Pumpkin Table Runners

Whoa! What happened to Saturday!  Before I knew it, the day was done and I was settled in for an evening of TV when I realized I'd not posted anything! I began posting (nearly) every day about month or so ago and I find that I like doing that. It forces me to find something positive and uplifting each day when it's so easy these days to see only the dark side. And I'm not referring to the increasingly short daylight hours. :-)  Blogging about what I plan to do in a given day also helps me carry out those plans since I have to report to you the next day if I actually did what I said I was going to do.  So, yes, I enjoy posting on a daily basis, but I'm human and sometimes I simply forget to write something up. And I apologize for that.  I'll keep trying to do better.

So, on to yesterday.  No doll clothes for the past 2 days.  I've been taking a little break and made up 2 pumpkin table runners. As you may recall, a week or so ago, I made 10 of these 6.5" by 8.5" pumpkin blocks based on a pattern I'd found on Craftsy. But I didn't know what to do with them--how to turn them into something nice.  So they sat for a few days while ideas swirled around in my brain.  Just like a nice cut of meat, sometimes quilt blocks have to marinate for awhile before I can go on!

This is what I came up with.  I took this picture when I had 3 sides of the checkerboard attached. By the end of the day, I'd done the fourth side and put together the second table runner. I also found a fabric that works for the backing and got both runners sandwiched and pinned.  

It was too late in the day by then to begin quilting, so that's my task for today.  I hope to have them both quilted up and ready for binding by the time I sit down for my weekly dose of Poldark.

I rarely ever use orange in my quilting. I had these fabrics leftover from making scrappy pumpkin items last fall. I find that I really like having all this brightness in the sewing room.  I sew in a basement room with an extremely small window that I can't see out of since it's so high above me. This orange brightness has really lit up my sewing day.  Outside, it's been chilly and gloomy so orange is the color to embrace.  

In addition to quilting up the table runners, I hope to get out and plant some of the iris corms that are waiting for me.  Maybe if it gets a little bit warmer.  

Distracted by Hostas

Yes, I'm being squirrelly again.  I went out yesterday to plant the irises given by a friend, and got distracted by hostas.  I have a bed of hostas that I had originally planned to move this fall, then got lazy and decided to let them wait until next spring. (In hope that there would be a miracle over the winter and they would all die off so I wouldn't have to dig them up!)  At the last minute yesterday, I decided to move the hostas to the same bed as where the irises will go.

This is the picnic area of our patio and there's a planting bed on three sides of it. When we moved in, it was filled with really ugly bushes that were waaay past their time. And there was a 6"deep layer of river rock mulch covering the plastic landscape fabric. Every planting bed on this property is covered with that river rock mulch, which I hate.  So this summer, Don and the neighbor boy worked at removing the bushes and digging out the rock.  The final result is a 3' wide planting bed of dirt around 3 sides of this picnic area.  

This is one corner of the area with some newly transplanted hostas and the 2 bags of iris corms waiting to be planted.  The plan is to fill the entire bed with hostas and iris and fill in spots with rid impatiens for summer color.  This area gets partial sunlight all day and I don't know how the iris will do here. I'll plant some in a sunnier area as well in case they fail here, I'll still have more.

So, I moved all the hostas and by the time I finished that, I was too tired to plant any irises. And last night we had several hours of steady rain which was good for the newly transplanted hostas but not so good for planting irises today.  So they will wait until the soil dries out a bit--maybe tomorrow.

I did accomplish all the jobs I had lined up for myself yesterday--housework, guild work, and time in the sewing room.  I was able to complete the rest of the pumpkin blocks but was at a loss as to how to assemble them into something useable. The light bulb flashed on this morning!  I have a plan as to what I'll be doing with them and as soon as I finish my daily household chore, I'll be sewing away on this project.  I promise a picture when it's all assembled.

Posies everywhere

Yesterday was a success as I actually managed to keep to my housekeeping schedule of 1 hour per day. Truth be told, I finished in about 45 minutes so I got a bonus of 15 minutes on not-houseworking time!  

My friend stopped by with 2 grocery bags of purple iris corms from her garden and I exchanged with 1 grocery bag of yellow iris from my garden.  I put off planting them and I'm glad I did. I have now realized I have a perfect place to plant most if not all of them, so I want to get that done today.  Our neighbor boy came over after school and he helped me spread my compost all over the planting bed which I'd filled with spring bulbs the day before, so that job is complete--until next spring.

