I miss blogging!

 Working at a boarding school during a pandemic is no joke.  I thought I was busy the last three years here - ha!  I barely have time to eat or use the restroom this year!  But the first round of college applications have been submitted, so I am finally feeling like I can stop and breathe.  The students leave for an extended break on Friday, at which point I hope to spend more time reading and knitting and quilting.

I have gotten a few things done in the last few months, though, by making sure I make time for me, even if it is just 15 minutes of sewing or knitting every day.

Just today, I finished piecing a top for a friend's daughter whom she will be adopting into her family in just a few weeks.

Jewel Box Stars - 2018 Leaders & Enders Challenge by Bonnie Hunter (69.5"x69.5")

A few weeks ago I finished this baby quilt and gave it to a co-worker's new baby.

Inspired by a photo I saw on the internet (32.5" x 40.5")

I've made dozens of masks - I think this one is my son's favorite.

I love this pattern!

I knit crowns for three friends for their birthdays during long Zoom meetings.

I whipped up a couple more mini Christmas stockings for my ETSY shop.

And I am just ten LONG rows away from being finished with my Campfire Cozy Shawl.

It's too big to get a real picture until it is off the needles.  Hopefully by Thanksgiving.  I plan to curl up in this all winter long!  Here, I was knitting during Dining Hall Duty.

Looking at all of this, I'm pretty impressed with how much I got done this fall!  What's on/under your needle?  Another thing I hope to get back to during break is reading everyone else's blogs!

I am linking to Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Back from a week away

Even though it is "summer vacation," I've been working my butt off at work.  I'm trying to set boundaries and remind people that I am not a 12-month employee, but with the pandemic requiring us to rethink how we are going to conduct school next year, I guess it is understandable that I'd be called upon more often than in a usual summer.

I let people know, however, that I was going to rural New Hampshire last week to spend a socially distant week with my sisters and their families (how weird not to hug and to only interact outdoors and on screened in porches, but we do what we must to keep everyone healthy), and I spent a blissful week (mostly) unplugged.

I read, I played games, I swam, I hiked, I knit.  I didn't sew, but I made up for lost time this weekend when I returned - my leader and ender Jewel Box Stars quilt is now a front burner project and is coming along nicely.

Two more rows to go!

Today, I hopped back on the computer to catch up on all the work that piled up in my absence, and then I spent some time culling more yardage from my stash for my ETSY shop.  As I'm sure you can tell from my quilts, I rarely use yardage (scraps are where it is at for me, baby!), so it is silly of me to have so much.  And since my sewing room is also my home office (and who knows when I'll be going back to my real office), it is important for me to make space so that I don't feel claustrophobic or distracted.  Some of the fabric is easy for me to give up, but some I really wrestled with myself over.  For example, my Ghastlies fabric... 

Truly, it is this image that made me want this fabric - in two colorways!

It is out of print and hard to come by, but I've just been sitting with it for nearly a decade!  Am I ever going to use it?  Probably not.  So I posted it - at a higher price than my usual destash fabric, but not nearly as high as others have posted it (one person had a yard listed for $75!!).  I'd rather someone else put it to use than for it to sit unused in my stash.

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Leading with my Leaders & Enders

Sometimes my Leaders & Enders project gets me so excited that I work on it exclusively.  That was me this weekend.  My husband's basketball team was in a tournament outside Philly, so I spent two afternoons watching his games on my computer so I needed something easy and mindless to work on.  For me, that is Bonnie Hunter's Leader & Ender challenge from summer 2018, Jewel Box Stars.  I'm adding scrappy sashing and cornerstones to let each of the stars shine.  Oh how scrappiness makes me happy!

When I wasn't sewing this weekend, I was knitting.  I visited WEBS yarn store and came away with some wonderful colorful yarns. both to make gifts and to make things for me. 

But when I got home and started putting the yarns away, I uncovered some other bits and bobs of yarn that I wanted to use up first, so I put the new projects on hold to knit up some leaf washcloths to take as a hostess gift when I go to dinner at a friend's house later this week.

Other bits and bobs will go into my Excavation Blanket, my go-to easy knit project as I travel and attend meetings these days.

Making puts me right in my happy place!

I'm linking up with Oh Scrap and Monday Making.

Guilty quilting

I had so much fun getting back to sewing yesterday that I snuck in some sewing today, too!  Gonna have to double up on the recommendation letters tomorrow to make up for the time I spent sewing today, but it was worth it!

I revisited my On Ringo Lake quilt - I only had 31 blocks pieced, so I assembled another block today.

18 to go!

