Sister's Choice Quilts

Eva's School Experience

Advisory:  this is a chatty, kind of ranty, non-quilting related post.

We went to my grand daughter Eva's second grade open house last night.  She was so proud to show us around her classroom, pointing out her projects on display and her art work on the walls.  She was especially excited to show us the huge amount of work she put into this life size paper rendition of her organs and skeletal structure.  In the picture, she is showing us her brains!  It has been a great year for her.   Up to a point...

I am going to backtrack here.  Last year Eva was placed in a combination kindergarten/first grade class.  Typically combo classes are a challenge and are assigned to well seasoned, organized teachers.  Not in this case.  The teacher was teaching for the first time ever, was listless and socially inept.  She could not even make eye contact when speaking with parents.  I decided to volunteer to help her in the classroom, because if you can't see anything good in a situation, try to make it better, right?

I have never seen a teacher so low energy.  It was all she could do to keep some semblance of order with the kindergartners, much less teach anything to the first graders.  Then she got pregnant.  Her energy level dropped even lower, her classroom was an unappealing slovenly mess,  and then she quit.

Luckily an amazing substitute was called out of retirement to finish out the last couple months of the school year, and I swear, those kids learned more in those few weeks than they had the entire year so far.  She also cleaned up things and made the room attractive and inviting.  All was not lost and we ended on a positive note.

Then this year Eva was assigned to another combination class--second/third grade.  Our hearts sank and we prepared ourselves for another poor experience.  But we were wrong.  This time she got a great teacher-experienced, organized, fun and high energy.  The third graders were doing more advanced work of course, and I swear the second graders picked up on many things above their grade level. We were giving each other high fives, saying that Eva deserved a great classroom experience after last year.

Then spring break came.  Her wonderful teacher was in a bad accident and broke both arms.  She tried to break up a dog fight and one big dog grabbed one of her arms and snapped it and the other big dog grabbed her wrist and broke it.  And she's out for the rest of the year.  Obviously she can't help it, but what bad luck.

It's been substitutes since April and now that the end of the year has come, I have no clue how or who will do end of the year assessments and report cards.  At the open house last night, there was no teacher to greet the parents or tell us how great our kid was.  The principal was acting as hostess.  I introduced us to her as "Eva's family" and it was clear she had no clue who Eva was.  We are a small town.  It is a small school. Wouldn't you think the principal would know all the kids in the school especially when they have been there for three years?

Eva is undaunted by this situation and as you can see from the photos, was as proud as punch to show us around her school and classroom.  But it makes me sad.  She deserves better.

My Sewing Boxes

Do you all have a special box to hold all your hand sewing notions?  What you see in the photo above is my binding box.  I have my binding clips (how did we ever live without them?), small scissors, my thimble, and needle threader.  I would be lost without my needle threader for sure.  I have had that metal thimble for years and years.  It fits my finger most of the time, unless I am cold, then it tends to go flying off across the room.

This messy box holds everything else.  Needles, more scissors, more needles, pins, and lots of thread.  I tend to pull a spool to match whatever binding I am sewing on and typically don't get around to returning it to its proper home in my sewing room.  When I can't get the lid on the box anymore, I clean it out and put all the thread away.  The box is actually an ancient Tupperware container that is divided.  I remember years ago when I got it they were promoting it as a fishing tackle box or a craft supplies box.  It has served me well for decades.

I am always curious to hear how others organize their sewing supplies.  Please share how you keep your hand sewing materials in the comments!

We went to Eva's school Open House Wednesday night.  She was so proud to show us her classrooms and her work.  I'll share more about that in my next post.  She has had an unusual couple of years in that school.

I Am a Slacker

I think one of the reasons I have been avoiding my sewing room is due to all the nearly finished projects that have been piling up over the past year.  I don't know what finally got me up there, but I bit the bullet this weekend and attached the binding to 9 quilts.  Yes 9.  How did that happen?

Above you see my Flag quilt and my Square in a Square quilt.  I love both of them and it is high time they went into rotation around  here.

Next up is my Pinwheel Quilt in Betsy Chutchian fabrics and my Courthouse Steps Quilt in so many of my treasured Jo Morton scraps.

Then we come to the table runners and table toppers.  The Fig Tree "Clover" runner, the  "Fat Quarter Flourish" quilt with Sherri and Chelsi fabrics, and the tiny little candle mat that looks kind of like a game board.

