The January Deep Freeze

Between the snow storms and the below zero temperatures, we knew we would be packing it in at home for a while. We loaded up on groceries before the weather came. I love the feeling of being home, safe, warm and secure. And it's so pretty after it snows. The backyard looks so serene. With temps around 8 below zero, I don't think we will be traipsing around on the patio for a while.

I'm planning on getting some charity quilts started this week. I'm going to take this fat quarter bundle of children's fabrics apart and cut a few quilt kits out of it. There's so many fat quarters that I think I should be able to get at least 3 quilt tops out of it. 

Jeff's favorite college football team, the Michigan Wolverines won the National Championship last night. He is so very excited that they finally won the whole thing! And here he is in his 1997 Championship t-shirt. I was happy to see it still fit - haha!

Wigglebutts

There's a deep freeze here in Wisconsin that doesn't seem to have an end in sight. So I'm quilting like a maniac.  Yesterday I took out my rolls of batting and cut enough pieces to longarm 6 quilts. Some have the backing and some do not. I'm going to start getting them on the longarm so I can get them off of my to-do list. I used 100% polyester batting for these.

The first quilt I completed was the Wigglebutts quilt top. It was one where the backing was ready. I did an allover meander so the quilt went quickly. And I hand bound it using leftover backing after the quilting was done.

I imagine that someday I will gift this to my neighbor, Sarah. She has a black labrador named Roxy that she loves very much. I've never seen so much dedication to a dog. It's a wonderful thing.

With this deep freeze and no where to go I also made some homemade bread and baked potato soup. My son Brian got us a Lodge dutch oven for Christmas and I've already used it twice. I love it.

Baking and cooking sure make the house feel warm.

Christmas Cookies and Quilts for Vets

I'm very happy to be hosting Christmas Eve dinner this year yet I'm amazed that I'm not stressing at all over it. 

Today my granddaughters and their friend frosted sugar cookies for the holiday season. It's so fun to let them do their thing. It's also a tradition that Jeff gets in there too to help. It's his favorite Christmas cookie so he's always ready to sample a few - haha!

I bought the girls goody bags for St. Nick's day and there were suckers with handles shaped like lips. They just had to try them out. 

I grabbed some quilts from my Sweet Sundays quilt group for my husband to take to Zablocki VA Hospital for veterans. His Legion Riders group goes to visit at Christmastime and he likes to take quilts along to give away. This year my group had 18 quilts for him to take.

I didn't realize until I took the photo that the quilts are sitting on my new Ikea furniture purchases. I think I will take that as a hint that I better get going on putting it together. I love assembling Ikea stuff.

Client Longarming

The Elna 792 Pro came into the shop this week. I never really cared to upgrade my current machine, as long as I can piece a quilt top, that's all I ever needed. 

Then along came this home machine with an automated stitch regulator. I could free-motion quilt small projects with ease if I had one of these. 

My friends with longarms think it's crazy. They all say the same thing, "Just load the project on the longarm!".  Sometimes I think it's too much trouble for really small projects. I can free-motion quilt on the machine I have now but I sure would love it to not have to worry about how fast or slow I have to go to keep even stitches. I am definitely getting one of these....

Someday.

I have a client who is very passionate about a PKD fundraiser that happens every year. She makes a quilt to raffle off every year and this is the one for 2023. It's always a queen-sized quilt so the event does make quite a bit of money off her beautiful donations and I am happy to help.

I also quilted a memory quilt for her. Her son passed away from cancer and she made a quilt to honor his memory. 

Besides the 2 quilts, she had a table runner to be quilted as well. I love the colors she used. These are the last client projects I plan on completing before the holidays. 

On Thanksgiving day I became one of those statistics attached to senior citizens. I slipped and fell then ended up getting 16 staples on the top of my head. It was quite a gash. On my way down, I hit the corner of the buffet in my daughter's dining room. I got right up thinking I was fine except for my head stung a little. And I didn't see any blood although it was all over the buffet. Jeff says I could't see it because it was running down my back. The next thing I knew we were headed to the hospital.

I really didn't hurt myself and frankly, I was disappointed I missed dessert after dinner. At least I got to eat before I went to the ER!

I know they are hard to see but this photo was taken right before the staples were removed. And hallelujah for that. I think the staples were worse than the wound. I am so happy that things turned out like they did. I really could have seriously hurt myself.

T-Shirt Quilt Project

I took on a big quilt job last week. The client wants 5 t-shirt quilts made out of her grandfather's shirts. Each quilt will be a gift for family members who are all currently in the military. I received the shirts in 3 boxes packed full.  Here are two of the three boxes.

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Cutting up the shirts to prep for making the blocks was fun. On these nice summer days I sat outside and did all my cutting.

I applied all the fusible interfacing on the blocks in just a few days. It will be a lot of work planning where to place each shirt so until then, I'm just going to enjoy this process.  

I will definitely have to have a plan to make sure each quilt has the same look and feel and there's fair distribution of shirts among all 5. That might be a little tricky. I'm glad they are not due until Christmas so I have some time to work on it.

I harvested all the potatoes from the garden today. I can't believe how big they got. I only grow a few in a small area and after looking at how nice they grew, I think I might want to expand to a bigger plot next year. 

Cricut Maker 3

I finally started using my new Cricut machine. One of the first things I made was this sash for my granddaughter who is the state of Wisconsin Poppy Princess for the American Legion Auxiliary. I think it turned out great. Plus it matches her dress very well.

After making the sash, my legion friends noticed it. They asked if I could make them some ribbons with names on them. I told them I was a novice but I would be happy to give it a shot. So I bought some ribbon.

