Plans and More Plans

Tags

2016 FAL, bags, clothing, Cool Cottons, embroidery, quilting, RSC15, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing

Okay, it’s time to get all planned and organized and signed up for the 2016 1st Quarter Finish-Along, so let’s do it.

Here, in no particular order, are the projects I want to get done in the next three months.

1.   The famous wool cycling jacket, now that the uber-fabulous silk map lining fabric has arrived.  I should probably do this soon, so there’s still time to wear it this winter.  Shell is done; lining, pocket bags, elastic in the sleeves and hem and the back pocket need to be done.

2.  The flannel quilt, a leftover from last quarter’s FAL.  Sandwiched and pinned, just needs to be quilted and bound.  I plan to make the binding from a plain white sheet.

3.  Another leftover, the shark pencil/glasses/whatever case.  Just needs finishing and a fix of the zip.

4.  The black jumper that I’ve been planning for about forever.  Needs to finally happen.

5.  Purple jersey top.  Can you believe it–a pattern that isn’t 10 years old!  I got the jersey at SCRAP (some outrageous amount, 7 yards or something) and can’t wait to get this done.  I’m planning to make the gray version on the right.

6.  Cross-stitch clock.  Oh man, I don’t even want to think about how long I’ve had this UFO.  I pull it out every 5 or 10 years and work on it a little bit more, but somehow it never gets finished.  It’s actually pretty close to done now–it just needs to be assembled and put in the wooden case.

7.  Black leggings.  I really need these!  I wear my lone pair of black leggings all the time, and they are ratty.  I need to find a TNT leggings pattern and make 10 pairs.  I like that this Greenstyle pattern has an option for a yoga waistband, which sounds SO COMFY.  Black knit is from SCRAP (yes, I am seriously stalking their knit fabrics and grabbing the good ones!)

8.  Boxes for my sewing desk.  I need some way to organize the drawers in my desk, and I haven’t found a tutorial for what I want, so today I drew up a pattern for small fabric boxes custom made to fit the space.  They’ll be made from these Mary Engelbreit sewing-themed fabrics and I’m going to use interfacing and plastic canvas to stiffen them.

9.  Turquoise shirt for my honey.  This is his current favorite color, so we picked up this lovely fabric from Cool Cottons in Portland, and he asked for a henley.

10.  Dress for me!  This Kaffe Fassett print also came from Cool Cottons; the plan is to make the long dress on the right, but with the pockets from the pattern on the left.  I also have black piping for the bodice edges.

11.  Finish the RSC 2015 quilt.  This is a pretty ambitious goal, but I’d like to at least continue work on the blocks so that maybe I can get it done next quarter.  I think I’m about halfway done on the star blocks, so there’s plenty more to do.

First priority here is probably to work on the little boxes, since I’m reorganizing my sewing room right now.  Then it’s on to the jacket.

I’m off and running!

STH

ETA:  I have linked this post up to Scraptastic Tuesday and WIP Wednesday.

 

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 07-13-2015

Tags

dogs, gardening, Missoula, Montana, Quartz Flat Campground, quilting, RSC15, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Superior, travel

Sunday Sevens is the brainchild of Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins.  It’s a weekly blog series in which we post seven-or-so pictures from our week, usually on Sunday, except if you’re me and it’s been one of those I’M RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN kind of weeks.

Not much crafting this week, as I was house-sitting for my mother and sister while they took a trip to Oregon.  They’re both big-time gardeners and temps were still 100F and above, so there was much running around with watering cans and hoses.

They also have pets–this is Nigel, one of my sister’s little dogs:

Isn’t he a cutie?  And much less noisy than her other dog, who barked and growled at me THE ENTIRE TIME I was at her house.  He would finally stop when I left and closed the door behind me, then START UP AGAIN when he heard me put the key in the door to lock it.

Perhaps not the sharpest tool in the drawer.

My own few plants have been struggling in the heat, except for the basil:

You can’t really tell from this picture, but my basil plants are about a foot tall.  That’s a pot of oregano next to it (which is not as happy about the whole heat thing).

I did get one more block done on my scrap quilt; the center block here is called Carrie Nation.

Mid-morning Friday my partner and I headed out for our camping trip in Montana.  Here’s our tent all set up in Quartz Flat Campground, near the town of Superior.

