My Boy is Here!

DS2 arrived at John Wayne Airport last Monday at 6 PM.  I took the entire week off work to hang out with him because in one more week he will be moving to Haiti for at least a year.

 He thinks he may need to leave Haiti every three months so he plans to come home for Christmas.  After that, he'll probably just hop over to the Dominican Republic to fulfill that requirement.

Here is what we did all week. 

We watched a documentary.  Actually, we took turns dozing through the first 30 minutes of it before we gave up and turned it off.

We watched a movie about a guy who gets "made redundant" (British film) at age 55 and decides to swim the English Channel.  I found it very inspirational and touching.  DS2 dozed through the entire thing.

We got massages.  I got a Thai table massage and it was fabulous.  It really helped the pain I've had in my neck.  I will definitely be getting another one.  As far as I know the son didn't doze - maybe he did, he didn't tell me.

We went to a farmer's market and cooked some really good vegetarian food.

We took a jacuzzi at a condo complex where we don't live! Shh, don't tell.

We took lots of walks and included the very bad dog.  Part of the fun we have walking around our neighborhood is going through alleys to see what edibles are growing over the fences.  We are definitely not too proud to pick what we can reach.  This week we scored several pomegranates and some limes.  Sometimes we score macadamia nuts and we have our eye on several avocado tress that are loaded.  In this area, if it hangs outside your fence, it's up for grabs.  I share a lot of the figs that my tree produces so I feel OK about my harvests.

We did lots more but mostly we just hung out and talked.  I had to go back to work on Monday.  WAH.

What do you do on your staycations??

I've been a little impatient

Impera Magna and I decided to do a little Quilt  A Long that is supposed to start whenever she finishes the Floribunda Quilt she is currently working on.  She estimated some time toward the end of October.  I just read on her blog and she has kicked it off! 

I was a little antsy about it so I already had all my blocks cut and waiting to go.  They are all neatly piled in a cleaned out tray that used to hold ground turkey (good way to recycle).  As soon as I finish up all the crap UFOs on my sewing table, I will add these in to the Leader/Ender rotation.

I went with a yellow-gold fabric for my background/constant.  I think it's going to look really pretty and I will finally have used up ALL my floral scraps!

Design Wall Monday 10/3/2011

This quilt was hanging here for two (maybe three) weeks.  I finally got tired of looking at it in its unfinished condition so I put three borders on it.  It might be done.  What do you think?

Hop over the Judy's blog to see what everyone else is working on.

September UFO DONE!!

TaDa!!

It was a challenge to get this finished this month because I have my boy here!!  More on that in the next post, I want to talk about this quilt today.  This quilt was begun as a leader/ender project about, I don't know, SIX years ago!  I began by using  2-inch squares of dark fabric and sewing them into 2-patches.

When I got a HUGE pile of those, I started L/E (leader/endering) pairs of 2-inch squares of muslin.

When I got a HUGE pile of those, I started L/E 1/2 square triangles.  I did this by pairing larger muslin and dark squares (about 3 inches each) and sewing on both sides of the center diagonal line then cutting them apart to make two 1/2 squares that I trimmed to 2 inches. 

When I got a  HUGE pile of those, I started sewing them to the two squares of muslin or two of the dark 2-patches to make strips of 3. 

When I had a HUGE pile of those, I sewed a single muslin square to two dark squares.

Soon (a relative term), I had three piles of strips of 3-patches that looked like this:

FINALLY, I started sewing these strips together into 9-patches.  I sewed and sewed and sewed until I had 192 of them.  I was finally ready to lay out a quilt top and the playing commenced.  I decided to sew them together into the blocks you see by sewing 4 of the 9-patches together.  I wanted a zig-zag effect so I sewed an extra bit onto the end of each column of six blocks.  Looking at it now, I would probably end each row with a half block. 

Those of you who are very clever will have figured out that I could have accomplished this same effect by sewing 4-patches into 16-patches and then adding the 1/2 square triangle thingy that looks like a flying goose.  OR, I could have sewn... well, there are many ways to skin a cat, this is how I did it because I wasn't sure about the final layout.

The thing I like about this block is that it can be used in MANY layouts as you would use a log cabin block.  The advantage, as I see it, is that I can make them easily as a L/E project while making other quilts.  I see L/E quilts as almost making themselves.  The blocks just get sewn together while I am making other quilts.  The only direct attention I spend on them is when it comes to putting all the blocks together into a top.

The other thing I LOVE about this quilt is that I consider it almost free.  The only fabric in it that I actually purchased is 1/2 of the backing.  I pieced the batting from leftovers of other quilts and all of the 2-inch squares are scraps from my other quilts but mostly from my quilt guild friends who know how I will use any tiny scrap that they don't want to be bothered with.

Big decision is where I will donate this quilt. 


Hop over to Patchwork Times and see the other FINISHED UFOs!

Design Wall Monday

I had WAY too much fun today.  A friend gifted me her cut off triangles from a bunch of snowball blocks she was making.  I pressed and trimmed and started playing.  My DH thinks it looks "Halloweeny" but I think it looks fun.  UH OH! I see a triangle turned the wrong way and a few pairs missing on the left.  I'm hoping to have more of it to show on next week's wall.  Oh, did I mention that the 1/2 square tris finish at 1"?  I told you -- TOO MUCH FUN!

