Friday Night Sew In Report

I had a productive night of sewing last night.  Woo-hoo!! 

I made this block for the November Simply Solids swap.  I cannot pick up the true colour in this photo.  It is much lighter than it appears and the colour is much more green/aqua. 

I made these two setting triangles for Easy Street.  I am getting excited!  I only have three more blocks to make and then I can start putting Easy Street together!

I finished sewing together this piece of the flower ball.

And I got one completed leader and ender block out of the evening.  Pinwheels are my leaders and enders right now.  Isn’t the baby loon cute.  

How did your Friday Night Sew In go?

Janet

The Year of the Finished Project for May

I’ve had a good month

1. 6 inch quilt block swap Done!

2. Bee Balm block swap Done!

3. Block swap adventure Done!

4. Inchy hexagon swap Done!

5. MMM Round Robin – Done!  Here is a sneak peek  

6. Simply Solids block swap Done!

7. Mystery Muse - DONE!! 

8. Get your Hex On bee Done!

9. Charm Pack Table Runner for Terry. Not Done

10.  It’s for the Birds Blog Hop project and post…. DONE!!  And I made myself a great clothespin apron.

* Finish the baby quilt!  DONE!!!

** Put together FIVE blocks for Easy Street!  Twelve more blocks done! I am pleased!

*** Finish the table mat I started for the Stitch Me Up blog hop.  Not Done. 

**** Work on the X and + quilt .  My goal for this month is ten more blocks. Only two blocks done. 

***** Work on the new project that I started….A postage stamp quilt made with 2.5 inch squares.  It is my new leader and ender project.  Almost finished two blocks.  This is going together quickly as a leader and ender.

****** Make a dress for DGD’s doll.  Not Done.   

Some things aren’t done.  But I did some other things so I don’t mind… Like flags for the To Boston with Love project.

And here is my list for June:

1. Six inch quilt block swap – 2 per month – to be mailed by the 15th.  Dawnelle wants any block in southwest shades.

2. Bee Balm block swap – The instructions are apparently on their way in the mail.

3. Block swap adventure – 1 - 12.5 in block – mail by the 25th.  Cyndi wants a star block in brights, funky or modern on white.

4. Inchy hexagon swap – 2 hexies per month – mail by April 30th.  Karyli wants yellow petals and black centres.

5. MMM Round Robin – mail by April 30th.  This is the last month for this round robin.  I haven’t received the block to work on yet.

6. Simply Solids block swap – Mail by April 26th – Anne Marie wants a complex Katherine Wheel.  I’m going to have to concentrate to make this one. 

7. Get your Hex On bee – mail by April 30th.  Elita wants a simple 1.5 inch hexie flower and has sent gorgeous fabric for it.  I’m half done already.

8. Charm Pack Table Runner for Terry. I am embarrassed that this isn’t done and it is TOP of the priority list.

9. A birthday star block for Quilt Diva Julie.

10. A mug rug for my secret partner in the Flickr Mug Rug Revival swap.

As well I am going to:  

***** Finish Easy Street!  Or try to any way.  I have 16 square blocks to make and 10 triangle blocks.  And borders and quilting.  Yikes!  Oh well, I will try.. 

**** Finish the table mat I started for the Stitch Me Up blog hop.  It is a gift.  I need to get it mailed.  This one also has high priority!

*** Work on the X and + quilt .  I’m going to try for ten more blocks again this month.  

** Continue making leader/ender postage stamp blocks.

* Make the prototype dress for DGD’s doll.  I need to decide if this dress is the right one for my GDs for the wedding in September…. DD#2’s wedding…

Spring is here and summer is crowding spring out the door.  Life is hectic busy, but a girls gotta sew….

Janet

Giveaway winner

My concussion has been getting better and better.  Last week I had a sacral-cranial treatment.  This is a “new age” medical treatment which sceptics would think involves nothing.  However I felt bad for two days after having the treatment, then I suddenly felt really good.  Like normal, pretty well, other than one or two small dizzy spells.  I felt really good Friday and Saturday.  I did all that sewing and went for a long bike  ride.  Yesterday I felt lousy again…. I guess I overdid it. 

