Five Shadows

Another week flies by! This is Spring Break for our city schools. My grands are coming over tomorrow. Grandson wants a sleep over but since I have another house guest right now it will just have to be a daytime visit.

Easter will be low key this year. Two of our adult kids and their spouses will be out of town. That means only one family will be coming over after church for lunch. One daughter has been visiting Germany for the past week and she returns Sunday.

May you all have a Blessed Easter. The Lord has Risen!

Here’s my list for the past week -

To-Do Tuesday, March 28, 2023

1. Friday my quilting group meets for a day of sewing and fellowship. I’m taking along my new Trip Around the World project. ✔️
2. Quilt and bind one or two table runners pieced earlier this month. One will be a birthday gift I want to take with me Friday. ✔️
3. Evening stitching on Featherweight embroidery. ✔️
4. Daughter’s house – hubs will be there but I might not make it back until Saturday. ✗

1. I stitched up three more blocks at my quilting group Friday.

Sunday I finished two more blocks and now have two rows sewn together. Two more rows to go.

2. Table runners

One quilted and bound. My FMQ was so off that I did some ripping out. I’m out of practice and need to get my FMQ mojo back!

3. Featherweight embroidery

The embroidery is completed! I have to wash off some of the markings, next step is to make and attach a pieced border.

4. Daughter’s house. I didn’t make it back there Saturday. Wiring is close to being ready for the second inspection. Our daughter is getting antsy to have the building inspection done, but I’m not sure what still needs to happen for that since I’ve not been there. It’s all moving forward, so that is good.

Other  quilty things – I made a back for my friend’s Trip Around the World quilt. Today I take the quilt over to another friend’s studio to load on her longarm. She is very generous with offering her longarm to me to use!

That leads us to the list for this week -

To-Do Tuesday, April 4, 2023

1. Quilting Trip Around the World
2. Pieced border for the Featherweight embroidery.
3. Wednesday – sewing with women’s group at church – heart pillows for cancer patients.
4. Spring Break – granddaughter is to visit for a quilting lesson.
5. Daughter’s house – not sure when I’ll fit getting over there this week. Hubs is staying busy there finishing up rewiring. Porch lights are next.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Sunday we finally had our family March Birthday celebration! We have 5 of the 7 of us born in March. Two of our adult kid’s families have been sick and we had to postpone our initial plans. Then Sunday the party was moved from our son’s house to ours. It was a nice day and we fit in a walk as well as our meal together. Sadly we still had two ppl missing. So here’s to health and happiness as our family sure has been catching all the bugs lately.

Here’s my mostly sewing world for the week -

To-Do Tuesday, March 21, 2023

1. Tomorrow, Wednesday, our sewing group at church meets. We are making heart shaped pillows for oncology patients. Donated to a local hospital. Got the call their supply is getting low. ✔️
2. Stitching Stereo and perhaps other charity quilts. ✔️
3. Featherweight embroidery in the evenings. ✔️
4. Daughter’s house – not sure I’m needed there much this week. There are a few odd jobs I could do, like finish the wall paper removal. You might remember that is a job I don’t care for ever so much! ✔️

1. Pillows for oncology patients.  Oops! I didn’t take a photo but we have 30 some ready to donate.

2. Stereo quilt top

Top is pieced. I found fabric in my stash that will work for the back. And binding made. Stereo is made from 10″ squares. Three triangle are cut from each square with a 10″ x 2 1/2″ piece left over. I sewed all those pieces together to make a scrappy binding.

3. Featherweight embroidery

It’s moving along rather quickly.

4. Daughter’s house – looks like the plumber has been back working on repairs. Then Hubby said the plumber was taking photos one day and sending them to the inspector. Hoping that job will be completed soon. Wiring for fire/smoke alarms and CO2 alarms have been completed. I’m not sure what is left with the wiring before inspection happens again. Also there is the building inspection that has to take place before insulation and drywall goes up. We are slowly moving forward.

I started something new! Ha Ha! With leftovers! Isn’t finding a new project with something you already have cut a fun thing!?

Here’s the first block 16 1/2″ square. With the leftover 2 1/2″ squares from Janie’s quilt, I’m piecing a variation to Trip Around the World. I’m adding alternating rows of white squares. By adding the whites to the leftovers I should be able to reach 64″ square lap quilt. Maybe larger. We’ll see, as I’ve not counted all the leftover squares but there is fabric left over too if I need to cut more.

