I love Fall! Cooler weather, crunchy leaves, apples and the prettiest skies. The prettiest sky I’ve seen was the post- rain clear skies this weekend. After a week of air quality in the hazardous range… this was one of the best views ever!
If you’re a fan of Fall, check out the Hello Fall blog hop hosted by Carla of Creatin’ in the Sticks.
My day is on Thursday so hop back by. In the meantime, check out these talented makers!
Today, it’s one year since my husband passed away. I thought I would just repost my Facebook post here. Tomorrow, I will focus back on fabrics and fun things but today is for remembering.
Sometimes, they get it wrong. Sometimes, the very worst happens and you have to say goodbye, too soon and too horribly. Sometimes, you have to walk to the edge of the river and hold tight to your love’s hand as they slip away to the other shore. And then you have to take the longest walk of your life, the one you didn’t want to take, the one that leads to a lifetime of missing them. And through it all, the pain and the sorrow, there is always the gratitude for all of those who walked to the shore with us. Who held us up when we couldn’t stand. Who continue to bless us with their love and their memories. I am so very, very grateful to all our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers…I could not walk this path without you. I love you all. Thank you for being in this with us, for loving Phil Strand and for loving us. Love you forever Phil.
Marian, at Seams to be Sew has pulled together a super fun Row Along once again. And, added bonus, no need to go anywhere… you can play along in your jammies and maintain social distancing!
My day is toward the end but there are great prizes up for grabs so check back often! I’ve added the whole list below.
I was looking back at photos and found this picture of Phil with the koala. I love the way the koala is looking at him and that little smile lurking at the corners of Phil’s mouth. It’s been 11 months today and the loss is like a constant ache… and that’s just how it is. I’d rather live with this ache than have missed out on this wonderful man. Not that we didn’t have struggles but we loved one another through it all. Sometimes you just have to accept and keep busy.
So, in the keeping busy category…I have to say that I’m learning new things and I’m so very thankful for the friends and neighbors and family that are helping.
Under the tutelage of a friend, I learned to change a sprinkler head and faced my fear of going into the standup crawl space to turn on the sprinklers. Another advised me on how to clean and seal my steps.
After cleaning…After strain and sealing.
I spent last Thursday filling the entire yard debris container with weeds but this weekend’s heat has me hanging out in the sewing room instead.
I’m hard at work here, too, and decided I must, must, must reduce the UFO list. So, since I like a good visual, I bought a pack of bright post-its and started this
The UFO list!
A post-it wall of UFO’S! Now, full disclosure, those are the ones I remembered off the top of my head. Trust me, there are more! I’m planning to move completed ones to my cork board. (I actually used all the pink ones in the pad up so add-ons will be in blue. ) With my UFO list in full sight, I felt comfortable boxing up some projects in progress because the wall will keep me from forgetting them!
Now, to the most fun part, fabric! I keep saying I’m going to stop, that I don’t need any more but look what my daughter got me…
That’s ALL the True Colors Line by Tula Pink!!! (I’m feeling very spoiled and very grateful!)
And, in addition, she contributed to the destash going on over at NW Quilted Cat as Jennifer raises money for a big surgery for her pup!
If you aren’t following NW Quilted Cat, you really should!
And a little bit of estate sale fabric wandered home with me… and a bunch of Helene Knott’s adorable cat block patterns.
And, biggest accomplishment of all is this one…
Yep, it’s a zucchini… you can laugh if you want but we’ve had terrible luck with zucchini. They’d get all silvery looking and never produce anything. But this is the first and the plant is full of blossoms and two more in progress! I even have a volunteer giant pumpkin. Yes, this lady grew a zucchini and I’m very proud of it! (It really is the little things in life. )
And, being that we’re talking about life at our house… here’s a picture of how my Saturday got derailed last week….but he’s so cute!
I ask you, could you disturb that adorable face? I certainly couldn’t! And, yes, he’s as big as he looks. Milo tips the scales around the 20-pound mark. 20 pounds of adorableness! He’s been a big guy since we got him as a 16 week-old kitten weighing 6.5 pounds.
