October in a nutshell

 

I need to do a better job coordinating between my blog and Instagram.  A lot has happened this month, and I just realized none of it has been posted here.  If you follow me on Instagram, you've already seen these pictures, therefore you may be excused :)
Otherwise here's what I've been up to:

1. More Taryn's blocks were sewn. I can't wait to hand quilt this one.
2. There was some actual weather here this month.  It's unusual for us to get any kind of storminess in October, but the rain has been a welcome relief from the dry dusty heat.
3. The herbs I picked back in August are dried and I plan on putting them into little jars and giving  some away for Christmas.  Need to find some cute labels.
4. I followed a couple of different tutorials for a zippered pouch to make a large project bag and a small notions bag.  I used some Japanese fabric from my stash and a floral from Rifle Paper Co.
You can find the instructions at Noodlehead and Jedicraftgirl.  I haven't fiddled with zippers in quite a while, but I managed to survive the trauma of installing 2 of them.  Now I want to make a few more of these bags as gifts.
5. Just finished reading Uprooted, which was good but just missed being really good by something that I can't put my finger on. Maybe the POV it was written in, or character development, I don't know, but if you've read it I 'd love to hear your thoughts. The yarn is Quince and Co. Osprey in Carrie's Yellow.  I'm thinking of adding yarny embroidery to the ends of the scarf I'm making.  Not sure how that's going to work on garter stitch, I think stockinette might be better, but it's worth a try.
Until next time!

Petite log cabin

Yet another scrap quilt from my bottomless pit of a scrap bucket.   It doesn't look like your typical log cabin style quilt, but that's the method I used to construct the blocks.  I squared them up with my 9.5 inch square ruler, added sashing with "points" and a scrappy border.  It measures out at 43x43, which is fine because I already have a gazillion throw size quilts, and it's nice to make one for the fun of it and not worry about the size.  Before the binding was finished, I was already pulling fabrics for the next quilt. It seems my sewing mojo has returned.  I even dusted off the old featherweight.

In between quilts, I'm working on my Farmhouse shawl.  It's a very relaxing knit, nothing too challenging for a newbie knitter like me.  I have this month to finish it up as it doesn't cool down properly here until October and I'm looking forward to wearing it. 

Summer Smitten Blanket and other crafts

I started this in the middle of June thinking it would make a great summer project. Well I was right.  It went with me to my mom's chemo appointments, on the train to Portland last month, and any time there was a road trip.  In fact this thing has been practically living in the car.   Since it was one color,  and you crochet one square at a time, it was quite portable and there weren't many ends to weave in!
I used Knit Picks organic cotton worsted which was amazingly soft, not anything like the kitchen twine I've struggled with when making dishcloths.  The pattern was free over on byHaafner, and there's a handy little chart you can print off if you like that sort of thing.  I found it helpful, although it was easy enough to memorize once you made a few squares.  All the details are on my Ravelry page.

   There hasn't been much sewing going on around here.   I broke down and bought a quilting hoop and a nimble thimble and am trying my best to hand quilt, but it's slow. The leather nimble thimbles are a great idea, but I seem to be in between sizes.  The medium was too big and kept slipping off.  When it finally flew across the couch and hit the dog, I decided to order a small.  Now that one is too tight.  This is a bit like Goldilocks testing out the beds.

I bought some goodies in Portland at Knit Purl and have started knitting the Farmhouse shawl, and it's so fun!  Probably another reason why the quilting has taken a back seat.

 

Anyway that's my summer so far. Hope you're enjoying yours. Seems to be wrapping up doesn't it? Bring on the Fall.   Can't. Wait.

Plain Obsession

When I was in Portland last week, my sister and I walked into a posh little boutique on Alder St. to have a look around.  It was the kind of shop that would drain the pocketbook in minutes.  The wares however, were quite beautiful.  Table tops displayed fine gauge cotton tee shirts, soft wool sweaters, wide legged pants, linen napkins, carved wooden candlesticks and large coffee table books.   Most of the clothing they carried were in shades of navy, black, cream and tan.  If you wanted a few nice basic pieces to start a minimalist wardrobe, this was the place to get them.  I fell in love with this little creamer by a local artist and brought it home with me.

I  also spied a quilt on sale for just over $300. It was a color block quilt in cream, black and gray that fit in with the shop's aesthetic. I kept looking at it.  Thinking about it long after we left.  Obsessing about it's plain simple design.  In fact on the train ride home, an Amish (or maybe Mennonite) family joined us in the dining car and their starched white caps, and dark somber clothes reminded me of the quilt again. I couldn't wait to get home and make my own version.

It only took a few days to put together as I already had everything I needed.  And thank goodness.  A trip to the fabric store would have ruined my momentum.  The Lotta Jansdotter fabric I used for the backing has been in my stash for about 2 years. I never wanted to use it because I loved it so much.  Really that makes no sense.  I need to start incorporating these pieces into my projects instead of hoarding it.  It's not doing any good folded up in the cupboard.

Anyway, now I can get back to my WIPs and relax a bit.  Obsession over.

Packing it in

We've been really busy lately helping the oldest daughter pack up her apartment and move.  While that was going on the boy/man came home briefly from university ( in between regular and summer classes) and we cleaned out his bedroom and packed away his childhood. But before that could happen, I had to tidy up the garage to make space for sports equipment, video games and high school yearbooks. I've dropped off so much at the Goodwill lately, they must see me coming and think my house is a never ending bottomless pit of All the Stuff.
I tell you what, my 50 something body can't take too much more of this moving and packing, especially since the weather is hovering around 100 degrees or higher for the next 5 days.
Ah summer, how I want to love you here in Northern California, but I want to experience you in Alaska, or Maine, where I imagine a light sweater is needed when the sun goes down,  people eat supper outside, and you can still wear long pants and shirts with sleeves in them.
There have been beautiful sunsets here though, and the grasses have dried to that rich California gold color.  I get to pick wild blackberries on my morning walks, make fresh lemonade from the lemons off my tree and float on a raft in the pool looking up at a sky so blue it makes you ache inside.
All that kind of makes up for the upper lip and boob sweat, the constant hum of the AC, and the inability to do anything outside between lunch time and 9:00pm without melting your face off.

 Enough complaining about the weather. Guess what? I finally joined the Instagram crowd (I resisted for a long time).  I still prefer blogging because I love the written word, the stories, the connection.  It's quicker to post something on Instagram, a nice picture, two sentences punctuated by a dozen emoji's and you're done. But man you can really get sucked into the looking and spend hours of time on there! I'm just figuring out how to navigate around and so far it's been fun.  I don't have too many posts up yet, but if you want to visit, I'm at  lifeofreilly58.
In between the packing I'm grateful this week for some quiet moments to practice my knitting, and  continue sewing more of my drunkards path blocks.  I've been able to build up a nice little pile so far.  However this is looking to be a 3 year quilt, as I started these blocks last year and it doesn't appear I'll be finishing any time this year.
Anyone got a summer project started?  Besides my white crocheted blanket, I've been itching to try some embroidery and I have 2 new books to read.  I'm down for anything really, as long as it doesn't  involve packing tape and a truck :) 

Changing directions

I changed my mind on two of my projects.  I was dragging my feet about finishing them, so I took a good hard look at why the feet were dragging.  Something wasn't right and I figured they needed to be tweaked just a little in order to regain my interest.  So out came the seam ripper for the quilt, and frogging commenced on the cotton blanket. 
I originally set the quilt blocks in my usual standby, Kona snow.  You can see them here. The white background was bugging me so I remade them with a tan and cream shirting fabric which softens the blocks somehow and gives them a little more interest.  The quilt is now almost done!

The cotton blanket from my last post was a simple sc, ch1, sc pattern, that was soothing to work, but a bit boring.  The plan was to make a solid cream colored organic cotton blanket, but I was constantly fighting with myself so I wouldn't add a colored stripe somewhere.  Maybe what I really craved was more texture.  When I spied this blanket, and this one,  I ripped out my boring one and started the new squares immediately.  BAM!   Instant crochet fun!  I love working on this pattern.

daughter doing the creepy eyeball picture

There are just enough popcorn stitches to keep this fun.  Also the Knit Picks Simply Cotton Worsted has exactly the amount of yarn per skein to make one 10 round block (H hook).
My daughter pointed out that both the crocheted block and the quilt block share similar shapes. Hmm.  Even weirder they both measure out at 13 1/2 inches.
I think I'm heading in the right direction.

Progress

I'm not sure if you want to call what I'm doing "progress" or quilting myself into a corner.  When I make a visual list of everything I'm working on/want to work on, it's kind of overwhelming. I actually left 2 other quilt projects out of this post, and will talk more about them later.  This is enough even for me.
Last week I drove about 45 minutes into Sacramento to visit the Quilters Corner fabric store.  I don't get there very often but when I do, you can bet I make it worth my while. I bought some neutral backgrounds, a few Karen Kay Buckley tools, 2 Quiltmania magazines, a handful of fat quarters to feed the stash and a Kaffe Fassett bundle (last picture). They didn't carry a lot of modern quilting fabric, it was heavy on the reproductions and batiks, but they had some fun classes going on, awesome samples hanging up, a large supply of Aurifil thread and other notions, even wool for applique. It was a great couple of hours spent by myself, and I stopped on the way home for an iced tea and a sushi roll from Mikuni's (I love their Marilyn Monroll, yum!)