Meanwhile, I got to looking at my Leaders & Enders Challenge on the design wall

and decided it needed sashing and cornerstones.

I like it!  I'll let that marinate on my wall for a while.

And, I made two travel tissue covers for a co-worker who will be going to her grandmother's funeral on Tuesday.  Just wanted her to know I was thinking of her.

When asked, she first indicated a blue that she liked, and then said red, so I made her one of each color.  Only the blue one has tissues in it, though.

I'm hoping I can find a few moments to sew regularly this week, but most likely, it won't be until next weekend, if I am staying on schedule and doing the work I should be doing.

I'm linking up with Oh, Scrap and Monday Making.

Catching up!

As a college advisor, the fall is a super busy time.  I realized today that I hadn't worked on my temperature quilt at all during September, so I carved out some time for myself to sew this evening.  I'm happy to state that I'm all caught up through today!

And since my design wall is currently empty, I put up my what I have so far for my Leaders & Enders Challenge, Jewel Box Stars, designed by Bonnie Hunter.  Fun and scrappy!

I probably won't get another chance to sew again until next weekend, but today's sewing marathon will see me through.

So stinkin' cute!

Remember the child-sized denim apron I made a while back?

My sister wanted it for her son, one of the cutest creatures on God's Green Earth.

But the apron is sized for kiddos about 8 - 12 years old, and he's just about to turn two.  You know what I had to do, right?  Make a toddler-sized one!

I thought I loved the first apron, but this one is my new favorite - it's just so stinkin' cute!  Stripes are FUN!

I'm sending it off tomorrow - hopefully I'll have a photo of him wearing it to share in the next week or so.

My leaders and enders work for this project was two of these blocks.

That brings my total of these blocks up to 17.  Sounds good, until you realize they are made with 1.5" squares and measure a mere 6" finished.  Gonna take many more than 17 blocks to make a serviceable quilt.

That's it for today.  I'm not going to mention the 294.75 hours I put in at work over the last three days...

I'd say "Thank God it is almost the weekend," but I have to work on Saturday, too. 

Boo hiss.

Dancing pigs?

I've finally made it into my sewing room!  I completed my January Let's Bee Together Bee block.  I love the block and the fabric, but this stressed me out a little, and here's why.  The original reddish fabric, which serves as the foundation of the block, is 12.5" square.  We were to cut it into fourths diagonally, sew the strips onto the 45 degree angle ends, and then sew the 4 pieces back together.  She wanted the final block to be 12.5" square.  That isn't possible, is it?

I have lots of strips - perhaps I'll make a Spider Web quilt for myself one of these days.

As you probably know, it is basketball season, and now, both my boys and my husband have basketball games.  Can you say "bleacher butt"?  Yup, that's how mine is shaped these days.  Luckily, I have a cushioned stadium seat with a back to take with me, particularly on Saturdays, when I have 3 games to attend.  The upside, besides getting to support my guys, is that I get good chunks of time to do handwork.  Here's what I've accomplished so far this month at basketball.  I'm pretty sure I'll be making a mug rug with this little cutie.  Got any design ideas?

Probably my favorite hot drink of all time.

My leaders and enders project continues to grow.  I have a ton of 4.5" blocks of that black floral, which is the whole purpose of this particular project - use 'em up!  Well, those and all my 1.5" squares.

I started a plaid flannel bear paw quilt for my step-father.  Besides me and my husband, I think he's the only person in the family I haven't yet made a quilt for.

Yesterday, in between basketball games, I made it to my quilt guild meeting.  While there, one of the lovely ladies surprised me with a big bag of scraps.  Now, when you think bag of scraps, you think all crumpled up and thrown together, right?  Not hers!  First there were a ton of strips, mostly 2.5" and 4.5" strips, but some 2", 3", 3.5" and 4" strips, too.  How handy!  There were also some bigger scraps, mostly between a fat eighth and fat quarter in size.  I took a photo, but forgot to upload it.

Whenever I'm the recipient of such generosity, I feel the need to share the wealth.  So I put together two little packets of fabric scraps to share. 

The first is this cute green with dancing pigs, along with some bright polka dot scraps.  The dancing pig scraps are: 1 piece 8.5" X 42", 2 pieces 7" X 21" and 1 WOF piece that is 4.5" wide.  The yellow has 3 pieces, 3" X 56" total, the green is 2 pieces, 15" X 6.5" each, and the blue is 2 pieces, 9.5" X 6.5" and 4 pieces 16.5" X 3.5".

