Thursday, May 31, 2018

time marches on



My mom and Bill are moving Gramma Joyce
into a swanky nursing home tomorrow.

It's time.

It's actually past time;
she probably should've moved a year and a half ago.

Even so,
I feel quite sad about it.

For Mom. 
For Gramma.
For me.
For all of us.

I didn't expect that.


Sunday, May 27, 2018

Razorback Fan



Immediately upon finishing
I sat down and drew up a quilt 
that's been in my head for quite some time.


Then I went on a fabric collecting spree.
digging through every box, shelf, bag, and tub
that even might contain a red, black, or gray fabric.


I amassed a ridiculously large pile boxful,
having previously made
and, oh, another quilt that heavily featured gray.


I've made a block here 

That churndash in the upper right didn't make the cut. Not enough contrast.

and a block there,

yes! I found the perfect spot for a bit of Jenean Morrison's fabric :-)

and cut background strips
 when I had a couple of decent chunks of time
(I spent 4 hours just cutting all those suckers!)


Once I had my little design wall filled up,
I made a real (expandable!) design wall
and threw everything up on it,
very neatly arranged the blocks on it
and realized - 
I still had a (very) long way to go!


 I made more blocks every chance I got,
and sewed some together with their background strips.


Sometimes I only had 5 minutes at a time,
sometimes an hour or more.


Then I sewed some more blocks,
and some more pieces together,
and here we are,
3 weeks later,
with a finished
one of a kind
Razorback Fan quilt top!!


There are 122 fabrics
and 52 hours (and 46 minutes) represented
in this 66" x 78" top.
That 52:46 doesn't count any of the hours spent 
designing the quilt
(or any of the blocks that I drew up  myself).
It doesn't include the hours spent gathering fabric,
or driving out to Mulberry in search of actual  Razorback fabric.
(which, incidentally, is rather ugly until you chop it up)

that embroidered white patch was commissioned from a friend :-) and the pink razorback fabric is from Stars for a Star :-)

It doesn't include the time spent
prewashing any fabrics that might bleed
(I'm looking at you, ugly razorback fabric!)
or choosing fabrics for each individual block
(it takes longer than you might think)

That big block is an 'Arkansas Star' - I couldn't find one the size I needed,
and didn't trust my maths to enlarge it and get it just right, so I drafted it myself.
It's paper pieced. Foundation Paper Pieced. Y'all know how much I love that 😏

or re-folding the fabric
after I've cut what I need from it
(when you use over 100 fabrics,
and cut fabric for each block as you make it
 that adds up to a lot of folding)
and it definitely doesn't include time spent
standing in front of the design wall,
pondering.


I will say,
I like it better when I don't know
quite how much time I spend on a project 😉
but
Razorback Fan
 will be for sale as soon as I get it finished
so it seemed prudent to keep track.


I'm eager to get to the quilting;
I've already got a pretty good idea
of what I'm wanting to do.


joining Amanda Jean and the other finishers

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

life, lately




Wow
life is just zooming by, isn't it?!

I admit I rarely feel like blogging lately.

Unless it's a super quick note,
writing a post
and adding pictures
(especially when one's camera isn't working properly
so all photos have to be taken with the phone,
and then sent via FB messenger
to oneself,
and then saved to computer
before being added to blog...)
takes a lot longer than you might think.

It does for me, anyways....

~

I think I'll just go through phone pictures,
and work my way backwards.


Hadley was here on Sunday!


She is getting so big,
and she talks
pretty much non-stop.
We can interpret maybe 20% of what she's saying.

She's a little bit sassy
and a lotta bit sweet.



Friday and Saturday,
we built the butcherblock style countertop 
out of the black walnut flooring we bought





It's so pretty!!



A few weeks ago,
the kids wanted to surprise Dad,
and cleaned out the pool
all by themselves!!

They worked together so nicely,
for several hours,
motivated by the knowledge
 that they were blessing their Papa
who has been soooo busy with work.

They already had it filling up,
when he went out to start cleaning it.

I was so proud of them!

With the new pipes,
 our water pressure is amazing
and we had the pool refilled in record time.


Seeing that we skipped Spring
 and went straight to Summer,
it's already gotten tons of use.

~


I got a clothesline for Mother's Day!!!

And Tyler even added a little flower garden to each post!!

It makes me happy.


~


Our property hasn't gotten much any attention
the past two years,
and it's getting a bit wild,
but man, 
I love it!!
And I feel so thankful for it,
and this beautiful house
and these people
several times a day.




Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Inside Out, a finished quilt top


So.
You remember how I up and decided
(a month ago today, actually)

Well,
I kept up with the 30 blocks
(of course, 
the blocks were all super simple,
so it wasn't too hard)
and then immediately sewed them into a quilt top
after adding in a 3 inch strip of background fabric(2)
to each row.


When Lexi saw it all together,
she said she wanted it.


Considering I'd just posted on Instagram
that the poor girl had outgrown both of her quilts,
and I really had no reason for making it,
except that I needed to sew,
I figured I should let her have it.


Except that at 52.5 x 60,
it wasn't much bigger than the last quilt I made her.


So,
I quickly drew up another 5 blocks
that would go with the other 30,
then dug around for 5 more fabrics
and sewed those blocks up too
and added the row to the quilt.


Then I added three borders,
(making the width of the horizontal borders
just a smidge wider than the vertical borders)


and now,
I've got a  71 x 90 quilt top
for my baby girl



linking up with amanda jean again,
and DrEAMi Sandra :-)