Lastly my green pineapple runner and my scrappy Christmas tree runner.

I can't believe I have been sitting on these for so long, but it's a great feeling to get those bindings attached at last.  Now to do the hand sewing and stitch them down.

I have some other UFOs that are making me feel guilty and those are going to be what I tackle next.  Those are a couple of large projects that I have got to complete.  It is hard to justify buying anything new when I have such a long list of things to finish.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  It was Memorial Day weekend here in the US, and we celebrated by having my sister and her husband overnight, and by visiting my daughter and son in law's restaurant.  My other son in law cooked ribs Monday night, and I was so happy to join in for those.  I never cook them for just us, so it was a real treat.  Now if it would just stop raining and the sun would come out...

Chateau Rouge Cutting

Didn't we have great comments yesterday to my complaints of not feeling inspired to sew lately?  My gosh, so many of you weighed in with ideas for projects that were exciting to you.  The enthusiasm just leapt off the page.   If that wasn't a shot in the arm, I don't know what would be!

I got my red French General strips all cut out and a fair number of strip sets sewn together and cut out.  I think this project is going to go quickly, which is just what I need right now.  Instant gratification.  In spite of pre-washing my fabrics, I am getting the required eight triangles cut out of each pieced strip set.

I am using a 60 degree equilateral triangle ruler by Creative Grids.  My triangles are being measured on the 8 inch line near the bottom of the ruler.

Do you see how the bottom three strips are off-set by about an inch?  That is to be sure you get every smidgen of use out of your strip set and get your eight triangles from the WOF.

I need 108 of the pieced triangles.

Hope your week got off to a good start.  Thanks for all the encouragement and suggestions yesterday.

Starting Something

Well, this weekend I started something.  And it's been awhile since that has happened.  Honestly, I just have not been excited about any new projects lately.  None of the latest collections, or patterns or color schemes have appealed to me much.  I don't recall ever being in such a creative slump.  All the designs by my favorite designers have seemed to be much of the same as that which they have produced in previous seasons.  Nothing has grabbed me, or sparked that excitement of new possibilities.  

It is making me wonder if my taste in Reproduction fabrics and classic quilt designs has become passé?  Barbara Brackman stated on her blog Civil War Quilts, that the number of reproduction fabric collections at Quilt Market this past weekend was very sparse. 

From the photos I have seen from Spring Market, apparently there is a big trend towards all grey or black, grey and white quilts.  No color.  I am not completely opposed to this concept, it is just going to take me a bit of time to come to terms with the idea.  I crave something new and innovative, but am not sure if that is the direction I want to go.

At any rate, I have been browsing various online sites for glimpses of upcoming kits, collections and patterns.  I found one by 3 Sisters that appealed to me.

3 Sisters has a collection called Cinnaberry that is all red and cream fabrics.  I love the look of this simple design, called Holly Berries, made up entirely of triangles.  I was so close to ordering it when I remembered I had a collection of French General fabrics called Chateau Rouge.  I have hoarded this fabric for years, because it was just too pretty to cut up.  The Chateau Rouge collection came with a free pattern of the same name, and guess what?  It is made up entirely of triangles.

I decided this time that I would shop at home, and make up this quilt that I have been thinking about for years.  The red triangles are actually made up of red strips, which give the quilt top so much texture and dimension.  It is a simple design, but taken just that one step further.

So with Eva and Ozzie's help, I got my fabrics washed and starched over the weekend.  I hope to start cutting today and am keeping my fingers crossed that this will get me out of my quilting doldrums.

How about you?  Am I alone in not relating to a lot of the new trends and collections that have been on offer the past year or so?  What is new and exciting to you?  Please share what you are drawn to lately.  I know I can't be the only one wishing for some inspiration.

Current Things I Am Loving-Spring 2019

Time for a few more Things I Am Loving Lately.  

This little makeup case would be great for travel, but also good for storing your makeup items that are in regular rotation.  In the picture they have it crammed pretty full, but there are nice deep divided compartments that separate your powders and eyeshadows and pots of cream products.  And I really like the pouches in the lid that hold your brushes.  The shoulder strap seems pointless, but it is removable. Only $19.99 on Amazon.

