Sister's Choice Quilts

Shine Bright Runner

It's almost September, so a Christmas project is in order, don't you think? This is Shine Bright, a pattern by Kansas Troubles. Lynn Hagemeir has been the designer behind Kansas Trouble Quilts for over 25 years, and I think I have admired her that entire time. I love her pure color palette, her crisp designs, and her style in general. I gather that she is a lovely person and hope she keeps designing for at least another 25 years. I always admire it so when a person discovers their style and sticks with it unwaveringly.

Shine Bright is a jelly roll friendly pattern, although I had yardage and cut my own strips.  Her pattern is for a 64" x 70" quilt, but I scaled down and made a table runner.  I am really pleased with how it turned out and think it will look amazing on my dining table with a Christmas floral arrangement in the middle of it. You must check out Lynn's website, as she is offering the pattern, plus an entire kit, and a variation kit featuring Americana colored prints. How cute would that be?

Did you have a good weekend?  I am feeling a bit confused as to what day it even is. My days are either days when I am teaching Eva or days when I am not.  I know it was the weekend because she wasn't here.

It feels good to wrap up the month of August.  It is typically my least favorite month, with the heat and dryness we have where I live. And those terrible fires we had this month will not be soon forgotten. Cooler days are ahead, but I am sad because if things were not impacted by COVID-19, we would be leaving for Ireland to visit our son Ahren this coming week. How I miss him.

I am working on my August book review post.  I finished eight books this month, one of which was exceptional, and some of which were surprisingly good. You might really enjoy them too.

Talk to you tomorrow.  Hope all is well with you.

National Dog Day: My Dog

Did you all enjoy seeing all the cute dog pics on Instagram yesterday?  It was National Dog Day. Everyone with a cute dog (and some not so cute dogs) posted pictures of their pets. Well I have a cute dog too.  Ozzie.  He has been with us for 13 years and those years have been a wild ride.  Ozzie was a mischievous puppy and nothing has changed. He loves attention and will stop at nothing to get it.  Nothing.

If I am too long at my computer, he will go find some personal object of mine and caper around with it, pretending he is about to devour it until I stop what I am doing, chase after him and confiscate it.  What a fun game right?  We have been playing it for years. Often it is a hair scrunchy or clip.  Sometimes my eyeglasses.  Sometimes it is something of a very personal nature. Ahem.

Here is a trip down Memory Lane.

Here he is with an entire unfinished quilt top out in the back yard.

With my brand new layer cake. 

The time he buried a rawhide chew toy under the pillow in the guest room.  Just before the guests arrived.

With my new knitting project.

With my new $30 Christian Dior lip gloss.

For a few years he had a thing for expensive orange shoes.

See what I mean?

Then there was the issue with him being jealous of my sewing irons.

That went on for a while.

He has mellowed out after all these years, but I have to say, he's led me on a merry chase. He won't let me forget he's around, that is for sure.

Now that he is Old Dog, he lazes around a lot more.

Ozzie on my favorite chair.

Ozzie in my favorite spot on the front porch.

He may have slowed down, but he's still my guy.

 

 

Sew Much Un-Sewing

I think I spent as much time unsewing these blocks as I did sewing them together.  The problem was the center. I needed to have two of the leaf blocks turn inward and I neglected to do that.  Also, getting those four stems to line up in the middle was a bear.

Oh well, it's done now and trimmed up and ready to be quilted. I was pretty distracted by the fires and family members undergoing stressful times while I was sewing this, so it's no wonder all the leaves aren't going off in random directions.

My assistant approves.

The air quality is better today and there is a hint of blue sky behind the smoke. We could actually sit outside a bit before dinner. The evacuation orders were rescinded for the folks where my daughter lives, so that's good. Hopefully, the firefighters are getting control of the wildfires near us.

Hope all of you are hanging in there.  Thanks again for all the support and encouragement over the past week. 

Bad Air

Our air quality is so bad from the fires all over the state.  I had some things I was trying to organize out in the garage and thought I would be "inside" enough while working on them for an hour.  Mistake. After an hour of puttering outside my house, I developed a full-blown asthma attack. I came inside and stayed there the rest of the day and today I am better. Except that my back muscles are sore from coughing so hard.

So, I took it easy yesterday.  Eva and I worked on math, reading comprehension, learning about latitude and longitude, and how/why beavers make dams. The beavers were super interesting I have to say.  Enterprising little devils. Did you know their lodges have three distinct "rooms" or chambers?  A sleeping area, an eating area, and a nursery.  It's true.

I have nothing sewing related to share, but I do have some really good news.  My dad went back to see his specialist for another macular degeneration treatment.  And his vision has measurably improved!!! I am so thrilled to hear that.  My sister Kate took him to his appointment this time.  She is the most squeamish person on the planet and somehow got through his treatment without fainting or otherwise embarrassing herself. She may have shut her eyes, stuck her fingers in her ears and said "La la la la la la la la la la la la".  But I don't know.  I wasn't' there.

