Feline Friday - 9/28/18

Hey Momma - did you know that your quilty stuff is leaking outside of the lab?  It's ok tho as it's all pretty soft and nice for lounging on.

Take for example this old quilt that you recently got for a steal.

The lady that sold it to you said it was machine pieced but *I* know better. It's actually hand pieced and hand quilted with a summer weight batting.

It's perfect for the fall weather too! Not too warm and not too cool! Just right!

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday Weather Report #71 - 9/26/18

It's amazing how a little R and R can throw routines out of whack.

I went to the Adirondacks for a long weekend - it was a good weekend with mountain climbing and the Homesteading Festival on Saturday. I was going to go to the Moose Festival Sunday but after two loooooong days of driving I decided to hang out at camp. It was a brisk 36F Sunday morning but the afternoon sun was quite delightful and that allowed me to sit outside and get lots of stitching done.

I'm guessing this is about twice the size it was a week ago.

I stitched quite a bit on Mr Serious but not on the temperature quilt that I had left at home.

BTW - I started a "page" on Mr Serious. You can always click the label to read all the related posts but now you can also check the page to see semi-weekly progress photos all in one place.

I pulled the temperature fabrics out last night but neglected to take a picture. Let's just say that there were 5 yellows (60s) and 3 2 greens (50s). I'll add a photo of the fabrics to this post tomorrow and I'll post the stitched pieces next week after I get more papers.

68 -67 - 66 - 53 - 58 - 61 - 69 F

How was your weather for the last week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Feline Friday - 9/21/18

Momma is coming right along with my pawtrait however I'm surprised she never considered this photo...

She was trying to photobomb me ... Can you imagine?

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday Weather Report #70 - 9/19/18

Hello! Hello! How is the weather in your neck of the woods?

I hope everyone in the Eastern US  made it through Florence ok. We were supposed to get the tail end of Flo here but, as often happens, things shifted and we just got a nice gentle rain Monday night. That's as opposed to Chantal who got 6.5" yesterday in NH. I don't think I've ever been through that much rain and I've been through a fair number of hurricanes myself.

69 - 75 - 78 - 80 - 81 - 80 - 78 F

The newspapers are talking about all the new weather related records this summer and that they are the cause of our late (non-existent?) fall color. The next record could be as early as Friday, with a proposed local temp of 85 when the record is 86. The "last" one depends on the rest of the month because this September is already the warmest in 137 years of recorded weather history. I don't know about you but I'm ready for more cool days to jump in to the mix.

September 1-18, 2018

And that's all I have for today. Don't forget to link up your weather project (hexies or otherwise) or tell us about your weather in the comments.

An InLinkz Link-up

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 9/18/18

Sew...it was about 7pm last night when I realized it was the 17th. As in the day I should have posted HeLP for Hexie-aholics. Eek! Except I had been at a training in Canandaigua and it never dawned on me to schedule the post last week.

Oh, please forgive me, my hexie friends!!

Does it help that I was working on hexies while listening to the training? I worked on a different project than what I am going to share but hexies are hexies, right?! I am trying my best to only work on 2 hexie projects for the rest of the year. The first I worked on at training, a kaleidoscope doll quilt that will be my UFO Challenge project for hexie club this fall.

The other is Mr Serious. Zorro introduced the project back on 9/7/18. The purpose of the project is to make a 34" x 42" quilt for our next hexie club exhibit in September 2019. In the last post I was trying to chose from 3 photos. I actually tried converting all of these photos and a couple more but because Mr Serious was more of a compact photo when cropped I was able to get better detail. I know a lot of people liked the photo with me & Z but we would have just been blobs. Ick.

As you will recall, I started with the above photo.

The colors aren't nearly this dark...
it's more like my 12+ year old laptop needs replacing

I put the photo into EQ7 and got this. Fun! EQ assigned something like 60 colors.

There was no way I was investing in 60+ fabrics so I fiddled with the colors, more for shading purposes than actual/final colors and ended up with this. There are 2 reds, 2 golds, 1 brown, 1 black, 2 or 3 grays, 4 whites/creams, 1 lime green for the eyes and 1 pink for the nose. All are grunge fabrics. (Yes, I'm officially addicted!) I'm still not happy with the yellows I've found but I have time to keep looking.

