Journal: New Projects, & a Nyjer Seed Sock

Does it ever bug you when you see a beautiful (or ugly, for that matter) quilt, say, at a big quilt show, and the information about it says that it took the quilter ‘four years’?  What’s four years?  24 hours a day, for four years?  12 hours a day, for four years?  15 minutes a week, for four years?  5 minutes a month, for four years?  Maybe she cut it out one day four years ago, and put it together one day last month?  I wanna know how many hours it took!

Yeah, they should’ve named me after Ramona Beasley’s cat:  Sarah Picky-Picky Lynn.

Some time back, I’d just about gotten it set into my mind what sort of a quilt I was going to make for Jeremy and Lydia – a whole lot of cream-on-cream and white-on-white – when Jeremy remarked, as he swept up chocolate cake crumbs heaped around little Ian’s high chair after a birthday party, “If you ever make us a quilt, you’ll want to do it in shades of chocolate and mud, so that all the Hersheys and boot tracks will blend in.”  hee hee

Tuesday afternoon, I opened a new bag of coffee called Berry Patch, from San Marco Coffee.  Mmmm, it’s good!

That day, I cut the petals, leaves, centers, and backs for two sets of the Sunflower Nesting Bowls.  Here’s the picture on the pattern:

I got all the petals and leaves of one set sewn together.  I might’ve gotten a little more done, but Larry and I went back to Norfolk to pick up his truck, which was supposedly fixed... but isn’t, he discovered Saturday.  If you knew how many times this happens... never mind what needs to be fixed, or on which truck, or at which truck repair shop.

Wednesday, the temperature got up to 50°.  Thursday, the high was about 56°.

Did you ever notice that it’s hard to complete a project when you have the wrong supplies for that particular project?  Instead of the heat moldable batting I needed for those nesting bowls, I had heat moldable stabilizer.  That stuff is like a sheet of plastic.  Not realizing it was the wrong product, I tried it out on one of the smaller nesting bowls.  I really didn’t see how it could possibly work.  My machine sewed through it all right... but how do you turn something right side out, when one layer is like a piece of plywood?

But... I steamed it until it was pliable, got it turned... and squished down the edges with my fingers.  The points of the sunflower were extremely difficult to push out, even with my Stuff-It tool; and once that stuff had been heated, there was no top-stitching around the edges like I was supposed to do.

I thought, Okay, something isn’t right here.  I’ve seen pictures of these cute little bowls... and I know people are making them without this much trouble.  So I looked for some tutorials, found some skimpy, half-baked descriptions on youtube ------ enough to see that the shaping stuff the lady was using was not stiffer’n a board, as mine was.  The bag of batting she showed, Bosal’s Moldable Batting, looked like mine.....  Did mine get too hot somewhere before it got to me, and activate whatever it is in the stuff that makes it get stiff?

I rummaged up the bag mine came in, stared at it long and hard ------ and finally spotted the difference:  where hers says ‘batting’, mine says ‘fusible’.  The fusible is for making boxes and hard-sided bags and whatnot.  🙄

I ordered this stuff four years ago, and the website where I got it is no more, so I can’t go back and see what it said.  I’m not saying the webpage had something listed wrong... and the packages are very similar... so it’s quite likely I clicked on the wrong product.  But since we don’t know, we could blame someone else.  Couldn’t we??

Problem #2:  Bosal’s Heat Moldable Batting is sold out, almost everywhere.  I finally found some websites where I could get it, chose the cheapest, and ordered. 

Maybe I chose the wrong one.  The status on my order has not changed from ‘Pending’ since the moment I placed the order.  😒  Perhaps they use Turtleback Express Shipping?

I bought three packages of the batting on SewingPartsOnline.com.  The price was comparable to three or four other places I found it – but they had free shipping for orders over $49.  Most places where I looked were out of stock.  I wonder, did Bosal stop making it?  And if so, why?  Maybe it’s made out of asbestos?  Maybe it explodes into flames when it’s put into the microwave?  Maybe it gloms onto irons and blobbity-creeps out the door with them when one isn’t looking?  Maybe it insidiously skulks into closets and affixes itself to one’s clothing?

In the meanwhile, while I wait on an order I hope will come sometime soon, I’ll get the rest of the nesting bowls ready for the batting.

