Lost and Found

 Hi everyone! How has your week been? For us, it has gotten quite warm and the cicadas have finally emerged. Many people are very excited about this. Me, not so much. Imagine flies with bodies the size of your thumb. Now imagine stepping out your front door into a pile of them. That's why they only come out every 17 years-- it takes that long to recover from bug-related nightmares.

So, I'm staying inside until they go back underground, which is completely fine with me. I have plenty to keep me amused. I do have a finish to show off today, though, and it has quite the backstory.  It almost didn't make it to the finish line! Here she is:

Yahoo! Some of you will recognize this as the Phoenix quilt by Sharon Holland. I pieced it last year when the pattern came out, then, like everything, it sat for a while, waiting to be quilted. In due time, when it had aged properly, I sent the top and backing off to my friend Diane, who worked her magic on it and put it back in a priority mail box and sent it home. 

 

Only it never arrived. 

 

The tracking stopped somewhere in between distribution centers, like it got on a plane and never got off. It stayed stalled for weeks, with no tracking updates.

 

I was only semi-frantic at first, because our mail has been super s-l-o-w. It improved a little, then slowed down again. I have no idea what is happening, and apparently, neither does anyone else. After 4 weeks, though, I was pretty worried. Diane was worried, too. Anxiety rose. She filed a form to find the box. I filed a form to find the box. They sent me a message that the box was on "extended delivery" (what the he** is that?) and that the issue was "resolved." More anxiety, but still no quilt. Calls to the postmaster and another form. No box. Plenty of anxiety.

 

 

Finally, I got in touch with my Congressman's office. The staff was extremely nice and very helpful, and they took all my information and made nice noises. I did not have much hope in spite of the sympathy, which was more than I had gotten from the Post Office. And then-- the box with this quilt suddenly showed up one day, with no warning or tracking movement. Do you think that's a coincidence? Who cares? After almost two months, the quilt was finally home! Tragedy averted. Relief all around.

 

(I should say right here that I don't blame the people who work the lines and deliver the letters. The Post Office is pretty obviously broken right now, and it's not the fault of the majority of people who work there. They're probably more frustrated than we are. So, if you're a letter carrier or sorter or any other person directly involved with handling the mail, please know that you are appreciated!)

 

I was so happy to see this quilt! As always, Diane did a great job on the quilting, in a pattern called Popcorn. It's kind of curvy and cloud-like and worked great for the star/ floral shapes in this quilt. I had made the binding, a soft but zippy coral fabric, before I sent it out to be quilted, so as soon as it showed up, I tossed aside the project I was working on, sat right down, and put that binding right on. Even though it's quite warm now, I even hand stitched the binding over a couple of evenings. I guess I really was happy!

 

 

With all the drama, this one turned out very nice and I'm really pleased with it. It feels kind of modern, but also traditional, and it used some pretty fabrics. I also love the backing, which is a white with some modern stars. This one turned out to be a good size, too, so I may actually hang it on a wall, probably in the hallway. We'll see.  The only thing I'm sure of is how happy I am to see it finally finished!

So that's the story of the almost-lost quilt! Thankfully, it's a story with a happy ending, though I'll never know what happened in the middle there. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend that is relaxing with no lost packages and no cicadas. I'll try to get a picture for those of you who haven't seen one in person (you lucky people!) If one lands on me, though, I'm pretty sure you'll hear the scream from wherever you are!

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Brag About Your Beauties.

Rising from the leaves

 Hi everyone, and happy weekend! Well, we seem to have made it through yet another week. Every week I'm surprised when Friday comes, but I'm always glad to see it. Our weather here has been up and down, but the one thing that is very evident is that the days are definitely getting shorter. I saw a cartoon this week where a woman is panicky because she thinks it's midnight, but it turns out that it's only 5:30. It doesn't sound funny when I describe, but I definitely chuckled in recognition.

This has been a hard week, but I did manage to finish the Phoenix quilt top! Here it is, out among the fall leaves:

 

It's pretty, isn't it? You can see that we still have a lot of green, but we've also had some leaves falling. Not a lot of pretty colors on our property yet, but there are some around here. I don't really remember last fall, but I really miss the beautiful maple we had in Wisconsin. It always turned such a pretty red-orange.

 

Back to the quilt! This is the Phoenix quilt, a pattern from Sharon Holland that you can get HERE. It was a super-easy quilt to put together. The most time consuming part of it was trimming the hsts, which was strangely peaceful since life is so stressful for me right now. I also had to keep referring back to the layout diagram because I couldn't keep it all straight, but that's probably just me. I kept thinking the blocks were rectangular because of the design they create, but they're actually square, which kind of confused my brain.

 

I made one smallish change to the pattern and used different scrap pieces to make the centers of the flowers instead of what the directions called for. I like how it turned out and added more colors to the quilt. I also thought about adding a row and making the quilt bigger, but in the end I decided that I didn't need a bed-size quilt right now, and I really liked the mix of colors that I already had. Adding a row, though, would be really easy and make this a twin quilt. 

