February in Florida...

In February Andy & I went on a vacation to Florida...and Georgia...and the Bahamas...and he even got a trip to Tennessee in there before I joined up with him...

Andy ended up taking the whole month of February off, but I could only get 2 weeks off from my job.  He left here on January 29 and drove to our daughter & son-in-law's place in Tennessee where he stayed for a few days before driving on to our son & daughter-in-law's place in Georgia.   After a few days there...and helping them install a new dishwasher (YAY!!), he drove to Florida where I have 2 sisters with winter homes.  I then joined him on February 10th to start our joint vacation!

I had to drive through snow to get to the airport to leave, so when I arrived in Florida and it was mid-60 degree weather, I thought I was in heaven!  My sister, though, thought it was a bit chilly...thus the neck scarf in this photo!   Here we were waiting to be seated for our lunch at Sage Biscuit in Bradenton.  I definitely recommend the crab omelette!!!  :D

The temperatures quickly warmed up while we were in Florida, so most of the time we were tootliing around in this...

...my sister's VW EOS convertible!!!  

It is a hard-top convertible, so she simply pushes a button and the trunk opens...

...the rear window and hard-top automatically get stowed in the trunk...and then the trunk lowers to close itself!  Pretty neat to watch!  (Of course, I'm easily entertained, too!  LOL)

On day we were headed out to lunch at a restaurant in Cortez...it is one we've eaten at several times before.  However, when we got to it, there was no parking and the line was around the building, so we got back in our car (actually Bev's crew-cab truck...there were 5 of us adults) and headed back towards Bradenton since the line of traffic headed to Anna Marie Island was HORRIBLY long and slow-moving.  As we got back on Cortez Blvd., we saw a restaurant directly to our right and decided to pull in and try it.  We were a little concerned because there were only 1-2 cars in the parking lot, but we were hungry and decided to give it a go.  (While we were there the customers started pouring in.  Evidently, we had arrived just minutes before the lunchtime rush started!) The name was "O'Shucks" and turned out to be FANTASTIC food with a great waitress.  We sat outside and enjoyed the 75-80 degree weather! 

When I went inside to use the restroom, I passed this guy...well...actually a dummy... that was modeling an apron that they sell as a souvenir...

Like I said earlier, I have two sisters with retirement homes in FL...so while in Florida I was able to gift a quilt to my sister and brother-in-law, Bev and Denny.  They are the ones that live in Illinois and hosted us when we went out there last May for their grandson's graduation.

The quilt is called "Cottage Blossoms" and was my choice for Bev because she loves to grow flowers and she likes quilts with a mostly-white background...

(Denny is hiding behind the quilt on the left)

Here the quilt is on their guest bed...(the bed I intended it for!)...

And though they are "free-handed"...( used a stencil to draw them)...it was my first time doing feathers!!!  

The quilt was free-motion quilted on my Juki TL2000Qi ...and let me just say that this is NOT supposed to happen...I accidentally sewed my quilting glove to the quilt!!!  Thank goodness the needle only got my glove and not my thumb, too!!!

More vacation photos to come in the next post!!!  

Loretta

Blogger Amnesty Day...

1)  Today is "Leap Year Day".   
2)  It was recently brought to my attention that I had never done a post about this past Christmas.  

How do those two things go together, you ask???

Well...since I consider 2/29 kind of a "non-day" since it only occurs every four years I've decided to call it "Blogger Amnesty Day"...a day for bloggers to write posts that are technically WAAAAYYY out of date, because as the meme above states...I am unproductive with my time! 

So here goes...CHRISTMAS 2015 in review...

Our son, Paul, our daughter-in-law, Trinity, and their two sons, Andrew and Alex were in for the holiday!  They were here for a whole week, but didn't actually arrive till Christmas afternoon.  Since I had to work from 7-11 AM Christmas morning, it all worked out well.  I was able to get home by noon, and with Andy's help we had Christmas dinner on the table about 5 PM.  Our neighbors, Wes and Kathy also joined us for the meal, so we had nice group joining us around the table!

Here are some pictures taken from that week's visit...

Paul, Andrew and Alex watching something on the TV quite intently!!!

Andrew...

Alex...at the base of the stairs that he fell down last year...what a 

difference a year makes!  No need for a baby gate this year!  :)

Alex appears to have a 9-car pile up on his hands at the moment...

Andrew LOVED this stuff!!!  It's called "Kinetic Sand" and if you haven't tried it for your little ones I highly suggest that you do!!  It is unique and fun!

Alex LOVES his Mickey Mouse coloring book!!!

Trinity and me...

Hope you have enjoyed this very late Christmas post!  And if you are a blogger who has delinquent posts, today is your amnesty day to post them...per "Queen Loretta"!  LOL

Loretta

Your Mileage May Vary...

WARNING:  If you are a member of the "quilt police", you will probably want to stop reading right now!


Today I'm going to tell you about two "Quilting Commandments" that I decided to try not doing to see if it made a difference with a couple of issues I've been struggling with for quite some time.

1)  Three years ago I took a quilting class/retreat from a renowned, nationally-known quilt instructor.  I took my trusty Singer 221 Featherweight to the class and I had a non-original 1/4" foot on it.  It was one of those 1/4" flanged feet except that the flange had been removed.  (I had found that the width of the foot was a perfect scant 1/4", but if I followed the flange, my seam was 1/4", not a "scant 1/4" like patterns call for.  Also, I found the flange awkward to use when making HST's [half-square triangles] as the flange pulled the fabric out of shape when the flange traveled over it, so I had Andy remove the flange.  If I ran the fabric right down the edge of the foot, I had a nice scant 1/4" seam.)

flanged 1/4" foot

When the instructor saw this she told me that I really shouldn't use non-original feet on a featherweight because of the way the feed dogs are...the right feed dog is shorter than the left one...and the original foot was made to work specifically with those feed dogs.