Despite the fact that this first little sunflower bowl isn’t ... right, it’s nevertheless kinda cute, and I think that these are going to turn out fine if I have the right batting for them.  I intended to make eleven sets of three, small, medium, and large.  33 sunflowers, with 12 petals each, and 3 leaves on the largest one.  Some will have rounded blades, as opposed to pointed, in order to make a different kind of flower.  There’ll be plumeria and anemone, in addition to sunflowers.  😊

Wednesday was granddaughter Elsie’s 2^nd birthday.  We took her a gift after our church service – a painted-tin tea set, with cups, saucers, a tray, and a teapot that winds up and plays ‘I’m a little teapot.’  Boy, oh boy, that was a hit!  I spotted it in a truck stop Tuesday, when I went to Norfolk with Larry.  I thought, Elsie would love that, and she did.  😃

By late Thursday night, all the pieces for the fabric nesting bowls were cut, and a few of the flowers were sewn together.

I did some cleanup before exiting the sewing room, putting away all the fabric I’d pulled from which to cut petals.  I used up a lot of fabric for these 33 fabric bowls.  Why then are my five 28-quart bins still every bit as full as before I started??  See, this is why I rarely buy new fabric:  The stuff multiplies, every time I pull some out!

I don’t usually prewash my fabrics, but I had a little stack of reds that I know has a tendency to run, so I washed those with a color-catching cloth.  That got me started, and I wound up washing all the clothes, too.

Friday afternoon, the Schwan man came.  My freezer is now chockful of all sorts of yummy stuff.  We’ll eat well for the next two or three weeks!

I trotted back upstairs to the fabric bowls.  You know, I just plain like piecing things together.  And Dresden blades and petals are always fun.  I bought some marbled yellows and oranges from Marshall Dry Goods for these bowls – and didn’t even touch them, as I decided to look through my scraps first... and found fabrics in my bins that I liked better.

So... I wondered, what shall I do with these bright yellows and oranges?  Maybe I should just put them with my stash, and use them gingerly during the next 50 years or so?  Bright yellow goes a long way in a quilt.  That is, it’s generally a good idea to use it somewhat sparingly.  Orange, even more so.

I took a picture and sent it to some quilting groups, asking for ideas.  Of course, there’s Tiger, who always has to come see if he might be allowed to walk on, lay on, and cuddle up on whatever I happen to lay down to take a picture of.  See the expression on his face?  He’s clearly saying, “Kindly spread this out better; it’s not big enough for me.” 

The weather that day was pretty as could be, for mid-November:  55°, bright and sunny.  The birds were twittering about the feeders, and I was glad to see that the American goldfinches had finally decided the Nyjer seed sock is not an alien trap from which they’ll never escape.  It’s so funny to see them working their way up the seed sock.  They reach the top – and then spin around and head back down the way they came, – but head first.  😃

They are in their winter plumage now, and their bright yellow feathers have been replaced by dull yellows and browns.  Still pretty little birds!

A friend wrote to say that she needed an interactive smoke alarm, one that could hear her telling it, “Stop screaming at me!  It’s just bacon.  And I am not burning it!”

That reminded me of the time Larry set off the alarms in an entire motel.  We were out in the mountains somewhere, and the older kids were little.  I told him bacon and motel rooms didn’t mix!  😆   But he was pretty sure all would be well.

All was well with the bacon.  But all was not well with the smoke detector.

Fortunately, it was a small one-story motel, and it was late enough in the morning that the few other patrons were already outside in the swimming pool.  Larry hastily pulled the skillet off the little cookstove, disconnected the smoke detector, and all the other detectors stopped blaring.  I stepped out to tell our fellow guests that everything was fine, everything was fine, everything was fine.

I reentered the room to find Larry happily continuing to cook bacon.  (Yes, we made sure to reconnect the detector before we departed.)

By bedtime, all the petals and rays were sewn into Dresden plates for the 33 fabric nesting bowls.  That’s 396 petals.  The centers aren’t sewn on yet; that will be done after the bowls are turned right side out. 

