cody's baby quilt

No sewing for me this week, but I have another finished quilt to share.  It seems these last few weeks were the weeks to give quilts away!

A few months ago (maybe February?), the hubby asked me to make a baby quilt for a coworker.  This is their first and, if I remember correctly, it's been a long time coming.

So of course I agreed.  (It seems the only quilts I even start any more have a deadline, which is okay.)

I searched for a pattern...with the help of the hubby (who is not always great in the "imagine it in other colors" creativity) and we came up with this single block that can be purchased as an entire pattern on the designers website here.

I think he liked the bright colors and since the baby is a boy, the soft, girly colors of the original weren't exactly going to be right.

(It's interesting how the color placement really changes the look of the quilt - this reminds me of roads you'd drive your Hot Wheels cars along whereas the original has a more color gradient thing going.)

Anyways, it was then off to get fabrics, as I didn't think my stash had enough and who is going to refuse a chance to go fabric shopping?

I don't have any photos of that.  I maybe took them, but I'm not sure where they went.

I took the fabrics to retreat in April and sewed this right up.

I don't think I even took during construction photos.  I did take this to send the hubby for final approval.  (I'm not changing anything at this point, but if he really hated it, we had time to make something else.  He liked it.)

It sat around for a little while, but by this time he had realized the due date was not May but October.  (Boys...)

This was the first quilt onto the longarm after the service visit and I opted for swirls (because they're easy to stop and start if I have trouble and go fast and will help me relearn some of the good habits I'd forgotten when dealing with a temperamental machine).

A back?

I was hoping for something with more primary colors to match the front, but woodland animals is never a bad choice for a baby quilt.

And a little closer on the quilting, though swirls are swirls.

The quilt went with the hubby last week to be given, but I haven't heard anything back.  The hubby is working off shifts these next few weeks (to make sure his second and third shift employees see him and he sees them - he's been in that position when management doesn't even bother to try and then complains that you don't do anything - how do you know?!), so I expect when things return to normal he'll see Cody again and get to chat.

On a sadder note, Charlie passed away last week.  I'm glad I got the quilt to him when I did and I hope someone in the family snags it to enjoy and remember him by.

I've been reading a lot, as always, but only finished one book this past week.

This one was pretty good, but disturbing also.

A husband and wife run a travelling circus.  They expose her to all sorts of things in an attempt to create deformed children to add to their show.  The husband does the research, the wife willingly submits.  They succeed (sometimes) and love their children, but it seems like a fairly dysfunctional family.

The eldest, a limbless boy, is insecure and wants all of the attention.  He also gradually takes control of the circus, though it seems most of the family don't see it.  The youngest girl, an albino dwarf, cares for this brother in the ways he cannot and loves him, puts up with his behaviors, but also sees what he is doing.

There is also a pair of conjoined twin girls and a telekinetic boy (who looks normal and was almost abandoned for that).

The story is told by the albino dwarf daughter, both her current life (post-circus) and her past (growing up in the circus).  I expected there to be some romantic interludes, considering the title, but I think it more refers to the love found in even dysfunctional families, in this case where they stick together because of their differences.

I knew from the blurb that "geek" did not refer to the nerdy folks as the slang does today, but the carnival meaning also did not feature as much as you might expect once you sort that out.  (Yes, they were there.  But they were mentioned maybe twice, in passing.)

It was hard to see the way the eldest brother treated people and it was not only not noticed by the parents, but also no one tried to help him.  It was hard to see the parents more focused on creating additional children rather than caring for the ones they had (though there were some moments of good).  It was hard to read about the children being exploited for their differences.  Sadly, I'm pretty sure that this type of thing was more normal than not back in the time when these sorts of shows were common.

But it was also an interesting peek into a world I'm too young to have really experienced.  Much of what was going on here was gone or on its way out when I was young and I don't remember visiting anything like this as a child.

I'm on to the next book, of course, and this one is a mammoth.  More on that next week!

Happy quilting and reading,

Katie

tara and chuck's quilt

It's been a long time coming, this quilt, and the wedding that it was made for, but it finally happened!

Tara is a coworker.  She's been there 30 years.  She's worked her way up from cashier to assistant manager.  I like Tara.

