No Excuses

I really have no excuse as to why I haven't been blogging.  I could say that things have been tremendously busy (which is partly true), but it has felt like blogging was more of a chore for a while than something I enjoyed doing.  Sometimes I think that as things get crazy at work, it makes me want to post more as I do it at lunch and its a good break from thinking about work.

In that vein....here's what's been happening the past few months.

1.  I've been working on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt, En Provence.  I completed the first clue right on schedule...and promptly got behind.  The second clue used the Tri-rec's tools, which work well, but I'm not a big fan of making the blocks.  If I'm really careful, then things work out well, but its hard to be really careful when you have something like 150 of these suckers to make.


My test piece came our perfect!


So it was on to mass-producing them as much as I could.  The other pieces on the ruler on the table are from a second quilt that I was making in between En Provence such that I didn't go COMPLETELY mad from making the same blocks over and over and over and over.



Ooohhh... the first stack of 20 all complete!


Then it was on to the next clue which used purples (yay) and were four patches again.  Much simpler to make and you don't have to be as careful, which is nice when making this many of them.


I did have a "cutting frenzy" Sunday one weekend and cut out everything for the remaining clues that I had gotten behind on.  All of them are prepped and ready to be sewn, which makes things a bit easier sometimes when you only have 10 minutes here or there to sew.


2.  Heat Wave -- this is a pattern by Judy Laquidara.  I love the pattern and purchased the fabric a LONG time ago.  I've got the center section done as well as the strip borders added to the quilt.  I do have one more pieced border to add.  I think in the end, this one will be a fun quilt.


Here are the start of the blocks for the pieced border.  The pattern is a snail's trail block (or monkey wrench).  The blocks will look great when they are done, but they are a bit tedious to sew.  Start with four patches, add a triangle, press, add 2nd triangle, press, add 3rd triangle, press, add 4th triangle, press...then do it all over again for the next round of four triangles.  All in all, I think there are 4 rounds of triangles on this one.



3. Since its winter and I like spending time by the fireplace I've been working on my cross-stitch a lot as well.  The first picture is from the tail end of December (note the box with the wrapping paper remnants in it).


This next one was at the end of January and I had a full additional page completed on this row as well as finished up the first page on the row.  The end picture will be awesome, but its definitely a labor of love.  There are a total of 42 pages on this one, and I'm on page 9.  I have quite a ways to go!



4. FINISHES!!!  I actually finished two quilts...finally!  A co-worker had a new baby last summer and I decided that I was going to make a quilt for the new baby.  I didn't know him very well when his first son was born, but I didn't want the older child to feel left out, so I opted to make two quilts.  Both quilts use the exact same fabrics, but use completely different patterns.  I wanted the quilts to be different (since no two children are the same) but I also wanted to tie the two brothers together, so I opted to do that with the fabrics.


Both quilts turned out well.  I like the string-pieced one a bit more though.



So that's the run down of the big things that have been happening.  I have a mini-vacation coming up next weekend where I am flying down to Orlando, Florida with one sister such that we can both visit our other sister for the weekend.  It'll be a fun girls' weekend.  :)

One of the things we plan on doing is kayaking with manatees.  I did it last year when I went to visit my sister in Florida, and we used a 2-person kayak.  However, I found a place this year that has 3-person kayaks.  The best part... that particular location is called the Three Sisters!  It was destined for us to do it. LOL

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm this winter!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Quiltville Mystery - En Provence

Its been quite some time since I last posted.  I had a loss in my quilting mojo for a while and didn't enter my sewing room for more than a month.  The year has gone by quickly and its December already.

The day after Thanksgiving, Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville started up her yearly myster quilt, En Provence.  I didn't participate last year, but decided this year I wanted to.  Its helped me want to get back into the sewing room.

Clue #1 was posted Friday, November 25th.  Its a fairly simple clue with 221 four-patches of neutrals.  Here's my first two pairs to make sure the ended up at the correct size:


As I was pulling strips from my bin of pre-cut strips from other projects and then sewing them into pairs, I ran out of thread on my prior thread cone.  It was a pretty hefty cone at 2500 yards of thread, but nothing like the Big Bertha of cones that I have next up.  Its a whopping 25,000 yards of thread.  I'm curious to see how long this thread cone lasts me.  Its from Superior Threads and I was able to get it on sale earlier this year.


