Five Shadows

Greetings! This week flew by! We had good times with family and church family too. I’ll share more news in a future post.

Things I accomplished this past week -

To-Do Tuesday, April 11, 2023

1. Trim and bind Trip Around the World. ✔️
2. Piece border for the Featherweight embroidery.  ✔️
3. Decide on a project for evening handwork. ✔️
4. Land on some other project – old or new? ✔️
5. Daughter’s house. Her goal is to be in the end of this month. Hubs and I don’t think that is very realistic. She wants to move in while construction is still happening. I’ve experienced that, and don’t recommend it!

1. Trip Around the World

Binding is on, all but one corner which I left open for a label.

2. Featherweight embroidery

Pieced border and some embellishments attached! I’m still deciding on placement of buttons.

3. Evening handwork

I’m back to piecing 1/2″ hexies. These will be appliquéd on to background fabrics for mug rug gifties.

4. Land on some other project – old or new?

I forgot to list my sewing day with quilt group which was Friday. I took along the Trip Around the World variation and made two and a half more blocks. I’m liking how this scrappy quilt is coming together.

5. Daughter’s house. Hubs got sick and spent a few days in bed. We missed the building inspector and have to reschedule. Daughter got home from her trip to Germany and did much needed yard work this past weekend.

Weather heated up to 80F a few days last week but cooled off Sunday night back to 40sF. I’ll be up in daughter’s attic working on insulation while it is cool the next few days.

What have you been working on?

Here’s my plan for the next week -

To-Do Tuesday, April 18, 2023

1. Trip Around the World variation. I need to have this top pieced, quilted, and bound by first of June!
2. Featherweight embroidery – attach buttons. Add a border so it can be stretched over canvas and framed.
3. Evening handwork, hexies.
4. Wednesday morning is church group sewing day.
5. Daughter’s house.

What a week! We did have a Blessed Easter, but not the way we expected. I missed Good Friday service because my daughter called saying she had a nasty cut on her ankle. She thought it might need stitches and her husband was not home. Also, she does not do well with blood! Could I look at it and take her to Redimed? Mind you I live 35 minutes from her. We Face-timed and yes, I thought it would need stitches. So hopped in the car, got her to Redimed 15 minutes before they closed. She was the only patient, and yes she did need 3 stitches. Plus splinters removed. The DR was very nice. I had said sorry for keeping him late on a Friday night, and he said he didn’t mind when it was someone who really needed assistance.

Easter Sunday plans changed again as our son and two of his family were sick. I took my granddaughter to church, Hubs picked up lunch for us, and we had a fun afternoon with multiple eggs hunts in our yard. I think granddaughter would have gone on for hours with us hiding eggs again and again! When we took her home, we thought/hoped her brother would be well enough for a little egg hunt in their yard. Nope. Poor fella. He figured out quickly which eggs had something in them, and bypassed all the rest. After picking up just four eggs said he was done.

Basically, it was the quietest Easter Hubs and I have ever celebrated. Instead of potentially 14 of us, only three of us. The rest of family was traveling or had other plans, or sick! Poor daughter with stitches did make it outside for a bit, using crutches, to enjoy the sunshine.

In my sewing and quilting world -

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. ✗

1.  Quilting Trip Around the World. Last Tuesday I met up with two quilting friends for lunch. And then headed over to one friend’s home to load the quilt on her longarm. I only had the afternoon for quilting.

Loading the longarm.

Last pass, as I forgot to take pictures during the quilting.

Friend Ruth, who invited me to use her longarm, holding up quilt.

As a reminder, this is the first ever quilt pieced by my friend, Janie. She pieced it while visiting from TN. Then she left it for me to quilt for her. As you can see I did an all over large meander with occasional loops. All free motion. I hope Janie will like the simple quilting. If I’d had more time and experience with a longarm I would have liked to have done something more intricate. Binding is ready to attach.

2. Pieced border for the Featherweight embroidery.

I did have time to piece the HST, but not sew them together or attach to the embroidery piece.

3. Wednesday – sewing with women’s group at church. This didn’t happen. Canceled due to severe weather predicted that didn’t materialize here. A tornado did pass through 30 or so minutes south of us, but didn’t touch down.

4. Spring Break – granddaughter is to visit for a quilting lesson.

My DIL and two grands only made it over one day for sewing. Here’s the run down of what happened.

My DIL FMQ -

She quilted this top, I don’t remember the name of the pattern, I think it came with the layer cake.

She did cross hatching, ‘v’s and stippling with little loops. All FMQ, love her creativity!

Look at her large FMQ flower in the center of the quilt! Love it! If I’m counting right, this is only her 4th quilt to FMQ! Talent! (Maybe I should have had her do the quilting on Janie’s Trip Around the World!) Quilted with Variegated gray 40 weight Auriful thread.

Granddaughter

She picked out this house quilt pattern last Fall when we also bought the fabric and cut the pieces out.  Pulling it all out, she got the strips sewn together for the house chimneys. Then she was done. This might just take a while!

Grandson

I think he wanted to sew because Mom and sister were doing so. We picked out a charm pack and all he got sewn together was four little squares! Lost interested quickly. I think I’ll be finishing this one with out him.

5. Daughter’s house – Hubs has been working on getting the electric finished up for the next inspection. I was only over there one day. I had lots of construction debris to clean up. Plus helped Hubs pull through the last two wires for three-way switches. At this point, I really don’t know what is next.

And now this week -

To-Do Tuesday, April 11, 2023

1. Trim and bind Trip Around the World.
2. Piece border for the Featherweight embroidery.
3. Decide on a project for evening handwork.
4. Land on some other project – old or new?
5. Daughter’s house. Her goal is to be in the end of this month. Hubs and I don’t think that is very realistic. She wants to move in while construction is still happening. I’ve experienced that, and don’t recommend it!

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

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.

The weather keeps jumping all over the place! Today we had several times of heavy snow, then sunny skies, and back to the snow, and then repeat it all over again, then even a few minutes of sleet mixed in! It was a good day to stay in and work on quilting projects!

And here is what happened this previous week -

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! ✔️

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?
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.

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.

The last day of February! And I finished piecing Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden last night, February 27!

That’s the only quilting I accomplished this week.

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. ✔️

1. Homage to Grandmother’s Flower Garden

Week 51 pieced.

And stitched into the quilt top.

Week 52!

See the open space for one rosette flower? Week 52 orange Rosette will go there.

Stitched in!

And here she is! All pieced!

Happy Dance!

This took me one year + one month + nine days to piece.

I bought this fabric Saturday at The Hen House in Charlotte, MI to be the back of the quilt. Hubs and I were on our way to an Orchid Show in Lansing, MI. A road trip means stopping at least at one quilt shop! Don’t you agree? Orchids – Hub’s hobby.

2. Sandwich a quilt – didn’t happen.

3. Work continues on daughter’s house. Hopefully the demo part is over. Rough electric is going in. Plumbing still not completed.

That’s it for my week. Oh! Other than I’ve been bidding on fabric lots at an online auction for a LQS going out of business. I’d share more info but you might go and out bid me!

This week  -

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.

May you all have a peaceful week of piecing your favorite quilt!

Linking to I’m 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.