scrap deliveries

Now, I usually am not on the receiving end of scraps from friends.  Most often, I am the one passing scraps on to friends.  But lately, the tables have turned!  These are selected scraps that fit my needs, so they are most welcome!

This batch came from my South Dakota connection, after she saw my posting about the Gypsy Wife quilt over on the Bear Patch blog.  These are from the PBandJ group that I am using as the basis for my color choices in that scrappy quilt.  And I really needed some help in the blue and yellow category, so these are perfect!

I am doing well by South Dakota lately, as this piece also arrived from there--

I had admired this print used in the background of a block that my friend had made, and I benefited from her scraps!  This will also go into Gypsy Wife.

And then yesterday, at the Paper Pizzazz class I am teaching at Bear Patch
, one of our "regulars" (sounds like a what we would call Norm at Cheers!), Elaine, pulled this out of her bag of tricks for me--

The story behind this is from awhile back.  Elaine was working on an English paper pieced project with hexagons and Halloween prints.  She likes to work with small scale prints in little pieces, and I remember commenting to her about this print used in her project.  Well, she remembered, and gifted me with a piece of my own!

It's so good to have friends with scraps!

quilt tatoos

a mid-winter break

Bob and I just had the great pleasure of a trip to an island paradise!  We do love a chance to savor a few days away from the cold and snow.  It has to be timed right--not too early in the winter because then the good after effect wears off before spring arrives.  Not too late in the winter to waste the good effect because it is followed too closely by actual nice weather at home!  It's a double-edged sword of vacation timing!

We visited the island of Vieques, a place I had not even heard of before.  It is part of Puerto Rico, a small island (compared to Puerto Rico) just a wee bit east of the Puerto Rican coast.  You can see the island from the coast.  We flew to San Juan.  There is an airport on Vieques for small planes, so you can take anther flight and get to Vieques faster if need be.  But we had the time to spare, and the spirit of enjoying the life like the locals do, so we went by ferry.  This involved a taxi ride from the airport, about 45-60 minutes to the town of Fajardo.  We made it just in time for the 4:45 ferry, which was a very good thing because the next one would have been after dark and not nearly so fun.  The ferry ride was about an hour, and, get this--$4 for both of us round trip!  That helped make up a little bit for the expensive (in my book) taxi ride!  We did get the senior citizen discount, you younguns' would have to pay twice that.

The trip over was not very rough, and my stomach stayed calm since I stood where I could watch the horizon.  We were with family members on the ferry, and greeted at the pier by brother and sister-in-law, Art and Sharon.  We were all congregating for a wedding, with a few days of fun before and after.  The 4 of us rented a house through VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) and had the luxury of a lovely house all to ourselves, plenty of space both indoors and out.

Almost everything we did involved being outdoors.  We spent a lot of time out in the sun, or seeking shelter in the shade!  The opportunity to get a bad sunburn was ever-present, so a lot of sunscreen was slathered about!  Our lily-white skin soon took on a pink tint, but not painfully so.

I love this picture of us, it looks like a painting!

The beaches were fantastic, and not at all crowded.  We used to take some vacations in Mexico, and I think this is what Mexico, and many other locations, was like 30 years ago.  There was no one near enough to our spot on the beach to overhear their conversation or music.  There was no one hawking beads and trinkets.  There was nobody braiding hair.  There was no one serving buckets of beer.  We had to bring our own!  There was no sign of garbage or pollution.  There were no personal watercraft zipping around in the water.  There was no parasailing.  Just beauty and peace and quiet!  Amazing!

Did you know that starfish don't always have 5 legs?!  This special little guy was in a big aquarium tank at the little museum and cultural center in Esperanza, the town on the south coastline.

Morning coffee and breakfast in a little cafe in Isabel, the little town on the northern coastline.  All of the eating establishments had more outdoor seating than indoor.

Wouldn't you love to live on this street?!  Leading right down to the waterfront.  The streets were narrow, actually, all the roads were narrow, too!  We had a rented jeep, and I'm glad I didn't have the job of driving.  Most of the roads were somewhat paved, but full of potholes, speed bumps, and only about 1 1/2 lanes wide by our standards!  Some areas were not paved, and full of dips and bumps and puddles.  It was quite exciting!  Sometimes it was so bumpy that all we could do was laugh as we hung on for dear life!

And for the real reason for our trip--the wedding!

Here are proud parents, Dave and Ruth, (Bob's brother) and their wonderful daughter, Jessica Joy.

What a perfect name, it completely fits this young woman.

She married Josh right there on the sand.  We had never been to a beachfront wedding before, and we didn't know quite what to expect!  There were about 20 of us in all, with people from both families and a few friends that all made the trip.

Dave and Ruth have 3 daughters, definitely of Scandinavian descent!  Together with their spouses (or soon to be spouses for Kirstin and Jimmy!) they make a fine family.

