Neighborhood table

 Hi everyone! How was your week? Mine was a doozy, and I will tell you all about it at the end of this post. We have to get to the quilty stuff first, right? Today I'm showing the rest of the placemats I made for the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt along at mmmquilts. Most people made an actual quilt, but these houses just screamed 'fun placemats!' to me, so that's what I made. Here is the whole set of six:

 

It has been raining for the past couple of days (hurray!), so the pictures are a little washed out, but aren't those great placemats? They each finish at about 16 by 20, a very nice generous size for outdoor eating in the summer.

How about some closer pictures? Here are the two that I had finished earlier and already posted about:

Obviously those were photographed on a much brighter day! 

I call this one the party house, and it's my granddaughter's favorite because it's mostly purple:

Doesn't that look like a house that has a lot of fun summer parties? Or maybe it looks like a house of some people you knew in college. You know the ones I mean. . . I love the pink roof and the wild colors of this house.

This is the hippie house, the home of some very laid back people:

If I had had some fabric with a peace sign, I would have found a way to incorporate it, but nothing like that in all the fabric I own. I'm sure the people in this house have no trouble with their very unusual turquoise roof. 

Next up is the birdhouse, which was very, very hard to photograph, for unknown reasons:

As you can see, the birds have a design feature on the front of their home. I added the extra green strip because there was no way for me to match up all the birds, and it just looked too weird when I joined the front pieces together. I love the star on the side of this house, too. 

Finally, there is the garden house, which might be my favorite:

This is probably the house I would choose to live in, if such a thing were possible. It looks so peaceful. And it was a great use of a gray and coral fat quarter, which I got in a kit that I bought a while ago just for the fabric in it.

All in all, a fun project for a fun summer table! The pattern is great and chock-ful of all kinds of things I didn't include, including different kinds of house features, all the different blocks for the sides of the houses, and some trees and flowers, plus two different layouts and instructions for a pillow. You could end up with some fun placemats, too!

So, here's why I had a heck of a week--

Short version: I have a pulmonary embolism. You can read more about what that is HERE. Pay attention to the 'lfe-threatening' part.

Longer version: Last Wednesday, as I was finishing stitching on the binding on one of these placemats, I started having trouble breathing and was sweating and shaking, so I thought I was having a heart attack. That's your first thought, right? Of course we went right to the emergency room, and if you ever want fast service, walk in and tell them you think you're having a heart attack. You'll get four nurses and a doctor to help you right away. It wasn't a heart attack, but hours and many tests later, they discovered a pulmonary embolism. I'm happy to know what happened, and glad that the hospital took such good care of me. I'm taking more (very expensive) medication than I ever thought possible, and I get to have even more tests! Won't that be fun?

So, there's what happened! It was exciting and terrifying, and continues to be so. All of my summer plans are up in the air, so we'll have to rearrange. I gues that means more time for stitching, right? It's a non-stressful activity, isn't it? 

Take care of yourselves, friends, and have a great weekend! If you have trouble breathing or your chest hurts, get help right away. Take it from me!

Sharing at Sandra's quiltalong linkup, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or not Friday, and the Quilting, Patchwork, Applique linkup.

Setting the table

 Hello everyone! Is anyone else scratching out their eyes from all the pollen? I look like I've been crying for days. Several days this week, when I left work, my car had turned green because it was just covered in pollen dust. Then it became a very amusing game of "how do I get into the car without actually touching the car?" Spoiler alert: I lost that game.

This was a busy week, and I am behind on everything in my life, but I did manage to at least start a project that includes two small finishes this week. Take a look and then I'll explain:

You can see those cool houses, and also that I somehow never got around to taking out those azaleas last year. I really forgot about them until they started blooming this year. Oh, well!

Here's the story on the houses: have you seen the Rainbow Neighbourhood pattern by Sandra at mmmquilts? She is running a quilt along with this pattern over on her blog, and I knew as soon as I saw it that those fun houses would make great placemats. I know! I feel kind of bad that I thought that, because the two quilts she shows are adorable, but all I could think was "fun placemats."

To be fair, we eat outside a lot in the summer, and the houses make placemats in a great size for outdoors. I made two houses already, and I have an awesome purple one cut out, and I want to make an orange one, but I can't decide what will go with orange. I really need six placemats in all. The pattern has a ton of options for the houses-- different blocks for the side, different window configurations, a porch roof-- so I'm sure I'll be able to get six different fun placemats for our summer adventures.

I quilted these in pale yellow thread with straight-ish lines about an inch apart, which was probably too close. The backs are some brown/ gold fat quarters that actually make awesome backings. No clashing with the fabrics on the front! The pattern went together really easily and I was able to finish these off over a couple of afternoons. 

These finished off at just about 16 by 20, a nice generous size. And if you're thinking, "gosh, Mari, that's too big," take a look at how they are on the outdoor table:

Just the right size to keep all the food and utensils nice and clean! And away from the pollen, too. You can see that the table is glass, and things clatter a lot, too, plus I want to protect the table as much as I can.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and that the scratchy eye thing eases up soon. I might wash the car, but there's that "getting in without getting all gross" thing . . . I should just stay inside, right?

Sharing at Sandra's quilt along linkup, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or not Friday, and the Quilting, Patchwork, Applique linkup.

Old dog, new tricks

Hi all!  Hope everyone managed to survive the storm okay.  Even by Midwestern standards, that was an impressive amount of snow. (We had about 21 inches.)  And it's still hanging around, too.  I understand it snows regularly here, so why aren't they better at clearing the roads?  It's a mystery.

While we were snowed in, I actually didn't sew much of anything!  I. . .cleaned.  I know, I can't explain it either!  The hubs and I also watched some movies and then went out on Sunday and dug out the cars.  That was exhausting.  Other than that, I have been learning some new things and I did do a little bit of practicing this new technique.  Take a look:

Free pieced houses!  Who knew I had it in me?  (I told you I was obsessed with houses.)

For those who don't know, free piecing is a technique that involves no patterns and no measuring.  You simply cut pieces (with scissors!) and sew them together, trimming and pressing as you go, then square up at the end.  Some people make things really wonky, but wonky makes me really nervous, so I tried to make things fairly straight.  These were my first two:

Really simple, right?  Even these were really hard for me, so I made them and then had to take a break and get my head around things.  When I settled down, I made two more:

Look, doors!  For some reason, I was a little happier with these, and a lot calmer, even though I made a few mistakes.  Trim everything off straight, really!

So the only thing left to do was make a house with windows too:

Ta-da!  I'm actually pretty happy with how this one came out.  It actually looks like a house!  By the time I made this one I was getting a lot more comfortable with the process and enjoying it.  "Free-pieced" does not mean sloppy or poorly constructed, and it took a few tries to convince myself of that.

If this technique made me so nervous, why did I try it?  Well, it's always good to try new things, especially if they're outside your comfort zone.  It's how we learn and grow.  Plus, I have really been impressed with some of the free-pieced quilts that I've seen, and I am really looking forward to getting Julie's new book on free-pieced barns and trying some of those out.  My real goal is to make some free-pieced letters, so that's the next thing for me to try.  Now THAT will be nerve-wracking!

I think I want to live in this happy house!

Hope you're having a wonderful week and that your streets are all clear.  Midwesterners, you have no idea how lucky you are.  Want to come out and give the East coast some snow-clearing lessons?  They need them!

Sharing at  Linky Tuesday,  Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.
 

Neighborhood

Hi everyone!  Are you all ready for the snow?  Apparently we're going to get buried over the weekend.  All I know is that we have had next to no snow all winter (which is weird) and now we're apparently going to get it all at once.  I tried to go to the grocery store today, but that was a serious mistake.  It was a zoo!  I didn't need bananas that badly, so I didn't stay long.

Before the snow flies, let's talk about this lovely little quilt top I just finished:

Neighborhood

Not the greatest picture (it's cold and windy) but I love it! I have been obsessed with houses for a while now.  I am so tired of living in this condo that I could just scream sometimes.  I know I should feel grateful that I have a nice safe place to live that is tucked away near a park and everything, but I miss my house so much.  I keep thinking about all the improvements I would make to this place, but then I remember that I can't do anything about that ugly bathroom floor.  Sigh.  Spring is coming, and then we'll be looking. 

I guess for now I'll make do with these pretty house blocks! I did not make these.  Back in September, I got to "adopt" these blocks from Julie at Floribunda Quilts.  Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework had a Quilty Adoption event (and is having another in March, so be ready) where people could offer their unfinished projects that they had lost enthusiasm for to others who would finish them.  I won Julie's beautiful blocks!

These were apparently made by several different people, and they are all great!  They have all sorts of bling, too:

How cute are those beads?  And check out the roof of this house:

What pretty decorative stitches!

I set these blocks in irregular rows with this beautiful blue-green Kona cotton.  (I need a Kona color card so I can keep these names straight.)  I didn't want any straight rows or anything like that.  I tried to work it out on graph paper, but in the end I just sat on the floor and arranged them the way I wanted, then measured the spaces between them to cut the sashing.  It was a process, but it worked!

So, I now have this little top that measures about 50 by 50 (or so).  I've named it Neighborhood, because what else could it be?  Because of the buttons and such, I'll have to quilt it up myself, which I am totally looking forward to.  Could take a little while, though, because I have to figure out what to do with that negative space.  Maybe I can quilt in some trees or something.  Here's where the graph paper will come in handy!

Thanks to Julie for such great blocks! Since she had wanted these to be used for a charitable purpose, this may get donated to my niece's high school auction for their student activities.  Not sure if I can have it done by then, but I'll try.

Here's hoping your house will be okay this weekend.  Stay off the roads and stay in and sew--it's safer!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finish it up Friday.