But Tara is not great at choosing men, as shown by her two divorces and a few ding-dongs that she dated in the early years of our shared employment.

A few years ago she started dating Chuck.  He'd had a crush on her for quite a while, but she was never single when he was.  Things finally lined up and he jumped at the opportunity.  And he screwed up things quite a few times.  They went through a lot before she was even ready to consider anything serious with him.  But eventually they moved in together and got engaged.  He had grown up some in that meantime.  The engagement dragged on for a while.  And I had this quilt in mind for them, even before that (Chuck wanted a quilt and kept pestering me about it, not understanding that I am not a quilter for hire - if I want to make you one, you'll get it, if not, you can't pay me enough to talk me into it...I've learned the hard way!), but was waiting.

Then one day there was talk of more-or-less eloping over the July 4th holiday.

Well.

Get those fabrics out.  Buy a few more because though this fat quarter bundle is wonderful, I can't use two blacks and two whites in this pattern.  Thankfully my local quilt shop had some good options that I think paired well (those sitting diagonally in the photo).

And the pattern.

Cutting seemed to take forever, but I did this one just like the one for Charlie - cut one block from each fabric and then mix and match.

(But since the fabrics were fat quarters, I could layer things and cut multiples, which was nice and did make things go faster.  Of course, that saved time was spent ironing out the creases in the fat quarters that had been folded forever.)

Because I thought this was going to be needed sooner than later, I did get the blocks together quite quickly - though they do have a lot of parts!

I sewed the quarters and then worried about the sashings...

As always, I had help...

From both of my black cats and more.

And then the dreaded long rows...

Pieced sashings made this take longer, too...

But eventually I got the blocks together and had a (very oddly colored photo of the) top done.

But by this time, the bride and groom had not eloped and didn't really seem to be making any progress towards a wedding at all.

So it went into a holding pattern.

Maybe a year passes (every day seems like every other lately and they all seem to either stretch on for eons or pass in seconds, so I can't keep track) and Tara is sent to another store to help patch a management team together.  (This is what happens when the new district manager tries to fire his way to greatness.  He is no longer with the company - his choice, but I think there was some "writing on the wall" too.)

So there was again talk of the two of them just getting married to get it over and done with.  I'd hate to see a wedding happen just for convenience, but I also understand.

I ran out and got some fabric for the back.

Tara loves daisies.  And if something happens to this relationship, this is TARA'S quilt.  Sorry Chuck.  If you screw this up, you'll have to find someone else to make you another quilt!

And then it stalled out again because the longarm wasn't behaving.  Once the hubby got that sorted for me (I'm still angry at how easily he managed it) and I quilted one smaller quilt on it to test (you'll see that one next week as it's going to the new owner today), this one was up.

Somehow I managed to take no photos of it on the longarm.  Guess I was out of practice?  (I'm also just not a photo-taker...never have been...)

But I got it done.  The longarm behaved.

And another closeup of the quilting - this one is outside.

And I got the binding sewn on.  And then it got set aside again.  Because there was no upcoming wedding.

And then Chuck's dad, Charlie - of the quilt in the previous post - got sick.  Like really sick.  Like came home a week later in hospice care sick.

But before he was home, they'd decided to get married.  At the chapel in the hospital if necessary.  So Charlie could be there.  (Charlie loves Tara - who doesn't!)

Time to really buckle down and get the binding on this!  And a label, of course.  That won't take long - crank up some tunes (in this case a cool station I found a few months back - from NASA!) and sew like the wind.

With the binding on and ready to go, I was ready for the wedding a week or so later.  Charlie came home and they did the wedding in their front yard - a nice big yard.  Tara's family planned it in under a week and it was incredible.  Not in the over-the-top way of so many, but in a tent/good food/friend did the vows/country girl way.  Not too much fuss, not too much stress, and a focus on the friends and family.

I haven't yet heard much about the quilt - I checked that they got it, but I'm kinda shocked.  I thought I might get a more enthusiastic response.  I know there's a lot going on with their family.  I know she has a lot of hours at work (she came back to our store just a few weeks ago and is readjusting to all that was left for her to fix).  I suppose in due time I'll hear about it.  I just hope they don't hate it.

No actual quilting for me this week.  I just haven't felt like it, but I did sew down the binding on a baby quilt that's heading for a final destination today.  So a little time was spent in the sewing room.