I'm using this Fiskars (?) punch to cut my own 1/2" hexies from those stupid magazine cards. My friends are happy to give me their cards so now I have piles of them! Yes, 1/2" is kinda small but when I tried to increase the hexies, even to 3/4", I lost a lot of detail so it's worth it to stay small. Once I get into a rhythm it really isn't so bad.

I started with the eyes. With just 8 greens it was easy to get them out of the way and now I'm not likely to lose the cut pieces. I'm happy to admit this is the green that got rejected from the temp quilt - I knew I bought it for a reason =^..^=

This is how much I had stitched by Friday am.
Can you see that what I have blacked out by my knuckle corresponds with the stitched bits?

Luckily, the small town where I work has a fabulous print shop who will make color prints for 25cents per page. I had Rachel print the overall quilt and then this red quadrant. It's a bit hard to tell the 2 reds from each other in the print so I outlined them with a very fine blue sharpie to make my life easier. You can kind of see the difference in the reds in this photo of the stitched bits: as fat quarters the reds are quite different, as real life hexies a good enough contrast but in photos nearly the same. Frustrating to share with you guys but it looks good in person. You'll have to trust me or stop by to see it in person!

I'm not sure how I'll be differentiating all the black hexies when they are also outlined in black but I have time to figure that out. Most likely I'll change the black to a color unlike anything near it (blue, perhaps) so that I'll be able to black them out.

If I did the math correctly, this quilt has 2,327 hexies. Again with the math but if I do 10 hexies a day I'll have the top pieced in 3/4 of a year, leaving 1/4 of a year to quilt and bind it. I think that's doable. I know I won't be able to do 10 every day but I also know that I'll have meetings or DVD binge watching sessions to get a lot more done.

The safety pin marks my first hexie, which I've cut out
of the pattern as a reference point

Case in point! This was taken Sunday night and I've continued working since then...nearly twice as big in just 3 days.

Hopefully my crazy project will more than make up for my lack of remembering to post HeLP yesterday. I'm really looking forward to seeing your projects, whether they are as wild as mine or much more reasonable. Have a fantastic hexie day!

An InLinkz Link-up

Feline Friday - 9/14/18

Momma made me a quilt!!

Momma didn't take many pictures but I think you'll get the gist cuz you're smart, feline-loving people! And if you don't understand my directions, you can check out the MSCQ video. I highly suggest downloading the MSCQ app for easy access.

Auntie ChaCha even made 5 of these as picnic quilts for her family! Woohoo! She didn't use my excellent tutorial but she did really good without it...

You'll start with two charm packs - Momma used "Eat, Drink & Be Ugly" It has fantastic Christmas sweaters, martini glasses, trees and Santas.

Pick 72 charm squares and sew them together in a 6x12 grid, shown above. The grid has to be twice as long as wide so you could even do 7x14 or 8x16. I don't suggest 1x2 tho.

Once the grid is sewn you'll use your trusty rotary cutter and ruler to cut from the bottom right to the middle top and then from middle top to bottom left. For you more experienced quilters, it will look like a gigunda flying geese unit, if you space them apart a little, with the big triangle on the bottom and 2 smaller side triangles.

Next is the tricky part and I just don't know how to explain it other than to say that you sew the small triangles together to look like another big triangle. Then you sew the 2 big triangles together and you end up with a square. It's just like magic cuz now all the charm squares are on point.

A bit of advice - don't spend so much time arranging the squares like Momma did - when you make the square they have all been rearranged. It's part of the magic.

Now it's time to add the borders. Miss Jenny only added 2" and 7.5" finished borders to keep this a square quilt but Momma added a 3.5" border on opposite sides to make it rectangular. Now it will cover Momma me better on the couch.

Just for documentations sake, you should know the red fabric has hexies and the outside, bluish border is grunge dots. That Momma, she is almost as dedicated to those hexies and grunge as she is to me...

I hope all my furreinds can now get their Momma's to make them quilts too!

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday Weather Report #69 - 9/12/18

91 - 75 - 73 - 61 - 54 - 53 - 67 F

Yes I did change the green for 50s - now I need to change out the 2 dayglo greens from June. 

September 1-11, 2018
High of 9
Low of 53

Yeah - that pretty much covers the entire fall gamut, doesn't it?!

