Last UFO and Retreat!

 I finished my last UFO for 2024 in August before going to the Missouri Star Retreat in Hamilton.  I had made a list of all of my unfinished projects at the beginning of the year.  I have done this for the last few years, but this is the first time I got everything on the list completed.  Last year I worked really hard and got all but one completed.  That made it possible to get everything done this year.  I took the quilt to Hamilton with me to photograph it there since it was a Missouri Star pattern called Solstice.

This quilt was also part of my goal to work on curved seams in 2024.  I was really happy with how it turned out.

While at the retreat, I also pieced another Missouri Star pattern with curved seams called River Path.

I pieced the center at the retreat and then added the black border when I got back home.  I was really happy with how this turned out.  I love the striped binding as well.  This hung in the quilt show and now it's headed to Sarah's house to hang there.

I also pieced the blocks for a quilt called Marbled Cheesecake while at the retreat.  This one is now waiting to be quilted.

Another person from Florida who was at the retreat shared this quilt that she had pieced.  

We got to tour the quilt museum in Hamilton.  This was the most unusual quilt.  You had to stand across the room to see Einstein.

One of the workshops at the retreat was for this quilt called Into the Woods.  I pieced the entire thing at the retreat.  I love this quilt.  The sample quilt was made in Christmas flannels, but I went with a fall vibe.

I got it quilted and finished in time for the quilt show.

I did a mystery project at the retreat.  It was this table runner.  I made one in patriotic fabrics and one in fall fabrics.  

The retreat was fun and I'm really glad I did it.  

Christi

Through Thick and Thin

I should take a moment (or an entire blog post) to share about the guild challenge project this year.  It was called the catch phrase challenge.  Everyone drew a catch phrase and then made a quilted project depicting that catch phrase.  Mine was Through Thick and Thin.  

I chose a very literal translation of the catch phrase and used the Mobius Radial pattern.  The Mobius strip, discovered by mathematician Ferdinand Mobius in 1858, is a non-orientable two-dimensional surface with only one side, often referred to as the impossible shape.

This first step was creating the 2 paper pieced panels.

Then there was the paper removal process which was completed under the supervision of my trusty sewing cat, Esme.

Then I had to cut the center piece and the outside piece to fit the paper pieced sections into.  At this point, I had 4 pieces to sew together.

Lots of pins were used to fit those circular seams together.  You can see that this was exhausting for Esme.

And then it was a flimsy!

I did some straight line quilting in the background and followed the black segments of the Mobius Strip.  

I didn't win the challenge, but it did hang in our quilt show.  It's hanging in my sewing room now.  I'm still amazed that the pieces fit together and it worked.

Christi

I'm Back!

 I wish I had a really good excuse for taking so long to blog again, but, well..............life, I guess!  I just reread my last post which was mostly about bags, so maybe we'll just continue with more bags!  (Last comment NOT related to this photo at all!)

Here is Mercedes with Sarah and I (yes, we are wearing our matching pumpkin patch t-shirts).  Mercedes loved her mondo bag.  (I have even made another since then, but didn't get a photo before it was gone.  I seem to change up the making of each one and just like each one better and better.)  We had a great family reunion over Labor Day weekend.  Mercedes even bought chances on our guild raffle quilt.  Guess I'll have to go to Spain if she wins!

Mercedes had been making bags as well.  I got this adorable zipper bag that her mom handstitched the cat on. 

 My Dad liked his bag for church as well, but wanted to know where the little matching zipper bag was???  I had used it for keeping all my charging cords in, so I just emptied it out into my new cat zipper bag and gave it to him.  He wanted to keep his pens and pencils in it with his other bag.

And all those other zipper bags............were put to use when I attended a retreat at Missouri Star the week before Labor Day.  At the retreat, I purchased (ok, I was there for 4 whole days, I HAD to buy something!) a Sallie Tomato purse kit.  I decided to really challenge myself on this one.  After watching the video about 3 times, I headed to the sewing room and started to work.  It wasn't long before I had the video pulled up on my tablet and I just let her talk and show a little then paused it and went to do it for myself.  This was how I put the entire purse together (over a span of 3-4 days).

It's really hard to take a good picture of a purse.  

I only bent one needle so badly that it wouldn't go down in the plate while I was doing the leather corners on the bottom.  It also has 2 inside zipper pockets.  I love it.

I might be addicted!  On a recent trip to Hamilton, the only thing I purchased was more purse parts and leather to make more purses.  And I ordered cork fabric to try as well.  Stay tuned!

I had also been pinning bags and purses made from old jeans to my pinterest board.  This past week, I made this cute little bag.

First I should explain that I didn't do the Pooh block.  We had a white elephant show and steal at the Missouri Star retreat and I received this block as well as A-G in the Pooh alphabet.  I was a little uncertain as to what to do with only 8 alphabet blocks, but made this for a cute little girl named Jenna!

I used the cut off legs from some of Sarah's jeans we had turned into shorts a few years ago.  Jenna LOVES pockets, so I took a pocket from another pair of Sarah's jeans and put it on the other side.  The lining (which you can't see) is a red polka dot.  

It turned out way cute, if I do say so myself!  I have a pile of old jeans to sort through for more bags and plenty of ideas pinned.  As for the rest of the Pooh blocks, there is an idea in the works for the remainder, so stay tuned.  

And if you have now picked yourself up off the floor from the surprise you received at a new blog post, I wish you a delightful day!

Christi

Bag Lady

This past week has seen some time in the sewing room making bags!  Dontcha just love cat toes!

