Discombobulated

As happens with everyone - everything is happening at once and I'm all discombobulated with what to work on next! There is no focus at my house....

---The last day to buy doe tags is tomorrow so my day job has been busy with hunters.
---September dog licenses are due today as well as all the people who are super late and got court tickets so my day job has been busy with dog owners.
---School taxes are due today so my 2nd job has been busy with an extra ~3 hours a day to keep up. Most people mail their taxes today, depending on the postmark to keep them "on time" so that big bundle will arrive on my desk Friday which could take 4 or 5 hours to process.
---Tonight I have to take down our hexie club quilt exhibit and tomorrow I need to make an apple crisp for the hexie club meeting on Friday - we are celebrating our third anniversary!!!!!!!!
---Saturday I'm working all day at the LQS for their 5 year anniversary party.

I don't mind each activity in itself but with all this in 6 days by the time I get home at night, I'm whooped and just need something simple to work on!

On Monday, I was trying to think about what I can finish before the 2 trunk shows (now just 8 and 20 days away). The doll quilt needs some sit down time at my Bernina so that is on schedule for Sunday. That brought me back to my plus quilt. I started pulling fabrics which created a mess while I decided on fabric combos.

That reminded me of a small project that was barely started but could make a good example for the second show. You can barely see the small plastic box on the near side of the mess...it's a stack of 2" squares of graduated hand dyes bought at a quilt show a year or so ago. Each graduation has 6 shades and there were no color repeats in the box. It's perfect for 3/4" rosettes! I had made the yellow one eons ago but decided to pull this out to work on piecemeal when I have short threads from other projects in the next few weeks. Well, that was the plan cuz here it is Wednesday morning and I have 2 done already.

Last night I cut out 4 sets of plus block and got the olive green set made...7 more to go...

This morning I pulled out my very first hexie project. I SWEAR it's the perfect doll quilt size by chance!!! It's still just a top because I had this grand idea of a fake trapunto effect under the center of each black eyed susan but ran out of ideas after just 4 of them. In the end it isn't a very exciting effect.

Today I'm going to decide if I should:  --come up with 8 more designs, --rip out the 4 designs and just leave them blank or --pick my fav design, rip out the other 3 and do them all the same. I'll add this project to Sunday's Bernina time.

I still need to stitch the facing on a topper and work on filling in the triangle edges for Value Proposition...any body know where I can purchase about 10 extra hours a day?

Design Wall Monday - 9/28/15

Today's post has it all...my *actual* design wall, some hexies and some machine sewing. LOL. That should pretty much please every one...

Yesterday I pulled out the fabrics for the side panels of my latest hexie doll quilt. Each was a half yard but I found it interesting that the fabric on the right, from a distant store and the fabric on the left from the LQS were different sizes. 18.5" from the LQS and 19.5" from the non-LQS. A big difference in my eyes...and so appreciated.

Any way, I cut a 23" long piece of the fabric and simply sewed them side by side. I felt that this would make it more stable with less puckering when appliqueing the hexies to the top.

I have a few more papers to remove and then I will spray baste the hexies so that it will look something like this next photo. I am still debating with myself if I should put a strip of batting behind the hexie part for a fake-trapunto effect.

Once the hexies are spray basted and machine appliqued in place, I will place the whole piece on the doll bed and determine how wide I want each side panel and them trim them off. I could have spent forever debating how far off center I want the hexie strip before assembly but finally decided that this might make my life simpler. We shall see...

I have 2 ideas for the backing and it all depends on how much of the fabrics are left after I size the side panels. I can replicate the front fabrics or have them opposites. I mean that the floral will be behind the floral and the cream behind the cream or the floral behind the cream and vice versa. I'll put the plum behind the hexie piece. After quilting it I will bring the backing fabrics to the front to replicate a binding. Is that what's called a facing? It will have the stitched binding look but I am really looking forward to the fact that it will appear to have the 3 fabrics in the binding.

And, you can see here that Squeaky (otherwise known as Honey Bear or Dolly) is just thrilled to pieces that her fall dolly bed quilt is getting closer to completion!

Feline Friday - 9/25/15

RIP Midgie

9/14/99 - 9/22/15

I will forever miss my tiny lap warmer and QCO!

Read Midgie's gotcha story here!

