Dancing in the Sun

I'm making use of the new LED light for my Featherweight, which is back out of its case and on the job.


The piecing of the first quilt top of the new year, "Seeing Stars," is almost done. Here's the photo I took of the first block, ready to put together.


The pattern is "Clara's Journey" from Connecting Threads.

The center nine-patches and the primary fabrics in the big stars are scrappy, but otherwise I've been consistent in the use of fabrics. All that's left to do is the borders, which will finish the outer small stars, with an outer border of the off-white background fabric.


The turquoise was sort of a daring feat for me. I'm branching out. (I still love traditional and vintage reproduction fabrics, though.)

The Sundance Film Festival has started again, and I've served one shift (on Saturday) of the four I have planned. I have another one this afternoon/evening.

I always take something to work on, in case I have some down time on the job. Saturday I was assigned "exit/re-entry, which gets pretty quiet after the film starts, so I got some knitting done. I've been making good progress on my Brick Cardigan. (The pattern is "Aleph" by Hannah Cuviello.)

We went to the opera yesterday, so I had the trip down to SLC and during the opera to work on it.



Our older granddaughter is coming for a visit and will be here when I get home from my shift. I see sushi and more knitting in my future....

What's on my needles: Brick Cardigan, good progress.

What's on my Featherweight: "Seeing Stars" quilt, center done, just the borders to go.

What's on my loom: Some warp for another scarf, but still folded up.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished The President's Pilot by Robert Gandt, and Home from the Sea by Mercedes Lackey. Now listening to In the Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotsen. Still reading And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander, not on the iPad for once but a paperback version I picked up at a rummage sale.

What's my app of the week: Southwest, for flight information, etc.

What's in my wine glass: A Chianti this time, Livingston Cellars.

What's my tip of the week: There are a number of apps that let you make calls through the Internet without charge, which is handy if you live in the mountains and have poor or no cell service in your home or you're visiting a place where you have access to WiFi but don't have service. Some of these apps allow you to use your own cell phone number.


Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Monkey Brain

My Mr. F. is moving along.



He's still headless, but at least he has arms now. They look rather flabby, though. I need to take him to Silver Sneakers with me so he can lift some weights.

Mr. F. has been a major UFO since 2009, when I got two arms and one leg done (almost) and quit. Now he's rolling along nicely.

Common Threads met on Thursday. Janet brought her latest "comfort quilt" (one of the quilts she makes for people who have received a troubling diagnosis or are living through other difficult times.)

She made this using fabric mostly donated from Vintage Stitchers members.

The local quilt guild also met this week. We had an interesting assortment of show-and-tell projects.

This was Scottie's partially completed Halloween quilt.


This great hexagon quilt had Dick and Jane fabrics on the back.


I'm thinking this chicken must be a Rhode Island Red.


Since we had "talk like a pirate day" during the week (same as DH's birthday, September 19th), Jill showed us her pirate quilt. She said it took a long time to sew the jewels on the treasure chest. She has it on display at her house on a wall next to a skeleton whose jaws are perpetually shaping an "Aaaargh!". (I love that the quilt looks like a treasure map!)

Julie and I showed off the finished Habitat quilt top, which is being quilted today. (See last week's blog post for the photo.)

I cut out and pieced all the star blocks for a new quilt based on the Connecting Threads' "Sumptuous" kit. Yesterday I started the sashing blocks. I'm having to build them one at a time, because the fabrics have to match up with the star centers, and there's a lot of variety.


As you can see, the stars form the centers of the larger pattern. The empty spaces will fill up with the camel-colored background fabric. Most of my fabrics for this quilt are from the Lincoln Logs kit I bought from a friend who decided the colors weren't for her. (Her palette is what you might call "flash and trash.") They are for me, but I didn't think I needed another log cabin project, so....

On Friday, Julie, Janet and I converged on Joanie to help her finish the blocks for her pine tree quilt. It's paper-pieced.


We finished all but two of the twelve blocks, and Janet and I each took one of the remaining two blocks home to finish. Here's my last block:



Joanie and I will sew them together with sashing and cornerstones, and put on a border. Julie will quilt it on her long arm.

We all brought our Featherweights to Joanie's house. Julie brought her "new" sewing machine, an old '30s Featherweight that looked very bad until she had an auto-body shop paint it.

Mmmmm-mmm!

Friday was also DH's birthday. We were planning on going out to eat, but we did FaceTime with DD and her family, and went way over time, so we went out Saturday instead. We had a great meal of Indian food, then did more FaceTime with DS2 after we got home. Johan obliged us with some adorableness, as you can see in this screen shot.

Today is the last day of summer. Rocky is making the most of it!

Finally, DS2's new movie, The Boxtrolls comes out on Friday. (He does special effects for Laika, the studio that produced The Boxtrolls and several other films.) EVERYONE has to go see this film. We plan on seeing it on Friday.

What's on my needles: Progress on my Mr. F. The Johan socks are holding.

What's on my Featherweight: As-yet-unnamed quilt using Connecting Threads' "Sumptuous" kit as inspiration.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Listening to Better Read than Dead by Victoria Laurie. Still reading Joseph Lallo's The Book of Deacon from Book Bub.

What's my app of the week: Facebook's new Messenger App. I love that it's separate from FB now.

What's in my wine glass: Blackstone Mendoza Malbec 2011. "Plum and blueberry...rose petal and cocoa. Mmmmmm.

What's my tip of the week: If you're cutting dark printed fabrics on a dark cutting mat, turn the fabric to the wrong side if you have trouble seeing where the fabric is against a dark-colored mat. Dark prints are much lighter on the reverse side. This won't work, of course, with fabric that's yarn-dyed or batiks, that is, where there's no right side.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.