Quilting Bees In-house Retreat Day Three

As promised, here is a photo of the cutting table I mentioned in my post yesterday. It was specially made for the club. It is counter-height and 46" wide x 95" long. 

I worked on coasters to go with my Halloween placemats.

I also worked on this strip to put our mugs or glasses on the kitchen counter between uses.

One last photo of the cute service dog we enjoyed the company of these past three days. She was a very good girl, we hardly knew she was there.

I brought some other projects to work on, but I was not in the mood, so I picked out a charity quilt kit to make. It is a three yard quilt. When I get further along I will post about it. I can tell you it uses one yard each of three different fabrics. 

That's all for now!!!

Quilting Bees In-House Retreat Day Two

 As promised, here are the quilt tops for the placemats I made yesterday. Finished size is 13" x18".

I have never been to a quilt retreat, so have nothing to compare this one to, but I think it has been great! The setup - tables, ironing boards, and cutting tables are similar to how the room is set up on club days (Friday and Sunday). The retreat added Saturday and the food component. We had sandwiches, chips and dessert on Friday. A potluck today (a salad bar with chicken) and tomorrow we will have a breakfast casserole. Also various snacks all day. 

Here is my table set up we each have our own 6' long table. I did not spread out as much as some, but there is plenty of room.

 

Here are some better photos of the service dog under the table at my feet sometimes. So far the foot pedal of my machine has not moved and bumped her rump or paws yet. She has been a very good girl.

Today we were given kits to make heart blocks for a charity quilt, I made these.

When I was not making hearts, eating food, or visiting with others I made the Halloween version of the placemats I made yesterday. I did have backing fabric (ghosts on black) so I was able to get them all set to quilt. I think I will stitch in the ditch using some of my machine's decorative stitches. I will need to get some black fabric for binding. I can shop for that when I shop for fabric for my Christmas placemats - oh boy!!

I am really enjoying this. I have a bin full of projects I want to make and while my studio is great for my other hobbies, it is not set up as nicely for quilting like the quilting bees room which has large ironing and cutting surfaces. They have lots of rotary cutters and rulers which includes a big square ruler that is 20" x 20" which really made it easy for me to square up the placemats.  I will try to get a photo of the cutting board for tomorrow's post. I can work at home, but my motivation is less. I am seriously thinking of bringing my machine once or twice a month on Fridays, to try and get my sewing stash reduced.

That's all for today!

Quilting Bees In-House Retreat Day One

 Today was day one of a three day in-house retreat hosted by my local quilt club - Sun City Festival Quilting Bees. 

I was a lot of fun. Tables were set up for each person with a cute bag filled with chocolate and a pretty scissor case. Lunch was provided and two of us brought dessert. Tomorrow is a pot luck lunch and Sunday the board is providing lunch. There are also lots of snacks. We just had to bring our projects and beverage. 

I was lucky to have a table backed up to a lady with a service dog and so I stitched with a dog at my feet. Felt like home!

The hardest part so far had been deciding what project to bring. I decided on a placemat kit I bought last year. Actually I bought two, a Halloween one and a Christmas one. I worked on the Christmas one and got all five (not sure why the kit was for five) done. You cut fat quarters to a set size, stack them up and then cut them making 5 piles. Then you shuffle the piles so each placemat has one cut of each fabric, but they are not the same. I will take a photo of them to post tomorrow.

Here is the first one ready to sew. I did get all five done and had some help with squaring them up - thanks Jami.  I had to leave early today to take our dog to the vet, so finishing up early worked out. I had hoped to have some backing fabric at hope to finish them tomorrow, but I do not. So, I will start the Halloween placemats and I do have ghost fabric that should make a great backing. Hopefully this means I will come from the retreat with a finished project!

More tomorrow, retreat ends at four each day, so the post will be sometime after that.

A Funny for Tuesday

 This made me laugh, hope you do too!!

Some Beaded Bracelets

Yesterday I took a class offered by my bead club (Don't Worry Bead Happy, and learned to make this fun wrapped bracelet by Off the Beaded Path in North Carolina.

I chose colors from my stash and made a two-wrap bracelet. Opens were given to make it wider and longer. It was very easy and fun to make and I learned a new Peyote technique using super duos.

