Design Wall Monday - August 30, 2021

 Good Morning Quilters!  if you recall, two weeks ago I blogged that I had started a baby blanket for a future, unknown Great Grandchild. Picture of the start of it:   Blog post here  I found the matching yarn skein, “Soft White”  to finish the project and took it with us on the drive to the wedding last week.  I worked on it all the way to Delaware and all the way back to Michigan!  Here is the results:

It measures 28 inches square, and I think I will add a little border all around, as I have a little bit of yarn left over.  I think it will finish it off nicely.   It will be stored away for a future blessed event.

The dress alteration that I talked about last week worked out just fine, (making the dress belt into a tie around the neckline) and here is a picture of us taken at the wedding:

Now that I am back in my sewing room, I am going to tackle finishing my Jane Stickle replica quilt.  I tried to make each block in the same way that the original quilt was done, and here are my quilt squares pinned up on my design wall.  The comparison picture on the left is Jane’s original quilt which is in a museum in Vermont.  My design wall is on the right.  The next step is sewing all the blocks together.

What is on your agenda this week?  I hope no hurricane rains are headed your way. We came through a thunderstorm with lots of lightening while driving home from the wedding.  It was pretty intense, but thankfully short.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you are working on.  Join the Design Wall Mondays linky party below and we can go to your blog to read about your quilty journey.  Thanks for participating!

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Design Wall Monday - August 23, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!  I am back in Grand Rapids where my sewing machines are.....where my stash is.....where my collection of UFO's reside. 

From last week:  The cotton yarn stash is turning into dish clothes and it is a great "car trip" project.  So far, I've knitted four and am started to crochet the fifth one.

But now that I'm with my sewing room, which UFO is calling me?  The Jane Stickle quilt has all the blocks made, and needs assembly, so I should work on that next.  It is hard to explain, but for some reason, I keep putting off finishing this one.  We shall see what this week's play plan is.  I like all of my UFO's and dream of finishing all of them.  Just not this week.  lol

First this week, I am altering a new dress I just bought.  We are going to a couple of weddings soon, and I felt the need to buy a new frock.  I seldom wear dresses, but I do like them.  This new dress is perfect in almost every way.  Not perfect?  The neckline is too low in front.  (Hubby says "What's wrong with that?")  I gave him an eye roll.  I decided I could fix it by taking the belt (a chiffon long tie) and repurposing it around the neckline and it would then have a soft bow in the front, covering the low neckline.  That's the plan, so I will see if it will work.  Otherwise, I may go with plan B...wear an old dress or plan C...buy another new dress.  I will let you know next week what happens.  The dress:

It doesn't look too low on her, but she's a model....and probably never leans forward or turns her body.  But everything fits perfectly when you are a model, right?  But I'm an ordinary modest lady, who will be wearing a dress with a bow in the front.  :)

What are you working on this week?  I read your blogs and you make me want to start new quilts all the time.  You are so creative!  The new fabric lines coming out this fall are tempting too.   My "finish my UFOs" commitment and the "use my stash" commitment must be renewed weekly.  Sigh.  

Please join the Design Wall Monday linky party below and show us what you are doing.  Remember, you don't have to have a design wall, but a design wall really helps you if you can find a place for one.   Big thanks to those of you who mention Design Wall Mondays on your blog, and provide a link back to this page.   You are my kind of people.  So, let's get this party going!

  

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Design Wall Monday - August 16, 2021

 Good Morning Quilters!  This past week I’ve finished a couple of projects that I was working on.  The crocheted afghan that my daughter and I worked on is finished.  It will be donated soon to a Grand Rapids non-profit organization.  

I found out that JoAnn’s Fabrics has the “Warm White” Red Heart yarn that I need to finish the baby afghan that I started for a future great-grandchild.  I will wait until I’m in Grand Rapids where there is a JoAnn’s store nearby.  So that project is on hold temporarily.

The little brown squirrel on the dish towel is complete.  I am so happy to complete some of these projects I’ve started previously.  

Since I looked at my yarn stash last week, I decided to get all my crocheting and knitting patterns out and look at them….and I got enthused about using some of my yarn.  I’ve started with my cotton yarn stash, and am having fun making new dishcloths.  Here is the one I made that used up three different leftover pink yarns:

The cotton yarn stash isn’t very big, and I like to knit and crochet, so right now I  have a dishcloth project in a carry bag with me to work on whenever I get a chance.  My plan is to use all the cotton yarn up.    The next one I have started is a knitted red dishcloth.  

What are you working on this week?  Please join the Design Wall Monday Linky Party and show us.  

