we need a diversion from our primary project(s)--which are going along nicely and hopefully will soon be the subject of another Sew & Tell Friday. In the meantime, I'll be linking up this post over at Amylouwho's tomorrow.

New York Beauty update. Here are this week's blocks, which brings my total up to 56. Just 140 more to go.

Progress on Free Motion Quilting

I'm a free motion quilting newbie, doing free motion quilting on my first quilt. I'd intended that the first quilt be one that I would keep for myself, knowing that my initial attempt would be less than perfect (despite practice). However, it didn't work out that way. Instead my first attempt is on a quilt for a friend.
How did this happen? First off, I'm a slow quilt-maker. Due to time-constraints and the fact that I have a tendency to go off on tangents, it normally takes me about a year to complete one quilt from start to finish. Even knowing this, silly me, I volunteered to make not one, but two quilts for friends of mine, a couple, Robynn and Matt. I gave Robynn her quilt for her birthday earlier this year. (You can view it here.) I machine quilted it using straight-stitching, decorating it with stars and squares. All that turning--I swore never again!

In the meantime, I got a new sewing machine, a Juki TL-98Q, that is perfect for free motion quilting. So here I am now, ready to quilt Matt's quilt. I can't face any more straight-line quilting (unless the lines really are to be straight--no turning the quilt), and I don't feel like I should take the time to quilt another quilt before I do Matt's. After all, it's been nearly two years since I started the two quilts. So, I took a deep breath, and decided to free motion quilt. Just something simple.

I don't yet know how I'm going to quilt the other block in this two block quilt.

As expected, I'm running into the same problems that I expect confronts most new FM quilters. My stitch length changes from day to day and from minute to minute. I can go forwards and backwards better than I can go from side to side. I find that if I can go faster, the quilting looks a bit smoother, but I can also run into trouble much quicker too. All in all though, I'm not disappointed in this first attempt.

I've found that using gloves does help the process. If anyone has any other great tips, please don't hesitate to leave them in the comment section. I can use all the help I can get. :-)

And last, but not least, here is this week's bunch of completed New York Beauty blocks:
I'll be linking up for Sew & Tell Fridays at Amylouwho's. Drop by and check out what everyone else has been up to this week. :-)

Hand-pieced New York Beauty Blocks

Last week, I said good-bye to hand-quilting since the temperature is getting too warm to hold a quilt in my lap. However, it's all good. Hand-quilting season gives way to hand-piecing season. I stitched together these New York Beauty blocks this week.





I enjoyed making the twin-sized New York Beauty (shown in the blog article here) so much, I decided to do it again--except that this one will be full-size.

Yes, I admit that it's a bit wild. Ahem. The only colors that are left out are the browns, yellows, oranges (except for coral), and neutrals. The quilt is heavy in turquoise, purple, mauve, pink, black, white, and blue-greens.

I estimate that I'll need 196 of these 7" blocks. I did 40 last summer (I don't know exactly when I started). So I'm off and running on it again. Ought to keep me entertained for awhile, don't you think?

(But I'm already cutting for a hand-pieced, scrappy Drunkard's Path. Yeah, crazy--I know.)

I'll be linking up for Sew & Tell Fridays at Amy's. Stop in and see what everyone else is doing.