Hop on over to Judy's and see what everyone lse is designing.

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Friday Night Sew In 9/16/2011

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Another successful Sew In.  I got the border on this very well-aged quilt top.  I was going to put on another border but I think it's good here. I made this several years ago via the Leader/Ender method.  The pile of 4-patches grew into 9-patches until I finally had to make it my main project.  And then it languished, really languished.  I wish I could languish that long, doing nothing, just hanging out for years on end.  SIGH...  Alas, this was the UFO number that Judy pulled this month so I made it my Friday Night Sew In project and tomorrow it will get quilted and then I can proudly post my finish on Judy's blog next month.

But wait -- there's more!

I also trimmed up a bunch of broken dish blocks that were gifted to me by a friend who doesn't understand about using scraps to create more quilts.She gave me a gallon-sized baggie full of her cast-off black and white scraps.  I think I can get something yummy made out of them.  Maybe next month's FNSI.

AND, I got the binding at least cut for the Desert quilt.

A pretty good night's work.  Tomorrow I am making fresh fig bread and quilting September's UFO.  I am expecting another good day tomorrow.  How about you?

Actually, that question leads me to ask another question.  A friend and I were discussing happiness today.  I believe that, for the most part, we choose how we are going to feel.  It's not as black and white as that statement sounds but I do believe that we get to decide how we are going to react to situations, what we are going to focus on, what we want to think about any situation we are in.  Sometimes our old, forgotten experiences rear their heads and lead us to some automatic reactions that are not positive and situations may get on top of us and get us down for a while but, ultimately, it is up to us to refocus and rewrite what we are thinking to get to a better, happier place.  Sometimes we may need help learning how to do this but I believe it can  be done.  What are your thoughts?  Do I just sound naive and Pollyanna-ish?

Go out and have a good day.  You can do it!

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Another Commitment

I was reading Amy's Creative Side blog and got hooked on something she is joining.  It gets more complicated.  Jackie at Canton Village Quiltworks got a wild idea to have a bunch of bloggers design a block of the month starting this month.  You can visit her website by clicking on the link on my right sidebar.
She has chosen this pallette for all the designers to use:

It is absolutely yummy and you can order it from her online store OR you can use whatever fabrics you have in your stash.  You know that won't be a problem for me although the appeal of these fabrics.......

Hop over to Jackie's blog and see if you want to play along.  She has written a very clear (clearer than mine) description of the BOM.

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Happy Birthday!

My sweet DS2 turned 24 today - in Barcelona, Spain!  Last year he turned 23 in Haiti, the year before he turned 22 in Barcelona and the year before that he turned 21 in Nicaragua.  Hmm, I sense a trend.

He is two weeks away from completing his three month bicycle tour of Europe. He and his good friend Dane started the trip in Helsinki and have had the adventure of a lifetime.  Ross has kept a blog about it and if you read it you will be itching to hop on a bike and join them.

Ross will be home for two weeks then he is off to Haiti again to work on a research project aimed at reforesting Haiti.  I can't express how proud we are of him.

This photo is three years old but it is one of my favorites.  I know the smile looks a little forced but that is a curse shared by all the men in my life.  Each of them has a fabulous smile but aim a camera at them and they get all stiff.  Strange.  What is it about men and photographs?  We have an album of pictures of my younger brother where he would put something in front of his face every time we tried to snap a picture of him.  Anyone else have a man like this in your life?

Go out and have a great day!!

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Design Wall Monday 9/12/11

Ta DA!  This is what I worked on yesterday.  It's not exactly on my design wall anymore, it's officially OFF my design wall and that feels pretty darn good.

I have a great niece expected in a few months.  Her shower is in two weeks while I am out of town.  I hope her mom will like this quilt.  The pattern is from Sweet and Simple Baby Quilts by Mary Hickey.  The book is now out of print but still available from Amazon.  I pretty much used all her fabric ideas because I just thought they were so, so cute.

It's been awhile since I quilted anything on my DSM and, boy am I rusty!  It still turned out OK as  long as you don't look too closely!  I had to get pretty creative with the binding.  I used up almost all the scraps in the quilt top so I had to dig around in my stash and come up with other fabrics that were close to the pieces in the top. 

Check out what others have on their design walls over at Judy's blog.

Jacob's ladder Quilt Along

WOW!  Impera Magna knows how to take and idea and run with it!  She is quite a dynamo.
We talked (Mostly I talked and arm-twisted a little) to see if we could work on a Floribunda-type quilt together.  I had fallen in love with the one she is making

and HAD to make me one.

Before I knew what hit me, she announced a QAL, made a button, and started a Flickr group.  She is a powerful force.

She wrote up a great explanation for it here. 

Read all about it then jump in to have some fun with us.

I'm fixin to use only stash florals and I haven't decided on a background yet.  I have a LOT of neutrals in my stash so I'll have to have auditions to see which one gets the part.  You can use whatever you want: polka-dots, brights, kid fabric, civil war, 30's.  Absolutely anything looks good in this block.  Come on, jump in, it'll be fun.