Saturday, July 12, 2025

A Lot Goin' On!

A Lot goin' on!  Mostly fun!  My son and G-daughters came to visit from Indiana.  It's always so great to see them, they always lift my spirits!  And we babysat our 16 month old grandbaby so her mom and dad could have a grown-up weekend.  Such a fun age but toddlers sure do ware me out!  And carry germs!  Me and G-dad both came down with some kind of viral crud after she went home.  We're better now. 

 Through it all I'm sewing / quilting (or at least thinking about it).... Here's the latest:

As I mentioned in my last post I've been working on some STEM themed quilts to be given to a Science Summer Camp program to promote Interest in Science for 8th grade girls.  There will be 80 Campers and our guild managed to make 92 (55" x 70" size) quilts in the space of about 3 months!

  
I was just working out the layout for this one in my last post.  I settled on the light grey patches.  It helped tone down the yellow.  I really like the way it turned out.  I had a lot of fun looking up some of the famous scientists.  So many brilliant researchers!
Here's the back.  It was fun to try and find techno fabrics in my stash to reflect all the Inventions etc.  Don't look to close some of them are a real stretch! lol
The panel in the middle of this quilt made and easy start to a "Homage to Butterflies".
!
It was fun going through all my butterfly fabric for the backing.
Here's the labelng that was provided by the project.
I also quilted tops for several other people.  There's a lot of variety!
Here
Computer themed
Solar system
Chemistry
Turbines.  I thought this was particularly clever.  9 of the blocks in this top had pinwheel / whirligig type blocks. aka windmills and water wheels which are indeed Turbines!

Well it was it was a lot of fun participating in that project!  I hope they do it again next year I'd be more than happy to take another dive into my stash of Science themed fabrics!!!

I hope your Summers are going well!
Take care, cw


















Sunday, May 11, 2025

Happy Mother's Day!

Be ye Mother, Daughter, Auntie or whatever, enjoy a day for yourself !
To often we rush around taking care of everybody else
Today is for Self Care! 💖



 

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Yikes it's Almost May!

March wizzed by and April too!  But I keep sewing.  It's my go-to zero calorie comfort food and fun pass time  So here's are some of my latest projects...

I got this top quilted in mid March using my new favorite all over pattern I'm calling Modern squiggle.

I like the cheeriness of this one so much I am hesitant to give it away, but it will make a good hospice quilt.  Here's the back...
I always try to match the backs to the fronts in color and style as much as possible.  I think this one really works with the front.

Another finish this month is a quilt I made for a special Summer program up at UC Santa Cruz.  Some Science educators have put together a special STEM Summer camp program targeting 8th Grade girls to hopefully create more interest for them in studying Science.  They ask our local quilt guild if we could make Science themed quilts for the students which they could then take home as a souvenir for their Summer Camp experiences.  This is issue very near and dear to my heart being a retired Science teacher.  And of course being a quilter I have more than a bit of fabric to cover the topic.   I decided to start with Chemistry because I had this great panel with Chemisry graphics.
I love these fabrics, so cheerful and fun!

The next 2 quilts are still in the planning stages.
The one on the left is all about Butterflies. That will be easy peasy.  I have soooo much butterfly fabric.   The one on the right has this crazy yellow fabric. It's printed with the names of famous Scientist next to little icons associated with what they are famous for. Like an old fashioned telephone for Alexander Graham Bell. There's a date of the year they were born under the icon.  There are about 30-40 names.  Only 3 are women Scientists.  That kinda says it all!    I'm having trouble finding a mate for the yellow fabric.  Should it be pink for girl power or maybe a light blue to compliment the yellow?  Any suggestions?

I have  few a few flea market finds to share.  We always get such great donations.  It always astounds me what treasures people give away.
This top is so exceptional I snatched it right up.
 
It must have been paper pieced (a technique I have no patience for)  The design is so much fun!  I will quilt  it and donate it to the Live auction next year to benefit Hospice.

This quilt top was donated by a well known quilter in our guild.  
.
But it was a bit to small for a Camp Erin quilt so I added the two outer borders to make it the right size.  About 55" by 65".

We got lots of packets of vintage block donations this year.  I saw these and grabbed them.  I'm really going to try and do something with these blocks.  They are in really good conditions for 30's blocks and so pretty!

I hope Spring is going well with you!
Take care, cw






 



Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Still here, still Sewin'

I'm still away from home but my trusty travel machine is keeping me busy.  I found some pins to help sew those rows of of 4" hexies together (see last post).  I think I've found a good border fabric for it too, so I hope to get the top done this week.

  I don't have a lot of wall space in my temporary diggs for a design wall so I abandon the Batik scraps that I was exploring in my last post.  I went back to my stash for another bundle of pre-cuts and finished this top in pretty short order!
Then I took all the scraps from that project and made a scrappy table runner.
The lighting wasn't very good for the pic above but in the pick below you can really see how pretty the fabrics are.  Gotta love those fabric bundles!
Even tho' I'm away from home I was still able to make it to my local guild Quilt Show.here's a couple of my pix.
I think this was my favorite!  To bad they did not have more info. about it.




Well that's all for now.  Have a great March!
Take care, cw

















 

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Happy New Year!

December was a blurr and January is fast approaching the same situation.  I hope all your holidays were cheery!  Mine were!  All my kids and grand kids were here.  It's always super fun to have everyone for the holidays but it does wear me out. 