I have read a bunch.  Of course!

  

These two are the first and third in a trilogy, of which I read the middle book last December.

Set in an alternative present (or near-present), humans have genetically manipulated most things as global warming caused extinctions and a need for species that could survive.  But one of the geniuses that was working on these projects was also working on a virus that would wipe out all humans - the theory is that he wanted to save the planet from humans, but we never see that confirmed.

He also seems to have created a vaccine, as a few humans - some he seems to have hand-picked - survived.  And these books tell the story through the survivors.

Also created were human hybrids - referred to as "the Children of Crake" - and I believe they were also meant to survive the pandemic.  (They did survive, but were isolated, so I'm not sure.)  Both of these books tell of the "Crakers," more than the middle book, and we see them as simple-minded, more like children even as adults, though the actual humans in the books care for them and teach them.

There is, as in the middle book, a fair amount of before and after storytelling that can make it a little difficult to follow if you're not paying attention, but the writing is so good, you do pay attention.

The worst part was finding it hard to take in considering all that is going on currently in our world.  I'm not going to get into the real world stuff here except to admit that it is concerning - or this book wouldn't have hit that hard.

They were all good.  I would recommend them to anyone.

This week the hubby is working second shift, so I'll have evenings to myself, which could mean sewing, but I'll probably end up not.  I'm still struggling with making quilts just because.  And finding patterns that just scream to be made is also difficult.  I'm okay with that, though I do feel a little guilty about my fabric stash just waiting for me...

Maybe some cat carrier covers?

Oh well.  It's all good.

Happy quilting and reading!
Katie

charlie's quilt

Two quilts given in the past week, but we'll start with the first one...

Charlie's quilt.

A gal I work with, currently our assistant manager, has been dating a guy for a few years and they've been engaged for a portion of that.  She's gotten close with his family (she's that kind of person) and calls his dad "dad."

She came in to work one day just a couple of weeks ago trying to hold it together because "dad" was in the hospital, awaiting testing, after not getting out of bed for two days.  Things didn't look good, but until test results are in, it's best to not jump to conclusions.  (Easier said than done!)

A few days later, I saw this quilt while cruising around the interwebs, and it just screamed "Charlie!" but I was afraid it would be overstepping or wierd to make this guy a quilt.  I do know him a little (he's a customer at work), but still...

I decided if the urge didn't go away overnight, I'd consider it more the following day.  And check my stash - I might have to buy some stuff.

It didn't go away.

And I realized I'd made a quilt for another coworker's mom when she was diagnosed with something nasty, so it was settled.

To the stash!

Well.  I had plenty.

Some of the fabrics in there have been in the stash quite a while (I think that funky one on the bottom right is oldest), and some are kinda funky, but they'll all work, right?

To the cutting and sorting!

Each star has its own plate.  This helps me keep things straight and hopefully deters the cats from "helping."  Sometimes I forget I can do these, but when I do remember, it's great.

Having a few days in a row off and focusing on sewing (not allowing myself to look at nonsense online, in other words) allowed these to come together quickly.

Somewhere midway through the blocks I did some math and, let me warn you, don't do that.  You'll figure out how many pieces you have and it will seem so much harder than if you just keep sewing and don't play with numbers.

Before long I had the required 36 blocks and then it was time to figure out where they all needed to go.  With so many fabrics I knew it was going to be difficult to keep the same fabrics from being too close to each other, but I did try!

I had help, but Charlie has 13 cats (I think that's the number I've heard), so a little stray cat hair from my beasties isn't going to be noticed much, right?!  (I did use a lint roller.)

Then came the long seams and getting the blocks into a top, but I got it done.  Again, with help.  (You can't do much around here without it.)

Off to the quilt shop for a back!

(It's more orange than you see here.)

And then onto the longarm!

It looks a little brighter here, but proof of quilting, right?

After quilting, I sewed on the binding and let it rest a day (I quilted another quilt the following day), but I knew this needed to be done sooner rather than later, so it was first on the list of bindings to be done.

I was off work the week I finished this and didn't want to chance getting roped into working by taking this in, so it waited until I went back last Monday to go to my coworker so she could pass it along.

