Sister's Choice Quilts

Borders Nearly Done on Opening Day

This project is very nearly complete! I am halfway finished with the border blocks. Just 12 or so more to go and this Opening Day quilt top will be DONE! The blocks look kind of haphazard on the border, keep in mind I just slapped them on the design wall, they aren't sewn together.

I will be thrilled to have finished this. Good grief I have been looking at the project box for going on 10 years I think. I think I started this quilt when I lived down in the Monterey area, and that's two houses ago. Oh well, Ben Franklin said, "Well done is better than well said". Very true. I can stop talking about this darn project and put it behind me.

More starching happened today. The weather has been glorious. I can spray starch a whole drying rack of fat quarters and they are dry and ready to go in about an hour. There is an upcoming sew-along that I have in mind and I want to be ready for the start date of May 1.

Fat Quarter Shop is hosting a sew-along called Summer Memories, based on a new book by Susan Ache. The quilt is done in red, light blue, and pink, and features a variety of basket blocks. Here is a link to the FQS intro to the project: Summer Memories Sew-Along

What do you think? Are you sewing along too? What summer sew-alongs have caught your eye this year? I do love a summer sewing project. For this one, I am sure there will be a specific FaceBook group for people to show their fabrics and blocks etc. That is always fun to see what other folks are doing.

When I was prepping my fabrics and sorting them into a project box (which I had to search for because I had none empty), I was very much agast at how many UFOs I have going on. It is rather appalling actually. When I think of all the money I spent on that fabric to make the quilts, I really need to start focusing on finishing things. Seriously, I have at least a dozen projects in the works. I know that must make some readers literally twitchy to imagine themselves in that predicament. I vow to try to be better.  

Pink and Aqua

Not much sewing happening. I did get myself out in the fresh air and starched some pretty pink and aqua fabrics. I may use them for the Vintage Kite block project. My gosh, those blocks take a ton of fabric. It says if you use one fabric for the background, you need 8 yards for a quilt that finishes at 72 inches square. That just seems wild.

The weather has suddenly turned into Spring here. I have been trying to walk several times a week, and have been enjoying seeing the lilac bushes and wisteria vines that have burst into bloom. The daffodils are done, but the dogwoods and redbud trees are putting on a show.

I've told you all that I have a job writing articles for pool and spa companies. Normally I write about pool chemicals or fiberglass vs vinyl liner pools, but lately, I have been getting more lifestyle posts, which are fun to write. My latest assignment was to write an article on throwing a great 4th of July barbecue party. I had to research grilling recipes and found one I just have to share. It's called Charred Corn Slaw, by the Memphis Wood Fire Grill Company. Oh my gosh, you grill a few ears of corn along with jalapeno peppers and mix them together with onion and some seasonings. Let the mixture cool until serving. Or serve it warm. Doesn't that sound heavenly? I'm definitely going to try that.

Hope you are all having a great week.

 

Slow But Steady

I am making slow but steady progress on the Opening Day quilt. I have finished the border of flying geese. There is one more border of pieced blocks, that should go quickly. These blocks are comprised of fairly large half-square triangles and solid squares and should be a snap to construct.

I sure would like to get this project off the design wall in order to finish up a couple of other projects!

My mind has been distracted lately with various personal issues, so my progress is comparable to the movement of a tectonic plate. I'll get through it. Everything gets resolved over time, right? And it could always be worse. 

On a good news front, I have been losing weight! Not that I needed to lose that much, but most of us would be happy to be at least 10 pounds thinner I think. I had put on a few pounds over the holidays, which seemed as if they would like to take up permanent residence. I got a super offer from Weight Watchers to join for three months for $11 per month. What the heck I thought. Well, their program is constantly changing, and seems to get more complicated every year. And I did not want to attend any meetings. I thought I could lose 15 pounds in three months doing it on my own, online, so I signed up.

The thing with Weight Watchers now, is that they use a "point" system, where you are allowed a certain number of points a day. I get 23. All foods are assigned a point value, and fruits and veggies are pretty much all zero points. In the past, I have found Weight Watchers recipes to be bland, uninspiring, and practically inedible. Nowadays, however, with their brilliant "app", many professional chefs are in putting their tasty, low-calorie, and low point recipes into the WW app system for everyone to look up, access, and make at home. We have enjoyed so many really (and I meant restaurant quality) good recipes lately that are Weight Watcher-endorsed and have an actual point value you can track. 

The down side to Weight Watchers is that they have made loads of changes lately, including closing a lot of their meet in person locations. So, if you like the experience of regular meetings with other people, you may be out of luck. That wasn't a big deal for me as I prefer going it alone.

