Thirty-Six & Stars Scrapalooza

Having finished off Celtic Solstice and Cathedral Stars this week, the quilting mojo was still flowing, so I loaded up Thirty Six that had been waiting on the to-do pile for a few years, having been started back in July, 2011.

The Feather-Me pantograph was used in order to give this quilt a feminine touch, using Aurifil thread, as always :)

Bobbin thread ran out just shy of finishing, but I had had my fill last night, so everything was shut down for a relaxing evening in front of the TV with the family, counting down to the New Year. (although, I drifted off around 11:00)....

This morning, the quilting was finished up, resulting in a complete size of about 66" square.

Feather Me pantograph

THEN, with the time hovering right around noon, I figured why NOT load up yet another quilt!?!?!?

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014 found myself and Kevin the Quilter teaming up to create some complementary blocks;  my version resulted in Stars Scrapalooza, inspired heavily by Bonnie's Wonky Star block.
Both Kevin and I pieced up two each of our blocks, with the plan of keeping one and sharing the other with each other.  Kevin's design is still "Top Secret" -- I so excited to see what he comes up with.

My design incorporated some scrappy wonky stars as the cornerstones in my sashing units, continuing the overall theme of wonky stars.  Kevin's blocks are AMAZINGLY done, using a crumb-technique for much of his blocks!

"Fascination" pantograph by Lorien Quilting

I took this opportunity to test out a new quilting pantograph that had been set aside after a panto-mania I went through a year or so ago.  

A few hours of quilting later, another (almost) finish is added to the pile.  A soft knit backing was used, and it behaved quite nicely; I had been worried it would stretch a bit too much. 

The pantograph is quite 'linear' looking, but it quilted up quickly, didn't use a heavy amount of thread, and is QUITE forgiving.   The quilt measures 51" x 71" -- a GREAT size for a throw snuggler or for a little girl to enjoy on her bed.  I'm really quite pleased with the fun brightness!

Wrapping up four quilting tasks this week, ONE of them being a 110x110 King size, is definitely leaving me feeling quite accomplished.  My back isn't even that sore :D

So NOW.........

in the event that Bonnie's latest Allietare mystery reveal knocked me off my seat from yet ANOTHER show stopper design.....

... maybe I could pull some fabrics from the shelves... to just percolate for awhile while a sand-n-sea inspiration unfolds...

RSC14 and yarn selection for Mystery CAL [Crochet]

Much of this Saturday morning was spent relaxing with a coffee cup in my hand... HOME!  

Eventually, I wandered downstairs and played around with some sashing ideas for my 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  It was enjoyable to simply...... RELAX with no pressure of time.

I have a new iron on my board;  a Black-n-Decker Classic.  My last one simply peetered out and wasn't getting hot anymore.  So far, this one is.......'eh.'  The holes on the bottom catch the edges of the fabric when I'm pressing smaller units :\.  But I chose this one over the completely 'dry' one (which had NO holes) because this had an auto shut-off.  Although, I'm rethinking whether I really need that feature.  It'd be nice to have a nice, flat iron with NO holes.  Something to think about next time.

I purchased my yarn for the Crochet Crowd (via Yarnspirations) mystery crochet along.  The plum showed up quite bold with the flash;  it's a bit darker than what seems present in the picture.  I was sadly disappointed in the selection of Caron Simply Soft at our local Walmart.  It would seem that  they've dropped quite a few of their formerly stocked colors :(  My original color-palette hope....

And I found that Hancock Fabrics has a sale on Simply Soft right now, but.....  **shrug**.... I just can't bring myself to pushing that "Submit Order" button.  ;) ((even though I have a gift certificate from my Mommie for HF)).  Frugal much???

In the meantime, I'm making progress on the newest ripple afghan:  the 12 Interlocking Ripples (Attic24's Neat Ripple pattern).

"Always Time" quilt top and Taming of the Scraps

Always Time (79 x 103)

Always Time has come together with some dedicated time over Thanksgiving vacation, a couple of weekends and some time during this Christmas vacation.  The blocks are larger, therefore it has been a decently quick quilt top to piece.

