BACK IN THE SADDLE?

I know I have been absent from the blog for several weeks. I’ve not been completely idle, I just haven’t been doing anything of interest on the homestead. The homestead has been in “maintenance mode” for winter. You know, watching the cats dig up my pansies and a good bit of my garlic, watching the garlic (that they didn’t destroy) grow, feeding and watering the chickens (including Calvin), and the like.

Sadly, I’ve not yet caught Calvin. It’s been sad to watch him wandering around in the cold and rain. He seems to have a somewhat safe place to roost at the neighbors, but every day I wonder if this is the day he doesn’t appear at the coop door. I’ve been providing him with food and water (the chicken feed keeps him fuller and will keep his internal temperature higher than the little bit of green plants he can find). He often comes running when he sees me walking out to the coop with his food but if I get within 8 or 10 feet of him, he takes off running. Last week, something made a serious attempt on his life – there was blood on his food and water dishes and a pile of feathers in the woods.

One thing that I have made good progress on is my quilting.

I previously shared the two quilt tops I completed in the Spring. Then I jinxed myself. I self-imposed a mandate that I needed to quilt and bind those two tops as well as a top finished in 2011 and bind a table runner that was made a few years ago before I could make any more tops.

That caused my quilting efforts to come to a Full Stop.

I read blogs and view You Tube videos but just could not figure out how to do any more than the stich-in-the-ditch method I already knew (which is serviceable but not particularly attractive). Finally, to break the dam, I took a Free Motion Quilting class in November. That helped but I still felt inadequate that I could do it and have it look good. At least I had the basics to practice with.

More significantly for getting things moving along, I saw a flyer advertising that there is a group for loved ones to donate all the unfinished projects left behind by a deceased friend or relative. I felt the weight lift from my shoulders: I CAN JUST MAKE TOPS if I want to! I told my daughter about it and left my guilt behind.

Since then, I made two quilt tops and one quilt from beginning to end. Not without hiccups – I’m still struggling with my sewing machine – but at least I’m now working through my many, many quilt projects.

First, I made this quilt. This was made from a charm pack I had in my stash – the fabric line was called Cotton Blossoms and who knows where or how long ago I acquired it.

I named it “Plot Twist” because I kept having to revise my plans. First, I was just going to make straight-forward Nine-Patch blocks with sashing but since I had just something similar, I did a Disappearing Nine-Patch instead. I was going to do the four blocks in the staggered formation shown with a lot of blank space, but my quilt math was off, and I didn’t have enough of the tan material to do that. So, I adapted by adding the two-patch squares made from left overs from the charm pack). Even then, I had to piece the tan sashing around the upper right two-patch. When I say there were no scraps left, I mean None! When completed, this will make a nice lap or wheelchair quilt.

After a lot of starts and stops, I finished this top today:

This one is named “Swizzle Twist.” The material was purchased and cut back in 2009. I want to finish this one with yellow fabric for the back and binding. This will be a cute baby quilt when it’s done.

I have a good friend at work and I decided that if I finish only one quilt, it would be hers. I used a kit to make a Christmas quilt top and applied the things I learned in my Free Motion Quilting class to complete it.

As has been the case all year, what should have been a very simple project was fraught with frustrations. First, I mis-cut one of the fabrics and because the kit gave barely enough material for the project, I had to sacrifice one of the borders. I had to order more material for the binding but it was the wrong shade of red and was unusable for this project. I ended up using some material dedicated to a different project to bind this quilt. I broke 5 needles in the course of this one project. When I was doing the quilting, the thread kept breaking. The alternate name for this quilt became “Blood, Swear, and Prayers” because that is exactly what was involved in getting it done!

Since she has been my friend these past 10 years, despite all my flaws, I gave it to her with the hope that she would accept this quilt with all its flaws, too. This is “Angel’s Christmas:”

The front is Traditional Christmas and the back is Festive Christmas.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to throughout November and December.

Happy New Year!