I Like Thursday #41

Welcome to my I like Thursday.  I can't believe the week went by so fast.

I liked this book called The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie.   It was a very good book and it all started at the Kilbowie factory in Clydebank, Scotland. 

I enjoyed the story and how it all wove together.

I don't go out and about much other than to just run my errands.  I saw these at the feed store.

A neat turkey yard ornament.

A rooster.  There were several chickens too.  But I liked the rooster.

A fun painting of a cow on a mini barn door.

I had to wander to JAF to get flannel to repair a gentleman's quilt he brought to the show.  I was delighted to see the Christmas decorations out.

A sewing machine.  Next too a ball of yarn and knitting needles.

I thought this flamingo was awesome.  She is wearing flip flops, has a hula skirt, and a fun blue bikini top!

Love the Christmas boxes with the red trucks.

A fun holiday pillow with a red truck and a dog!

A large metal truck bringing home the tree. 

This building always makes me smile.  It was a radio station at one time.  There are still radio towers, but it sits in the middle of a huge fenced in area.

It is Art Deco I love the colors in the front. 

Finally fall is here, and I enjoyed watching the wooly worm crawl around the stump.

I also had another visitor but I didn't get a pictures or anything.  But imagine my surprise when I read that they can cause an allergic reaction.

They are called a Hickory Tussock Caterpillar and I guess they can cause itching and an allergic reaction if touched. 

Now head over to LeeAnna's at Not Afraid of Color and check out the other I like posts. 

I Like Thursday #40

Woohoo I made it to 40 posts.  I will admit after the past few days I wasn't really liking anything and was sorely pressed to do a post.  I am sure we all have weeks like that right?  Things start to spiral out of control, you are around people who put your teeth on edge and it just seems to escalate. 

Another blogger posted this saying, and it made me smile.  I used to tell my children this all the time, and most of the time I adhere to it.

I love Thumper no truer words can be spoken at times.

My girlfriend talked me into this mister to use for spray starch.  She uses a name brand quilter's spray starch which costs $$$ to me, and the scents are a wee bit strong for me....yes I know they have unscented but I was given a couple of large bottles and they are scented.   I use the water, vodka and my favorite essential oil (currently lemon verbena).

While it works alright for if I am piecing, I am not a fan if I am ironing yardage.  The friend says she thinks that she goes through more using the mister than just a spray bottle.  But hey it looks cute right?

I like my pile of trimmings from my 348 HST that I have remaining.  Watching them pile up makes 

me feel like I am accomplishing something, and I am getting closer to putting this quilt together! 

I like baby gates.  I have an old house.  The only doors that close are the front door, back door, the french doors that I had installed,  2 bathroom doors, and the barn door on the pantry.  None of the bedroom doors close (all the internal hardware is gone) and there are a couple of rooms with no doors.  So to prevent cat entry I have baby gates in front of my bedroom, Xander's bedroom, and the downstairs sick room.  The only other way to keep the doors closed is with hook closures. 

Yep I have stuff sitting on the steps.  I am trying to determine what to do with it. 

I like the old vacuum that I seemed to have acquired from the great aunt and uncle.....pre electricity!  It joins the terrible vacuum which was the ancient one's recent acquisition which is upstairs doing kitty litter duty, Jeff's newer vacuum with so many HEPA filters, and a container so small that even doing a small room (which most of the rooms in this house are small rooms) meant at least 2 emptying of the container.  Which to tell the truth still didn't vacuum very well, and my Shark which I think is awesome. 

Did I mention this thing is H E A V Y too?

Finally I have had this for a while and never shared it and I will say that it has been a life saver since I am running the guild charity.

I bought an Accuquilt Studio and just a few dies.  I have one that does 10 inch squares, 5 inch squares, 5 inch strips, 2 1/2 inch strips, tumblers (what they call a bull's eye set so does many different sizes, hexies, and triangles (another bull's eye set).  I will say when you have a tote full of fat quarters if someone irons and starches and another person loads the machine, you can get quite a bit done quickly.  From a fat quarter for guild I get 2 ten inch squares, sometimes a 5 inch strip (if the FQ was cut relatively straight).  If I don't get a 5 inch strip I get 4 1/2 which I cut myself, or I will use the 2 1/2 inch strip dies.  Anything smaller than 2 1/2 inches but larger than 3/4 goes into the kitty litter bucket for strings.