I didn't have enough time to completely finish all of the four-patches.  I honestly don't know how some of the ladies keep up with the clues... other than that they may be retired and not have to spend 40-60 hours a week working for corporate America.

I was able to finish (and press) 100 of the little buggers.


And another twenty sewn and ready for pressing.  Only 101 left to go!



Hop on over to Quiltville's Mystery Link-up (for part 1) to see how the other quilters are faring so far.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Heat Wave Continued and Water Update

Its been quite a while since I last posted... life definitely seems to get in the way these days!

The past few months have been hectic to say the least with a lot of things going on both at home and at work.  The company I work for (a very large one) acquired a competitor last year and we've been struggling for the past 4 months to try to integrate the two businesses.  For years we built up walls to prevent knowledge transfer, and now we're trying to figure out how to take down all those walls.

The water issue is semi-resolved.  From a standpoint of clean water, it is resolved.  The well system that we had put in is doing the job and we've had the water tested a few times to make sure it is doing what it is supposed to be doing.  We have clean, drinkable water that we don't really have to worry about.  However, we don't know the long-term effects on the well and whether we will have water in a dry-spell or not.  We are trying to remain hopeful that the aquifer is good and we won't have any water issues.

On the non-resolved side, we are still fighting with the well driller's insurance company.  I swear these people are the dumbest folks I've run into in a very long time.  They tried to get us to sign a form to release water tests results from a consulting company that we never worked with.  Come to find out, the well driller had used that consulting company...not us.  We couldn't sign a release form for a company that we never even contacted (but the insurance company couldn't figure that out on their own without us explicitly telling them...TWICE).  Then when they did send us the form to sign for our own water testing, it was riddled with mistakes.  We had to mark it up to them and send it back (unsigned) so they can fix it before we will sign it.  I have a feeling this is going to be a very drawn out event and maybe...eventually... we will get something out of them.

On the quilty front, I made progress on the Heat Wave quilt and started (ahem) two other quilts.  Oops! :)

Here's where I left off the last time, with my paper-piecing blocks.  I was able to get all of them done in fairly short order once I got the rhythm of it.


Then it was on to assembling all the pieces into the blocks that make up the center of the quilt.


Overall, three different blocks with the green corner squares in different places depending upon the final placement in the quilt.


Here is one set of blocks completely sewn.


I do have them now all sewn into the center section of the quilt, but I'll save that for another day as well as pictures of the two new quilts that I'm making.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Heat Wave - Paper Piecing

The Heat Wave quilt that I started a few weeks back is in full swing for creating blocks.  One of the larger block assemblies uses paper pieced corners.  I did one block with paper piecing many years ago and haven't done it in a while.  While you end up with accurate seams, it does take a while to get the blocks made.

I didn't take pictures for the first seam that I sewed on these blocks, but thought I'd give a little tutorial on what I found worked for me while making these simple blocks.


This is the paper side of the block that I needed to make.  The solid, angled lines are the stitching lines (one is already stitched) and I drew 1/4 lines to help with my fabric placement.


After sewing the first seam with fabric in place, flip your block over so you have the fabric facing up.


Fold the paper back along the stitched line and line up your ruler leaving a quarter inch between the sewn line and the edge of the ruler.



Cut along this line to remove the excess fabric that isn't needed.


Flip everything over again and press your sewn fabric open so it all lays flat.


This is where I made my own little trick for getting the fabric placed correctly for the next sewing line.  On the paper side, place pins at the intersection points of your drawn line and the outer edge of the block.  I use the pin placement to guide where I want my fabric to be.


When I flip it over, I can see the pins sticking up and I place the edge of my next piece of fabric right next to those pins.  This makes sure that I have at least a quarter inch of fabric for my seam.  I then carefully full out the pins without shifting placement of the loosen fabric.  This gets placed under the pressure foot of my machine and I start sewing.


Line up your needle with the edge of the block and approximately in line with your sewing line.  Some people start right at the edge of the final block, but I found starting in the seam allowance made pressing easier for me afterwards.


Sew down the solid line with your needle JUST to the right of the sewing line (towards to the seam allowance).  Sewing just off the line will allow space for your fabric to fold over the sewn line when you press it.

Similar to the initial steps, fold back the paper, trim your seam allowance and then press your block open.