Thank you all so much for all the support and kind words yesterday.  The fires in my state are a terrible thing and so many have been affected. The fire in my daughter's area is moving away from them, so she was able to return and collect her horse from the kind person in the next county who was boarding it.

Here are China, the miniature horse, and Henry, the goat.

Maple Leaves Runner and Our State is Burning Up

I put in a few hours of sewing over the weekend, and the Maple Leaves blocks are finished and being sewn together.  The batik fabrics are so pretty.  It is like I am working with little jewels. What I am really enjoying is the lighter background.  Many of my fall table toppers and runners are rather dark, and I like how the bright colors really show up in this piece.

The pattern is Maple by The Pattern Basket.  Batiks were in my stash. The background is just muslin.

As you see in this photo, once I reach the middle of the runner, the leaves will switch direction.  I think that looks so much more balanced than having them go all one way. 

The runner will have 14 maple leaf blocks all together. I kind of did my own thing here.  My setting triangles are 9 3/4" squares cut diagonally twice and my corner triangles are 5 1/8" squares cut diagonally once.

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This was an incredibly distracting weekend.  My mind is fixated on the fires and all the people who are affected.  Some of whom I am closely related to.  That thunder and lightning storm I told you about last week sure did a lot of damage. It created complete havoc as a matter of fact.

Several lightning strikes caused the CZU fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which have caused my nephew and his family to be evacuated from their home in Boulder Creek.  Last they heard, the blaze was a mile from their home. Their insurance agent has already been in touch. They are currently staying with my father in the Bay Area.  My cousin and his wife are under imminent evacuation orders due to the SCU fire south of San Jose. The house where we used to live in the Monterey area came very close to burning down.  We actually thought it had been consumed, but later news informed us that the River fire had come so near to our former neighborhood that it completely scorched the surrounding visible hillsides.

And my daughter Sara who lives in Groveland, near the entrance to Yosemite, woke Saturday morning to the sheriff pounding on her door, informing her she needed to evacuate due to the Mocassin fire. They have a horse, a goat, two large dogs, and chickens that had to be sorted out.  Neighbors rallied and loaned them a trailer, and the larger animals have been boarded safely in another county. It turns out the evacuation orders they received may have been pre-mature, but they are standing ready to flee.

This is a terrifying situation, and is happening rather early in our typical "fire season." So many people are affected by the over 600 wildfires raging through our state. I feel such fear for the firefighters who are doing battle with these infernos.  Their courage and heroism are unfathomable. Resources are stretched very, very thin, and available manpower and equipment are in short supply. Pray for us all.

Even Better

These little Maple blocks from the Pattern Basket pattern of the same name are turning out so cute.  I decided to go with a pile of batik fat quarters I have had forever and I love how the colors work together.  Very organic and fall like.  Excuse my hairy design wall.  I haven't lint rollered it for a long time.

Do you see the little stem unit?  You use 3" triangles which you cut in half diagonally and sew on each side of a 1 x 4" dark strip.  I have discovered the best way to trim them up! The 2 1/2" BlockLoc trim tool works amazingly well.

The little groove in the BlocLoc tool fits nice and snug in the seam of the cream and brown fabrics. Right smack in the center of the stem.

Trim the right side and the top. 

Flip the cutting mat around and trim the other two sides.

It works like a dream, especially since my BlocLoc ruler is the same size as my block unit.  However, there is no reason you could not use a larger size BlocLoc ruler, you would just have to position it at the correct line on the ruler.

Hope your week is going well.  Our power did go out today, but not because the electric company turned it off.  A driver ran into a power pole and caused 4100 customers to be without electricity for a couple of hours in 102 degree weather.  Hope they are ok.

 

 

Patterns From The Pattern Basket

The Pattern Basket patterns are always so good.  Have you ever tried any?  The designer, Margot Languedoc is known for her fall pumpkin quilt patterns, which are adorable.  She does birds really well too! Do check out her website to see all the wonderful patterns she has for sale, both in paper and in pdf format.

I recently bought two new ones, one of them is "Maple",which is shown above.  I want to do some kind of table runner in deep rich fall colors.  I have a layer cake that I think would be perfect.  It is an older one by Deb Strain that I have had around for a few years.  It would be so pretty for Thanksgiving.

This is the other pattern I got:

This is "Sunkissed". If you want to see this pattern made up beautifully, check this link to Thelma's blog to see what she did with it.  It is pretty spectacular. The block looks so simple to piece, with no seams to match up.  

That's all I have for today.  104 again, and luckily we kept our power all day.  No rolling blackout, as was threatened.  Homeschool went well.  We bought a globe and are learning the continents and oceans. Hope it is a heck of a lot cooler wherever you are.

BlockHeads 3 Catch Up

Eva and I had a busy day with homeschool Monday.  She is doing assessment tests in reading and math, which are super hard and take a very long time. She's been a trooper though and we got through about half of the reading test.  We will finish up on Tuesday then go on to math. We also studied Science and Spanish and made pumpkin bread.  And read for our book club.

I had a few minutes to go upstairs to my 90-degree sewing room and get caught up a bit with the BlockHeads sew-along.  What you see above are my six-inch blocks, which will all be set on the diagonal as shown. The most recent one is the basket block on the left.  