The second is this sea shell fabric with two "neutrals" to go with it.  The photo is a bit washed out, I apologize.  Anyway, the seashells are 1 piece 10.5" 15, 1 piece WOF X 11", and one piece 11" X 26".  For the two coordinating neutrals, there are 2 WOF X 4.5" strips of each, and 3 WOF X 2.5" strips of each.

If you are interested in receiving either packet, leave a comment and let me know which you'd prefer, first come, first served.  Happy Sunday!

Scrap attack!

Have you noticed I haven't done much quilting lately? Reading, yes. Sewing up little gifts and whatnot, yes. But quilting, no. I couldn't take it anymore! I had to get up to my elbows in scraps and work on a quilt (or two, or three).

I started by helping Donald work on a quilt. His student teacher is leaving at the end of the week, and he wanted to make a quilt for her, so I helped him sew up blocks for a signature quilt using some pre-cut 5.5" squares that I inherited from someone somewhere down the line. He picked out the fabrics to use (from a stack of coordinating sqaures), he used the presser foot while I steering the fabric under the needle, he cut the chain pieced segments apart, and he pressed them open on the ironing board. He got a bit tired of it all, and started lamenting the fact that there were 23 kids in his class.

"I should have done this last year in kindergarten when there were only 11 of us," he sighed.

I sent the blocks in with him this morning for the teacher to have all the kids sign one, and then we'll hopefully put it together tonight with the upper and lower borders that you can see in the photo above that I made to make it more square. It is only about 30" square, and I plan to machine quilt with some straight stitches. I've even already made the binding!

I also made a couple more of my leader and ender blocks using 1.5" squares (these blocks finish 6.5" square, and the whole purpose is to use up that black floral - I had a bunch of pre-cut 4.5" squares of it that I wanted OUT of my scraps tin).


I also worked on whittling down my stash of strings because they no longer fit in my strings tin. I whipped up a couple more Virginia Bound blocks (an adaptation of a Bonnie Hunter quilt in her Scraps and Shirttails book). I love these blocks, and can't wait until I have enough to sew them together and have a quilt already! (only 37 more blocks to go...ugh! when I put it that way, it seems like it will NEVER happen!)


I've also had time this past week to work on hand quilting my Pick and Choose quilt.

No new photos, but slowly, slowly, it is coming along. Dare I say that I hope to have it done before Christmas? Did I just jinx myself?

I also want to share with everyone the bag that I received from Janet. I won a giveaway on her blog, and she made me this bag. I love it!

She made the handles in a very clever way so you can use them either long or short - genius! And check out her free motion quilting - I am in awe and so envious of her ability!

She included a beautiful fabric postcard that she made, but I forgot to take a photo of it. Thanks so much, Janet!

Catching my breath

I don't know why I do this to myself.

I arrived home on Sunday after a miserable travel day (5:15 AM wakeup call to catch an early flight, plane malfunction - discovered while we were in the air!, diverted to a new airport and switched to a new plane, turbulence that resulted in the lady behind me breaking my eardrums with her screams and the gal next to me dousing my lap with her drink, and when we finally arrived - late, of course - no luggage!). Monday, I was swamped at work, then had 2 karate classes and grocery shopping to do. Yesterday I was so strung out at work that I never stopped for lunch AND worked late AND brought my computer home to get some more things done.

However, when I arrived home with my kiddos, the sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze dancing over our mountain, and I said "ENOUGH!" I got a tall, frosty glass of ice water, pulled a picnic blanket out of the car, and settled myself down on the lawn with some books to read to the kids. I had to catch my breath - all this running hither and yon gets to be too much sometimes. We finished reading HOLES (just in time, too, because the movie is supposed to arrive from Netflix today!) and read DONKEY DONKEY, a book that I remember loving when I was a kid, so I ordered it online (can I just say that I LOVE Amazon Prime! I ordered the book on Monday afternoon, and it was in my mailbox on Tuesday!). I petted the cats, I brushed out the dogs. I caught my breath.

At that point, I could have gotten some work done, but I was on a roll now. I helped the kids with their homework, and then headed downstairs to prep some sewing to take on my next trip. (I leave tomorrow morning for Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador - another early flight with a 4 AM wakeup call, sheesh!) I sandwiched the little pink and brown doll quilt and stuffed the pillow to go with it (oops, no photo). I made another pillow for Rosabelle the dog (oops, no photo again, but it was nothing fancy anyway), and in between times, I worked some more on my current Leaders and Enders project with 1.5" scrap squares.

These blocks are 6.5" unfinished, and I'm not sure where I'm going with them. The point is to use up the black floral that is surrounding half of the blocks. I had a whole stack of 4.5" squares of that, and I wanted to use them up.

