Catching Up

On Saturday Ronda and I started to do the actual layout of our latest joint effort. These are fabrics that we found months ago without knowing quite what we would make with them. We had each bought the same thing and then decided perhaps it made more sense to put our two piles together and make one quilt. Dhhhhhh!! At first we had thought to do a multi-colored quilt, but came to decide that we liked the idea of a pink family one and a blue family one. So here you will see our efforts so far. I will sew the pink one together and then we will start the (arduous) task of figuring out what we do about a border. Any thoughts? We still have to make a number of squares for the blue one, obviously. And then border issues, again. We thought perhaps they should be called something like "Two Sisters of the same mother" or "Non-identical twins".

I learned that my latest batch of exchange items have arrived, so I can now show some photos of what I have been working on. [No, I haven't just been cleaning my house, though I did some of that, as well. :-) ] These are all table toppers, about 18" square. There was one more, but I guess I forgot to take its picture. Perhaps Mary will post one and I can get it from there.


That's about all the news from around here. Today was a gorgeous day, but the TV weatherman says, "No more" and to expect the grey and 'liquid sunshine' arriving overnight. Ah, autumn is really here!

Wednesday news

You can see that autumn is coming. The cyclamen only come out in the fall. Kind of sad, but aren't they pretty? And the hydranga is drying on the stem. Cooler weather. My furnace even came on this morning.






About mid-day my doorbell rang and it was the postal carrier with a large parcel for me from Suzanne. I have been waiting for this, but Suzanne said it would be a while to wait for this large parcel. And inside the box were some really lovely gifts from Suzanne at the Crazy Exchange. A very nice pillow, with elephant fabric around the sides and a needlepoint center. Very handsome black and brown. Also, Suzanne sent me two boxes of Pickwick tea, some potpourri and a fabulous Dutch needlework magazine. (Perfect for me to try to continue to learn Dutch) This is really wonderful. Thank you Suzanne for these marvelous gifts.

Saturday Quilt Day

Last Saturday one member of our quilt guild opened her home to let us have a sewing day. She has a lovely day-light basement which was perfect, albeit a teensy bit crowded. We had a great time, cutting and sewing. We worked more on our Sunflower Paper Pieced quilt, by Judy Niemeyer. This quilt will be given to a local community center which is then raffled off. The proceeds from the raffle benefit the Senior Center at which we meet every other week. 'A' is making a Double Wedding Ring quilt for her parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary. 'A' is making the wonderful green and purple "woven" quilt - all done by means of fabric selection. Very exact and quite stunning. Ronda (and I) are making a quilt made of large half-square triangles, the pattern created by the use of lights and darks.

As you will notice, we didn't stint on the lunch potluck and quite enjoyed ourselves. It was a great, productive day.

Exchange gift arrived

Chantal reported that her parcel finally arrived. Seems like I mailed it ages and ages ago. But at last, it has arrived. A pattern from a Dutch author for a Dutch woman.

Saturday my quilt guild had a sewing day at one member's home. Photos to follow.

A Day at the Fair

My friend Patty Anne and I went to the Western Washington State Fair today. We had a marvelous time wandering around and looking. These are photos of some of the best or some of my favorite quilts. Quite worth spending lots of time looking.








And then, lucky me, Patty Anne had been my partner earlier for the gift exchange. Today she brought me several lovely gifts in return, including these with hand-made glass beads for the bag closure and on the stick pin:

Wednesday items

First of all, please notice table is tidier:

I have been making several things for my crazy exchange partners, but cannot show you until they let me know that the items have arrived. Fair is fair! But I have been busy.

Last week-end we had a delightful "Indian" summer camping week-end at Alder Lake. Visited a private zoo called Northwest Trek. Lots of animals living in confined areas, but not in any cages.










Tuesday began my first sewing class for refugee women. Four of the five women spoke some English, one only Cambodian. There will be another Somali woman joining us next week. The three Somali women there asked for a lot of translation. Two of those women had no experience with a sewing machine. So this was a very basic introduction to what are parts of the machine and generally how does it work. We practiced first on pieces of paper, without thread in the machine, just to learn to guide the movement under the needle. Then we moved on to threading the machine and in some cases, to filling the bobbin. And then using scraps and pieces of donated fabric, just practiced to get the feel of fabric and needle and thread. Our first project will be a carrier bag made with upholstery fabric. Here are some photos. Some of the women did not want their pictures taken.



I think you can see how she tried very carefully to create concentric lines of sewing. [on the strawberry fabric] This is going to be a very fun and challenging few weeks.




This morning our local quilt guild met and after a long business meeting, had a presentation of quilts and slides (of quilts) by Joen Wolfrom. She does some magnificent work, especially at doing color gradations. Ah inspiration!

It is cleaned up!

Certainly not all, but a big part of the holiday week-end was spent wading through my sewing room. I think the real insult came when my friend Ronda said it looked like something had "exploded" in there. Gracious! So, while the table still needs some serious attention, you can walk across the floor without leaping over anything. I even went out today and bought 4 new boxes for UFO's, as well as one for buttons. The "stash" is pretty good, but the collection of fat quarters (or other smaller, saveable pieces) does need some help. I'm working on it! [This room is only about 10' x 10' square, no closet and about 2/3 way up the walls is concrete.]
My latest exchange efforts were mailed to Belgium today to Chantal (she sent me the darling blue/yellow striped thread and needle/pin holder). I can't show you what I sent her until next week when it should have arrived at her end. But if I do say so, it's pretty darn cute! The way this works, I now will choose someone else to make something for and get it in the mail - all as a surprise. Hmmmmm. What's next? Oh yeah, and I'll keep at the room, too.