Saturday, I started on the next quilt.  This one will be king-sized, and is a New York Beauty variation.  I sent another question to a few quilting groups:  “Where is the best (i.e., ‘cheapest’) place to get Venice lace?  I need a lot of it, at least 22 yards, for a variation of a New York Beauty quilt.”

A woman on a Facebook quilting group answered shortly (not just timewise, but also attitude-wise), “Google.”

Obviously, what she meant was, “Look it up, dumbo!”

Funny thing was, Facebook helpfully stuck in a map with a pin dropped right on Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.

I wanted to write back, “😲 How ’bout that!  I didn’t know Google sold Venice lace at their Headquarters.  Live and learn.”

I almost always look things up before I request assistance.  But I had not found the site I’d seen earlier, and couldn’t remember the name.

It wasn’t long before someone gave it to me:  www.cheeptrims.com.  (The website spells ‘Venice’ wrong, too:  ‘Venise’.)

The price of any other Venice lace the size I need – approximately 1 ½ - 1 ¾” wide, and in a shape that will go nicely around a gentle curve – is about $5.50 a yard.  That’s $121 for the bare minimum yardage!

But Cheeptrims.com has this design in 30-yard spools – for $26.40 a spool!  😲  I clicked “Place Order” so fast I left my keyboard a-smokin’ –only to be greeted with a flashing pop-up informing me that they have minimum orders of $65.  Aaauuuggghhh.

So... I ordered two identical spools (maybe I’ll make matching shams), and another of a narrower design, just to get the price to $65.  I can always find a use for Venice lace.  I plan to sew tiny pearls, maybe oblong ones, on all those little petals, and a larger pearl in the middle.

I printed the foundation papers for the quilt.  The blocks are large, filling more than a regular 8.5” x 11” typing sheet, so each block printed on four sheets of paper.  That brought on a fairly lengthy job of trimming and taping them together.

I don’t think I’ve made quilts with the same size block more than a small handful of times.  This quilt, for instance, has blocks that are 15.63”.  😆😏🙄😁  Didn’t mean to do that, really; I just threw everything together in EQ8... put on a few borders... made everything pleasing to the eye... and enlarged it until it was the size I wanted.  Since it’s paper-foundation-pieced, it doesn’t really matter that it’s an oddball size.  😄

For this reason, I don’t imagine an AccuQuilt GO! cutter would be very price-effective for me, much as I think I’d like one.  I’d think I needed every last die the company makes!

Supper that night was a small turkey cooked in the Traeger grill, baby bakers, baby carrots, corn on the cob, applesauce, and Midnight Cherry Fudge ice cream.

Meanwhile, people had been offering suggestions as to what to do with the orange and yellow fabric.  One quilting friend sent links to a variety of quilts, and therein I found two that I particularly like.

This one is Sunflower Power:  

And this is Sunflower Illusions:  

I even have a few odd greens, blues, and a whole lot of browns that I could pitch in with the yellows and oranges.

Last night after church we had a yummy supper of leftovers from Saturday night:  turkey, potatoes, and carrots.  I’d originally baked the potatoes, carrots, and corn on the cob in a heavy ceramic Mexican stew pot my sister gave me for Christmas last year.  Last night, I heated the rest of the carrots, potatoes, and turkey in the same pot on top of the stove.

The nifty thing about this pot is that it can go in the oven, in the microwave, or on any type of stove, including gas, electric, induction, and ceramic.  Its design makes it work like a slow cooker.  Food is extra yummy, cooked in the Mexican stew pot!

Last night I posted a picture of this tiny snow globe with a crystal Christmas tree inside it.  I wrote, “I got my Christmas tree put up! All doz oirlyboirds ain’t got nuttin’ on me.”

The globe is about 1” in diameter.  With the base, it’s about 2” tall.

A lady who’s been a friend since before I can remember wrote, “Hmm.  That looks way too easy! 😄”

“Well, hummphphph!!!” I retorted.  “I had to dust it quite thoroughly, I did, I did!!!

There are always a few who take my tomfoolery seriously.  One nice lady wrote, “My goodness, you are a busy bee.  It’s quite pretty.”

It was a joke.  Really, it was!

Now... back to the white and cream quilt.  I have the first block about a third done.

,,,>^..^<,,,           Sarah Lynn           ,,,>^..^<,,,