Spring has Sprung...sort of

Spring has been a bit delayed this year in the northeast, so I've been enjoying seeing a lot of pictures from fellow quilters who are a bit further south and have their spring in full-swing.  I was sewing the other weekend (gasp - I know...it's been a while) and was able to capture this picture out my sewing room window:


Just a small amount of snow left and at this point there isn't any snow in the backyard.  We do still have some piles in certain areas that are shady and had a thick snow-cover, but most of it is gone.  We had two days last week where we were near 60 degrees, and two days later we had a bit more snow.  Crazy!

I have been doing a mix of quilting on the Mariner's Compass quilt and also sewing some blocks for a BOM that I picked up last year.  I need the break from quilting, so its nice to do some piecing and applique between my quilting sessions.  I do it all on the same machine, so I typically wait until I finish up a bobbin for quilting and then I'll switch to piecing/appliquing something for a day or two, then load a new bobbin for quilting and do some more on the Compass quilt.

Here's the BOM that I've been slowing working on.  This is the 2nd block that I've completed out of 6.


And here's the progress on the 2nd corner of the Mariner's Compass quilt.  Not much started yet, but its started and I'll continuing filling in around the quilt.


As I mentioned in my last post, we did have a big purchase earlier this winter.  Every year or so for the past 3 years we have toyed with the idea of buying a grand piano (or baby grand).  We both play and have been "limping" along on a digital piano.  The digital was very nice and has lasted us over 10 years of playing.  It was very handy for when we did a lot of moving around the first few years out of college.  Now that we're settled into our dream home, we wanted to get an actual piano.

Just before Christmas we had started looking around and didn't initially find anything that we liked (or liked and wanted to spend the money on).  We eventually found a local used piano dealer and fell in love with a piano he had.  It took us several weeks of trying out pianos and making sure it was definitely the one we wanted.  Then it took another 4-6 weeks for him to prep the piano and for the weather to clear up enough for it to be delivered.

And here she is!!!!


It is a beautiful piano... with how it sounds, how it plays and how it looks.  It is a Steinway piano (we weren't initially looking for a Steinway in particular, but this piano had the touch and sound we wanted).  The difference in this piano from other Steinway pianos is that it is a German made Steinway piano.


The piano was made in Hamburg, Germany in 1937.  It has been certified by Steinway in NYC that it is in fact a 1937 piano from Hamburg and that everything in it is original to the factory there.  No one knows how it came to be in the US, but it did... and we are glad that it did.

We love having it in the house and we play about 2 hours every night and more so on the weekends.  It truly is a special piano and we're so happy to have it.  The one and only downside is that I tend to play it more and it is taking away some of my quilting time.  :c)

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Snowy Day of Quilting

Last weekend, I spent a little bit of time in my sewing room.  My husband had traveled the week before and was exhausted after arriving home late on Friday.  He slept most of Saturday, which meant I had time to play.  :c)

I was perfectly happy to be inside was we had snow showers on and off all day.  It was just before the "blizzard" hit New England last week.  This was the view out my sewing room window.  It is a little hard to see the snow, but it is coming down lightly.


This next picture shows what it looked like with one of the snow squalls coming through.  Lots of white stuff in the air.


As you can see, I was making progress on the Mariner's Compass.  It has definitely been slow-going and I'm sure the few people who read my blog will be bored of this quilt very soon.  Quilting small little pebbles all over a center portion of quilt just takes time and I haven't been able to devote as much time as I would like to it.

After doing pebbles for a few hours...yes, a few hours... I decided I needed a change of pace.  Last spring I purchased a quilt kit that was similar to a Block-of-the-Month (BOM).  In the fall, I was able to get the first block done and all the appliques fused in place, but I never actually got around to doing the stitches to actually applique them in place.  I decided that since I needed something different besides quilting pebbles, I would do the appliques on this piece.  It took about 2 hours with the thread color changes, but its done now and back up on my design wall.


I've also been doing a lot of needlepoint lately.  Its nice to be able to do it and sit by the fire at night.  I don't have any pictures yet, but will share when I remember to take one.  LOL!

So the "blizzard" from last week didn't really impact us here in upstate NY.  On Monday night the weather folks were forecasting 8-14" of snow overnight.  We woke up Monday morning...without even a dusting of new snow.  There were a lot of disappointed kids that day!  However, we did end up getting snow during the day on Tuesday...about 6-8" worth of it.  It was just enough that we had to clear our driveway and the commute home was a little exciting for some folks.

With the AWD Subaru, I just don't worry about snow anymore.  It performs fantastically in the snow.  I've driven through 6" of snow on the roads without any issues whatsoever.  Its a standard shift car and it didn't even have any issues starting up on a hill (as anyone who has driven a standard shift car, that's usually the nemesis of driving a standard).  I absolutely love the car (and the heated seats are REALLY nice this time of year)!

I'm also trying to re-design the closet in my sewing room.  Right now its pretty much a standard bedroom closet that we added some free-standing bookshelves to such that I could store my fabric and patterns and thread.  However, its really not the best setup.  I want to have pull-out draws for my thread so I can more easily see the colors and to also keep dust off it.  I'd also like to have better shelving for the books/fabric as right now its not really enough and the shelves are bowed from years of having books on them.

I'll probably try to post some sketches on here for ideas/suggestions, but any thoughts on good storage options are definitely welcome!

I hope everyone is enjoying the winter and getting lots of quilting/crafting done!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations