January project

With December being so busy and my getting a bee in my bonnet to reorganize my sewing room, I didn't get anywhere near my posted project for December so it's playing an encore this month. These are blocks that are in various stages of completion for a heirloom sampler quilt. It's time to "git 'em done!"

Happy New Year!

Clock tower-downtown Denver

New Year's Eve

Photo by Carl Gehring

Wow! It's hard to believe that it's almost a month to the day since I posted! December turned out to be a very busy month for me and I was "off the grid" until this week and now I am playing catch up. I was just over on Joan's blog, Ouvrages d'une Acadienne, and she mentioned that she was inspired by other bloggers to get her sewing room organized as they were doing. There must be something in the air because I've spent the last week doing the same thing! My room isn't quite finished yet, but I can say that the light is shining at the end of that tunnel. I'm a notorious fabric addict (I don't call it woven crack for nothing!) and my fabric collection was wildly out of control. Half the time I had no idea where something was but only that I could remember buying it. Something had to be done! As soon as I'm finished, I'll post pictures of my reorganized sewing room. I am very happy with the results so far and wish that I had done this a lot sooner. Being a member of Charming Girls has really played a part as the more I worked on projects, the more I became frustrated by the disorganized state of my work area. I also discovered that I have amassed a number of quilt kits and patterns/fabric the past couple of years and have vowed that 2010 is the year that I get them done!

SECRET SANTA!

This is the lovely Secret Santa gift that I received from Carol of Carol's Craft Creations! Isn't it just lovey? I especially adore the embroidery and since red is my most favorite color, it's a real hit with me! Carol had posted a picture of the embroidery when she was working on it and when I saw it, I was so hoping that she was my secret Santa because I loved it so much. And isn't that hanger just too cool? Carol also made me a wonderful pin cushion that is now at home on my ironing board as it is the perfect size and shape to nestle up next to my iron and unlike other pin cushions, it does not roll all over the place. As soon as I finish up my reorganization project, I'll include a picture of it.

A close-up of the wonderful embroidery of Ohio Star blocks hanging on a tree:

I popped over to Peggy's blog, Bienvenue Chez Moi, and discovered that my Secret Santa has finally arrived at her home. Peggy lives in Ireland so it took a while to make its way to her. I was pleased to see that it made it safe and sound!

This is the candle mat that I made for her using Mary Engelbreit fabric that I had in my stash. I did the embroidery with my machine and adjusted the colors to coordinate with the fabric. I think by now it's no secret that I love embroidery and I pretty much try to work it in one way or another on my projects.

I also made Peggy this free-standing lace snowflake ornament with my machine. You stitch it out on water soluble stabilizer and then rinse it way when it's done and voila, you have lace!

Brrrr... it's cold!

Jack Frost is definitely nipping at our heels around here! As I write this, the temps outside are a balmy -4 degrees and it has been snowing just enough to make everything slippery as all get out. I'm definitely walking to the bus stop very carefully these days! Thank goodness for my Lands End down commuter coat. It keeps me toasty warm and nothing (and I do mean nothing) gets through it, not even that nasty little wind we had this morning. Now, if only I can convince the bus driver that not all of us enjoy a sauna experience on our way to work! It never fails to amaze me that no matter how cold it gets, the driver is nearly always wearing a short-sleeved shirt and, of course, has the heater going full blast. I have to shuck my coat off as soon as I get on the bus or else I'd have heat stroke and not be so daisy fresh anymore by the time I got to my stop downtown.

This past weekend was a very busy one! I attended a two-day machine embroidery event Friday and Saturday and had a wonderful time. It was very well attended and very informative. The event was hosted by Steve Wilson and Laura Winzeler who are the founders of Anita Goodesign, a company that creates fabulous embroidery designs for both home and commercial embroidery machines. Each table had three different Brother machines, two were embroidery/sewing machine models and one was a six-needle commercial model. We worked on several projects in teams of three, trading off on the machines so that we all got a chance to use them. This was the first time that I had worked with Brother machines, and I have to say I really was impressed with them (and this is no small praise coming from a dedicated Viking gal like me.) The six-needle was quite slick and very fast, now I want one! I took pictures of some of the many samples that Steve and Laura created which were hanging around the room and here are my favorites:

This is a tree skirt with embroidered snow globes. The really cool thing about this is that they used clear vinyl over the embroidery to create realistic looking globes.


Here are vintage-look tea towels. Laura worked on Steve for years to get him to digitize vintage designs as he didn't think anyone would want them. I'm glad that she finally got him to change his mind because I bought several of them.

Another vintage concept that Laura convinced Steve to digitize were cutwork designs, and in the process, he innovated a way that makes doing cutwork a lot less painful. Rather than stitching out the design and then cutting out all the little areas with small scissors, you now stitch out an outline, cut away the fabric within the outline and then the machine stitches out the design the same way free-standing lace is done. Voila- perfect cutwork without all the tedious cutting!

Two of the quilts that they had there which I just loved were the Baltimore Albums. I ended up getting both of the design discs for these.

And last but not least, is this stunning piece. The center is created from embroidered "tiles" that were pieced together after they were stitched out. The borders are silk fabric and the effect was just elegant.