So, for this trip, in addition to packing the doll quilt and my September Birdie Stitches BOM to work on, I'm going to pack these, which I also ordered from Amazon on Monday, and which also arrived yesterday:

While browsing on Amazon, I saw that there are 2 Clare O'Donohue books that I don't yet own and a new Jennifer Chiaverini book coming out in November. Can you hear me rubbing my hands together in anticipation? I LOVE QUILT FICTION! Reading and quilting are two of my favorite pasttimes, so putting them together is a winning combination for me!

If you like batiks, don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway for 2 half yard cuts of batiks from Ghana. I will choose the winner tonight before I go to bed, and pop the box in the mailbox tomorrow on my way to the airport.

Do you know the "law of tenfold return" - give and you shall receive back tenfold? (I'm paraphrasing, I don't know the exact quote, although I am pretty sure it originated in the Bible) I know this to be true, and yet another example of this was waiting for me when I got home this weekend. I bought some fabric to give to others, and in my mailbox, from my mom and younger sister, was a box containing this - a pattern for Skiers in the Air and yards and yards of FLANNEL fabric to make it!!! Thank you, Mom and Kerry! Great gift that I will DEFINITELY put to good use!

And wanna see my favorite card? This is from my college roommate for my birthday this year:

I'm glad she thinks I'm remarkable - I'm going to need to be remarkable to get done all that needs doing today! I'll be out of the country until October 8, so I need to get all my affairs in order today, then on October 9 I have a group of 13 students visiting campus at my invitation for 3 days. And during the 28 hours between my return on the 8th and their arrival on the 9th, guess what is happening? Some of you probably guessed it - a cub scout campout!

I'll end the way I started...I don't know why I do this to myself!

Weekend project

If you have had a chance to read my last post, you know that I was in desperate need for 1) some down time and 2) some successes, no matter how small. What better way to get both than through quilting?

On my drive home from West Virginia on Saturday afternoon, I stopped at Tamarack as I always do. I love looking at all the craftsmanship, and since there are so many quilts, getting ideas. I forgot my camera (no big surprise if you remember all the other things I forgot on that trip!), but I did have my handy-dandy little graph paper sketchbook. I jotted down prices and sketches and whatnot as I made my way through the wares.

I came upon a very simple table topper, machine quilted in the ditch, selling for $42. Some of the prices amaze me - I couldn't imagine paying that much for something so simple. But it gave me an idea of something I could make to feature some focus fabric that I had recently acquired.

Rewind to LAST weekend, which I know I never posted about. Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts and the quilt guild meeting took place at the same time. I was loathe to miss either, and found myself racing back and forth several times. Jason's Pinewood Derby car came in last every time, but I told him that 4 was my favorite number (that's how many cars in each race) and that he should be proud. And at the quilt guild meeting, a woman was selling off LOTS of books plus a few other odds and ends. I picked up two panels from her for $1 each, as well as a book, Quilting (Instant Expert) by Jenni Dobson. (Note to publishers: when you make a book spiral bound like this one, I am very likely to buy - I LOVE spiral bound quilting books!!!)

I began with the stencil panels - we finally bought seating for our home theatre (after it is delivered later this week, if I disappear for a while, don't worry - I'll eventually run out of movies that I haven't seen on Netflix and re-emerge) and I figure we need some lap quilts to snuggle up with while we are watching movies. Right now, we share blankets on the (world's ugliest and most uncomfortable) couch that is down there now, but these are 2 rows of 3 reclining leather seats with armrests with drink holders in between. It would be awkward to share a blanket over the armrest, especially if there is a drink up there.

So I began to play with those stenciled panels, setting them in a square and putting them on point, but in my mind's eye, I only saw myself using 8 or 9 of the panels for this small quilt.

I decided to whip up a tabletopper or wall quilt using one of the remaining panels. Sketched, cut, sewn, sandwiched, HAND quilted and bound, all in a day and a half.

I feel so accomplished and rejuvenated! And I like it so much, I may just whip up another one and commit myself to only using 8 panels in the lap quilt.

Of course, if you know me at all, you are probably scratching your head at all the matchy-matchy stuff I'm working on - where are the scraps!?! Never fear, they were my leader/ender project as I played more with my 1.5" scrap squares.

Another home theater lap quilt in the works?

Sitting Pretty

Before...


After...




I love it! I used some of the Leaders and Enders 1.5" squares that I've been sewing together for years now. Then, of course, I had to sit and sew a couple more Nickelmania blocks on my machine to try out the chair. I am so tickled! It is so ME!