Sunday Sevens, 12-06-15

Tags

2015 FAL, cats, cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, sewing, Sunday Sevens

I’m back!

I took a little not-really-planned hiatus from the blog for a couple of weeks, but now I’m back.  Plenty has been happening, but I haven’t really had the energy to write about it.  I’ll try to hit the highlights for ya–lots of pics ahead!

1.  First, and most important, my mother’s carpet has been replaced!

Just to recap:  my mother’s quite elderly cat died recently, so it was time to replace the carpet in most of my mother’s house and, hopefully, get rid of the smell the cat had left behind.  This involved packing up 20 years of my mother’s junk (I’ll just say that she does not throw things away, and let you imagine what that means over 20 years), completely emptying the worst room so the subfloor could be replaced, emptying the rest of the rooms, replacing the carpet over two days, then putting everything back.

2.  The day we moved all the furniture back in happened to be Small Business Saturday, so I got myself a little reward for all my hard work:  fabric remnants on sale at SCRAP Tri-Cities.

You have never seen anyone get so excited about fabric scraps in your life.

I am such a dork.

3.  Thanksgiving happened in the middle of all this contractors-and-cat-pee madness.  My honey and I went to the local buffet, as usual, and ate too much, then took a walk along the river.  Cold, but sunny, day.

A good effort, considering how little raw material there was to work with.

4.  Winter arrived suddenly, with cold, cold temps and a little snow, so I’m getting back into cold-weather cooking.  This meal was so good, I made it twice in one week:  roasted potatoes on left, chicken sausage and roasted veg on the right.

5.  I finished the Cozy Afternoon runner, and in time to enter it in the contest!  The process of finishing it felt like such a hard, slow slog, but getting it done gave me such a boost.

ETA:  this is finish #3 for the 2015 Finish-Along.

The Quilt As You Go method that I used on this was such a big help; I will definitely use that again.  There are different ways to do it, but the method I chose (one of four from the book “Divide and Conquer”) basically involves leaving an unquilted border around your sections, then sewing together just the edges of the top.  Press open, then butt the batting edges and hand sew.  Finish by folding under the raw edge of the backing and blind-stitching it down; then you can finish up your quilting.

I’m really enjoying having this on my table.

6.  I put the Christmas tree up over Thanksgiving weekend and the cats are having such fun with it.  Every morning I put all the ornaments back on the bottom third of the tree and every night they pull them off and bat them around.

7.  I had a moment of geekery on Friday and had to whip this up.

I had a bit of garam masala and a bit of pumpkin pie spice, so I used a combination and I really liked it, but my honey found it reminded him a little too much of curry.  If you make it, try a different glaze recipe, as the proportions are off and the glaze doesn’t work as written; also, this thing is HUGE, so consider making a half recipe if you don’t have an army to feed.

Oh, I have more pictures, but that’s enough for one week!  I’m working away at my honey’s wool cycling jacket, so I’ll have an update on that soon, and I also plan to get started on my Willara tunic this week.

Have a great week, everybody, and happy Hannukah to those who celebrate it!

STH

ETA:  I have linked the table runner up to Scraptastic Tuesday over at She Can Quilt.  Thank you to Nicky for reminding me to link to it here!

 

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Sunday Sevens, 11-01-15: Appliance Attrition Edition

Tags

cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly series in which we share some pictures from our week and yak a bit about what we’ve been up to between blog posts.  See Natalie from Threads and Bobbins for more info.

Just a few photos for you today–it has been a MOST un-photogenic week around these parts.  A lot of time was spent running down boxes for my mother to pack her stuff in for the carpet installation.  Then she discovered that her water heater was leaking, so a day was spent going through the contents of the closet and tearing out moldy carpet.  The whole week has felt like a bit of a struggle, to be honest.

But enough about that, let’s get to the important stuff:  FALL PASTA.  I’m in full fall cooking mode now and wanting all the hearty pastas and soups I’ve been avoiding all summer.  This was a delicious dinner and helped clean out the vegetable bin; I also threw in some Italian sausage, and we both gobbled it down.

