Another Year is Starting

I haven't posted in over a year! I should be ashamed but life has just taken over! I did start a post in June and another in October. Here is an edited and added to version of those. 

Obviously, my resolutions fell by the wayside once again. I have spent a little more time in the sewing room but not a lot. That little boy is just more interesting than sewing most of the time! Hard to resist him. 

In January I had the metal plates and screws taken out of my ankle as they seemed to be causing me discomfort and loss of motion. The surgery went well and everything would have been great but the whole family then came down with a stomach bug for several days and it also went through the staff at the church/daycare where I work. Everyone's health improved eventually but it meant for some long days at work.

In February we had a few nice days and I was inspired to order some metal raised beds for my garden. Unfortunately the weather seemed to work against me and I didn't get them put together until mid April. I love them and have more to put together when we get some time this fall/winter so they are ready for next spring. We had a strange growing season this year where some things did really well (apples, strawberries, raspberries) and other not so well (carrots, squash). I look forward to seeing what next year will bring.

On April 1, my husband and I celebrated our 34th anniversary on a jet, heading for China. We spent 2 weeks with our son seeing the Great Wall, Summer Palace and Ming Tombs in Beijing, the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian, the pandas in Chengdu along with many other sights. Jakob left for China Sept 1, 2015 for a year to teach ESL in Chengdu. When we got there we found out he was applying for and has since been accepted to and started grad school at a university there. We had an amazing trip and a wonderful time with Jakob. I don't know what I expected but China was totally different from any place I have ever been.  

Thanks to his sister, my husband has been 'inspired' to create a new sewing space for me. He is even willing to give up some of his space in the garage for it! He spent a month or so emptying his 'treasures' from the lean-to--a dirt floored area that started out as a place to feed the cows more than 50 years ago. Then it needed a new foundation and the building began. It was a group project with help from my oldest daughter and her husband as they sold their home in Idaho and moved to this side of Washington in June. Their incentive was being able to move into the house once my sewing stuff moved out. I was moved out there in October and love it! I even made several Christmas gifts in those two months!

It was a wild six months with 4 extra people, one extra dog and two cats around. They found a house only about 7 miles from us and moved in officially on Christmas Eve. We even all celebrated Christmas at their house the next day. 

The new year has begun and I am fighting a bad cold thing which might be a version of the flu but I am hoping to be over it soon as my husband and I head to Nicaragua in just 4 days for a medical mission trip. 

I hope the new year finds you all healthy and busy in  your sewing spaces and I will leave you with some pictures from my year.

My 11 year old grandson doing some hand sewing.

8 year old grandaughter sewing
some squares together on the machine.

2 1/2 year old grandson using his
'rotary cutter' at the cutting table.

One of my first sewing projects in the new space.
Made from leftover triangles from my daughter's project .

Oldest daughter working on a quilt.

Daughter at the machine.

My first grouping of raised beds - more to be added this spring.

Creating the forms for the foundation of my sewing space.

Partially framed

Adding insulation

From the outside

Helping build cabinets

Fabric all sorted in the drawers.

Fabric storage with old sewing machines for decoration.

Quilting machine and shelf made by my dad to hold
my mom's cigar box notion organizers. I inherited both!

Sewing table made by my husband to wrap around
my Sew-Ezi table using treadle cabinet drawers.

Cutting Table with storage shelf underneath

Other end of the cutting table with my ironing board on it. 

My husband looking out of Great Wall

Panda in Chengdu

My son's birthday dinner with friends.

Terra Cotta Warriors - this place is massive!

Just beautiful. Someday I will make a quilt inspired by this.

In front of the Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian.

Ancient irrigation project near Chengdu

Our son and his Chinese 'family'
Little Robert is one of his students.

The Quilt Show & #5 & Rearranging

Here is a close up of the quilting on finish #5 for the year. It was made from the leftover triangles of another quilt that I blogged about here. 

I was happy to get it done to hang in the quilt show which was March 16. The show went well with about 50 quilts hanging. I only had one quilt of mine hanging that had been in the show before. There were 11 local quilters who shared their quilts in the show. 

Here is a shot of the Eiffel Tower quilt my niece made to raise money for her trip with the Vivace Chorale to Paris. It is an adaptation of the Stained Glass Denim Quilt Pattern I have used so much. It is amazing to me how many people are still asking for that pattern.

This quilt was done all by hand by a local quilter. The base of the tree is hidden by the sewing machine that was for sale. The creator of the quilt saw a 3" X 3" picture of this tree and enlarged it to a queen size quilt! This quilter shared 7 or 8 quilts with us at the show!

Here are three more quilts on display. 

Another quilter shared these two quilts on the quilt rack with us. They were both hand sewn. The Cathedral Window quilt used 30 yards of unbleached muslin and 3 yards of the blue calico.

If you would like to see more pictures from the show, they are up on flickr.

I have been working on getting things rearranged in the house to allow for the new pieces of furniture that arrived a few weeks ago. I emptied out a bookcase and took it to my niece's house. I rearranged things in the great room and then started to add items to the new curio cabinet. I kept adding and found more things and added them and was rather surprised to fill it! 

