Aloha, baby!

The American Girl Doll of the Year is Kanani,  a "cheerful girl who helps others by sharing the aloha spirit of Hawai’i." She's waiting under the tree this year for my Monkey Girl -- a present from her Uncle Mike.

Kanani comes with a plethora of accessories (naturally), including a shave ice stand and a luau outfit. What she doesn't come with is Hawaiian-print pajamas to match her big girl...

...or a grass skirt to wear over her tank top and shorts...

or coordinating flip-flops and a matching lei.

Yes, that lei took forEVER to make, but that was half the fun. And the flip-flops with the little beaded flowers? I was laughing as I made them, they're so darn cute!

That's the last of the homemade gifts this year -- just in time to pack in the sleigh and head home for the holidays!

Merry Christmas, all! And aloha!

The countdown clock is ticking...

Well, it's that time again -- less than a week until Christmas, and all those projects we should have been working on since June but started just after Thanksgiving need to be finished!

I just put the binding on my last Christmas quilt, to be delivered tonight. I still have to clean up some loose threads, but this one is DONE! It's destined for my girlfriend's vacation home in northern Michigan, where I'm hoping it will be well used.

Where there's a photo op, there's Archie

I'm slowly but surely working my way through my rather large stash of flannel, specifically the pine tree print I used for the sashing and backing here. I had visions when I purchased the bolt of making oodles of snuggly flannel Up North quilts. This is #3, so I have a few more to go. How many constitutes an "oodle," anyway?

In the zone...

Sometimes when I'm really into a project, I get in The Zone and can sew for hours. I'll even forget to eat.
 

Luckily, though, I have someone to provide some not-so-subtle reminders...

that it's time for dinner.

What would I do without him?

When the fabric speaks...

...I listen.

The bulk of my stash has been mute for way too long, and it's piling up. So when a package of batik strips piped up (Tonga Coffee Cake) and offered itself as a sacrifice to a plus pattern, I didn't have much choice but to pay attention and get stitching.

Positive Thinking, 60" x 44"

It wasn't until I hung it up that I realized how perfect the colors are for my living room, so it's a shame that I won't be keeping it.

Then again, this one doesn't have to be quilted for a while, so I have a few months to reconsider...or make something else. Maybe I should go back to the stash and see if I hear anything?

Thinking positively...

This top is not a Christmas gift, nor does have any kind of looming deadline (next summer!).  But I made the mistake of combing through my stash on Saturday in search of a piece of backing and found a package of batik precuts I'd forgotten about.

I put it back where I found it, but I woke up with the idea of making a "plus" quilt on Sunday morning and couldn't shake it. By Sunday night I realized that idea wasn't going anywhere, so I started cutting.

The first half of the pack

Sometimes it's just better to give in.

In the meantime...

I'm still working on this top, but the stack of leftovers from the original Modern Workshop (Oliver + S) layer cake was cluttering up my sewing space and getting in the way.

So I chopped it up and made another one.

I think the two quilts will play nicely together!

Late to the party...

Well, where have I been that I missed the kickoff to Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival? Crawling under a cottage to drain the pipes, perhaps? Cleaning gutters at my parents' house? Prioritizing my list of yet-to-be-started Christmas projects? All of the above?

It's a little repetitive, but I'm entering the quilt from yesterday's post. I'm proud of it because after several attempts at patterns for the fabric my mother had picked out in early 2006, I was finally able to settle on one and FINISH IT. I'm sure she's forgotten all about it (or given up on ever seeing these fabrics again), so it will be a fun surprise for Christmas.

The learning from this project is this: sometimes trying to force a pattern just doesn't work. Sometimes simple (and easy!) is the best, and let the fabrics speak for themselves. I just wish I'd figured that out five years ago!

So here it is. It ain't fancy, but I love it.

Want to see more entries in the Festival?  Go here:

Ushering in the Season of Panic...

Well, the cottage is all buttoned up for the winter, and I've said goodbye to the sunset side of the Big Lake. Back in Chicago, it's time to really get working on all those projects that need to be done in the next seven or so weeks!

The zinnia quilt is complete. I'm really happy with the boldness of it, and I've totally fallen in love with the French blue in the upper right of this picture.

The quilt matches the cottage, but it's not staying here!

I couldn't get a good picture of the whole quilt out on the beach -- too much sun was messing with the contrast.  But what a great complaint to have the first week in November! It was close to seventy degrees on Tuesday, which made closing up the house seem a little premature. But it's the wacky-weather Midwest, and it could very well be snowing in a week (it's in the forties and raining today), so leaving on a high note was the right thing to do.

