It is finished!!!

Ready for the big finish? I am SO glad to have this all finished and in the mail. I got to open my own package today. It is incredible! Here are lots of pictures.



It's way too big to hold up, even if I had someone here at the time. That's our king sized bed it is spread out on. Six of us added borders to Judy's center of purple bowties. Mine is the last border of roses.







Gonna be a gorgeous quilt! I could hardly bear to pack it up and mail it. Well no, that's not true. I was glad to have it done, so I could see mine!



Isn't it gorgeous! I was just speechless when I first spread it out to look at it. There are wild geese flying in the sky, wonderful bears all over the place, really neat pinecones, happy fish swimming up a waterfall, goofy seagull hieroglyphics that seem to spell out my name, even a beautiful mariner's compass as a north star. Everything is just exquisitely done!



Mariner's compass/North star.



Happy fish swimming up stream.



Wild Geese in the night sky.



Very cool pinecones.



Fishing bear.



Silly seagulls.

So what do you think? It's been quite a day for me. Judy is now counting the hours until her package gets there. I can't wait to hear how she likes it! I'm tired and need to knit! G'night friends!

Roses are growing!

Just a quick little post for progress watchers. Two pictures, the second one is for scale. See how big it is!

Bloomin' Crazy!

All quilters are crazy, you know that don't you? I mean, they buy big chunks of perfectly good fabric, cut it up into little pieces and sew the pieces together again. Crazy!

Well, sometimes a quilter has got to do whatever works. See, I had this perfect fabric for the rose leaves. And I cut every little bit of it. This fabric has been in my stash for at least 20 years and I owed it to myself not to waste any of it.

I'm down to piecing the last little unit I need to finish the rose blocks. Had some problems on one of the bud blocks before and had to do some cannibalizing, but I thought I was being careful not to cannibalize any of the pieces for the big roses. Well, looks like I made a big booboo with this last piece for the last leaf. It's not the right size or shape. I don't have anymore of this fabric and I can't afford to buy more even if I could find a match. What to do??

It's supposed to be a 1-5/16 inch square. What I have is a bunch of 1 x 1-1/8 inch rectangles. But there are more than 24 pieces so I decided to sew the pieces together and see what I could get out of it. What I got was 24 pieces that were 1-5/16 inch on one side and 1-1/8 inch on the other, 3/16 short on one side. This square is for a sew and flip corner. Since some of it will be cut off after it is sewn I can afford to fudge the seam a little and make it work. So, one little piece has a seam. There are already a bazillion seams in these blocks so one more won't hurt. Here's a pic of the back.



And here's a pic of the front.



And here is a pic of the TWO blocks that are finished so far. Only 22 to go!



And lastly here are my 2 roommates, at peace with one another, asleep in their cozy beds and within my reach if they need a little loving. I love a peaceful night!

Coming up roses!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter and/or Passover. Ours was quiet. We did brunch with a few family. Enjoyed the day. But I couldn't stay away from the roses!



This is where I am as of tonight. You're looking at 24 half roses, 12 are mirror image. So far (knock on wood) I've had very little trouble with the mirror image thing. Here's a close-up.



Still to do is the other half of the rose and leaves and stems underneath.

Going to bed early tonight (for me). Step brother Greg is coming over tomorrow to brush up on his sewing skills and learn to piece a quilt. I have just the machine for him and hope he will end up taking it home. He is even willing to learn to knit! He wants to make an afghan. I told him how my Dad used to knit socks, argyle no less. He misses my Dad nearly as much as I do. Gone 4 years last month. Greg's visits are always so relaxing and comfortable. We can chat about anything! He says I'm a lot like my Dad. He's so nice.

Anyway, lots to do tomorrow so I have to (ugh) get up early. Anyone want to come over and help me move sewing machines around? :o)

Getting It Together

Now you can see how the upper buds are coming together with the lower buds. Just a few more to put together and I can start on the large roses that go in between. The odd thing is that the left facing lower buds are behaving very differently from the right facing buds. No, really! See on the right facing buds how the stems line up? So far I'm having no luck to speak of getting the left facing bud stems to line up. The right facing buds just fit right together with very little fuss. Not so the left facing buds. They just seem to have a mind of their own. At this point, I don't care! Some of the buds will just have to have an attitude!

And now I am going to take a couple days off to do my taxes. Ta ta for now! :o)

Tired, but blooming

I can't believe March is nearly gone. Except for a break or 2 I have been working, eating and sleeping with my sewing machine and thousands of little pieces of fabric. I never in a million years thought that this one border on this last round robin quilt (the biggest of them all) would be such a HUGE undertaking. I've learned certain things about myself that were a bit of a shock.