And how is your weather? Are you preparing for Florence or do you have snow already?

An InLinkz Link-up

The Bibliophile Files - 9/11/18

First - a moment of silence on this 17th anniversary of 9/11....

Hello and welcome to another edition of The Bibliophile Files, my monthly book report. As always, my goal is to finish 90 books for the year. And also, as always, I'm behind but I recently got my morning walk mojo back thanks to the fall-like weather and job#2 is in full swing so I should make some headway soon.


FINISHED
     A Stranger's Game - It turns out I have already read this book but didn't realize it until I was into disc #2. At that point I wanted to know the ending (again!). Now I need to look up the rest of the series.
     Borderline - from my favorite Nevada Barr series
     A Long Walk to Water - a true story with a small connection to Rochester, NY (50 miles from me). I had no idea of the connection when I started the book but it did throw an interesting twist into the book.
     The Orphan's Tale - a sad little tale set during WWII. I enjoyed learning about traveling circuses of the time and watching the girls friendship unfold.
     The Home for Unwanted Girls - I think someone was cutting onions when I was finishing this book...just saying. Based on true events, it begins in the 50s when a newborn is taken from the unwed young mother and tossed into the Canadian orphan system, later turned into a psychiatric system for financial reasons. The mother tries to rebuild her life and find her child for the next 20 years while the child tries to survive the system.
     Full Disclosure - I wish this was part of a series, I wanted to learn more about the characters and their jobs. I really appreciated the lengths Paul went to to learn about and woo Ann.
     The Shore - This book encompassed 150 years of women's history on The Shore - the time changes were sometimes a bit hard to follow if you weren't paying 100% attention to the book (and I don't pay 100% attention to audiobooks as I am multitasking). Unfortunately, some of the CDs were out of order and I didn't realize it until I had already listened to the next 2 CDs. I knew it felt like I had missed something but once I listened to that CD I still didn't learn the missing info. The stories were good but there were just too many stories.

IN PROGRESS
     Monstrous Beauty - I paused reading this because it just wasn't grabbing my attention. In fact I can't even remember what happened so far...not sure I'll finish it.
     Extraordinary Means - I paused reading this book to finish some books with library deadlines. I will definitly finish this one.
     The Nightingale - this library audiobook has 17 files. Lets just say I did not get it finished before I had to return the book and wait my turn to check it out again. Arghghgh. This is a WWI story that takes place in France where a German soldier is billeted in an anti-Nazi's house. I like this quote from Goodreads: In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are.

And now it's your turn. What have you read lately? Remember, just about anything counts: novel, magazine, quilt pattern or cereal box. Feel free to join the linky or leave a recommendation in the comments.

Feline Friday - 9/7/18

Momma is gonna do my Pawtrait!!

Every other year her hexie club does a quilt exhibit at the local arts council gallery. For next year's exhibit everyone is trying to have their quilts be about the same size (34x42) and must contain some kind of hexie project. Momma want's to use EQ7 to convert my photo into a hexie quilt. I'll be HUGE!!!

Momma is seriously leaning towards using grunge fabrics with solids as a second choice. She also might use traditional colors or maybe will go with an Andy Warhol effect (color and or 4-up).

The only problem is that she can't decide on a photo. I've been very photogenic for the 5 years I've been living here at Casa Grande and there are lots of photos yet for Momma to check.

So far we have Mr Serious:

Mr Relaxed & Goofy:

Or Momma & Me:

What do you think?

An InLinkz Link-up


Don't forget to check out my post for 2018 Online Quilters Meet & Greet  to find the link to some fabulous quilters that you need to meet. And hey! There are prizes! Need I say more? 

Wednesday Weather Report #68 - 9/5/18

We currently have a Heat Advisory for heat indexes in the upper 90s. Can you believe we are currently hotter than Miami, Florida? Me neither...

Today is the day our local kids start school and I am sure they are not able to concentrate very well given the classrooms don't have AC.

August: 84 - 67- 75 F
September: 80 - 75 - 85 - 84 F

And now that we are into September, that means I can show you the entire month of August:

Fall was trying to sneak in there a few times but Summer still has us in her grips. And yes, I did have to cut even more reds. Today's debate is do I follow the car temp or the phone temp to pick a color? It makes a huge difference...

And better yet - here are the first three months of this year's project!! I'm still really surprised at the number of reds/80s and yellows/60s that are in there, especially after thinking back to last year's project which was quite orange in the summer months. The reds/yellows almost surprise me more than the 2 or 3 days we hit the 90s.

And so ... what was your weather like for the last week? If you aren't doing a temperature project (and really, why not?? Any type of quilt/afghan/whatever qualifies!) feel free to tell us about your weather in the comments.

An InLinkz Link-up

2018 Online Quilters Meet & Greet!!

Bibliophile Files has been delayed until next Tuesday so that you can enjoy the following ...

Hello and Welcome to sarah did it! - my little home away from home on the internet.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that if you are not a sdi! regular, you've made your way here via the 2018 Quilters Meet & Greet at Benita Skinner's Creative Space. Z and I are happy to have you stop in. In fact, we hope you'll stop by again!

I made my first quilt during my senior year of high school - anyone with time in their schedule could take the year long class. The standard quilts at the time were samplers and I chose "country" rose and green as it was the late 80s. What was I thinking?? My quilts now are mostly brights with purple my favorite color, followed closely by green and yellow. In fact, you won't find much pink in my stash at all nowadays.

I didn't get back into quilting until maybe 2005 and that was thanks to my tatting and rubber stamping hobbies, a long convoluted story that I won't bore you with. Let's just say I don't tat much any more and my rubber stamping supplies are still in the boxes from my move from FL back to NY in 2008.

In March of 2011 I taught myself to English Paper Piece (aka "hexies") which is now my most favorite kind of sewing/quilting. I love the design options but I really love the portability - I can work on a project at lunch, during a conference or meeting (it actually helps me focus), while watching tv or even while camping, I now have a hexie club that meets at our LQS once a month and does demos at local events. I also travel a bit to do trunk shows, bed turnings and classes.

I host several EPP related linky parties on my blog. On the 17th of each month (my birthday!) I host HeLP for Hexie-aholics. Anyone with an EPP project of any shape or vintage is invited to join in. Several times a year this coincides with my Feline Friday Linky Parties, which are hosted by my tuxie, Zorro. The other linky party is for Wednesday Weather Reports and I'll explain more about that below.

I was asked to pick a favorite quilt and that's about as hard as picking a favorite child cat but in the end I chose my "Owls in the Mountains." For years I would only work on this quilt while hiking and camping in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

I started with a FQ bundle, added a few more fabrics and fussy cut owls for the centers, making rose stars until I ran out of fabric. I then ruler-quilted the finished quilt on my Bernina 430.

I was thrilled to win a blue ribbon this year at my county fair!
You can find more pictures and posts on my blog here.

My second favorite quilt is really more of a project. Every day since 5/17/17 I've recorded the temperature at 1pm. I have a color coded temperature scale and make one EPP piece to record the day's weather.

Nope - still not done.
I need to finish the thermometer that goes on the right and then get this baby quilted.

For the first year I used 1.5" hexagons and made rosettes, 1 for each week. When I started the project I put the word out on my blog and invited my friends to join in. It's been fun to watch them link up their weather reports each Wednesday and see how similar or different our weather is. We've had quilters from Japan, Australia, Canada, New Hampshire and New York join in.

It's not to late to join in!!! There's not even a rule that your quilt has to have hexies - any temp quilt will be a fun addition.

June

July

August

For the second year I've switched to 1" elongated hexagons and each month is a column, shown above as left to right or 1st to the 31st. This will result in a smaller sized wall hanging or doll quilt in the hopes that I can continue the project for years to come without making a bunch of large projects. I would really like to someday do an exhibit somewhere to show how the temperatures change. I can already tell you that the summer of 2018 has been *much* warmer than the summer of 2017, including several days in the 90s and more red days (80s) in the first 6 weeks of this project than in all 52 weeks of last year's project. If you would like to read more about my temperature quilt project, check out this link.

There are lots more hexie projects on my blog so feel free to stick around and have a look see :)

Now that you know a little more about me, don't forget to return to enter your name for prizes.

To win more chances for the prizes be sure to head back to the Meet & Greet to find links to more fantastic quilters.

Thanks for stopping in, Good luck and I hope to see you again soon!