SEVEN!!

This is my darling granddaughter. She is now, officially, seven years old. As you can see she has QUITE an attitude. I love her to bits.

I was worried over the weekend with the storm headed to the City of Angels, but they were lucky and avoided most of it. Sunday afternoon I practically had a coronary when my DIL texted me "We got an extra bonus earthquake!"

I am fine. Thank you to those who have contacted me to ask. It took about a week for me to get over the jet lag and the fatigue. (This getting old stuff really sucks.) Then I got sick and spent a few days sacked out on the couch, very uncomfortable. I have no quilting going on and I am not quite sure what to do next. I have to get in there and Pick Up The Pencil. (It's a blog post I wrote years ago. It's still apt today.) 

I've been binge watching the Great British Baking Show and writing up the story of the Alegretto quilt so I can gift it to my nephew and his bride. 

I've also been reading. In California, when I was not reading Chitty Chatty Bang Bang to my granddaughter, I was reading "Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World." which was really very good. I'm a sucker for Romance so I also read a series of novels set in the Regency era by Mary Kingswood that I found tremendously entertaining. (Hey, I read about 12, one right after the other, so that should tell you.) I just finished I Didn't Do It by Jamie Lynn Hendricks, which I really enjoyed. 

I am pretty sure I know what my next tutorial is going to be and by the middle of next month I will have dropped off three flimsies to my long arm quilter and picked up Black Abacus to finish.

Oh and the mice chewed more than the dishwasher drain. They also chewed through some of the electrical wiring in the kitchen so THAT has had to be redone. Color me MEGA frustrated.

Oh, and I got new glasses. When I was in California we visited a Trendy Optical boutique. I had been frustrated with my old glasses - the frames were too small for me to see properly so I was looking for something bigger and a bit different.

The frames are light as hell, and barely there, but they are purple and I just love them.

 

Picking Up the Pencil

 I’m trying.

I can’t explain why I’ve been so uncreative in the sewing studio this year, but I’m trying to get in there and just do something. The pink birds are on the design wall and I don’t want to take them down, so I decided to carry on with those. I made a lot of pink birds, and I have to put them together, but it just looked like same-old same-old, so I decided to make some small birds and fit them in. I suppose I could add elements like triangles or broken dishes blocks, but I don’t want to get off the pink bird idea.

This picture ought to show you just how small this little bird is. I envision three of these small guys standing one on top of the other filling up the space above this guy’s head. Of course, in order to carry that off, I will need more smaller birds throughout the quilt, and I think that will be fun.

Here’s another one. In this bird, I tried to relate him to another bird, so you would sense they are part of a family.

Here you can tell where I am going with this. I know it isn’t much, but I’m still feeling the effects of that cold I have and I’m not 100% but I have a to get in the studio and do something to knock the rust off.

Time to Pick Up the Pencil

This is my granddaughter in a photo taken yesterday. (Yes, that is the Deco Rose quilt.) OMG! Is she adorable!  My Mother is now in Baja Mexico for a weeklong visit with my brother. My nephew is proving indispensable around the house, lugging baby stuff and getting things off the top shelf that is too high for my DIL to reach.

I'm back at work, and we're in the process of replacing a big piece of very specialized equipment that's been giving us fits for the last month or so. That and the normal "year end" processes are keeping us really busy.

It's time for me to get back into the sewing studio and pick up the proverbial pencil. You can read that post here. It's about NOT waiting for inspiration to hit, to just get to work.

Maybe I'll make some birds. A reminder that the bird tutorial is available here, at my Etsy shop. It's forty pages of photographs, detailed how to's, examples and suggestions to make your own unique free-pieced birds. (Free-pieced means improvisationally pieced. There is no "pattern" because a pattern isn't necessary.) The tutorial is an instant download, so you get it right away.



Wouldn't you know it, but the damn sewing machine has cut each and every thread since it got back from the tech. Go figure!

Baby Maybe?

I have been stuck.

Part of it was having to leave my son and DIL in California 3,000 miles away. When I got home I was kinda blue.

I want to make a baby quilt, but I've been hung up on what pattern to make.

I knew I just had to get into the studio and just "Pick Up the Pencil."

So I went in there and picked some fabrics.

I have a simple pattern in mind, and these are the colors.

Now I'm excited, and I can't wait to get into the studio and start cutting and sewing.

Red Red

 While "watching" tv this weekend, I cut red fabric into squares for the Pick Up Sticks quilt.

You all know how much I love large prints for the backings of my quilts.  This one won't be any different. I've  selected this Philip Jacobs design.

Seventeen

Seventeen Red Sticks blocks.  I figure I need 80.

Pick Up Sticks

I'm enjoying making the Red Sticks.  These blocks are about 8-1/2" square. 

Remember, get to work. Pick up your pencil.