Feeling WIPed

Linking up with I Quilt Thursday @ Pretty Bobbins.

I'm out of my element. In the past I have not had a list of ongoing projects. I pretty much start, work, finish (or abandon) and then move on to the next project. I think I have become a victim of blog exposure overload. I see so many cool projects and am inspired to start my own version. My list of WIPs is growing. Thankfully, so is my list of finishes!

WIPs:

Sale Table Quilt-I am more than halfway done with the FMQ.

Bird Embroidery-Third panel has less than an hour of stitching to go. Next steps will be piecing, quilting, binding and hanging on my studio wall. I have two more panels but I think I'll start on them after I have finished my first three panels.

Wedding Quilt-Fabric purchased! Design set! Now on to cutting.

Angel Embroidery-Haven't touched it lately.

Ancient Bags-Still in storage.

Window Treatments-This is new. I have five french doors and one door window to cover. I have the canvas cut for two. One is ironed and ready to stitch. These will go fast. I am doing a simple swedish blind. We will live in a fish bowl no more! You can get a sneak peek of my progress in my ironing board photo below.

Bento Bag- I have this ripped apart and plan to reuse the zippers and velcro for a cuter version. When I pulled out the plastic liner I found an interior zipper pocket that I didn't know about! I love this bag. It holds my phone, chap stick and Cliff Blocks. I won't have it finished by this weekend for the Blue Ridge Breakaway. Darn!

Finishes:

Leaders for my Grace rack. Since my studio is the first space you see upon entering our home I think the ticking was a great choice. It has a more finished decorator look. Thanks to Just Sew Olivia for the great tutorial.

 Ironing Board-I made this 2'x4' beauty on Sunday. I can't believe how much I love it.

Scissor Fobs-I made two and it was so much fun I will be making more!

The Bike:

I'm officially back on, but not steady yet.
I did the Ride for a Reason in Augusta, GA on Sunday.

I will be doing the Rabbit ride of the Blue Ridge Break Away this Saturday. Of course Hubby will be doing the Hawk again. I think he is crazy.

Future Projects:

I have the fabric for one of those adorable Fat Quarter Shop OPI Nail Polish Quilts. It will be for my niece and will feature a purple background just because her room "needs more purple" in her opinion to be more perfect.

I'm working up a little something for dog lovers out there. I'll share more when and if I get this off the ground.

Cup Cake update:

It's Wednesday again and Hubby stopped by Smallcakes for some Key Lime Pie. I'm a bit of a slow draw with the camera so you will once again need to use your imagination. Hubby keeps getting one for Son #2 and one for me. I think he does it so that he can fatten us up to make him look thinner!

Official Total:

17 down, 37 to go

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Finishes, Frames and Food, or Goals, Grace and Good

Update on July's ALYOF Goal and Finish Along 3rd Quarter.

Missed it again.

1.   Experimental Bar Mops for a top secret project. Three of four items finished.

2.   Finish my ALYOF goal for last month. Quilting as we speak

3.   Start on that Wedding Quilt I have mentioned before. Still waffling

4. Start and finish a project using my newly won quilting bounty. Fabric purchased and this will be done on my new-to-me toy!

Bittersweet Design's ALYOF Goal for August: The Wedding Quilt. 
Settle on design
Purchase Fabric
Cut

Start sewing.

Here are some things I finished or am working on this month.

Top Left: 30th Anniversary of meeting my husband at Diablo Canyon.

Top Right: Dish Mat #1. It was made with my experimental design and so far I am loving it.

Mid Right: Dish Mat #2 that was gifted to my sister to try out.

Bottom Right: Dish Mat #3 that is going to my son as a first post collage apartment warming gift. We leave for Bham this afternoon. The box holds his newly minted diploma. Hoping to make it by a frame shop while we are visiting. He needs to get this thing on his office wall!

Mid Bottom: My ALYOF June and July goal. I'm about half done with the quilting.

Bottom Left: My Star Challenge block. This was my first attempt at paper piecing. I will be doing more.

And now for my new toy!

This was offered for FREE by a member of my quilt guild. Thank you so much Diann! She is upgrading to a Long Arm after about 3 years of using this. It was gifted to her by her MIL when she upgraded. Someday it will be gifted by me. Will it be due to an upgrade or a this-just-aint-for me realization? Time will tell.

Location looks pretty formal doesn't it. 