An InLinkz Link-up

Design Wall Monday - 9/21/15

It feels like I spent "all" weekend stitching and I don't have much to show for it. In reality I spent a few hours stitching under an afghan and warm cat and these little 1/2" hexies take almost as much time as a bigger hexie to stitch but they add up to a smaller piece. They are so delicate & I can't wait to make something else with them!

about 3" x 18"

I have just one more gold rosette to add after I finish the brick colored rosette on the right. Then I need to add a plum strip to each side (or top/bottom in the photo above). I should be able to get this finished by the end of the week with some more time spent under a cat while watching Chicago Fire Season 2
=^..^=

I am excited to have a "quick" finish - if you leave out that I started this more than a year ago - and look at the fact that I really only worked on it the last 7 or 10 days! And as Denise says - these are fall colors. Me thinks the cats are getting seasonal quilts for their dolly bed...

Feline Friday - 9/18/15

You're right, Momma! The view from the crow's nest is quite nice.

Zorro even left toys to play with!!

Excuse me Momma, I'm tuckered out from climbing so high. I think I'll take a little cat nap!

An InLinkz Link-up

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 9/17/15

Woohoo!!!! It's the 17th of the month and that makes it our monthly Hexie Linky Party!
Today I'm sharing the short (?) evolution of a recent project that was supposed to be simple.
Yeah right, bwahahahahaha.

Months ago I found this picture on The Evil Website:

I saved the photo to my desktop so I could figure out how I was going to make it. The link said she couldn't find the papers and had drafted her own but when I re-read it the last time and found that she said something about pentagons, I searched paperpieces.com for pentagons and found the house shape which would work perfectly! I promptly ordered them! I just needed to decide on fabric...

Having some fabric left from our Hexie club logo project, I decided to pull fabrics in the same color families and started making pluses. I put a few up on the wall and started on more. I started rearranging them on the wall and finally decided I really needed to come up with a final layout so I wouldn't make more than I needed for the project, given my short time frame for finishing projects (3 weeks from today is my first trunk show).

I finally pulled up EQ7 and found a "plus" block which I modified to better match the house shaped plus blocks.

I soon discovered that I couldn't design the final layout with just that one block and finally created a larger grid all at once. I wouldn't want to create a human bed sized quilt this way so there must be an easier way that I couldn't find...

Since this project will end up on the dolly cat bed, I sized it to be 18"x24" even tho this graphic looks almost square.

Next it was time to play with colors - ignore the colors in the drawings I just picked anything not what actually matches that beautiful batik.
--My first idea (left) was to copy the pinterest photo verbatim and have diagonal lines of color and white pluses. It probably shows the colors off the best.
--My second idea (middle) was to only have the colored pluses in the middle and any outside (full or partial) plus was white. I just felt this was too little color and quite lopsided.
--My third idea (right) was to have any full plus be colored and any partial plus is white - still lopsided but lots of color - and I'll have to cut down all of the white pluses I've made so far..

So far I am thinking that the third option gives me the most color but the first option makes the best use of the work I've put into the project so far.

I think any of the 3 options will be very pretty. Which is your favorite??!!

Ok, my fellow hexie-ologists, now it's your turn to share your EPP projects. Any shape or vintage is fair game - we just want to see what you're working on!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Design Wall Monday - 9/14/15

As predicted, the weekend was a wet mess so there was no walking or hiking in the park after working the 5K. The race went off with out a hitch but I was already wet enough from working that I just wanted to get home into some dry clothes. In all, we got 2" of much needed rain. And let me tell you, I LOVE the sound of a gentle rain...especially when I am inside and dry ;-)

Once home I had to make the decision of what hexies to work on for the weekend since there are just 24 days until my first trunk show and then 12 more until the second. Ackckckckckckck!

I was aiming for what I thought would be an easy finish project. Boy was I misguided. I had already cut out some colored bits and some WOW bits for this project. I stitched all the colored bits together and then stitched the white bits. Then I decided I really need to finalize the layout I wanted before putting any more bits together. Out came EQ7 and oops...I think my fav design means I need more colored bits and less white bits.

But, Wait!, you say, Where are the pictures?! I'm withholding them until Thursday which is our next Hexie Linky Party. That gives me a little more time decide which is really my fav design and if I can come up with enough colored bits.

On Sunday, I needed a quick to-go project so I pulled out a UFO!

When I originally found a picture of this pillow on Manuela's website a couple of years ago I was much newer to hexies and was going to strictly copy the pillow idea for lack of any inventiveness on my part. Fast forward to Summer 2015 when I now have a dolly bed that needs a stack of dolly quilts!!

I really like that this is a strip of vertical hexies flanked by 2 different fabrics. I had found the floral fabric at a non-LQS and was just lucky enough to find the perfectly matching coordinates at my LQS back when I first started this project. I had even already cut a lot of little fabric pieces (I'm using .5"' hexie papers!) and already made 2 rosettes.

I finished a couple more rosettes and I've now brought the whole shebang to work for lunch hours and guild meeting tomorrow night. Wish me luck that I can get the strip done this week or early next week and then get the top done in time for my trunk shows!

