Bowl Cozy Binge Sewing

It has been a really wild couple of weeks! It was pretty weird coming home from being away for a month, and jumping right into a houseful of company and hosting an early holiday dinner. DD#2's family was moving right around then, so I had her boys for a couple weeks as well. 

As if that weren't enough to handle, we had a couple exciting bits thrown in. Our neighbors Saguaro Cactus broke and fell on our power lines, breaking the power line pole at our house. If you aren't familiar with Saguaro cactus, they are the ones with the arms, and can grow to be up to 60 feet tall. (The tallest on record was 78 feet tall) We were only out of power and internet a little while, but it was a bit nerve wracking seeing the power lines hang so low, knowing if they were compromised, we could be dealing with a quite dangerous situation. We kept the kids and dogs inside until the power company fixed that. We had a houseful when that happened. 

When it was down to only DD#2's family, the water main broke and we went a day without water! Tucson has a fantastic water department though, and they brought gallons of water to my door when it was obvious we were going to be out of water for a while. 

My house is now devoid of company, aside from two grand-dogs I'm keeping for a couple months. DH is back at the other hospital, so it's pretty quiet around here. He did make a request of me before he went back, and that was to make more microwavable bowl cozies so he could give some away. I ordered a bolt of Wrap and Zap batting before we got home, and once the house emptied out of company, I got to work. 

 

Just a few minutes ago I finished the last bowl cozy, 34 in all. Wrap and Zap comes in a 10 yard bolt, 22" wide. If I had been super careful when cutting the batting, I theoretically could have gotten 36 cozies from a bolt. 34 is close enough when I was in such a hurry. 

Besides sewing bowl cozies I've been trying to help DD#2's family get settled in their new home. They have a beautiful new house, and I hope they have many happy years in it! 

Now that life can return to "mostly" normal, I will be able to get back to my other projects. My Bernina is long overdue for a servicing, so I'll be calling about that soon. I mostly have my sewing room back to normal after having it in guest room mode. I still haven't plugged in my Singer 201 which is my usual piecing machine, so I'll have to do that, and get the Bernina packed up to go "to the spa". 

Since life doesn't seem like it wants to calm down much, DH has been keeping me up to date on what's going on where he is. The hospital he's working at is in the path of a wildfire, and they are starting evacuations. I'm not sure what will happen with that, they've had very high winds so the fire is unpredictable, and it's at 0% containment. I've been disappointed I couldn't go with him this time, but with the wildfire and everything, he's probably relieved I'm not there, and am safe at home instead. I'll keep praying for all the people in the path of those fires, losing a house would be hard, but losing your family would be so much worse. I'm praying for safety for those in the path. 

So that's most of the crazy stuff that's happened during the couple weeks I didn't blog! I just didn't have time to be on the computer with all that going on!

Hotel Sewing

 Could you tell in my last few posts that I wasn't at home? I've been at a hotel for almost a month now, but today we go home. DH did end up getting detailed to another hospital after all. 

I've sewn at hotels before, and if we are driving I pack pretty heavy. Most hotels have desks, but they are too high to comfortably sew on. Since I have a folding sewing table, it's worth bringing when I can. The hotel desk chair is also too high, so I bring a folding chair as well.

This is my preferred hotel sewing set-up. My sewing table with the machine dropped down into it, a folding chair from home, and an extra light because hotel lighting is not designed for tasks like sewing. I bring a power strip from home as well, so I can easily plug everything in. This hotel has coffee available 24/7 and it's actually good coffee, so that's a plus! 

I've never been at hotel this long before, and when I was packing, I realized I have no idea how much I sew in a month! My thought was to bring one project per week, one extra project, and then I stuffed some misc. stuff in to use as leader/enders. At home I'm always switching up what I'm working on, and at a hotel I was only piecing or doing some minor cutting. I'm not going to try to FMQ in a hotel, when at home I have a much better set-up for that. 

So what did I get done in a month? I finished the blocks for two king sized quilts. I assembled the quilt center for a lap quilt. I made all the blocks for a throw, I sewed as much as I could on two misc. projects that I had thrown in, I didn't have the supplies with me to go any further on those. I also finished about half the blocks for a twin sized quilt.

Here are the blocks I made yesterday. The quilt is called Modern Technology. 

So how did that compare to what I packed? Well, the two king sized quilts were two of the main projects I packed, and I got those into blocks which is all I planned to do at a hotel. The Modern Technology quilt was another of my main projects, and I'm not finished, but half done is good. My fourth main project I opted not not work on, because the hotel ironing board isn't adjustable height, and it's one of those projects where you sew, press, trim, and normally I do that with a pressing surface right next to me so I'm not getting up every other minute to press. Since that project didn't end up being suitable, I worked on those two misc. projects, plus the throw I made from leftovers from on of the king sized quilts, which I actually hadn't counted in the number of projects I brought. My extra project I also never touched. Overall, I think my packing idea was sound, and with this long at a hotel, when DH is working all day, I figured having too many projects with me was better than running out. 

I almost forgot, I also got the clue two blocks done for the Ruby Jubilee mystery in Quiltmaker magazine!

Do you ever bring things with you to make a hotel seem more like home?

I brought a quilt from home to put on the bed. We had a few cold nights where it was a welcome addition too!

We celebrated our anniversary this week too, so DH got me some flowers to brighten up our room as well.

Overall it was a good trip. We did some sight seeing on the weekends, though we are quite familiar with this area. I got a lot done as far as sewing is concerned which is good, because the next two weeks hold NO sewing time for me. 

DS the Elder and family fly in tomorrow night, DD#2's family may beat us home today. I'll have a houseful for a couple weeks. We are celebrating Easter early, this coming Sunday, so I'll be home less than 36 hours before I'm hosting brunch for 22! Covid has me used to ordering grocery pick-up, so my grocery order is already in and we can pick it up at 8 AM tomorrow morning, so that's a plus. Thankfully Covid numbers are low here, so I'm not too worried about hosting, and we'll be eating outside when we have that many people. 

You'd think I'd be really relaxed after a month in a hotel, but I stayed very busy, and when I get home it's full speed ahead. I'm not a wreck, and I've got plans for how to handle things when I get home, but it's still a lot to pull off with so little prep time. I did as much as I could before I left home, like getting the plastic eggs stuffed for the grandkids to hunt, and getting my sewing room emptied out so I had an extra guest room. It should all go well enough, even if it is a lot. I'm glad everytime the family gets together, it's a blessing for sure!

I doubt I'll blog for the next couple weeks, I just won't have the time. I'll be back when things calm down! 

A Colorful Week

I finished the blocks for the quilt that's for my bed, but with no access to my design wall they'll stay blocks for a bit. 

I'm working my way through some stuff that was hanging around my sewing room.

 The blocks on the left are leftover pieces from the RT Mystery Quilt. I'm doing a different border than Bonnie used, so I'm using the border units in these spinning blocks.  The blocks on the right are all made from Bonus HST's from another quilt I recently finished the blocks for. I have ideas on how to set both of those, but it's not happening right now. 

I've been wanting to tackle my quilt kits, and here's a start on that. I loved this colorful collection of fabrics, and back when Craftsy sold quilting supplies I bought the quilt kit to make Flock Together. The fabrics are the Looking Glass collection by Boundless. I had purchased the queen sized quilt kit, but bought an extra fat quarter bundle so I could make a king. Sometime last month I dug out the kit and got to cutting. I changed the size of the blocks so I could make better use of the fabric, knowing that I could get an extra quilt or two from the fabrics if I was careful. 

I've got all of the big and medium HST blocks done, and I should be able to finish the small HST blocks today. If I can't get it done today, definitely tomorrow. Not too shabby, getting all the blocks done for two king sized quilts in two weeks! 

Since I was so judicious on fabric utilization, I'm going to end up with two throw sized quilts from these fabrics, as well as the original planned king. 

The extra small triangles I added some solid white to, and I've just started making blocks with those. I had enough of that white to make 20 blocks, but so far I've only finished the four shown above. I'll still have more small triangles, but not as many as I'm using in this quilt. Maybe I'll opt for a colorful table runner or something with the last of the small triangles, OR I may just cut up some more colorful fat quarters from other lines and make another larger quilt. 

I've got ideas for the extra medium triangles, but I haven't started working with those. I don't have any extra large triangles, I purposely cut the correct amount of those because they used so much fabric. It's kind of funny that I feel the need to use every bit of fabric that I can when I have such a huge stash, but it is the way I'm wired. 