These are Ponderosa Pines:

We actually arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm and had to wait in the car for it to pass before we could set up.

The forecast for Saturday was for temps in the 70s and 50% chance of rain.  Instead of that, it was chilly and rained all day; the planned whitewater rafting was shelved in favor of a trip to Missoula for breakfast.  Then our group of 11 split up and spent the day shopping and exploring.

After checking out the local bike shops, my honey and I did a little hiking around the campground.

And I took many, many pictures of moss and lichens.

On Sunday morning, it was still raining off and on and we were happy to head home out of the damp.  It was a fun trip, though, and the group we were with was full of interesting, quirky characters–just the kind of folks you want to sit around the campfire with.

Have a wonderful week, everybody, and I hope you have some good friends to spend it with.

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 06-28-15

Tags

cats, cycling, quilting, RSC15, sewing

Sunday Sevens is a blog series in which we share seven-ish pictures from our week.  Thank you, Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for getting it started!

Busy week here, but I made some progress on my projects, so it was a good one.

I finally got around to finishing up sorting out my scrap fabric drawers.  The bins with my main stash are still pretty messy, but at least I’ve got the scraps tidied up so that I can work on some stash-busting projects.

JUST LOOK AT THIS LOVELINESS:

I’ve been doing some yoga lately to try to reduce the chronic tension that I seem to store up in my upper back and THE CATS ARE LOVING IT.  I regularly have to watch out for this little beastie, who loves her yoga.  (That’s my mat she’s beating up there.)

The neck and back routine I’ve been doing is here, and it has been helpful.  And, for those of us that are allergic to the woo that often accompanies yoga, the video is refreshingly woo-free.  😉

By Wednesday, I hadn’t done any crafting in several days and I was getting a little desperate for a fix.  So I put everything else aside and made the second block on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt.  That Card Trick block in the center was a bit of a brain teaser, but this tutorial was really helpful.

Strange things sometimes come in the mail when you live with a bike geek.

Saturday craft projects:  quilting and wheel building.

That fabric there became this, the third block of the RSC quilt.

Well, sort of.  I tried to make the center block (Marley) twice and just could NOT get it to work with the rather minimal instructions given.  Couldn’t find a good tutorial, either, so I did this one instead.

I’m subbing another block for the fourth one, too.

And it is officially too damn hot here.

The official high here on Saturday was 111F, which I’m fairly certain is the same temp as the surface of the sun.

Felt that way, anyway.

And we’ve got at least a week of over-100 days coming up.

SEND ICE CREAM.

Sunday Sevens 06-07-2015

Tags

Bateman Island, Clover Island, cooking, Kennewick, quilting, recipe, RSC15, sewing

Hello again!  Busy week here, and a productive one, too, so I felt good about it.

Summer is definitely here (near 100F today!), so time to switch to summer main-dish salads.  I initially tried this recipe because I couldn’t imagine how the flavors would work together, but they totally do.  It’s one of our favorites.

This time I used spinach, carrot, red onion, grapes, and chopped apple.

My mother was quite adamant that we were to go on TWO WALKS this week, rather than, say, one walk and one trip to the grocery store.  This from a woman who was quite unhappy when I first started dragging her out for these walks by the river because she wanted to go to the mall instead.  (Sometimes I suspect I am adopted and she’s been lying to me all these years.)

This is Bateman Island from Tuesday’s walk.

On Wednesday, I finished up a yet-to-be-blogged blouse (the version on the bottom right here).  Not quite sure about this one.

Thursday’s walk was to Clover Island.  The big thing casting the shadow on the left is the lighthouse, but I liked this angle better than yet another boring lighthouse shot.

I’ve been trying not to take on too many projects at once, but I just couldn’t get this scrap quilt out of my head.  I kept going back and looking at it and thinking how pretty it would be if made with my scraps . . . I finally just decided to do it.

I had hoped to get the first block done this weekend–I’m starting late so I have some catching up to do–but this is as far as I’ve gotten:

I did, however, decide to get serious about organizing my scraps so that I can ACTUALLY FIND THINGS.  So I went through my scrap drawers and sorted them out and they look SO LOVELY now.

And my projects have their own little project bags:

This coming week, I’m planning more organizing, more walking, and more sewing.

YAY!

STH