Well, doggo is giving me the, “I’m sure it’s cooled down and we should walk” stare so I’m off to take him for a stroll. I hope this finds you well and you can point to a bright spot in your day.
So very much fun is going on in my sewing room! I’ve been sew excited to get into cutting up scraps of Christmas fabrics for this hop! One of my quilter life goals is to have a bed- sized Christmas quilt for every bed in the house. You see, we get the Christmas china out on the 1st of December and I’d love to give each bed in the house a holiday facelift at the same time!
So, of course I wanted to play along with Carol from Just let me quilt with the Christmas in July (then and now) blog hop. I adore Carol and love playing along!
I have lots of Christmas fabric and have to admit that cutting it all into little squares was daunting but….then…
Ever since I saw the Accuquilt electric demonstrated at a quilt show a couple years ago, I’ve been eyeing them up. But…the cost…sigh. Then Accuquilt had a sale… but the cost…sigh. I’ve been holding onto my birthday money from last August. But…the cost. Then, they had an even better sale and my oldest offered to pay the difference for this year’s birthday gift…..SOLD! And I have to tell you, it’s awesome! I cut hundreds of squares using the 2.5″ strip die and cut my flying geese units with the die included with the machine. Oh my goodness… what fun! All those odd bits and shapes left from other projects are now a box of bright and cheery 2.5″ squares. Or, a pile under the cat… depending on what I need at the moment. (And, ok, all my scraps is huge overstatement…I wonder how many hours it will take to tame the scrap pile?)
Gizmo bedding down on the squares.
I have a lot of “then” in my project! The red polar bear fabric is leftover from my daughter’s first trip to the nutcracker when she was four. The selvedge was marked 2003! The gingerbread men are at least a decade old! The “now” for me is my current favorite sashing option… lots of little scrappy squares. I only managed a quadrant of my piece but I love this idea of using squares as sashing. After using it with my Halloween quilt, I was excited to try it again!
I love how all those prints play together! And speaking of playing together, there’s a terrific lineup for this hop! To see what all the other bloggers are playing with, check out our line up! Thanks again, Carol!
I noticed that there is a little conflict brewing among the furry co-workers. I call it Chair Wars. There is a chair next to the table I use in the home office that was a gift from my mom. While I work away at my computer, I often glance over to enjoy the sight of a furry cutie lounging nearby. Like this…
Gizmo in full “wheels up” pose!
Or this..
Milo in repose aka “resting moose”
Slowly, it dawned on me that whichever cat claimed the chair first would “camp” there for the day…the winner of Chair Wars.
Then, one day, this happened..
“Ummm… dude, I’m on the chair. ““So am I, we can share.”“See, we share… it’s fine.”
At this point, I truly believed we had reached some new level of brotherly kitty love. I stepped away for a moment and came back to this…
Yes, the winner of round 486 of Chair Wars is Milo da Moose!
I’ve also discovered that if I leave my own chair within a 30 minute window of quitting time, I return to this..
I’d love to say he’s trying to help with my work/life balance but I’m pretty sure he’s motivated by wanting to go out on his leash. I tell him often during the day that I can’t go out now, I’m working! I finish about four days of every five working on a stool… he’s too cute to move!
So, in actual fabric news, I took my fabric storage from this
To this
The actual impetus was cat-related…Winnie had gone MIA in retaliation for a trip to the vet (she’s fine, thanks.) I thought she was hiding in the storage area upstairs but instead she had donned her invisibility cloak and hidden in my bedroom. I’m working on a couple of commission pieces right now and found some fun soon-to-be scrub cap fabrics in the cleaning up. My current count is 51caps and 79 face masks. With Oregon requiring then now, I need to get a few more done.
The last few weeks were rough. Father’s Day followed the next week by our anniversary and then the 4th of July. By a combination of work schedules and migraines, and the ever-present Covid, I hung out with the fur for the day after a trip to the farmers market for flowers for Phil and a visit to his grave. Turns out that Max is totally not bothered by fireworks.
We walked for nearly an hour enjoying the sparkle of the neighborhood and remembering better days.
Max napping while fireworks roared.