Last night we had brown rice salmon bowls, with grilled salmon, brown rice, red onions, grated carrots, sliced cucumbers, and a dill yogurt sauce. 4 points.  Hello. Yes please. And in a month I have lost 10 pounds, even with a vacation!

Are any of you Weight Watchers out there? Are you eating well? Finding the program easy to stick to? I live for those Starkist Tuna packs with the already seasoned tuna. 0-2 points per pack, and they are good!  And only $1 at Walmart. 

Feel free to comment with your WW experiences, tips, and favorite meals!

Vintage Kite Block and Is It Time to Replace Your Sharps?

How cute is this block? It is called the Vintage Kite block and is made by foundation piecing. Fat Quarter Shop has been coming out with a series of foundation papers that are truly wonderful. They have Square in a Square block papers in several common sizes, which I love to use for that block because it is a tricky one. They also have all kinds of size options for half-square triangle blocks. Paper piecing is great for HSTs when you need to make a lot of them. But I digress.

This block was fairly time-consuming, as you must do it in four sections and then sew the quadrants together to make the block. I love how it turned out though and I will definitely make more of them. This block finishes at 6 inches.

The paper sheets come in a pad of 42. You would need at least two or three pads to make a quilt. Just try one pad and make a table runner and see how you like it!


Is it time to replace some of your "sharp" tools? We all know we need to replace our rotary cutter blades fairly often. You know it's time when your blade skips and won't cut through all your layers of fabric.

But did you know other sharp tools need to be replaced as well? Pins get dull or bent and should be replaced. I toss mine and replace with new ones once a year.

This may come as a shock, but you should be replacing your seam ripper fairly often as well. The business part of a seam ripper is a razor, and it dulls over time. I bet some of you have never replaced your seam ripper. Am I right? I have a drawer full of them that I have acquired over the past 10-15 years and have no idea which are the old ones and which are the new ones. I just dumped them all and bought three new Clover seam rippers. I have one on my cutting table, one next to my sewing machine, and a backup. If I ever went on quilting retreats or took classes anymore, I'd put one in my travel sewing kit for sure. 

I had to rip something last time I sewed and wow, the new seam ripper cut through the threads like nobody's business.

Thank you again for your kind words of comfort over losing our Ozzie. It really meant so much that he touched so many of you over the years! That dog was something else. Gosh, our house feels empty without him. My husband hardly knows what to do with himself early in the morning when he used to walk him around the neighborhood. Ozzie had an inner alarm clock I swear. He always knew when it was 5:30 and time for dinner, and he sure had us trained. Come 5:30 my husband and I are ready to go into the kitchen and fill the food bowls. I know it gets better over time, but whew, it is a sad adjustment for us.

 

Feeling Fragile

My husband and I are still feeling quite fragile over the loss of our Ozzie. He was an older dog, going on 16 years, but he was always so lively and healthy, his sudden demise took us quite by surprise. The evening before he passed away, we enjoyed a really nice family time with Sara and Eva. Ozzie had plenty of cuddles and ate a good supper. There was no sign that he was unwell.

In the morning we found him collapsed on the floor panting and in distress. We took him immediately to our veterinarian, a few minutes away. She said he was critically ill and she suspected his heart or some internal organ failure was the cause. She recommended that we put him down. 

Everywhere we look, we expect to see him. On the couch, in my favorite chair, on the porch in a patch of sunshine. And of course underfoot in the kitchen or anywhere else the family is occupied. 

This is going to be a huge adjustment for us to carry on without him. So many of you left the kindest comments and I appreciate it so very much. It is obvious that you have experienced the loss of a beloved pet yourselves and know the pain.

Please bear with me over the next little while as I find my way through this.

Ozzie

Tuesday Baking

Have you ever not really been in the mood for a baking project, but the kid in your life has come to count on it every Tuesday? Eva and I usually bake on Tuesday afternoons but this week I wasn't really feeling it. I told her to go through our recipe collection and see what she could come up with. Bless her heart, she found a three-ingredient pumpkin muffin recipe. Seriously it took two minutes to put together and only one bowl to clean.

This recipe could not be simpler. Combine one box of Betty Crocker (or Duncan Hines) spice cake mix with one 16 oz. can of pumpkin puree. The batter is a bit stiff but as you stir it, it all comes together. Add a half cup of chocolate chips and put in a greased muffin tin that holds 12. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350. 

You can use a vanilla cake mix, but add 2 tsp of pumpkin pie seasoning. If you "Google" "3 ingredient muffin recipes using cake mix" you can find several more recipes: banana muffins, applesauce muffins and lemon blueberry are some that I found.

Eva said they were delicious and took several home to have for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. My house still smells like Thanksgiving with all the spices in the air.

I am busy with work this week, so I haven't been doing much sewing, but here is my progress with Opening Day. I've got one flying geese border so far.