The snowball quilt now measures about 27 x 29 and I think I'm going to add a border of flying geese next. I'll just keep going until it feels like it's done. The dark blue fabric was pulled because I want to make an indigo quilt, maybe with some sashiko stitching.  I'm still dreaming about that one.
I also received 2 little hangers from Temecula Quilt Co.  They're perfect for mini quilts.

Sadly the Killdeer eggs from my garden disappeared 2 days after I posted about them.  I'm not surprised, since the nest was sitting out in the open, unprotected.  There are a lot of cats, hawks and raccoons around here, and I discovered a hole in the ground just a few feet from the nest (snake?) Could have been any of them. There wasn't an egg shell or feather left behind.  Just, Poof! Gone.

So today it's going to be 97 degrees, and like usual, I'm trying to outrun the heat. Everything has been watered early this morning, and I just finished vacuuming and mopping floors. Soon the air conditioner will kick in, and that's my signal to start sewing. I've got lots to do, some of it I like, some of it I don't.  I'm not complaining.  It could be worse.  I could have been born as a Killdeer egg.

Garden visitor

Right now a big section of my garden looks like this....

But beyond the green lies an area where we used to keep the chickens.   I've been slowly cleaning it up to add more plants, maybe grapes or an orange tree.  It looks like this....

But wait, let's zoom in a bit.

Do you see the eggs?
They belong to a Killdeer.  And Mrs. Killdeer was not happy that I was walking around her nest. If you want to call it a nest.  More like a shallow depression in the dirt.    She was quite nervous and wanted me to follow her away from her babies.

So she pulled the broken wing act, like on the Discovery Channel.

Not going to work on me lady.  I saw that episode.
Nevertheless she continued the fake job.

After a few minutes of me standing perfectly still, except for the sweat dripping down my face, she cautiously came back to hover over her eggs.  I was about 12 feet away, on the other side of a fence.

I left her alone at this point.  Probably enough torture for one day.  Looks like I won't be gardening in this part of the yard until those eggs hatch.
Meanwhile I sewed all these little snowballs together and now I'm just staring at it. I don't know what to do. Wait for some inspiration or just quilt it and sew on a binding and call it done.  Hmmmm.

Heating up slowly

geranium in "watermelon"

repairing the binding on an old quilt

American Robin

new quilt pattern

We've had the nicest rain showers this last week, with thunder rumbling in the distance for dramatic effect.  I haven't had to water the garden as often, which is nice, but the weeds love the rain too, so the battle continues. We are slowly moving out of our nice Enjoy It While You Can spring weather phase and will soon be entering into the blistering hot, Kill All the Plants summer phase, which I endure for about one month, then by July I'm in the house with the air conditioner on drinking buckets of iced tea.  I really want to try and embrace summer this year (I say this every year), take part in more outdoor/summer activities, but it's hard for me.  I inevitably melt into a sweaty limp puddle at backyard barbecues and theme parks, clutching a cold drink in a death grip, crazed eyes darting about for a seat in the shade, my hair plastered around my head like a wet dish cloth.
So attractive.  Meanwhile everyone else continues to party on, seemingly unfazed by the heat. Sigh.
Must buy more pool floaty toys. And cold beer.  And a short haircut.

On the sewing front, I haven't been very diligent lately.  I made a few scrap improv blocks and will probably make some kind of quilt with them, but for now they're just hanging out on the design wall patiently waiting their turn.  Instead of sewing I've been obsessed with listening to knitting pod casts and really learning a lot.  However the patterns I'm drawn to are made with fingering weight yarn and toothpicks, and I'm struggling. Maybe for now I'm better off learning with worsted or dk weight and bigger needles?  I'm both impressed and intimidated by people who jump right in there and whip up a pair of socks a week after they learn to cast on. Knitting feels painfully slow to me, and you have to really pay attention.  Example : K2, yo, knit to marker, yo, sm, k1, sm, knit to last 2 stitches, yo, k2 stitches, touch your nose with your tongue, and scratch your belly with your big toe.  Repeat rows two through nineteen, 175,678 times or until your eyes cross, the phone rings or the dog jumps in your lap in which case you're basically screwed. If your lucky the damn markers will stay where you put them and you can find your place and start over.
 Possibly I have some kind of knitting attention deficit disorder. Or knitting commitment disorder. Whatever it is, it makes me doubt myself.  I run back to the comfort of my crochet hook and think "do I really need another craft, maybe I will just stick with crochet and quilting?"
Again, must buy more cold beer.
Anyway last week I had a give away for a quilt pattern and a stack of 5" squares from my stash.  Pam at CreativeCrazyGirl won, and I hope she can use the extra scraps in her stash, and maybe try out that pattern!  Thanks to everyone who took time to leave a comment.  It's nice to have so many lovely blogging friends out there. Hope you all have time to make something fun this weekend :)