I have, apparently, successfully got the blog up and running at Katiemaequilts.com.
Bloglovin' says I need to make a post here, telling you to go there, in order to move my followers. I don't know how long it will take. And I have no idea what I'm going to need to do for Feedly, so bear with me. {Or just refollow me.}
I'll have a giveaway sometime this week {over there, not here} to encourage everyone to hold tight during this.
Also, don't go digging around the new site too much yet. It's definitely a WiP. And I might not know how to write in Wordpress yet. Whee, this is fun!
And because we can't do posts without pics, here's the Little Man and CC. He has mastered the tone of blaming CC for everything. She's convenient for that!
I really can't believe how fast August went. We had a little time with family, then Cub Scout camp, then VBS, then Seattle, then it was supposed to be a week of nothing before school starts, and it's already Sunday. How did it get to be Sunday??
Let's hope September goes by just as quickly, since we heard the dreaded "thirty days extension" words. {My response: Wait, you had an end date to extend from?}
Anyway, with no "babysitter" for long-arming, I was stuck with finishing things around here.
Like table runners. So many table runners.
And some pillowcases.
And a pillow cover.
And Christmas Stars! My AYOLF goal!
And a quickie NewFO and finish, cat mug rug.
Then there's the flimsies...
Gigi's Denim, Pillowcase and Sawtooth Star. Which needs a better name.
And Luscious Picnic.
And my fetus-nephew's quilt.
A couple quilts moved to the "Just Needs Borders" list...
Cardinal Charms - borders already on hand, just needs to be put together
Spin Cycle - getting my Miss Kate order ready to go!!
And a few quilts had blocks added to the pile.
Weekly Churn Dashes
Ripples and Reflections - I tried laying it out, but not really enough elements are done yet. Soon! I think by Step Six or so, I start putting things together.
California Hourglasses
In life, besides the thirty day extension, we had our three-month social worker visit. And I got a high five! Doing everything right. "You mean, considering my husband is deployed?" Nope, I'm apparently rocking this. Woo! Of course, I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's "right."
We still have very little communication - he learns signs, but not English. Or Korean - I listened to him sing a song in Korean and it was essentially "Row row row your boat....row row row your boat..." He will have a speech evaluation soon and hopefully will be at the local school for services.
CC is a year old! She's eleven pounds and still has such a baby face. The vet said to expect her to be 15+ pounds full grown, BEFORE becoming fat. As all cats do.
Tycho had a series of testing in July to determine why he's lost three pounds in two years - all of which determined he's in excellent health for a senior cat. He has trouble processing proteins, so he started special food. And can't have ANY table food, which has caused much complaining.
I've been racking up the treadmill miles during naptime. I'm as speedy as a gazelle! If gazelles can barely maintain a ten-minute-mile. Next half marathon is in four weeks.
And the blog switchover? I'm considering hitting the button after this post goes live. Which is probably the wrong way...
Linked:A Year of Lovely FinishesFresh Sewing Day @ Lily's QuiltsNewFO @ Cat Patches
Unlike some of my recent finishes, which had been marinating too long in the sewing room for me to like them anymore, this one was a joy to finish. So why did it take me so long? Sigh.
Christmas Stars was started in 2011. Probably. I don't want to go back and look in case it was longer. It's from a Moda Bake Shop tutorial - although I used charm packs and changed up most of the layout. Let's just say the blocks are from the tutorial.
The charms are Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas. I'm pretty sure the stop border is from Flurry. I love that it's definitely Christmas-y but not red/forest green. And I adore those elves skating!
My layout of all four blocks together leads to another star in the middle. And I kind of love it. The same fabrics was accidental, I'm sure, but it works in its awesomeness.
And the candy cane stripe bias binding? Perfection. It's Scottie Christmas by Wilmington Prints, and I might have bought half a bolt or so for all Christmas quilts. And hand stitched, even though it took me foreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever.