Speaking of makeup brushes, it is important to clean them regularly.  I have one of these little plastic ridged things that does an amazing job of quickly getting those dirty brushes spotless again.  Use any mild soap and scrub your wet brush on the ridges and your brush will look like new.  Two for less than $5 on Amazon.

This handy little gizmo is a ground meat chopper.  You know how when you are browning ground meat (especially sausage), how hard it is to break up the chunks into small uniform bits?  This tool by Oxo is brilliant.  Under $12, you can get it at various stores, but I ordered mine on Amazon.  It is made of a hard plastic, so it will not scratch your pans.

Lately I have stocked up on a number of CeraVe products for my skin.  This is a very affordable drugstore brand that contains excellent ingredients that are approved by many dermatologists.  The product pictured above is called PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion, but I use it AM and PM.  They also have an AM product, that is basically the same thing, only the AM one has SPF in it.  The main beneficial ingredient is hyaluronic acid, which is known to make your skin more supple by binding the moisturizing ingredients to your skin more effectively.  CeraVe has an entire line of face and body products, all of which I have found not only extremely affordable, but effective.  Target, CVS, Amazon, Walmart-you can find it everywhere.

For the past year or so I have been on a walking program with a friend of mine.  We walk three or four times a week, up to three miles.  We like to track our steps, with the goal of getting to 10,000 steps a day.  I tried wearing one of those wrist watches that monitors your steps, heart rate, sleep patterns, etc.  I had to return it because my skin had a terrible reaction to it and broke out in blisters wherever the metal touched my skin.  I replaced it with this Fitbit clip on version, which has less features, but very effectively counts my steps, which is the main thing I wanted from it.  I clip it to the waistband of my pants when I get dressed and take it off at the end of the day.  It has a clock, a step counter, and a distance measurement feature.  So far, I have managed not to accidentally put it through the washing machine.  These activity trackers are around $100.

This is probably my favorite item of all to share with you all.  It is the Enbliss Wireless Bralette by Soma.  It is the most incredible design, in that it provides good support, has wide straps that do not dig in, extremely high sides and a very wide back.  You will have absolutely no bulges whatsoever when wearing this.  It has thin little removable pads that provide modestly under tee shirts.  Here a couple more pictures of the side and back:

I am not kidding, you will forget you have it on.  The fabric is cool, nothing binds or pinches anywhere and you will look so smooth under your clothes.  They aren't cheap at $46, but Soma sometimes has a buy one, get one for half off promo.  They come in a gazillion colors, and also a cami version which I also love, on sale for $37 right now.  Sizing is XS-XXL, which fits most cup sizes unless you are very large, and up to 42.

Hope you enjoyed my current faves.  Let me know if you have tried any of these items and what you thought.

Another New Table Runner

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Mine was lovely.  It was also Sara's birthday, so we had a double celebration.  She and Eva came over for brunch and we sat outside and opened presents and had mimosas and a nice breakfast.

I managed to catch the miserable cold my husband had while we were on our vacation, so I was down for the count last week.  I still have a lingering cough and am blowing my nose all the time.  Such fun.  I have not been doing any sewing, so I apologize for the lack of quilty content, but it will probably continue like this for the foreseeable future.  Eva has three more weeks of school, and then I will be spending more time with here during the summer.  I hope to get some kind of schedule in place where I sew for an hour or so a day while she is occupied with something else.

The table runner in the photo above is super cute, in spite of the terrible lighting.  I will get it trimmed up and bound this week, and think it will be a pretty addition to my dining table.  Inside or out!

 

Red Runner and Robbery Storytime

Ah.  I am home from my trips, my laundry is done, the Easter decor has been put away, and my husband has gone back to work.  That man has been sick for ten days with a horrible cough, fever and an ear ache.  He lost his hearing in the affected ear and every time I spoke to him he looked at me with complete incomprehension.  That got old pretty fast I tell you. 

It wasn't that I was completely unsympathetic, but he refused to go to the doctor in spite of indications that it might be a really good idea.  What is it about men and going to the doctor?

Here is a close up of the quilting, which I think is so pretty.  My roses are going nuts, so I sacrificed one for the bud vase.  It matches perfectly!

I am so glad to be home.  Did I say that already?  I am a creature of routine and it just was too much to be gone to Palm Desert, home for a few days, then off to Lake Tahoe.  I have no plans to go anywhere for the foreseeable future.

