Bits and Bobs

Leo had an opportunity to attend the Junior Fire Academy this week. So much excitement!

She’s taken great pride in showing off her bruises; found out she doesn’t like heights as she was about to rappel off the top of the fire tower; 

learned new skills - first aid, fire suppression methods (so many shoveling techniques!) and physical fitness - she can now do “real” push-ups!

She came home today soaking wet - and thrilled about it - from having fire hoses turned on her group as part of a team exercise. Does she want to be a firefighter? Yes - but she’d rather be a pilot for a fire department. Gotta dream big! 

Little Miss Take My Picture! posed with today’s outfit of choice - Pikachu hat, favorite shades, omnipresent headphones and her current favorite stuffies, Night and Galaxy. 

Yesterday it was “I love this straw! It’s my favorite! I hope I have it forever!” Good thing we have a whole pack of (almost identical) reusable straws. A happy Jackie is a fun Jackie.

My new ‘do for our Alaska trip. 

It’s a little more coloring than I wanted but I love it. My stylist and I were both surprised by the color - the (temporary) dye was a dark purple but because she didn’t bleach my hair (there’s some benefit to having gray/white hair!) it turned out more violet. 

Jackie very much approves. 

Fall Palms

Sometimes I surprise myself, in a good way.  

Blocks from 2022

While looking for something else, I came across this foundation paper pieced project, started in October 2022 (here and here).

Love the colors, love the pattern, really want the finished quilt.

Took it out of the bag and past me had put NOTES and MASTER PATTERN PIECES and a slew of finished blocks in there with all the fabric. What are the chances??

So my plan is to make 2 of these each month after I finish The Birdwatchers Project, while I still have my FPP tools out. Two blocks are done for this month. Crossing my fingers I keep up with this - it’s going to be so pretty!

Small Hemingways

Jac and Leo both requested a small Hemingway pouch (and by ‘requested’ I mean they were arguing over which of them got to keep the one I made for myself … 😜)

Leo’s pouch

so I gave Jac the one I’d already made ⬇️ (she’s very excited about the narwhal on the back)

Jac’s new pouch fits her phone with room for other treasures 

and made another for Leo,

Leo’s lining fabric

letting her pick the fabric and the zipper pull color. 

I think that’s the end of my Hemingway adventure, for a while at least. I sure do like that pattern.

L to R: mine, Cyrus’ and Rachel’s.

Three iPad holders, two small pouches and one tiny bag, made from a cutoff scrap, that I’m keeping for myself. 

Still have a couple more cutoffs but I’m going to store them away for now. Maybe they’ll come back out for gifts around Christmas? Something to think about….

Common Loon

Done, done, done! That’s a wrap for the first month of The Birdwatchers Project. 

10 x 21.5”

Looking forward to next month’s double play - a Ruby Throated Hummingbird and California Quail. 

Back Side Of Feathers

I saved the loon tail feathers to do today - I was tired when I got to them last night and they looked… scary complicated. 

Before starting, I color coded the different sections. It might look silly (especially since the designer has color codes on there already) but I absolutely could not keep two of the colors straight.

So spend 5 minutes playing with pencils? Or risk who knows how much time ripping (and swearing) again?

These 2 blues are my nemesis 

Pencils win every time!

Fortunately, tips I learned on previous FPP projects are starting to come back and my joins and seams are looking much better. Tomorrow I’ll sew the two halves together and this month’s project will be done!

Things I want to research before next month: 1) how to match up seams when the pieces are joined on a slant; and 2) techniques to unpick oopsies without ripping out the entire block. 

Birdwatchers Project #1

It’s starting! First month’s pattern is…..

The Common Loon!

Scrap containment units

My fabric kit arrived Wednesday, so I spent Thursday night organizing fabric into individual baggies by color (to help contain the forthcoming scraps, in theory) 

and Friday night printing and pre-folding the 20-ish pattern pieces so I could start sewing today. 

The first of several color oopsies 

So how’s it going? Sloooooooowly.

That’s better… 

A couple of fabrics are very close in color and I keep grabbing the wrong one, not realizing the oopsie until I’ve sewn several pattern pieces together as a unit. 

