Sewing Room Days

Hi, guys! Last Sunday the flea was rained out (as was yesterday's farmers market). Just as well as I had only $5.oo in my pocket, having spent all my flea market money getting my car all fixed up and serviced for the summer. New windshield wipers were urgent with the rain.
Instead I made my Westering Women block for [I guess] April.

The blocks are posted at the end of the month so I am chronically behind, but it's block 4, Kansas Lone Elm.

I used the wool challis from the flea, because it looks so much like the fabric in the dress on Brackman's blog post. Perhaps my imaginary pioneer woman had some fabric left over from her Sunday-best dress, tucked into her scrap bag? [link to the sewalong on Barbara Brackman's blog is on my sidebar. or HERE ]

Using antique fabrics in a new quilt can be treacherous. I don't want to use something that will disintegrate right away.  I carefully washed and tested the challis before using it, including making a tiny layered swatch which I ran through the wash on a regular cycle. I also backed it with tissue thin Pellon fusible interfacing.

I included the interesting hand seaming and and old repair.

I love my Lone Elm and with a lot of careful measuring it actually came out the requisite 12.5".

We did have one sunny afternoon, maybe last Saturday? Mo and I bundled up and sat on the deck to start Summetime's long borders. I had to stop working on Summertime during its allotted April project time because I didn't have enough of the background plaid. I had to do a LOT of piecing, even on the borders where I used the original blue. I think the busy-ness of the Basket and its berries/ leaves with hide the extra navy-black I needed to make the 60" borders work out.

Though I wish I'd had more success matching the two plaids. [The stem and berries will hide this flaw, however.]

The blue plaid piecing actually looks worse because I didn't have enough fabric to match the plaid properly. Bad, bad....
 I'm putting birds in my borders instead of stars. Maybe a zinnia-ish flower or two in needed, but No More Stars!

Yesterday I made the stem's bias fold strips with my new folder gadget and I made a paper pattern for the undulating design of the stem. I really criticize the magazine for just saying, "Oh do the borders by looking at the photo." But then the photo is so tiny and crappy I can barely see the details. Very disappointing. I wish there was either a border pattern or closeup photos of what it was supposed to look like..

Then today, rain again!---I made one border so far, testing  my layout.

The leaves can go on next, but the yo yo flower buds won't go on until the quilt is entirely finished, quilted, bound, washed. So it looks a little naked. The whopping 60 odd yoyos were beautifully made for me by my etsy/ blog friend Sue. Thank you, dear friend!

Then I cut Pokeberry's binding and I think I'll call it a day! It's Project Runway night.

This is a new project, a sewalong with Lori/ Humble Quilts. Another Porch quilt, we need a new name! Again, by Jan Patek. I fell for the whales and the watermelons. But that bike has got to go.

"Mo! Walkies!"

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

obviously NOT taken this week, but last year same week.....

April Showers Come in May

Hi! We're having a spell of dark rainy/ misty spring weather. It's like living in a cloud...or as I recall it, San Francisco!

Neither Mo nor I are feeling great; poor Mo, his heart worm pills make him sick. We've tried so many kinds with no success. I'm having probs washing the white slipcovers with my hip pain. It's similar to the hand pain I had a few years ago, and hopefully will pass. I try hard to set a good example, No Whining! The pain is really putting a crimp in my spring cleaning schedule, though.

Of course Mo and I get out and wander the neighborhood.  Garden peeping in slow-motion, I'm afraid.

I love the ferns' fiddleheads, so storybook/ fairyland.

No signs of green on the dunes.

The Goose family dressed in baseball outfits. A slugger and an umpire? We won't mention Baby, poor little one. I wish I'd saved Mo's baseball bandana for him, instead I cut it up for a Dotty. Too bad.

Just now I made a beef stew with cremini mushrooms and baby cipollini onions.  I don't have a crock pot at the moment so I made it in my new turquoise le Creuset pot and put it in the oven. It can simmer all evening; it's for tomorrow's supper, plus leftovers, I hope. In awhile I'll add tiny new potatoes, red, purple, and Yukon gold fingerlings. 

If the rain lets up tomorrow, I think it will be the first Farmers Market! Yay! Really looking forward to having the farmers' fresh veggies. I hope to find some tiny carrots and maybe parsnips, I'll add them to my stew before serving it.

What do you all think? Wait or sow the herb seeds now?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

Quilty 365 April Dots

Hi! I sewed my last April Dot this morning, yes  I cheated, I'm a day early. Actually I kind of lost track....

Bright green because the first tiny leaves have appeared on the ugly locust tree outside my window here.

It is Dot number 177. At the end of next week I will be at the halfway point if I do 365, later this coming month if I make 400 Dots.

Here's the April batch. Approx. 10-12 hours of work.

I'm filling my pretty box nicely!

A few weeks ago I dug out a neglected fabric bin, searching for cute fabric for upcoming Dots. The box was awesome. It was filled with tropical prints in black & white and shades of brown, neutrals [yes there's another bin with the brilliant Margaritaville shirt prints], and also quilt a few black and white batiks, and brown/ neutral seashell prints. These would make an amazing quilt like the Hawaiian quilts shown on Wonkyworld. Kalakoa quilts, HERE  Maybe a freestyle Log Cabin? Or Kaleidoscope?Something fun to slap together on a rainy day?

I also finished the first blocks off Where [When?] the Wild Geese Fly. here Here are the Pumpkins, I love them. Next I plan to do the moons and stars though that cute turkey is wanting my attention too.

It seems a bit odd to be working on an autumn quilt, doesn't it? But then I've been seeing so many big Vs of geese flying overhead, it seems appropriate.
The Vs are not Canada geese; they are here and nesting. babies will emerge for Mothers Day! No, the migrating geese are Brants, a smaller version of Canada geese. They migrate through in the spring on their way to their nesting grounds in the tundra of Canada and Alaska.

This project will be machine appliqued, mostly. The ''artistry'' will be in making the 200 odd Flying Geese blocks.

And Pokeberry is already back from the quilter!

Look what the postal service did to the box, isn't this scary! Even the inner plastic bag was shredded  open. But all was okay.

My quilter did such a nice job, and so fast! This quilt still has a lot of work to be done---binding of course, plus bead and button eyes and flower centers, a bumblebee and a lady bug or two?; label. Then I think I'll have it dry cleaned. After that, I'm not sure how I will accomplish the magic of the cotton batting puffing and shrinking. I'm afraid to machine wash, it has bits of velvet and wool, and even silk. I think I'll spritz the back with water in a squirty bottle, and run it through the dryer? [or quit while I'm ahead?]

More projects to share soon!

love

lizzy gone to the beach.....

...in my down parka! It got very cold here again. Brrr. Less than one month til summer begins, wow.

Feed me, mommy. I'm starving! NOW!"

Visit Audrey's blog for the 365 Project and link up to other dotty makers: HERE