Original foot

So I put the original foot back on and tried my best to sew a straight 1/4" seam.  The problem, though, is that with the original foot on the machine, the feed dogs pull the fabric to the left slightly after it leaves the needle area.  I'm trying to feed the fabric in straight but I'm fighting those feed dogs all the way, struggling to sew a straight seam even while using a piece of plastic as a seam guide. 

Because of this, I had put away my Featherweight for the last couple years and didn't even use it because it frustrated me so.  Since pulling out the Featherweight and using it for the past several days, once again my frustration level was rising.  

Today I thought I'd pull out that 1/4" foot and see if I could do a better job with it.  If I couldn't, then I was putting the machine away...possibly for good this time.  

Well....lo and behold...with using the modern 1/4" foot and keeping the piece of plastic on the machine as a seam guide, it WORKS!  The fabric does not get fed wonky by the feed dogs!  It goes straight out behind the needle like it should!!!  

YAY for me!!!  First "rule" debunked!!!

Now for the second "rule/commandment":  "Always 'set' your seam with the iron before pressing the fabric open."  The thinking behind this is that when you touch your iron to the closed seam, you are causing the sewing thread to "shrink" and tighten into the fabric.  

The problem I have, though, is that when I then go to press the pieces open the seam doesn't want to lay flat.  I especially find that irritating when pressing HST's...there is always that one side that sticks up and flaps in the breeze even after pressing...and I mean PRESSING with lots of heat and pressure!!!

So today I tried just pressing the pieces open (with the seam going towards the dark fabric) without first pressing it closed.  GUESS WHAT???  The block lays soooooooooo much flatter now!!!

BOOM!!!

Yep...so from now on I won't be "setting my seams" before pressing them.  I'm such a rebel!!! If you find blocks that don't lay flat are a nuisance to you, too, you may want to try this for yourself!  (I promise I won't report you to the Quilt Police!!  

Loretta

  

Snowmageddan 2016...

If you live in the United States or Canada, you no doubt have heard about "Jonas", the winter storm that is currently wreaking havoc on the eastern part of the USA.  Where we live in West Virginia was directly in the path of the storm from about 11 AM on Friday till about 5 PM Saturday.

We had plenty of warning about the storm, so I did our normal weekend grocery shopping on Thursday.  The stores were a NIGHTMARE, but I persevered and made it through!  (Trust me, you do NOT want to be in a grocery store in the 24 hours before a storm is predicted!)  Businesses and offices started announcing on Thursday that they would be closed by noon on Friday.  The road crews were on alert and mobilized.  West Virginia and the eastern seaboard were READY!  

Once Andy got home from work on Friday, I knew that neither of us would be going anywhere for a few days.  We were both off of work for the weekend, so there was nothing to do but hunker down and relax and enjoy the forced R & R.  

My plan for the weekend was to spend the majority of it in my sewing room.  I spent Friday cutting out the pieces for a new quilt project...a "jar" quilt made from novelty fabrics...a kind of "I Spy" quilt, but incorporating the jar theme into it.  

Here are all my pieces cut and stacked...

and today I started piecing the quilt on my 1957 Singer Featherweight...

Here's one of the blocks completed...they measure 6.5" x 8.5" unfinished...

This afternoon I ventured outside to take some pictures as the storm was winding down.

This measurement was taken on the sidewalk in front of our house...

 

A view of our property...garage, carport, and house...

Another view of our house...the hump on the right side of this picture is actually one of our vehicles completely covered with snow! 

This was the view from our carport this afternoon as Andy shoveled our driveway...

The view of our street to the north of our house...

...and to the south...

If you were in the path of this storm, I hope that you and your family are all safe!

Loretta

2015 Parade of Quilts...

Quote for the Day:

I have never done a "Year-In-Review" post before about my quilts, but I thought I'd do one for 2015...just because.

Please join me on this trip down 2015 Memory Lane...

My first finish was actually a finish-up of a quilt that I started in December 2014..."Vintage Embroidered Stars".  This was also the first (and only, so far) quilt that I sent out to be long-arm quilted by someone.  Machine-pieced, my own pattern...

My next project was "Mr. Chillingsworth", a gift for my chiropractor that I machine pieced and hand quilted, purchased pattern.  This quilt now hangs in one of his treatment rooms.  

By March I had a severe case of the "winter blahs" and made this Spring table runner for my dining room table.  Machine pieced and machine quilted, "Disappearing 4-Patch", free on-line tutorial...

Next up was another "Choo-choo Train" quilt...the fourth one I've made so far!  I give this quilt to each of my grandchildren on their first birthday (the fronts are the same but the backings are different for each one.  This one was for Clark who turned one in June.  Machine appliqued and machine quilted, from a purchased pattern...

In June, I made this "signature" quilt for Kate and Jon for their wedding in July where they had their guests sign it.  There was no pattern for this...I just got the idea from seeing a picture online and made up my own pattern from there, machine pieced and machine quilted.  It was also my first time working with batiks! 

In June a friend and co-worker of mine was diagnosed with cancer and I made this quilt for her...also a "signature" quilt...signed by our co-workers.  Machine pieced and machine quilted from free online "Wonky Stars" pattern.  These blocks were my "leader/ender" project from 2013 or 2014...

And the last quilt for the year was the hand-quilting project that I had been working on since April and finished in November...Erin & Dale's vintage embroidered quilt...

Along with these quilts, I also made 2 receiving blankets for new babies that arrived in 2015...Franco and Rylen!!

I know that I'm not nearly as productive as many quilters/crafters out there...but I do my craft for the joy it brings me and to spread happiness and smiles to those I love!

Loretta