Here are my mostly sewing plans for this week -

To-Do Tuesday, March 28, 2023

1. Friday my quilting group meets for a day of sewing and fellowship. I’m taking along my new Trip Around the World project.
2. Quilt and bind one or two table runners pieced earlier this month. One will be a birthday gift I want to take with me Friday.
3. Evening stitching on Featherweight embroidery.
4. Daughter’s house – hubs will be there but I might not make it back until Saturday.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Birthday month continues here in our family! Sunday our daughter celebrated 28 years. And today our son celebrates 42 years! Oh the Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy jokes are flying around our family texts today! You know, the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42!

And yes, 14 years between our oldest and youngest kiddos, with three in-between.

On to the list -

To-Do Tuesday, March 14, 2023

1. Got to keep plugging away on daughter’s house. ✔️
2. Stitch up some charity quilts or keep cutting?  ✔️ or both!
3. If my friend gets her quilt top finished we might be visiting another friend who will let us quilt the top on her longarm. ✗
4. Featherweight embroidery. ✔️

1. Work at our daughter’s house moved along well with electric installed and inspected. Everything passed! But there was an oversight. New code – with a remodel fire/smoke alarms and CO2 alarms have to be hard wired in. The alarms have been ordered, more electrical wire purchased. So that oversight is moving forward.

Plumbing did not pass inspection. So plumber will be back to fix a few things.

2. I did more cutting for charity quilts, and some piecing.

This is Stereo by Jaybird Quilts. I cut triangles from two layer cakes. Moda Jungle Paradise and Riley Blake Dapple Dot. Three rows sewn together so far, not photoed.

3. Janie’s quilt!

Here is Janie with the first half of Trip Around the World pieced last October.

And here she is with the top completed –  minus a border. She did get the border attached, but we didn’t have time for sandwiching and quilting. She is trusting me with that. I’ll be visiting her in June to deliver the completed quilt. Stay tuned!

4. Featherweight embroidery

I’ve missed a few evenings stitching. Since this is not a stitch-along, I’m being more lax with it than I was with Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

What do I have planned for this week?

To-Do Tuesday, March 21, 2023

1. Tomorrow, Wednesday, our sewing group at church meets. We are making heart shaped pillows for oncology patients. Donated to a local hospital. Got the call their supply is getting low.
2. Stitching Stereo and perhaps other charity quilts.
3. Featherweight embroidery in the evenings.
4. Daughter’s house – not sure I’m needed there much this week. There are a few odd jobs I could do, like finish the wall paper removal. You might remember that is a job I don’t care for ever so much!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Birthday celebrations! Hub’s birthday was Saturday and mine is today! And three of our five children are born in March on the 14th, 19th, and 21st! We had hoped to have a family gathering Sunday the 5th but two of our kids families have picked up the dreaded Covid bug. We’ll have that family gathering once all are well. We are praying for swift and complete healing. They have all had the vaccine and boosters, so hopefully that means a milder case of the bug.

Here’s what my week shaped up to look like -

To-Do Tuesday, February 28, 2023

1. I suppose I should move working on daughter’s house to the top of the list. There is wallpaper paste and bit of paper to remove which I really have no desire to do. But I can tell you it is a much nicer (cleaner!) job then demoing plaster walls! ✔️
2. Maybe work on charity quilts  ✔️
3. Or pull out the other project I hoped to work on last year.  ✔️

1.  Work is progressing on our daughter’s house! Here are a couple photos if you are interested.

There are two bedrooms in the front of the house, second floor. This is the smaller of the two. The window opens to a Three Season Room. The door is to an odd shaped closet built into the eaves. It’s being ripped out to reconfigure for better storage. These are 100+ year old plaster walls on lathe. What a mess to pull out and clean up! Two good things about pulling out old plaster walls are  1. we can add better insulation 2. it’s easier to rewire to upgrade electric.  Some of the areas between studs had NO insulation!

Now, if you can imagine, compare this photo to the first. This is the larger bedroom and there was a wall where there are now only studs on the right of the photo. This is the same space as the closet in the first photo. Dead wasted space here. This area will be reconfigured so there will be identical storage in both bedrooms making use of the space in the eaves. This room has the door to enter the Three Season Room.

