Five Shadows

I squeezed in some extra sewing this past week. With two birthdays coming up next week, it was a good thing I remembered a gift I had planned. Then yesterday my granddaughter wanted to make a gift too!

Here’s what happened this past week -

To-Do Tuesday, November 8, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, week 31, maybe start 32. ✔️
2. Borders for the HST quilt. ✔️
3. House cleaning, guest room, Sister & her Hub might be visiting next week. ✔️

1. Homage Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 31 pieced.

Weeks 1 – 31 all attached!

Week 32 pieced!

Weeks 1 – 32 attached! I spent Sunday afternoon watching 2 movies and hand stitching. I’m twelve weeks behind on the quilt-along. But hanging in there!

2. HST quilt has a border.

Border is on the HST quilt – it will be 4″ finished. I decided to put leftover HSTs in the corners. The top measures  49″ square.

3.  Sister & her Hub should be arriving anytime now! Maybe I’ll get some photos during their visit.

Extra sewing happened with my granddaughter. Her mom’s birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day this year. My granddaughter wanted to make a craft for her. Kim, my DIL had mentioned to me she would like a new mug rug. I had my GD pick out a design and fabric.

And we worked together to create this cute 4″ x 6″ little butterfly mug rug! We couched yarn around the edge instead of binding the little piece. Decorative little hearts had to find a place on the mug rug. Turned out Cute as can be! GD is pleased!

One more extra sewing project happened this week – I luckily remembered I’ll be seeing a friend this Friday and her birthday is next Tuesday. So I pulled fabric I thought she would like, purples and pinks. And sewed together Sew Organized.

I picked up a few gifts to put in the organizer as well. The front purple piece is a pincushion. It is 5 1/2″ wide and 8″ tall on a metal frame that was included with the pattern.

That’s my sewing for this week!

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?

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

Things are moving along. Rather slowly as broken arm hubs came down with bronchitis and I picked up a sinus infection. We are both so looking forward to feeling normal again! Our kids want to meet at a state park Saturday for a little family time, hike, enjoy the Fall colors, and then have supper together. Surely Hubs and I will be feeling better by Saturday!

Here’s what I accomplished before that sinus infection hit.

To-Do Tuesday, October 18, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 28, start week 29. ✔️
2. Quilt two baby quilts, and hopefully bind them too. ✔️ Well, one of two.
3. Meeting with friends of WMWM (Wednesday Morning Women’s Ministry) to cut fabric for charity quilts.  ✔️
4. Thursday Hubs post-op appointment, stitches taken out.  ✔️

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 28. Isn’t this one an odd shape?

Weeks 1 – 28. And here is the odd week 28 sewn into place. Still looks odd! But future weeks will fill in the gaps in the left corner.

Week 29 coming long. I ran out of glue. And since I’ve been a bit under the weather, darn Fall allergies, I’ll shop once feeling better.

2. Quilt two baby quilts

I only worked on one baby quilt this past week.

Colors in photo are way off. But it’s quilted, bound, and washed.

This photo is true to colors in quilt. I simply stitched in the ditch around the triangle geese.

I did little open free motion flowers around the border.

And a free motion flower in the center of the quilt. This Flying Geese quilt was made with leftover blocks from another quilt I made for my nephew’s baby girl earlier this year. This quilt measures 36″ square. Quilted with Auriful 2600 Dove 50 wt thread.

3. Meeting with friends to cut fabrics for charity quilts.

This also happened before I got hit with the sinus infection – We worked our way through a bunch of odds and ends donated to our group for charity quilts. In the pile were 5 1/2″ floral triangles no one else wanted to bother with, so I said I’d take them. At home I paired the flower triangles up with my solids which I cut into 5 1/2″ squares. Then I sewed two triangles 1/4″ from the center diagonal of each of my solid squares, cut apart, pressed, and trimmed to 5″ for a total of 81 HSTs.

Here’s as far as I got sewing the squares together. I think it will make a nice charity quilt. It will be 40 1/2″ square as is once all sewn together. Maybe add a border fabric?

4. Hubs got his stitches out from his broken wrist surgery. X-rays show one little shattered piece is not cooperating, but the doctor believes it is close enough to the bone to heal properly.  He will have another X-ray taken in four weeks to see how that is going. He has to continue to wear a brace for 6-10 weeks. Praying those bones do knit together and he gets full use of his right wrist again!