This was my colorful week, getting to play with all those bright colors from the Looking Glass collection after only working with greens and white last week. Next week I'm leaving color behind, and I'll be tackling a quilt kit that is multiple shades of grey. 

I feel really good about finally tackling some of my quilt kits. It's been on my to do list for the past couple years, but this is the first year I've really set aside the time to work on getting some quilt kits out and worked on. I know I can't possibly finish all the quilt kits I have in one year, but I've been very good about not buying any more, so any time I can get one out of the bin and worked on, it's giving me space in my fabric room. I'm downsizing the REALLY SLOW way! I have a set of shelves in the fabric room I eventually want to pass on, but to do that, I need to get what's on the shelves moved elsewhere or used. It's likely a multi year goal, but that's ok. It's all stuff I still really want to sew up myself, so it's not a problem if it takes a while. It's still good to see progress. 

It's About Time!

I am finally making a quilt for our bed a priority! It helps that I don't have any firm deadline quilts right now. I do have a couple memory quilts I need to make, but no deadline on those. Overall, it's a good time to make a priority of the quilt for our bed, poor DH has been waiting years for it after our last one wore out. 

 The thing is, it's been cut out for at least two years, if not three. somehow I always end up with something more pressing to do. 

Choosing a pattern for other people is easy, choosing one for us is much harder. I finally opted for North Star by MSQC. I'm not using their construction methods, I prefer cutting strips to the correct length from the start, for me that's much more accurate. I hate squaring up so accuracy the first time around is important to me.

Here are my first four blocks, the center of the quilt will be this orientation. Like all half log cabins, there are a bunch of ways the blocks can be set.

Just for fun I flipped them around. If I had more blocks done I could play with a lot more settings.

I've been working on these blocks since last week, and although I'm not finished, I am working on the final round of green for all the remaining blocks. I think I should be able to finish the blocks tomorrow. I won't have access to my design wall for quite a while, so once the blocks are done, they'll be set aside until life goes back to normal. 

I did get the center of this little quilt assembled this week too. I'm thinking a narrow cream border followed by a wider green plaid. Borders will have to wait too. 

I've been trying to be a little more adventurous when I order at restaurants. Last weekend DH and I went out to breakfast, and I ordered an Acai bowl, healthy and filled with antioxidants it said. Now, from the menu description I was expecting a bowl of granola with fruit and a dollop of acai sorbet on top. 

What I got was a big bowl of acai sorbet, with some fruit and a granola sprinkle! Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but I was not expecting ice cream for breakfast! So, if you haven't had one of these, next time you want ice cream for breakfast you can order a "healthy" acai bowl, and you'll be trendy! I know sorbet is not technically ice cream, but it felt like I was eating ice cream. Thankfully it wasn't very sweet, because I'm not a big fan of sweets in the morning. It was plenty sweet enough, just not ice cream level of sweet. 

One Finish, Two Finish

 There's a lot going on around here, but I had a deadline quilt to finish and I did! 

This is the quilt for my youngest granddaughter's 2nd birthday. It's already mailed, and will get there before her birthday! Go me!

I am going to be having a lot of company soon, more than the guest rooms can handle, so I needed to clear out the sewing room. The table I keep the vintage machine on completely collapses, I dropped the back extensions on the sewing cabinets, and moved all the misc. stuff into the walk-in closet.

It looks pretty empty, doesn't it? A queen sized air mattress will now fit in here without a problem. I'll still be getting some sewing in, just elsewhere. 

While I was rearranging the stuff in the walk-in closet to fit my carts and such that I keep under the cabinet extensions, I came across my basted quilts. I don't have very many basted right now, it's time for a basting spree, but I did have a baby quilt basted and I decided with all the craziness going on in the world and my house, I needed a quick win. 

I got this quilted and bound in just a couple sessions, so I feel good about that! I made another baby quilt from the same kind of blocks, but it had purple sashing and was gifted quite a while ago. It's about time its twin was finished! It's my third finish of the year, but the first UFO finish for this year. I have so many quilt tops in the quilt closet that I ran out of hangers! I don't care if I just meander on all of them, I just want to make a big dent in all those UFO's this year. I know I won't have a chance to do any FMQ for a while, DD#2 and family will be moving soon, and I'll be helping with childcare during all of that. At least I snuck in another finish before all that happens.