Today will be our fourth or fifth day of temperatures around 104 degrees.  Ugh.  And when that happens, our electric company always runs out of power and cuts us off from 3PM to 10PM with "rolling blackouts".  Isn't that great?  Can't they plan ahead for that and save up?  lol Clearly I have no idea how it works, but this is the pits. We keep our shades down, use our ceiling fans, don't use electrical appliances during the afternoon and evening, don't keep opening our refrigerator etc etc.  We do everything they tell us to do to save energy, yet still our power is shut off. A lot of people must not be complying...I can tell you, all the folks who stocked up on meat for their freezers aren't going to be happy.

 I know we will get through this, just like everything else 2020 has thrown at us.  We just need to look at the blessings in amongst the negatives.

American Pie Block Units Done

Remember this project?  It is a one-block quilt called American Pie, an older pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company that lends itself beautifully to scrap busting. I picked it up at the beginning of the pandemic, thinking it would be a fun project to occupy me for a few weeks while we sheltered in place.  What a laugh.  First of all, I got distracted by other shinier projects, and second, we are now five months into self-isolating at home and I haven't made much progress. At least all the units are complete!

The block units are super simple: larger colored squares with background squares sewn on two opposing corners.  I have made hundreds of them and now need to press out the units and construct the blocks.

Once the units are pressed, you need to pick out two pairs and sew them together as shown above.  The pressing is tricky in order to keep the seams opposing (so they lay nice and flat).  I need to study those directions a bit more closely, just saying.

So, here is the first block.  I like it.  The quilt is going to be very scrappy, with all the fabrics coming out of my Civil War Reproductions leftovers bins.  I have fond memories of many of these fabrics from other projects.  I do love a quilt that uses fabric up!

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  I went to visit my dad, and we had some extremely weird weather.  He lives two and a half hours away from me in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is known for its pretty mild weather.  In the 60 years I have lived in California, I only recall one time, back in the early 80s, when we had a thunderstorm with lightning in the Bay Area.  Last night it started up around 3:30 AM.  At least that is when I woke up to strange flickering light outside my window.  And a loud rumbling noise a few seconds later.

It went on for hours.  Along with occasional cloud bursts of torrential rain.  Any of you familiar with the weather around San Francisco can attest to the fact that It.Does.Not.Rain. in the summer.  At. All. Ever. The rainy season is November through April (with the rare rain in late October or early May).  So this was very strange.  Around 6:00 I dozed off again, only to be awakened around 7:00 by a bright flash of light and a colossal crash of thunder.  I was so startled I actually cried out.  I leaped out of bed and there was another flash of light and an immediate deafening BOOM of thunder.  And the power went out. I think an electrical sub-station near us must have taken a direct hit.  

You wouldn't believe the buzz happening on social media in our area.  Everyone is showing their photos of lightning bolts and the sky lighting up as if it were daytime.  This sort of weather just does not happen there. My home is in the Sierra Foothills, so I do get thunderstorms (which greatly distress Ozzie), but it is unheard of to have that sort of thing 130 miles away in the Bay Area.

What's going on in our world this year??  Locusts next?

We Did Our Own Thing Today

We haven't had our math assessment yet, we haven't had any of our online workshops in science and reading, so we spent our day the best way we could.  By doing our own thing.

We had breakfast, then went to the grocery store.  Eva was in charge of the shopping list and led me around the store finding the items.  She was pretty motivated to find the items on the list as she had created it herself for the most part.  She had a conversation with me informing me that at school last year, the cafeteria offered interesting choices for lunch, such as sloppy joes, tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, bean and cheese burritos, English muffin pizzas, etc.  And sides.  Always a choice of sides:  applesauce, carrots, cherry tomatoes, jello, and so on. And chips.  Lots of chips. Our mission was to come up with a nice varied selection of menu items to provide for her during her school day at my house.

She seemed to know where most things were to be found, and when she wasn't sure she read the signs and tried to figure it out. When it came to the cheese section, I told her I wanted her to find the most budget-friendly options. And she did, comparing prices to find the lowest ones. She unloaded the card at the check out stand and presented my debit card for payment. I don't know about you, but I think that was an educational experience.

Then after that, we came home and put the groceries away. Next, we went up to the sewing room and made three new masks for Eva.  She picked out the fabrics (we used layer cake squares) and chose things that went well together, so each mask could be reversible.  She helped me pin (she did not enjoy pinning).  She measured 5" lengths of elastic and cut them perfectly.  She ironed the masks at the appropriate time during construction.

She also played with my camera, and did an interview of me where we discussed how masks disguise a person, are hot to wear and wondered how long COVID-19 would be an issue that called for them to be worn.  She played with my phone camera and took slow-mo, time-lapse, and speeded up videos of me sewing.

I don't know about you, but I think she learned something today and we weren't spending the entire day doing speed drills and flashcards.  Well, we did some of that later, but honestly, I think you can't put a kid's learning in a tidy box with a bow.  We did our own thing and both came out the wiser.

See, the flashcards are there in the background. All in good time.