I have a story to share.  Our son Ahren lives in Dublin, Ireland, as many of you who follow me know.  Well, last week, his house was burglarized.  While.he.was.home.

He had worked late and didn't get home until nearly 9:00.  He'd had a long stressful day, and had over an hour commute on public transportation to get home.  His habit is to come in, disarm his alarm, and re-lock his front door.  He thinks that is what he did that particular night as usual.  He threw together a light dinner and went upstairs to sleep shortly after 10:00.  He took his laptop upstairs with him to look at something before he fell asleep.  He sleeps with his bedroom door closed and locked (kind of weird, I never knew that about him).  So, obviously sound asleep after a long day at work, with his door shut, he wasn't really hearing anything that transpired downstairs.

At some point during the night, someone either used a pick on his front door to gain entry, or (if Ahren forgot to lock up, which would have been very unusual) just opened the door and came into his house.  They didn't seem very professional, just stepped in, probably looked around for a purse or car keys, grabbed his bag from the foyer and ran back out.  What they took was Ahren's messenger bag that contained just about everything that meant something to him.  His eyeglasses, his iPhone, his Filofax (with all kinds of personal information), his wallet, his cash (only 20 Euro thank goodness), his house keys (!), his ATM card, his writing journal (with all his stories he had been writing for the past year), a sterling silver fountain pen his ex had given him that he treasured, and an expensive leather pen case his sister had given him for Christmas.  There may have been more things in the bag, but those are the major losses.  The main things they didn't get were his laptop and his passport which were elsewhere.

He got up in the morning, came down stairs, saw his hall table drawer ajar, a book on the floor and his bag gone.  And his door unlocked.  It took all day to go to the bank and report his missing cards, go to the Gardai (Irish police) to report the break in, acquire a new iPhone, try to get new glasses, a new National ID, a new public transportation pass, new wallet, new FIlofax etc etc.   He also had to go buy a new lock for the door and install it.   The Gardai were real interested that the crime had been committed while the resident was on the premises, but so far nothing has been retrieved and nothing really done about it.  

He is going to put a deadbolt and chains on his door, and will be setting his alarm while he is in the house, which previously he had not done.  He feels pretty shaken about the whole experience but is being philosophical about how lucky he is.  "At least they didn't take my favorite Staub Dutch oven, or my Baccarat wine glasses".  As if the typical thief would know the value of those items.

Have any of you been robbed?  What is your story?  The most memorable one that has stuck with me over the years is the woman whose house was broken into and her husband's guns stolen.  She didn't give a hoot about the darn guns going missing, but the fact that they stole the last quilt her dearly departed mother had made to wrap the guns in was a very hard blow to take.

Sewing Away From Home

I finally got myself set up and ready to sew here at our vacation condo.  I had a bit of a set back because I forgot to bring my power cord.  How dumb, right?  I remembered the foot pedal, but how I left behind the cord is a mystery.  A local shop had a cord I could buy for $16, so I was able to get down to business.

Trouble is, I haven't been that motivated to sew.  My husband seems to want me to do stuff with him all the time, so I have been distracted.  Imagine that, we come up to this gorgeous setting and he actually wants to be outside?  The weather is better today and so is his cold, thank goodness.

Sadly, this is all I was able to accomplish...

May Flowers

I've decided to call this little quilt May Flowers.  My quilter took a photo of the quilting she had just finished on it, and I could not be more pleased.  One thing she does with my mini quilts is that she reduces the scale of the quilting design to fit the smaller size of the quilt.  It makes sense, but a lot of quilters don't seem to do it.  I love the detail and how the quilting design really enhances the quilt top without dominating it.  This one will go on my kitchen counter with some yellow flowers.

A vacation update:  it is cold and cloudy today.  We have had a couple of snow showers, but nothing is sticking.  My husband came down with a miserable cold a couple of days ago and really felt crummy yesterday so we stayed in all day.  Fine with me.  I curled up with a big fat Elizabeth George mystery and a bag of Harvest Snaps and read all day.  Some napping may have happened as well.

Have you tried these?  They are so good, and actually made from green peas.  I try to tell myself they are nutritious.

Our house sitter shared this picture of Ozzie relaxing on the front porch.  She says he has been full of mischief and has been keeping her busy.  You would never guess he will be 12 next month.  

Hope you are all having a great week.