I appear to have acquired another project (just what I needed).  I grabbed this wool suiting at SCRAP ($15 for 3 1/2 yards with my volunteer discount!) with the idea of making some sort of cycling jacket for my honey with it.

My initial thought was to surprise him with it for Xmas, but I remembered how particular he is about his cycling clothing–and couldn’t come up with a way of getting his measurements without him noticing–and decided to do it with his input.

He ended up being quite excited by the project and I’ve ordered Kwik Sew 4017 to use as a basis for the jacket.  It’s going to need several changes, though . . . this could turn out to be quite an ambitious project.  Adding zippers to welt pockets–um, there’s gotta be a YouTube tutorial somewhere, right?

On Saturday, my partner and I had planned to take another hike with the MeetUp group, this time up Badger Mountain and IN COSTUME.  Alas, though, the weather turned out to be just ghastly–rain showers and wind of 30 miles per hour–so we decided to skip it.  That left time for sewing, though.

I’ve been stuck on the next step of my Cozy Afternoon table runner, as I was a little intimidated by doing setting triangles for the first time.  I set a goal to have the top done by the end of the week, though, so I finally pushed myself to work on it on Saturday.  It’s been slow going with all kinds of problems–triangles too small, fabric shortages, etc., etc.–but I got the sashing on and the whole thing pieced together.

Here’s part of it before I got it sewed together:

That’s just part of it, because this sucker is HUGE.  My table is 6 feet long, and the runner hangs over the edges.  The top is in two pieces now, and I think I’m going to try to QAYG so that quilting it is less of a wrestling match.

The good news, though, is that the farther I get on it, the more I like it.  I just love those colors against the wood of the table, and I think the finished runner is going to be beautiful.

Plans for this week:  get outside, now that the wind has finally died down.  Appliance shopping, as in addition to my mother’s water heater, our stove also met its maker and our microwave is on its way out as well.  Oh, and my iron died today, too.

On the bright side, I plan to make myself a turkey tee this week.  Because I just happen to have a happy yellow sweatshirt that I’ve been meaning to refashion and happy yellow is exactly what I need right now.

Have a great week, everybody.

STH

Sunday Sevens 09-20-15 (and a question)

Tags

bags, Columbia River, CozyAfternoonQuilt, Kennewick, quilting, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we show some pictures from our week and gab about what we’ve been up to.  See Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for more info, and please feel free to join us–every week or once in a while.

Not the most productive week here, I’m afraid, so not much to tell.  My honey has been down all week with a nasty cold and I’ve had worse-than-usual fall allergies, so there’s been Netflix-bingeing and junk food and orange juice consumption and not much else.

I did manage to get my final Cozy Afternoon block done this week, though (while I was having angst and procrastinating on sewing the Laurel).  Which I was excited about, until I realized that means I don’t get to do any more of them.  😦

BTW, if you’d still like to sign up and get the blocks, you can–go here.  There’s a Sew Along Day next Saturday for catching up on them.

Here they all are together, laid out on the fabric that’s going to become the setting triangles, backing, and binding.

The box of tomatoes got chopped up and joined the beans, chicken stock, and pesto in the freezer.  All ready for fall chili, soups, and pasta!

My mother and I took a walk on Thursday along the Columbia.

Look–fall color!

And now here’s my question to you:  since I finished the Laurel dress, I’m wondering what I should do next.  My dilemma is that I’m really fixated on this shark pencil case, but I have no actual need for a pencil case.  I need ideas for other uses that I can put this to.

Or maybe I should just get over it and make the thing already?  In purple.  🙂

Anyway, have a great week everybody and WASH YOUR HANDS.

STH

(I’ve linked up my quilt blocks on WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.)

Sunday Sevens 09-13-15

Tags

Columbia River, CozyAfternoonQuilt, Pasco, quilting, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Wade Park, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we post seven-or-so pictures from our week and give our online friends a little peek into what we’re up to.  Please feel free to join us–every week or whenever the mood strikes.  Seven pictures, three pictures, ten pictures–whatever.  😉  See Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for more info.

Was a bit more productive this week, I’m happy to say, and exercised a bit more, always a good thing.

