I love to share my Quilting projects with other Quilters. My goal is to share my progress on projects that I am working on. I would love for you to follow along with me during my endeavors. I hope you enjoy watching me tackle new techniques and projects. Hopefully you can learn from my "hiccups" and mistakes and make your journey easier.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and that everyone had a great Christmas. We spent 7 days in Rockport, Texas enjoying the time sitting on the balcony of our Suite and enjoying time on the Pier just watching the Pelicans and fishing boats. I do believe that starting Monday all of South Texas had converged on little ole’ Rockport! We left one day early! The weather was warm (too warm for me) but then again this is a La Nino season and due to the lack of rain for the last couple of months, it will be a horrific Cedar Fever Season! The count today is 28,000 plus. During this time when the count gets this high I cannot get out and walk – boo hoo!
Here are my finishes for 2021 which consists of my UFO’s from 2001 thru 2020, I either finished the tops or finished quilting older quilt tops. A total of 21 UFOs! Stars Around the Garden, and buttons for Dresden Heaven are ready to complete. If we had not taken the 2 vacations in the last 40 days I would have been completely finished with the last 2 UFOs. But that is the way the cookie crumbles when one is ‘de-stressing’.
Wall HangingBaby QuiltStars Around the Garden MedallionSurrounding blocks for Stars Around the GardenOMIGOSHSweet StitchesJacobean ChristmasRed, White and Blue Log CabinAspen GoldIndian summer Wall HangingThru Grandmother’s WindowSashiko Wall HangingAutum LeavesStonefieldsDresden Plates waiting for Button Centers!Land That I Love SALColor Wheel Wall Hanging First Cross Stitch PatternBoo’s and Bat’s (Border is going to be changed)Terricina – A Long Forgotten and Sent Away Project!After 6 Years – A Bountiful Life!
I have not decided on my 2022 projects, but I know I will be doing Cross Stitch, Knitting, Embroidery, Hand Quilting (hopefully) and piecing some new quilts, but not sure yet which ones and when. I do know that I WILL NOT set any self inflicted deadlines for anything nor do anything that has a hard deadline. I plan on having a stress free 2022 just doing what I feel like doing each day. (But I have to remember that I am not in control of life). Of course I will try to set a few goals once I start on some of my projects, but nothing like I have been doing in the past 20 years of quilting.
My Longarm Quilter is ready to take 8 quilts off my hands which leaves me about 10 to quilt. Evidently there will be a lot of binding done this year. I do hope to feel up to the task of working on my longarm this year and quilting some of the backlog of quilts. !
Again, have a wonderful New Year and enjoy and love life!
Good Monday morning! The weather has been more like winter for the week-end, overcast, rain and cold. Now we will have summer again for a week or so. Looks like a cooler New Year’s Eve. We will be playing in the sun and warm weather for awhile soon. Looking forward to it. We have had only had approximately 6 days of sunshine since we arrived home last month from the coast. I am certainly looking forward to getting my nice tan back. It looks like it might be more cloudy than sun shine at home this winter and we are in a roller coaster ride as far as cool, cold, hot, and hotter. Oh well, maybe next year.
I reached a milestone and goal last night!!!! Of the 2 UFOs left over from previous years (Dresden Heaven and A Bountiful Life) I completed A Bountiful Life was last night. Thank goodness for football! Lesson learned the hard way. Because there was not a pattern for my border I got the brainy idea to put the border on, trace the vine, and then add the leaves and flowers. I do NOT recommend doing appliqued borders this way to anyone. But all I wanted was to get this one done, and it is. It would have gone much faster if I had just done the applique on 4 sections of the border, then joined the vines, etc. But I love to learn lessons the hard way! LOL. I started this project in 2015 or 2016, did not make the 20 blocks and very glad that I did not. I call it DONE!
A Bountiful Life 2021
I finished Dresden Plates a couple of months ago, but had another brainy idea to do buttons instead of the tiny circles – Lazy and another big mistake. The quilt is completed, but now in order to reach all the blocks to add the buttons it will require me taking a couple of rows apart to reach the blocks……DUH. One thing I hope for 2022 is that I lose the stupid ideas and really get back on track on working on my new projects. We shall see!
I am adding Counted Cross Stitch to my hobby list. I ordered all the supplies and patterns that I need to start. I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop Cross Stitch Newsletter which led me to a free pattern and their YouTube classes on cross stitching. Great site! I find that the hand work is so relaxing for me at this time. I will be taking cross stitch, knitting, and sashiko projects to work on while we sit on the our balcony and listen to the water rush to shore. No need for books!
I will also take some time while we are enjoying the peacefulness of the area to really think about and decide on how I will divide my time working on my hobbies in 2022. I really have too many things I want to accomplish and I must prioritize them in a workable schedule (not binding of course) I want to establish ”wish goals” for my projects, no more hard and fast deadlines for the quilts I need to quilt either. I have been in touch with the longarm quilter who will take care of 8 or 9 of my quilt tops and that leaves me with the smaller projects that I know I can get completed. I just need to be in the mood. I have finished all my UFOs from previous years with the exception of getting the quilt tops quilted. So even though it took me longer to reach the goal I had set, I am happy that I stuck to my goal.
In January, I think I will go back and post all that I have accomplished this year – that always makes a quilter happy!
Again, I wish all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Be happy and hang in there only 3 more years of you know who!
For the last two weeks I have been working hard to design a quilt from the Terracina fabric collection that I purchased about 2 or 3 years ago, click here. After 2 weeks of trying to work with fabrics that do not like me (YES AGAIN), I mailed them to my FaceTime quilting buddy who keeps me on the straight and narrow path of life for her Christmas. I am hoping that she enjoys the fabrics. When a project is no longer fun, it is time to get pass it on. So I did. This is the only picture that I have remaining of the progress I made before throwing in the towel! I cannot tell you how nice it is to share! LOL.
Unnamed Medallion Quilt
The rest of December I will be working on leaves for A Bountiful Life and Dresden Heaven Buttons quilts and just MAYBE I will have them finished by the end of the year. But if I do not get them done, then they move to January 2022! I want to prepare a new embroidery project along with a cross stitch project to take along on our next mini vacation!
The Longarm Quilter I spoke with this summer will be starting to work on my backlog of quilts in January – and I need to work on the few tops that I will be responsible for to quilt. All in all, 2022 is beginning to look like a great year for Clay and I and if I can continue to just enjoy the projects that I love working on I will be fine. Even at 77 we can learn how to do things differently with some small changes in our lives.
This year I have learned that I no control over anything other than enjoying a quiet life with Clay. I am happy to be back to my daily walking at the 30 minutes doing that 20 minute mile and throwing in another 1/2 mile for good measure. I am blessed that I am healthy (unless the Echocardiogram shows something unexpected on Wednesday). If I make a resolution this coming New Year, it will be to not worry about the weather, or other problems that I have no control over. This includes the idiots controlling this country. I keep up with the headlines knowing full well that this Nation is in a horrible place and only God knows if America can survive the next year until the 2022 election, which could stop the craziness. We shall see.
I will not be posting or spending a lot of time on the computer the rest of this month as I want to relax and not set any goals for myself at this time – it is now a NO-STRESS life that I am striving for. I guess you could call that a goal for living. Rockport is in the near future and we are so looking forward to the trip again. We love staying at The Lighthouse!
I will now wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and may you have a blessed 2022. In reality I feel that 2024 will be the best year for all of us. Take care, enjoy your families and the gift of life from God. Celebrate the birth of Jesus!
Have a great rest of December 2021 and enjoy stitching!
Happy Monday – This morning when I walked it was 71 with 99% humidity – about 10 the cool front arrived and it is now 63 with 56% humidity. I should have waited to walk! LOL! I would love to see our weather settle into 30’s at night and 60’s during the day, but concerned that this winter will be called “the seesaw or up and down” winter. Not my favorite.
New Project: Last December Kay England started a program called Medallion Mastery. I signed up for the project, but was unable to start a quilt with the group. I kept the project on the top of the stack of “want to do” because I love Medallion quilts and have always wanted to design my own. Kaye is an absolute hoot to watch and listen to she has been around a long time in the quilting world. So, last week was the week for me to start on a Medallion quilt. I watched and listened to her video’s and rejoined her Facebook group. There are some beautiful Medallion quilts that were done last year. The cost of the program was $30.00 and well worth it. I also subscribed to YouTube videos in order to download all of her the sessions .
This is my journey in attempting to start from scratch and design a Medallion quilt. I started looking for fabric (not in a store but in my stash) that I would use and found my Terracina fabric sitting in a drawer that I had purchased a couple years ago. When I purchased it (probably on sale) I purchased 4 fat quarter bundles, 2 Layer Cakes (never buy them), and 2 Jelly Rolls (never buy them either). One thing that I did not realize that each fat quarter bundle had a Panel included! Talk about an over kill on this purchase!
I started out with the Panel, added a 1/2″ batik blue border, and a 2 3/4″ gold screen print border. I knew that the center was off an inch, but was hoping to find a way to get it squared.
PROBLEM 1. Not Square – 29″ Long – 28″ wide
Then, hoping that it would work out, I tried some HSTs for the next border.
PROBLEM 2. Tried HSTs in a lighter color-UGH
Then I tried different color HSTs. That did not work out either – remember I was off an inch between the length and width.
PROGLEM 3. Nice colors, but could not make it work (Squaring Problem)
Next step – back to the drawing board (Note, I never draw a picture of where I am going in the quilting process my drawing pad and pencil are in my head) as I knew I had to deal with how to get this thing squared. I also got Clay involved in the problem as I figured 2 heads would be better than one since mine had air in it for a couple of days this week (oops ate some gluten)!
PROBLEM – Time to totally start over!
The way I resolved the issue was to take off 1/2′ blue border, trim the top and bottom gold border by 1/2″ and I then had a square Center working great! I added a 2 1/2″ strip from the Jelly Roll fabric. This time the quilt told me I was on the right track.
NO PROBLEMS – Squared and new filler border
As of Sunday, this is where I am now. All squared, with only 2 borders and ready to go for the 3rd border, which is going to be a surprise to me also!
I spent the entire week working on this project. Once I figured out how to take care of the squaring problem, things fell in place! I am happy with the outcome so far!
Rockport Texas: When we were in Rockport I visited Sew By The Bay quilt store. Darleen was so much fun to visit with. The day before we left I went back and came home with some goodies (like I really needed any fabric).
Sew By The Bay
When I first walked into the store, I saw a quilt hanging on the wall that I was intrigued with. This designer produces post card size patterns for $2.99 and the patterns are quick and easy to make. The one that was on the wall was made with some fabrics that I would have never selected but Darleen told me how she achieved the look of the quilt and I was hooked!
The Post Card Pattern
I purchased the top piece from an online store after I returned home because Darleen was out of the color, but the next two were purchased at Darleen’s store. I enjoy helping out our Brick and Mortar stores whenever I visit one. The two bubble print fabrics are gradated fabrics. The way the pattern is made you would never know that the quilt was made from the bubble/wild fabrics. The blue batik was the fabric that first caught my eye. I wanted to use it in another project for 2022.
Brown, Black and GreyBrown to Green’sHoffman Batik gradation from Dark Blue to Light Blue (for Alaska quilt)
Oh My Stars: Rockport is in our future plans again – this time for a longer stay and we are prepared to have a closer look at things. Clay purchased some Astronomy Binoculars so we can enjoy looking at Stars, Planets, and the Moon from our balcony. Of course this will mostly include watching the Shrimp boats coming and going out to the Aransas Bay for the catch of the day.
The Binoculars are 20/80 mmThe Binoculars has the capability to attach our iPhone to take pictures or videos, etc For a perspective of how powerful they are, the white dot in the woods is what you see on the iPhone.
We have been watching Centennial a 1979 mini-series made for television. It was quite interesting but I am glad that one is over with. Makes me yearn for the past times in our lives where things were more simple.
For an update on my hand stitching projects check out my HQAL post if you have not read it yet. I have a ‘beautiful’ EKG (words straight from the Doctor’s mouth) with no issues, just some idiot giving me Fentanyl during the RF treatment and then a Large Dose of Anxiety. Easy to cure – fire the Doctor and get rid of stress, of which I have!
Have a great week and enjoy life and stitching. We have a new year coming to your town soon along with Santa Clause in just 19 days!
Great morning to all. I am enjoying life again because it is so nice to not have any deadlines, etc., to greet me each day. My walking goal has been reached and unless I can turn 51 again, I must be happy with my 1.5 miles, 30 minute walk each morning. I will say that I am very upset with Mother Nature, who it appears is not happy with me. It feels like a hot humid July morning when walking the last 6 days. Today we will have a cool front and tomorrow it will be about 45 when I walk. Different from the 70 and 99% humidity the last few days! I am grateful that at my age I can do this daily exercise for the body and my brain.
Speaking of the body – I visited my new Cardiologist (I guess everyone by age 77 should meet and greet one) and he said I have a beautiful EKG, sees no problems, but I will have an Echocardiogram on the 15th of December. He indicated that he guaranteed that 99% it would be perfect! The low heart rate drop last month was attributed to the Fentanyl that the idiot gave me during my RF Procedure. I have now fired the Doctor and will either stop those treatments altogether or find another Doctor if I need one.
So I am ending my 2021 year heathy, wealthy (except when we go to the grocery store or gas for the vehicles) and definitely more wiser! I am realizing that I cannot solve the problems of the world and cannot fix other’s problems. I leave those things to God as I have a life to live and enjoy.
Now on to the things at hand – hand work. I have been working a on the 2 hand projects that I am trying to finish before the end of the year. I have reached the half-way point with leaves on A Bountiful Life. The blank spaces will be where the flowers go and you can see I am not flooding the border with leaves as I do not want to detract from the 9 blocks. My goal is to have this one done by the 20th of December.
A Bountiful Life Border
The other hand work was a dish cloth. This is the pattern, Honeycomb, that I had tried before but not successful in able to really do it without mistakes. This one is coming along great. Last month I finished my green one and this one should be done in the next week. We need to watch more football!
Honeycomb Pattern
As far as hand work goes, this is all I have accomplished. I am working on another project during the day in the Studio that I am thoroughly enjoying and that will be in my next post!
Have a great week and have a good laugh on this little short video.
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piercers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 