I made the names up in Design Space and added a few stars. It felt like a nice and patriotic addition. I used a YouTube video demo to apply the lettering to the ribbon choosing to use only the red because the blue was grosgrain which meant there was a texture to it. I thought the lettering would adhere to the satin ribbon a little better than the grosgrain. 

For a first try, I think they turned out great.

And here's what they look like finished.

We spent a week on vacation in northern Wisconsin. It was a wonderful week away and when we're gone, our friends come to our house twice a day and hang out with our cats. Our older cat, Ruxin is on hypothyroid medicine and has been for about a year.  Our friends just love Ruxin so very much that we know he is well taken care of when we're away. 

When we returned from vacation Ruxin was his same old self. But two weeks later, he lost 2 pounds.  He was already down from 10 pounds to 7 pounds from his disease but now he weights just 5 pounds. I don't think he has much time left. I can't stand the thought of losing him. 

Where I've Been

I've been planning this project for over a year. The thing is I wanted to collect up a few different stencil sets to make the letters for each of the signs.  They weren't easy to find and they weren't all cheap. Some came from home parties, some from the local craft stores and some I ordered online. It was fun to search for them but time consuming. So it took me a while. 

Last summer I worked on the boards. They are mostly pallet boards. I cut the points on one of the ends of each of the boards. I made sure I left the more interesting ends uncut. I also tried to keep the nail holes, cracks in the boards, and the imperfections in the wood. I want all those interesting features.

I looked up the mileage for each of the signs I made. I started by making a list of places we've traveled to. I was surprised to see how many places I had listed. We've been very lucky to travel so much. It was such a fun project figuring it all out. The thing I didn't do very well is plan the direction of the arrows. I just slapped the stencils on and painted without any concern for where they would go. What an afterthought that was - ha! 

Once I started planning how I would mount the signs I realized I should have planned things better. First I had to decide where the center pole would be positioned in the yard. Then I had to make sure that each sign was pointing in the right direction. So all the cities east of Oak Creek point east and all the places north point north, etc.  After I worked things out there were signs on all four sides of the pole. So now, depending on where I place it in the yard, I will get to see different cities. How fun!

Lots of Red White and Blue Fabrics

A generous donor dropped off 18 yards of vintage red, white, and blue fabrics over at Quilts for Kids. The QfK group did not want the fabric so they offered it up to me for my veterans' projects. It was all new fabric, still in the packages. The first thing I did when I got home was wash it and hang it out on the clothesline. It is a lot of fabric. It is definitely older, some of the selvages are dated in the 90's.

I got out my Villa Rosa pattern cards and started looking for patterns that would work well with three colorways. There were a few good choices so I picked the one that used up the largest cuts of fabric.

I quickly whipped up the first quilt top. Once I had one top done, I realized I will be able to make many quilt tops. I didn't even put a little dent in that fabric stack. 

The pattern I used is called Olympiad. These Villa Rosa pattern instructions are well written and easy to follow.

When I got tired of looking at red, white and blue, I moved on to longarming. I quilted a baby quilt for a client. She likes high loft batting which gave this little gem a nice puffy, soft look. How cute!

One of my favorite parts of spring is watching my lilac bush bloom. It's too bad it only lasts a little while. I always take photos of the lilacs in bloom, they are so beautiful. And the scent is amazing. Every time I walk by I have to get as close as possible to take in the scent. It certainly makes the walk to the clothesline more enjoyable. Haha!

Little Projects

A friend asked for a table runner that looks like wood planks. I came up with this. When she originally showed me a photo of what she wanted, I started collecting wood-look fabrics. It was fun to attend quilt shows with a fabric finding mission.

Since it is close to Memorial Day, I thought I would whip up this little Uncle Sam wall hanging. It's a kit from the quilt shop that went together very quickly.  I didn't realize until I hung it up, but I forgot to embroider the nose. I will wait until fall when I take it down and correct that for next year. I guess it went together too quickly - haha! 

A few months ago I got the opportunity to purchase a used barrel from a local brewery called Lakefront Brewery. It's a very popular spot and when they put the call out that they were selling their barrels I immediately responded to the ad in hopes to snag one. Luckily, I did get to go pick one up. Once the weather got better, my husband had to figure out how to cut it in half. 

After searching online, Jeff found a very creative way to cut the barrel. He took my garden wagon and turned it upside down placing the barrel between the wheels. Once that was done he measured to find the center then cut the barrel while I turned it. It worked perfectly. Now I have two new barrel planters to replace my old ones which are rotting away. And what a great story about where they came from to share with friends.

Winter Storm and my new Cricuit Maker 3

We had quite a winter storm last week. Luckily it didn't happen until we returned from the Vintage Shop Hop. It's a good time to enjoy the warmth of home. I get the most sewing done in the winter. It's not my favorite time to be outside so it works out for me. My backyard sure is beautiful.

My husband surprised me with a Cricuit Maker 3 for my birthday. I am amazed at his generosity, this was quite a nice surprise. He got a bundle of craft supplies along with the machine so I can have lots of fun. I can't wait to see what I can do with it.

                                                 

                                                 

I took home a kit from the quilt shop that needed to be made into a sample. It's from Riley Blake, one of my favorite fabric manufacturers so I knew I would enjoy putting this together. 

                                         

My girl Peyton sure likes hanging with me. When I have my morning coffee she is right there with me. Even when I longarm she is hanging out on one of her hammocks. 

                                         

                                         

This week I started a new project at Quilts for Kids. This is as far as I got before it was time to head home. It definitely needs borders in order to make it bigger.