In the sewing room, I sewed up this flowery dress that I'd cut out the day before. I also stitched up a hat to go with but have a bit of hand sewing to do on that before I show it.  I found this fabric at a quilt shop in Gulf Shores, Alabama when we were there last winter and I absolutely love it!  I used it to make a spring-y table runner and had enough left over for this dress. I decided to add a little ruffle to the sleeves and a couple of bright red button on the bodice.  I even have a few inches of this fabric to go in a future scrappy quilt and then it'll be gone. 

Today's agenda looks quite full.  One hour of housework first. (Get it over with and then have a guilt-free day!) Then planting the irises.  Then, I have to do some work for the quilt guild and hopefully by noon, I'll be in the sewing room to finish the doll hat.  I want to do some work on these scrappy pumpkins that I made the other day. I think I'll make some alternate blocks and turn them into a couple of table runners to put in my Etsy shop. 

Depending on time, I'd like to make a few of these Christmas package blocks and turn them into a table runner or quilt and maybe a few more pot holders for the guild store in November.  I love making these since it uses up a lot of leftover Christmas fabric scraps that have hung around in my stash far too long.  I want to get NEW Christmas fabric to play with!  

It looks like it'll be a very busy day again for me. I think a crockpot dinner is in the works for tonight.

Gardening chores are done! Well, not quite!

Yes, believe it or not, I finally managed to get all the bulbs planted that I'd ordered from one of the gardening centers.  I"d been procrastinating about this chore for a couple of weeks and now I hope I hadn't left it too late.  Somewhere I was told that the bulbs need to have enough time to develop a root system before winter shuts them down.  Don't know if that's true, but I guess we'll find out next spring.  

The reason I put off doing this job was that I knew it would be more than simply digging a hole and placing the bulb in.  Oh, no!  Because this is a newly created planting bed in an area that hadn't been touched by a spade in 40 years, I knew I had to turn over all the soil.  That was a good 2.5 hours of back breaking work, but I got it done.  Then a half hour of placing the tulip, daffy and crocus bulbs.  I was going to cover the entire bed with some well rotted compost but was too tired to get that part done.  Today it's raining so I don't know when I'll get the compost put on there.  Well, I think I have a week or more to get that done.

I planted these Rembrandt tulips, my favorites. I love the variation in the flowers.

  

And an assortment of other kinds of tulips and daffodils.  I planted them all mixed together so we'll see how that turns out except I planted the Rembrandts in 3 separate clusters. And these mixed giant crocuses in several clusters around the edge of the bed.

And, lucky me, a friend of mine mentioned yesterday that she was dividing her purple iris and simply throwing them out. Well, I couldn't let that pass, and I offered her some of my yellow iris in trade and she jumped at that!  So, if the rain stops, we'll make the exchange today.  I absolutely love irises! And that should be the end of my gardening for this year.

No sewing done yesterday. By the time I finished planting, I took a break before getting ready for the monthly guild meeting.  That went well, I think, but I realize that I'm an exhausted wreck when the meeting is over.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure everything goes exactly right--and it never does!  But all in all, it was a good meeting and after the business part, the group played a little "getting to know you" game (since we have a lot of new members and had a number of guests as well).  The social part of the evening that followed was the most animated I think I've ever seen!  I think my little game was a success as far as people feeling comfortable in the group. I'm happy.

Sewing room all day today--after an hour of housework.  I'm determined to stick to that commitment. Then, more little dresses.

Do you remember the movie, "Annie," where Carol Burnett plays the headmistress of the orphanage and sings the song about "Little Girls?" She complains in the song about being surrounded by little girls.        

                                                      Little girls

                                                      Little girls
                                                      Everywhere I turn
                                                      I can see them
                                                      Little Girls
                                                      Little Girls
                                                      Night and day
                                                      I eat, sleep and breathe them

That's how I feel about my little dolly dresses!

I'm making pretty good progress with my dress sewing. I can get one and part of a second one done every day and I still have about 5 weeks until the Festival, so I think I'm doing okay.

This pink flowered dress has a cross over bodice that I trimmed with ric rac.

