Slow Stitching Progress

Once again I'm terribly slow about linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. It seems odd not to join in when I do some sort of slow stitching practically every single Sunday, but it's also a day I try not to be glued to the computer as well. Maybe I need to get more savvy and write my post the night before!

Hand quilting Worry Baskets

Or would that be cheating? lol I have been stitching away on my Worry Baskets quilt. The first basket got a bit of a redo when I changed my mind about how to do the stitching. In the end I decided to stitch on top of the appliqued basket instead of around it and the fancy little stitching I planned to do at the corners of the blocks? Well, it just went out the door the minute I realized there wasn't enough room to make anything look good.

Starting to get some texture

Simple it is! And simple it will be! I also changed my mind about the color of hand quilting thread I originally planned to use. Instead of a dark brown that is my absolute standby fave, I went with a mustardy yellow. It kind of blends in, but what you do see is completely mellow and warm (I know, it's weird that mustard can look mellow--just trust me on this one).

The thread is much darker than it appears in the stitching

It's very important to me that this quilt invokes soft, warm, huggable feelings instead of the don't-touch-me-heirloom-quality-alert! feelings. Just today someone started carrying on about how many hours I've already spent working on this quilt and I had to say 'That doesn't matter and I don't count'. In my house, quilts need to be loved or I'm slowly finding out that they eventually find a new home. Hours shmours. I admire the people that can know and then still allow casual care, but if I actually counted all of my time spent making, it would probably drive me insane to have anyone even breathe on them! So I don't.

A quick look at the back of the quilt

Whoops. I've given away my big secret! The only quilts I give away are the ones I don't love.*wink  As if. But there are probably different levels of love if you know what I mean.

It's been a crazy busy week, enjoying having my son home from college, ferrying him and my daughter back to Spokane, getting a stop in at the Buggy Barn quilt store (score!) and taking a quick anniversary trip with my husband of 23 yrs.

Some Summer mending

I've also been strong armed into doing some very important mending and then somehow managed to find the one yard sale in the entire state that was selling quilt quality fabrics. Yeah and she had already sold over 300 yards of it before I stumbled upon it late Saturday afternoon. Wowsers, would that have been a fun yardsale at the very beginning of the sale! As it was, I managed to find a few pieces that other more discriminating quilters had left behind. Madness. I still don't know what got into me other than the thrill of finding fabric in a most unlikely venue....

Keeping Busy

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything on my schedule lately. It's a good thing I'm a list maker and my daughter likes to keep the family calender updated. Otherwise there would definitely be things falling through the cracks around here! We're about to burst full speed into summer and my youngest daughter finally got word that she has a job waiting for her after school gets out.

Mending because I have to....

What this means for me is helping her to find an appropriate black shirt to wear for the hostessing and bus boy (girl) position. Yesterday I was playing hooky from my book work and digging around in a second hand store. You know, looking for things to make the $1-a-bag-sale seem worthwhile! Anyway, I found a long sleeve black shirt that I thought might work until we can find her a nicer cotton one. Of course, she wasn't happy with the thought of pushing up her sleeves, so I reluctantly agreed to cut the sleeves off and move the cuffs up to elbow-length. Ugghh... Mending is not my favorite thing to do, but it was actually a fairly straightforward process and went smoothly considering that I do as little of that as I can get away with. The only glitch was when I forgot to switch from the zigzag stitch back to a straight stitch on the second sleeve. lol Good thing I have a seam ripper.

Since I was already in the quilting room, it was a simple matter to prep for the applique I intend to do on my Geese Tracks and Baskets quilt. It's all a bit dark and moody looking right now, but I'm hoping it will pull together and look funky and maybe a bit vintage and/or retro? in the end. So hard to tell when I'm right smack in the middle of figuring it out.

Prep work for the Geese Tracks & Baskets quilt

I'm also trying to hand quilt on my Broken Dishes Part Deux quilt every chance I get. It's going very quickly and as you can see, I'm currently working on the borders. Amazing how much difference it makes to get the sashing taken care of beforehand with the machine quilting. It's not a look I want to do for every quilt, but I think it suits this one very well. Please agree with me or say nothing. This is really, really not the time to be bursting my little bubble.*wink

Hand quilting on Broken Dishes Part Deux

And since the end is almost in sight for my Broken Dishes quilt, I decided to get a jump start on the binding. At the very least I wanted to know if I had any fabric in my stash that might work or if I needed to squeeze in a trip to the quilt store. That could be dangerous with my present state of mind! 

Binding all ready to go..

But alas, no need to go hunting the perfect binding fabric, I had a black/white print that will do just fine here at home. Now if I could just find the perfect outfit to wear to my daughters senior graduation next weekend. Guys have it so easy. Throw on a pair of dark jeans or khaki's and a nice button up and they're done. Me? I have to figure out something that doesn't make me sweat too much (that layered look I love), look like I'm trying too hard (no one is more proud of my daughter than me, but it is high school and we all know they're wearing shorts under those gowns) or my favorite, something that is age appropriate (skimpy little sun dresses are definitely out for this mom body). I'll tell you this, deciding what to wear for her Kindergarten graduation was much, much simpler.

Creative Distractions

Sometimes I just plain forget how much 'work' some quilts require.  I am totally cracking myself up with my complete and total inability to focus of this quilt at this particular phase.  After I get one (yes, that would be ONE) row sewn together, I'm immediately looking around for something else to do for awhile.

A couple rows sewn & the mending

So far I'm catching up on my mending pile with unprecedented speed.  So silly.  Apparently I'd rather put new buttons on an old favorite of a sweater than push through and finish a great quilt top.

My new Levi skirt that would have fit 2 yrs. ago

I even attacked a couple pairs of old Levi's and made myself a long denim skirt, something I've wanted to attempt for years now.  Up-cycling is so cool now.  The only problem is, I've uh, gained a bit of weight since these jeans have been put to good use.  So much for that distraction! lol