A Work in Progress

I'm introducing what I hope will be a fairly regular feature of this blog, the Friday Finish. Here's a recent quilting finish, a project for my "Scrap Club" class.  We focused on applique for a few months and used a book that had lovely patterns for "toppers" for quilts and banners.  For once, I decided to start much smaller and made a placemat.  All the pieces were done with double-sided fusible interfacing even though we were encouragd to do at least one piece with freezer paper.  I felt it was better to stick with one method at a time!  I used my machine to stitch a blanket stitch around all of the pieces except the "string" on the balloon (which is in kind of a weird position, but I can live with it).  The string is zig-zagged.  I drew some stars on the background to add extra quilting there.  I had hoped to finish this one in time for my husband's big birthday, but missed that deadline.  I also missed my birthday.  Looks like...

When it rains heavily, we get some water in our basement.  Not a lot, fortunately.  It seems to come from the foundation in a corner of the laundry room and follows a predictable path along the ironing board and under my cutting table to puddle at the side of the refrigerator.  I've learned to keep my stash of fabrics and bags of projects in plastic tubs to keep everything safe.  When heavier rains are predicted as in Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, I take the extra precaution of moving everything out of the path of the water stream.  During the past two storms it became abundantly clear to me that I have More. Than. Enough. fabric and many quilting projects in the works.  Having so many WIPs weighs me down at times and I decided it was time to finish up one or two of them.  Here's  the first one.  This table runner was a kit I bought at a quilt show when they were still being held in Fort Washington, PA.  Ten years ago, mayb...

We're not even through this weekend yet and I'm already planning for the next one.  Good things are coming up--the Pennsylvania National Quilt Show in Oaks, watching my son run cross-country during his university's homecoming weekend, and spending some time stitching while Miami plays Ohio State.  I haven't even mentioned the Friday Night Sew-In.  You can sign up here and join the fun. Measi sent a correction to my last post about WIPocalypse.  She's going to accept sign-ups through the first few months of 2012, so start thinking about which WIPs you'll finish next year. I promise the next post will contain actual pictures of my projects!

Measi is hosting WIPocalypse in 2012.   I'm in on this and you can be too if you go to her blog and sign up by September 30.  It sounds like a lot of a fun and a great way to finish up some of those UFOs.

 I've been working on Grace Mason (Of Female Worth) for the last couple of weeks.  Grace has been a WIP for quite some time.  I remember that it was the first piece I picked up after my mother's funeral four years ago and that turned out to be so appropriate.  There will be a verse from the "virtuous woman" section of Proverbs centered on the lower half of the sampler.  That passage was the one the minister used as the basis for his sermon at Mom's funeral.  I also remember stitching some of the border as I sat with my then 90-year old aunt three years ago and listened as she wrestled with having to give up her apartment and her independence and move into assisted living. I was originally attracted to the sampler because of the colors and because of the Scottish style (my husband's family was originally from Scotland). I think now it's time to finish this one and I've been enjoying it.  It has a variety of stitches includ...

I was pretty surprised to see that I haven't posted for almost two weeks. In the interim between the last post and this one, I've packed up and sent two children off to college, weathered an earthquake and a hurricane, and returned to work. Luckily, I didn't even feel the earthquake and we were only minimally affected by Hurricane Irene as it blew up the eastern seaboard. Both college moves went off without a hitch except for forgetting a cable for my son's new TV and having to make a quick run to Target. Returning to work was my least favorite of all these events, but not nearly as much of a shock to my system as I thought it would be. I've managed to leave behind my leisurely mornings and make it out the door around 7:30. Once the students get back next week I'm sure I'll enjoy it more, but right now, it's really boring sitting through endless rounds of meetings (some of which I conducted myself!) and hauling out the classroom materials from...