A Brief Post ~ Good Fortune

I have to be to work in a few minutes for overtime goodness and just finished sewing the last plain border before the outer decorative border.  I have met the goal I have set.  I am sew excited as it is all coming together and getting so close!  Next week will be the final Monday reveal with Bonnie Hunter’s Link up for the Good Fortune mystery quilt.  I was hoping to be done, but with cutting my finger to the knuckle, working overtime, and then got hives, it just seems to be one thing after another.  So I am setting my goal to get one side of the last border.  I am ready to pack up what is left of the fabric and do some tiding up because that wooden clothes dryer takes up a lot of space.

Here are a couple of quick/un-ironed snapshots of the scrappy outer border.  I chose to cut bricks the size of the string blocks called out for a little bit more scrappy affect.  One more to go!  In case you missed my last post, here is a picture of the main body too.

This yellow border really pops!  Finish here we come!

Have a great weekend!  And thank you for following and reading my blog!

_ _ _ _Stitching to the Max_ _ _ _

Whoa, time to slow down and say, aahhhhhhhh.  Weekends are for rest, right?  Well, I decided the only way to meet and hopefully exceed my goals is to put my big girl panties on and stitch to the max.  Sew stitch I did.

There is something about cold fronts.  It gives me that extra boost of energy.  Energy needed for all the mundane tasks gets sucked up in a hurry, but with that low pessure mass, I feel so rabbit-like.  Energy thrives!

I woke up Saturday morning to a snowfall.  I was surprised even though I had listened to the weather forcast.  We all dismiss weather forcasts now and then.  Sometimes all that results from weather media hype is a huge eye roll, am I right?

In talking with my mother, she said at 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning there was nothing on the ground, and when I got up at 7ish, the roof of the shed and the ground had coverage.  Nice that it happened on a weekend when travel to work is not necessary.  In recalling that morning, before anyone at the house rose from sleep, it was very still and quiet inside and outside.   No cars starting or driving down our block.  A nice peaceful hushed morning.

I managed to get play ball 2 quilted and bound.  Goal set, goal achieved!

Notice the different color white in the quilt.  This was accident.  Apparently I have a lightbulb that removes different shades of white making them all the same.  I was peeved at myself in this error.  But the more I looked at it, the more I realized the yellower of the two whites resembles the color of a baseball.  The idea has grown on me.  I am ok with it now.  I backed this with gray, not my original intention.  The lad I am giving this to, he was named Grey.  I thought it was fitting.  Eventually the whites will bleach to the same color with enough washings.  I am most certain he will not care!

I had no quilting tension issues….wooohooo!  I did not iron before loading onto the frame, this saved a bit of time.  A good misting of potato mash (aka vodka) and water ironed it enough for quilting to be pucker free!  It took me less than an hour to quilt.  And because Grey is already born I decided not to hand stitch any of the binding.  My featherweight did an excellent job of stitching it down.  Done.

Goal number two was to get to the outermost border by next weekend on good fortune.  I have not met this goal but am well on my way!  I managed to get all the blocks sewn together.  I had to make more blue neutral hst’s.  My sewing area quickly became a tornado of activity.  Tornados leave a mess in their wake.

This quilt grows on me every time I snap a photo, just look, it is saying cheese!  Cheddar to be exact!

I managed some tiding up and condensing of piles.  Amazingly enough with all the quilts I have completed in the last two months, the pile is diminishing.   This afforded some real estate that enabled a more tidy work corner.  I love when the planets align, and all is good.

I am grateful for an amazing weekend full of stitches.  In the advent of straightening up, I moved the Christmas cactus which consist of three nodules just barely peeking out of the soil.  It is in it’s container that is probably 2 qt size.  In moving it from the kitchen window to the living room window, I have contracted the stinking hives again.  Sunday afternoon my palms itched and itched and itched.  I quickly made the connection, took some zyrtec, and was fine until the following afternoon.  I came home from working a full day and crashed.  When I woke up, not only did I have the hives, I had extreme swelling of the face and hands.  My hands swelled to the point of skin being so tight, I could not move my fingers.  Sunlight and water are my greatest enemy.  No showers, no going outside.  Not like I feel like doing that anyway.  It is boring, but restful I suppose.  I wrote this post Sunday and am finishing it today, Wednesday.  When I re-read the first paragraph, I suppose those words were jinxed.  I should be more careful of the good fortune that befalls me.  Bad that I have the hives, great for rest, which I did not get over the weekend.