Eventually, we all had to make our separate ways back home, to the real world again.  Lucky for us, we had 3 more days of fun with our visitors from Charlotte--

Ben, Brita, Ian and Jack stayed with us so we got caught up on the accomplishments and antics of these little grandsons.  Ian just turned 3, and is quite the little jabberbox.  When it's storytime, he is an active participant in the telling.  He slept on a regular mattress on the floor for the first time at our house.  Jack turns 1 in a few weeks, and is really a mover!  He has a "running crawl" that gets him wherever he wants to go, and wherever we don't want him to go!  He gets himself standing up whenever he has something to hang onto.  Brita and Ben let us have some quality time with the boys, while they slipped away for some fun for themselves!  Now we are looking at a trip to Charlotte in April, to visit them in the new house they are moving into!

works in progress

You might recall that last summer we had a major overhaul of our kitchen and bathroom.  Turned out wonderfully, and of course, leads to other desires to update our home.  Like dominoes falling, so goes the home improvement projects!  In our second story area, there is still carpet in the bedroom (AKA sewing room #2) and loft/office that needs to go.  I'm tired of ignoring the stains, putting rugs over the worst spots, etc.  A couple years ago, Bob masterfully replaced the old carpet in my #1 sewing room (I basically have 3!) with DIY wood flooring from IKEA.  We would like to continue with that idea over the rest of the carpeted area, but there is an obstacle in our way.  When the house was built, we didn't have a good grip on what was going to happen with the log posts that support the railing, and the floor that they rest upon.  The carpet was installed and cut to fit around the posts and wrap over the exposed edge, which worked.  Now, however, when we rip out that carpeting, we have to go back to square one and modify the design.  

This is the way it looks now.

We need it to become more like this, with wood underneath the posts and covering the edge.

We have been pondering what would be the best approach to get this done and procrastinating because we either have to decide to bite the bullet and hire someone to take over, or figure out how we are going to do it for ourselves.  We are great DIY'ers, but we do have our limits!  Well, I couldn't wait any longer, and one night last week I just started prying and pulling until I could get the edge of the carpet loosened and pulled up.  This is what we found:

I remember when this carpet was laid, the workmen were not very happy about putting the carpet around the posts, and now I understand why.  They had to cut little pieces of that tackstrip stuff to fit around each post.  Then attach the carpet and bring it over the front edge to attach there.

Well, I guess we are committed now, because there is a chunk of carpet missing and bare wood that needs to be dealt with!

On to things I can handle more easily--

a little candlemat that I made from English paper piecing diamonds, along with wool and fabric.  It will be a little pattern for my Paper Pizzazz class at Bear Patch in a couple months.  It's an easy sew, and turned out well.  I especially like the fact that I found a cute little basket and candle to go with it!

And below is an arrangement of fabric stapled to canvas frames.  Like a fabric collage.  I want to hang these on the bedroom wall, they coordinate with the quilt on our bed.  Well, a couple of these are not actually stapled at the time I took the picture, because the stapler failed.  Not to worry, I figured out how to take it apart and free up the jam inside and I got the stapling done.  Now I have to get the spacing figured out and hang these up!

the magic of machines

Many of you reading this blog probably have one or more sewing machines.  A fascinating machine that has intrigued me for a long long time as I tried to figure out how those 2 threads made a stitch.  Well, here's another cool machine that is essential to our sewing--the bolt winder!  Click on the link below to watch a little video.  It shows the full width fabric on the lower left feeding up and over to the right.  Behind the fabric there is another part of the frame that folds the full width in half and then it feeds down and is rolled onto a bolt.

Post by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.













As you can see, it happens pretty fast.  Most bolts hold 10-15 yards of fabric.  And if you have ever wondered why the fabric on the bolt is somewhat askew, this video should help you understand that even though there is a person running the machine, the fabric is not handled with TLC by someone who carefully and lovingly folds and rolls the bolt!

So now when you see a stack or shelf of fabric bolts, you will have an image in your mind of how that fabric ended up folded and wrapped on the bolt!

I'm Back!

Surprise, surprise!  My unintended blog vacation is over and done with, and now I hope I can get back to some regularity with pictures and writing.  I really do usually enjoy writing these posts, but at some times in my life it gets completely forgotten.

I have gone through a tough time since that last blog post over a month ago.  I have not shared this before and not because it shouldn't be shared but just didn't really know how to address it.  My dad, Bob, was on home hospice care since May 2014.  He had heart disease and dementia, leading to his inability to walk and stand.  My mom was his rock, directing all of her attention to making him as comfortable as possible at home.  The local homecare program assisted with many things, and the nurses and aides were exceptional.  I have been home as much as possible to help mom and dad with whatever I could, making that 3 1/2 hour drive seem more like a simple commute than a big trip.  Christmas was his last day up and out of bed.  After that he was just too weak to risk getting him into the wheelchair.  He died on January 13, comfortably in his own home.  He was such a sweet man and wonderful dad to me, and I found out that so many other people also knew him as a kind man.

We felt very lucky that almost all of the grandkids and great grandkids were present for the funeral.  Nathan was sick so Serra and Aurora made the trip without him.  This was the group with their grandma, who was so glad to have them all with her.  

So, now I am trying to get back into doing the things that I love to do!  A little sewing, knitting, reading, etc.

By Thy Hands - March - by Buttermilk Basin

English Paper Piecing for a folder or book cover,
my own design for the Paper Pizzazz class at Bear Patch.

The months of January and February often make me want to hole up inside, away from the cold and snow.  I stumbled upon this cross stitch picture that I made quite awhile ago.  I really liked it then and I still do, so I will hang it up to enjoy again.  The words really describe the best part of winter!

I hope your wintertime is equally as good!