Just for fun -

My daughter pulled this lovely hexagon wallpaper out of what will be her bedroom! Can you believe she would do such a thing!? Ok, I really don’t blame her. The hexies would be better as a quilt than papered on a wall.

2. I did work on charity quilts!

This pattern was offered earlier this year by Wendy Sheppard as a charm pack weekend quilt along. I changed it up a bit to make a larger quilt at 39 1/2″ square instead of 33″ square. I used Moda’s charm pack Poems from Pebbles by Malka Dubrawsky.

Same pattern, different charm pack! I used Dance In Paris by Zen Chic. I widened the sashing from 1″ to 1 1/2″ to again enlarge the top this time to 42 1/2″ square.

3. And I started a new project!

I started on this hand embroidery project. The kit is from The Featherweight Shop which I bought for evening stitching in 2022. I am just how starting it as I was first stitching the EPP Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden in the evenings. Now that the Homage top is complete I’ve moved on to embroidery. The pattern is photoed in neutrals, but the kit was also offered in brights with Lori Holt fabrics. I’m going with the brights.

PLUS I worked on one more thing. I pulled out a PUP (Previously Unfinished Project) from 2013.

10 years old! This is Dancing Stars a paper pieced pattern by Amy’s Creative Side. I had 25 stars made up so I’m going with this layout. I need to cut the set triangles and finish sewing the rows together.

That was a full week! And here’s what is coming up -

To-Do Tuesday, March 7, 2023

1. Celebrate birthdays!
2. Work on daughter’s house. The project that keeps going on and on!
3. Finish Dancing Star quilt top.
4. Evening stitching Featherweight.
5. Friends from TN are to visit next week, (Sunday-Saturday) prep for their arrival!

What will you be working on?

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

It’s a windy March like day here. Only thing is, it is still February!

Here’s my list from last week and what I accomplished.

To-Do Tuesday, February 14, 2023

1. Can you guess?! Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden of course! I was hoping to finish up the piecing by February 18th. Doesn’t look like it will happen, but I’ll give it my best! ✔️
2. There has to be an end to my daughter’s house remodel. Only if we can get the plumber and electrician to finish up for inspections! Then drywall can go up and it will look so much better.
3. Maybe, start a new quilt, or pull out a PUP. BUT I really want to just focus on Homage. ✔️

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I didn’t meet my February 18th  self imposed goal. But …

Weeks 1 – 49!

Week 50 stitched.

And week 50 attached! Two more weeks to complete!

Week 51 progress. I hopeful that I can complete the last two weeks of this quilt and have them attached to the top this week!

2. Daughter’s house. The electrician is scheduled for March 10. Things are moving along. Slowly, but moving forward. My latest job there has been pulling out nails from trim we hope to reuse. Trim and at least 2 feet of the bottom part of the walls in the three bedrooms have to be removed so electrician can remove old knob and tube wiring and replace with the new wiring. It’s messy work. The plaster falls apart and the old insulation falls out of the walls. Did I say messy? And so dusty!  It will be a while before any drywall is going up. I remain optimistic that the is an end to this project.

3. Start a new quilt, or pull out a PUP (Previously Unfinished Project.)

I pulled out this quilt top that I sewed together a few years ago to follow along with one of Angela Walters Quilt-a-longs. I changed the pattern up a bit but never followed along! This week I added an outer border and this time hope to follow along with a different quilter. Dorie Hruska is offering a free Quilting on the Line class. I’ve marked the squares, sewed up the back.  I still have to sandwich the quilt before getting started on the quilting.

Today I’m getting a much needed hair cut. Then will most likely head over to my daughter’s house. This evening I’ll be back to handstitching Homage.

Here’s the list for this week that looks like last’s week’s.

To-Do Tuesday, February 21, 2023

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden – will I finish the piecing this week?
2. Sandwich the PUP I pulled out last week. Start playing?
3. On going work at my daughter’s house.

How was you week?

I’m linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How has my past week gone? I’m happy to say NO migraines!

