Adinkra Topped

While checking my Bloglovin' feed on Friday, I noticed how many bloggers were able to show their Friday Finishes. To keep from showing my embarrassing Friday Finish - "Look, I finished sewing down half of the left side of one of the blocks of this very simple applique," I decided it would be better if I made some real progress.

As you can see, not only did I stitch down all the remaining blocks, I also managed to put the blocks together on the weekend. As a bonus, I auditioned my African fabric to decide on a border. I don't have a lot of African fabric, so this part is fairly easy. I was afraid I would have to turn to my non-African fabric for the border, but it turns out that the fabric will work perfectly.

 I was planning to start another quilt (the surest way to remedy quilt guilt is to completely smash a rule that doesn't exist by starting a new quilt), but I really like the way the fabric looks against the quilt, so I am going to finish the borders on this top before starting the new quilt. That won't stop me from choosing the fabric for this new quilt though!

Linked to:
Moving It Forward

Quilt Reveal: The Earth Laughs in Flowers

I finished sewing down the binding, label and hanging sleeve of the daisies quilt while watching a couple of  marathon of shows on PBS: Mercy Street, Victoria, and Secrets of The Six Wives of Henry VIII.  The pattern has daisies in the title, but my niece and my sister say it looks more like sunflowers.  It is a gift for my niece, who is  concerned about the environment and is resembles a modern hippie. I thought "The Earth Laughs in Flowers" would be a better title than daisy's chickenpox, which was the working title of the quilt.

We went to a quilt show at a park yesterday, and I brought the quilt with me, so it could get a proper outing and beautiful backdrop for pictures.

We took a lot of gorgeous pictures, and I thought a slideshow would be a better way to show 16 of my favorites. Enjoy!

Personalize your own free picture slideshow

PS This is my first time using Smilebox, so please be sure to let me know what you think of the experience. I notice that the show keeps going until the music stops, but there are only 16 pictures, so once the slides stop coming, you can exit the program.

Quilty Project 365

 Way back in November 2015, I joined the Quilty Project 365. The goal was to make a circle block a day for a year to make a quilted diary of sorts. My project morphed into something that doesn't quite look like circles, and maybe not so much a daily sort of project.  But as I make other things, I do try to make some sort of circle with the scraps so I can move that project along.  Here are the blocks I made with the scraps of the Adinkra project.

I'm not keeping good track of my progress, and don't really know how many blocks I will wind up with, but I think I am around block 174 or so. I haven't sewn these down yet, but they give you a pretty good idea of what they will look like.

Block 174

I tried to keep the shapes pretty much the way they were cut out.

Block 175

 This one even has the same spacing as the original block.

Block 176

I trimmed these a little to make sure there would be room for a seam allowance. It makes me think of two people fighting for the ball, which is pretty appropriate for all the political fighting we have had lately.

Block 177

This one is also the way it was cut out. It makes me think of the pro-choice / pro-life debate that has also been going on lately.

Block 178

I probably won't keep all of these next to each other because they have similar fabric. I did find a box to put my blocks in, so I am not as anxious to sew them together as I was before.  I'm not sure that is quite a good thing, since that means there will be more blocks to put together at the end.

Linked to:
Oh Scrap!

Quilt Guilt

It happens every January, and this year is no exception. I feel quilt guilt as I try to work on quilting.  Somehow over the holidays the momentum has been lost, and the new year means I must decide what to pick up next. 

I pick up the Daisy quilt, for which I have sewn down the binding. I still need to sew down the label and the hanging sleeve.  But then something else calls me - I should work on cleaning and organizing the sewing room.  I pick up a few things, but then those blocks of the month pop up on my Bloglovin' feed, and I feel like I need to work on them. I started so many projects in 2016 that I feel I must make myself finish them in 2017. But of course, there are new projects coming into the feed too. But then there are two quilts I promised other family members.

Phew!  I was able to quilt without guilt in 2016 (probably not in January though), so I am hoping that I only have a couple more days of this before I can establish a more forgiving routine and enjoy the joy of quilting again.

To that end, I have prepped the final three blocks of the Adinkra quilt and will be stitching all four of them down shortly. As it turns out, I have been spelling this wrong. I think in 2016 I spelled it Adrinka- I thought I even checked it several times, but now I think it is supposed to be Adinkra.

The fun begins soon!  February and March are generally more productive for me, sewing-wise, and I am looking forward to that time this year.

