Last year…

this was the view in our front yard in Tennessee. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Currently, in South Dakota, we have this. Equally beautiful in my opinion!

See our house on wheels down there?

The moisture is wonderful and none of us are complaining. Not much, anyway:)

In the midst of all that white stuff, I got my color fix in the form of new pincushion.

Other things I’ve been sewing are pillow covers to put in one of my Etsy shops, soon to be listed.

I bought some cotton yarn to see how it would dye, so a crocheted market bag was born from this pattern. My color taste usually run toward the brights when dyeing, but I think this one will get a more subtle treatment.

I’ve done a little dyeing for my new Etsy shop.

The scarf market is not exactly hopping at the moment, so I’m considering some different items to put it that shop. It’s been a long time since I’ve sewn with knits, but my Brother has a great stretch stitch and makes it very easy. The serger’s been dusted off and warmed up, too.

Amber’s been playing with her iMovie app, so I’ll leave you with this little nugget. Enjoy!

20,390,400 seconds..

…since I last blogged. Let me give you the highlights of the last few months.

Our house went on the market in mid November.  We have accepted an offer and the sale is pending!

The first week of December was our permanent relocation from Tennessee to South Dakota. It was, thankfully, an uneventful drive. We are happily tucked into our fifth wheel camper at Mr. DJ’s parents. The week after we arrived the temperatures bottomed out in the single digits for highs, but the little furnace kept us toasty.  McGas Propane (yes, you read it right) delivered a 250 gallon propane tank to make life easier. We have full use of the facilities in the house, so it’s not like we’re really roughing it.

We were able to spend Christmas with family!!! Had a great New Year with dear friends, too.

I haven’t seen my complete fabric stash for months. I do know where it is and how to get to it quickly in an emergency.

There’s a space to sew in the basement of my in-laws home. It’s fine for small projects, but probably not large quilts and that’s okay.

I started a new Etsy shop and had a brief sewing frenzy when it was featured on the Front Page.

My knitting skills have improved and I thoroughly enjoy it.

That’s about it. It was a long road to get back home, but we’re here and life will continue to be an adventure as we make decisions about our next housing move.

I have two tutorials in the works for projects I’ve posted on Craftsy, so I will be back in something less than 20, 390, 400 seconds.

So, because…

this is where I’ll be today.

 

 

 

Odds and ends

Do you use Color Catchers?

I don’t pre-wash fabrics when making quilts, so I like to have a way to protect from bleeding dyes when I wash them, at least for the first time. I washed these separately and threw a Color Catcher sheet in with each one.

The one on the left looks pretty much as it did before washing, but the right one collected quite a bit of dye.

Did you guess which one was from which quilt? Not too surprising that the red was the bleeder.

I also use Color Catchers when washing my hand dyed fabrics for the first time, too. Great product!

We arrived back in Tennessee from South Dakota late Sunday night. (I’m still worn out!) Usually we load up, put the pedal down and don’t stop except for the necessary things, but this time we decided to take a loop through the Badlands. See the one highlighted in blue?

Here’s a larger map to show where it is in the state. (The area we are moving to is north of Rapid City.)

The sky was so brilliantly blue that day…amazing!

I’d love to be there at sunset to capture some of the colors in a different light. Might be a nice day trip once we get moved.

My stash is packed, but my quilting fabrics and some other supplies aren’t going anywhere until I do! I consider them to be survival supplies…right up there with food and coffee.

Have a wonderful weekend!

H2H and Blockapalooza finish!

Greetings from the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota! (Did I tell you I love it here?)

The quilts I made for H2H and the Sullivan Hills Quilt Auction are finished except for the crinkling! Please ignore the stray threads and “Yeller” hairs…they’ll get a good wash when I get back to Tennessee.

First of all, thanks to Sarah for spending so much time organizing this challenge. I’ll be linking up to her H2H “Show Off Your Quilts” post and you really should go see all the great quilts that have been donated. While you’re there, check out Sarah’s blog…you will be amazed at all this lady accomplishes!

I hope some little guy in New Orleans will like this. Since the original flimsy was pretty small, I added a border. 

My second finish is for the Sullivan Hills Quilt Auction. Sullivan Hills is a Nebraska Lutheran Outdoor Ministries church camp. The camp is located just a couple of miles from where I grew up and my mom and I would drive through the pasture to visit the lady who lived there. My brother and his wife, who now live on our old farm place, are the property managers for the camp.

 

When the owners of the farm passed away, their family donated the property to Lutheran Outdoors. We’ve witnessed the transformation from farm to this beautiful camp over the last several years. The little building (I think it was the milk house) is the only original structure left.

I finished the Block-a-Palooza quilt for my contribution to the auction. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out! There is more about this quilt here.

What is it with cats and quilts? Yeller, the cat that adopted my in-laws a few months ago, was sure the quilts were meant for him.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vicki

A flimsy and easy-peasy block tutorial

The top for my H2H quilt is finished although I may add a border to make it a little bigger.

The blocks are super fast to put together! It’s basically a log cabin using two different size strips. All seam allowances are 1/4 inch and I pressed toward the strips.

A 5 inch square for the center, a 3 inch wide strip and a 2 inch wide strip.

Place the 3 inch strip rights sides together with the 5 inch square and sew together along one edge. I use the full length of the strip…

..and cut it off after I’ve sewn the seam. Now press flat to set the seam and then press the seam allowance toward the strip.

Trim the edges even with the center square.

First step complete!

Add another 3 inch strip as shown here.

Press and trim as you did for the first step.

Continuing in the same manner, add a 2 inch strip, press and trim.

Add the last 2 inch strip, press, trim and you’re finished!

The sashing is a 2.5 inch width of print with a 1.25 width of solid on either side. I chose to offset the rows so they didn’t line up on top of one another.

I’m linking to Sarah’s Whoop, Whoop Fridays post…lots of great ideas over there! Thanks, Sarah:)

Wish us luck with the paint sprayer today…we’re painting exterior doors! Let the fun begin!

Spoonflower fabric designs!

My long time blog friend, Terri, has designed some wonderful fabrics on Spoonflower …. they are scrumptious! She gave me permission to share them with you.

(Click on the button to go to her Spoonflower shop.)

Terri has also been designing patterns and she shares tutorials, recipes and lots of other inspirational goodies on her blog. I hope you’ll visit!

Happy May!

This is the Color Challenge palette for May. Perfect for summer! And it’s not even moldy food!

April’s palette

For many and varied reasons, I was not able to complete  begin   pull fabrics  think about the challenge for April. You can see what some other creative souls did with the April palette by visiting Judy’s blog. Thanks again, Judy and Vicki!

Speaking of May, when I was teaching music, the Maypole Dance was a favorite with the Kindergarten and First Grade crowds. It’s hard to beat the concept of pretty ribbons and walking in circles and trying to wrap up the guy coming at you in the opposite direction when you’re 5 years old. Except for recess…that pretty much wins every time.

Speaking of teaching, I was able to tour the brand new elementary school building where I was once employed in South Dakota. One of my best buddies is the P.E. teacher (one more year!) and she gave me a guided tour. I not only got to see the building, but a few of my old colleagues as well. As beautiful as it is, I have no desire to be back in that environment! Bless the teachers!

Speaking of South Dakota, we will once again be able to call the Black Hills home! This has been a goal for a couple of years and things are falling in place to make it a reality. We are extremely happy and grateful that we’ll be able to spend time with the people that mean the most to us, particularly Ashley and C. and Mr. DJ’s parents. Our permanent relocation will probably be in the fall, but we’ll be making short trips, as we did a couple of weeks ago to move things. The only down side is that our fifth wheel will be our residence until we make a decision about housing. Brrrr!

Speaking of housing, we continue to work on our house to get it ready to sell. We have a self imposed deadline of August 1st to get everything completed. You may be asking yourself, “Haven’t they been at this home improvement thing for a really long time?” I will answer this by asking, “Have you seen the movie ‘The Money Pit’ with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long?” It’s not quite that bad, but it will be all hands on deck until it’s wrapped up.

Speaking of hands and wrapped up, I have two quilting commitments to fulfill before I can pack up my sewing room. My Hands2Help quilt is in progress…please click on the button to learn about this great project.

The other quilt I’m planning is for a quilt auction for Sullivan Hills Camp, which is owned and operated by Nebraska Lutheran Outdoor Ministries. The camp is located just a couple of miles from where I grew up so I have a bit of a personal connection. I’ll share more on that later when I have the quilt finished.

Speaking of finished….bye for now!