I have not had much time for sewing but I did manage to get most of Ari's quilt top finished (first pix in my Dec. post)  and  about 80% quilted.   Enough,  so I was able to take it off the frame and display it on her bed when she arrived!

The inner and outer most borders turned out more complicated than I had planned but I think it was worth the effort.  Ari really liked it!

I had to kind of fudge on the corners.  I ended up hand sewing the
corner wedges and trimming them after to fit.  There not perfect but from a distance they're not bad. 😁😁

 
I had a lot of fun quilting it too.  Lots of different patterns.
After finishing the quilting there's just the binding.  Ugh, with a big quilt like that 87" square it'll take more than one evening in front of the TV to get it done.
I've been trying to keep with my NO Starting New Project , but we are away from home now so I indulged in bringing a packet of pre cut 4" hexies I bought on sale years ago.
I got the rows assembled only discover I had forgot to bring straight pins!  The rows are kinda wonky.  I didn't think I could sew them without pins so back into the basket to take home.
Of course I brought some back-up projects and I broke out a basket of Batik scraps. 
 My favorite idea of "Fun" sewing.  What's "Fun" sewing you ask?  To me that's something I can sew without worrying to much about whether everything is going to match, points meet, etc. etc. etc.  Sewing without stress!
What's your mode of "Fun" sewing?!

Last but not least...
New Years Day at my house...
My brother-in-law and his family (who live at the beach) have a New Year's Day tradition of jumping in the ocean (fyi it's 60 degrees) on new years day!  Brrrrrrrr!  But because the end of the Santa Cruz pier fell into the ocean recently,  leaving debris floating and washed up on all the local beaches, jumping in the ocean didn't seem like a very safe idea.  So I invited them to our house to jump into our 60 degree pool instead.  Of course the added bonus was once the ritual was complete they could quickly jump into the nice warm jacuzzi!
Here's the stop action:
Getting psyched to do the deed...
...and taking the plunge!
My kids and G-kids, My brother in  law's daughter and her family and a family friend.  10 people moreless jumping into the pool all at once...
And then quickly scrambling out of the pool and into the jacuzzi as fast as they could!
It was sure fun to watch!
And after I finished setting up the brunch table I jumped in too!
I tried to post the video but the video button didn't seem to work 
(or more likely I just didn't do it correctly) 😂

 I hope your New Year's are full of joy and wonder!
take care, cw


















S

 







Sunday, December 1, 2024

Happy December!


 November whizzed by.  I moreless kept to my diet of quilting more than sewing.  So I finished binding the 3 quilts I pictured in my last post.  Ignored the UFO's that I showed last post and quilted another of the tops that I showed.  Here 'tis all bound and ready to go!

Lots of fun fabrics in this one a real mis-mash of prints but I think it works?!


And since I felt like I was on a roll I quilted and bound this top .
I found this in the Guild Flea Market..  I thought it was really cool.  I always wonder why finished tops  like that get donated to The Flea Market.  So much work went into it and it looks great to me!   Hard to say.  I figured I'd finish it and donated to the Quilt Show Auction.
Now I am sewing again.  I want to get both my G-daughters new bed quilts done for xmas.  Sadies's is all bound and ready to go but Ari's is in pieces.  Here's what I've got so far...
It will probably change, who knows?!
Happy December!
take care, cw











Thursday, October 31, 2024

Happy Halloween!

I bought this panel on impulse for a friend who is a real dog lover.  When ever she takes her dog on walks she brings a bag of dog treats.   Every dog they meet she gives a treat.  I thought this would make an appropriate porch decoration for her front deck!  

I'm trying to follow my own advise and get more tops quilted and done and spend less time picking new projects to sew.  It's not that I don't like quilting, it just takes more focus than sewing.  I have to be in a particular Mood.  
To that end  I managed to quilt three lap quilts last since my post so I'm feeling pretty happy about that!
These first two quilts are both basically made from four large blocks.  They were both flea market finds.  The one above was just a matter of trimming. them up and adding a border. 
The one below came with the star block and some extra fabric so I put the star block in the middle and arranged the four blocks around it.
I first posted about these two back in February (here ) So, turn around was less than a year.  That's pretty good for me!
Once again I forgot to take a pic of the finished product,on the lower one, but you get the idea..
This next one was a  'impulse start' in Sept.  but I finished the top in about 4 days and .quilted it this morning.  
I KNOW, it's a lot of Orange!  I'm trying to expand my personal palette.  I'm thinking about binding it in black to tone it down a bit?!
That's all for the 'almost finished' projects.

I've also been trying to screen my UFO's for things that just need  assembling or borders..
These three tops just needed borders and I got that done this month.
Well the one on the left is the orange quilt from above (is that considered double dipping?) The other two are ready for the quilt frame!

I've got stacks of blocks that need assembling.  But some are closer to getting done than others like these two:
These are more orphan blocks from the flea.
But what a pleasure to assemble these delightful blocks
These are pretty too but it's gonna take a little more work to figure out what to do with them.

Well like I said in my last post it always feel like two steps forward one back.  But it is an enjoyable way to pass the time!

Happy Halloween,
take care, cw

















 

A Lot Goin' On!

A Lot goin' on!  Mostly fun!  My son and G-daughters came to visit from Indiana.  It's always so great to see them, they always lift...