I'm very glad Jacquie talked me into going with a black and white binding. I was going to use one of the zinnia prints (kind of boring), and this one gives it a little more zip.

How's everybody doing on their gift list? Panicked yet, like me?

A peek...

...at what I've been working on.

Still filling in holes and having a ball with bias edges...but I like what's taking shape!

Fall in the north woods...

There's nothing as fun as spending a long weekend with girlfriends you haven't seen in forever -- unless it's spending it in northern Michigan with the best weather they've ever seen in early October: cloudless days, eighty-degree temps, and colors that are so pretty they make you cry.

Well, OK, they made me cry; it was an emotional weekend all around. This was the place where our friendship was born and solidified. Returning here minus one (still out west tending to her ailing husband)made it bittersweet.

I made bracelets for everybody to commemorate the event. See? I knew there was a good reason I was hanging on to all those boxes from my favorite cheese! With some paint, ribbon and a little rubber stamping, they made fine jewelry boxes! I used batting scraps to line them.

The golf course was prettier than ever. Two of us got a couple rounds in before the non-golfers arrived.

I awoke every morning to watch the sunrise, each day disturbing a great blue heron who likes to fish in the neighborhood. It took three days to capture him in flight -- what a magnificent bird!

And, of course, I worked on my quilts -- though not as much as I was supposed to. This one's all washed and ready to get shipped out west. I think Rick's going to like the flannel (front and back).

Saying goodbye as we dispersed to Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Chicago, Montreal and Bermuda was hard. How we ended up so far apart is beyond us; we really belong in the same place, cooking for each other and borrowing each other's clothes, just like the early days.



My peeps on the dock. Nobody wanted a close-up.

The trip home was breathtaking with all the trees in transition. I don't usually stop the car for pictures, but this stretch of woods just north of Cadillac made me backtrack and pull over for a few shots.

Rainy Chicago is kind of a letdown after that, but at least it's giving me a reason to stay inside, catching up on things. I still have a lot of binding to do!

Progress...

First of all, thanks for all the kind words for my friend Rick. He's back home after two anxiety-ridden weeks and two surgeries to remove the brain and lung tumors. He has a long road ahead of him, but has a great outlook and support has been emerging from every direction for him and his family.

His quilt has gone together nicely. I hit a glitch when I got the flannel sandwich taped to the floor and discovered that all my basting pins were otherwise occupied -- I had basted the zinnia quilt before I left on vacation and hadn't gotten back to it yet (and pretty much forgot about it in the course of three weeks away). I could have taken a trip to Joann's for more pins, but it made more sense just to get it out of the way, so here it is:

Jacquie convinced me to go with a more dramatic binding than what I'd originally picked out. It's stitched down and waiting for hand sewing -- and I'm so happy I took her advice! She also tried to talk me into adding some free motion to break up all the straight lines...I'm still thinking about that one. The woman knows her stuff, so there's a good chance I'll go back to it and fill some spots in.

The quilting on the flannel went pretty quickly, nothing too fancy. I'll spend the next few nights cleaning up threads and binding, then take better pictures.

It could be a record for me -- two finishes in one week! Yay!

When the going gets tough, the tough get sewing...

Well hey, I'm back.

I've actually been back for a while -- I was pulling three and a half weeks of pictures together, getting ready to write a wonderful "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" post, and then...well, let's just say I should have thrown that expired bottle of Yellow Thai Curry Sauce in the garbage instead of using it as a dipping sauce for my pork tenderloin Sunday night.

As it was pouring onto my plate, in the back of mind I was thinking "Huh. That isn't as thick as usual," but went about my dinner anyway. The good news is, I only brought the misery (and oh, what misery it was!) upon myself. The bad news:  I don't bounce back nearly as quickly as I used to -- it took almost five days to shake it completely.

Eight pounds lighter and about 87 hours of sleep fresher, I was all set to write my post on Friday. I turned on the computer, and opened an e-mail from one of my oldest and dearest girlfriends out West. It starts in the way no e-mail ever should:

Rick had a cerebral hemorrhage yesterday.

Rick, her husband, is only in his mid-forties, a doting father of two little girls, an active and avid rock climber with a great dry wit, and a loving partner in life to my dear friend. He was an orderly in the hospital where her mother lay dying of cancer fifteen years ago; their meeting was like two puzzle pieces clicking together to form a bright and hopeful picture amid a boatload of sorrow.

