Category Archives: Sewing/Quilting

Downton Abbey Withdrawal

I have watched the finale twice already this week.  I am going to miss Sunday evenings with The Crawley family.

 Downton abbey

I knew I was going to enjoy the show when I started watching it but I didn’t know just how much I would.  I found it very interesting to watch the changes that happened in the English society in the time frame the series covered.

So I have decided that I am going to make myself a small lap quilt with Downton Abbey fabric as a reminder of the pleasure I got from this splendid show.   These are the fabrics I am considering:

 

I picked fabric from the Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil lines as well as from the Dowager, Lord and Lady and, of course, The Downstairs line.    Now all I have to do is decide what pattern I want to use.

I think it will be a very, very long time before I find another show that I captivates me the way Downton did.    Thank you Crawley family and Downstairs staff  for the smiles and the tears and thank you Julian Fellowes for a wonderful show and all the attention to detail.

What will I do from 9 to 10 on Sunday evening now?  Maybe I’ll re-read all of Jane Austin’s  works.

See you soon.

Ginny

Great weekend

How different this weekend was from last weekend.  The snow is melting quickly.  And boy what an amazing sunset this evening.Sunset (2)

It was a very productive and fun weekend for us.  We got a lot of errands done yesterday and last night we watched the Documentary on The Eagles.  Very informative and great music.  Then today was a day to just be home and enjoy being here.   Nice easy morning with a leisurely breakfast.  After that dh and I set to getting a few things done in the kitchen.  He chopped, diced and peeled and I mixed, browned and stirred and in the end we had the sauce for today’s dinner  Simmering Sauce

Shepherd's Pie  Shepherd’s Pie for tomorrow night’s supper.

and some Banana Bread for a treat tonight while watching the Live Broadcast of Grease.

Banana Bread

After the kitchen was cleaned up, I was able to spend some time in my sewing room and I finished up 24 burp cloths 2 dozen burp cloths

 

 

 

hexagon tablerunner        and got the hexis all ready for stitching while watching tv.  I’ve got two more rows to add to get it to the right length for my dining room table and then I’ll fill in on the sides for the width.  I’m using this charm pack from Moda.  Charm pack for hexis

Some nights there is absolutely NOTHING worth watching and then tonight, there is Grease, Downton Abbey and Madam Secretary all overlapping.  Thank goodness for my DVR.

Have a wonderful evening and a great week all.

See you soon.

Ginny

Blizzard of 2016

6″-12″ is what we were supposed to get.  Ok, we’re ready.

Ice metl

Boots & Shovels Ice melt, boots and shovels all ready.

 

 

 

 

Checked outside before heading to bed late Friday night.  The storm begins    The snow had begun.  Very pretty.

Next morning’s view of the driveway:Morning on Day 2

Now they say more like 12″-18″.   Well, it kept on coming and this is what it looked like this morning at the front door  Front Door DriftFront Porch Drift #2

We wound up getting over 28″ and the drifts were amazing.  We had shoveled the front porch and driveway mid-afternoon on Saturday so I cannot even imagine how high the drift would have been if we hadn’t.

Other than the one time shoveling expedition, we had a nice day indoors yesterday.  We didn’t lose power so that was great.  I was able to spend some time in the sewing room, watched a movie and made some delicious Roasted Tomato Soup Roasted Tomato Soup

The backyard sure does look like a winter wonderland today

DSC03088

DSC03087

We’ve got the cars and driveway dug out thanks in large part to three of our neighbor’s sons.  He always make sure that they go around and help those of us who don’t have young able-bodied shovelers living at home and who are not as young as we used to be.

Cars Dug Out

Now let’s just hope the plow doesn’t block us in too badly when it comes around.

Too tired now to do much sewing or cutting.  I would probably mess something up if I tried so I will just watch the football game and either work on a knitted dishcloth or maybe some handwork (hexis).  Maybe a little bit of both.  I also have Madam Secretary and Downtown Abbey on the schedule tonight but since they are opposite each other, I am dvr’ing both of them and then I can choose which to watch tonight and which to watch either later tonight or tomorrow.

Hope everyone dealing with this storm is safe and warm tonight.