1 - I can't design in a hurry anymore. This border has 2 different rosebuds. The second one was designed so badly it just couldn't be pieced. So I redesigned it but then I couldn't use most of the pieces I had already cut, and I had used most all of the fabrics that were appropriate. Ok so I am canabalizing other pieces to make do. But none of the fabrics match in the second bud. Hopefully, using the person-on-a-galloping-horse criteria, it will be alright.

2 - Mirror images really throw me for a loop! The buds pointing to the left all came out just fine the first time. The ones pointing to the right, on the other hand, always seem o get put together upside down and backwards, no matter how careful I try. And being careful and still having to undo and resew takes too much extra time! (Yes, I am whining!)

3 - I don't know if I'll ever design anything with teensy pieces again. That's sad because I was a miniature quilt specialist once upon a time. The second bud has 30 pieces, The smallest, with 1/4 inch seam allowance, is 11/16" square. I used to have eyes!!!

So, here is what is done and what still needs to be done.



Four corner squares.



48 upper buds. 24 pointing left and 24 pointing right.



24 lower buds, waiting for canabalizd pieces to make their 3rd leaf and stem, with mis-matched pinks (gallop, gallop) pointing right.



Pieces for 24 buds facing right, waiting to have some corners undone and resewed to the opposite corner, and waiting for canabalized pieces too.



And lastly the roses that go between the sets of buds. The pieces are cut and waiting. And (I think) I only have to make 24 of them! Fingers crossed and knocking on wood, they should go together just fine.

Bless Judy for her unbelievable patience!!!

Oh, and I had a really nice visit from Treadleonion Di from Tennessee. Alex made us a wonderful breakfast and we wandered around the house looking at machines and petting kitties. She had to leave WAY too soon!



She sent me the cutest cloth postcard. It has a kitty making a quilt on a treadle and there are all kinds of miniature quilts in the background and a spool button and a teensy gold scissors attached. And on the other side is a sweet message from her and the addresses and postage. Really neat! Pics later. I'm too tired to get up and take pics. Gonna pick out the stitches on these darned corners that need to be moved for a little while. Then snuggle into my wonderful bed. Nighty night!

It's February???

Wow! I can't believe it's the middle of February already! I spent January racing a knitting deadline. Got that done and discovered I have another one in mid March. But I long ago blew a deadline on the last round robin and the very nice quilter waiting for it has been so understanding and kind. This one has been SO hard!!! And if I try to rush I make the dumbest mistakes. Once this is finished I think never again. I have too many things I need to get done. For the first time in my adult life I have too many knitting UFOs!

I took down all my knitting machines this week. The poor things just aren't being used and take up so much room. And I need to set up my quilting frame and eventually start quilting a top that was given to me last year. The only reason Mom let me have it was that I promised to hand quilt it.

Anyway, I really apologize to what few readers I have for being silent for so long. I can't post pictures of the knitting-for-deadline projects because they will be published in 2 new books by Sirius Knitting (Laura Andersson) and of course she doesn't want to give anything away. As soon as I make some good progress on the round robin I'll try to come up for air and take some pics. I am dying to see how mine turned out but I can't open the package until I send this one to Judy. So you KNOW I am not procrastinating!

See y'all later. :o)

Pre Thanksgiving update

I've been beavering away at the round robin. Confessed to the group that I had designed myself into a black hole and now considered myself certifiable. I begged them not to send the men in white coats with butterfly nets. I got permission from the end recipient to put the project aside so I can make gifts for Christmas. And you know what? She isn't finished with hers either!!! She says she will have it in the mail after Thanksgiving so I will still be last. But I am relieved that I am not alone for now.

These are the only rosebuds you will see until next year. The printout behind them is what I am aiming for.



I was all ready to put the final leaf on the rosebuds when I discovered I had sewn part of the rosebuds together wrong. Moan! Groan! Drat! Drat! DRAT!!!

So I took 2 of them apart and fixed them so I would at least have two I could show. Now the whole project is neatly packed away in baggies, and all baggies in one big baggy. I am SO glad I did the press&seal packages for all the piles of pieces.

Now to get organized and start on gifts. Oh and clean up the house for Thanksgiving too. For my Canadian friends who celebrated last month, I hope it was a grand feast! And for my American friends and our valiant troops overseas, may you enjoy and find much to give thanks for.

Love and hugs until later...

Painting is finished!

Yay! Pics of the finished painting!



The new back porch. Room for a little table and chairs!



Back of the house. All those windows enclose what was the back porch in the 1920s. That's the laundry and storage area now.



The side of the house from across the street. Remember the before? Huge difference! People walking and driving by stop and say such nice things!



So much more welcoming don't you think?



The parlor looks SO much better! We must put our flag back out!



I almost had the painter talked into painting the fish scale shingles 3 different colors. Some day... :o)

I am so relieved that this is finally done. No more feeling embarrassed. No more telling people to look for the house with all the peeling paint. I'm so happy!

