The color orange

I am a born and bred New England gal and the color orange has always symbolized fall for me. This weekend really broadened my horizons concerning the color orange. We attended the Kumquat Festival in Dade City, FL on Saturday. The downtown streets of historic Dade City are closed off and close to 30,000 people descend on the city for a day of kumquat tasting and street vendors. One of the quilt groups in the area exhibited challenge items featuring the color orange and there was not one pumpkin to be seen! The browns , reds and forest greens I usually pair with orange were replaced with sunny yellows,lime greens and aqua. I must say I thought the colors were stunning together. Large quilts, small quilts, miniatures, clothing and miscellaneous items were nicely displayed . We all had a chance to vote in every category for the People's Choice.
I loved everything I saw so this was VERY difficult indeed. I will be looking at my orange stash in a different way now!

I will be posting a picture of a black and white flimsy in the next few days. I just need to get some borders on and decide on a backing. I plan to machine quilt this myself when I return to Maine. A partial finish for my first Christmas present of 2012! Yeah me!

In stitches,
Pieceful

Creative Day In Caribou

Slippers

This afternoon I finished a project for a friend. A pair of slippers! I just learned how to loom knit three or four months ago. I love it. It's very straight forward and easy to put down and pick up again without having to worry about finish a row. As a music teacher, I spend a lot of evenings at schools in various communities playing Pep Bands for basketball games. Loom knitting is a great way to pass time when you can't root for any one team in particular. I hope these will be nice and cozy for her!

Remote Caddy

This is a project that my boyfriend has been long awaiting. As I have mentioned before, I live in a small one bedroom apartment so space is precious. When I begin a sewing project (which is nearly every weekend), I take over the largest flat surface we have. The kitchen table. This means we are force to eat most meals from our coffee table. We are forever shuffling our remotes around to make room for dinner plate, to play card games or to place our books when writing papers for grad courses. Months ago Jon asked me to make a hanging pouch for remotes. I finally got it today and was able to whip it up in approximately 30 minutes. I based my design off of my thread catcher. Our coffee table is actually an old wooden army foot locker that I found in a old barn. Inside the lid there is a pouch that I filled with pop corn kernels (it's what I had on hand). to offset the weight of the controllers. Here is a picture of my version. 

Stay Tuned

My next blog will be of a flannel lap-sized rag quilt!

Respectfully,

Harmony 

Purse

Long Time....

 No blog! My apologies. I have been diligently working on a purse for a friend's mother. Do you ever have one of those projects? It took me twice as long as it should have to finish! No matter how carefully I read the instructions, I had to rip out nearly every seam. And some more than once! Even with the craziness of it all, I still really enjoyed the project knowing that it is going to a loving new owner.

Finished Product

There are outside pockets on either end of the bag. I like the handle length, even though it was shorter than I expected.

The inside is wonderful! There are two long pockets on along the front and back of the purse and then two more at the ends that mimic the two outside pockets.

Stay Tuned.....

I am also half way through loom knitting a beautiful pair of lavender slippers that are for another friend.

Respectfully,
 Harmony

Fingers and toes crossed...

I have my fingers and toes crossed that I can figure out how to add a picture to this post without having to call Harmony in Maine for help!

And it happened!!!

This is a picture of the flimsy that is on it's way to the quilter in Maine. As I headed south I literally grabbed two charm packs of Ruby on my way out the door. The long ride found me mulling over settings in my head. As soon as my sewing table was set up I started making 4 patches and used the white Kona cotton for sashing. A trip to the quilt store found me purchasing the pink for borders and green for a pieced backing! The name of this quilt is "A 4 Patch For Your Rough Patch" and it is my hope that it will bring some brightness into the life of a friend in need.

Piecefully

Knitting on the go...

A week ago today was the second Sunday of the month and I am happy to say that I met the challenge I set for myself to work on a Christmas project each month. I started a knitting project and have added the completed item to my official "Gift Box"! It was such a great feeling that I continued the project and found myself "knitting on the go" this weekend. Mr. Pieceful and I hit the road and traveled about 2 hours north of our seasonal community to a control line airplane meet. I got LOTS of knitting done Friday and Saturday and am happy to report more items made it to the box! It is the perfect spectator activity!

Our weather here has been very pleasant and I feel guilty when I hear Harmony posting about the frigid temp up north. Guess I will just have to keep busy quilting this week to take my mind off it. The 4patch quilt made of Ruby charm squares is headed home to be machine quilted. I will post a picture of the flimsy soon. I will begin a black and white quilt this week. What a joy to be able to stitch my days away!

25 Below

Brrrr!

Baby it's cold outside! Here in Northern Maine, our temperatures are dipping to -25 degrees with wind chills. Pretty cold! Needless to say, with those numbers it's a good idea to hunker down and craft! I've been quilting some pieces for the purse that I'm making for a friend. My hope is to have it completely quilted and cut to by dinner time so that I can begin the assembly tomorrow.

Congrats!

I also want to say congratulations to my boyfriend for hosting a fabulous music festival at his school this weekend. He did a nice job with organization and the festival ran very smoothly. The middle school and high school musicians who participated in the event played very nicely and represented their schools very well. Job well done!