Many of the fabrics are from the "Twilight Frost" line that was discontinued to Connecting Threads a couple of years ago.  The pattern is the Rambling Aunt Sukey design from Marti Mitchell (published in the from Jan/Feb '08 Quiltmaker magazine).  

Like many, many others;  it has been folded and added to my ever-growing--never-shrinking pile of quilt tops ready for quilting.

The 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge was wrapped up with a final gray block in order to round out the year with twelve blocks :)    

Naturally, it would be right for me to pass up a year of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so.... I'm in for 2015 too!  I don't really have a solid plan in mind (yet), despite spending countless hours last night and this morning searching the net for that perfect idea.

Although, this morning, with my new rotary cutter in-hand, I started trimming up numerous bonus-HSTs in blue (January's color), trimming them to 2".

With a few hours of "Avengers" and "Avengers" in the DVD player, (yup...when it ended, I simply pushed 'Play' again),  I added four scrappy star blocks to four block I had pieced last year during Judy's Scrap Challenge for January.  (All pictured lower left).
Yesterday was a day well spent trying to tame all (some?  a few?) of the scraps I had scattered around the sewing room.  All the while, sew-skyping with buddy Nancy.  It was the first day in a LONG time that I felt my quilting mojo had come back.  It truly felt good using up SOME of the scraps, even through, TRULY, barely a dent was made!!!!

The OMIGOSH blocks (upper left) have been an on-n-off Leader-Ender project of mine for the past couple of years.  The scrappy Talkin' Turkey blocks (upper right) are a Bonnie-design, these done in scrappy though :)

Although I'd love to keep my quilting mojo flowing, I don't know if I want to head back downstairs since I've spent the past couple of hours upstairs, cleaning and decluttering the kitchen and laundry/entryway room.

Maybe some more Gibbs (NCIS marathon on USA) and my crochet hook ?? ;)

Happy New Years everyone!

Changing of the seasons...

Blogging continues to be on my mind, but the act of brining my thoughts to life on my blog was more of a challenge lately than not.  Two months gone.  Two months to catch up on (?).  THAT would take a while.

Instead, I send out my greetings to anyone still following and reading me despite my departure from the blogging world for the past 2 months.

Today marked the first day off from school since it started;  it's been a long time coming.  We have the entire upcoming week off;  partly due to Thanksgiving, but mostly due to the Wisconsin deer hunting season.

Cassie is out with Paul this year;  I'm really not sure who is more excited!  It's been a quiet day so far...so I've heard.  

Therefore, it was FINALLLLLY possible to spend some time cleaning, tidying and getting back to work in my sewing room.

Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge received all of my attention today.  All eleven months' colors are complete;  another year of color tackled!

Additionally, I pieced backing for my Hawaii Sunset AND Celtic Solstice quilts.  They have been folded and added to my growing pile of "must-quilt-SOON" projects.

It's a beautiful 35 degrees out today;  the other two girls have stayed home with me and are playing outside, rolling in the snow;  excellent packing snow today!  For the evening, we have movies prepped and ready to go... and I'll continue to work on a new ripple crochet afghan I started a couple of weeks ago.  Who knows... MAYBE I'll get another update typed up for tomorrow too.

;)

Thanks for still being out there,

-Amy

RSC14; Fall life; apples; chickens getting older -- the good stuff :)

Angela's (SoScrappy) got the right idea choosing orange to be the color for September...

Mother nature is giving us reds and oranges and even some eggplant purples to enjoy as the days are starting to get cooler (and the nights even colder!)

Despite the cooling temps, the garden (slowly) continues to produce lil teaser crops of tomatoes so that I can make up half-batches of spaghetti sauce each weekend.

Sadly, the colder temps haven't killed the ragweed pollen yet.  Last Sunday, I opened up a brand new box of kleenex, and by that afternoon, only about 1/5 of it remained.  Ugh.  I wasn't a pleasant person to be around.