Here’s last week’s to-do list -

To-Do Tuesday, February 7, 2023

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden of course! ✔️
2. Non sewing related – daughter bought a fixer upper 100 yr old house. Hubs and I are helping out with some remodel and updating. Ok, Hubs is helping out A LOT! Hopefully plumber & electrician will finish up, inspection will pass, and dry wall can go up soon. Looking like “soon” might be a month or more. Sigh. There’s more to the story. There always is. I’ll spare you. ✔️ As in work is happening but no where close to inspection time yet.
3. Other quilting? Maybe. ✗

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 48 stitched

And 48 attached!

Week 49 stitched. Isn’t it an odd shape? I just started to attach it to the quilt last night. So look for a photo next week.

2. Daughter’s house – the plumber came back and made progress. Master Electrician has not shown up yet to update the breaker box. I stripped wallpaper in the upstairs hallway. And pulled nails from trim that was removed so new wiring can go in behind baseboard. Hubs is doing the grunt work and I do the clean up. What a messy job! Daughter and her boyfriend are putting in their fair share of work too. We are not new to remodeling. So we know it always looks worse before it looks better.

3. No other sewing or quilting was accomplished. But I did buy a new pattern that caught my eye. Starbound by Primrose Cottage Quilts. It’s layer cake and charm pack friendly. Something I seem to be collecting to use up the layer cakes and charm packs!

On to this week’s list -

To-Do Tuesday, February 14, 2023

1. Can you guess?! Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden of course! I was hoping to finish up the piecing by February 18th. Doesn’t look like it will happen, but I’ll give it my best!
2. There has to be an end to my daughter’s house remodel. Only if we can get the plumber and electrician to finish up for inspections! Then drywall can go up and it will look so much better.
3. Maybe, start a new quilt, or pull out a PUP. So many options. BUT I really want to just focus on Homage.

That’s it for this week!

I’m linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Carol of Quilt Schmidt.

Week 37 attached to quilt!

Week 38 stitched!

Weeks 1 through 38 attached! And I have some of Week 39 glue basted. If I was keeping up with this quilt-along I’d be working on the last week of the year, week 52. How long to you think it will take for me to finish this top? I sure hope I have it completed before the end of February 2023!

2. Countdown to Christmas with Helen Godden

I’ve completed the FMQ for each day of the Christmas Countdown. He needs binding and a hanger. I might get to that today.

3.  Anniversary!

Hubby and I celebrated by braving the weather. Many businesses were closed due to the severe weather. A favorite Chinese restaurant less than a mile from our house was my idea for lunch. It was closed. But another Chinese restaurant just a mile from our house was surprisingly open. We headed there. Everyone was driving way under the speed limit being careful and taking time. We enjoyed our meal and brought home leftovers for supper. This was not our usual celebration, but turned out nicely. Happy 45th wedding anniversary to us!

4. Christmas was spread out through several days. Several but not all of our adult children came over for our traditional Christmas Eve meal before heading to our Candlelight Service. Christmas Day only our son and his family who live 3 blocks north of us came over. We enjoyed the afternoon with them. On the 26th my daughter & SIL hosted our family Christmas. Good food, conversation, games, gifts and a Nativity puzzle were enjoyed by all!

Over several days of family visiting this past week we completed this puzzle.

We had a Lego puzzle and this Lori Holt puzzle and one guest selected Lori Holt’s to work on. We finished it Christmas day.

We didn’t finish the Nativity puzzle at my daughter’s house – and I should have taken a picture! 5 of us through out the day made good headway on it!

To-Do Tuesday, December 27, 2022

1. Keep stitching away on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden!
2. Bind Nutcracker, Christmas Countdown.
3. Come up with a list of PUPs – Previously Unfinished Projects! to work on in 2023! I’ll post about that soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal. This is Linda’s last week to host TDT. Go take a look and learn who will be our next host. And join the party!

Welcome December! Oh how quickly this month fills up with lots of holiday extras! I was slow going this past week on quilting as I filled up time with some fun outings with friends and family. My son’s house was part of a Holiday Tour, 10 houses in a historic neighborhood in our town. I did the neighborhood walk and tour with two friends and we even took a horse drawn carriage ride. Next up was taking our grands to the Botanical Gardens to enjoy the Christmas decorations.

Our ladies group at church put together these Reindeer bags as gifts for teachers.

