plenty o' projects

I just had a fabulous week with 2 special friends, having a sewing fiesta for a whole week!

I secured a condo at a resort, we moved in our "equipment" and spent all those days just doing whatever we wanted.  It was pretty cold, but we had few reasons to leave the fireside.  Except for a trip out for lunch, quilt shop visiting and restocking a couple groceries.  

Here are some of the things I worked on:

These turned into little pumpkins and were pretty fun to put together.  The curves are cut with the ruler shown below, and then the uneven ends of the curved seams are trimmed to make the correct size of block.  The directions are very good.

Mini Pumpkins by Sew Kind of Wonderful
uses the Mini Quick Curve Ruler
Available at Bear Patch Quilting Co.

I like this ruler so much that I am using it to teach a class at Bear Patch for a little tablerunner, shown in the previous post.

Here's a project that has been waiting about 2 1/2 year for my attention.  It is a set of signature blocks, about 20 of them, for my 60th birthday present from the Ham Lake Piecemakers.

I used my Electric Quilt program to design a small quilt.  This is just the beginning section, the rest is still waiting for me!

Below is another fun quilt with a fun ruler--

The X Blocks ruler.

It uses 2 1/2" strips, I picked a jelly roll of fabrics by Basic Grey for Moda.

I got all of the blocks made, and laid out as I wanted them.  Then I packed them up again for my next chance for sewing.

blocks for Timbuktu

 This is one of 3 little Sweet Pea Pods by Lazy Girl.  I learned to take apart a zipper for this, remove the slider, then put the slider back on.  That's how I got a turquoise zipper pull on that black zipper.

And a little bit of knitting happened, too!  This is the beginning of a scarf called Reyna, pattern available on Ravelry.  I'm using a new yarn (for me) that is a really nice fine merino wool from an Australian company called Cleckheaton.  I saw an advertisement for it at JoAnne's, and I went to check it out.  I turns out to be a pretty nice yarn, a little bit larger gauge than what the pattern called for, but OK for what I wanted.  It's definitely more expensive than the usual JoAnne's yarn selection, so remember your coupon!

And here's another little quilt that is all about dinosaurs for little boys.

This one is for Jack's upcoming 2nd birthday.

I realized that big brother Ian got all kinds of my quilts and snugglies, and I hadn't really made anything special for Jack.  I hope he likes it!

That wraps up the majority of my accomplishments on my sewing vacation.  I also bonded with my Bernina 820, which is a new machine for me.  And it worked great and I loved it!

Good Bye 1990's!

I think it's been a long time since I have stripped wallpaper, and that's a good thing!  And luckily, it's only a border strip and not entire walls.  This was so very pretty back in the early 90's in Brita's bedroom, but it has lost its charm!  The room is due for an update.  

Repaint and new flooring to start with.  Then window treatments and who knows what else.  There is still a twin bed in there along with a baby crib.  That's in addition to a boatload of sewing, knitting, crafting materials.  That all had to be moved out during the past few days.  Now small job.  I started out sort of sorting and organizing before packing stuff in boxes, but I'm on a deadline, so most of it just got lumped into boxes and will have to be sorted before it goes back in the room.  I'm leaving in a couple days for a little sewing getaway for a week, and Bob says he will work on the paint and floor while I am gone.  I could not pass up an offer like that!

 Thought I would share a couple fun Christmas pictures with you--we went to North Carolina and had an excellent time with kids and grandkids and friends there.  A very warm and friendly holiday celebration for all of us.  We gave the little boys each a sleeping bag, and they were immediately rolled out on the floor for play naptime!  I tried to get a selfie with Ian and Jack, but it's hard to maintain control of the camera when those little guys want to see what's going on!

Before Christmas, I made a fun new tablerunner for the Christmas display at Bear Patch--

Pattern by Tiger Lily Press, and all those curvy lines are pretty easy to sew.  I'm offering it as a class soon.  I also made the tablerunner shown below--

This one happened on a whim, because we got the new Mini Quick Curve Ruler (by Sew Kind of Wonderful) in the store, and I took one home to try out.  There was a little tablerunner pattern included with the ruler, and that orange and red popped off my shelves to make some quick blocks.  Really not so hard, and I have another pattern for pumpkins made with that ruler in the works.

In October (I think) I worked on this quilt at 2 retreats, and it's finally all together and on display at Bear Patch for a future class.  It is a pattern called Delight from Jaybird Quilts.

I finished the pair of Man Hands gloves I talked about in the previous post, along with a stocking cap.  They are both on their way to Whitefish, MT, to keep Dan from freezing this winter!

It's not very often that I get my kids together in one place, plus my mom, so I have to share our Christmas picture with you!

Back to the wallpaper!