Not long ago this room looked like this. It is the last pocket of traditional I have left in my home. In my heart I have never felt comfortable in a traditional setting. Augusta is just such an over the top traditional place that I tried to go with the flow for years. I rebelled about 10 years ago and started purging and replacing. I have only kept the dining room furniture because I had to have something to fill the formal dining space that is found in a majority of the homes in this area.

I had an epiphany a few weeks ago and came up with a great way to shuffle the various dining tables and chairs to transform this room from a "Sewing Room" back into a "Dining Room" for Master's Week rental.

We have double front doors so the Grace frame can be carted out the front door and stored in the garage in one piece. This is such a better solution than figuring out how to store a queen bed.

I have the formal furniture listed on Craig's List. I am going to look into finding a consignment shop. Right now the different pieces are scattered all over my house. I can seat six in my Master Bedroom.

I keep getting asked why I am not using it to quilt my ALYOF goal. Well, the frame's old owner had it set up in king and I have it in queen length. She gave me the king leaders but I do not want to cut them since they are the expensive Grace set and not homemade. I found a tutorial by Just So Olivia on making your own and have purchased the ticking. It's a serger project. I love using my serger!

I also purchased this adorable fabric at Hancock's to practice on. It was on the sale table and I could not have purchased muslin for less. 

Cupcake update.

Hubby made it in time for Key Lime Pie last week. 

Son #2 got to it before I did so I had to recreate it.

It had a slice of real lime on top and a yummy pie filling in the middle.I'm taking his word on that, I'm not a KLP fan myself.

We haven't had any cupcakes this week.

Grand Total: 15 (39 to go)

I just want you to know, I am not eating all of these!

Thanks for visiting!

Linking up with Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day.

Cakes, Cakes and more Cakes...

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts Let's Bee Social #30 and I Quilt Thursdays with Pretty Bobbins.

Since I was shorted a few cupcakes on my birthday last month we have been quite busy making up  for the miscalculation. We may have gone a bit overboard but thankfully I am the only summer baby in our family so cake can be a bit scarce at our house during the summer months.

Traditionally November kicks off a season of excess sweets in our home. You may be thinking "November kicks of a season of excess sweets in just about every American home so whats the big deal." 

Well, our 2nd Son and Hubby are November babies. Last year we declared the entire month of November as the "Month of Nick" and had frosted goodies in the house almost every day! Somehow hubby and I still managed to lose weight. I guess if you spin your pedals enough you can still burn off copious amounts of frosty goodness. 

Then comes Christmas and all the festivities. For years I made at least 15 varieties of treats to share with friends and neighbors. My family would call me the Cookie Nazi because I would guard them until I had made all my trays for sharing. Sorry for devolving into what looks like an ad hitlerism but it's really a Seinfeldism. You may have noticed from "The Month of Nick" that someone in our house has a slight addiction. It's the hubby. They made me stop a few years ago but I still get to make Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread  Cookies and fudge.

We usually visit extended family once or twice during the holidays and the birthdays on both sides are clustered in in that timeframe so there is always cake involved.

January is 1st Son's birth month and the celebration ends and we all go into sugar withdrawal. 

Now for the Smallcakes total:

June 27th-4.....My Birthday

July 5th-3.....We got there too late of the 4th.

July 16.....Just because it was Wednesday and Key Lime Pie is a flavor of the day. We were too late.

Grand total.....13 (only 41 to go)

Top  and bottom left-July 16th, July 5th-Just because, Bottom two on the right-my birthday

 Notice there are two boxes in the top photo. Hubby and I both tried to surprise each other on the same day! Key Lime Pie for 2nd son was our target flavor but we both missed it. You have to get in early for the special flavors.

And speaking of cake...

A few years ago I got one of those passed around emails with a topic like "World's Most Disturbing Cakes." I usually trash these but sometimes I peek. In between the pics of roadkill, shower cakes that looked like pregnant bellies and real babies (who thinks that's a good idea?) there was this rather sedate number with a caption that read something like "...or you may not find this disturbing if you happened to have met and fell in love at a nuclear plant"....

And I said aloud while sitting alone at my computer..."Well yes as a matter of fact, I did meet and fall in love at a nuclear plant!" Then I saved this beauty in iPhoto.

It was 30 years ago in July that I went to work at Diablo Canyon Power Plant during the construction phase and met my husband. If you've ever worked in this environment you know there is no such thing as a 40 hour work week. He had been working between a minimum of 5-10's to a maximum of 7-12's for two years. This is tough on a 20 something's social life. When he heard there was a new girl on site he hightailed it down to my desk to introduce himself on July 10th. 