Yeah, as much as I would like to bring only quilted and bound projects to my trunk shows, I am now aiming for finishing as many tops as possible and I'll use each top as a teaching experience for fussy cutting or construction or ???. I'll quilt and bind the quilts for future trunk shows.

PS - I would love some name suggestions for this dolly quilt so I can create a blog label. I'm never good at names and today I'm too chilly to think straight...

Feline Friday - 9/11/15

Hey Zorro - whatcha doing??!!

Pre-treating the laundry, Momma!! Got any more?

An InLinkz Link-up

Letchworth State Park

Letchworth State Park is...
 ...locally known as the Grand Canyon of the East!!
 ...nationally known as the #1 State Park in the country per survey at USAToday!!

LSP is a mere 7 minute drive from my front door, yet I rarely made the time to visit for pleasure, only arriving with the ambulance crew for an emergency. Missing my annual second camping trip to the ADK mountains, I decided to take advantage of the beauty in my own backyard.  I've hiked a couple times with my friend Kim and her family and a couple times on my own. If the weather holds this coming Saturday, after I work the 5K for our local library, I hope to hike again. Keep your fingers crossed!

Pedestrian bridge over the river just downstream (north!) of the Lower Falls.
It's 167 steps down to viewing area above the bridge.

Old train trestle over the Upper Falls. The bridge will be replaced in the next couple of years so that the trains can maintain their travelling speed over the gorge. They currently must drastically slow down to cross the current bridge.

Early morning fog rising out of the gorge - looking towards Lower/Middle/Upper Falls.
The river runs north (left), just like the Nile in Egypt.

Sun rays through the trees.
When I was a kid, this is how people got to heaven :)

Park entry is free before 9am so I've been enjoying the solitude and cool weather in the mornings.
Lets just hope I don't come across this in person!
 There is an indentation on the right that could be a 5th toe. Check out those claws tho!What do you think? Bobcat (4 toes) or bear cub (5 toes)?

Feline Friday - 9/4/15

Momma!!
Will you give me a push??

 Pretty please with purrs & sugar on top and no claws?

An InLinkz Link-up

The Bibliophile Files - 9/1/15

WooHoo!! Another long list of finished books. I do think that listening to mp3s on my iPhone while I walk is serving two purposes - I keep walking to hear more of the stories and I therefore finish more books. At least 4 of the following books were finished while walking 2 miles at a time :)

On the other hand, having a mp3 audiodisk on my car stereo doesn't get me very far very fast given my 10 minute commute each day and a few random errands. On the third hand (LOL), I don't have to remember to bring an audiodisk when I have a road trip to guild or the big city - I'm the forgetful type. Of course, now that's it's school tax season and I'll be making 2 trips a day to the school I should be able to add another 20 minutes a day. LOL.

What do you do to "read" more??

FINISHED!!
1st to Die
Deception - Another new to me series.
Trial by Fire
6th Target
Chiefs - it kills me that the next 2 books in this series are not available on audiobook. This was a fabulous book covering the timespan of 3 different police chiefs in a small town and I don't want to miss a thing before I read another in the series.
Live Bait - this is part of a series that I am still deciding if I will follow. Enough said.
5th Horseman
Torpedo Juice - another jam packed, ADD paced story in this series. I love hearing about south Florida locales given my 14 years in Miami.
The Myth of You & Me - I got this suggestion from some email and all my library system had was the abridged version. The details finally made sense at the the end but I always wonder what they cut out to abridge a book.
7th Heaven - finished this baby this morning. There were probably much more important chores to be doing but I just had to find out the solution to the 3 mysteries in this book. I love the fact that instead of solving one crime, there are usually 3 or 4 to solve in each book in the series.

CURRENTLY:
audiobook on my home stereo - At the Water's Edge - excellent book - can't wait to get home and hear some more of the story. Same author as Water for Elephants.
mp3 on my car stereo - The Housemaid's Daughter - this was supposed to be on par with The Help. It's not. A decent but kinda slow moving story which is even slower given 10 minute chunks while driving to work.
mp3 on my iPhone - 3rd Degree - it's getting annoying to listen to this series out of order but I am at the mercy of the library system. I also love the fact that instead of solving one crime, there are usually 3 or 4 to solve.
paperback still on my nightstand - The Other Family - what can I say...when it's time to go to bed, it's time to sleep so I don't get much reading done. Maybe this holiday weekend I can bang out the book since I have no renewals left at the library.

And now it's your turn! What have you been reading?? We want to hear about your latest novel, quilt book, magazine or even the last cereal box you read!!