Saturday, December 24, 2022

My creative week, hat's off to you! Bound for a finish next week ( hopefully)

 

Ho Ho Ho.... mama made us Christmas caps! I don't like my ears touched but love her!

well, y'all it's something, right? I followed a pattern,(originally found at (https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ )found yarn in the stash, the right size hooks and finished something!

https://traversebaycrochet.com/2020/12/19/crochet-family-santa-hat/


 DH's hat was made with green yarn, with some stripes to make the green go farther. I used some "wool ease" because it was worsted weight and wool should be warm except crochet leaves big holes compared to knitting. 


 I have crocheted since I taught myself from a book in college. 

I love the ease and speed of it, so this was fun, and I learned a new stitch. I admit I didn't love the instructions on this pattern but am grateful it was free. I ended up watching a youtube tutorial on the crochet bead stitch and that made it easy. 

it's a neat edge treatment






I used a smaller hook to make this one and it fits better
a cup of green tea, a quilted border with binding ready, and a hat

I continuously worked on the bed sized Christmas quilt this week but sadly didn't reach the goal of finishing it.... I developed ways to make it, and am on my way to a finish though.

the quilted block sections sewn together before borders went on, just to give you an idea of the fun back!

Since I quilted the whole thing in sections I could use stash fabrics for backing, it's fun I think. 

top stitch binding to back, so that stitching falls next to the binding onto border fabric on front

 

the steps to making the borders is to piece fabric for top and backing, sandwich these with the three layers meeting exactly along the edge to be bound, quilting it all, putting on the binding and sewing that down to the back leaving tails to be joined in the final hooray

hand sewing the flap to cover seam on back after adding two quilted sections

 

sew the finished border to one side of the quilt with a quarter inch seam, keeping that flap out of the way for covering the seam by hand

clip sections together, move flap out of way, to sew the quarter inch seam

 

doing all that times four

then the last part will be joining the binding strips. 

I have two borders finished, on the quilt, hand work done to cover the joining seam

I love that I don't have to wrestle the whole thing at the end to add binding. The hand sewing takes about 4 times longer to do than I thought it would, the borders finish at 6" wide and they are bulky to hold while sewing that final flap in place.

I am now going into the white triangles around the edge, and quilting a double line of stitching on them, so that's a lot of stop and start and wrestling but then I think it's going to be ready to share finally. 


ready to add the next border, then handwork to cover seam, then join binding

I know few people want to see a Christmas quilt after Christmas, but this has been a journey and I need to share it with y'all. The original blocks, were started as octagons last year, with special fabrics, then scraps sewn to them pineapple style til I got a big 12 in block. This year I thought I left enough time to finish it but it's worn me out! 

Still, I love it! 

I've used my fabrics, I'm going to enjoy seeing them used. It is large enough to display on the King sized bed, but take it off before Milo gets his paws on it!

saw this colorful board game on amazon.... good game for quilt groups

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B084D2XQ9F?ref=em_1p_4_im&ref_=pe_27541400_690344200&th=1

linking with:

patchwork Sunday       

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

 slow stitching Sundays        
https://myblog-lunchbreak.blogspot.com/ 


Thursday, December 22, 2022

I Like Thursday # 329 ... traditions!

ornament love.... fancy dog

 welcome to this week's list of likes

starting with cold weather.... crazy cold of - 10 F. Good thing I like cold, but it rebounds in a few days back to mid 50's

Reading

I have enjoyed several audio books this week... well two of them bored me from the start and I returned them. The third one seemed slow and I nearly returned it until I remembered it was recommended by the author who's book I last loved....

 

I'm so glad I gave it a chance, I'm smitten with the characters.... wonderful women who all live in the same house.... become close friends, go on a road trip like I do road trips... stopping at every quirky ball of twine and giant sunflower painting along the slow road! Touching, humorous, life affirming

 Crocheting

yep, my santa hat is done! I had a skein of red yarn, the right size hook, and used to crochet ALL the time before I learned quilt making. It was so much fun... more on Saturday's post

Our prompt this week is traditions.... what are your Christmas, or Hanuka traditions around this time of year? 

My childhood traditions were to wake to a magical scene of gifts and sparkling tree, and being the youngest who's sisters were married by the time I was 6 or so, I was free to open what I wanted and play with things as long as the mother was there when I came into the living room. 

Before Christmas we always went downtown to tour the wonder bread factory, where they gave us each a tiny perfect loaf of soft freshly baked bread. Seems odd now but that's what we did. 

One year the city brought in snow to our part of Florida and I remember how weird it felt to my little hands and bare legs. 

Christmas Trees - State trees that encircle the National C… | Flickr

When DH and I moved to the Annapolis area of Maryland, we started a lot of traditions. His company required employees take the week off between Christmas and New years, so we went into DC several times to the Smithsonian museums, art galleries, and at night we went to tour the nation's Christmas trees sent from each state. It always felt so special with the lights, and our dog Cole loved going down and walking so much, seeing all the people and romping on the Mall. 

I've been to candlelight services before, even at the National cathedral. We always made time to have dinner in Baltimore's little Italy at Amici's and left with special cookies from Vaccaro's, walked around the harbor watching people and seeing the lights.There was a famous street in Hampden where we went to gawp at the displays in Baltimore too

HAMPDEN CHRISTMAS STREET HOLIDAY SHOW - 179 Photos & 55 Reviews - 700 W  34th St, Baltimore, MD - Yelp

I miss it.... we must still be away from people because of risk, here in CO. We never made a tradition here, and do not feel like we fit in at all. I guess if we do anything it's watch movies and binge watch shows, eat too many cookies, drink more wine and beer, and maybe this year home made Baileys. 