I was going to go back to work tomorrow, but now I think I will wait until Wednesday when I have a follow up appointment with the doctor.  I’m going to go back for another one of those treatments though.

I did make three triangle blocks for Easy Street yesterday.  This is what it looks like now.

 

We woke up this morning to fresh snow!  Although it has mostly melted now it is still COLD out.  I wonder how the crocuses are faring, and these guys…

We did the For the Birds blog hop giveaway draw this morning.  (He’d been in the sauna for an hour and insisted he was warm.)

And the winner is…

Congratulations, Judy!  I have sent you an e-mail.

Janet

Friday Night Sew In Report

I want to say thank-you to everyone who commented on my birdie clothespin apron and the flags for Boston.  I started out trying to respond to everyone, but I don’t think I’m going to get through the whole list.  It was great to get all the comments though and I appreciate all the love.

Since I said that people who had commented on previous posts in April and May could have a second entry, I have had to do the paper slip method of picking the winner.  I have the slips all written up and in the bowl.  But I’m here alone and I want someone else to do the draw.  DH will be home sometime tonight with the two grandkidlets in tow, so I will have one of them do the draw and will post the winner tomorrow.

I have had a great Friday night sewing session between last night and this morning.  I started out playing with triangles.  When I got that huge bag of scraps last month there were several hundred triangle cut offs in it.  I decided to make them into pinwheel blocks and I just had to try it out and see what they would sew up like.  Here are four blocks that I made, but this project is going to have to wait for a while before it gets any more of my attention.

Cute huh!?  You might notice that there are some loons…

Then I spent a lot of time working on Easy Street.  I have ALL the pieces cut and I made four new blocks.  This is what it looks like now. 

I hope to get four triangle blocks and one more square block made tomorrow; then I will have three rows done!  I have realized that the middle of July is coming quickly and feel the need to get on with this baby. 

We have gale force winds here but it has been sunny since noon and the sun has just gone behind the mountains at ten p.m.  The crocuses are out in force – I saw my first one on Wednesday.  They are so pretty.  Look at how dry the ground is under them.  It is supposed to rain tomorrow, which would be great as it will help with the greening up process.

Hmm… looks a bit like the Easy Street colours…just missing the blue...

I will be back tomorrow with news of a winner.

Janet

Another take on Easy Street

I decided that before I went any further with making decisions about what fabrics to use where and cutting up a bunch of pieces, that I needed to set up two more blocks so I could really get an idea of the design.  Am I ever glad I did that! 

I now understand which way the four patches are supposed to turn and I see that changing out the greens that I was thinking of just won’t do because it interrupts the chain. 

Here is what it looks like with the dark grey and the greens…

I did conjecture that if I want to tone down the green a bit, the way to do that would be to change out the four patch greens in the top and bottom block.  They would have to be changed to blue because there is already a lot of purple going on there.  This is what it looks like with that change…

What do you think?  I’m thinking that the blue makes it too dark.

I was going to try it with the light greys as well, getting rid of the medium grey that I incorporated in the mix altogether.

But I would have had to unpick, cut and sew and I had enough for this evening.  I may try that tomorrow.

Janet

And another design consideration…

I went out for supper and when I came home I realized that there is something I don’t quite like about the layout I have up on the design wall.  There is a bit too much green and it is overwhelming.  So I switched out some of the green squares for purple squares.  What do you think? 

All the green blocks Bonnie intended there to be

 

 

 

 

Some of the green blocks switched out for purples.

 

 

 

 

And some of them switched out for blues.

 

 

 

 

(You may notice as well that I turned the four corner four patches on the left hand block.  I’m not sure yet which way they look best.)

Janet

Looking for feedback

When I made the first step for Easy Street they were supposed to be in grey and white/blacks with more white than black.  Since I had very few white/blacks I decided to use a yellow/orange instead as I had lots of it in my stash.