To-Do Tuesday, October 25, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, week 29.
2. Wednesday meeting with sewing group to make mug rugs for school teachers.
3. Finish the HST quilt top.
4. Quilt giraffe quilt top. It’s sandwiched and waiting for quilting.

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

I missed posting last Tuesday, October 11th. What a week! Our friends from TN arrived for a week long visit Saturday 8th, after many postponed trips.

Monday, October 10th my husband had surgery to repair his BROKEN right wrist! Shattered actually. He miss stepping off a ladder and now sports a plate and screws in that wrist. Stitches come out this Thursday. He was in a lot less pain after surgery than right after the fall. Meds and ice helped to keep the pain at bay.

A broken arm and surgery were most definitely not in the plans for the week but here are some things we DID enjoy – LEGO Brick World, walk at a park as Fall colors are just about at their peak. Shopping, eating out, and Quilting!

Here we are out in nature. I’m on the left. Hubs next, see his iced arm in a sling? He’s smiling!

Pretty Fall colors

My friend, Janie, has a much loved Trip Around the World quilt her grandmother made and it is very worn. After deciding it’s too worn out for repairs, I suggest she make a new one. Fabric was purchased a while ago, I cut all the fabric for Janie and she got busy making her first quilt!

Here’s Janie with the quilt at the half way point! That’s as far as we got this week. Look at that happy face! Janie’s first quilt!

Did I do any quilting on my list these past two weeks?

 To-Do Tuesday, October 4, 2022

1. Keep plugging along on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
2. Quilt up a baby quilt. ✗
3. Friends coming for a visit this Saturday through the following Saturday. Janie would like to start a Trip Around the World quilt for her daughter. We will attempt that! ✔️

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Weeks 1-27 all attached.

Week 28 ready to attach to the quilt.

2. I didn’t quilt any of the baby quilts waiting for me.

3. We had a lovely visit with our friends from TN – even with surgery fitting into the schedule! The week went by too quickly. We didn’t do all the fun things on our list so another visit will just have to happen, hopefully in the Spring of 2023!

I’ll end this post with We Got An Inch Of Snow last night! Where did that come from? It was a heavy wet snow taking down many tree branches through out the neighborhood and town. Cool Fall weather one day, and snow the next. Weather forecast is for temps back into the low 70s this coming weekend. The weather is acting crazy!

To-Do Tuesday, October 18, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 28, start week 29.
2. Quilt two baby quilts, and hopefully bind them too.
3. Meeting with friends of WMWM (Wednesday Morning Women’s Ministry) to cut fabric for charity quilts.
4. Thursday Hubs post-op appointment, stitches taken out.

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

The end of September is near and Fall has arrived. I’m so enjoying the cooler days. Especially as I work over at my daughter’s house helping with the remodeling.

What happened in my sewing world this past week?

To-Do Tuesday, September 20, 2022

1. Complete week 26 Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden and attach to quilt. ✔️
2. Continue on with  Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, prep week 27?  ✔️
3. Maybe finish borders to eagle panel quilt. ✔️
4. Helping out at daughter’s house!  ✔️

Weeks 1 – 26 attached to the quilt top. You can see the wreath taking shape now. I’m using 1/2″ hexagon papers.

2. Work on Week 27

Slow going on Week 27.

3.  Finish borders to eagle panel quilt.

Quilt is ready to be sandwiched and quilted.

4. Helping out at daughter’s house!

It’s a fix-er-upper! And if you know anything about that, it gets worse before it gets better.

Our daughter said the first thing she was going to do was rip up carpet in the bathrooms. Its rather odd that every room in the house has beautiful natural wood floors but some previous owner decided to carpet over linoleum in the two bathrooms. When our daughter pulled up the carpet in the main bath she found water damage around the toilet. She called Dad in for help. Further demo showed rotted wood along tub too. After removing four layers of linoleum found under the carpet, and pulling up rotted sub floor, FIVE floor joists also had water damage. One can not put a new floor on rotten floor joists. Do you see where this is going?

Simple ripping carpet out of the bathroom became a full gutting of the room. Why not rewire and update plumbing while replacing floor joists? And since everything down to studs and in-between studs has been ripped out – there was old lead piping still in the walls but not in use – why not rearrange the floor plan and purchase all new fixtures? Daughter has shopped for her new tub, toilet, double sink. But it will be a few weeks before they can be delivered and then installed. Which is fine since the whole bath – floor, walls, need to be rebuilt with new plumbing & wiring installed.

That’s it for this week.

To-Do Tuesday, September 27, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, week 27.
2. Work on back and maybe sandwich Eagle quilt.
3. ???

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

Summer native flowers, cultivated flowers and English Paper Pieced Flowers are all blooming!

Bumble Bees enjoying the Cone Flowers.

Our Hydrangea only but out a few blooms this year, but they are so pretty!

Here is last week’s to-do list and what did get accomplished -

To-Do Tuesday, July 26, 2022

1. EPP Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Week 19 ✔️
2. Start sewing together the t-shirts, nephew’s quilt.  ✔️
3. Meeting Wednesday with quilting friends. I’ll take along the EPP. Also, I plan on cutting out “Gene” on friend’s accuquilt cutter for an upcoming project. ✗
4. If possible, start quilting the 4 clothing quilts.  ✗

Next I added borders on the sides with 12″ finished squares.

It was a fun coming up with an unusual setting. Not that I want to do this again for a customer, but still, I enjoyed the process for a relative! I need to purchase backing. And get it quilted and bound before November.

3. I skipped meeting with my quilting group Wednesday. Low energy day struck me.

4. Friday did not work out to meet with friends for quilting clothing quilts. Plan switched to meet this Friday.

That’s it for quilting, let’s move on to gardening.

Last Saturday the Indiana Native Plant Society Garden Walk was a success with 6 gardens in the area open to visitors. We had about 75 people visit my husband’s native garden. It was fun chatting with people interested in native plants, and some mentioning they hoped to start native gardens in their yards. I could even answer some of the questions about native gardening – Hub’s knowledge rubbing off on me. Yesterday a landscaping business owner stopped by with part of her crew to show them how my husband uses native sedges as a border. She uses natives and cultivated plants in her garden planning.

When you join the Indiana Native Plant Society this is the sign you are given to display in your garden.

Just past the sign along the south side of our house we have Cup Plants growing. Goldfinches like for drink water held in the cup formed by the leaves at the stem of the plant.

We have seen Hummingbirds visiting the Royal Catchfly. Too hard to catch them in a photo though.

Here is Blue Vervain to show another color added to the summer natives. Right now there is a lot of yellow flowers blooming like False Sunflowers, Cup Plants, Compass Plant, Prairie Dock, Black-eyed Susans just to name a few.

Back to quilting. Here is a hopeful list for this week.

To-Do Tuesday, August 2, 2022

1. EPP Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach week 19 to quilt.
2. EPP – start week 20
3. Wednesday quilting day with friends, I’m taking the EPP project to work on, oh and cutting out “Gene” on friend’s accuquilt cutter since that didn’t happen last week.
4. Charity quilts, need sandwiched and being quilting.
5. Meet up with friends to start quilting clothing quilts this Friday.

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

Phew! I’m so happy to be able to say the 4 clothing quilts, tops and backs are all pieced together! It turned into a group effort with help from two friends! Read below and see photos of the quilts.

Last week’s list -

To-Do Tuesday, July 19, 2022

1. Finish Week 18 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach to quilt. ➞ Stitched, not completely attached to quilt.
2. Prep and stitch Week 19 ➞ prepped and stitching well underway.
3. Nephew’s t-shirt quilt ✔️t-shirts all prepped and cut to size.
4. Meeting with friend Friday to work on 4 clothing quilts for grieving family. ✔️ All four tops and backs are sewn together.

Week 19 under construction.

3. Nephew’s t-shirt quilt – lots of fusing, cutting & sewing to prep t-shirt has happened.

Layout and sewing rows up next.

4. Four clothing quilts

Tops are all sewn together. They all have the same fabric in the same layout for matching quilt tops.

Friday I met up with not just one friend, but two, and we got the backs all sewn together! I wanted to buy a wide back for the quilts, but that got vetoed, so piecing the backs became the plan. I’m just happy that the backs are completed and we can move on to quilting.

We did a heart and shell embroidery in the corner of the large pillow case pieced into the quilt top.