And last, but not least, 4 finished bluebird corner blocks for the last round robin border. There are 4 pinks in the rose, from pale to dark. But my pale pink is too pale. I outline stitched the pale pink parts so it shows the rose better. But I've cut all new pale pink pieces for the rest of the border. Gotta find some little black buttons for the birds' eyes. Progress!

Press-n-Seal

This is my Press-n-Seal method of keeping quilt pieces organized while cutting a bazillion pieces in a house full of kitties. Each stack of pieces has a number on top of it on a piece of sticky note paper. Works good! Here is a close up of one of the groups.

Better late than never!

Hi folks! I meant to do this last night but my upgraded software wouldn't talk to my old camera. All fixed today so here ya go!

First, Here are some pics of what the kitties gave Alex on Father's Day. Alex loves it! He has had his morning tea in it everyday since he got it.





Isn't it cute? I want one with an orange tabby. It could say something like, "I'm just here to dispense catnip." or "I'm just here to be a lap." Are ya listening Hallmark?

I just received the last Round Robin quilt to work on. It's already queen sized! The originator says she doesn't care how big it gets so... hope she has a king size bed! Here's the pic that was sent to me before it arrived in the mail.



What you can't see is that there are lots of 3-D flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies, buttons, beads, rutching, flapping wings. Whew! This one is really gonna stretch me. Here are some close-ups of the details.





I'm thinking it needs some kitties outside the fence. Kitties gotta chase butterflies don't they? And we might need a mouse or 2 and maybe some more flowers. All on some pretty green backgrounds, I think. Any other ideas?

Finally got Virtual PC and EQ5 on eBay for a very good deal. Can't wait to play with it and use it for designing instead of Photoshop.

I have 3 more boxes of yarn to wind too. Pictures will follow. My hands are aching to knit!. I have 2 pairs of socks to finish and my Snoopy's Crayons shrug. And I need to get started on my Mom's vest. It's a Japanese style vest from Folk Vests. I think I finally have the right yarn! (Yeah, right. :o)

That's all for now. Love and Hugs to y'all!

Where have I been?

Hi all! This will just be a short entry, but it's a start on catching up. This is the round robin quilt top I have been slaving over. Mailed it to the last participant today. Tomorrow I hope to start getting my life back together!



My studio is a total disaster area! The dust bunnies are ganging up with the thread bunnies and are harassing the kitties! SO much to do tomorrow!!!

Where have I been?

Hi Folks! It has been a very busy time around here since my last post. My Mom had another fall. This one assisted by a 4 year old neighbor who leaped off the stairs and into her arms for a hug. Wasn't very funny at the time but in hindsight someone should have been there yelling "timber!". Mom went over backwards like a felled tree and wrenched the living daylights out of her back. Took a couple of days to convince her that she needed to go to the ER. The fact that she couldn't move at all and was in immense pain might have had something to do with it.

So after a day and a night in the ER zonked out on morphine and muscle relaxants she was transferred to a convalescent hospital for a week or so. Last year's fall put her in a convalescent hospital that was about 15 minutes away. This time it was waaay out of town, about 40 minutes. So DH and I took turns going to see her everyday. Got her home and tucked in last Wednesday and she is getting better every day.

Then my younger sister decided she needed to come down from Oregon on the train and stay with Mom for a few days. I guess she needed to see for herself that Mom didn't really have one foot in the grave and was as well off as I and Mom had been telling her. That visit went well enough and we loaded her back on the train tonight. Now, hopefully, life will begin to get back to some semblance of order. (Knock on wood!)

I received the next round robin to work on. Not sure yet what I am going to do, but I have a couple of ideas. Here is what it looks like now.



And for L&L here are some pics of the sleeve of a new shrug I am working on. In the first pic I thought I'd be clever and put the cuff over my lamp to show the "lace" off better. Not real successful in my opinion.



Here's one of the sleeve "laid out" so to speak.



The lace swirls around the sleeve because all of the decreases are done exactly the same, all in one direction. And the colors swirl around and climb up the sleeve. Gradually, every 16 rows, I am replacing some of the lace with stockinette, until there is no lace left. I've just changed to a larger needle and will knit the last of the sleeve and the back in plain stockinette. The next 2 pics show the gradual changes.



If you look closely you can see the stockinette beginning to be introduced.



And here you can see the stockinette is almost solid at the top. After another 20 or so rows of plain stockinette I will start knitting back and forth for the back. Wonder what the colors will do?

So there you have it. Love to have some comments on the sleeve so far. I am off to bed now and a deep, healing sleep. "Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of time..." Good old Shakespeare!

Round Robin 3 pics

Here are a couple of pics. The darker one shows the fabrics better. The one with the light shining through it is kind of pretty too. Enjoy!

I'm gonna dash off and show it to Mom. Then mail it on the way back. Then I'm gonna come home and crash!