vacation! (and some projects, too)

Oh man, it's August 9th already. We had such a cold, rainy, long spring and then got super baked for several weeks and I feel we've hardly had any "real" summer. I hope we get some nice days of high 70s with sun and a breeze before school starts.

School, wow, already?!? The time, it flies. Daughter will start first grade after labor day. It's coming up quickly...we've already purchased her supplies (except the markers, because I haven't seen them for $1 yet). I'm watching for juice box coupons and stocking up on snacks for the lunchbox. The light outside is shifting, just a bit, telling me that autumn is indeed on its way.

We were away last week, the kids and I, visiting my sister and her baby boy in the midwest. Her husband was out of town on business so we descended upon their home for a whole week. It saddens me that the cousins in our family will all grow up far away from each other, so it's nice to put them together and let them become acquainted. That way the holidays aren't a visit with people who feel like strangers. Also, holy cow did I need a change of scenery. It was amazing to get out of town for awhile and look at something other than our four walls! Even shopping at Target in a different place feels somehow fresh and new. We played, walked, swam, shopped, cooked, ate, baked, and played some more. My sister's house has central air - glorious! - and our moods were all greatly improved by the comfort we experienced.

I took along a bit of knitting but didn't get a whole lot done.

These socks were started in January. January! I cast them on to take to the hospital for AJ's surgery, which ended up postponed until mid-February anyway, and besides, I never actually knit in the surgical waiting room. Taking knitting along is just wishful thinking. So these rode around in the bottom of my purse until recently when I got sick of seeing them in there and I started working on them in earnest. One down, one started.

And before we left, when I was doing vacation pre-cleaning so we wouldn't come home to a gross house, I picked this quilt up off the dining room table and finished the stinking thing:

This is, I guess, broken dishes (?) but was supposed to be a pinwheel quilt separated by sashing. It went from a planned queen size to maybe a twin to a wallhanging as I got tired of making the blocks. Ha! Some quilter I am.

I based this on a quilt pattern in Nickel Quilts. Unfortunately somewhere between making the first batch of blocks years ago and finishing it up last winter, I accidentally changed the size of the individual components, so some of the blocks got chopped down in the final assembly. If you enlarge the photo you might be able to see where several of the pinwheels don't actually have points on them. Whoops!

Anyway, I don't care and I think it looks pretty good to hang on my living room wall! We need color desperately, and this roughly 56"X64" quilt will bring it.

I've been swayed lately by all the fresh fabric collections quilters are using in the online quilting world...lots of juicy oranges, pinks, lime greens, browns, bright blues...and I was even thinking I might splurge on some of the newer fabrics, despite my reservations that these colors might seem really dated in a few years (remember country blue and rose? how about peach and seafoam green? yeah), but then I finished this quilt and I realized where my heart lies. I love these tiny prints and semi-solids. I love traditional quilts.

And now that I've finished one, I can start another. Or maybe two. Those are the rules. Right?

little helper

I think I mentioned over the summer that I am trying hard to tackle the WIP problem. Yes, it is a real problem...so many projects I started and abandoned...so sad, really! It is starting to make me quite uncomfortable to have all these half-finished projects laying around. What a waste - of time, of materials, of my efforts.

I made these schoolhouses the winter before last, and was planning a bed-size quilt (as always...now ask me how many bed-size quilts I have actually made...) but the blocks are fiddly and I don't enjoy making them. So they got shoved in a pile and ignored. I think I will just take the 5 completed blocks, put them together with solid cream setting squares, and call it a wallhanging, yes?


Daughter helped me lay these out. Again...


And again...


And again.

In all she must have made every possible iteration of these 5 silly blocks. And I guess I must have said it first, otherwise I don't know where she would come up with it, but she kept saying, "I'm just not sure how this is going to work out with the red."

Oh, how I love her and love her and love her.

I think we'll need some sashing between those houses, though, don't you? Maybe red!

anyone remember this one?

Ahhh, this old chestnut! It's baaaaack...

I love this quilt...it's so purdy. And it's so OLD. I pieced this dumb thing before Daughter was even conceived, which was 2004, so we're talking 5 years now. I pinned it, got ready to quilt it, then got hit with morning sickness the likes of which I did not know existed. Then I picked it up and put it down a bunch of times, went through several ideas on exactly how I wanted to quilt it, and finally, after packing it around dishes in it's unfinished state for our move, I decided IT WAS TIME.

Really, moving to a new home is an excellent way to goose yourself into finishing stuff. I hauled more ufos to this house than I should have.

So anyway, the quilt! It is quilted! I sucked it up, got out the blue painters tape, and quilted this in a diagonal grid pattern, using every other intersecting seam as my guide. Which makes no sense to you, reading this, but it basically means I made about a 2.5 to 3" grid pattern with the quilting. I wish I knew how to stipple, or could afford to have my quilts professionally quilted, because stippling would have been really nice here. But a grid does the job.

Now it just needs to be bound, washed, and dried, and this pretty, pretty log cabin will go into use. Daughter has asked that it go on her bed. Be still, my heart! Of course, my love, of course.

(More, better quality pictures once it is totally finished...)

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Happy birthday, sweet baby. I miss you every day.



(Baby's quilt now hangs over my cedar chest at the end of our bed.)