Have a great week.  See you soon.

Ginny

 

 

 

Hello Winter, you really are here

Snow 2       Snow

Wasn’t sure we would be seeing any snow this season.  But we had some nice soft snowflakes falling.   I enjoyed  the peaceful precipitation while watching football and working on taming my scraps.        Cutting tumblers

I was cutting tumblers for Bonnie Hunters’ Leader/Ender challenge. (check it out at quiltville.blogspot.com )  And whatever wasn’t big enough for my tumblers, that got cut into 2 1/2″ or 3 1/2″ strips or 2 1/2″ inch squares.  I have tons of scraps that aren’t in any usable shape at this point and it takes up so much more room storing them that way.  Here is the beginning of my  organized stacks Organizing scraps

I got a lot more cut and organized and will get all the different shapes settled into their own neat bins. One of my goals is to use a lot of these scraps for a Scrappy Irish Chain quilt from Bonnie’s book, “Adventures with Leaders and Enders”.

Day off tomorrow!  🙂   I will give my sewing machines a good cleaning and then we will see what I feel like working on.  I have lots of choices.

Have a good evening.  Bye for now.

Ginny

 

 

Un-decorating Day

Well, today was the day to take the Christmas decorations down.  The kitchen sounded hollow somehow and the rest of the house seemed so bare.   I miss my tree .  The space where it spent the last month shining brightly    Christmas Tree    was so empty        Empty space.

So it was time to rearrange things a bit and fill that void with something else that would make me smile and so this is what I moved there Filled space    I set up my guitar and music stand there and it’s time to get back to practicing.  I did learn to play Jingle Bells before the holidays but not well enough for me to play it for anyone but myself and the cat.  Oh, and does it surprise anyone who knows me that the first song I can play all the way through was a Christmas tune?  Probably not.

Time to get the Valentine’s Day decorations out and then, quickly right after that, there will be the St. Patrick’s Day green making an appearance. However, if you take a look around, you will see that Christmas hasn’t really gone completely away.  🙂    I left a few reminders around Countdown

These cute little guys are actually keeping track of how many months to go until Christmas, not days right now.   And if you look closely, you will see a few holiday friends still hanging around in this little cabinet   Snowmen & Santa

After un-decorating, a whole lot of vacuuming, rearranging and having some delish onion soup for dinner, I did get to spend some time in my sewing room organizing my fabric and working on a couple small projects. Tomorrow is going to be a rainy chilly day, so I will be spending a lot of time with my sewing machines.  I have a few projects on my to do list and I have been looking through quilt books and magazines and finding more things that are going to be going on my “I want to make that” list.

Have a good week everyone.  See you soon.

Ginny

The New Year has begun

And winter has arrived for a short visit.  Boy did we get spoiled with that warm weather in December.  As cold goes, I suppose it really wasn’t all that awful but it sure was a shock to the body for the last couple days. But, fear not, warmer temps are making a comeback and we will be in the 40’s again tomorrow.  However, I really want some snow!  We can’t have snow if it’s in the 40’s.

I have been getting my sewing room back into some semblance of order over the last few days and will be getting back to work in there soon.  I have a list of things that need to get done.  The list isn’t as long as it was a couple months ago but I do see it growing again.  Of course, my sewing machines need some TLC too before they get back into the swing of things.

Stay cozy and warm everyone.  See you soon.

Ginny

 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

christmas-border-clip-art-christmas-clipart-free-downloads-christmasWhat a great time of the year.  It has been so very busy with shopping, wrapping, baking and wonderful family visits! I haven’t had any time to pop in here and wish you all Seasons Greetings. I hope you all have had a great few weeks from Thanksgiving on.  Mine was very busy indeed and I truly was quite tired by the time we got to the Christmas weekend but it was all well worth it.  I even fit in another craft fair.  I was a very busy elf. Elf    A few things that made their way from my cutting table to the sewing machine and out the door to new homes were:      Notebook holder open (August)  Some notebook holders.  These hold a medium notepad (5″ x 7″) and I am constantly using mine.