The bleeding in his brain was coming from a golf ball-sized mass in his right frontal lobe. A day later, a scan turned up another mass in his lung. They have to wait until next week for biopsies.

The unfairness and uncertainty of it all has me reeling. Suddenly my problems, complaints, and annoyances seem terribly petty and inconsequential by comparison.

My gut reaction was to jump on a plane, but she assured me she has a support system in place to at least get her through the next few weeks; flying to her side would only be another body to accommodate and create more chaos. This is going to be a long haul, and there will be plenty of opportunities to be there.

My other reaction, for some unknown reason, was to sew.

This has happened before:  in the days after another friend's mother died, I made a quilt with her mom's favorite colors. Something that was not entirely me took over, and I was pulling fabrics and cutting and had a quilt before I knew it. I'm sure the mindlessness of it all has something to do with it, but to me, quilts mean comfort, and if I can't be there in person to provide it, I'm sending a quilt to do it for me.

So I pulled out all my flannels yesterday and started cutting because it's all I can do. For now.

Time out for a birthday...

Not mine -- my Monkey Girl will be turning 10 next month, and we'll be celebrating next week before she and her family return to their island life. Time to whip up another doll quilt!

Archie was unavailable for this photo op, though I'm not sure he'd approve of his stand-in.

Yes, that's the slipcover fabric. I think I'll be making things from that material for the next twenty years. But at least it will match her and her doll's pajamas! The off-white fabric was recycled from the old house, too -- those are the bathroom curtains I made five years ago. I love recycling!

I got the zinnia quilt all pin-basted, and was hoping to get the majority of it quilted before I left for Michigan this week. Alas, more basement contractors, car repairs and other bits of life got in the way, and it will have to wait for my return.

Looking forward to visits to two of my favorite quilt shops over the next two weeks -- I'll try to be good and not buy too much, but I'm not making any promises!

Zinnias in bloom...

The Zinnia quilt is taking shape. I contemplated doing some more complicated designs, but in the end opted for something simple, and something I could guarantee would get finished after all this time.

Can I just say that I LOVE hanging out on this side of the color wheel? I already have ideas in my head for the leftovers.

I'm still arranging, and have thought about going bigger, but I'm not sure Mom really needs another bed quilt (and I wouldn't have leftovers!). I'm also considering white sashing, but I kind of like the paint-box feel of these colors right up against each other.

The white squares in the center aren't fabric -- they're grid labels pinned to each block to guard against this:

Archie still isn't a big fan of my layouts, but I'm not sure his are any better!

Happy weekend, all!

Finding my marbles...

...as opposed to losing them, I guess -- this week is all about regaining my sanity through sewing. And praying for it to Just. Stop. Raining.

Here's my pull for fabrics to pair with the zinnia blocks. Some were purchased way back when with the focus fabric, and some came from the stash. All are marbles, though not all Moda.

As you can see, Archie is thrilled with my selection. Let's hope he gets a little more excited when there are actual blocks to chase around the kitchen floor!

Another UFO in the works...

As a respite from all the flood frenzy, I resurrected yet another UFO. I was working on it when the building browned out on Sunday and the day turned upside down.

My mother had picked out these jewel-tone zinnia fabrics quite a few years ago (2006? 2007?), and I'd promised to make her a lap quilt. For some reason, though, I couldn't wrap my head around them; a pattern just wouldn't gel in my head despite several starts, so they got set aside to await inspiration. It's been a long time coming.

I made at least three attempts on this project over the years: first some crazy quilt blocks, like these from "More Quits from The Quiltmaker's Gift"...

...then a colorwash pattern inspired by "Pieced Stripes" quilt in "Glorious Patchwork"...

...then more recently -- though I don't remember exactly when -- I framed the flowers (some of them fussy cut) with white.

These squares, of the three alternatives, seemed like the easiest and safest route to pursue, so I finished framing about a dozen more flowers and have about 40 ready to go...

...I'm just not sure where. Stay tuned!

Good riddance, July...

Oh man, July sucked. "Sucked the Big Wazoo," as I like to say. It started out OK, but then took a major dive toward the end of the month, and I am elated that it's finally over.