The cream/green block above is the final result of my paper piecing.  I had 48 of these blocks to make, which took a while, but they look great in the end.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Organizing and Cold

This year has been cold, but sadly, non-snowy for upstate NY.  If its going to be cold, it might as well snow and be done with it!  I think we've had a total of maybe...and that's a BIG maybe... ten inches of snow this year.  Its downright pathetic.

However, we have had cold, which makes it perfect sewing weather as there's no way I'm going outside when its well below freezing!  With all that cold weather, I did do a bit of organizing in the sewing room.  I realized that my various strips (ranging from 1.5" to 3.5" wide) were just all over the place and not organized in any fashion.  Its very difficult to get yourself to use your own pre-cut strips if you have a mis-mash of colors.


So I spent a little time one weekend to organize my strips by color and make an attempt to be able to use them better in the future.  My 2" wide strips were able to fit into a smaller shoe-box sized bin.


But my 2.5" strips are still piled up in the big bin.  Since this picture was taken, I did sort them by color as well, so they're all "prepped" and ready to be used in some pattern in the future.

I also was able to make some decent progress on the next quilt (Heat Wave), but that will be for another post.

This past weekend was just all about trying to stay warm.  Saturday night/Sunday morning we bottomed out at about -25F....and that was without the windchill.  I don't know the exact windchill values we had, but the forecast was for values around -35 to -40F.


You can bet I spent my weekend by the fire as much as I could!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

A Bit of Quilting...

Its been a while....

again....

Time has been getting the better of me again and its been almost two months since I last posted.  I seriously don't know where the time has gone.  It seems like I was just home visiting with my older sister, but that was at Halloween which is 6 weeks ago now.

To show how things have been going....


This was what happened one morning...before I had my coffee or tea.  I was trying to take the slow-cooker out of the pantry and the cat treats when all over the place.  It was a fairly easy pickup since most of the treats landed on the lid, but it just goes to show that coffee needs to come first before anything else.  :c)

I have done quilting and even finished a quilt!  I know... crazy that I actually finished something this year.

It didn't take long to quilt this one once it was loaded onto the frame.


Even as I was quilting it, I could see the texture starting to show.  I really like this panto and its great for a kids' quilt.  Its called Celebrate.


Of course, right when I got to the last line of quilting.... the bobbin thread ran out.  And it wasn't even the start of the last line, but with only about 20 inches left.  Grrr!


Here it is all finished though.


The angled view on the frame gives a nice view of the quilting and texture pre-washing.


On this particular quilt, I didn't know the baby's name, so I only put my standard generic label onto the binding.  Instead of doing a label on the back of the quilt, I embroider it right into the binding.  Its less obtrusive I think and it would be pretty hard for someone to remove it.


After washing, the quilt has that beautiful crinkled look to it.  I love this batting (Quilter's Dream Cotton in their Supreme Loft).




I also really liked the backing on this one.  The polka dots were really cute for a baby quilt.


And one last shot of the texture along the length of the quilt with the fading sun of a winter afternoon.


Hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for Christmas!  It will be here before any of us know it!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Heat Wave!

I wish we had a heat wave right now.  As it stands, we've had to use our fireplace the past few nights to take the chill off the air in the house.  Sunday we definitely needed it though as the overnight low was down to 24F and the daytime temp only reached about 45F.


We even had it... S N O W!!!!  I was not happy to see these little babies on the porch and the little white things flying in the air.


So what's a girl to do???

Stay inside and quilt!  I purchased Judy Laquidara's book Nine Patch Extravaganza several years ago and even bought the fabric to make her quilt called Heat Wave.  I decided to finally pull it out and get to work!


I have similar colors to Judy's original quilt and started cutting up all the pieces I needed.


My "OCD" factor is coming up high on this one while I was cutting things out.  LOL


And all the pieces cut for the center portion of the quilt and the non-pieced borders.  All neatly lined up and ready to go.  Sometimes when I stack this stuff up, it makes me not want to do anything more so I can keep it in the nice and neat little piles.  Thankfully, that feeling doesn't last too long!


I have about 20 of the 80 flying geese blocks made so far for this quilt.  There are a lot of bonus HSTs as part of making those flying geese, so i'll have to figure out something to do with the tan and gold-ish HSTs.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations