Showers, Dishes, & Laundry, Oh My!

Wheeeeeee! The furnace is all fixed! And since our hot water runs off the furnace, we had been limiting our usage of hot water until repairs were made. Now it's all better and I'm so happy about it!

I did do some play of the turkey reds blocks from the Barbara Brackman sew along over at Civil War Quilts.

Her blog gives directions for a 6" finished-in-the-quilt block, but I am happier doing mine as an 8" block with the center square cut at 4½". Then I can use 2½" squares and strips, which is my favorite way to do the flying geese.

I've done them also by the four at a time speed method, too, but I love just plunking along. Such fun to do the bonus HST's, too.

This red was a Nancy Gere by Windham with tiny bits of yellow, green, and blue.

The next combination I cannot reference because they are from my scraps without selvedge signatures but I just loved them together!

I especially wanted to use some Brackman red and found this Metropolitan Fair Old Curiousity Shop red. It is a trifle on the burgundy side but I think that it qualifies as a turkey red.

The subtle shadings in this piece are wonderful for an aged look. I love it!

Not sure what the background was here as it came from my strips pile and I had just enough to complete the block. Now that's a good feeling; when it all works out!

Of course, they all look their finest after a good pressing with some starch.

Okay, so a lotta starch, LOL!

That's three done, wheee!

And a couple of cute little dividends, too.

Working with historically accurate fabric reproductions always makes me want to go back and do some more sewing. And, honestly, how can you not love reds? LOL!

Happy sewing!

January Doings

Today has a rather fun date-signature of 1/14/14, and I bothered to notice it. --EEEEK! I'm only a year off, LOL! Ahh, well, tomorrow will be 1/15/15, right?

However, probably the numbers that are much more significant in my life right now are the -11°F below zero that we are registering on my outdoor thermometer.

Yikes, what a time for our elderly oil burning furnace to turn grumpy! Our furnace repairman has promised to come by Friday afternoon to service it. In the meantime, we do have heat, for which I am most grateful. We also get occasional spurts of awful smelling fumes, which are horrid.

Matthew and Felix did a great job trying to do snow removal from Monday's storm. That allowed me to get out of the house on Tuesday. Although I was a bit late for The Sunshine Quilting Club in Alton, New Hampshire, I did go to it. Sue was wrestling with installing a new needle after hers broke.

Those are stacks and stacks of prepared and pinned 4-Patches that she was sewing.

Finally, we were able to find the place in the Singer manual where it said to put the needle in with the flat side towards the back of the machine!  Then it sewed beautifully for her.
The snow and cold made me lazy about loading my Singer Featherweight, so I was happy to just stab a few hand sewn seams of my Birds-In-The-Air block for The Farmer's Wife quilt.

When I got home, I was well enough ready for some faster progress, LOL! Some Civil War scraps had been sent to me by my very dear friend and benefactor, Ila. They became more Sawtooth Stars.

I expected to make an identical pair by recreating one like this one, but I ran out of the corner background fabric. If you'd like the link to Barbara Brackman's Civil War sew along, the link is here.

That's the inherent beauty of working scrappy, if you run out of something, you can just substitute a similar value piece or pieces. There's no angst!

These two will "read" as the same. Why I like to do them in pairs? I really cannot say, but it does please me.

Today is also OBW, or "On-track-with Bonnie Wednesday from over on the Quiltville chat group.
In spite of evil smelling furnace fumes, I did make some more progress on the Double Diamond units from Step 2 for the Grand Illusion Mystery quilt.

They go slowly because I am making the bonus HST's from both the pink and the black flippy corners.

These blocks are spectacular!

After brunch, I'll be sewing more of the blocks together.

Happy sewing!

Stars Among The Snowflakes

There are many fabrics that are not true Civil War reproductions, that, none-the-less will work in a harmonious way within the same quilt as the true ones. I call them, "Civil War Wanna-bees."
These latest additions to my Sawtooth Stars collection fit right into that category. The black and tan IS a true Civil War reproduction by Paula Barnes, but all the others are wannabees that pleased me.

Barbara Brackman is hostessing her newest Civil War sew along with Sawtooth Stars with new fabric choices each week. I'm thrilled to participate! The link to her delicious pages is here.
I like the 8½" (8" finished in the quilt) sized block for it's use of 2½" strips and squares, with a 4½" cut square in the center.

These are my "standard" sized stars for potholders, too, so any culls are quickly used up and offered for sale. This one pleased me enough to make a second one.

I'm also entering this post in the Friday Whoop Whoop Linky Party and the link is here.

Our Marshmallow World this morning dropped about 4" to 5" of fresh snow that was delightfully fluffy!!! Yeay! No ice at all. Can you see my mailbox way out there?

There was slippery stuff everywhere, so I asked Matthew, our star boarder, if he would please go to get the mail for me? He did! (He's 25 and calls me elderly. At 65, I might as well take advantage of it, right?)

Later in the day, after Husband Wonderful, my Felix, had plowed the driveway, the sun broke through and everything glistened like diamonds.

Oh, and that mail from the mailbox? It contained a lovely squishie envelope of swapped 1½" strips!
Yippeee!

There are 100 light strips half-width of fabric, and 100 dark strips, half-width of fabric. I call it an "Instant Log Cabin Kit!"

Ahhh, so tempting to want to start new stuff!

Happy sewing!

Happy "Little" Christmas!

Some people call it Twelfth Night, or Three King's Day, but for us, the 6th of January is a happy "little" gift-giving event. It signals the final resting of the Christmas season for us.

Felix got me a couple of Land's End cotton turtlenecks, and I presented him with a set of those pillowcases that you saw me make back in October.

Today, when I went to the Alton, New Hampshire, Senior Center, for the Sunshine Club quilting group, I took along a goodly supply of these inexpensive red seam rippers to give out. I offered the new sharp seam ripper with the admonishment of, "I hope that you never need this!"

In the bitter cold weather, we were happy to be snug indoors! Sue was merrily cutting strips from random fat quarters for a new scrap quilt.

She got a lot accomplished with that, but her proudest moment today was her showing off her very own supply of wound bobbins. This proves that she CAN wind a good bobbin!
It was a task that our Pauline used to need to do for Sue, before Pauline returned to Tennessee. But Sue has conquered the challenge, and she did it herself! YEAY!!!

Marjorie did not brave the frigid temperatures, but we hope to see her next week. I worked on sewing my Clermont Farms charm pack throw.
Previously, I had sewn the four complete 42-piece charm packs into large random 4-patches and pressed them.

Yesterday, I took the stack of 42 four-patch blocks and did a quick layout check on my neatly made bed. I wanted a true "random" placement, LOL! That means no clumps of one color anywhere, so I fiddled with it for about twenty minutes. Random, ha!!

Clermont Farms by Moda is now out of print, but I like the red, white, blue, and tan colors because it is a country manor floral scheme, rather than a patriotic theme.
Once I had the above layout, 6 blocks by 7 blocks, I stacked them left to right, left on top of the next block to the right, then both of those on top of the next block, and so on, all the way across each row. When all seven rows were stacked, I had one complete column of those stacked rows.

My numbering slips were cut almost all the way through to make it easy to tear off the next one to be used without losing all the rest of them. Ask me how I know, LOL!

Pinning the slip to the upper left corner ensures a correct orientation of the block.

Careful, methodical work here may be boring as Hell, but it sure pays off later!

Then, when all seven stacks are pinned with a marker, I can pick them up and stack the stacks into one pile where each stack has been placed with a quarter turn. Now, it's all set and ready to set aside.

That having all been accomplished yesterday, today was the sewing of the stacks of blocks into rows!
Wheeee, progress at last!!!

All that fiddling around yesterday made today's rows a breeze. I did take the time to match each seam. Soon the blocks were all rows, Yeay!

Before I sat down to a delicious luncheon of Beef Brunswick Stew, there was a center top sewn.
Sue and I measured it at close to 53.5 by 62.5 before pressing and borders.

I've already auditioned a delightful tan neutral of Sienna and Bordeaux for the inner border, but what shall I use for the outer border, I wonder? A country blue? Or a tomato red? Not sure yet, must shop my stash!

Happy Little Christmas!

The Weekend Sojourn Of Ice

As much as I LOVE snow, I hate ice, freezing rain, and sleet. Snow is supposed to be fluffy.

Last night's storm made me groan because the 5 to 6 inches of snow got all covered up with sleet and freezing rain to present us with a slushy heavy wet mess! It took most of the day to get the driveway plowed and the cars cleaned off, but we did it. Yeay!

Saturday the postman was kind enough to drop this box at my doorstep so that I didn't need to go to the Post Office to fetch it. It is my newest supply of potpourri for my delightfully scented sachets.

Whee! My living room has the scents of French Lavender, Dried Rose Petals, and Balsam Fir needles in spite of the sealed plastic bags in which they are packed.

I could've kicked myself when I finally realized that I had forgotten to also order Fresh Canadian Catnip! Oh well!

My progress on the Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilt has been fairly slow but steady. If you don't know about it yet, it is called ,"Grand Illusion" and the link is here.
If you'd just like to see the Monday Linky Party, that link is here.
The big reveal is always exciting and I couldn't wait to assemble a block in my colors!

To me, it looks like a big white and pink Poinsettia, and I love it! I have been assembling one block per day.

However, I remembered that I had only gotten half of Step 2 completed, in spite of having kept pace with all the other clues. So, today I worked along on a few more Step 2 units.

I think that I counted 15 double diamond units that I got done, being very careful to orient the slant the same as I had for the first group. Then I did a few more of the Civil War Sunny Lanes blocks, too.

I'm hoping to get 36 of the Sunny Lanes done before the February 13th deadline for the swap that I hostessing over on Blockswappers.

In spite of not having counted up all that I've done this weekend, I'm pleased with my progress!

Happy Sewing!