I’m so happy to have these 4 tops and backs ready for quilting. I have another friend who has volunteered the use of her long arm. I’m hoping to get over there soon to do an easy all over meandering for the quilting.

Other happenings in our lives -

This Saturday my husband’s Native Garden will be part of the Indiana Native Plant Society Garden Walk. Just recently he applied for and was approved as an official native garden spot.  He’s busy tidying up the garden for this weekend. We’ve had rain the past two weekends, forecast is looking good for Saturday!

Here’s my new list. Not much change lately from week to week.

To-Do Tuesday, July 26, 2022

1. EPP Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Week 19
2. Start sewing together the t-shirts, nephew’s quilt.
3. Meeting Wednesday with quilting friends. I’ll take along the EPP. Also, I plan on cutting out “Gene” on friend’s accuquilt cutter for an upcoming project.
4. If possible, start quilting the 4 clothing quilts.

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

Yesterday my hubs had a speaking engagement at a Master Gardener’s event. His topic was Native Plant Gardening. I tagged along taking my EPP. With three people speaking on different topics during three hours, I made some good progress on the Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

Here’s my list from last week -

To-Do Tuesday, July 12, 2022

1. Prep week 18 and start stitching EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. ✔️
2. Continue work on T-shirt quilt for my nephew. ✔️
3. Meeting with quilting friends – I’m taking along my EPP.  I’m 10 weeks behind on HTGFG and would love to catch up, but am beginning to wonder if that is at all possible! ✔️
4. Sandwich a charity quilt or two? A gal from church is making the tops and backs, and I volunteered to do quick machine quilting. I better get to them as she is faster than I am! ✗

Here’s what happened -

1. Week 18 Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

There are two leaves that need to be prepped and attached, along with the 4 little hexies. I always save the leaves for last so I’ve not cut them out yet.

2. T-shirt quilt for my nephew –  it’s moving along but not photo worthy yet.

3. Meeting with quilting friends – I took my EPP and sat with a friend while we both worked on our hexies. Two other gals worked on machine appliqué. Then we sat by the pool to eat lunch. It was a lovely time and day!

4. Sandwich a few charity quilts – This didn’t happen, but our meeting for tomorrow has been postponed, so I have a few more weeks before I need to get to these. I hope to add these to my To-Do list next week.

To-Do Tuesday, July 19, 2022

1. Finish Week 18 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, attach to quilt.
2. Prep and stitch Week 19
3. Nephew’s t-shirt quilt
4. Meeting with friend Friday to work on 4 clothing quilts for grieving family.

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

This week I played around with ideas for a t-shirt quilt I’ll be working on for my nephew. I’ve settled on a layout, and will share it as I work on the quilt. I didn’t progress as quickly as I’d like on Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I missed a few evenings English Paper Piecing on it this week.

Here’s what I did do sewing wise this past week -

To-Do Tuesday, July 5, 2022

1. Finish week 17 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. And start attaching it to the growing quilt. ✔️
2. Time to get serious about prepping t-shirts for a quilt for my nephew. That was my June One Monthly Goal and it did not happen!  ✔️
3. Play with something – maybe a UFO – maybe the whole cloth table runner. ✗

Week 17 competed and attached to the ever growing quilt. On to prepping week 18!

2. T-shirt quilt

I took some time to measure the logos on the t-shirts to determine what sizes to cut. My nephew doesn’t want a traditional layout. After sketching out a few layouts, I think I have the one I’ll be using.  On to fusing and cutting.

The only other sewing I did this past week was hem a pair of capris.

Friday we took our grands on a steam engine train ride. The Historic 765.

Angola, IN.

My plans for this week -

To-Do Tuesday, July 12, 2022

1. Prep week 18 and start stitching EPP for Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
2. Continue work on T-shirt quilt for my nephew.
3. Meeting with quilting friends – I’m taking along my EPP.  I’m 10 weeks behind on HTGFG and would love to catch up, but am beginning to wonder if that is at all possible!
4. Sandwich a charity quilt or two? A gal from church is making the tops and backs, and I volunteered to do quick machine quilting. I better get to them as she is faster than I am!

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

Happy July everyone!

We had more high winds & thunderstorms passing through our way Tuesday & Wednesday.  We lost power again, this time for 14 hours. I must say I am very thankful for modern conveniences!