Things I learned in July:

• July 23 was the rainiest calendar day in the recorded history of Chicago (8.68 inches!)
• 4" of it ended up in the basement of my building.
• Five days later, another big storm and more water; Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor.
• The 140-year old drainage system in my neighborhood was just as surprised as we were by the amount of water both of these storms produced.
• Despite being warned, some people are stupid enough to store mattresses (and other valuable items, like rugs) on the floor of a basement with a 140-year old drainage system lurking fifteen feet away.
• Drywall sucks up an amazing amount of water.
• Wet drywall starts to smell after three days and needs to come out.
• Wet mattresses smell worse than wet drywall.
• The term "bio-scrub" involves moving and wiping down a LOT of stuff.
• Some people are too lazy to throw their own crap out.
• $80,000 of drying equipment running 24/7 + 12 air conditioners cranked in 92 degree heat = a blown buss breaker.
• Commercial grade buss breakers are extremely hard to come by on a Sunday afternoon.
• Ten hours without power makes some people very cranky.
• Power surges can fry things like transformers for the building's buzzer system and the blower motor for a brand new water heater.
• Foundation repairs are really expensive.
• I don't do well on two hours sleep three days in a row.
• Multiple shots of espresso make my knees shake.
• Being forced to take charge of things when all one wants to do is hide in one's condo and sew makes a person very surly. 
• Being Condo Board President has NO perks whatsoever.

Snowflakes in July, Part 2...

After I took a good look at my last post, I remember why this project became a UFO in the first place:  it was too dark. For me, anyway. At the time, I wasn't sure what to do about that and didn't have time to speculate on a solution (other things to work on, of course), so it got packed up and launched into the black hole of UFOs in my kitchen studio.

When I saw the whole thing together last week, as happy as I was to have it complete, it was still bugging me. So I brightened it up a bit a couple borders, found a cute backing (Smores, M & My Sisters for Moda), and quilted it. Bound with a dark plum solid found on sale at Ikea for $2 a yard, I think it frames it out very nicely.

I knew if I stopped at any point, it would head back toward the UFO pile, so I forged ahead -- gotta keep that momentum going, right?

Much better! And another finish for July!

Productive procrastination strikes again!

Pulling rows off "Not-So-Plain Spoken" and picking apart 24 blocks was such a daunting task that it drove me to be productive somewhere else. I'd feel guilty about not taking up my seam ripper right away if I were, say, spending that time playing Angry Birds or drinking beers out on the deck, but in this case I just went and crossed another top off my list and freed up some valuable bin space.

This UFO was sitting around so long, I literally had to blow the dust off of it. All the blocks were completed, just waiting to be put into rows and turned into a top.

"Snowflakes in July," made mostly with Winter Joy fabrics (Sue Zipkin, Clothworks).

This is my second project using this fantastic cutting technique. Even though it took years to actually get this top assembled, I think it took maybe ten minutes, max, to cut up the squares. I'd recommend trying it just for the thrill of instant gratification you get. Just take her advice and use starch -- it makes everything much more stable in the long run.

I'm on a roll! At this rate, I could have all my UFO's done by Labor Day!

Another finish, sort of...

Well, I got all the rows sewn together this weekend, and the top looks really nice -- especially with my yellow walls!

This top took me out of my comfort zone, mixing colors that I normally wouldn't use at all, let alone put together. I've never been a big fan of coral, but there it is, smack dab in the middle of my quilt top. I don't use a lot of browns, either, but this project has given me a newfound appreciation for Kona Espresso, especially in combination with the buttery yellows and blues -- I'll definitely be using that one again. And Moss -- it really popped against the yellows and blues as well, something I didn't expect but was really pleased to see.

It gets a little yellow-happy and checkerboardy brown in places and muddy in a couple other spots, but I think with this pattern that's difficult to avoid. The quilting dance (rearrange, step back, squint, rearrange, step back, squint) gets a little old after a while, and at some point you just have to tell yourself to STOP or the dance will go on forever. I was trying to avoid any concentration of really dark or light through the narrower strips (which are much more noticeable than any in the wider rows), and I managed to do that pretty well. I ended up using 17 or 18 different fabrics, but it would have been easier to achieve better distribution and balance if I had used a few more.

The cattail backing fabric was the inspiration for this palette. This was the original pull, all Kona, with a few more blues, yellows and lighter aquas added later to brighten things up a bit.

Kona Ice Frappe, Raffia, Lemon, Candy Green, Mocha, Curry, Parfait, Wheat, Moss, Brown, Periwinkle, Old French, Espresso.

The only problem with it? My math was off, so it's two rows longer than I need and one column short. So I'll be spending a little time over the next few days with my seam ripper.

Then I have to decide whether I give it away or keep it for myself!

On to the next...