I'm thrilled with this finish and would absolutely make it again. Just a single block would make a nice sized wall hanging, and four of them would be a nice table topper. Next time, though, I would choose a stronger fabric for the corners. I used a pale yellow this time and it's pretty hard to see in the actual quilt. I had such a nice time making this quilt that I also purchased another Sharon Holland pattern, for the Saguaro quilt, and I'm putting that on this list for after the next quilt that I've been cutting out.

So there we are! I hope all of you are staying well and healthy, and that you have something relaxing planned for this weekend. My plan is to try to get a nice nap. They've started putting the siding up on the new garage, and they start early in the morning. But they don't work Saturdays, and I won't be working this Saturday, either!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or not Friday, and Brag About Your Beauties.

A festive trio of blocks

 Hello everyone! Here we are at yet another week in 2020. I can't believe this year isn't over yet, and at the same time, September is racing by. Our temperatures dropped into the 40s overnight the last couple of nights, and the hubs finally broke down and let me turn on the heat. Hard to imagine, but true! 

I am trying to finish a big writing project right now, with a deadline of September 30, so while there has been stitching, there has not been blog writing. Life is like that sometimes. Today I just have three more Phoenix blocks to show off:

 

Aren't those pretty? I know some of you may be tired of seeing the geraniums, but I couldn't resist as they are blooming so nicely right now, and I fear they don't have long. The tomatoes are done, I think, which means that I should pick the green ones that remain and see if they ripen up. 

 

These blocks are so easy, with big pieces and easy construction. I did have to resort to labeling the rows, though, because I kept getting them mixed up. The hardest part really is the layout, though I do find trimming the hsts just a little tedious. I listened to The Martian (the movie) again while I was stitching these, which made it go a little better. Good book, pretty good movie, but I can't listen to recorded books. They put me right to sleep or else annoy the heck out of me.

 

I wasn't sure about this blue, which seemed pretty plain as yardage, but I think it turned out all right, don't you?

Those of you who have made this quilt will notice that I've departed from the pattern just a little and used random fabrics for the centers instead of what I was supposed to use. This means that I'll have some leftover hsts from the blocks, and I already came up with a nice idea for them. Sort of a "Phoenix lite" or something.

This week I also got a nice package in the mail:

 

An online friend sent me these lovely yellows and golds, and now I think I'm searching for a fun pattern to use the golds. I think they would look great all used in a quilt together, don't you? It has to be a super simple pattern, though, because right now my mental bandwidth is pretty narrow. 

 That's the state of my sewing life right now! Not that exciting, but all progress is good progress, right?  Hope you are all making progress, too. Have a good week, everyone, and cross your fingers for a finish for me later this week. I'm thisclose, but first I have to finish those darned footnotes. . .

Sharing at Midweek Makers.

One block, two blocks

 Hello everyone! Well, the first week of school is in the books, and it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. The students seem pretty much up for Zooming, and they actually showed up for class, so it's looking good so far. This is a huge relief, and I feel so much better now that the first week is behind me. The planning takes a long time, but it certainly pays off. My only trouble right now is getting library materials, but they are reopening on Monday, so that may just work itself out as well. Yahoo!

This week I got started on the Phoenix quilt, which turns out to be the best therapy ever. I know that Saturday is the day for posting for the Rainbow Scrap Chellenge, but I made no RSC progress and we're kind of living in a topsy-turvy world right now, and I want to show my blocks, so why not?  Here are the first two that I made:

Those look a little wrinkled, but aren't they pretty? And they did get a little damp, too, because you can tell that it was just finished raining, but they pressed dry just fine.This pattern is by Sharon Holland, and you can get the pattern HERE. Like I said, it's a really therapeutic pattern to stitch up when you are very stressed. Once you're done with the cutting and counting, it's pretty much autopilot, which is exactly what I needed.

 

I spent a nice couple of hours over a few evenings cutting everything, then another couple matching things up and marking and whatnot. This was remarkably peaceful. So I have everything cut, but I've only stitched these two. Somehow it worked best for me to make two at a time, so that there was never a time when I had to cut the threads. Yeah, it's the little things.

 

In other news, they made real progress on our renovation this week. Construction is so strange. When I have something to do around the house, I want to get in and get it done, but here they'll work for a few hours, then leave, then some other people come, then we wait several days for the electrician, who looks at things and leaves, then someone else comes. It's all strange, but the work is outside, so it's not bothering us too much yet. If it were inside we'd be climbing the walls, but it's outside for now, so it's okay. Loud at times, but okay.

I did one other good thing this week, besides teach a bunch of classes, and that was this:

 

I bought a second iron! Is it weird that it makes me really happy? I now have one at the big ironing board and one next to the sewing machine. It only cost about ten dollars, but I dithered over it for far too long. Here's the best part: I had both of them on, plus the sewing machine, AND the TV, and the power was just fine. It was amazing and felt miraculous. Like I said, it's the little things!

I hope you all are having a good weekend! I plan to rest my brain and clean the sewing machines, then maybe baste something else. I unexpectedly have some extra batting, so I'd better put it to good use!