Here’s my list of hopeful quilting for last week -

To-Do Tuesday, June 28, 2022

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden, work on week 17. ✔️
2. 4 clothing quilts – Friday meeting with another friend to add the embroidery.  ✔️
3. Shirts to aprons from my Dad’s shirt for my grand nieces and nephews.  ✔️
4. Maybe get back to the whole cloth table runner.  ✗

Here we go -

1. Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 17, missing the background to the green leaves.

2. Four clothing quilts - embroidery

As requested, four identical quilt tops have been made from clothing and with the rose fabric center from pillow cases.

Then this embroidery was created by a friend who bought the new M17 Janome. The Mom represented by the clothing loved the beach, shells, sunsets. With help, this heart with Love you Mom with shells was stitched on to the rose fabric. I’m happy with the progress made on these four quilts this past week.

Also, my friend and I bought fabric for the quilt backs. A beach scene was requested. We won’t be getting to piecing the backs until later this month.

3. Shirts to aprons

I’ve made child size aprons from my Dad’s shirts. They will go to his 17 Great Grandchildren!

4. Whole cloth table runner – didn’t touch it.

What’s up for this coming week?

To-Do Tuesday, July 5, 2022

1. Finish week 17 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. And start attaching it to the growing quilt.
2. Time to get serious about prepping t-shirts for a quilt for my nephew. That was my June One Monthly Goal and it did not happen!
3. Play with something – maybe a UFO – maybe the whole cloth table runner.

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

Family vacation time! Last Friday, June 3 – Tuesday, 7th my family took vacation time to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park in Michigan. What a lovely time we had hiking, kayaking, touring, campfire s’mores and walking along Lake Michigan.

One of our many hikes. Four of my five adult offspring and their fams, my Hub is middle back row, I’m right front row.

Our Grands enjoyed every minute of their camping trip!

10 of us kayaking down Crystal River! Hubs and I have canoed many times, but this was our first time in kayaks. Fun! Loved the clear river!

One the way home, stopping at a gas station in Cadillac, I thought to search for a quilt shop. There was one 2 1/2 miles from our location! So off Hubs and I went to find Northern Hearth Quilting & Sewing Center!

Hubs took this photo to send to our family while I shopped. We all headed home at different times and days. The joke is Mom always has to find a quilt shop! And Ha ha! I did!

A few of the goodies I purchased. (on top of my hexie travel box)

What a wonderful vacation. Hubs says we should go back in the Fall to see all the maple leaves turning. I’m game for that!

Here’s my to-do list from last week -

To-Do Tuesday, May 31, 2022

1. Prep and piece week 15 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden  ✔️
2. Test out fusible I bought on a few t-shirts. ✔️
3. Photo Lesson 2 of The Next Steps Template Quilting, blocks & templates. ✔️

Here’s what I did accomplish this past week.

1. EPP

Week 15 stitched and ready to add to Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I took several weeks of EPP to prep, but really did not work on hand stitching as much as I hoped. I ended up at the kids campfire each night. Then went back to my cabin to read before going to bed. Yes, the kids all camped – at walk-in tent only campsites. Hubs and I were about 2 miles away in an AirBnB cabin hosted by Twin Birch Resorts. We both loved the cabin and just might get up there again some Fall.

2. Test fusible.  I did this and it will work. BUT it is taking forever with my iron. It just does not get hot enough to melt the glue. I’m researching to buy an iron that gets hotter than the Panasonic Cordless that I own. It needs to be a steam iron that gets hot enough to melt the glue on fusible webbing and adheres to clothing and t-shirts.

Fellow Quilters, what brand steam iron do you recommend?

3. Photo Lesson 2 of The Next Steps Template Quilting

Block 1. Nine Patch using Spin-E-Flex template. It clear and hard to see on the block. Can you find it?

Block 2. Circles and straight lines.

Block 3. Whole-cloth with Spin-E-Flex. Here you can see the template.

Block 4. Using the outer edge of a circle template.

Here’s my to-do list for this week -

To-Do Tuesday, June 7, 2022

1. Attach Week 15 of Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden
2. Prep Week 16 EPP
3. Buy a steam iron that gets hot hot hot!
4. Host my quilting group Friday the 10th and work on quilts for grieving family with one of my friends in the group.

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