From the Seas to the Heavens

The title of this post could easily refer to the passing of the 41st President of the United States but that was not my intention. I do mourn his passing as we have lost one of those thousand points of light he once encouraged us to be. I cannot help but contrast George H. W. Bush's life and service with that of the man currently residing in (and disgracing, in my opinion) the White House. Talk about polar opposites! But enough of that.

Let Your Dreams Set Sail is now in the queue for quilting.

To keep from falling into that limbo that so often occurs for me between projects I pulled out some of the postage stamp stars I'd made in my Rainbow Scrap Challenge days, I also got out some novelty prints I thought I would try to put to good use. I put the stars on the design wall and started fussy cutting.

There are some 2.5" squares, a column of 6.5" squares, and then the 4.5" patches that go in the middle of 8" sawtooth stars. The prints I chose to cut up featured Buzz Lightyear, some whimsical aliens on rocket ships, and lady astronauts reminiscent of the Jetsons cartoon.

I wanted to make as gender neutral a quilt as possible so I avoided cutting out the lady astronauts as much as possible. Mostly they were too big anyway.

After a couple of days of pondering and auditioning companion or background prints I finally ditched the postage stamp stars altogether. There was almost a yard of yet another whimsical celestial print in my stash. I cut that up for sashing strips and more focal patches. I also sewed the 2.5" patches into 4Patch units. My plan now is to make a whole new set of stars specifically for this quilt, which will be another that finishes about 48" x 60." This is how I plan to lay out the blocks:

This will give me something easy and fun to do inbetween Christmas preparations. I really must get some decorations out. You'd never know it was the holiday season in our house!

Stitch and Moan

Of course you know what I really mean: stitch and that word that rhymes with it. If you don't want to wade through the moan I suggest you zip down to the pretty picture to see the progress I've made on the second piggy bank coin purse. 😉

I'm generally the last to post for the Stitch Along check in every three weeks. Mostly that's because I'm in the latest time zone. There's also the occasion - frequently - when I intend to write the blog post ahead of time and schedule it to be published on the morning of the SAL so it doesn't appear quite so late in the day. Missed that goal again this time around. But that's not the moan exactly.

Let me preface my moan with a little personal information. I seem to be the only 'day' person in my family. Left to his own devices I believe my husband would be a night owl. All three of our children seem to be night owls. Our grandchildren are natural night owls. I'm not one to get up in the very early morning hours but nor am I any good beyond about 9 p.m., never have been. So yesterday our SIL cam by in the early evening to collect James to spend some time with his sister and her family. Fine. But then they came crashing back into the house at 11:30 for some reason. Well, crashing might be a bit strong, but I was dead asleep until they arrived. My first thought was that we were being burgled. Luna was barking, good watchdog that she is. Very soon I identified voices I recognized, thank goodness. At least one of the granddaughters had accompanied the boys back into the house. Oldest granddaughter owns a teacup Yorkie called George. He must have been with them also for this morning what did I step in, in my bare feet, but a cold wet spot in the carpet. {sigh} Does anyone know of a urine-proof floor covering that won't off-gas toxic fumes? I'm sure we're walking on builder quality (i.e. poor) carpet that is original to this 30 year old house. I'd love a hard surface floor covering that's easy to clean/wipe up.

Okay, back to the topic at hand. The only stitching I've done since our last SAL check in has been on the second piggy bank needlepoint case. This is what it looked like the last time:

And this is where I'm at now:

I tried hard to pay attention to what I was doing but I managed to put purple stitches in where two little black stitches are meant to go for the piggie's hooves. Maybe he won't notice as he is still blind. As you well know, I love the floss from Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. Nancy has started her 12 days of give-aways so you might want to pop over there and put your name in the hat so to speak. 😊

I'm sure everyone else has posted their progress by now. Our next SAL check in will be on 23 December for those of us who remember to do a post that close to Christmas!

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Tony, Megan, Catherine, 

Deborah, Connie, Clare

Ready for the Voyage

Thank you all for your input on the little blue and white quilt I'm building. You'll be happy to see that I've included the pirate ship. 😊 Although I did tuck it away at the bottom, lurking in a bay between "land masses." 

Here's the whole quilt top:

Many of the blocks were made by members of the Footsquare Freestyle group. I made a couple more blocks to fill in gaps. This Wheel of Fortune for example. 

I made it thinking it could represent a ship's wheel. I also fussy cut a buoy and a lighthouse from a nautical print I've had forever. Had to get some birds in there too!

The flying geese units were meant to represent ocean waves (I hope that's obvious!). 

And then I found a perfect print in the clearance section of my LQS for the back.

I picked this print up for the binding while I was there.

I don't think I could be more pleased with the way this turned out. James already has ideas for quilting it so hopefully we can get it finished off before the year comes to a close. I'm going to have to give my elbow a rest before I tackle cutting strips for binding. All things considered, it's really not feeling too bad. 😀

Setting Sail

I haven't talked much about the Footsquare Freestyle block swap this time around. Suffice to say that I asked for blocks in blues and white. You can see the blocks that were made for me and who made them over on the Footsquare blog. (My month was July, you'll need to scroll down just a little way to see them.) As per usual it's a lovely assortment of styles and techniques, and all well done. 😊

What with the hurricanes and wildfires here in the States recently I fully expect there to be a variety of quilt drives to benefit the victims on both coasts. One quilt drive I know of already is asking for bed size quilts, queen and king size. I can't help with that in spite of having a long arm quilter in house. But I can make individual blocks and I can make quilts for kids or for use on a couch! To that end I've pulled out my Footsquare Freestyle blocks to play with.

A little while after my blocks came rolling in I found yardage of beach-themed panels in blue and white. Of course I didn't think to take a picture of the fabric before I cut it up. However, one of the panels has been the catalyst for this new project.

I'm thinking of a kid's quilt. This was also an excuse to use at least a few of the many Ship blocks I've made out of scraps. Plus that Tall Ship I made for myself as part of F2F3!

I'll be shooting for a quilt in the range of 48" x 60." Those little ships will likely become alternate blocks between the 12" blocks to stretch 36" into 48." I haven't sorted out the length yet. Four rows of 12" each plus some sashing no doubt.

Today I made some additional boats to reinforce the sailing theme.

Of course I couldn't resist including a pirate ship!

Whether it ends up in the quilt remains to be seen. 😉

Pigs and Leaves

I'm still trying to avoid aggravating my elbow so I've continued to work on small needlepoint projects. I've begun a second piggy bank coin purse. I figure I'll probably make one for each of our four granddaughters.

I'll try to use different background colors for each case. I may go crazy and make pigs of another color. 😉

When we were out and about recently I was so inspired by the colors of the leaves I got out of the car to collect a few. Then I tried them out on a blank cosmetic size Stitch & Zip case.

This may be a bit more challenging to stitch with my bum elbow but I couldn't resist the opportunity to use some of the gorgeous reds and oranges I've acquired from Nancy's dye pot.

I simply traced around the leaves with a quilter's marking pencil once I had an arrangement I was happy with.

I haven't begun work on this larger case yet. The intensity of the headaches lately have made following an established pattern with few colors the way to go.

Folks here in the USA are gearing up for our Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of families traveling to be together to share a feast and (hopefully) good times. Ours will be a quiet holiday with salmon instead of the traditional turkey as the main course and only one of our children at the table with us. Many families watch football games on TV over the holiday weekend. Those that are not out shopping! We will be watching some of our favorite holiday movies when we're not shopping online. 😉 If you're celebrating Thanksgiving I hope your meal is delicious and the memories you make warm and wonderful.