I still aim to meet my goal, and am on the mend.  Goals to be set for the upcoming weekend are totally up in the air.  Since I cannot do anything but watch tv, and tap on the tablet, Household stuff is falling behind.  Moms are the backbone of detail chores.  This mom is heavily relied upon for all sorts of stuff.  In reflection, I should be more careful what I write as that can change in the blink of an eye.  Hiving in good fortune!

Happy quilting readers!  May my post inspire you!  And thank you for reading my blog!

The Puckers of Life

In my last post, I stated my goal of being to the outermost border In Good Fortune by the end of the week. That did not happen, but I am so close.  I had to catch up all the pieces to finish those blocks.  I had counted wrong by 5 pinwheel blocks.  So my yellow vareity ran low.  I had to make another trip to the stash.

Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com…..I probably need to make a map of all my stash locations in the house and their inventories…..a treasure map of X marks the spot.

A trip to the stash is like shopping at the most inconvienent time at the most inconvienent space/place!  You are the stocker, and the customer!  I did manage to get a load more of variety using my scraps.  Then to work the blue Hst’s.  Yeah, needed more variety there.  I shopped the stash again (so time consuming indeed).  I found I could rob about 10 charm squares from various packs.  Two of those squares were a more than perfect match, and having so much sewing to be done with blue, made arrangements to visit the LAQS to get the variety needed.  Done.  Spent an evening making the blue hst’s, as I did no counting.  I come up a few short so I will make more today.  (did I mention I shopped my Mother’s stash too?)

Photo by Digital Buggu on Pexels.com

Switching gears from being on holiday, to working so hard and overtime is difficult.  Everything revolves around time.  Being on vacation was so nice as that time continuum did not harass.  I could bathe my dirty children in the middle of the day, when time was not stressing them or me, and they would actually be clean mid-day!  The dishes could be done at anytime.  My hygiene habbits could be done or even not done with pajama sewing going on.  I have deemed the regular chores do not stress me.  The daily grind of fitting those chores into a small opening, and if one thing fails to launch, everything becomes fruit basket upset, can o-worms ensues, procrastination happens, which then adds more stress.  I am thankful for my sewing time as it ungathers all the puckers of life.

Goals made

• Get to the inner border in good fortune
• Longarm baby quilt

Goals met so far……zero

The good news is I do not need to set new goals, these will probably carry me through til next week.

Photo by Johannes Rapprich on Pexels.com

I also was the recipient of a bunch of pantographs.  It was nice to have that package greet me when I came home from work.  Cost zero dollars….priceless.  My goodness I am practically a mastercard commercial….hmmm….if only that paid me to stay at home.

Stay tunned for more Good Fortune!  And thank you for reading my blog.

Good Fortune continues

If life were a fortune cookie, my cookie would be the odd duck.  Weird things befall me.  I am used to it now.  I suppose I am fortunate enough, for all the odd ducks in life, to have an arsenal (the brain) in dealing with oddities.

I rang in the new year by slicing my middle finger but good.  This forced me extra vacation time in the midst of being the busiest I have been all year at work.  That led to the odd duck of being behind, Behind, BEHIND!

So the only stitches occurred during the weekend, as 10 and 13 hour days bankrupt you of any of that happiness.

After a couple dr appointments, working bizzare work hours, things seem to be back to the normal weekend pace.

My Good Fortune quilt continues.  I lack three of the 4 patch assembly blocks and 5 of the pinwheel blocks.  Once the inner part of the quilt is accomplished I will proceed to mass produce the borders.  The good news is, those bonus triangles are adding up, and I will not have to fuss much with that part.  Fortunely, Two of the borders will just be strips of fabric cut to the proper dimensions.  My goal is to be to the outermost border in a week.  We shall see.

 

Upcoming plans for the begining of the year, well I am behind, Behind, BEHIND!!!  I am still waiting to quilt a baby quilt top.  The babe has already been born and the mother is back to work.  I had very good intentions of accomplishing this over the Christmas break, but then we all got the flu, and then I cut my finger, and then a ridiculous work week with overtime.