Regardless, the day was a super productive one.  Apples consumed us all day.... 

Candace was the first to sample the 2014 apple juice...

Cailtyn and Candace were a dynamo team with the foodmill, making apple sauce from the remains of the apple juicing session.

And yesterday, with 3 bags of apples STILL left from last weekend's preserving, I gave a new recipe a try:  Amish Apple Pie filling......

Ummmmmm..... can you say Y.U.M.!?!?  Definitely a winner winner :)  Now, I just need to learn how to make pie crust...

Truly, one positive about the cooler (but not COLD!) temps is the increased time we've spent in the hot tub.  Last Saturday at 8AM, with temps only at 37 degrees, we relaxed in the 102 degree water for about 20 minutes before tackling the corn crop harvest.

And just when chicken life finally has calmed down, we decide to make one final move before the snow starts flying.   The 10 "teenagers" (who SHOULD be laying eggs ANY day now!!!!), received some new coop-mates this morning...

The 10 chicks, who are no longer chicks, have been moved in to their new digs;  the New Coop.  Cassie and I watched the interaction between the two flocks for about half hour without too much excitement.  We are fairly certain the 10 chicks consist of 5 roosters and 5 hens;  the biggest rooster (the white/black speckled one closest to the waterer in the picture) doesn't have much fear of the pullets/teenagers.  He marched right over to the feeder, and amazingly....the pullets didn't bother him either.  There were only minor lil' scuffles between the chickens so far;  for the most part, each 'flock' is staying with their peers. Eventually, I'm fairly certain the 20 of them will all play nicely together.  Although----with 5 roosters....... we may need to problem solve.  But, that'll be a thought for another day.

"Shorty" here keeps sprouting and turning into an AMAZING young lady.  Fall life is keeping us all on our toes;  volleyball games, schoolwork, housework, garden work.... there isn't much down-time, certainly.  Cass has become such a wonderful helper!!!!!

And then there are odds-n-ends in the quilting, sewing and crocheting world that fill the tiny lil' moments of free time...

Scrappy Log Cabin blocks 

Red Heart's Prairie Star

I actually have an entire afternoon ahead of "downtime!"  I could sew, but don't think I'm gonna.  I could crochet....but same thought of not really wanting to.  

Truly, instead, I think I'm going to get a few plans in place for school lessons this week.  Considering I don't even know what I have on the agenda for tomorrow for my Algebra 2 class, I think some computer/school work time is my best option :)

Happy Sunday everyone.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014 - August greens [RSC14]

Trying to get back into the swing of things in my sewing room! ... and the blog ;)

It's a Saturday!  And I've sewed!

Will summer ever slow down? {{another update - LONG}}

Truly, no complaints about the long FILLLLLLED days of summer around here, but I'm really wondering if I'll allow myself to just SIT and relax for more than one day!

The highlight of this past week was some quilting-skyping time with Nancy, albeit, we had to pencil it into the schedule a few days prior!!!

But, OH so productive!!!!

I finished off the yellow June RSC14 block and managed to cut up and piece the July red RSC14 block.  I thought for sure I'd taken a picture of them, but nope.... not on my phone.  I guess I'll have to lay out all the blocks later on and get a picture of all 7 so far.  Between all the giggling conversation, I'm surprised I didn't make a mistake on the July block;  thankfully it was pretty mindless piecing.

With oodles of WIPs scattered around the room, I wasn't sure what to work on (mindlessly) while chatting away with Nancy.  I had started cleaning/organizing the room the other day (HA!!!! right?!?!?), so I simply grabbed some bonus HSTs that were scattered on a shelf to piece up some bonus pinwheels.  Trimmed to 3.5" unfinished.

Then I finished piecing up some stored 4-patches and 9-patches

And while searching around for the next mindless tidying task, I started sorting through a pile of scraps at the edge of my cutting table.......

LOOOOOOK what was buried!!!!!!

FIVE blades!!!!! Holy moly!   LOL.  