Such a PITA to rip those tiny stitches out.

But progress is being made. I’m hoping to have this done before we leave next Saturday. (This morning I thought I’d have it finished this weekend. Hahahahahahahahahaha!)

Head isn’t perfect but after ripping it 4 times… finished us better than perfect ☹️

If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck… it could be a loon…

Note to self: set stitch length at 1.4 rather than 1.2 so you stand a fighting chance when ripppppppppping. 

Chess Master

Pop is teaching Jac to play chess.

I think she likes it.

(She also likes making up her own rules which makes it much more … interesting entertaining .)

Celebrating Summer

 How we celebrate summer…

Want to guess why our bed gets remade 3 or 4 times a day?

playing games, both digital

and board (definitely not bored);

watching movies, walking to the corner market for treats and pool time (which today lasted about 15 minutes before Jac saw a bug in the water and was done. 🙄)

LongArm Quilting

I’ve always been a bit curious about The Grace Company’s line of quilting frames and machines. (Here)

They offer a variety of sizes and frame/machine combos from table top(!) to king, from use your own sewing machine to computer-driven beauties.

My efforts at free motion quilting - needs work 😂

So when a local-ish quilt shop (only 50 minutes away!) offered a ‘come try it’ class, my buddy and I took them up on it. 

Two hours of hands-on instruction on both a queen-size non-computerized machine (the Q-nique 16) and a king-size monster with an iPad controlled sewing unit (Q-nique 21x) later, we were tired and a bit overwhelmed. Turns out dragging the quilting head - especially the extra heavy computerized unit - over yards of fabric is harder than you’d think.  

The shop’s purpose in offering the class wasn’t so much to sell us a machine - although they’d be happy to do that! - as it was to get us comfortable using the set-ups so we’d rent time to longarm our own quilt tops. Were they successful? Maybe?? We’re both on the fence - it was a lot more physical than we expected (standing for 2 hours on a cement floor didn’t help), plus the cost ($25/hour)… but the possibilities are intriguing. 

Hemingway the Third

This may be the last one for awhile

since I need to do stuff to get ready for our trip*. 

But I’ve definitely got the bag bug and have my eye on a few different projects… for when we get back, of course...

This one’s for Rachel who sent me this 

when I asked what colors she liked. So pretty.

Using my pink iPad for size testing

It’s different from the brights and jewel tones I gravitate towards, 

so I’m always nervous I’ll get it wrong and she (or whoever) won’t like it. But then I’d get to make another one - which I enjoy - so it’s all good. 😜

I played around with making a little bag from the sliced off piece from my iPad bag…

Left: small size bag from the pattern. Right: 4x7” bag from a leftover scrap.

smaller is definitely harder. I gave up on enclosing the raw edges - too much fabric in too small a space! 

I think it looks fine and I’ll definitely find a use for it, but questioning if I want to make more. I really hate to see those pretty little quilted pieces go to waste though….

* Hubby started packing 2? 3? days ago - we leave on July 19 - and I’ll probably do the laundry and start packing a bit in July 17. Very different philosophies - and stress tolerances. 😂

Happy 4th!

We didn’t do much to celebrate,

staying home to binge watch all 6 episodes of Black Snow season 2 (we almost never watch an entire season in one sitting but this was SO GOOD!)

Inside with finished edges

before I finished the second iPad-sized Hemingway Pouch.

I cut this one smaller (18w x 15h) as a test - it fits much more snugly

and looks tidier. Hooray for successful experiments!

Wish I had more people to give these to - they are sooooo fun to make. 

Aftermath

 I had to bribe 2 of the 3 (with Minecraft coins) to get this picture.

Jac hurt her foot, so we had to leave the trampoline park early, then Donovan tripped over his own feet and scraped up his knee. By the time we got home (pre-holiday traffic was awful!) they’d all recovered. They were in a great mood and played happily together until the parents arrived. Kids! You never know what a day will bring. 

* No sewing tho ☹️ since the power was from 11-ish to almost 6.