The back is plain old cotton. I knew this would never be anything but a wall hanging, and I don't see the point in something pretty on the back. It has a hanging sleeve {not stitched down yet} and corner pockets to help hang it straight.
The backing shows off the quilting - this was done quite a while when I wasn't quite good at filling in spaces properly or swirling the right way. The "swirls" do match the designs in the fabric on the front, and the front is busy enough that it looks fine there.
And hey - look! I managed to get a good rolled up shot!
And now I want it to be Christmas so I can hang it up.
Just when I thought there would be no cat pictures, I realized I needed to measure it. And that meant Miss CC had to "help."
Measures approx. 44" square
Linked:
Last week, I went to Seattle for my birthday. We got to do some nerdy things like see the Icons of SciFi exhibit at the EMP, while wearing Doctor Who shirts. We did some fabric shopping, which I covered in Friday's post of finishes.
And now we are happy to be home with no plans for the next week and a half before school starts.
Except putting together the garage shelves and getting that organized. That'll probably take me a while!
Anyway, since we were away for part of the week, the sewing time was a little less. What I did do was almost entirely from Cluck Cluck Sew. Apparently I like her!
I calculated and cut the sashing for Spin Cycle {a Cluck Cluck Sew pattern.} With less than a half inch to spare. Eek! I had to size it down to 2" instead of 2.5" because, well, obviously I didn't have enough for 2.5"!
My churn dashes are made from the Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial. These scraps are from the quilt I made the Little Man's foster family and the Sunkissed pillow. This catches me up for August!
Leader/ender project? Cluck Cluck Sew double hourglasses. Added just a couple more last week, but with Spin Cycle going together this week, there will be lots of ender-ing!
And my non-CCS project - I put together the columns for Gigi's quilt. The flannel shredded like CC in a paper bag, the pillowcases were so very thin that I had to interface them, and the stretchy denim behaved like...stretchy denim... But it's together and it looks great and I'm so glad it's at least to the flimsy stage!
I took Christmas Stars to Seattle, so I still got some hand stitching done while I was away. But I am, officially, the world's slowest hand stitcher. I turned the third corner, so I'm almost done. Maybe this week! {Wait, it's my monthly finish goal. Definitely this week.}
Palette of the week is "favorite." I decided, after my sister was a pain via text while I was picking her baby quilt colors, to use the fabric panel I'm cutting apart for her nursery. Because no one in the quilt store knew what "Neverland" consisted of.
This is what we ended up with - pretty close! I've got a quarter-log-cabin pattern sketched out for it.
Linked:BOMs Away Monday @ What A HootDesign Wall Monday @ Patchwork TimesColor Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the RiverWiP Wednesday @ Freshly PiecedRainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappySlow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's QuiltsFabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric
I just spent a couple days in Seattle with the boys, celebrating my birthday, where I learned that the Dude is now dangerous in quilt stores. He no longer complains about being there. No, he's in the shelves, picking fabric, and confidently ordering a quarter yard and three quarter yard.
Yup, he's addicted to pillowcases. This is Robert Kaufman's The Last Frontier and Stargazers. And I don't want fabric marinating in the sewing room anymore, so I whipped them together this morning.
I also made a stack of burp clothes for my sister - Army ones for her husband...
...and UConn ones for her!
And the last of the small finishes - I pulled this out of the "quilted" pile, put an envelope style back on it, and declared it done. The quilt {Sunkissed Jewel Box} was finished in 2013 - these were the four blocks that didn't make it in. They make a great little pillow, even though I don't think I planned to save two greens and two greys.
The backing is a bit more Sunkissed by Sweetwater, and I did just so happen to cut the pieces of a churn dash before putting the rest in the green bin.
This week was Vacation Bible School at our church, so I got a little less sewing time, but a lot more craft time. Somehow every time we find a new church, they automatically put me in the craft room for VBS. Weird. ;)
This is the pile of crafts the kids brought home. I'm most excited about the Jesus sign - we had one in our house growing up, and now I have my own! I mean, the Dude has his. I guess. Technically.
In the afternoon, I tried to stick with making five blocks a day for the flannel stars. I failed by the end of the week, but with a final push on Saturday, I got them finished and laid out with the pillowcases and jeans. All the columns are stitched together now; I just need to put it all together.
I also finished the inside patchwork for Cardinal Charms. Unfortunately, the consensus is my friends hate me don't think I should be lazy, and it really needs a stop border before the blue cardinals. I'm hoping I have enough leftover of the cream with red dots from the above quilt.
I made some awesome candy cane stripe binding and attached it to the front of Christmas Stars. Now I just need to get some hand stitching time.
I finally pulled a couple more Weekly Churn Dashes together. A couple darker greens this week, since I did bright greens during dark green month.
And my new leader/ender project - California Girl Hourglasses. I just have to say, it is great to have a L/E project that I love, because it makes me want to work on my other projects to add blocks!
Also, everyone say "Hi, CC!"
On Sunday evening, I had finished all my weekly projects, and it wasn't quite time to start dinner. I didn't want to drag out a big project, and clearly I wasn't going to clean anything, so I started playing with the leftover corners from Wee Wander.
But then the girls ended up in the same place on opposite sides, looking like the creepy twins from The Shining, and the boy is really a faceless body catching fireflies, and maybe they're not catching fireflies but SOULS. And now something so very sweet is kinda creepy.
On another note...the color palette of the week...purple! I know Jennie's a big fan of Frozen, so I counter with the much better recent princess movie.
Linked:BOMs Away Monday @ What A HootDesign Wall Monday @ Patchwork TimesColor Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the RiverWiP Wednesday @ Freshly PiecedRainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappySlow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's QuiltsFabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric
I'm back from our adventures on the East Coast! My mom's sewing machine was under a pile of construction, but I did get some hand stitching done at their place.
Mom taught me to blanket stitch so I could fix my sister's Cinderella quilt. So far, I stitched the shoe in place and started ripping out the words. See the words in the light pink? No? Yeah, that's why they're out.
At my MIL's, I visited her neighbor who imports threads from Germany. My thought - uh, Gutermann? Nope, turns out it's hand-dyed, artist palettes, all kinds of weights and decorative things that I don't understand. But I understand sparkly and now I have a small sample to play with. As soon as I learn a running stitch.
I also did a lot of binding stitching and got my mother's table runners finished. I'm working my way around the daisy ones next, and then I still have a nice stack waiting to have binding stitched to the front. Sigh.
Once I got home, I pulled together the rows for Luscious Picnic. And a bonus doll quilt from the scraps. And the backing, and the binding, and it's all ready to go when my babysitter comes back.
Then I made five of the flannel stars for Grandma's quilt. I'm going to try to knock out five a day, because that's all I can stand of trimming flying geese.
And California Girl became my leader/ender project, and goodness gracious, she is perfect. LOVE!
Full disclosure moment. What I have to deal with every time I want to take a picture.
And then I realized I hadn't done any BOM stuff. I don't know where I am on churn dashes because it's green...again. Apparently May was emerald green and August is bright green, and all of my May ones were bright, so...maybe dark green? Maybe something totally different?
Anyway, instead of making a decision, I whipped out Part Five for Ripples and Reflections. I had to skip steps because I miscut Fabric Nine. It's been replaced but not yet recut. This step was fairly simple, but as there's sixteen of them, fairly boring.
And finally, my blue palette, borrowed again from Lori Barbely Photography. She goes to Maui and takes these gorgeous pictures, and all I get is a couple yards of fabric. Not fair. And look at those Kona names! Oasis, Breakers - yes!
Linked:BOMs Away Monday @ What A HootDesign Wall Monday @ Patchwork TimesColor Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the RiverWiP Wednesday @ Freshly PiecedRainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric
