January finishes

Yesterday I tried for a long time to get this window to load.

No luck.

I wanted to update my January finishes.  My first was actually a gift for a friend at work.  She had been having a bad day (actually a bad week) and when I got home I decided that I would make her some coasters.  I used the tutorial from http://itsjustsewing.com/ It was super quick ant easy.  It took a charm pack.

Next up I have Reflections quilt number 2.

As I mentioned last month.  I made a bunch of these squares.  I have enough for one king size quilt and two queen size.  The King is going to my youngest daughter and this one will go to my oldest.

I actually got it done a couple of weekends ago but I had to wait for the rain to stop and my quilt holder to get out of a cast.  He had surgery on his left had a couple of weeks ago.  He keeps splitting the wound open so I told him not to bleed on the quilt.  Which is making holding it more difficult.

Now this is the stack of quilts that need binding, except the bottom one.  My daughter's home machine was in the shop so she went crazy with quilting.  There are two table runner (I actually have both of those bound now but no picture yet) You can see one of them on the back of the chair.  One crib quilt, two wall hangings, one twin and two queen size quilt.  The quilt on the bottom is actually one that I am ripping out the last row of quilting in for my daughter her longarm was having issues as she was finishing this quilt and put what she calls gubbers on the back.

End of the Year 2015

This year has flown by at amazing speed.

I never even created a post for November and it is already the end of the year.

I just realized that I have some small Christmas quilts that I did in November but never took a picture.  I will try and do that in the light tomorrow.

I did finally finish my November UFO...on Christmas day.  Considering that I wanted to give that quilt to my youngest daughter for Christmas one would have thought I would have gotten it done sooner.

As it is she got to see the quilt top and then I handed it over to my oldest daughter to quilt.  That my take awhile.  Since she returned to working outside the home instead of being an independent contractor she has less time to quilt or sew.

This quilt has been a long time in the making.  It is inspired by Monet's reflections on a lily pond.
The quilt itself is called Reflections.  I began collecting fabric for it after seeing Monet's painting when they were at the local Art Museum.  I collected fabric for at least 10 years, I had enough for at least three quilts by then.  This first appeared on a UFO list in 2011.  That is the year I got a lot of blocks cut.
One year I got all the lines drawn for the stitch and flip corners.  I even sewed a few blocks and got bored.

I decided that this year was the year I would get the quilts done.  I worked on the blocks on and off most of the year.  I rearranged my UFO numbers when it came up to soon in the year.  Then I hit November....no choice now.  I started sewing blocks again.

I got close.  I finally got all the blocks made after Thanksgiving.  The second weekend in December, I got the first quilt laid out.  My daughter hurt her back and so I ended up taking care of grandkids one weekend.  And sewed a row every night after work.  By the weekend before Christmas I had the center together.  I got the first boarder on and started ironing the half square triangles for the second boarder.  Those were all done by the 24th and I almost got all the boarders sewn together after church on Christmas Eve.   The next morning I started sewing at 6:30am and got the second boarders on by about 11am with breaks to cook a ham and make other food for the day and finish wrapping presents.  Third boarder was on by 12:30.  Ham out of the oven at that time and started loading stuff in the car.

Here is a couple of pictures at my daughters house after she opened the gift.  Both girls are standing on the couch to hold it up.  It is huge.

This quilt is King Size.  The second picture shows the colors better but the first one shows the boarders.

One Saturday, I was fighting a cold and did not really do anything but on Sunday I got the last of my Fat Quarter Shop Snapshot blocks cut out.  I sewed the blocks all together on Monday and got most of the sashing on the blocks.

Tuesday I finished sewing the top together.  I did not want it to become a UFO for next year.

Yep, the steps never got scrapped and painted last summer.  I did scrap moss off and was going to work on it but got side tracked.

Today I laid out another Reflections quilt.  I did mention that I had enough blocks for three quilts.  This one will go by my oldest daughter.

I also started working on the back for the Snapshot quilt.

I need to make more progress on quilty stuff before I have to go back to work next Monday.

October was an exciting month.

I did not get much sewing done this month because my husband and I traveled to Ireland.  We went for a 12 day trip, we left the west coast on October 2nd and after a stop over in Amsterdam we landed in Dublin on October 3rd.  This was the first time I have ever traveled to Europe.  As a matter of fact this is the first time I have had a passport.  We were not able to schedule this very far in advance since getting my husband birth certificate fixed took me 4 months and we did not get our passport until late August.

It was an adventure driving on the left hand side of the road and a real adventure trying to find our way around.  I have a great sense of direction and have to admit that for the first time in my life I was lost in Dublin as we attempted to find our hotel....it only took 5 hours of driving around.  At one point we ask a police officer for assistance and he told us 'that we could not get there from here'.

I don't have all the pictures downloaded yet but here is one of my favorites from Dublin.  We were on a double decker bus when I got this one.

We visited Trinity college to see the Book of Kells and the long room.  No photos allowed there.

We then moved on to Kilkenny and wondered the medival town.   Those pictures are on my husbands camera.  Then onto Waterford and visited Waterford Crystal and the Viking triangle.

After Waterford we went to the West and visited Killarney.  We were suppose the do the Ring of Kerry but decided instead to visit Muckross House and the National park.  This is Torc Waterfall that we hiked up to.

This is Muckross house from a distance.  It had beautiful gardens.  The house has 135 windows which is what it was taxed on.  It was giving to the Irish government with the surrounding lands for a park in the 1930's.

After Killarney we headed north and visited the cliffs of Mohre - very impressive sight.

By far the place we enjoyed the most was our stay in a castle.  We stayed at Ashford Castle.  We saved the best for last and were glad that we had not gone here first.   Ashford Castle was voted the #1 hotel in the world just last month.   Of course for what two nights cost we could have stay another week in Ireland but it was a once in a lifetime experience.

