Fish Sticks, A Sweater, and A Mess!

Fish Sticks is a fun, small, donation quilt. 

The fish fabric was gifted to me as part of my friend Nancy's stash. I loved the colors so I pulled fabric from my scrap stash and made this little quilt that is about 42" square.

I used Dream Cotton Batting and orange Aurifil thread for the piecing and the quilting. The back is orange with yellow dots.

I think you can see the quilting - gentle waves crossing the quilt. I used my quilting rulers to quilt this. The binding had all the colors of the quilt - it also is from my stash.

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I finally finished the sweater that I began in January. I used Ann Budd's book, Top Down Sweaters, and made a generic raglan sleeve sweater. 

I used gray Coffee Beenz yarn by Plymouth. I think I figured out some things that should help me with my next sweater.

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We Have a MESS here! We are building a new garage or more accurately: we are having a new garage built. The driveway is being replaced too. We spent a few days emptying the garage and shed. Our screened porch is FULL of stuff. The workers began Saturday - 3 days ago. The old garage is down and gone. The driveway has also been torn up and hauled away. A couple of trees have been removed 😔. The shed will leave within the hour.  A few truckloads of gravel have just arrived and are in the driveway. If the rain will hold off, we might get forms up for the concrete tomorrow. 

Some of the driveway rubble:

The driveway before gravel:

We've had lots of BIG trucks and equipment it's very exciting and VERY dirty and dusty. We've also had LOTS to traffic on our quiet, little street - people are checking it out. I'm glad that we now have gravel - it should help with the dirt. 

On Sunday, we dug up and gave away all of the day lily plants that were along the driveway; we'll be able to enjoy them in neighbors'  yards now. Ray is concerned about our lawn and garden next to the drive. I guess we'll take care of that when this MESS is gone.

New Appliances and Socks!

Our new stove and microwave finally arrived today. We bought them a month ago and had to wait until late last week to get the gas line run to the kitchen. 

This is a picture of the north wall of our kitchen this morning, aka BEFORE.

And this is a picture taken this afternoon, aka AFTER.

I'm excited to have a gas stove - I haven't had one since 1978. I feel like Santa's been here - or maybe it was the Easter Bunny!

For the time being, the other appliances in the kitchen do not match the new ones but the appliances on each wall do match! When the refrigerator and dishwasher need to be replaced, they will be.

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I have a knitting finish! I made these socks with Zauberball sock yarn using the pattern 8 Stitches per Inch Socks by Ann Budd. 

The socks are knit with size 1 needles.

I do love wearing hand knit socks although I'm looking forward to warmer weather and not wearing socks.

My first Kaffe Fassett quilt is done

That's right, my first Kaffe Fassett quilt is done - I'm sure there will be more! I began this one last fall prior to my clean-out-this-stash project. The top was pieced but needed quilting when I put it aside for a while.

You may remember it from a July, 2016 retreat. It needed borders.

I put on the borders in August.

Then I finally began quilting it at the end of March. Now it is finished! The quilt is 73" square. All fabric except the white and the  'plain' blue are Kaffe Fassett fabrics - all purchased on trips with some being from the Oregon coast and the rest being from Maine. The 'plain' blue fabric - centers of small motifs, square corners of larger motifs, and the binding - is from Delve in Cedar Rapids.

I'm not sure if you can see the quilting. It is all feathers in no real pattern. There are a few pebbles filling in various spots.

For the piecing and the quilting, I used Aurifil thread. Of course I used Dream Cotton batting. The back is another Kaffe Fassett fabric - orange with purple polka dots. This piece came from Missouri Star Quilt Company.

We are keeping this quilt - I love the color and it is my first Kaffe Fassett!

As I was outside in 60+ degree weather this afternoon taking photos, I decided to include a picture of part of our garden by our drive looking towards the neighbor's yard. 

Spring really has arrived! Happy Easter!

Something New on a Beautiful Day

The sun shone today! That is unusual around here lately. It was a great day to do something new so we went to Nicholas Conservatory and Gardens. Ray wanted to take pictures of the butterflies. They have a Simply Spring Butterfly Exhibit right now.

It was a fun day. Here are a few of my pictures from the day:

Some of the many butterflies

Beautiful flowers and colorful 'totem' poles

Gorgeous orchids

Kids loved the water features

Nothing is blooming outside yet but we were walking in the  gardens when Ray just started laughing.  He saw this sculpture...

so I asked him to pose with the resident photographer.

Was Ray their model???

A couple more photos from outside:

We talked with a lady working at the Conservatory and she suggested the Prairie Street Brewhouse or Octane for lunch. We headed to the Brewhouse, another new place for us. We enjoyed a great meal, some of their fantastic root beer, and a tour of the place - it is pretty phenomenal. Next time we'll have to check out Octane.

Then it was time to head towards home. We will definitely be returning to Nicholas Conservatory and Gardens when the flowers start blooming. 

Annual Spring Retreat

The Lucky Charmers once again met at the LOMC in Oregon, Illinois for a few days of fun and quilting. We decided that this is year 7. I missed the first year because I was having back surgery. 

It is so nice to spend quality time with dear friends, many of whom I don't see often. We were missing two of our group this year - both were traveling home from points afar.  

The staff at LOMC fix all of our meals and clean up afterwards. We can sew as much or as little as we want and we enjoy rooms with private bathrooms in a beautiful setting. Saturday was beautiful - a few of us spent a little time outside walking.

As usual there were lots of projects, food, and visiting. I took a few pictures.

Betsy's table runner really looks like spring.

Polly spent some time working on her 365 Challenge blocks. Here are two finishes.

Barb's beautiful quilt:

Krista made the same quilt but in different fabrics.

Polly was working on one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt patterns - it has lots of pieces.

Betsy was working on this colorful quilt - it just looked like Spring.

Krista made a very cute table runner.

Sandy made this gorgeous flannel quilt.

Saundra was working on this striking Jacob's Ladder quilt.

I worked on blocks for my teal and black quilt until I ran out of small squares.

Then I put together Fish Sticks.

I already had the blocks made so putting together Tamarack went fairly quickly. I think it needs something more so I'll be adding another border.

I also had the HSTs made for Emerald Isle. I decided to try color bands and I'm pleased with the outcome. Now I need to figure out borders...

I also made great progress with my leader/ender projects. We all enjoyed a very productive few days.