Design Wall Monday

I hope no one's getting tired of Grandma's Scrap Bag yet.  I knew I would like it, but I think I like how it looks even better as I progress through each step towards completion.

I'm at the same point I was yesterday after spending only 6/10ths of an hour working on it.  I do have a new picture though of just part of the rows that are done.  I have nine rows complete.  They are pinned to the design wall identifying each row with an orange sticky note.  Orange is not my favorite color.  Maybe that's why Autumn is not my favorite season.  As for seasons, Autumn falls at 3 of 4 with Summer being the least favorite.  Perhaps if I lived elsewhere, my favorites could change, but here, Spring is my favorite with Winter in solid second place. Don't you love rabbit trails? Back to the quilt, I'm really looking forward to getting the top done, even if it then remains on the UFO shelf.  I'm thinking 2014 will be a year to process the UFO's, in the meantime, I'm creating UFOs and loving it.

And though there is a fair amount of orange in this quilt, it blends in nicely with all the other colors so I don't mind it too much.  I really like the crispness of how this quilt looks with its bright white background and all the cheery repros. 

I think I'll spend some more time on it yet this afternoon, or this evening.  Dinner will be easy, I'm just making hotdogs.  I usually saute some onion as neither Marty or I like the raw onion much these days.  And I have a can of Bush's barbecue beans so will have them too.  I resisted grabbing a bag of chips while at the store this morning...that's a good thing...I have little control when there's an open bag in the house.

Cumberland Mountain went home to its intended recipient, my friend Lois, yesterday.  She was very pleased and enjoyed pointing out the fabrics that she had at one time made clothing and other items from.  As I may have said before, she was decluttering a number of years ago....like seven!....and brought me all her fabric remnants/scraps of which some was still decent yardage pieces.  I tested for cotton and most were, and those are the ones I used in the quilt adding only a handful from my own stash for some color pop & variety and then purchasing the fabric for the borders, binding and backing.  She was very happy, and we had a nice couple of hours to just sit back and chat awhile.  She's a faithful friend.

I'm just one more busy quilter, adding my show-and-tell efforts to Judy's link-ups at Patchwork Times.  Thanks for dropping in.

Oh For The Love of Scrappiness!

There's one thing I don't like about scrappy quilts! Yes, there really is.  Oh, alright, the problem is not with the scrappy quilts.  It's with my obsessive compulsiveness to have order.  I can't put that one there, it's right next to the same color, no, and that one's next to the same fabric, and no, there are too many of this color in this quarter, or this row, or....you get the picture.  Do you struggle with that in scrappy quilts too?  That need to compulsively control what goes where?  And isn't part of the fun of scrappy to just have whatever land wherever?

Well, I have Grandma's Scrap Bag (GSB) now pinned to the design wall.  Did I say pinned, yes I did.  That's what I did last night....I found a way to nail the styro-foam-like base of my design wall to the wall without it pulling off the nails.  

When Marty redid this room, he replaced drywall.  When replacing drywall, there's this gridded tacky 'tape' that covers the seams.  The roll of this stuff was still in the hallway on a cruddy shelf unit that was used for all the tools and odds and ends he used.  The grids are close enough that a nail with a head on it won't pull through, and so I took that stuff, tacky enough to stay put but not so tacky to not be able to pull it off and reposition - a bit like a sticky note - and placed it on both sides of the styro-insulation sheet, then nailed it to the wall.  It works perfectly! Which makes me very happy :) You can see parts of the grid tape, it's that yellow piece on either side about half way down.  My wall is from four pieces of styro-insulation, actually two, but to get them home, we had to cut them in half to put them in the Highlander or they'd have been blowing around town for days had we attempted to tie them to the roof rack.

Here's a shot of the pieces as currently pinned.  And you know what?  I don't think I'll move anything around.  I'll just take them off row by row from top to bottom (as it's turned sideways on the wall), and number the rows.  The small image lets my eyes see things better and it doesn't seem that there's any real imbalance anywhere.  Even on the wall up close, it seems pretty good.

And do you remember wayyy back when, in April, when I finished Cumberland Mountain, the quilt for my friend Lois.  And the only quilt I've finished all year.  Well, just today (embarrassingly), I finally got the label on it and laundered it so that it can really be given to her as soon as I can arrange a time to meet with her.  It's folded lengthwise to fit over a pants hanger just to make sure it's completely dry before folding up and putting into a presentation box.  It feels really good to finally get that part done; it's been a weight on my shoulders since I finished the quilt.

Tomorrow, 11:00 PDT is the memorial service for my friend Panda's husband.  There'll be a reception afterward, and I'm sure it'll be a well-attended service.  Panda herself was very involved in our women's ministries for many years and her husband was a CPA so I'm sure had many friends and clients who wish to pay their last respects.  They were also active in their fellowship group.  We celebrate his home-going, knowing he is there rejoicing and worshiping the Lord, yet those who remain and knew him well, loved him well, are feeling the pain of their own loss of this man.  I had only met him casually a couple of times, so am not directly feeling the loss of him, but I am feeling the pain of knowing my friend is now without her spouse and best friend, one whom she had every reason to believe would be around much longer, yet at the same time knowing that God has numbered, counted our days for each of us before we were ever knit together in the womb (ref. Psalm 139). 