Yesterday I went off to the City and County Building to respond to my summons for jury duty. While I did get called as part of a pool, I didn't make it into the jury box so that was it for this time. It's a funny thing, I've been summoned for jury duty like clockwork about every two years since I moved up from Arizona 23 years ago, starting with my first one not long after I got here. The big guy never gets called. Sometimes I really have to wonder about that.

December project

I have a lot of sewing to do for Christmas, so I only have one project for this month, finishing the blocks for my heirloom sampler quilt. The quilt has nine blocks in all and I've only gotten two of them completely done! The picture below has a sampling of the rest of my blocks that are in various stages of completion. I really do need to get them finished as I will be meeting with my instuctor in January to put the top together.

Meanwhile, look what just arrived recently! I celebrated my 10-year anniversary with the firm that I work for last month and was given a $400 American Express gift card. I used it to get this iron and a Big Board which will hopefully be arriving in the next week or two. Meanwhile, I set up the new iron and took it out for a spin. Ohh, I love it! I actually had the first version of this iron that Rowenta put out a few years ago and while it is a terrific iron, this one has all the things that I wished it had, including a tank that can be filled at any time. The best part of these irons is that there is no auto-shut off! There aren't enough words to express how much I hate that feature on irons! I gave my old iron to a very good friend and now she's enjoying ironing nirvana, too.

This 'n that...

Wow, it's really hard to believe that November is nearly over! This month went by at the blink of an eye, it seems. It was a busy one, especially at work, as I learned the ropes of new responsibilities that have come my way.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The big guy and I headed up to his parent's house for dinner and enjoyed visiting with family that we haven't seen in a while. Our niece is getting married in May and had her wedding gown that she had just bought to show us. It's lovely and she looks so beautiful in it! Naturally, she's very excited and really looking forward the big day.

I had very little time to get any where near my sewing room this month. I did manage to get to my heirloom instructor for a lesson, though. I am working on a nine-block sampler quilt with each lesson covering a block featuring machine embroidery combined with a heirloom sewing technique. I decided to change the colors a little to reflect my love of the 1930's pastels and I am really happy with the results. Most of the blocks still need finishing (I'll do those as a December finish for Charming Girls), but here are two that I have completed:

I have to admit that this one is my especial favorite, I just love the embroidered organza in the center:

Meanwhile, I did try to get underway with my Half-Pint but didn't get very far!

Here are my fabrics:

And here is the sum total of the blocks that I've managed to piece together thus far! As you can see, not very many at all!

Here is a close-up:

This is the first time that I've worked with such tiny patches and I have to say that I found them to be a wee bit of a challenge. Hopefully I will have time after the new year to work on my Half-Pint and get her finished. In retrospect, joining the Quilt-Along probably wasn't the greatest idea as my sewing time tends to be so sporadic depending on what's going on. I really wish that I could spend far more time in my sewing room than I am able to right now with a full-time job but that's just the way it is. Mind you, I'm not complaining, in today's economy I'm very grateful to have my job and I am lucky in that I have a great place to work along with really terrific co-workers.

Did anyone do some Black Friday shopping? I went to JoAnn at 7am (they opened at 6) and spent nearly two hours waiting to get my fabric cut! They had the Blizzard fleece on sale for $2.99/yard (the reason I was there) and there were people in the cutting line with one to two carts piled sky-high with bolts of the stuff. What one does with all that fleece I have no idea! Luckily for me, the cutting area is right next to the Viking center where I got my sewing machine, so I could hang out there while waiting for my number to be called. The drawback to that, though, was finding a specialty presser foot that I just couldn't live without. I'm such a presser foot junkie: if they make it, I'll buy it! At any rate, I now have all the materials that I need to get started on my Christmas gifts and my project for the Secret Santa swap. Now it's time to get sewing!

Tag!

Kelly has the latest tag up for the Charming Girls Club. Being close to Thanksgiving, she asks that we name some of the things that we are grateful for and to share another craft that we enjoy doing.


Without further ado, these are the things that I am grateful for in no particular order:


Family and friends


My wonderful husband and our kitties


The beauty of the earth


Sunrises and sunsets


Roses


That I celebrated another birthday yesterday


Snow


All the flowering trees in the spring


Leaves turning on trees during the fall


A job that I like


That I have a roof over my head and food to eat


Fabric


Books


The internet which makes Charming Girls possible!


Another craft that I really enjoy when I'm not muttering curses as I pick back stitches to fix mistakes is knitting, especially lace patterns. I am currently working on an afghan for my mom which has been keeping me busy and out of my sewing room lately. I took this picture of it the other night, I've since added more repeats to it. As you can see, Bette is my quality control inspector!

Finished!

Finally! My mini quilt is finished and ready to go off to its new home tomorrow. Hopefully its recipient will think that it was worth the wait as it will be a little tardy in getting to her. I'm really happy with how it turned out and had such fun creating it.


Meanwhile, look what I got in the mail last week! Cora made this darling wallhanging for me and I just love it. I've always liked pine trees the best and this quilt especially reminds me of the pines that surround the campus at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff where I went to school. I have so many happy memories of NAU and this really brings them back. I'm also going to enjoy having this quilt as part of my winter decor.


Well, now that the mini quilt is done, it's time to get cracking on my Half-Pint! I've got quite a bit of catching up to do on that one.