 

loved this quote on my Cup of Jo newsletter, which is awesome by the way. Here's a list of the funniest scenes from shows: https://cupofjo.com/2022/01/11/what-comedy-scenes-do-you-love/

when I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favored child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important.” — Katherine May

Watching on youtube

Please watch this wonderful video.... wish our family was as well behaved...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhg7Xm4FXAY
 

feel lonely during the holidays? I loved this video and if you click on "show more" before the comment section she has movies books and a youtube playlist for entertaining yourself when you feel left out. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odsoJbA3gCY

Milo's Moments

Milo here.... yes I'm the poor poodle who has to wear a crooked coat Mama made without a pattern. This is her hidey hole... where she spends a lot of time. I come in to nudge her to come outside and enjoy throwing a ball and chasing me around. Sometimes she actually listens to me. On this day I came in and whoa!!! things had been moved. I notice those things! 

Mama: yes I'm working on an enormous quilt, and Daddy moved my machine so I could use the cabinet 

Milo: well, I can't believe you let him touch it, you don't let me touch anything in here!

Mama: well, he seldom eats anything in here, or licks it, or shakes snot on it.

Milo: yes, I have to teach him how to enjoy life more! 

now please visit these fine folks to read about their traditions and happy lists. Please let me know if you wrote a post I can add in the link...





Saturday, December 17, 2022

my creative week.... drawing, quilting, coping

Welcome to this week's creativity round up, where I've been obsessed with finishing this big bed quilt!

I took time each day this week to listen to the lectures sent by Art Apothecary, on ways to be more creative, and the health benefit to making art. Pictures to follow on the above quilt but allow me to share one little drawing exercise meant to encourage your own wisdom and inner muse.

we were to think of a question or problem to solve. write it down. choose a color to begin (red was mine) close our eyes and just scribble. Then choose the next color crayon (purple) close eyes and make marks, choose another color (magenta for me) close eyes and make marks, then a fourth color (gold) close eyes and make another mark. Then start to look for meaning in colors... how do you feel about that color, for me red meant chaos, purple meant spiritual, magenta represented fun, and gold was for growth. 

next ask what those lines represent to you... and this was harder. scribbles chaos or the problem, for me it's all our neighbors infringe on peace our space disturb us continually and don't care about anyone but themselves. I resent them causing us to wake up at night, their smoke fires, their loudness and not being able to stop them. Purple circular lines felt to me like prayer covering the problems. Like our spirit is bigger than the problem, or might encapsulate the problems. Magenta in a sort of boundary is the effort to limit the effect of it on our enjoyment but how... gold in wavy solid foundation area I don't know

on to the quilting

I made all these 12" finished blocks last Christmas, octagons surrounded with christmas scraps in pineapple designs. The finished quilt will be about 72". Big to quilt on my small machine

the open cabinet takes up half the room! I listen to books on audio as I sew

...even when the cabinet back is lifted up to make more surface area. I began to think about my physical limitations seriously. 

I wear two braces for my spine, all the time. I have a meniscus tear on the left knee and a completely torn off Posterior cruciate ligament in the right knee. Since I did the diamond dots project last year, I now seem to have an upper back spasm that happens out of the blue.

 I need to take great care with movement, and pushing and pulling on a heavy quilt to make sure the stitches are perfect can cause nerve and muscle pain that last days.

but I love quilting and only have my little machine. Like many people, I have to learn to cope with injury and illness, and still keep creating. I am not happy with the quality of my quilting since I know how to do it perfectly, I now have to accept that I am not able to do as good a job as I used to. I still strive for excellence but now if I run off the seam line or over stitch doing free motion, I try to give myself grace. 

I quilted these blocks in 5 big sections then join by pulling the backing away, sewing on the regular seam line the two units to go together. I pull the backing out of the way so that when opened up, the backing can be pulled over the seam and hand stitched down.

 

backing fabric ready to hand stitch to cover the new seam
 Then I re-quilt this new seam line. I looked on line to learn how to cut a snow flake. I started with a 6" square of freezer paper, folded, cut my own template to free motion quilt around in the white sections between blocks


this quilt is 99% quilted with cotton thread, but one block got gold metallic, heh heh. 

I am loving the machinger gloves my friend Cindy said were wonderful. They truly are. Lightweight, but just the right amount of stick to move the quilt around while free motion sewing. Get some.

Yesterday I started with this, one side unit to be sewn on, hand stitched, and free motion snowflakes... it's all going MUCH slower than I thought since I've done this technique in the past, but I'm more injured now, grace, grace, grace.... 

scrappy backing sections too!

I have a Horn sewing cabinet that is narrow when the back is down, but when it's put up like it is now, it gives me support of a bigger quilt. DH removed my machine so I could have a flat surface for the tedious hand stitching of this last seam before quilting in the ditch, and snowflakes. 

the snoop-ervisor came in to inspect the changes to my room

I'm thinking this vintage red with gold swirls would make a fine border also because I have the yard and half required to do the border! lol I plan to quilt the borders before joining too, by necessity. I might bind them first if I can figure out how to join striped binding after the whole thing is together, I barely have enough to do it. 

I love sewing with scraps because you never know what will show up!!! 

I used to enter competitions like Paducah, Houston, etc. It's hard to lose control over the machine now like where I ran off the rails above, but I'm in a new place in my life and must remember to show myself kindness too.

do any of you have to cope with injuries that interrupt the creative process? 

I was part of a research paper written on that problem years ago, by a doctoral candidate in S. Africa

Sylvia's Stitches: Merry Christmas!

happy arting to all!

patchwork Sunday       

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

 slow stitching Sundays