I see looking at my photo files, I have failed to capture the flimsy finish *sigh*.  I started cutting this out in July, procrastinated because I was waiting for my longarm, and have not had the time since the delivery to work on it.

At the begining of next month I will be visiting my old sewing group for a jelly roll race, which this year, we are racing!  With prize goodness.  I am looking forward to that as I will be donating these two tops for the guild.

I have a periwinkle quilt in process, that is in my way and I need to find the time so I can move stuff around.

A small wall hanging will probably result from this.

And I have managed to go through all of my scrap tub, purged the bits, ironed the strings, and neatly stored them in ziplock baggies.  My scrap tote has been tamed!  I am currently in the middle of a trade of two baggies for about 15 pantograph patterns, so this re-org worked out well.  At the same time of taming the wildness of the scrap tote, I managed to cut and sew on a brick road leader ender.  This is not in the way and sits beside my machine for here and there sewing between the string piecing currently being accomplished on the Good Fortune quilt.

Everything in my creative world is in static state.  Like interference on an old television, noise.  I must tune my projects, to remove the jumbledness of noise and get frequency with it.  (This is kind of punny).

I had gotten much quilted over the holiday and ran out of backings large enough that I would not have to piece to death.  I managed to find a sale at hobby lobby of $2 per yard cottons, so I snatched up what I could.  This will lead to another 4 tops for completion.

My mother has offered her many tops for me to learn with for longarm services.  I aim to have the most completions this year.  And get as much experience under my belt as possible, before entertaining the idea of making money with my hobby.

My quilting future is in good fortune!  I just need to get all my odd ducks in a row!  Thank you for reading my blog!

In Good Fortune….

The Mystery Quilt is revealing itself.  Glorious, beautiful, and wonderful!!!!  I was afraid with my color choices.  Everyone, thank you for giving me positive encouragement on my insecurities of the unknown in this quilting adventure, you were right!  Another mystery quilt is in process of becoming beautiful. 🙂

I regret not going full steam ahead, but I have plenty of time to finish.  My black neutrals really pop with the yellow.  The cheddar kinda washes away, but that is ok.  I love how this will turn out.

I am looking forward to linking up and seeing all the other quilts coming together is a variety of color schemes and ways!  Linking up with quiltville and Bonnie Hunter!

Here are the main blocks on the back of my couch…er design wall.

And here they are laid out on the bed….er bigger design wall, lol!  The borders make this quilt really pop.

In the good fortune of the last few weeks that I have been on vacation, I have enjoyed the quilting process of learning the longarm.  I have enjoyed piecing.  I have enjoyed organizing my strings/scraps.  I have enjoyed coming up with a leader ender challenge of my own, which I am calling brick street.   I have most enjoyed the pressure of no boundaries of time.

 

I rang in the new year by slicing my middle finger which warranted a few more days off from work.  That is the second time the kitchen knife has gotten me good.  I have cut deep enough at my middle finger, middle knuckle that it cut through a nerve.  Weird to lift the pressure foot lever of the featherweight and not be able to feel it resting on it that pad of my finger.  There is just no feeling on the 1/3 of my middle junction between my fingernail and knuckle.  I am fortunate that it stopped bleeding rather quickly.  It was not fortunate for my vacation time.  I just hate burning through it at the beginning of the year.  But that is what it is for, to use in cases just as this.

I probably should have went to the hospital.  The first thing I thought about was the money associated with going there.  Nope, the second thing I thought about was the last time I got stitches in my elbow, how much it hurt when they had to scrub out the area before they stitched.  They did not deaden it for the scrubbing, or if they did, it hurt like hell.  That pain happened more than 25 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  Nope, not gonna get scrubbed.

My logic, I was doing the dishes at the time anyway in clean soapy water.  The first thing I did was douse it in peroxide, and then doused it a couple more times before getting a humongous bandaid and wrapping it around my whole finger to apply the right pressure.  Since the knife had just been sharpened it was a very clean cut.  I deemed I would not sleep with a band-aid on as I was afraid if it did ooze in the night it would stick to the band-aid.  So my finger slept naked in the air, yes I kept it bent above my head.  My hand got rather cold and so I got up in the middle of the night to put on a fingerless glove my mom made me.  That kept my wrist warm, which in turn, kept my whole hand warm in my drafty house.

Friday it was feeling better where I could almost make a fist with my hand.  Today I am still limited in movement but it is in only the stretchy kind of movements.  If I stretch it the wrong way it feels like it is tearing on the inside.  I have good fortune as this could have been a whole lot worse!  I kept my pocketbook safe from the evil healthcare system (that does not care!).  I probably saved myself over $1,000.00.  THAT is a LOT of fabric.

Sew on sisters!  And thank you for reading my blog!

 

The Brick Road of 2019

We are not psychic.  We never know what is coming around the corner.  We all have good intentions.  Our stash represents our quilting dreams and intentions.  Loaded up on caffeine and sugar in our society makes it hard to focus on just one thing (children have certainly taught us a thing or to about sugar eh?).  So we start a new project with new excitement and new attitude with the best of intentions.  We resolve to be better at whatever it is we want to resolve once and for all.

As a blogger, who wants traffic to frequent this site, I blow and go, switching gears faster than my hands can work.  My processor speed is still full throttle, but the body does not keep that pace.  Pinterest does not help, rather is a time succubus that I use for more than reference.  Like attending a quilt show every day with something I have never seen before.  Pinterest interferes with quilting time.  Resolving to use it as a reference, not something to scroll through daily.

In blogland, it makes me smile to read about other bloggers UFOs and their completion.  I smile at the obtainable goals set.  With the new year freshly underway, blogland is full of people wanting to purge their UFO piles, to organize, to simplify.

I usually don’t have a quilt plan, improv seems to be the way I lean.  But this year I am resolving to tame the stash.  In order for this to happen, the scraps will have to be tamed first.  This will free up one tote.  That tote will be where I start sewing from first.  I will then venture out after I bankrupt what I can from there.  My stash is generous, but many have far more than I.  I do not want to go to “paralyzed by the stash” land.

So I am resolving the situation this new year by going through my scrap tote and purging what I deem to be trash.  There was a point I was keeping crumbs.  NOT ANYMORE.  Not once in the last 10 years have I cared to touch this crumby part of my stash.  Gone, sianara, adios, axrrivaderchi.  Kudos to all that utilize to the nth degree.  This no longer fits my plan for fabric and its storage.

Gone are the scraps of 50/50.  These were pieces I came across while going through my freebie fabrics given to me.  Not keeping, giving to waste management to deploy at the dump.

What remains is an un-homoginized mess of strings?  When I look at the bucket because they are just thrown in, they are wrinkled and not for use within the moment.  Kinda defeats the purpose of the strings if you cannot use them as needed.  So, I am ironing the wrinkles.  Then on the larger strings of 2.5 or greater strips, they are being trimmed to make bricks.  A new Leader Ender project has come about during this re-org.  I have made great progress.  I still have not even made a dent.

I need to formulate a plan on making sure my scraps do not end up an unraveled mess of wrinkled bits.  It will probably involve a clothes drying rack to stay erected in my sewing space all the time.  Currently I only use this while getting my fabrics starched/pressed for mystery quilting.  This is my new plan, and will continue to deploy the plan as I improv along.

Baggies seem to encapsulate the work I have done fine, so you can now define me as a bag lady LOL.

On the brick road to fabric storage/use success!

Stacked nice and neatly until I have enough for a gallon storage bag.

Baggies to the rescue!

Brick leader ender now a nice straight pile ready for sewing.  With some bonus 2 1/2 inch squares trimmed ready for purpose.

Bag lady title, here i come!  The amount of space this takes up is a whole lot less, done in the bag lady fashion.

Scraps equal free quilts.  No cost to me and my pocketbook.  In winter it allows the thermostat to be lower, sew even more savings. Scrap quilts are quite the humble experience.  Humble is good, scraps equal simplicity.  It is all good!

This new system will allow me to work smarter not harder.  A lower labor plan sounds wonderful as well, so I am on board one wrinkle in time.

After I obtain tote perfection, I will have to move onto the larger scrap drawer I have which are fat quarters and larger pieces that have no rhyme or reason for how they exist in that drawer.  It will be next in my plan, for now…the tote will keep me busy for quite a while.

May your resolution plan for 2019 be forever and unbroken!

Happy New Year and thanks you for reading my blog!