Finally and this is not a political statement of any sort.  But I miss the state of Oregon's voter's pamphlet!  It had the candidate, who they got their funding from, what their stances were on certain things, a short bio.  The ballot measures had the ballot measure, but also write ups by the people for and against the measure so you could read it and understand it.  In Michigan you have to go and pull up what your local ballot and go to each and every candidate's website.  I like that Oregon has the voter's pamphlet, and vote by mail if you so choose. 

Now head on over to LeeAnna's at Not Afraid of Color and check out what else there is to like this Thursday.

Squaring Up

I have been doing some sewing, really truly, but it sure does not feel like it. 

The Bee Block chosen for the month was called Hidden Gems.  The Queen had specific directions for each section.  Love the look of this block, but oh my there is a lot of prep!

Lot of black on white prints and white on black prints and just a hint of blue. 

Today was charity sew day at church.  I had 2 quilts that I had brought home a couple of months ago to finish.  I finished those yesterday, one just would not go together right no matter what.  URGH!  I made one more today.  So 2 full size quilts, and a baby quilt down.  I always forget to take pictures.

Since I was traveling I decided it would be easiest to grab a kit to take with me.  I bought the kit from Craftsy when they were having a sale.   While at my mothers I made a lot of HST.  This is what I have so far.

 There is light at the end of the HST tunnel.  I have 100 trimmed and squared and roughly another 250 left to go.  

I sat and calculated and this quilt has roughly 1,200 HST which doesn't seem like a lot, until you begin to trim them and square them up.

While trimming I have also been squaring up and trimming a lot of bonus triangles that I have gathered up sitting all over my house. 

This is my shoe box of  1 1/2 inch HST.  I have a ziploc baggie of these sitting around somewhere too. 

During all of this I got my window A/C out of my bedroom, thwarted the Japanese Beetle Invasion of 2018 when I removed it from my bedroom window.  Not including the stink bugs, and earwigs that came along with it.  Cleaned up the sitting room and the master bedroom where most of my sewing stuff landed when the Ancient Ones moved in. 

I have been drooling over some blogs that make these beautiful blocks using color crayons and embroidery.  Since I have not really been in a holiday mood for a while I thought it may be fun to buy some Halloween patterns. 

I also have a pattern that I think will translate that I purchased a couple of years ago from another blogger.  I can't wait to try the new "to me" technique. 

Also at the quilt show I saw a quilt I had to make.  I went on hunt and found the pattern.

It is made from just 2 fabrics.  I keep thinking about how I want to do it.  But nothing new until something is finished at least to a flimsy, and I have my Christmas sewing done. 

What Do You Wanna Do Now?

I bet you wonder if I still sew?  I had a guild show, I do a lot of charity quilting, I have been cleaning up the yard for winter, and doing some home renovations.

Since I got home I knew some things really needed to get done.  One thing was to remove the ugly white, brown, and tan shag carpet from the sick room for multiple reasons.

1.   It was ugly
2.  It smelled--Jeff's ex MIL was in that room for a couple of years, she had cancer.  Also the great uncle lived in there before he passed. 
3.  Bobbin decided that was the most awesome stinky place in the world to go and pee.

What is funny is I had to go back through 6 years worth of pictures to find even a glimpse of that carpet.

Yep I hated it that much. Now, I think I told you it was supposed to be white.  No matter what it looked gray, and dingy.  Why in 2000 would you buy ugly carpet like that and pay to have someone install it is beyond me.

Anyway I had the kids removed the ugly carpet.

The hardwoods underneath were not too terrible.  But removing the carpet meant that I would have to install baseboard.

And because the floor was not laid evenly I had to put quarter round down also to help fill in some of the gaps.

Other gaps will have to just be filled in with caulk.  I am not that talented, but I am pretty handy with a miter saw and brad nailer. 

Someday I will pay for someone to come in and refinish the hardwoods throughout the downstairs.  They do have a gorgeous patina.  It is a shame that people did not appreciate them.