Today, I started on a garden project. More on that next time. According to my tomatoes, I may not have a black thumb after all!
Today’s my day on the Stitching Sunshine blog hop and I’m seriously in need of some brightness. I’m not going to lie, Father’s Day was rough and our wedding anniversary is Saturday so lots sorrow going on here. And the perfect way to combat it…. with some stitching!
I don’t create alone, though. I have a full staff of furry design assistants.
They make sure cutting is safe and accurate…Ensure mandatory rest breaks are taken. And supervise their dog-brother (although I see them shaking their heads about him. )
And after many choruses of, “Griff, get off the quilt for just a minute” there is this…
My plan is to scallop the edges and bind it in white to make it look like a postage stamp.
Special thanks to Carla at Creatin in the Stickshttps://createinthesticks.blogspot.com/?m=1 for putting this together and herding her own set of Cats….I mean bloggers! Be sure to visit her blog for a terrific giveaway.
And, just in case anyone had any doubts, my nephew sent me this crazy cat lady mug…Milo approved!
My day is Wednesday, so you can be assured I’m rushing to get my design done… lol. After all, why break with tradition? I like to say it’s always the Festival of the Last Minute at my house!
I think I could be onto something. I set some teeny tiny goals and I think I met them all!
I moved the totes to the sewing room (by proxy… thanks, darling daughter!)
I picked out, cut out and made three scrub caps (one more than goal) with one more nearly finish. That brings my total to 50!
I did clean most of the table which prompted a sudden interest in the television.
Gizmo shares my fondness for the BBC!
I did not figure out the next machine quilting project but that’s ok. It can rise to the top of next/ this week’s list. I did swoop in and pick up an auction item at Mr. Domestic’s fund raiser…Tula! I just love Tula! And Mr. Domestic! If you have time, there’s a great zoom meeting tomorrow at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild featuring the Sara from the Social Justice Sewing Academy. Saturday, there’s a mask making summit hosted by Just Wanna Quilt and yours truly is on the panel. I’d love to have you tune in!
This week’s micro goals…
1. Finish cap #51
2. Decide on next fabric
3. Cut four caps.
4. Finish 3 caps.
5. Continue the War on Weeds that is happening in my back yard and research a cheap trellis.
Well, May was not my month, folks. A lot of sorrow from Memorial Day (my husband’s first as a resident in a national cemetary.)
And, honestly, the world situation is wearing me down. So, I took advantage of my company’s employee assistance program and started teleconferencing with a therapist.
I also broke down and put this little guy back on anti-anxiety meds. I can’t handle the out-of-the-box issues and we’ve ruled out health issues
I’m also trying to take him out first thing every morning on his “wheesh” so we can interrupt his morning mission to retrace every step the night shift cat took the night before. I figure the result is a bit like a morning workout… I’m hoping it will center his thoughts elsewhere and help with his stress level.
As for my stress level, we all know what helps…fabric!
From the Just Wanna Quilt Inventory Project
I can’t wait to decide on an inventory theme. I’m thinking florals in brights…. I’ll keep you posted. I have a plan for the rainbow charms… should be a quick one.
I’ve finished 47 scrub caps so far and now it’s time to cut out more. Cutting patterns has never been my favourite part if the process. You?
I’ve been saying for weeks it’s time to baste the next quilt. I miss machine quilting! I did finish my row for the row along but that will have to wait!
I’ve had a few masks to make, too. I’ve been keeping friends and neighbors supplied. These two were numbers 74 and 75.
And, I really need to stop browsing online…. that’s how these pretties landed at my house.
Let’s just say this… the combo of sad and fabric on sale is bad! Lol
I am really feeling pretty low energy right now. So, for this week, I’m going to micro-goal. I find when I’m overwhelmed, it helps. Here’s my sewing goals this week.
1. Decide on the next scrub caps and cut them out.
2. Clean off sewing table one.
3. Move empty totes upstairs.
4. Finish two caps.
5. Choose and find backing for next quilting project.
That’s it. The goals for this week. Let’s see how it goes. If you’re overwhelmed right now, too, maybe we could micro-goal together?