A friend had requested some Christmas kitchen curtains and I had a bit of leftover material so I surprised him with this tablerunner :Christmas Tablerunner for Ray  I really liked the way it came out and I hope to be able to make one for myself before next Christmas.

And then there were these adorable baby blocks for the new little princess in the family:     Lily's Blocks

So now, what will the new year bring?   We can only guess and hope and work towards what we would like to happen in 2016.  Time for setting goals — I don’t call them resolutions.   Time to take stock of what 2015 brought to our lives.  There will be good and there will be bad for sure but now it’s time to take what we have learned and head into the brand new year with renewed hope, renewed resolve and increased wisdom.   I will be cleaning up my sewing studio and starting work on some orders.  I will start planning what I’d like to make for the Spring craft fair and yes, I will even start planning out our vegetable and flower beds for the spring and summer.   We had a great garden and “farm” last year and the craft fairs and sales went well this year but I will try to use the “increased wisdom” that I garnered through the year and figure out what will work and also what will not work in both the craft fairs and the gardens and hopefully increase my success in both areas.

So many things I’d like to accomplish or at least work towards in the coming months but that is for another post.  For now I would like to wish you all the very best for 2016.  Health and happiness and a peaceful heart.

Happy New Year

See you in 2016

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

Pink!

With so many young ladies in my life having little boys, I was thrilled to hear that one my step-daughters was having a little girl.  🙂  So, I finally got to work with pink.  And some purple too.

Pink and purple chevron quilt  Pink and Purple Chevron Quilt (2)

Back of Chevron quilt (2)  with a pink back.

A couple of mostly pink receiving blankets:

Multicolor receiving blanket   Pink receiving blanket

Just so everything was not PINK

yellow and green receiving blanket   a more yellow/green receiving blanket.

Of course, our little princess will need some stylish burp cloths Burp cloths

And my BFF in California sent this absolutely adorable tutu

Tutu

Thank you Sharon.   Everyone loved it.

Well, the next baby that I will be making some blankets and burp cloths for is a little boy so back I go to blues, etc.   I happen to like blue a lot so that will be fine but it was nice having pink and purple on my cutting table for a while.

Have a good week everyone.

Bye for now.

Ginny

My newest adventure

I saw a lot of ladies making these wallets in a forum I am in. It’s a Janelle MacKay pattern (Emmaline Bags)  It’s called the Necessary Clutch Wallet (NCW) One gal did it in this Minnie material:           NCW - front 2         NCW - open

Well, as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make this for my daughter-in-law for her birthday.   I didn’t want to post the pictures here until she got it.  She finally got it yesterday and I am happy to say that she really liked it.  It wasn’t as difficult to make as I thought it would be and I think as I make more, I will get faster at it.  It actually didn’t take me too long to make it.  I did take my time and I did each section very deliberately just to make sure I understood what the directions were telling me to do since I’ve never attempted something like this.  And before I knew it, I had finished it!  Now I want to make more.    I may even make one for myself.   🙂    There are some variations to it that I need to investigate.  It can be made as a wristlet, you can add another zipper pocket to either the inside or the outside or even add a cross-body strap to it.   I will have to experiment.  I’ve seen it made with so many different varieties of beautiful material.

Time to go check out my stash and see what my next material choice will be.

Bye for now.

Ginny

Happy Easter

It’s Easter and it didn’t snow!!  During the extended winter weather, I kept myself busy making some Easter tablerunners and a couple of Easter baskets:

Easter runner and baskets Easter Baskets

I also kept myself busy on those late winter snowy days and nights by using up a lot of my leftover cotton yarn and knitting a bunch of dishcloths.  Dishcloths

But now my crocus are blooming                    crocus

daffodils     and the daffodils will be showing off their beauty very soon.   I have some hyacinths and tulips that have broken above ground and my tiger lilies are showing themselves too.    Pretty soon it will be warm so I will now get busy making some placemats to be used outside, a new tote bag to use for our  trips to the beach

Jones Beach in Oct. 2011 - #3    and I will start seriously planning what veggies we will plant and what flowers we need to plant in our flower beds.

Enjoy the approach of more pleasant weather.  Look ahead to days spent outdoors.

Ginny