TREE CANOPY AND THE COLD WIND BLOWS

 As I near my 7th month of Covid stay at home I realize while sometimes it has seemed a real pain in actuality I have made a leap into quilty areas I probably would not have ventured into before.

I decided to try a collage.  First step iron fusible on a number of fabrics.

Then cut up into little bitty pieces.  Note: tear off paper on fusible before cutting up into little bits.  Believe me from experience!  One of those mistakes you only do once.  Taking the paper off a pile of those little pieces took time. 

Lay out little bits all over your background.  I did discover it is important to make sure the fusible side is down on the background.  It was pretty easy to discover while ironing them down that one or two of them were fusible side up.  Scrapping the some of the little bits off the sole of my iron was a bit time consuming and fustrating.

I then fused on my trees.  I had a pattern of layout for the trees.  I am not sure why, but despite cutting everything the proper size, the trees did not lay out in the same manor as was suggested.  So, who cares!  I just laid them out as I pleased and I'm happy.  Now the idea is to lay net over the piece before quilting it.  Frankly I did not see the reasoning for that.  I am now quilting down the trees with dark brown thread and will quilt in between them with a gold or orange thread.  Then probably bind with a dark brown fabric. 

I just picked up my Bernina 750 from the doctor's last week.  I had a rather upsetting mishap with it about a month ago.  While quilting my Cold Wind Blows wall hanging it jammed and I was stuck with the piece stuck in it with the needle down.  With a good deal of fusing and husband finally taking the wire cutters to the needle to get it out it was off for repairs.  Surprisingly it wasn't much of an issue, just a good cleaning and the timing was off.  Running over pins was the suggestion for that mishap.  I would like to admit I never do that, but that would be a huge lie.  I am a regular offender!

I am back to quilting the Cold Wind Blow now.  And yes for those that saw my original posts about it.  I did tear out the eco quilting and decided on the serpentine quilting instead.  

And his highness Fred one of my daughter's peacocks is enjoying the late summer sun on her patio.  He rules the roost over the other three males and one peahen.  One must admit he is beautiful and very regal.

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FINISHING THE FASSETT

Got a bit done this past week.  I finished my Fassett quilt top.

 

I really love it.  This type of fabric is not my usual buy, but these Fassett prints certainly have grown on me.  I used almost all of them up except for a bit of one or two of them with this project and my Trees quilt.  I might have to buy some more.  

Once again my daughter has enlisted me into making Christmas pillowcases for the boys.  Once she found out I can make them instead of her buying them she had me hooked.  

The fabric is flannel, not my favorite.  I never buy it.  Plus there were no coordinate fabrics to make a standard pillow case pattern.  I selected to make them in a pillow fold way.  So one top side is hemmed and the other hemmed and folded over 4 inches.  To make sure the seams did not tray, as flannel tends to do I over locked the seams.  I had never done that on a standard sewing machine.  I do not have a serger.  It worked great and they are nice and neat with no fraying.  

For the chicken fans!  My daughter started to decorate for fall this past week.  Looks like two of the hens thought that they should give her a hand.  Snowball seems to believes she is a perfect addition to the fall decor.  

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LANDSCAPES, QUILTER'S PLANNERS AND DUCK LOVE

This past week I finally finished my beach landscape.  I am really happy with it.  

I added some grasses, shells and a few beads.  I am particularly pleased with the quilting especially the very bottom of the piece.  I am not a free motion quilter.  So, it was a real challenge for me to finally decided I was going to make a real attempt at that skill. 

Last month I ordered my Quilter's Planner.  It arrived just last week and along with it I received this pattern for a bookmark for it.  I decided a quick one day project was a perfect plan after finishing my landscape.  Something accomplished in an afternoon was what I needed.

I occasionally do paper piecing.  It always takes a few tries, tear it out, and do it again before I get back into the groove of doing it properly.  

Once I got the paper piecing down it was a very quick finish.

It is done and ready to start the new year in style.  I have used the planners for several years now.  I was a controller for a non profit for 40 years before retiring.  I used planners to keep myself organized and found that I liked the ability to know what was accomplished and where I was with final  project completions.  It seems it carried over into my home life and especially into what was going on in my sewing studio.  I am very active with my local quilt guild, serving as treasurer multiple years along with other quilting activities.  I think it keeps me grounded and at least sometimes organized.

Of course I had to start a new project.  I happened on to a blog this past week of Wendy's Quilts and More.  She featured her Turkish Coffee Quilt and Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Burano.  I have a bin full of Kaffe scraps and it was the perfect way to work with them.  Simple to make and fun to deal with all those crazy prints.  So that should keep me occupied for the next couple weeks.  We have just slipped by the 6 month anniversary of stay in place Covid lock down here in the mid valley of California so finding something to occupy your extra time is good.

And here is a bit of duck love.  This is my youngest grandson Ben.  As many of you know my daughter has a whole zoo of pet animals.  Besides the chickens and peacocks she has 14 ducks.  This is one of the ducklings that were hatched earlier this year.  She just loves a belly scratch.  The minute Ben comes out in the yard to feed them, she runs up for a bit of attention. 

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CATS, THE BEACH, AND NORTHERN AMERICAN HERONS

This week has not been terribly productive.  I did work on my wisteria project a bit, but it is tedious and often I just work on it a few hours each week.  Sometimes I just need something simple to do to fill in some mindless time.  

I considered starting a Broderie Perse project, but decided that might not be mindless.  Not up to that.

So instead I found a fabric that somewhat mimicked that idea.  I have two daughter's that live in the area.  The older one is a teacher and works a great deal with an agency that traps and neuters ferrel cats and returns them to their colonies.  They often do fundraisers to pay the vet bills so I though I would contribute to one of her agency's fundraisers.

A quick finished wall hanging or table topper. 

I received the first instructions on my Morewood Mystery quilt.  There is an icon on my sidebar for it on my blog.  Gives one something to look forward to each month that has plenty of time to accomplish.

A quick trip to JoAnn's this week to pick up beads for my beach landscape.  Not really beads except for one, but perfect for that piece.

They are going to be perfect for it.  

This is a photo of a visiter at my younger daughter's home this past week.  He is a Northern American Heron and he brought his lady friend with him.  Unfortunatley they decided to dine on the fish in  pond and devoured all 50 or so gold fish in it.  Not a single fish left!  Ben my youngest grandson, the keeper of the pond,  proclaimed to get his BB gun out and get them.  Mother of course did not allow that, but I don't think they are going to be in a hurry to replace the fish until those two move along to another dining establishment.    

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Mid Week Makers

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