So, here's the BEFORE picture of the sewing room --- there simply isn't an AFTER (yet).

But while reorganizing, I saw piles of fabric that I simply was NEVER going to use in a quilt -- they just aren't quilt-worthy;  slippery, heavy, ... just not nice for quilts. 

They worked PERFECTLY for a rag rug, though.  So, Angela..... the entire time I was working on this rug, I was thinking......."this should world for the RSC14, right??  I certainly burned through a fair amount of scrap fabrics with this!" ;)

And then I got into a rug obsession...

This one was created with some garage sale yarns that my mother gifted to me.  Candace is grabbing this one for hers and Caitlyn's room.

But my FAVORITE is this gem.  While out on Ravelry the other day (Wednesday), I saw this pattern [Mandala Rug] and was instantly motivated and inspired.   That afternoon, I picked up some yarns before heading to and appointment for Cassie.  That night, in front of the TV with the family, I started it.  I finished it the next morning and blocked it to a 32" diameter.  I used 2 strands of Red Heart Super Saver on each rounds; different combinations of colors for various rounds too.  VERY happy with this finish!!!

And Caitlyn was/IS determined to learn how to knit!!!  Last week, she had asked me about knitting;  I know nothing!  One morning a few days later, I walked into the living room to find her watching YouTube videos, and using some brand new sharpened PENCILS as her knitting needles.  I think it's time to go shopping for her, huh?  ;)

And, as always.... the life of this hobby farm keeps us busy!

Big Mama was walking the tightrope.  I'm so partial to her;  she's MOST DEFINITELY my favorite!  I can't wait to see what her three chicks (of the 13 hatchlings) end up looking like.  

The incubator was started up again;  Pekin duck eggs this time.  I've learned NOT to wash the eggs prior to setting them because of the protective coating.  They were set on Wednesday (7/16);  their due date is Wednesday, August 13.  

Our lawn mower was on the repair list for a few weeks.  In the meantime, we were tying out the goats from time to time.  These girls USED to roam freely on the property, BUT they started eating our berry bushes, which is NOT okay.  They are now kept in the enlarged (former) pig pen, and they spend their days roaming with the two Pekin ducks.  

The mower was FINALLY fixed this past week, so Cassie spent much of the next day mowing the lawn.  She and I took turns raking the yarn with our Lawn Sweeper....

And we started stacking, and stacking, and stacking the grass into a huge mound.  Good golly!  The goats will have food to come for the next few months!  This was the mound about halfway through the 'sweeping' process.  In the end, we guesstimated we had enough grass in our pile(s!) that would equate to 2-3 big roundbales of hay.  With a little bit of math, we determined we saved about $40-60 by doing this, rather than searching out hay from local farmers for the winter months.  The piles have been reshaped, remounded, and tarped off for the time-being.  

And now, Paul and I are starting to talk about a POTENTIAL future purchase to add to our lil' hobby farm.....

OMGoodness!  It's so tiny and CUTE!  I didn't realize there were MINI hay balers out there!!!! HA!

So, the lawn is finished.  And the strawberries have tapered off.  And the garden is mostly tidied and weeded and mulched, and..... just waiting to get the growin' goin' on!  You'd think I'd have some down time....but...

Now the raspberries are in full swing!  We have 7 lonnnnng rows of berries

and the berries have grown to awesome sizes!!!

This is the result of TWO of our 7 rows, and there's only so much jam a person can make!  We still have a whole case+ of raspberry jelly and syrup from the harvest last summer, so....

The berries (at this point) are being bagged up and placed in the freezer.  Plan:  WINE!  

The weather truly has been AMAZING this summer.  The temps are quite low, on average, from a typical summer (so far).  Gardening has been very enjoyable.  The tomatoes are finally taking off;  I think we only have 25 plants this year.

So there ya have it.  Another week of highlights around the Skattebo Ranch.

Today, I THINK I want to actually relax!  That's what Sundays are meant for after all, right?

Happy Sunday!!!