He was such a rebel. He had 007 on his hardhat instead of his employee number and he had declined to join the union when he was hired. (I was so naive I signed on the dotted line when they told me to.) 

It took some time and effort on his part to get a date with me. As the new girl on site I was pretty popular among the single overworked engineers. By the time I said yes I was already pretty smitten. Diablo Canyon was surprisingly romantic for a nuke plant. It sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and we would watch the otters beat abalones on their tummies and frolic while we ate lunch. 

So in honor of the 30th anniversary of our meeting I thought I'd make a little momento for my hubby. I chose to make a small wall hanging of an Atom. It is my personal design. The front is Comma and the back is Kona Papaya. The binding is some solid scraps and I am not sure of the maker. I presented this cutie with a box of cupcakes and you can see it peeking out in the photos above.

This will grace the wall of his office. I only wish I still had our hardhats. His was baby blue and mine was gray. I kept them for years and have always regretted tossing them.

I think my Atom mini quilt is less disastrous than a cooling tower cake for a nuke plant romance...dont you?

I purchased my Comma yardage for I Don't Do Dishes on Etsy. She was wonderful to work with.

It's Wednesday again and one of the last things Hubby said on his way out the door this morning is we have to get to Smallcakes early to get that elusive Key Lime Pie!

WIP Wednesday Update...

My Sale Table Quilt top and back are spread on tables in my foyer ready to sandwich.

I have two more of my secret project in the works. Two are finished and being tested. One at my house and one at my sisters. 

June Update, July Goals and Sewing Space #2

Where did June go?  I missed the mark on my June Finish Goal for A Lovely Year of Finshes.  My week long trip to Washington State sure did take a bite out of my creative time. It didn't help that I came home full of nasty things I inhaled on the plane, my son passed around an even nastier tummy bug and I totally forgot that I would have catch-up work at the office.  

Here's some things that I did get done or started:

From top left traveling clockwise...Red Bird from Heather Bailey's Birds and Branches, June's ALYOF quilt top (I added the boarder on 6/30 but no photo), border cuts and my Yellow Bird, iPad pouch attempt #2, 5 pouches for my WA trip, Sis and me on the way home from WA. Not pictured...my mending jag; Hubbies cycling jersey, Son #2's Chubbies shorts, my robe, and trimmed and serged some useless micro-fibre wash-clothes to fit my Swifter.

I also celebrated a birthday. I was born in 1960. I think my Sweetie may have shorted me 50 SmallCakes. I'll give him until the end of 2014 to make it up to me.

A Quilting first for me in June...I finally won something! Must have been the magic of my birthday month. Thank you so much Hema. I'm giving a sneak peek here but I will give it a full share a little later. 

My Prize!

Now for my July 2014 List of potential project:

1.   Experimental Bar Mops for a top secret project. If it works I will share. If it doesn't work...I'll probably share the failure anyway.

2.   Finish my ALYOF goal for last month. The top is complete with borders. I am still in the process of scribbling the back on graph paper. I haven't settled on a design yet.

3.   Start on that Wedding Quilt I have mentioned before. I have had another design change of heart. My goal is to at least have the fabric purchased by the end of July. I am giving myself a November 1st deadline since that is the original wedding date. Coincidentally, it is also my anniversary.

4. Start and finish a project using my newly won quilting bounty.

My July Goal is once again to finish completely the goal I set for June.  That would be project #2 in blue from above.

 Another Sewing Space share:

When I set up my sewing space after Master's 2013 I moved to the Rec/Bonus Room. Sorry, no photos of the setup.

I set up in that corner between the Dart Board and the Carom Board. The pool table was a great layout area until the guys wanted to play. The wool felt like to hang on to all the little bits of thread and fluff.

Then red leather chair and Ikea "Dave" was nice for handwork in front of the TV. How many "Daves" do you see in the above photo? Well, that's less than half of the number we own. We love those things. They are still available but they changed name. Too many name infringement lawsuits? They will always be "Dave" to us.

I stored my fabric and tools in that little black cabinet. But not everything. I still had things in the guest room. It's a long haul between these two spaces. More and more tools migrated over. It go pretty crowded.

I broke the area down for the stream of November and December visitors over the Holidays. I didn't set it up again. The next space has a bit of a sordid history. It started ugly, real ugly...

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Linking up with Lily's Quilts Small Blog Hop.