Where did February go?

The real reason I haven’t done a lot of sewing lately.

That’s not true, but Rusty gets blamed for everything. He doesn’t seem to mind. I was mending the holy pockets in my winter coat yesterday and he plopped himself down on my coat and went to sleep.

Don’t you hate it when your keys go missing and you locate them in the lining of your coat? Or your cell phone starts ringing and you have to take your coat off and practically turn it inside out to get your phone back? Hopefully my mending will stop that from happening again.

Actually, I’ve been getting a lot of sewing done.It’s just been taking me 10 times longer than it normally does because I’ve been having non-stop problems with the tension. I’ve been spending more time taking stitches out than I have putting them in. I spent hours slowly turning the tension dial back and forth, I changed needles, thread, etc.Once I changed a bobbin and it cleared up for a little while – until I had to take the bobbin out to refill it. I put it back into the machine and all of the problems were back.

Just in the past two weeks they’ve disappeared again and everything is working better than it has since I busted my needle plate about this time last year. That’s when the tension problems started. Maybe the planets have realigned and harmony has replaced tension in the sewing room!

I just finished these three bags. I started four of them just over a year ago, cutting all of the fabric I needed to make them. In fact, it was the first of these bags that I was working on when the needle mechanism came down on the needle plate like a jackhammer. I was stitching the canvas handles at the time. Even after I replaced the needle plate, I was hesitant to try it all again, which is one reason why it’s taken me so long to finish these. I just have to stitch up the lining opening and I’m done. They’re a nice and roomy heavy duty tote bag. We’ll see if I can sell them when our farmers market starts up again in May.

Until next time,

Friday Furball - Angels

 

See more Feline Friday at Sarah Did It .

Snow Angel

Don’t get excited. Just because I’ve blogged three days in a row doesn’t mean it’s going to go on for much longer. Today was a Snow Day and we all know that Snow Days are best spent sewing! And did we ever get snow. Actually, we got it yesterday. The skies opened up around lunch time and dumped about 4 inches of snow in a couple of hours. Today strong winds all day blew it all around, making it seem like another Snow Day.

I finished off this gal from The Buggy Barn’s Angels Among Us. It used to be a free pattern at the Henry Glass website, but it was taken down a while back and I haven’t seen it since. I grabbed a copy of it while it was there. This is a paper pieced pattern. There is another Buggy Barn pattern by the same name, but it is totally different. Anyway, I think I’ll be making more of these blocks for late  Christmas presents. It’s great to get an unexpected post-Christmas present, isn’t it?

Since I was more or less stuck in the house (if you don’t count shovelling out the 12-inch snow drifts in the driveway and visiting my next door neighbour), I also made this “Simple House” 6-inch block from Forest Quilting site. They have some really nice free paper piecing patterns. I’ve already shown you the stars. It’s all part of a bigger plan.

I admit, freshly falling snow can be beautiful. I just object to having to drive in it and since I live in one town and work in another, I have to drive through a lot of snow. You get over it or you move to Mexico. Here’s a picture I took yesterday after it started snowing. Hope everyone is staying warm and dry tonight.

Until next time,

Friday Furrball – Christmas prezzies

While I was at my sewing machine yesterday, I picked up an old scrap off the floor that the cats had been batting around. I sewed it into a bag, stuffed it with catnip that I went out to the garden to get, sewed it shut and voila! Instant gratification. Of course, Rusty took it right away. I had to make another one for Ginger. Rusty took that one, too. We finally got it sorted out.

The start of something small

It really is 2015. I had to create new photo files today before I could store some pictures. I use the year as a sub-folder for several different categories – for example, in the folder Quilt, I have 2010, 2011… and now I have 2015.

And these three-inch stars are my first quilt photo – and project of 2015. They are from a free paper piecing block at Forest Quilting called Crooked Star, and they are going to be part of a small wall hanging that I’m making as a Christmas present.

Yeah, Christmas 2014. I didn’t get anything done last year, and all of my friends basically got “IOU’s” for their presents. Many people I know just weren’t in the mood this year for Christmas – including me.

Actually, I did get one present made, a few weeks ago. I just haven’t mailed it yet.

  I’m hoping for a much more productive year for quilts and bags this year. Just have to quit letting work crowd out everything else. January means new Quiltalongs, and there are at least a couple I’d like to join. I’ll let you know about them in a few weeks if I decide to join them.

This is one of my favourite photos of Rusty and Ginger, taken this day in 2910, just a few days after they came to live with us. Adorable. Moreso in those days than they are now.

Until next time,

Early Christmas present

Merry Christmas, everyone!

It’s been a crazy year and I won’t be sad to put it behind me. Just not enough hours in the day to do the things that need to be done AND have a life. My life gets crammed in here and there, whenever I have a few minutes to spare. I took Tuesday off, and spent the entire day searching every nook and cranny for birds during our annual Christmas Bird Count. There didn’t seem to be as many birds this year as in previous years, but seeing an enormous flock of about 400 Canada Geese on the wing was pretty awesome, as was the huge flock of Bohemian waxwings. And I love the black capped chickadees – they are so adorable. And for the first time in the 10 years I’ve been doing this, there was no snow on the ground and the weather was above 0 (0 C = 32 F)!

Finished my Poinsettia corsage. I planned to make 10 more and give them out as gifts, but my sewing machine had other ideas. Without changing a thing, the tension went out of whack after I’d finished sewing 25 out of the 30 pieces I needed. I spent a while trying to readjust it and then realized the bobbin was making a lot of noise. I replaced it with another and everything was fine again. Weird. But I was out of time by then, so I put everything in a ziplock bag and put it away for another day.

And I haven’t done a whole lot of sewing since then. Too busy at work. I still have some presents to finish up.

This is an early present that I bought for myself – a Bernina 830 Record. The owner posted a For Sale notice on the bulletin board at the Post Office. They were asking $150 for it and I just couldn’t pass up that one. It’s missing the carry case, extension table and knee lift lever, but it came with a drop-in sewing cabinet (for an extra $25) and a million feet. And two million bobbins! And the sewing machine itself is in excellent condition. (Ginger confirms that.)  I’m looking forward to playing with it. And maybe some day I’ll be able to pass it on to my granddaughter.

Hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas and relaxing holidays.

Until next time,

Sea turtles and poinsettias

Lately, every time I sit down at my computer to write a blog post, I glance at the clock on my screen and find out that I'm out of time. Again. Like yesterday morning. It wasn't my blog, but I'd just finished sewing the veins on my "poinsettia" pin and I was going to start exercising when I realized I had an appointment in a nearby town to get my winter tires put on. I hate being late. Most times, being late is not even an option. The weeks between Labour Day and Christmas are a blur where I work. Summer is dead as everyone takes time off. Once September rolls around, everyone makes up for the lost time. Then January comes and the place is dead again.

I've been making a few Christmas presents in the spare minutes I collect here and there. I made this wallet for a co-worker I've only met a couple of times, even though we've worked together for about three years now. She works in a town about three hours from here, but we connect just about every day by internet. I know that she's an outdoorsy type - she tells me about her weekends on the ski hills and hiking, and shows me pictures of her backpacking vacations. She says she loves sea turtles, so when I began looking through my drawers of fabric for something suitable, this gorgeous Robert Kaufman pattern screamed "Pick me! Pick me!"

As I attempted to make it as perfect as possible, I proceeded to make more mistakes than usual. See the cool looking clamshell? It covers a hole from the metallic clasp which I put in the wrong place. And the little red stitches at the edge of the wallet? That was my attempt to tack down the fabric edge using "decorative" embroidery stitches because I cut the corners off the wrong end. The zipper opens at the wrong end, too, but hopefully that won't be a big issue. I couldn't fix that without taking too much apart. And then, I was trimming the excess fabric inside the wallet that was part of the D-ring tab - I turned my head to hear what Mr. ZQ was asking me just as I made the cut, and cut through one of the inside pockets. I just some stiff interfacing and glue to reconnect the pieces, and fortunately you can't really see it since it was inconveniently located next to the seam!
I'm becoming rather adept at fix-its. Just have to practice those "decorative" embroidery stitches.

The “Live in the Sunshine” graphic I got off the internet somewhere and printed it onto a bit of cotton fabric with my inkjet. It’s a bit tricky to get fabric moving evenly through a printer – you have to reinforce it with something – in this case, I ironed it to freezer paper, taped a sheet of paper to it and watched carefully that it fed correctly. It worked the second time.

Been also working on some bags that others have requested. Cats and music are the popular themes. And speaking of music, my recorder is back in action. My musical partner and myself have six Christmas concerts booked this year. We play with other acts, so we only actually play for less than half an hour at each one. Still, six is more than usual. I just love the sound of Christmas music being played by recorders. We’re talking about video-ing ourselves playing one of these days and posting it to the internet. I’ll let you know if that (ever) happens!

Until next time,