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Design Wall Monday - August 9, 2021

Good Morning Quilters! This past week was small progress on several fronts, so I thought I’d post today an inventory of where I am on the current UFOs.

When our daughter came to visit, she brought a baby blanket project to finish while here, and donate to a charity.  We discovered it needed tweaking.  She followed the pattern on how many chain stitches to start with, and it made the blanket 36” long.  When it was time for her to go home, the project measured 20” x 36”.  I said I would add some lavender to each side, and I’ve done that, and it now measures 24”x 36”.  I plan to add more creamy white to each side to make it finish at 30” x 36”.

When we took her to the airport, we also stopped at the Grand Rapids house, and I got two skeins of white from my yarn stash there.  Yes, there is a yarn stash.  I was thinking “white” and not that there are many shades of white.  Well, back at the cabin, I saw that our project had a creamy more yellow kind of white, and the white I brought from home wasn’t the same.  So I bought a skein of  creamy white that will work to finish our project up.  Progress picture:

Then, I reasoned in my little mind, I have two skeins of white here, I could make a white baby blanket for a future great-grand baby, and have it ready for when that time comes.  I wanted to test the pattern we had with the crochet hook I had, to get a lesser measurement than 36” on the start, and note it on the pattern.   The pattern says it should finish 25” x 25”.  I know I could crochet a swatch to check the gauge, but this guessing is more fun.   I worked up the first skein and was about a third into the second skein when I took the white blanket in the car with me to work on while riding.  In the bright sunlight in the car, I discovered the two white skeins were different whites!  Enough to bother me forever, so I ripped out what I had done with the second skein.

Now I will search my stash to see if I have enough of the first white to use to complete the blanket.   It is about 30” long and I hope to make it square. Progress pictures:

One was ‘white’ and the other one ‘soft white’.  I hadn’t even noticed that.

(Just because it doesn’t have a dye lot, doesn’t mean I can’t muck it up.  haha). I just had a thought - what do you want to bet that I have more of the ‘white’ but none of the ‘soft white’ that I’ve already started with?

Embroidery projects that are here to work on this week:

Redwork quilt borders, working on 4th one:

May Day basket quilt, working on basket #27 of 30 baskets:

Cheddar quilt embroidered baskets, working on #5 of 13 baskets:

Squirrel kitchen towels, working on last one:

I should have lots of time to look at your blog posts this week, as our guests coming tonight are three Virginia golfing buddies of hubby, and they require very little of me as hostess.  They are here to golf, golf, golf, all day for three days.  I plan to match them with embroidery, embroidery, embroidery.  

What do you have planned for this week, and what is on your design wall? Remember, it’s not necessarily a design wall, physically, but just what you are working on right now.  Thanks for your participation!  Just click below to join the linky party, and remember to mention Design Wall Mondays somewhere within your post, and also provide a link back to my post.

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Design Wall Monday - August 2, 2021

August 2nd!  Happy Design Wall Monday ladies!!  Boy, July whizzed by in a hurry, didn’t it?  The doll quilt name I asked for your help with last week shall be named “Little Red”.  Thanks for all your suggestions.  Gretchen pointed out that it should have a little name because it is such a little quilt, and I agree.  I’ll quilt it this week when I am back home with my sewing machine.

When bringing only embroidery quilt UFOs with me to the cabin,  I included four dish towels, a UFOs that I started years ago.  It is a set of four towels, that had been stamped with an iron on transfer of squirrels.  For some reason that I don’t know, I had started on three of them, doing only part of each squirrel.  Well, now all three are finished, and I am working on the fourth.  They will all be completed soon:

Our daughter, Christa, and her family have been visiting from Texas.  Today Christa worked on a crocheted baby afghan that she brought with her.  She has a goal of using all of her extra yarn to make baby blankets and other baby things to give away.  Like my fabric stash, her yarn stash is bountiful.

She didn’t want her picture taken, so this is just a peek at her over the baby afghan.  This baby afghan will have a border of the light lavender all around the outside when it is complete.  She says she will be finished with it before she goes home, and will leave it here for a charity gift for someone.  She’s so nice.

Penny is dog tired.  Our granddog, Tucker, has been visiting for four days and they play hard.  They spent a lot of time carrying around a toy together - each holding on to a part of the toy with their mouth.   Tucker has gone home now, and Penny Lane is tuckered out!

But it was not all just playing games with Tucker for Penny.   Here she is out in the lake with me, enjoying the water.  This picture shows why July went by so fast for me.  hehehe    

What are you starting, working on, or finishing this August?  Thanks for participating in the Design Wall Monday linky party each week.  I appreciate you.   Just click on the button below to enter, and please mention in your blog post that you are joining in with Design Wall Monday.  Thanks.

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