On Tuesday, I took a walk along the Columbia starting at Wade Park in Pasco.  Not sure what island that is there . . . .

I always take (and post) pictures of GREEN wherever I find it, but this is pretty much what eastern Washington looks like in late summer:

Nice haul from the fruit stand this week, including zucchini, red and yellow onions, a butternut squash, and a box of tomatoes.

Some of the tomatoes will go into recipes this week–the ones I save for tomato season–and the rest will be chopped up and frozen.  We have a massive freezer, but little storage space, so it makes more sense for me to freeze them than to can them.

My mother went through her fabric and gave me some cast-offs.  Some of these will go to SCRAP, but I’m definitely hanging on to that swirly rayon challis in the middle of the pile there and the stripey knit on top.

More home improvement–made a valance for this (formerly very bare and quite sad) little window in the bathroom.  Please forgive the terrible lighting and weird color here; it was the best I could do.  The fabric is the same one I used for the tote bag I made recently; the lining is from an old blue rayon shift dress (loved the fabric, but it wasn’t sturdy enough for clothing and kept developing holes at stress points).

I had a brain cramp while cutting this out and put the wrong edge of the pattern on the fold, leaving me with a valance with a long center and short sides.

*headdesk*

After a few deep breaths and some swearing, I decided to slit the fold and just put a seam in the middle.  Not ideal, but good enough.  And I have to say I’m loving all the color in this window now.

I did the embroidery for my fourth Cozy Afternoon block; hoping to finish the block today, just in time for the next one coming tomorrow.

Is this cute or what?

I’m also planning to cut out my Greenstyle Laurel today, as the Greenstyle Facebook group is having a contest.  I’ve been agonizing over sizing on this, but I just need to dive in–what I’m making is supposed to be a muslin, anyway.

Have a crafty week, everybody!

STH

Sunday Sevens 07-26-15

Tags

Bateman Island, cats, Chiawana Park, CozyAfternoonQuilt, Pasco, quilting, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we share seven-or-so pictures that show a little bit of what our week was about.  Natalie at Threads and Bobbins is the one who got the whole thing started.  Everyone is welcome to join us!

Lots of outdoorsy photos to show you today, as I did a lot of walking this week.

This is Chiawana Park in Pasco.  Love this end of the park with all the old trees.

Those big white birds there are pelicans.  (Most of the other birds in the picture are our full-figured local geese, and the pelicans dwarf them, so they are BIG.)

Grumpy Old Bear wasn’t happy about having to share the bed with his sister, so he went off to sit in the sink, where there’s only enough room for a bear.

The July block for my Cozy Afternoon BOM is done; I really like this one.

Wade and Chiawana Parks were taken over by boat race stuff on Friday, so I took this raised path along the Pasco side of the river.

My niece had a baby boy this week, so I decided to whip out a quick baby quilt for her.  I pieced this on Friday, got some batting from SCRAP on Saturday, and put my quilt sandwich together.  And now I’m being horribly indecisive about how I want to quilt it.  😛

I was initially thinking wavy lines like this, but I’m also considering big concentric hearts . . . I just haven’t done enough quilting to feel confident in my choices yet.

I just need to dive in and quit thinking about it, don’t I?

Yep, I thought so.

Have a great week, everybody, and try not to let your brain get in your way.

STH

Sunday Sevens 07-19-15

Tags

cats, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, RSC15, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly series of posts containing seven-ish pictures from our week.  Thank you to Natalie of Threads and Bobbins for getting it all started.

This week was sort of all about new fabric, which is weird considering how rarely I buy fabric, but it was a BARGAIN, so it totally doesn’t count.

On Monday, I put the cage around our tomato plants as they’re getting big enough to need one (will also keep out the neighbor kitty that’s been digging in there–BAD KITTY).

My mother and sister brought me back fat quarters from Oregon!

Better pic:

On Wednesday, Chrissa from SCRAP Tri-Cities called to say they’d just received a HUGE donation of fabric and did I have any time to come in and help measure it all?  Which donation led to a fabric sale, which led to this:

Hey, don’t judge–all this cost me less than $10!

And then there were these on Thursday–$1.50 for the lot!

I’m pondering what to do with them, but I keep coming up with some sort of folded-fabric, 3-D quilt.  Would have to be a wall quilt, because this is all wool and silk and will have to be dry-cleaned.  Hmmm . . . .

By Friday, I was going a little batty due to sewing withdrawal, so I sewed up the first two blocks for my Cozy Afternoon Quilt.

And Saturday, I did the second purple block for my scrap quilt.

Have a great week, everybody, and I hope you’re able to get some crafty time in there.

STH

Sunday Sevens 07-05-2015

Tags

cats, cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, quilting, recipe, RSC15, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we post sevenish pictures of the events of our week.  Natalie at Threads and Bobbins got it started.  Feel free to join us!

The ongoing heat here means I’ve been spending WAY too much time cooped up at home.  The downside of that is no outdoorsy photos, but the upside is that lots of home projects and crafts happened this week.

I have apparently caught the organizing bug BIG TIME and went ahead and measured and sorted out the rest of my fabric.

I guess it must have been bothering me more than I realized?  Or something?  Because otherwise I have no explanation for this.

I even cut some selvages off of the leftover scraps for a future selvage project.

No, I don’t know what’s come over me, either.  😛

Of course, the inevitable result was that I came up with another project idea.  I have a ton of this cotton with leaves and ladybugs/ladybirds on it and decided to make a simple woven tee with it.  I’ve been wearing my lovely cotton me-made blouses non-stop recently, so maybe I could use another . . . .

(Ack, sorry about the picture.)

Some more blocks got done on my scrap quilt this week; that’s three months worth done now.  W00T!

Working on these yellow blocks was like being bathed in sunshine.  🙂

The next color is purple, MY ONE TRUE LOVE.

I’ve also finally gotten started on embroidering the first block for my Cozy Afternoon Quilt.

I’m also happy to report that the cats have settled back into their little routines after Pooh’s Not-Very-Excellent Medical Adventure.  Pooh’s back to his grueling napping schedule (rather than constantly following me around, as he was doing for the week after his surgery) and Shelby’s decided she still loves her big brother and has stopped hissing at him.

The coveted nap spot on the windowsill in my sewing room:

We all spent a quiet Independence Day at home with our respective hobbies:  me quilting, the cats napping, and my honey building up his new frame into a bike.

We had a nice dinner of barbecued burgers, potato salad, and grilled marinated vegetables.  If you have pots of herbs growing on your windowsill, this is a great way to use them; when I make it, I increase the herbs and cut the oil to 1/4 cup.

The week to come should see less crafting and more outdoorsy-ness (yes, it is totally a word).  My mother and sister will be in Oregon, so I’ll be doing house- and pet-sitting duties for them, and then my partner and I are headed to Montana for our second camping trip!

Have an excellent week, everybody!

STH

Sunday Sevens 06-21-15

Tags

bags, camping, cats, Cle Elum, CozyAfternoonQuilt, Easton, Lake Easton State Park, quilting, sewing, Sunday Sevens, travel, Washington

(Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series of seven-or-so pics from your week; it’s the brainchild of Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins.)

Something of a roller coaster week here!

On Monday, Pooh had to go back to the vet and she discovered that what we had both thought was an eye problem was actually a tooth root abscess.  She operated on him that morning and I was able to bring him home in the afternoon.  I will spare you a close-up, but he looked pretty rough.  😦

As you can see from the picture, though, he started to feel better immediately and has continued to improve all week.

The first two blocks of the Cozy Afternoon Quilt were e-mailed out and I cut my fabrics for all 5 blocks on Tuesday.

Yep, that’s Shelby inspecting my work there.  Any time there’s anything fabric-related happening, Shelby is there.

I finished my tote bag, though it actually looks a bit unfinished to me . . . I’m planning to add a few beads to it as soon as I figure out how to attach them.

On Thursday, Pooh had to go back to the vet to have the drain removed from his cheek (yeah, I know, sorry) and she said he’s healing well and gained 1 1/2 oz. since Monday!

(I’m cheating a bit here because I took this pic today, but trust me, you really don’t want to see how he looked last week.)

On Friday afternoon, my partner and I loaded up all our camping gear and headed to Lake Easton State Park to meet some friends.

Here’s our tent all set up at the campsite:

I know, right?

This place is seriously amazing.

On Saturday, partner and his friends headed off to cycle the John Wayne Pioneer Trail (north toward Snoqualmie Pass), while I stayed in the park and tried out the hiking trails.

(If you’ve seen Twin Peaks or Northern Exposure, these woods may look familiar to you; both series were filmed near here.)

(More pics will be up on Flickr shortly.)

This was my first time camping, and it was fun!  Me being me, I was of course worried that I’d forget some essential thing, or we’d run out of food or something, but everything went well.

I’m so used to cooking for two that I’m never sure how much to make for larger groups, so I went with my general policy of “cook way too much of something you like, so that you won’t mind eating the leftovers for a week.”  We wound up with less than one serving of chili (and ONE cookie) left over, so I guess “way too much” was the right amount.  😉

On Sunday afternoon, we packed everything up, and partner and friends headed out on their bikes again; I drove the van to Cle Elum, where I met them for lunch, then my honey and I headed home.

Have a great week everybody, and get outside if you can.

STH

Sunday Sevens 05-10-15

Tags

Blue Bridge, cooking, CozyAfternoonQuilt, Kennewick, quilting

Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series in which we share seven-or-so pics from our week.  Natalie at Threads and Bobbins is the one who got this all started.  Thanks, Natalie!

My week can be summed up with this picture:

Spring allergies clobbered me this week, so there was a fair bit of sitting around and sniffling while drinking hot chai.

I spent some time working on my quilt UFO.  I don’t know if it’ll happen, but I’ve got an idea in my head that I’d like to get that quilt done before the Cozy Afternoon BOM starts next month.

I’ve got three of the four blocks finished and am making good progress on the fourth:

Stems are done, now it’s on to the leaves (needle-turn applique, the hard part) and flowers.  Then I can assemble the thing.

More pizza this week.  I’m calling this one “I need to go to the grocery store but can’t be bothered” pizza:  turkey Italian sausage, canned artichokes, and all the odds and ends from the produce and cheese drawers.

Another walk with my mother on Thursday in Kennewick.

Went to the Pasco Farmers Market on Saturday with my mother and sister and scored irises!

Bonus close-up shot:

I have some outdoorsy things planned for this coming week, so there should be some good pics coming up next Sunday.  And extra pics always go up on Flickr.

Have a great week, folks, and enjoy the springtime (sniffle).

STH

 

Cozy Afternoon Block-of-the-Month Quilt

Tags

CozyAfternoonQuilt, embroidery, quilting, sewing

Okay, so I sort of have a bit of a problem with fabric scraps.

There’s this:

And then there’s this:

And there are three or four shoebox-size boxes of other colors.

Oh, and I almost forgot this bin in the closet:

This is not altogether a bad thing, since it means that I can always find an appropriate piece of fabric for a small project, like a bike bag or a sewing tool organizer.

I would like to make a dent in this, however, as it’s starting to feel a bit overwhelming and taking up a fair amount of space in my small sewing room.  I’m starting to have that slightly-frantic HELP TOO MUCH STUFF feeling in here.

Hence, this:

I saw this on someone’s blog (sorry, whoever it was, I don’t remember who you are to give you credit!), spotted the blue version with the hand embroidery and thought YES.

You have the option to just put a square of fabric in the center of each block, do hand or machine applique there, or embroider it.

Here are the fabrics I have in mind for the blocks:

And the setting triangles and binding will be made from the fabric I bought in Pendleton the other day:

I’m thinking about using the blocks to make a runner for my ginormous dining room table.

This is a great stashbusting project because you only need 1/4 to 1/3 yard of each of the six block fabrics, then you can use the blocks however you want, depending on what other fabric you have (fabric requirements here).

The BOM starts June 1 and goes for 5 months.  Fabric kits are available here.  Oh, and there’s a fabric giveaway here (closes Sunday, May 10).

Sign-up page is here.  Anybody interested in doing this with me?

STH