She was surprised and nearly cried.  Though she's been given three quilts to give to her grandkids, I don't think she expected this one.

(And then I realized we're in the middle of the hottest month of the year, so maybe this wasn't so great?  But I guess he's struggling with temperature regulation, so it's a good thing.)

He got it a week ago, but I haven't blogged since.

He's been using it.

She said I made him cry.  This tough-love, old farmer-type.  Huh.

He came home the Thursday before he got this, in hospice care.  He seems to be doing a little better than before, but they've reduced the morphine dosage significantly and that seems to be actually helping.  He's coherent enough to ask for more if he needs it.  And the family is praying for a miracle, but the news is not good.  I'm glad I got it done in time for him to use it, even if just for a little while.

I haven't touched my sewing in a week, but it's back to work and juggling all the other things and I'm still having trouble justifying new projects when I have so many tops that are unfinished.  And do I really need another quilt - finished or not?  (So making them for others is a nice excuse!)

But I have been reading:

Part memoir and part writing course, this book was good.

The first part is stories about his childhood and early adulthood - things he did as a kid, owning a drinking and substance abuse problem early in his adult life, etc. - and though some of the things are known, the stories were entertaining and interesting.

The second part is his views on writing.  Not a textbook kind of book, but definitely instructive.  I think it will change how I read books some - evaluating things differently now that I see them from a writer perspective.  But really the takeaway for me was  that writing can be done however you want.  There's no right way or wrong way.  Which is kinda the opposite of a lot of what else I've learned and seen.

And then he added a third part, as this book was in progress when he was hit by a car while walking on the road, and told that story in his own words.  I remember hearing about it, but didn't realize quite how gruesome things were.  I'm glad he's still here.

I'll be honest that I don't read a portion of his work because it is too scary and disturbing (why did my mother let me read "The Shining" while we were on vacation, staying in a hotel, at age 13?), but I have read some of the less scary stuff.

And then it was on to:

Somehow, somewhere, I thought this was about spelling bees.  It seemed like that couldn't be right, but maybe?

It's about bees.  The kind that make honey.

But it's also about a young girl who runs away from home because her father is abusive and she sees the unfairness of the world in the 1960's south and just DOES something.

The housekeeper who has cared for her since her mother died is dragged along in the process and it felt a little Huck Finn-ish here.  Maybe it was supposed to?

They end up at a farm where bees are kept by three kind sisters, who take them in, care for them, teach them about bees and don't ask too many questions for a bit.  They're the healing, caring place this girl needs to find herself and heal.

The three sisters were all very different and gave her different perspectives on herself, which I liked.  They made her reevaluate how she saw things, which is part of growing up, but is also something all of us humans need to remember to do from time to time.

I enjoyed this book very much.

I've moved on to another book already and it's another good one!

Time to go get busy doing other chores (and fighting with the cell phone company who sends my bills out to arrive just days before they're due (if not after) - currently on the phone with them and being told they send them out 10-13 days before they're due, but I can assure you none of my other bills show up this close to the due date. Maybe they're mailing them out more than 10-13 days before they're due because they NEVER arrive that close to the due date...so they want to enroll me in automated payment.  Um...NO!  The whole reason I have a paper bill come to me is because I don't trust you!  And you're not helping me to trust you by refusing to send me a bill in a timely manner)...

Sorry, mini rant.

We might be getting a new phone company.  Between this garbage and their incapable internet service...okay, I'll say it.  They're AT&T.  They've been around forever, but it seems they're coasting on that lately.

Okay, enough.  This is a happy blog!

Time to go do happy things!

Katie

longarm week!

With the hubby away, the quilter must play!

After posting last week, I got busy with the butterflies.  I got so busy I forgot to take a photo of anything until all nine (I was working on the last 5 all at once) were done and in a layout for the top...

Well, that got big fast.  Of course, 24" blocks makes things get big fast, but I didn't really think about it much.

I decided on just 1" sashings and a 1" border to make things all look framed in nicely (and not make it any bigger than necessary) and was off and running to the long seams.

And boy were those seams long!

It's so big, there's not enough room in my sewing room to lay the whole thing out flat, so I just kinda tossed it and let it wrinkle up a little for the photo.  Then promptly picked it up because wrinkles when longarming are a pain in the behind.

That was a late night, but it's all good.  No shifts at work to accommodate, no hubby asking for meals...I can eat dinner at 9pm if I want to and who is gonna know?

The following day I only pieced quilt backs.  Freddie had a vet appointment (just yearly vaccinations and a checkup - he's fat, but we all knew that) and I went out to lunch with friends (first time in a while thanks to working a lot).  I read between and after, but generally had a little lazier of a day.  I'm on vacation.  It's okay.

Tuesday, though.  Up and at 'em!

I had ordered a new roll of batting on Sunday, so I was less worried about running out (though this is the only quilt that has a deadline I might want that batting for sooner rather than later), but had plenty after I prepped this quilt.

I wracked my brain, searched the interwebs and generally couldn't find any motif I wanted to do or I thought would be good or would not require lots of marking and careful stitching to look good.  (Nothing against those, but for a utility quilt being given to someone who doesn't know the first thing about it, and me being rather lazy, I didn't see the point in show-quality quilting.)  So I opted for "the Katie" - swirls overall.  They're fairly quick and easy.

I took no in-process photos.  It did, in fact, go fast.  I think I even sewed the binding on the same day.  The machine side.  The hand side I put off a few more days.

But I did get a decent photo of the back fabric:

It's still not the perfect color here, but nothing seems to quite capture it.  It's an orangey-brown.  More brown than any of the orange fabrics on the front, but definitely more orange than brown.  So I thought it a good choice.

(And you can kinda see my swirls, so you know I didn't take the photo until after I was done quilting AND binding it - note the binding is done?)

I still need to label it, but am not sure of the guy's name.  I'm debating who to ask - if I ask the coworker she might figure out something is up.  If I ask another coworker (he shops regularly at the store), they might wonder why I'm not asking the daughter-in-law coworker...and then they'll wonder what's up.

But I'll get it done today.  Because I'm back to work tomorrow and want this in hand when I go.  So I can pass it along as soon as possible.  (But not today because I'm still officially "on vacation" and no one needs to be the wiser.)

Wednesday I got up and did my normal clean-the-house routine that is usually done on Wednesday mornings, but had planned to get the butterfly quilt on the longarm.  Since the stars didn't take too long, and the butterflies aren't THAT much bigger, it shouldn't be too long, right?

Hahahahahahahahaha.

First, do I have enough batting?

Yes.  With about 6" to spare.

Whew!  Because though this isn't due to be given till Christmas, I would have been really mad to have to postpone at this point.  I'm psyched up for it and everything.

I decided to do swirls in the background and a paisley-kind-of motif in the butterflies themselves.  Both are fairly dense patterns, but I can do this.

I also decided to match thread colors to the front, which meant five colors (background, black, blue, purple and red-purple) and thread changes.  So do I want to change colors every pass or do one color all the way and another on a second rolling, etc?

I ended up opting for doing each color and rolling the quilt back and forth a few times.

All of the swirls done and getting ready for butterfly bodies here.  The swirls took a while, but I had to stop and start a few more times than I would like because the butterflies are so big I couldn't continuously quilt around them without moving the quilt on the frame with the needle in it.  And while I could do that, I chose not to.  That's scary!

I thought here I was halfway done.

Hahahahahahaha.

HOURS later I took this photo where I was nearly done with the red-purple butterflies.  I still had five to go.  And again, because of their size, I couldn't quilt a whole butterfly in one go.  So each butterfly was quilted in the four quadrants that are wings.

But I persevered.  My right elbow started to ache - I use my right arm to guide and my left is on the handlebar, but doing little except to steady my nerves...

Many more hours later, I was finally done.  I texted my mom at 8:50 that night that I was finally done quilting.  I still had to get it off the frame and clean up after myself, but I was done quilting.

Originally I had thought I'd be done quilting early enough to keep going and sew the binding on, but nope.  It was late and I hadn't eaten dinner.  I had eaten a later lunch and wasn't really hungry, but still.

Regardless of the achy elbow (which is still a little angry, though that may be for another reason that I'll get to in a minute), I'm VERY glad to have these done.  There is one more waiting - the quilt for my nephew - but it can wait a bit.