I have also been working hard at cleaning up the sewing room. It was just such a huge mess! I am pretty satisfied with it right now but there is still room for improvement. I bought some bins to store fabric and batting, etc. and started filling the little drawers in the sewing cabinet and I even got rid of quite a few things. I will try to post some pictures soon but the weather is improving and I have a lot of work to do outside!

Retreat, #4 and Show

Last weekend was Quilt Retreat for me and I got a lot accomplished. I got the star blocks from the last block exchange put together and got the borders on another top that has been waiting around for several months. I also did two sets of One Block Wonder blocks and two LWR quilt tops. As a final project I worked on some blocks that I started several years ago.

Had a great visit with my sister and other quilters at the retreat and the bonus visit from my daughter and grandkids. On my way home I stopped by my son's apartment and picked up the twin bed he has been using. He decided that a nearly 23 year old, 6 foot tall young man should have a big person's bed. This was followed by a quick stop at my daughter's house and I continued on the trip home. I was so glad to be home at about 5:30 pm after leaving camp at about 8:30 am!

I arrived home to two new pieces of furniture in my house. The most exciting was my new sewing cabinet that my husband made for me.

It has 24 treadle sewing machine cabinet drawers, a shelf for my serger and it fits around my Sew-E-Z table for my sewing machine. I have only done a little sewing since I got home but I already love the extended sewing surface. I haven't had a chance to fill all the drawers yet but I am looking forward to getting things organized.

The other piece of furniture is an antique curio cabinet that my husband purchased from a customer. 

I already have one curio cabinet and really no more space in my house so we are emptying a book case and giving it to our niece to make some more space. I am also considering giving away another piece if I can get things rearranged to I'm not using the space.

With the quilt show just one week away I am trying to get more quilts finished that are close. Here is finish #4 for the year. These are my Block Exchange Blocks from this past year. The rainbow stripe fabric is the backing for the quilts I made with my grandkids so I figure this will be a cuddle quilt for them to use at Grammy's house. I used a polyester batt that I had on hand and was able to make it two layers so it is nice and fluffy. 

I started quilting another quilt yesterday and after I had some feather borders done I realized the tension was off and I have to rip it all out! I stayed home from work today as I am not feeling well so I am hoping to get the ripping done today and then maybe I will feel better tomorrow so I can get the quilting redone so it is ready for the show.

This week I have received 20 quilts from other local quilters and hope to get at least another 20 for the show. I have 3-7 people who have offered some so I hope to get a bunch. I am hoping to only have newer quilts of mine in the show so it is mostly fresh and new. I was excited this week to find out that we will have a beautiful handmade oak quilt rack made by one of our church members to raffle off.

Well, I still feel pretty crummy but I am going to try to get something accomplished today even if it is just hand stitching a binding!

Some Improvement

I have continued with my tidying in the sewing room. On Thursday I finished pressing and sorting scraps other than neutrals and batiks. Then yesterday, I did the drawer of neutrals. It was a larger drawer and was stuffed! When those were all pressed and sorted this is what the cutting table looked like when I was done for the day. Can you see any improvement?

Today I tackled the batiks. I loved pressing the batiks and thinking about projects to do with them. In with the various scraps were some triangles in a couple different sizes that I think might just turn into a quilt top. Here is what things look like in the sewing room this afternoon. Okay, can you see the improvement now? 

As I was sorting through things, I also found some partially made blocks so I took a few small breaks and did a little sewing. Some of these Drunkard's Path blocks were sewn and some weren't. There were 11 full blocks and there were some extra pieces that I was able to turn into two more blocks so I put 4 together like this

 and 9 together like this.

There were 10 of these paper pieced blocks. At first I put 9 of them together like so but I just wasn't pleased with it.

I liked the chevrons on the left side of the blocks so I decided to add the other little block and make a strip of chevrons instead.

In another spot I found 16 HSTs that were all the same size and all had whites for one side. So I turned them into this block.

Then I found this group of pieces and made up 5 4-patch blocks and have one set of two squares left over. This might also end up as a strip.

I sorted out all of my orphan blocks and have some plans for some of them and others will probably end up on the backs of scrap quilts as I finish them.

I am pleased with progress but I am starting to get itchy to start sewing. Hopefully, I can finish the cleaning up in the next day or so and then I will start on some of the projects I need to have finished before the end of summer.

Time to Clean

It's time to get busy around here. There was laundry that needed addressing. I got two more loads done today and even got three of yesterday's folded! One of today's was the sheets for our bed so at least I don't have to fold that!

When I was putting the first load in I was reminded that I need to work on the mudding in the shower stall so that was my next job. I was feeling a little discouraged when I stopped for the retreat and quilt show but when I got going again I realized it wasn't quite as bad as I thought. I might be getting close to being done with the mudding and ready to start getting the painting and texturing done.

After a shower I headed into the sewing room and started shoveling. This is the cutting table area before...

...and after.

This is the quilting machine area before...

...and after.

 

I know, it really doesn't look that much better but I can tell. I got all the finished quilts moved out of the room or put away. I am working on my scrap drawers that were all left out after the paper piecing on the Harry Potter quilt. It is just time to get them more organized again. I plan to continue with the cleaning, sorting and organizing until I can use the whole top of the cutting table (or at least most of it). 


Stay tuned for updates.