I've been getting the oddest emails lately from people who clearly are not regular readers. One woman emailed to say she could not find any of my "free" patterns on my website and what was up with that? And I just got another email from someone wanting to know how she could buy my patterns, she couldn't find an order form on my blog.

I think I am pretty reliable to post my sources when I show a project, and I don't think I have ever given the impression that I sell anything, right? I guess some people just don't read.

 

 

Antique Reproduction Quilt

I got a quilt back from the quilter last week. It sometimes takes me a while to finish things, and this quilt has been waiting for going on 10 years to be quilted. It is such a beautiful quilt and I am so glad I finally sent it out. It is a monster, 91" square, so I probably delayed because I thought it would cost a fortune to get it quilted. To my surprise, the cost was quite reasonable and I am sorry I waited so long.

I had it quilted in an all-over feather design, which I like to use on quilts that look like antiques.

Here are the particulars about the quilt. I made it totally using scraps from my stash, with the exception of the light-colored fabric used in the blocks and dark brown for the lattices and border. I did buy yardage for that. There are 86 six-inch star blocks, which took forever to make. There are 344 hourglass block units, each of which had to be trimmed down to the accurate size needed. It was a real labor of love and a time commitment. I still can't believe I left it so long to be quilted. It really is magnificent.

When it arrived back from the quilter, I laid the quilt out on the bed to examine it. I was trying to figure out the pattern I used for laying out the blocks. Was it every other one a dark background? After studying it, it turns out the block layout seems to be completely random. Typically that sort of thing would bug me, but the randomness of the layout seems to work. 

The pattern is called Antique Star by Bonnie Blue Quilts, who have changed their name to Red Crinoline Quilts. I cannot find the pattern on their website at all. All I can tell you is that it requires 86 6 1/2" (unfinished) Ohio Star blocks. The blocks are set on the diagonal with setting triangles. The lattices are about 1 1/2" finished and the border could be whatever width you like. 

I am in the process of binding the quilt, which is also going to take a fair amount of time. I have already watched hours of cooking shows on TV while sewing on it, and the thing isn't half done.

(Can you find any eggs?)

Hope you had a great Easter weekend. Our Easter was lovely, starting with an Easter Egg Hunt (organized by Eva, her sister, and her stepmom) at a nearby winery where her dad works. After the egg hunt, a local friend made a huge batch of paella for sharing with all the guests. In the afternoon my husband and I went to the neighborhood golf club restaurant and had bloody marys on the terrace overlooking the course. The grand finale was dinner with family at Eva's daddy's house. I made strawberry pie! The weather was perfect and it made for a great day.

 

 

Spring Things

On a scale of totally crappy weeks, this one is near the top, but spring is in the air, so I am feeling hopeful for better things to come.

Sara and Eva are off to Southern California on a Spring Break adventure, and the photos they are sending me seem to indicate they are having fun.

I sure am missing them though.

I did a bit of sewing, and my husband and I took a drive to a local winery that is known for its fabulous Easter tulip and other bulb displays and we were not disappointed. The photo at the top of the post is one I took with my camera, and it looked just like that. The colors were incredible and the scent of the hyacinths was so strong! It really put me in the frame of mind to think that spring and other good things are on the way.

Those are tulips if you can believe it.

These are the last three Sewcialites blocks I have made. Only one more and we are done!

After our excursion to the winery to see the spring bulb display, we came home and made lamb chops with balsamic cherry tomatoes. That was a spring dinner for sure. What a treat.

Hope it feels like spring is finally on its way wherever you are. Be grateful for the people in your life who support you and love you.  Happy Easter and have a great weekend!

 

 

Sunny Patches

I mentioned a couple of new projects that I had happened upon (or perhaps they happened upon me). One is a block of the month hosted by Corey Yoder of Coriander Quilts. Corey's project is called "Sunny Patches", and that is pretty much how this fabric line feels to me. I am using a very sunny and cheerful collection by Fig Tree Quilts called Fruit Cocktail.

Corey's Sunny Patches quilt seems like it is going to be super simple and not a lot of work, but with enough going on to keep things interesting. The quilt is comprised of 30 large half-square triangles made from 2 1/2 inch wide strip sets made from a jelly roll. (Or cut your own). There are also going to be a handful-maybe 6?- of sampler blocks spread throughout.

I have completed my 15 strip sets and made 6 out of 30 half-square triangles for the alternate blocks. The block of the month part of the project starts mid-April. Here is a link to the project introduction and fabric requirements. Corey has a YouTube video up with instructions and more information on her blog. 

I am longing for warmer weather and sunny skies, so this cheery project really appealed to me. Have you heard of it? Are you thinking of sewing along? This looks like a super easy one.