Apparently, it got me into a mood to bead, so I picked a project from my bead box and made this Garden Path bracelet.

It is a kit from my local bead store:  Bead World called Turquoise and Bronze Garden Path Bracelet. It was a complete kit and lots of fun to make. It was not very hard but warning, it is a two-needle project. I have had this kit for a while, so not sure if it is still available. 

Happy Beading!!!

Beer... Finish Finished

 I last told you a bit about this project on April 24. It is on the fabric I used for finishing.

I stitched this one on white for my hubby and stitched another on different fabric. Since I only had one charm, I stitched a pretzel in its place. I used both of these to teach a flat-fold finishing class today. 

So, now I have two finishes!!

The top photo below is on the darker fabric that I plan to sell at our Oct. 5 EXPO. 

Below that is the one I am keeping. 

The bottom photo is both of them side by side. 

I used different purchased cording on each and finished them differently. 

!

I guess that is all for now!

Happy Stitching!!

Festival Stitchers EXPO Stitching

In our community, we have two Expos a year where clubs can show off what they do and possibly attract new members. The craft clubs can sell items their members make following certain rules.

One of the rules is that members cannot make more than $500 a year (among all clubs). So, our club table at the Fall Expo will look kind of stark since our best contributors sold well at the Spring Expo and can't put as much out.

In our case, and other clubs as well, the member keeps 90% of the sale and the club gets 10%. Sales help the club and in order to have our table look fuller and help our club's coffers, we came up with something members can make and the club will sell at 100% profit - Luggage Tags. I made two examples to get an idea of design size.

My design using DMC 991, 993, 356 & 754. I call it Southwest Luggage Tag 1 (so creative)!

Gecko on Wall by Jenny Rasmussen.

I had to adapt the Gecko design by moving the corners to fit the tag, but I think it came out ok. I used DMC 993 and Kreinik #4 braid color 027.

Not all of our members want to stitch to sell stuff, we have about 5 people who consistently sell.  But many of those who don't want to stitch to sell, are happy to make smaller items for the club. We did combine this with learning something. For example, last year we made wool applique stockings and learned the blanket stitch.

With the luggage tags,  we are learning how to work with perforated paper and if desired learning to find or adapt designs to fit the tag. 

The club provided the luggage tag, perforated paper and an identification card. 

I printed out an information sheet which included information about the best design size to use. I also provided some designs of my own and other freebies they could adapt if needed.

The club purchased 25 tag holders and after one meeting we only have eight left! I am sure those will be picked up by those who were not at our last meeting. 

I also stepped up my game and stitched this towel to sell. The design stopped after two arrows on each side of the bird, but I thought it looked empty, so I added more. The towel is a light sage green that does not show up so well in the photo.

Happy Stitching!!

Bees and Baseball

This happened last week, so you may have heard about it, but I am entering it here in my blog for posterity!! Ha Ha.

I enjoy baseball having grown up with the Dodgers during the Garvy, Lopes, Russell, Cey era and I lived in places (NE, IA and NC) for 10 years that did not have professional teams. Although when we lived in NC we were close to the double A Carolina Mudcats and those games were fun. When we moved to Colorado I was thrilled (all the major sports teams were in Denver) and then with the move to Arizona I became a Diamond Backs (D-Backs) fan so I could watch my team all the time.

I also enjoy stitching while watching games. I sure wish they would bring back stitch-n-pitch.

Well on April 30, I was all set to watch the game (on TV) and stitch, when just before first pitch bees started to swarm behind home plate and took up space at the top of the netting 30 feet up. It was not safe for fans, or the announcers who could look down at the swarm, so they postponed the game.

I could hear when they made the verbal announcement when he asked the fans to "be patient". He did not emphasize the be, so not sure he actually knew he was saying a pun, but it was a good one.

They had to call in the expert who was in Surprise (about 45 minutes away) at his son's final T-ball game of the season. Here he is vacuuming up the bees to be released off-site.

Before each game they give this information about weather, the roof and the panels. An extra line was added for this game!