Then in step two Bonnie announced that we wouldn’t be using any more grey in the quilt.  Well I had a huge piece of grey – four metres to start with – and probably about two metres all together of the yellow oranges so I thought I would just continue with the grey as a substitute for the white/blacks in the quilt.  I e-mailed Bonnie and asked her if she thought that would work and she said yes.

Then we got to step six where she wanted us to cut two white/black blocks and sew them together.  I started thinking that if I used my grey for that block the quilt would be too dark.  So I got the bright idea of finding some lighter greys to use for those blocks and for one other small block that adjoins the grey and purple flying geese. 

So today I have one of each block laid out, once using the lighter greys in those two spots above and once using the original dark grey.

  light greys in the eight two-patch squares in the left hand block and in the four flying goose and grey squares in the right had block.  All other grey using the dark grey.

 

 

 

  dark grey in all parts of the quilt where Bonnie used white/blacks

 

 

 

 

What do you think?  I kind of think it is a no-brainer now that I see it, but I’d like your opinion.  These blocks are not sewn together so it isn’t a huge deal to go either way.

Janet

Book reports and Easy Street

What have I been up to?  Well DH and I took a whirlwind trip to Prince George (approximately 1600 km) so we could see his sister and two nieces and a nephew prior to Christmas.  We decided to take the bus – way cheaper price and not much longer time wise.  The trip down was great.  We had seats to ourselves most of the way and I read and slept.  We had three and a half days in Prince George and were due to leave on December 21st at 11 pm to arrive home in the very early morning of the 23rd. 

Well coming home was a typical Christmas travel time night mare. The bus was 2 1/2 hours leaving and we were about three blocks from the bus station when the driver announced that he had no high beams and no speedometer and he was going back to the station.  We spent the night on the bus sleeping while waiting to see if a) the bus would get fixed, b) there would be and alternate bus or c) there would be some other solution.  Over the course of the night we were told a) the bus would not be easily fixed, b) we could take the morning bus 1/3 of the way and would have priority seating on it, c) if we took the morning bus then there would be a bus that we could take to the 1/2 way point and d) there would be no bus going all the way to Whitehorse until the next scheduled one that was to leave Christmas Eve at 11 p.m. 

So we went back and spent the day at my s-i-l’s and were fortunately able to get out on a plane that evening – both to Vancouver and then up to Whitehorse.  We were supposed to have two hours between planes but the first plane was late and we had about twenty minutes to traverse the whole length of the airport to the gate for the second plane.  We did make it though and got home at 1:30 in the morning. 

The next day DH got us a little tree.

We spent Christmas Eve at DD # 1’s home in Whitehorse, had a mad present opening session the next morning, then went home for Christmas evening.  On Boxing Day we had our big family meal with twelve attending and a ton of food. 

I did read four books over the last week and here are my reviews. (All photos from Amazon).

This book is in Mr. Grisham’s usual style.  An easy read, interesting, well written but not too deep.  It gave me a much clearer picture of how litigation works in the US of A.  Worth reading.

 

 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgensten.  The book is about a night circus and all the magic and mystery it holds.  The first 7/8ths of the book are fascinating as the circus and it’s many fabulous offerings are richly detailed and the story line is intricately woven.  I found the ending to be a let down.  It felt like the author just got tired of the story and wrapped the whole thing up in a few short words just to have it done.  I read this on my e-reader but would have liked a hard copy so I could easily go back and check dates and places. It is set in the 1800s. Worth reading.

I listened to this book on tape while I worked on my Easy Street blocks one afternoon.  It is a mystery story with a female heroine who solves the case.  Well written and gutsy it is a fun book to read.  I definitely will be looking for more in the series.

 

The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay was a fantastic read of the “don’t want to put it down” variety.  Set in the 1800s in New York it follows the plight of one young girl from the poor side of town. The writing is wonderful – making you feel like you are there at that time and place.  Ms McKay explains how she got the idea for the book through her own family history, which makes it all the more interesting.  Definitely worth reading.

And here are my Easy Street blocks so far.  I’ve worked on Steps 1, 2 and 3 so far. 

Janet