Finishing Turning Twenty

Turning Twenty Completion

I did it! My Turning Twenty Quilt-top is complete. I only had one boo-boo that resulted in the use of the dreaded seam ripper. In my book, only once is a success! Honestly, my one mistake was the result of poor pinning. I dread pinning, but I powered through and carefully pinned everything. Despite that, at one point (luckily close to the end of a seam) one of my blocks shifted and it was noticeable enough to go back and repair. I feel very good about how well my points lined up. Only two spot didn't exactly line up and they weren't incredibly noticeable! I did discover thought that both times they didn't line up, there was a common material so I think it had something to do with the stretch of that particular fabric. Knowing that, I was particularly careful and placed extra pins whenever this material came up again and had no more troubles! This week I will mail it to one of Pieceful's friends to be quilted.

 My first attempts at getting a picture failed. There is no place in my small apartment to take a good picture of a quilt. I was trying to be artsy, but lighting was poor so I had to turn to my sepia setting!

 Here are the actual colors. My boyfriend finally took pity on me and agreed to hold it up for me! At least it gives you a better idea anyway...

Projects for Friends

What do I have planned next? Projects for friends. Two to be exact. First, a colleague sent me a message last week with a special request. Her mother has just had surgery to remove some cancer. Since her surgery carry a purse is difficult. My colleague had found her a quilted purse on Ebay that worked nicely for her because it has long straps and was light weight. The only trouble is that the print was snowmen and Christmas trees. Now that the holiday season is over she needs something similar but in a different print. After seeing my sewing projects on Facebook, she asked if I could make something similar. Here's what I have planned.

The picture was difficult to capture. This fabric is not as busy as it appears, and has more light blue tones than what is seen here. The purse I selected is from this McCall pattern M4118, purse B.

Today I was able to cut nearly all the pieces. I just have some quilting to do before I cut the last few pieces and begin assembling. I'll keep you posted on the progress!

The next project is a pair of slippers that I am going to knit on my loom. The slippers are exchange. My friend made me a sleeve for my school laptop and I in turn will make her a pair of slippers she asked for yellow, pink or lavender. Here is what I found.

I will use the pattern in the Boyle I Taught Myself to Loom Knit Book.

As you can see, I have a lot to work on this week!

Respectfully,

Harmony

Turning Twenty Quilt

 Turning Twenty Quilt

With the new year came my excitement to start my first quilt! Pieceful gave me 20 fat quarters and a Turning Twenty pattern as a Christmas gift. Of course, I tried to pace myself so I could remember to take pictures along the way.

Set Up

Here is my set up for my cutting station. Living in a small one bedroom, my cutting table is my kitchen table. My cutting mat just fits with just a bit of extra space at the end for my cutting accessory essentials. My tool-cup (made for me by Pieceful), my scraps jar, and most important...my iPod station. I find cutting very stressful, so mellow tunes in the background are a must.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

How many times have I heard my Dad mutter these words in his workshop? Well, I found myself muttering them to myself! But it worked! Here is my 'test cut'. After successfully cutting out this single piece I was able to stack four fat squares at a time. The total cutting time took approximately 45 minutes. I probably could have done it in 30, but that measure twice thing took a few extra minutes. A few extra minutes well spent in my book! I cut out my entire quilt without any tears, cussing or emergency calls to Mum!

Blocks

With cutting out of the way, it was time to get sewing! In the pattern, it suggested to try randomly sewing the pieces together. I didn't buy into that. I did lay out what it would look like with random selections...but it didn't look right at all! I spent a good amount of time re-arranging until the layout suit me better. 

Here is a photo of my first block! This is 'Block A' of which I made sixteen. The other four were 'Block B' and had the longer piece sewn on the other side.

Rows

Four blocks and an two end strips combined to create five separate rows. Here is a picture of my first complete row. Please excuse my appearance! I was on vacation and had yet to shower when the picture was taken!

 

Stay Tuned

I ran out of hours in my day, but next weekend will be spent assembling the rows to complete my quilt top!

Respectfully,

Harmony

Nesting

Mr. Pieceful and I have been in Florida for almost a week now and are certainly enjoying the sunshine. The weather was in the 80's when we arrived but for the past few days the temp has dropped to the 50's with cooler night readings. We have chuckled to see the people here in hats, gloves and scarves when it still feels like a heat wave to us.

The ride down from Maine was uneventful - just the way we like it. Since our arrival I have been doing a bit of nesting! Monday saw me seeking out  quilt ladies and joining their small bee.I have my sewing "nest" set up and am happy to report that I have been able to sew daily! What a treat it was to set up the ironing board and cutting station  out on the screen porch Saturday and Sunday.

Right before leaving for the winter I learned that a former colleague of mine will be on extended leave due to health issues. I literally tossed two charm packs into the project bag the day we were leaving. I have pieced a 4 patch quilt to help my friend over her rough patch. The top is almost finished and I will post a picture before the flimsy heads to Maine to be quilted and bound. I have loved working with the Moda Ruby Charm Packs! Reds, greys, and aqua brightened up my new sewing nest for a few days!

This Sunday I have challenged myself to work on a project for Christmas 2012 .I intend to continue this on the second Sunday of each month.I hope to get a project organized to start my Christmas collection! I am really missing my endless supply of scraps from home but I will figure something out so that I can stitch, stitch, stitch...