Luck with Binding Daisy Quilt

I gifted the Daisy Quilt like this, with the promise to bind it.  (That's my new couch. It came with the pillows.) (Oops, it is upside down!)

I don't know if I have any of the outer border fabric left to make a binding, so I decided to see if I could find something else.  I found a fabric that I thought might work, from my limited stash of fabric that is more than a quarter yard.  I usually buy fabric in quarter yard pieces, unless there is a really really good sale or I really like the fabric, so my selection is very limited.

Even though I left it out all day to audition it, as I usually do, the day was dreary all day so it was difficult to tell if it would work.

I decided to use it anyway, and cut the strips, joined them and pressed them, and started sewing down the binding.

Before I got to the first corner, I remembered that I need a label and a hanging sleeve. Since this is a gift quilt, I thought it would be good to add a sleeve to give the recipient more options in how to use it. Now that I have the hanging sleeve cut and pinned, the sun has come out, and I am really happy with my fabric selection.

I have a good fabric, that was easy to find, I probably got it for a good price, and I remembered the label and sleeve before I sewed down the binding. Happy days!

Linked to:
Oh Scrap! 
Let's Bee Social

2017 Word of the Year Announced

For the last few years, instead of making resolutions, I have selected a word to represent a theme for the year.  It has really helped me focus on the way I want to lead my life.  The word for 2015 was Clarity and the word for 2016 was Finish.

I had a hard time choosing a word for this year. Part of it is just the dreariness of winter that leads to apathy and laziness.  The darkness, the cold, the rain or snow, just makes me want to sleep instead of doing anything in particular.  Another part has been my mood lately of just surviving and persevering.

But I wanted the word to be more positive than survive or persevere.  I looked up some words other people have chosen and luckily, there was one word that just said "pick me".  I was apathetic and lazy enough to pick it, and now I have to backpedal and give you a good reason for choosing it and how this word might help me this year.

The word of 2017 is Transform.

The dictionary says it means to make a dramatic change in appearance, character or form.  I'm not sure that I want to make any dramatic changes, but I have been making dramatic changes over the last couple of years.  I have removed big bulky pieces of furniture and replaced them with small ones. I have removed big overwhelming weed beds and replaced them with grass.  I have sent many of my excess belongings in my house to the charity shop, a few bags or boxes at a time, and to the recycling yard, one cart at a time.

At the end of the year, I bought a new sofa and coffee table, and rearranged the furniture in my family room. These are pretty big transformations, so I guess my plan is to continue that some more. My hope is to continue this transformation and to set up some new habits that are more appropriate for my new environment.

I suppose mostly it is better to try to do something dramatic than just wish the days away. I came across a website that said Transform your life, be bold, dream big, embrace the journey.  Those are pretty good ways to let the word Transform guide my year.

2017 Calendar

Since I was able to catch another free offer from Shutterfly, I ordered a quilt calendar again this year. I missed not having one last year.

As usual, there isn't a lot of time to think through decisions, which is a blessing that avoids the aim for perfection.  It was a matter of taking the old calendar, changing the font and date to make it look different, and replacing the pictures with newer ones.  You probably remember most of these pictures from my last post. I was trying to limit my pictures to 2016 to avoid guilt over not finishing older quilts, and to make the picture-choosing part quicker. I did have to add some new quotes because some of the old ones were missing. I stayed with the storytelling theme.


Here it is!  The calendar is beautiful. Any issues are probably due to my choice of photos and my photography of the calendar. Since there are so many pictures, I will keep them small. Hopefully this means you can enlarge them if you want to see them bigger.

I am very pleased with my order.  I also ordered other items too that were "free". The shipping is expensive, but they were a terrific price overall for personalized items.  These other items were genealogy related so I won't be sharing them on my blog, but I was pleased with everything I ordered. The only issues, and they were minor ones, had to do with mistakes I made while ordering. I forgive myself these small mistakes since I realize I did not have a lot of time to make so many decisions.

Edited to add: If you want your own free stuff from Shutterfly, be sure to look for coupon codes. Right now, you can get a memory game, coasters set, magnet or 2 8 x 10 prints for free with the coupon code FREEBIE which expires January 8. (I've found you can choose more than one of these). You can also get a free calendar using the coupon code AFFFREECAL which expires January 11 although several people reported that the code does not work for them. You will have to pay for shipping. Besides the free stuff, they have been having 50% off everything promotions.