The bee guy's son may have been upset that he left, but his father got a standing ovation when he was driven into the stadium, he threw out the first pitch, he had a press conference and the next day or so I heard that Tops if creating a baseball card of him!

The D-Backs even had a buy one get one for their next weekend series if you used the code BEEGUY.

The game ended up starting  an hour and 55 minutes later, the latest a game has ever started at Chase Field. As you may guess, I got a lot of stitching done!

I googled "bee guy chase field" and came up with these if you are interested.

‘Thank you bee guy’: How the Diamondbacks handled swarm at Chase Field (msn.com)

Diamondbacks' social media team gives buzzworthy bee delay performance (azcentral.com)

Beekeeper who saved Dodgers-Diamondbacks game from swarm gets to throw out first pitch (nbcnews.com)

Fans react to the Bee Guy at Dodgers game (msn.com)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Saguaro Sunrise Finish Finished

I decided to be brave and finish my Saguaro Sunrise into a needlebook after all. I did not use the provided fabric because it would fray. I used some ultra suede I had in my stash and the corded edging technique from Marion Scoular's book (page 72).

For this technique, you remove one thread of canvas next to the stitching. You then stitch the outline stitch in the "ladders" left behind when removing the thread. A thicker thread than used in the stitching is required. I used the Glisten from the kit. 

The final result gives it a nice corded edge.

I have a snap insert tool, so I used that as my closure. Also, if I don't initial and date in the stitching and it is possible, I use a thin black Sharpie to write them on the fabric (upside down in this photo).

I used my sewing machine to sew in the wool felt needle pages.

I guess that is it!

Happy Stitching!!

Beer....

I will be teaching a flat fold workshop for my local stitching club and decided to stitch this as an example. I have one stitched for my hubby and I stitched another to show the steps to make a flat fold. I plan to put the second one in our Oct. 5 EXPO.

I found this cute pretzel fabric for it and can't wait to actually create the flat fold. I will post the results after our May 21st meeting.

It is a Sue Ellis Post Stitches Design (PS107) called Beer... (c) 2003

Happy Stitching!!!

Blackwork in Red and Green Update

 I have been working on this during baseball games. Pretty good progress so far. I first told you about it on April 12. 

There is one more section to the left, leaves and the strawberry yet to stitch.

Happy Stitching!

Saguaro Sunrise Completed!

I worked on this the last couple of days and finished the stitching. I am not sure if I will make it into a needlebook or not. The kit included fabric and felt to turn it into a needlebook, but the verdict is still out.

It was a fun stitch and I am glad the teacher allowed ghosts.

Happy Stitching!!

Blackwork in Red and Green

 This is a retired Embroiderers Guild of America, Inc. (EGA) Group Correspondence course (GCC) by Ginger Gouger Miller (c) 1997 and rewritten in 2000. 

I have the pages in a 1/2 inch three-ring binder and keep started it in June of 2021. I ran into a problem with the instructions (they referenced some diagrams that were not in the instructions). So I put it down and  have been moving it around my studio when I need to declutter for the cleaners. I finally decided to just stitch it so I could stop moving it around so much. 

When I picked it up I had two steps to complete the enter red section. I could not find the diagrams referred to, so I used the cover photo to figure it out. Once I got past that problem this is my progress as of April 6.

 

I have been working on this during baseball games and as of April 9 below is as far as I have gotten.

You probably can't tell it yet, but this is a tomoto pin cushion with a spool of thread and pins in the cushion. I am hoping for more progress on this now that baseball season has begun.

I am still working on Saguaro Sunrise and the Game is On! Both with minimal progress so nothing to report on those.

I thought I would close this post with a photo of Coco. This is what it looks like behind me to my left when I cook. As you see she was very interested in the ham I was dicing for soup.

Happy Stitching!

Some Papercrafting

 I took a class with my Paper Crafts & More club and made a squash box with lid.

This shows the inside and the top of the box at upper left. The whiter areas are a great place to put photos. I am not sure what photos to put in it yet, but will probably cut them into a circle to offset the hard lines and angles of the rest of the card.

This is the outside

Here is the side of the top (above) and the top of the top (below).

The "card" squashes down and fits into the box.

Coco safely watching the eclipse!

Thanks for stopping by!!