I had been wanting to make another Mondo bag for ME!  I had 2 charm packs and it seemed irresponsible not to use every piece, so with a little creativity, I found some scrap greens and was able to make 2!  One will be gifted to Mercedes when she visits from Spain over Labor Day weekend.  She was my parents' exchange student when my sister was in high school.

Of course I had much supervision while working on this project.  The quality of the fabric must be well tested.

Even the partially completed bag must be tested to see if it will hold a kitty!

And here they are finished!

I also made a bag for my dad to put his scriptures in to take to church on Sundays.  I managed to get a little bonus zipper bag from the fabric I quilted for it.  

And since I had "remembered" (ok, I actually consulted the youtube video I've used in the past) how to make zipper bags, I made these as well.  This was some previously quilted fabric that I had stuffed in a project box with the zippers to make "sometime".  So, there's another empty project box!  The hubster's comment was, "I can't believe you HAD all those zippers!"  Little does he know I have several more than that.

My Upscale Plaid quilt is also finished and ready for show and tell at the guild meeting Tuesday.  I really like how this turned out.  I'd like to make another in different colors.

And when there is extra fabric left from the project, make it into something before just adding it to the scrap stash...........plaid placemats!  

And another UFO finish!  This was created from a bunch of 2" x 5" strips I had overcut for another project.  Obviously I had REALLY over cut based on the size of this quilt.  I just started sewing the colors together in a pinwheel rail fence sorta pattern and when I had a bunch made, I worked with different ways to lay them out.  I think I only went back and made 3 extra to get this to work out.

This will be shown at guild and then gifted away.  It also means there is only ONE UFO left on my list!  My goal is to have it finished by the September quilt meeting.

And I really need to get back to work on my challenge project.  

Christi

 

July Wrap Up

Well, it's time to recap the last of July............

1.  I took my Mom and Dad to St. Peters to visit Sarah and see her new house.  She took us all to "her" library.........one of her favorite places.  I have to admit, it is a really nice library.  There is even a fireplace with lots of comfy seating around it.  She wasn't going to check out any books, so only left with FOUR!

Every time she takes me there, I always spot something I'd like to read.  So I took a picture of this one.  I later found it on hoopla and read it that way.  It was good.  All through the book they were trying to recreate a mac and cheese recipe and in the end, they finally did it.  I was really hoping there would be a recipe at the end of the book, but there wasn't.  That was the only disappointment.

I took Sarah an early birthday present.  She loved the t-shirt until she realized I had a matching one, then maybe not so much.  However, we won't be together much, so probably no one will know her mom has a matching one.

She took us to her favorite Italian restaurant, Erio's, which is only a couple of blocks from her house.  This is our favorite dessert!  

2.  The garden is going crazy!  I wisely let David pull the cucumbers so it could just stop raining cucumbers on me.  The pumpkin, spaghetti squash, and butternut squash vines quickly took over the cucumber area.  They are trying to overtake the tomatoes as well.  My romas have come much earlier this year........and if you notice the tomato in the lower left, they aren't all romas like they are supposed to be.

I have been making pasta sauce.  We love this recipe and it uses lots of fresh herbs which I have right now as well.  I even made up a couple of pans of lasagna with fresh sauce and herbs to freeze for Carter and Jackson.  This got my sister in to trouble last year when I did it.  Jackson asked her to recreate it, so she called me for the secret recipe and when I said fresh tomatoes and herbs, and it was January in Iowa, she told Jackson she hoped he enjoyed the pan I had made for him.  My freezer now smells like an Italian restaurant.

I had no more than used all the tomatoes when I visited the garden and picked more stuff!  This sweet corn is from some seed we found in the garage that was probably 4 years old.  This is a year when I think ANYTHING would grow.

I have made lots of pasta sauce and still have lots of tomato sauce left from last year and I made pizza sauce for the first time and canned it.  Fortunately my neighbor said he would be interested in any extra roma tomatoes, so there is a home for them.

3.  Chain saw accident................yes, David has been at it again.  He came in for lunch and asked me to patch up his knee.  He hit it with the chainsaw.  He seemed a little more worried about his jeans, a like-new pair, so...........

they are now mended.  Quilter's are never impressed when asked to mend clothes especially not when asked to from someone who was probably doing something he shouldn't have been doing.

4.  I finally started working on my challenge project for guild.  I can honestly say that I found so many ways of procrastinating before starting on this one.  My sewing room has never been cleaner, almost all of my projects are to the flimsy stage waiting to be quilted, with bindings already made.  I have cut 4 projects to take to a retreat at the end of August.  I even cleaned the house! (not that you can tell it now).  But I finally started.  I was at a 50% seam ripping rate at the beginning, but seam! to have gotten the hang of it.  I have told myself to just work on it for an hour a day and see how it goes.  Of course, I haven't even been to the sewing room this week.  Here is a sneak peek.............I don't want to show it until after the reveal in October.  I am depicting the idiom, Through Thick and Thin.

and yes, I grayed the photo so you can't tell colors yet, and yes, that is a glue stick!

5.  It's been Hot!

This has precipitated the need for the occasional chocolate malt.

Esme knows there must be something good in there and has been trying to master the art of the straw.  Don't worry, the glass was empty and I was through before she started practicing.

All of this hot weather has really brought on the napping too...............

What can I say.............It's a Hard-Knock Life around here!

6.  The last, be definitely not the least...................Willow's 4th birthday!  

We made our annual trek to my parent's house to visit the county lake and let Willow swim.  It was so hot that the water felt really good.  

For those who thing she's gotten really big, you can now see that it's just a LOT of hair.

The place was almost deserted, except for this heron (we think).

And that wraps up July!  I am heading up to the sewing room today to get back to work on my challenge project and maybe get something on the longarm.

Christi