UFO Progress

Judy's having us link up on our UFO progress this week, and if you've kept up with my few posts this week, you'll know that I was almost finished with Cumberland Mountain, a quilt I started in Sept 2006 and had last worked on in Jan 2009.  I am very happy to report it is finished.  Here now are some photos of the finished UFO quilt :)

Getting a true daylight sunlit photo with my wonderful helpers, Marty and Nick.

Laid out on a double-bed for size reference.  It works as either a coverlet, a large lap blanket, or something to drape over the sofa.

Mom, what? This wasn't made for me? 

It feels so very good to have a finish.  I've updated my Gallery, my 2012 UFO List, and my UFO Parade tabs to reflect my finish.  I didn't list it in my Get It Done 2013 tab so no update there.  Now, what to work on next?  I'm really dragging my feet on that one because I really, really want to work on some of my newer UFO's or start more new projects (I need an April NewFO, still time!), but I still have at least a half-dozen  other 2006 starts that need to be finished. I haven't sewn since I finished Cumberland Mountain, so really need to get moving.

Stash Report - Week 16

FINALLY, I have a finish this week (month, year, decade, lol).  OK, decade is probably a bit of an overstatement, but let's face it, it has been a very long time since I've had an all-the-way-done FINISH.  

When my friend Lois gave me all the fabric she no longer wanted from her years of clothing and what-not projects, I'd laundered it all, fiber tested and tallied up the yardage and pieces and it equated to over 52 yards!  That's a lot of fabric to give away, so I decided I'd make her a quilt.  That was in September 2006.  It only took me 6.5 years to get it done.  Yikes!

We've been friends since the early to mid-90's and have spent many hours (in the past) hiking, back-packing, camping, camp-cooking and enjoying God's Creation on numerous outings.  Many of the fabrics depict the outdoors so it makes a great memory quilt for her.  These days, she still gets out more than I do for these outings.  Lois also house and pet sits for us if Marty and I are gone any part of the summer at the same time. 

Used This Week: 10.25 yards
Used Year to Date: 10.25 yards
Added This Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 14.625 yards
Net Used for 2013: -4.375 yards 

Head over to Patchwork Times and how others have done this week. 

Gettin' Close

To having a finish!  And here's the proof:

Since both Marty and my camera were at hand, I had Marty snap a shot of me working on the quilt I'm finishing up for my friend Lois.  My fingers are so out of shape and are a bit sore.  I use these in lieu of a thimble:

I really like them as they do help keep my middle fingertip from getting tender from the eye end of the needle as I push it through the fabric.  Mostly sore is my thumb and index finger from gripping the needle to pull it through.

I'm guessing I have about an hour's worth of hand-stitching and I can call it finished, which means, I WILL have something to report as 'stash out' in tomorrow's stash report.  I haven't yet added a label, and will have to think of what I want to write on it for my friend, something like 'better late than never....' maybe?

September...and October UFO

OK, I will get this right this time.  Meaning: When linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times UFO Challenge I've found myself posting for the new month's selection rather than the progress on the month just ending.  So, having clarified that in my mind and on paper blog media, Here's the progress on September's selection:   

     #11.  (My #023) - Rooster: 100% hand project: 4 blocks finished, 2 to go, then to be backed, quilted, binding. Status:  Made progress on block #5 above, the Dresden Plate, getting the 'plate' done but not attached to the background fabric or getting the center circle added.  

Now, for October it's this one:

    
      6.   #022 - Cumberland Mountain: it's partially quilted but I quit working on it because I wasn't happy with how the quilting was going, so I need to either finish with what I was doing or remove some of the quilting and re-do where I didn't like it. 

This quilt is for my friend Lois.  She house sits and feeds cats and waters plants for us during the summer when both Marty and I might be gone at the same time.   One summer when I returned from my trip to the northern wet land, she said she was trying to de-clutter some things from her small one-bedroom apartment and knew I quilted, so she gave me several bags of fabric, not all quilt-worthy, as she sewed clothing, but still quite a haul for my stash!  With that in mind, and how she is always willing to be helpful to us, I decided I'd make her this quilt. The pattern's name (I'll have to get the details when I can get it off the closet shelf.) and the lightning design are what drew me to this one as she had/has an ancestor/relatives in that locale.  All but the background fabric and I think one other, the green trees there at the bottom edge, were from the fabrics she gave to me.  I had planned to finish it that year, but it's now been several and she has a birthday coming up in November...can I get a finish of at least one UFO this year?  All I can say is, "I will try."