But hardwoods are cold so I purchased an area rug to go into that room.

The industrial sewing machine was moved to the barn, and I bought 2 six foot folding banquet tables and 2 four foot folding banquet tables.  I am working on a set up to work in here for the guild charity quilts.  Ironing board, a place to cut, extra batting

One day I sorted quilts and afghans which had been turned in to me.  Quilts needing labels, need to be turned into the VFW, children's quilts, feminine quilts, all bagged and labeled for next month. 

The quilt show had scraps in a huge wagon for $5.00 a gallon bag (you filled your own bag).  Everything that was not sold came to my house.  Fifteen plastic grocery bags full, and a small plastic bin.  I purchased a 32 gallon tote and started dumping.  Only 8 bags fit, and it was full and running over.

Everyday for an hour or two I sort through, what is big enough it can be put through the cutter, what I can cut into useable pieces or create strings.  Anything that doesn't work gets put into a bin for dog bed filling.

No I did not paint the baseboards, I figure the next time I paint that room I will paint the baseboards and quarter round too.

I need to catch up on my friendship blocks for guild.

August block

September Block

The September Bee blocks

 I have also been working on the quilt I started at my moms.  Doing a lot of trimming of HST. 

I am on the last step so I have about 500 more HST to make and trim and I will be ready to sew the blocks together.  I just need to keep focused.

Martingale had a sale the other day, some books were only $6 so I bought a few to glean some ideas.

I also bought a book recently on color theory.  Not that I have a lot of problems with choosing colors, but it is nice to have a reference.

Of course while I was cleaning out the 6,000 e-mails in my inbox I found some sales and picked up a few quilty things.

From Hawthorne threads some Dalmation from the Blueberry Park line in Mustard, Cross Hatch from the Architextures line, Herringbone in Lake, and some cool black on white, and white on black fabric.

I decided I needed to just bit the bullet and buy some background fabrics to have on hand so I bought 20 yards of Grunge Basics White Paper, 10 yards of Grunge Basics Snow, and a grunge in green, and another in yellow. 

Finally I stalk the sale pages at some stores for fabric for guild which is manly.  Craft Town fabrics had a nice sale going on.

I bought about 15 yards of fabric which is more manly.    Sailboats, canoes, Route 66, tools, deer, desert animals, and some panels with wildlife. 

I also found a couple for myself.

I am still trying to close the pool, but the weather is just not cooperating.  Hopefully tomorrow we can get that done. I also have my bee blocks for October.   I think I have plenty to keep me busy around here. 

I Like Thursday #39

Welcome to my week #39 of the I Like Thursdays.

I have had a busy few days getting ready for winter.  That is what happens when you are gone for a long time, you get home and you are behind the  8 ball.  My likes are going to be short and sweet.

I like the 1 zinnia that I planted from seeds that my mom gave me.  Some were from flowers my great grandmother started many years ago, but some were seeds that my mom purchased this year.

I got 1 chartreuse zinnia.  I will check it tomorrow since we have had a couple of freezing nights, to see if it has started to die a bit.  If it has, I will cut it and bring it in to dry so that I can harvest the seeds and share with my mom and cousin next year. 

I like Kitty Litter buckets.  They come in handy for so many things.  Jeff has a stack of them in the barn with chains all labeled with the different lengths and what the chains were for.  I use them to store strings for making string quilts. 

I can shove all of them into one bucket, but then everything falls out when you start pulling strings to sew for a block.  I can fill these up mighty quick when I am cutting charity quilts for guild.

I like my grandsons.  They are awesome, and are always quick to help and with a hug.  While I was gone I would get a text every few days, we love you and miss you.  They have a "house" cell phone that all 4 kids share together, so the fact that they would take time out of their day to send me a message meant a lot.  The day I got home they gave me a gift. 

An I-home speaker.  I can hook it up to any blu tooth device.  What is really cool is that it changes colors when it is on.

Finally I like the toy that Auntie LeeAnna gave Bobbin when we visited in August. 

As you can see it gets lots of love and play.  Bobbin is way too busy to stop and write a post like Milo.  But be assured she loves the toy and the squeaker!

Now head over to LeeAnna's at Not Afraid of Color and check out the other I like Thursday posts.