I made the dress to go with the variegated sweater I'd knitted awhile ago.  In this pic it look more yellow and blue than it really is.  The blue is more lavender and the yellowish part is creamy white.

I also finished this dress made with some vibrant batik that I had and I did some machine embroidery on the top to coordinate with the bottom. This outfit gets a pair of clogs that I got on sale at Joanne's.

Actually, I got sidetracked yesterday and made up a quantity of these pieced pumpkin blocks.  It looked like fun and something different from the doll clothes so before I knew it, I had 9 of them made.  I think they'll be made into a few table runners or table quilts and put up for sale at the store.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day here in Lake Wobegon Menomonie.  Got some groceries bought, paid some bills, and that was about it.  Today, I must force myself to get the bulbs planted and do my hour of housework that I promised myself I would do everyday. And more little dresses, I'm sure. Sigh.

Road trip yesterday

I spent yesterday driving--literally the entire day, it seemed.

Months ago, Don and I had been invited to a reception for the son and daughter-in-law of our long time friends in Duluth. As it happened, Don's in the middle of a cluster headache session and he decided it was too risky to be that far away (3 hours drive) from his oxygen condenser so he stayed home. And it was good that he did. He managed to make his 5th and final batch of salsa and then came down with the headache. Good timing, my man!

But I digress. I was asked Thursday at the Festival committee meeting if I could get some advertising materials to a quilt shop in Bayfield which had requested them. Well, I thought I could take a simple detour on my journey to Duluth, drop off the materials and still make it to Duluth in time for the reception.

I've tried to copy the Mapquest map to this post so you can see the route I took, but no luck.  Words will have to do.  The first leg of the trip, Menomonie to Bayfield, is 176.5 miles to the North. Beautiful day for a drive. Fall foliage not quite at peak but still beautiful.  I forgot that most of the trip is on highways with a 55 mph speed limit, and that really slowed me down.

I also decided as I journeyed along, that I should drop off the bookmarks at other quilt shops along the way so I made 2 additional stops along the way. And a good thing I did. They will be available next weekend when these shops participate in local quilting events.

The second leg of the trip is West from Bayfield to Duluth is 88 miles but the road was in such poor condition, and curvy and hilly that it seemed to take a lot longer than it should have.  At any rate, I managed to arrive at the reception about 2 hours after it began, and as I had expected, it was an open-house kind of event--people coming and going.  It was just beautiful too. Right on the shores of Lake Superior on a gorgeous sunny autumn day.  The wedding couple looked extremely happy and pleased that all their parents' friends had gathered to wish them well. And I even got to spend a little time with my friend.  Just enough time to plan a day to be together when things settle down for me after the Festival.

And the bonus was that I caught up with old friends that I hadn't seen since I left Duluth over 20 years ago!  I only wish we could have spent more time together, but that doesn't happen at these kinds of events.

After a couple of hours at the reception, it was time for the 3rd leg of the journey, South 150 miles to get home.  I left the house at 9 am and returned at 9 pm.  So, yes, I was on the road the entire day!

I confess that I spent a bit of time at the shop in Bayfield and brought home half yard of  this cute wordy fabric that I'll use as a neutral in my scrap quilts.  And a blue Frixion pen--love these heat erasable pens!--so I can begin working on a blue-work embroidery piece for Christmas.

Today will be a bit of gardening--moving some hostas and getting things ready to plant bulbs--and sewing a couple more doll dresses.  And tonight, I reward myself with an hour of Poldark--as my niece says, "Shirtless brooding on the moors."  Everyone should have a little eye candy in their lives, right?

Two Dresses for Dolly

Yesterday, I managed to finish the doll dress that I began the day before. The dress has short sleeves so they will fit under the sweater and the dress is unadorned with no lace or anything.  

After I finished the black dress, I found some fabrics that would work with the sweater I'd made in variegated yarn.  On this one I added a bit of tiny yellow ric rac since there's a bit of yellow in the yarn.  I think the green that I found in my stash is perfect with the sweater and there was a scrap just big enough to make the skirt.  Win/Win--cute little doll dress and one less scrap in my stash.

Probably no sewing today. I'm on the road to Bayfield WI and then over to Duluth for a wedding party. It's a beautiful day for a drive through northern Wisconsin.  See ya!