Remember this project? I began this quilt top in Michigan, and of course didn't finish piecing it (or even get close, I was still obsessively arranging blocks) by the time the renters arrived for the summer, so I pinned all the pieces onto a queen-sized sheet, folded it up, and brought it back home...where it sat atop the stash boxes, a cruel daily reminder of my failure to finish it. Archie claimed it for a cat bed for a while, then I think he got stuck a few times by the pins and found somewhere less hostile to sleep.

I pieced parts of a few rows at some point, maybe a year ago, but mostly it went back and forth to Michigan as a "good travel project." It returned most recently in May, where I didn't even bother to take it out of the car.

Sorry, bad photo -- I'm still trying to figure out how to compensate for indoor lighting.

In the spirit of completion and straightening up my kitchen, I have gone back to it. Some of the pieces were so scrunched up, the only thing that's going to take the wrinkles out is a good washing after it's finished. After lots of ironing and some more obsessive rearranging to get the color balance, I can at least say most of the rows are sewn, and I've regained a small amount of enthusiasm for the project.

One by one, they're gettin' done!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Glamour Mom, 1947.

This is my favorite picture of my mother, a few weeks before her wedding, all carefree and glowing and totally in love with the man she would spend her life with. I'm pretty sure she's admiring her engagement ring.

When I look at this picture, I can see all of her children in this buoyant young woman:  her raven hair went to her oldest daughter, those mile-long legs to the next, her nose and eyes to her son. I would have loved her skinny genes, but those went almost exclusively to her third girl, who's never weighed more than 105 pounds in her life. And me? I mostly look like my Dad, but I think I lucked out and got her spirit, that nothin's-gonna-stop-me attitude that's kept her going strong for almost 90 years. I'm hoping it'll keep me going just as long.

Gaining momentum...

Man oh man, finishing things feels good!

Maybe there's some weird productivity gas seeping into my air conditioning vents, or maybe I'm just tired of having all these piles of partially-finished quilts sitting around, but since I got back to Chicago last week I've been going a little nuts here. I guess it could be the heat, or the humidity, or the fact that I have company coming next week. Whatever the reason, I'm running with it.

Archie admires "Spare Change." Or maybe he thinks there's food on that stool.

I tried to remember when I first started this quilt, and I couldn't. I know when I dug the strips out of the UFO pile and started piecing it, and when I started quilting it, but can't for the life of me recall when the idea for this quilt was born. I think it's safe to say W was President -- and even safer to say it was during his first term.

It was almost exactly 11 months ago when I began quilting this. And it was about ten and a half months ago when I ran out of lime green thread...and couldn't find any more to match. I had about 4" left to quilt on either side of the top, and in frustration I threw it into the Duffle Bag of Doom and moved on to something else.

While I was in Michigan last month, something miraculous happened:  I FOUND THE GREEN THREAD, four spools of it -- all of which came home with me.

And now it's DONE. Amen and hallelujah, let the fireworks begin!

Or maybe we should all just take a nap.

It isn't all sand and sun...

There's a little actual work going on here at the beach, and a little sewing if it's raining.

During the last deluge, I got "Jack of Diamonds" bound -- finally!  And the beach is the perfect setting to show it off!

I love how the quilting with the higher loft batting turned out on the back. I didn't end up putting anything in the center of the hourglass blocks, but quilted different shapes inside of each one.

I hate to admit it, but I think it's actually my first finished quilt for 2011. I'm waaaay behind schedule!

For Father's Day...

This is my favorite picture of my father. He's 25 years old, and that's my oldest sister, his first born, at about 18 months old. She was the apple of his eye, and the world was his oyster. The war was over and he'd made it home, gone to college on the GI Bill, met a beautiful woman that's still with him 64 years later, had a perfect little girl and launched a career. There's hope, and promise, and joy in this picture -- a portrait of a young man living the American Dream. Five kids and a few grandsons later, I think the Dream's still alive.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Running away...

This is me:

I have run away from home. Away from the Big City, away from broken hot water heaters and foundation issues and noisy neighbors. I'm back on the better less stressful side of Lake Michigan.

In between some horrendous thunderstorms, blistering heat, sandstorms, chill, tempestuous winds and fog (it is, after all, spring in the midwest), I've been taking long walks up the lakefront road and around town.

It's always interesting to see what's changed since last fall. There are a couple new houses up along the lake...

...and some old friends that (hopefully) will always be there.

It's been wonderful to leave the windows wide open, take in the fresh crisp air, lounge on the front deck and watch the world go by, and sleep to the sound of waves lapping on the beach (that is, if it's not sweltering, freezing, pouring or gale force winds, in which case I'm holed up inside, which is fine with me, too).

Definitely not looking forward to going back.