The bags are filled with treats, encouraging words, quilted mug rug, and gift card for coffee/tea.

We made 42 mug rugs or coasters, if you like, for 42 bags gifted to elementary school teachers.

To-Do Tuesday, November 29, 2022

1. Continue Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
2. Decide on a few little gifts for a few friends.  Not decided yet, store bought or handmade. ✔️
3. Quilt & bind one charity quilt. ✗

This week I didn’t get much accomplished in my quilting world.

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 35 is stitched up and I’ve started to attach it to the quilt. But no photo.

2. Gifts for friends. I decided on buying a few little sewing notions for several friends, and travels mugs for a few others.

3. I did touch a charity quilt this week. But I did start a Squirrel. I knew it was coming – Helen Godden’s Countdown to Christmas. I was thinking of passing on it this year, but decided I’d be mad at myself if I didn’t jump in.

If you follow the link above, you can download this free Christmas Countdown. This year we are FMQ a Nutcracker.

I used Crayola Crayons to color in my Nutcracker. Each day Helen demonstrates FMQ in one of the small areas of the drawing. This is a December 1st – 25th countdown and is rather low key once you have traced the Nutcracker on fabric, sandwich, and stitch on all the drawn lines. Then the fun begins of a small fill each day.

To-Do Tuesday, December 6, 2022

1. Hopefully make progress on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
2. Now that I have a Christmas Countdown going – keep up with it!
3. ?? I’d like to say work on a charity quilt, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays Friends!

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving & weekend! We had two days of delicious meals with family and friends. More about those below.

To-Do Tuesday, November 22, 2022

1. Today I start cooking for Thanksgiving! ✔️
2. Keep moving ahead on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
3. Will I sew on anything else this week? Time will tell. ✔️

Focus this week -

To-Do Tuesday, November 29, 2022

1. Continue Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
2. Decide on a few little gifts for a few friends.  Not decided yet, store bought or handmade.
3. Quilt & bind one charity quilt.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday hosted by Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the USA this Thursday, I hope we each remember to whom we are giving thanks. May God Bless you all!

To-Do Tuesday, November 15, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, week 33. ✔️
2. Enjoy visit with sister & BIL. ✔️
3. Friday is sewing day with quilt group. Hmmm. What to take along? ✗

Here’s what happened with that list -

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 33 completed. Those leaves slow me down with the tiny background pieces. I started attaching it to the quilt last night, no photo.

2. Visit with my sister and BIL went well! I invited my kids and their families over and all but one joined us for an enchilada dinner. Good time, good conversations.

3. I didn’t make it to my friend’s home for our sewing day. Just as I was reading a text from her that her drive was very icy, my husband came into the room and said he just heard of three car accidents in the direction I was to head. Icy roads. He didn’t want me driving. I thought plan B would be staying home and sewing on the project I planned for the day away, but since I was home other household projects kept popping up. You know how that goes, right?! Then once roads cleared, I ended up heading out to get the Covid Booster & the first Shingles vaccination.

Shingles is nasty folks. Have you gotten the two part vaccination? I know too many people who have suffered from Shingles, and one even lost their sight in one eye. That has prompted me to get the vaccine.

I did do just a bit of other sewing, again with my granddaughter.

Two 4 1/2″ square coasters for the grands to use Thanksgiving Day. Granddaughter selected the cat paw print and built from that for her coaster. And her brother loves orange, so we went with those two fun prints and pulled out the green and blue to coordinate.

Granddaughter likes smoothing out the corners with this hemostat.

A friend dropped by with a fabric donation for charity sewing. She was cleaning out her sewing room and part of what she gave me was a bag full of cat and dog prints. My grands enjoyed digging through those fabrics with me! The cat paw print in the coaster came from that bag of fabric.

My DIL got in on the fun and pulled out this cute cat panel. The green and purples were pulled from my stash. The beginnings of another charity quilt! Maybe a white should be added to make HSTs to border the panel. Unless my DIL takes up this project, it will sit for a while as I am still working through my own pile of  To-Be-Charity quilts!

To-Do Tuesday, November 22, 2022

1. Today I start cooking for Thanksgiving!
2. Keep moving ahead on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
3. Will I sew on anything else this week? Time will tell.

Linking to To-Do Tuesday with Linda of Texas Quilt Gal.