In addition to staying in the castle, we also cruised on the lake and went to the Ireland School of Falconry.  That was my husbands favorite part.  He was not going to handle the bird but after a while he decided to try and I had trouble getting Wexford back.

After Ashford we had to head back to Dublin to fly out the next day.  What a return to earth.

When we got home we were off again to help watch grandkids during a wedding.

After returning home I was finally able to pull out my UFO for October.  I got it done today.  I still need to press it but the sun was shining and I took a picture before the rains return.  We are suppose to have a very wet next few days.  Hopefully I will get some additional sewing done.  I return to work soon and would like to get the snapshot block for September and October done.

The UFO is from last year.  It is the FatQuarter Shop Wishes BOM.  I only had six of the blocks done.  It is nice to have another UFO out of my sewing room.

September is Gone

I can't believe how quickly September has come and gone.  Tomorrow is the last day of the month and it seems it just started.

I did complete my UFO for the month but very little else.  For this month I had on my list to finish the last nine embroidered block for the Hoop Sisters Embroidered Star Quilt.  There are 120 block total and I must have been crazy to start this.

Of course the next step is to trim all the blocks and join them.  After I figure out how to do that I will then have to cover the seams on the back.  It is going to be pretty if I ever get it done.  But I have to tell you if I had known all the steps with this quilt I don't think I would have let the shop convinced me to do this project.

I did get the binding on this little quilt.  I took it with use to the beach this last weekend.

I had taken another quilt to work on but because the weather was so absolutely gorgeous I did not stay inside to do much binding.  It was windy and the tide was on the way in when my husband and I went for a walk on Saturday evening.  

It was by birthday on Sunday and my husband gave me fabric and a pattern.  He got me a kit that we had seen a few weeks earlier and I had said I thought it would be fun to do.  Now I will have to brush up my paper piecing skills.

July and August projects

OK were did the last two months go?

I think I am ready for the structure of fall.

First for the UFO.

This was am embroidery project that I started a year ago.  I had actually completed all of the blocks last fall.  I then got side tracked with other things.  I made a few blocks for my daughter to make into pillows but never framed the blocks and cut the sashing.  You would think that would be the easy part and I sould get it done quickly....but I was after the next project.

The next project I worked on was August's UFO.  Another one that I had the blocks completed and just needed to lay it out and sew the rows.   I actually got it together early in the month but only recently took the picture.

Then I got caught up on all of the Snapshot BOM blocks.  When I say all....I had not done any of them until this month.   One weekend I cut them all out.  Then the next weekend I began sewing.  Last weekend I finished Block 8.  Now I just need to stay on track and get the rest done.  If I do that maybe this will not become next years UFO.

And now for the random project.  This has been a UFO for 6 years.  This was the quilt that my first grandchildren all had tummy time on.  The last 3 did not because 6 years ago my husband tossed it on top of the dog kennel....  The dog was bored and started chewing on it through the sides.  This was the second quilt that he chewed up.  The first one he did while sitting at my feet.  I was under a quilt and did not realize that he was chewing on it at the time.  I did not kill him but I was super anger.  He was such a sweet tempered dog and he loved everyone.  He is still alive but after he broke my leg in 3 places we had to find a new home for him.  For the next 12 weeks I could not even get out of my house alone I certainly could not take care of him.

I have had repairing this quilt on my list to do for all this time.  I recently was working on sorting scraps and finally found some that will work for this.  This month I began to pick out the quilting.  I took this picture before I started on it. 

Finally finished the June UFO.

July was off to a good start.

I finished my June UFO on July 2nd.  Better late than never.  I have been attempting to do a little analysis of why I have put projects away unfinished.

For this one I had the center of the quilt completed and all of the boarders sewn on.  The next step was to embroider the corner section of the text boarder and then embroider the snowflakes in the outer boarder.    So why did I stop?  When I look at what still needed to be done there was not that much, but this was the only the third project and I think I was worried about lining up the corners correctly.  However, once I pulled up the design I discovered that this designer had actually put in the line up lines in the design.  When I first started embroidering I didn't know what to look for.  I was able to spend several evenings stitching out a corner each evening but just did not get all the snowflakes embroidered before the end of June.  It feels really good to have finished another project.

This is my least favorite part of machine embroidery.  Takes me longer to take off the paper than to embroider.

hmm..why can't I figure out how to rotate this?

Oh well I have a picture at least.


I also got the Cat Weave quilted.  I still need to bind it.  I just did straight stitches on my home machine.  Gotta start somewhere with the quilting.

I am now working on July's UFO.

June did not go as expected.

The month of June has been hot...really really hot.

That is sort of unusual for the Pacific Northwest.  We usually say the summer starts around here on July 5th when the rain stops.  But we had a really dry winter and now a dry hot summer.

That translates into not a lot of sewing got done.  I also had one of my grandsons spend a week at my house when school got out.  He actually expected me to feed him occasionally.

I did sew it fits and starts.  But not a lot got completed.

Before the UFO number of the month was posted I made a mini quilt for my granddaughter.

It is called Cat Weave and it was from The Sewing Chick website.

I had bought a fat quarter bundle off Massdrop of the cat fabric and it was perfect for this project.

After we got the UFO number for the month I went looking for the project, which I finally found then I looked for the instructions which I did find a week later.   That project did not get finished this month.  I got so close.  I will get it finished, just not this month.

When I was not searching for items I did work on my flannel quilt and did get it sewn together.

So I did get something done.  Just not what I had planned on doing.  Now I will have to see if I can get July done.  But I have to tell you I am wishing for A/C it is so darned hot it is hard to sew.  I hope next month is not flannel.