My batting did show up - originally scheduled to arrive Wednesday, that was quickly changed to Thursday, and it did arrive then.  Thankfully when I was home because you just never know any more about people and the delivery guys don't seem to give any care to where they put things (computers in puddles in the rain, batting in plain sight of the road, etc).  (I get that they have a difficult job, but if you're already all the way up on the porch with the thing, how hard is it to put it another 2 feet to the left so every car driving by can't see it?)

Anyways.  Quilting completed!

Thursday my mom came down to spend part of the day with me.  We have a few shifty thrift stores here that she loves, though they don't contain the multitude of good finds the nicer stores have, she is in it for the thrill of the hunt.  I also took her to a new quilt shop that's just a little south of me and out to lunch.

(Aw, crap, I got two new quilt books I forgot to take photos of.  Oh well, next week?)

Friday I had a doctor appointment.  Yearly physical and, after hearing that the shingles vaccine has a positive correlation with decreasing the chances of dementia, particularly in women, I decided to get that.

Since I was up earlier enough for that to have some time to kill, binding went on the butterflies.  Because that was better than sitting here worrying about what poking and prodding the doc was going to do and wondering how I'd react to the vaccine.

The appointment was fine.  The receptionists, the medical assistant/nurses and the doc are all so friendly and kind.  Something you just don't find a lot of places, and that made the whole thing so much easier.

The vaccine was fine.  I got it in my dominant arm, figuring when I arrived home and started hand-binding two quilts, it would help work it in and hurt less.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I got a tetanus shot a few years ago and my arm hurt for a few days.  This?  Maybe I just didn't do enough work with that arm, but it is now three days later and it still hurts.  Like just sitting here typing its a little achy (the whole arm got into the act that first night, which is maybe why the elbow is still angry) and I slept poorly that first night because I couldn't quite get comfortable.

But the next day with a little ice pack action and some Advil, it started feeling better, and with a nap, I was on my way back to myself.

But this is, in no way, a reason to not get this vaccine.  Everyone needs to make their own choices about this one, but I've seen a couple of friends get shingles before they were eligible for this and I DO NOT want what they had.  (Also, if my chances of dementia decrease, all the better.)

I'll have to get a second one in the 2 to 6 months range, so I'll know better what to expect, but on the grand scheme of things, this is really nothing.  I'm old enough to have had chicken pox as a kid and this is not as bad.  It's just my arm.  (Picturing the Monty Python knight saying "it's just a scratch"!)  And other vaccines have hit me harder.

On to happier things:

Reading!

Again just one this week, but it was more than 500 pages, so I have good reason.  (Also, quilting.)

Set in the 1600's in Paris, a young woman discovers she can see the future in water.  At the time, this sort of business for women was...common?  An older woman recognizes her talent and takes her on to train and add to her network.  Since she had the skill legitimately (it seems a number in the network were charlatans who used powders of whatever for whatever thing they decided it worked for), the training was more to create the environment and intrigue necessary to be respected.

She is a success - so much so that the king requests her to do a reading for him.  And since such shenanigans are the height of fashion, the king requesting her is good for business.

But she lives a dangerous life.  If she displeases her benefactor, the woman knows how to poison her.  And she must pay a portion of her earnings to this woman.  A woman who has spies everywhere and seems to know everything (as a good fortune-teller with no actual gift should).  She has few people she can actually trust and it's a wonder to me how she didn't just become a paranoid insomniac from it all.

So most of the book is building her up and following her growth as a medium.  But then things start to fall apart and an exit seems necessary (as one might expect), so we see that develop.

It was interesting (I didn't realize coffee drinking and police forces were already established so many years ago!) and moved at a good pace.  My biggest complaint is people who have similar-sounding names (sometimes I take notes, but this time I didn't and should have) and some phrases in French that were not translated that left me hoping I wasn't missing much (because I could have looked them up, but didn't want to - I'm reading a paper book, for goodness sakes!).

I'm midway through the next book, but enjoying it and trying not to rush it.  Non-fiction has a way of doing that to you.  And it's okay.  I hit my yearly goal of 52 books (one per week) a few weeks back, so now I'm just coasting.  Maybe I'll read more than last year, maybe not.  But with a sale at my local library the end of September, I'd better clear off a little more space on my cart if I want to attend and acquire a few more books without (too much) guilt!

Happy quilting!
Katie